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In search of Alcide De Gasperi: innovations in Italian scholarship since 2003

2010; Routledge; Volume: 15; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13545711003768634

1469-9583

Steven White,

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Giulio Andreotti – a consummate political insider and socialite – reproved his Trentine mentor for shying away from la vita salottiera romana. See commemorative Andreotti article appearing in Il Tempo, 18 August 1974, now in De Capua (1976 Di Capua, Giovanni. 1976. Processo a De Gasperi, Rome: Ebe. [Google Scholar]: 110). For his part, Carlo Levi depicted a thinly disguised De Gasperi as the calculating purveyor of empty and debilitating political rhetoric in his novel L'orologio (Levi 1950 Levi, Carlo. 1950. L'orologio, Turin: Einaudi. [Google Scholar]). 2 Costa was a priest who knew De Gasperi well: Canavero opens his work by quoting a commemorative article of Costa's written shortly after the Trentine statesman's death (Canavero 2003 Canavero, Alfredo. 2003. Alcide De Gasperi. Cristiano, democratico, europeo, Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino. [Google Scholar]: vii). 3 Ample bibliographies and other documentation are also accessible at the ‘Alcide De Gasperi nella Storia d'Europa’ website hosted by the Istituto Sturzo in Rome (www.degasperi.net) and the website hosted by Rome's Fondazione Alcide De Gasperi (www.fondazionedegasperi.it). 4 Among the handful of scholarly works which have drawn on the papers over the past fifty years are Carrillo (1965), Scoppola (1977 Scoppola, Pietro. 1977. La proposta politica di De Gasperi, Bologna: Il Mulino. [Google Scholar]) and De Pirey (1991 De Pirey, Arnoulx Elisabeth. 1991. De Gasperi: Le pere italien de l'Europe, Paris: P. Tequi. [Google Scholar]). 5 In Italy, there is no provision for the personal papers of prime ministers to go automatically to the central state archives. The EUI archives' website contains a 114-page provisional inventory of the collection. After final accessioning, the papers are scheduled to be opened to researchers at the beginning of January 2011. 6 Exemplary in this regard are the impressions as recorded by journalist Indro Montanelli (1963 Montanelli, Indro. 1963. Gli incontri, Milan: Rizzoli. [Google Scholar]: 24–9). The collection, editing and publication of the full corpus of De Gasperi's letters, now in the planning stages, will provide another invaluable research tool for De Gasperi scholars. 7 The proceedings of both conferences have been published (see Garbari 2005 Garbari, Maria. 2005. Alcide De Gasperi e la storiografia internazionale. Un bilancio (Proceedings of the Trento international conference, Trento, 7–8 May 2004), Studi trentini di scienze storiche 84(2): Supplement [Google Scholar]; Conze et al. 2005 Conze, Eckart, Corni, Gustavo and Pombeni, Paolo. 2005. Alcide De Gasperi: un percorso europeo, Bologna: Il Mulino. (Atti del convegno internazionale di studi ‘Alcide De Gasperi’: una storia europeo, Trento, 18–20 March) [Google Scholar]). 8 For this important work, and more specialized studies by Walter Crivellin and Stefano Trinchese, see Venneri (2008 Venneri, Giulio. 2008. ‘Man of faith and political commitment: Alcide De Gasperi in the history of Europe’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 13(1): 89–92. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 9 Benedict XVI lauded De Gasperi's exemplary ‘moral leadership’ during his 21 July 2009 audience with leaders of the Alcide De Gasperi Foundation. The audience was highlighted in the pages of La Repubblica and other prominent Italian newspapers. 10 Particularly revealing is a testimony by Guido Gonella, a key fellow Christian Democrat, journalist and Minister of Public Instruction from 1945 to 1951. The personal papers of Gonella, Luigi Sturzo, Mario Scelba and Giulio Andreotti have all now been accessioned and are available to scholars at the Istituto Luigi Sturzo in Rome. 11 De Gasperi was especially drawn to the Psalms, the Imitation of Christ and the Confessions of St Augustine (ADG 1: 12). 12 A spirited defense of De Gasperi's intellectual interests and capacities is offered in Cau (2009 Cau, Maurizio. 2009. ‘Alcide De Gasperi: a political thinker or a thinking politician?’ (Special Issue: De Gasperi's Scritti e discorsi politici). Modern Italy, 14(4): 431–44. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). 13 In a 1948 letter to the Socialists (then in opposition), he wrote that ‘effective and efficient governance’ depended ‘especially on political cohesion and reciprocal loyalty and good will among men’ (ADG 3: 53).