California Italian Studies

The Prologue to Salviamo l’Italia reflects on the problems of contemporary Italy through the eyes of the Risorgimento generations to suggest striking similarities and to highlight differences in realities,  perceptions, and attitudes.  Canova’s sculpture of Italia weeping at the tomb of Alfieri is an icon of the prevailing sense, then and now, of cultural, social, political, and, at bottom, moral decadence and decline.  The chief differences lie in today’s resignation about political corruption, the precipitous collapse public morals, and the fixation on the economics of consumption at the expense of shared civic interests and values.  Over and against a culture of passivity or complicity, there are neglected or forgotten democratic values in the Risorgimento that may offer a usable past for a progressive future.