Campo dei Fiori is a biography: the biography of the statue dedicated to Giordano Bruno in the late 19th century in the famous Roman square. A monument immediately considered the supreme symbol of freedom or the worst of curses, redemption or shame.
Cleopatra’s life through seven pivotal moments, illuminated in live action: from the decisive encounter with Caesar, to that, later, with Antony. Ancient history as it has never been offered: interpretive power and pleasure in storytelling. This book is not (only) a biography of Cleopatra, but the account, through important steps in her life, of a crucial moment in Western history. In the story presented here, it was a woman who conceived the idea of gaining power over the world. A queen who would fight to the end to bring her plan to fulfillment.
All begins with him. And it was an intellectual and technical revolution without equals. And with many enemies: both then and now. A new way of seeing and being in the world that still has much to teach us.
«Behind the circumstantial paradigm “is glimpsed perhaps the oldest gesture in the intellectual history of humankind: that of the hunter crouched in the mud scanning the tracks of his prey.” In this gesture I identify, rereading myself, as will have done, I imagine, many male and female readers. But what is the counterpart, in historical knowledge, to the tracks left by a vanishing prey?»
This book explores the changing relationship between historical truth, fiction, and lies through a series of cases. Contrary to the postmodern skepticism that blurs the line between fictional and historical narratives in the name of the constructive element they share, the relationship between the two is seen here as a contest for the representation of reality.
Gadda and Montale were certainly two of the greatest writers and poets of twentieth-century Italy. But what was their attitude toward fascism? How did they get through the Ventennio? What compromises were they forced to accept? On the one hand, Gadda had bravely fought on all fronts of the Great War, driven by a strong national-patriotic passion, and recognized himself in the fascist movement, a providential defense to the risks of the Bolshevik revolution.
Late nineteenth century, on the trail of a hymn to freedom, composed by Pietro Gori: lawyer, poet, “socially dangerous” anarchist, who finds himself living through one of the nation’s most troubled Late 19th century. A story that unravels between Pisa, Milan, Lugano, Livorno, Rosignano, the Island of Elba, but also America, on the trail of a famous song that gives the book its title, and its author, Pietro Gori: a lawyer, a poet, a “socially dangerous” anarchist, who finds himself living through one of the nation's most tormented seasons.
From the 4th century to the present, civil power and religious power have done nothing but fight each other to wear each other's robes, when they have not agreed, allying themselves, to both fit into the same, single robe.
«There is no secularism either when religion, singular or plural, meddles in the affairs of the state, making the state an affair of religion, or when the state meddles in the affairs of religion, making religion an affair of the state. Secularity means prohibition of meddling, whatever its content, it being irrelevant whether hostile or benevolent».
Technology, nature, species: exercises in future and hope to prepare for the time ahead. A manifesto for a new humanism.
Forty years ago, Ginzburg, a non-historian of art, set out to refute on the basis of external elements, related to patrons and iconography, the early date – advanced by one of the leading art historians of the 20th century, Roberto Longhi – of such a capital work as Piero's ‘Flagellation’. So is this a book that argues with art historians (who have criticized it, sometimes harshly)? Also, but not only. Investigations into Piero is aimed at all those who love the painting of Piero della Francesca, who appears here in an unexpected light.