Ruins Past: Modernity in Italy, 1744-1836

271 Pages·2015·32.178 MB·English

by  Sabrina Ferri

RUINS PAST
MODERNITY IN fTALY, 1744-1836
OXFORD UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT
- formerly Stwlies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (SVEC),
is dedicated to eighteenth-century research.
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Jonathan Mallinson, Trinity College, University of Oxford
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Wilda Anderson, Johns Hopkins University
Matthew Bell, King's College London
Marc André Bernier, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
Nicholas Cronk, Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford
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Rebecca Haidt, Ohio State University
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Francesca Savoia, University of Pittsburgh
J. B. Shank, University of Minnesota
Céline Spector, Université Bordeaux 3
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Karen Stolley, Emory University
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RUINS PAST
MODERNITY IN lTALY, 1744-1836
SABRINA FERRI
VOL TAIRE FOUNDA TION
OXFORD
www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk
© 2015 Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford
ISBN 978 0 7294 1171 4
Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment 2015:12
ISSN 0435-2866
Voltaire Foundation
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www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The correct style for citing this book is
S. Ferri, Ruins past: modernity inltaly, 1744-1836, Oxford University Studies in
the Enlightenment (Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2015)
Caver illustration: Giovanni Battis ta Piranesi,Antiquus Bivii ViarumAppiaeet
Ardeatinae, prospectus ail II lapidem extra Portam Capenam, Le Antichità romane
(Rome, A. Rotilj, 1756), vol.2, pl.2 (second frontispiece), etching, photo
courtesy of The Environmental Design Library, University of California,
Berkeley, ffN5740 .P49.
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v
ÜXFORD UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT
RUINS PAST
MODERNITY IN lTALY, 1744-1836
In an era haunted by its past, modern Europe sought to break with the
old; the future and the new became the ideal. In Italy however, where the
remains of the past dominated the landscape, mins were a token both of
decadence and of the inspiring legacy of tradition. Sabrina Ferri pro
poses a counter-narrative to the European story of progress by focusing
on the often-marginalized and distinctive case of Ital y.
For Italians, mins uncovered the creative potential of the past,
transforming it into an inexhaustible source of philosophical speculation
and poetic invention whilst simultaneously symbolizing decay, Joss and
melancholy. Focusing on the representation of mins by Italian writers,
scientists, and artists between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, Sabrina Ferri explores the culture of the period and traces
Italy's complex relationship with its past. Combining the analysis of
major works, from Vico's New science to Leopardi's Canti, with that of
archivai sources and little-studied materials such as scientific travel
journals, letters, and political essays, the author reveals how:
• the min became a figure for Italy's uneasy transition into modernity;
• the interplay between reflections on the processes of history and
speculations on the laws of nature shaped the country's sense of the
past and its vision of the future;
• the convergence of narratives depicting historical and natural change
influenced both the creative arts and the emerging sciences of geology,
biology, and archaeology;
• the temporal crisis at the dawn of the nineteenth century called into
question traditional models for investigating the past and understand
ing the present.
Intellectual history /literature 1e ighteenth- and nineteenth-century Italy
Histoire intellectuelle 1 littérature 1 Italie des dix huitième et dix
neuvième siècles

Vll
Contents
List of illustrations Ix
Acknowledgments xi
~~(cid:111)(cid:99)(cid:102)(cid:117)(cid:110) 1
1. 'The great fragments of antiquity': ruins and recovery of the
past in Giambattista Vico's New science 17
2. 'The ruined cities lie desolate': natural catastrophe and
historical change in eighteenth-century Italy 43
3. Time of nature, time of man: ruins and the materiality of
the historical imagination 79
4. Melancholies of the modern: nature and history in the late
eighteenth-century Picturesque 119
5. The ghostly ruins of Neoclassicism: Alessandro Verri's
Roman nights and the posthumous life of the ancient 153
6. The shipwrecks of time: Giacomo Leopardi's poetics of
ru ms 187
Epilogue: a glanee back 225
Bibliography 231
Index 251

IX
List of illustrations
Figure 1: Dipintura, frontispiece of Princip} di scienza nU()Va di
Giambattista Vico d'intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni
(Naples, Muziana, 1744), photo courtesy of The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley, B3581 .S4 1744. 20
Figure 2: L'Arbre encyclopédique, frontispiece to vol.l of Pierre
Mouchon, Table analytique et raisonnée des matières contenues dans
les XXXIII volumes infolio du 'Dictionnaire des sciences, des arts et des
métiers, et dans son supplément' (Paris, Panckoucke, 1780), photo
courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley, AE25 .E45 index copy 1. 21
Figure 3: Filoni irregolari del piè del Monte Marian al mare (Irregular
strata at the foot of Mount Marian by the Sea), Viaggio in
Dalmazia dell'abate Alberto Fortis (V enice, A. Milocco, 1774),
vol.2, pl.lO, photo courtesy of The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley, DB406 .F6. 91
Figure 4: Filoni simili a muraglie in riva del mare sotta Rogosniza
(Strata in the manner of a wall on the sea shore below
Rogosniza), Viaggio in Dalmazia dell'abate Alberto Fortis (Venice,
A. Milocco, 1774), vol.2, pl.l2, photo courtesy of The Bancroft
Library, University of California, Berkeley, DB406 .F6. 92
Figure 5: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Veduta del sotterraneo
Fondamento del Mausoleo, che fu eretto da Elia Adriano Imp[eratore]
(View of the subterranean foundations of the Mausoleum
built by the Emperor Hadrian), Le Antichità romane (Rome, A.
Rotilj, 1756), vol.4, pl.9, etching, photo courtesy of The
Environmental Design Library, University of California,
Berkeley, ff N5740 .P49. 93
Figure 6: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Veduta di una parte de'
fondamenti del Teatro di Marcello (View showing a part of the
foundations of the Theater of Marcellus), Le Antichità romane
(Rome, A. Rotilj, 1756), vol.4, pl.32, etching, photo courtesy of
The Environmental Design Library, University of California,
Berkeley, ff N5740 .P49. 94
Figure 7: Giovanni Battis ta Piranesi, Antiquus Bivii Viarum Appiae
et Ardeatinae, prospectus ad II lapidem extra Portam Capenam
(Ancient intersection of the Via Appia and Via Ardeatina