Atlantic Italies

Da secoli, la penisola italiana è connessa tramite una molteplicità d’intrecci (di tipo coloniale e non) ad altre regioni del mondo. In parte, le dinamiche globali a cui i territori italiani hanno storicamente partecipato son o sprofondate nell’oblio e solo negli ultimi anni iniziano a essere riscoperte nell’ambito di ricerche su fonti conservate in archivi, biblioteche e musei. Altre storie, invece, sono giunte sino a noi come parte di retaggi coloniali che, presenti nello spazio pubblico, sono sempre più contestati. Da alcuni anni, la trasformazione della società italiana innescata dalle migrazioni intercontinentali, in particolar modo in provenienza dall’Africa, nonché l’emergere di movimenti sociali, a loro volta interconnessi su scala internazionale, alimentano nuovi dibattiti e pongono la questione di come affrontare – nella ricerca e nello spazio pubblico – questi passati complessi. A questo proposito, l’incontro vuole costituire un momento di confronto tra studiose/i attiviste/i e membri di istituzioni volte alla disseminazione dei saperi.

20-21 ottobre 2022, Istituto Svizzero, Roma

A 20-minute documentary film based on Carlo Taviani’s research project on Genoese merchant networks in Africa and across the Atlantic Ocean, as part of the international project of the Max Weber Foundation Knowledge Unbound. The period from ca. 1450–1530 is investigated through archival studies. And with it, the trade of enslaved persons, which began in the Atlantic region in the first decades of the 16th century, comes into view. The film journeys through the Mediterranean region and the Atlantic and presents new perspectives and assessments on this research topic. Click on the links below to watch the documentary in Italian, German or English.

Italiano – Deutsch – English

This book traces the origins of a financial institution, the modern corporation, in Genoa and reconstructs its diffusion in England, the Netherlands, and France. At its inception, the Casa di San Giorgio (1407–1805) was entrusted with managing the public debt in Genoa. Over time, it took on powers we now ascribe to banks and states, Read more →

The final meeting of the Atlantic Italies Network will take place at the University of Zurich from September 1 to 3, 2022.

On May 20, Carlo Taviani will present his paper I “naturalia, mirabilia ad exotica” dal porto di Genova alla Corte dei Gonzaga as part of the lecture series Naturalia e Mirabilia organized on the occasion of the renewal of the Gonzaga family’s wunderkammer.

Virtual conference hosted by the German Historical Insitute in Rome (DHI-Roma) on October 12 and 19, 2021

Scholarship has focused on the Italian Wars of the early Sixteenth century from a variety of comparative perspectives. Only a few studies however have dealt with popular unrests and factional conflicts which have extensively characterized the Italian peninsula, especially the Venetian Terraferma, Lombardy, Brescia, Padova, Cremona, Pisa, Bologna, the area of Friuli, Genoa, Urbino, and Rome. This book focuses on some of these social and factional conflicts that often gave rise to mass exiles, popular unrest, and peace making rituals.

Lotte di parte. Rivolte di popolo e conflitti di fazione nelle guerre d’Italia (1494-1531), by Carlo Taviani, Viella, Roma 2021.

This fall semester, Carlo Taviani and Roberto Zaugg will present their upcoming articles as part of the Geschichtskontor. On 5 October, Carlo Taviani will discuss The ‹Maona›. A Study on Institutional Migration of Economic Organizational Forms (13th–16th Centuries). 7 December will be dedicated to Transimperiale Verflechtungen im frühneuzeitlichen Atlantik. Akademische Geschichtsschreibung und dekolonialer Aktivismus in Deutschland und der Schweiz by Roberto Zaugg.