Italian Civilization, Essay Example

Italy has had an incredibly long history as a nation and as a culture.  Over the centuries, it has been home to empires, including the great Persian Empire and the Roman Empire.  Italians have conquered and been conquered.   Italy has had many claims to fame.  It is perhaps most well known for the great Roman Empire, the Renaissance artists it produced and for being the heart of Catholicism and Christianity.  Rome is where the pope makes his home, deep in the fortified recesses of the Vatican.  All of this has created a national identity that has made the Italians famous as a culture and as a nation.  Many images come to mind when Italy is mentioned.  Graceful architecture, great art, and phenomenal food are just some of things that come to mind.  However, what of the people of Italy?  As a nation, the people of Italy are what have made it what it is today, good or bad.  Some would say that the Italy of modern times is less spectacular than the Italy of old, and that the blame for this is to be laid on the people who live there.  In the essay written by Moe, he relates the experiences of travelers to Italy prior to the Risorgimento. The people of Italy have gone through many cultural changes since then.  Instead of being the driving cultural influence upon other European countries, they have instead been the ones that have been culturally influenced.  The national identity of the Italian people today, according to Moe, includes “aspects of national identity formation that has been especially pronounced owing to the particular history of the relations between Italy and Western Europe in the modern era.  Over the course of the seventeenth century, a radical inversion in the relations of force and culture prestige between Italy and western Europe took place.”  (Moe 14)

Perhaps it is difficult for any people to live up to the myths of their ancestors, especially when those ancestors are the stuff that legends are made of.  The people of Italy have had a long history.  Sometimes that history has been tragic, and sometimes it has been beyond glorious. After the Renaissance, during the 1600’s and through to the 1800’s, a “massive shift of geopolitical and economic power away from the Mediterranean world as a whole” (Moe 14) was taking place, leaving upstaged by Western European countries including Holland, England and France.  This affected Italy in a very special way, since Italy had enjoyed “economic power and cultural supremacy over the rest of Europe since the 14^th century.” (Moe 14)

During the 19^th century, Italy began a campaign of renewed nationalism.  This social and political movement, known as il Risorgimento, or “The Resurgence”, was an attempt to unify the agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into a single unified state.  This sense of nationalism was not originally met with much support from the Italian people, who has been split for centuries into varying states in the north and south.  The Italy before the Risorgimento was described by Meriggi as being “Italies, obviously in the plural and therefore – even though all speaking the same language – to be understood in terms of the variety of the specific social and economic orders, as well as in term of the horizons of expectation of their respective ruling classes.” (Meriggi 82) The Risorgimento started the Italian unification process by dissolving boundaries between states and creating a centralized bureaucratic state.

In the article by Moe, Italy’s reputation as a culture is analyzed through the eyes of foreigners who visit the country.   Before the rule of Napoleon in the 18^th century, the peninsula was divided into ancient states, each ruled by ruling family.  The Italians living in these states each had a unique identity associated with their smaller boundaries inside the Italian peninsula.  They did not necessarily identify with a common “Italian” identity.  As a group, the people were still considered to be one “Italian” culture by outsiders even though the Italians themselves did not think of themselves as such.  Visitors made the pilgrimage to Italy because of its rich history and its breathtaking landscapes.  It was, however, Italy’s past as a nation that greatly influenced its perception by visitors during the 17^th and 18^th century.  Many of these visitors had a poor view of the actual Italian inhabitants themselves.  Visitors from Western Europe described the 17^th century Italian cities inhabitants: “now think of Inhabitants, their soil barren and uncultivated, and themselves as pusillanimous, enervated, lazy people.” (Moe 15)  This is a very harsh statement, considering the English visitor is describing the descendents of the people who built the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the famous aqueducts that criss-cross Europe, and who at one time conquered most Europe and claimed it for the Roman Empire.

Moe tells us that “These accusations, repeatedly voiced by the English, French, and increasingly by the Germans as well, would have a significant impact on Italian representations of Italy in the Risorgimento.”  Foreigners visiting Italy “repeatedly contrasted the glory of Italy’s past with its decadent present.  Their visions of the greatness of Roman and Renaissance civilization transformed contemporary Italy in into the “shadow of a nation”, as Goethe put it in his Italian Journey, or in the famous verse of Lamartine, a “land of the past…where everything sleeps.” (Moe 16)  In order for the Risorgimento to be effective, the Italian people had to see themselves as a unified nation and define themselves as Italians, putting aside their regional culture and ancestry and adopt a new national identity.

