Inventare uno Stato, consolidare una nazione: l’età della Destra | con Christian Satto

The first fifteen years of unification, known as the era of the Historical Right, named after the majority party that supported the ministries until March 18, 1876, presented the ruling class of the new state with a series of far-reaching challenges. The first, of course, was that of "inventing" a state to complete and fulfill the revolutionary transition that had led to unification in 1859-1861. While the antiquity of the Italian nation was a given, the idea that it was represented by a unitary container capable of embodying it after a history of fragmentation posed a major challenge. The lecture will focus on several issues that, initially addressed by the Historical Right, would recur consistently throughout Italy's history and which still today, driven by the present, merit careful reflection, such as the relationship between the center and the periphery, the Southern Question, the construction of a capable ruling class, and international positioning. The topics covered will be: Inventing a State. Italians: a nation to consolidate. Italy in Europe. Center and periphery. Southern Italy. Speaker Christian Satto specializes in the political history of nineteenth-century Italy. He earned a PhD in Legal, Historical, and Social Sciences from the University of Siena and a postgraduate diploma in historical disciplines from the Scuola Normale Superiore, jointly supervised with the École Pratique des Hautes Études. He is currently an adjunct professor of contemporary history at the University for Foreigners of Siena and the University of Urbino "Carlo Bo". His publications include: "The King Reigns and Does Not Govern": Constitutional Monarchy and the Parliamentary System in Bettino Ricasoli," in "Ricerche di Storia Politica," 3, 2018; From Revolution to Government. Antonio Mordini's Left in the Age of the Right 1861-1869 (Milan, 2014). He is the author of "A Lion on a Short Chain." Bettino Ricasoli, politician in united Italy (1861-1880) (Le Monnier, 2019).