Rebuilding post-Revolutionary Italy

Martina Piperno is an FWO Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Leuven, Belgium, in the MDRN Research Lab. She was awarded her PhD in Italian studies at Warwick University in 2016, and after that she was a visiting fellow in the Department of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London, an Alberto Institute Visiting Fellow at Seton Hall University, and a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in the Italian Department at University College Cork.

• Note on conventionsIntroductioni. Vico’s legacy, Vico’s ‘heir’ii. Diffractioniii. The structure of this work1. Forms of Italian modernityi. The power of the originsii. Belief2. Principiumi. The pride, the origins and the destiny of the nationii. Epics, poetry, creation and nation-building3. Fictioi. Redefining fictionii. Translating and mediating the ancient worldiii. Was Vico Classicist or Romantic?iv. Fiction and/as belief4. Mythosi. Mytho-logein: Vico and Leopardi as mythologistsii. Towards ‘Alla Primavera’: Leopardi’s itineraries in myth (1815-1818)iii. ‘Alla Primavera’: about (un)poetic logic5. Philology and eposi. Florence 1827-1828: refoundation, recovery, reconstructionii. Zibaldone 4311-4417: Leopardi inside Homer’s system6. Recoursei. Rereading Vico in post-Revolutionary Naples: history, progress, perfectibilityii. ‘Cantare la religione civile’: Vico’s ideas in poetryiii. Regress, disbelief and fable in Leopardi’s last worksConclusionBibliographyIndex

'Piperno’s study is extremely wide-ranging; yet, along the many routes explored (from the Homeric question and the rise of modern philology, to political and religious appropriations), the objective is always clear: one must rethink the plethora of discourses shaping the reception of an author. […] As we reach the conclusion, Piperno brings together this variety of responses within a steady methodological framework, making a fundamental contribution to today’s scholarship.'Daniela Cerimonia, Modern Language Review