During the 19^th century, according to Meriggi, the theme of nation was a central focus, “to the point that for a long time Italian events of that period were read and considered almost exclusively as the history of the Risorgimento, i.e., of the creation of the national unity.” (Meriggi 82).  According to Meriggi (82) the idea that the Italian people could come together as a unified people, creating unified national state, was not a believed to be possible by many.  This is in agreement with Moe, who echoes the idea that the Italians were not held in high regard at this time.  They were considered lazy and ineffective, a tarnished reflection of their former greatness as a people.  Moe goes on to state that the Italian people themselves, even the poor peasants who made up the majority of the population living on the peninsula, did not originally support the idea of the Risorgimento, and “even the ruling class themselves – the middle class, the nobility and the intellectual cadres attached to them – showed a very tepid interest in the possibility that this might come about, and indeed some of them openly opposed it.” (Meriggi 83).

In the late 18^th century, post-Napoleonic Italy was in the age of the Risorgimento, and the ancient Italian states had been unified into one national entity, Italy.  The various populations of the states on the peninsula had to, at this point, put aside their regional identity and begin to accustom themselves to the idea of being Italians.  Meriggi describes this time as being somewhat difficult for the people, since they “had begun to lose a traditional identity, long before acquiring a new and fully defined one.” (Meriggi 84).   However, before the new Italian identity could be acquired by the masses, it had to be defined.  Italy had gone through many changes since the 17^th century.  Revolution and Napoleon had changed the traditional Italy into something else, but that something else was poorly defined.  Nationalizing the masses was the next priority.  Meriggi quotes Massimo D’Azeglio’s famous saying: “Now that Italy has been made, we have to make Italians.” (Meriggi 88).   The Italians were in desperate need of a positive national identity to hold onto.  “A century and more of French, English, and other denigrations of Italy and the Italians thus took their toll on Italian perceptions of themselves.” (Moe 20).

Moe presents a compelling argument on the struggles that Italy went through in becoming the nation that it is today.  Moe presents us with a historical context with which to understand the events that led Italy and the Italian people from the heights of the Renaissance to the lows of the pre- Risorgimento, when Italian nationalism was at its lowest.  Meriggi’s article also confirms Moe’s observations, showing how politics and economics combined forces to throw Italy from its place as leader of European culture.  The Risorgimento was to define a new age for the Italian people, to re-unite them into a new nation.  However, there were obstacles to the nation-building, and both Moe and Meriggi agree on the various issues that kept the Italian people from immediately being able to support the idea of nationalism.  The majority of people were poor, living in subprime conditions.  They were vastly undereducated compared to Western Europe at this time.  Since they had for so long lived apart in separate states that the Italians, though they spoke the same language and lived on the same peninsula, did not identify themselves as a unified people. The idea of nation was one that took some getting used to.

However, many Italians, according to Moe, had a strong sense of needing to regain their former influence and stature in the European community.  Moe explains how many “Italian intellectuals shared a strong sense of rejoining the intellectual community in Europe, after a period of isolation.” (Moe 21).  This feeling of isolation, however, is indicative of just how bad things had become.  That the Italians felt themselves inferior and in need of proving themselves was a driving force in the Risorgimento movement.  Economically, Italy was also behind the rest of Europe as well.  However, according to Moe, there was one area in which the Italians excelled and that was music.  This was one area in which the “Italians continued to exercise a dominant influence in European culture.” (Moe 21).

Italian nationalism grew in the decades before the unification thanks to the Moderates, according to Moe.  The dominant political force adopted European standards as a model for Italian nationalism.  Moe says that “the Moderates aimed to raise Italy to the level of the other European nations by a rapid assimilation of the most vital elements in their culture and political institutions.” (Moe 23).  This adoption of the European model served to lift Italy from its degenerated position as sub-standard by European standards to new heights during the Risorgimento.  Moe shows through his article how the balance of power shifted from Italy to Western Europe, but was then regained by Italy by imitating Western Europe.  The idea of nation, for Italy, had come full circle.

Though outsiders may tend to see Italy as a unified nation, from its days of the Roman Empire through to today, the reality of nation for the Italian people has been quite different.  Their identity has changed greatly in the past, from being Italian to being identified with individual states, back to a unified Italian culture.  In addition, economic and political depression led Italy’s people to begin to doubt themselves as a people.  Both Moe and Meriggi show how much Italian nationalism was affected by the turbulent years between 1600 and 1900.  War, revolution, depression and restoration made their mark on the Italian psyche.  Italians had to learn how to break free from their past and learn to redefine themselves in order to build a new Italy.  Their sense of nationalism was due partially to the Risorgimento but mainly to the need for Italians to regain the prestige and influence in Europe that they had previously enjoyed.  However, despite set-backs and struggles, Italy has survived for thousands of years as a culture due to the strength and resilience of its people.  Italy, no matter what the state of its economy or its people, still attracts the admiration of thousands of visitors who come to experience the rich culture and history that is uniquely Italian.  Their national identity continues to evolve with the ages, and despite periodic set-backs, the Italians find a way to adapt without losing perspective about who they are as a people.