Enlightenment and Neoclassicism in <em>La Clemenza di Tito of Mozart</em>: An Historical-Legal Perspective

Opera seria had always chosen its settings and characters from classical antiquity drawing on Greek mythology, the histories of Livy and Suetonius, the Aeneid, Plutarch’s Lives, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the second half of the eighteenth century, however, this world was given a new lease of life, separated from contemporary matters by an ever-decreasing division, across which it seemed almost possible for modern ideas to join hand with antiquity. In this context, the virtue of clemency is often represented on many levels in Mozart’s operas, and in particular in La Clemenza di Tito (1791). The main purpose of La Clemenza di Tito is the creation of an esthetic and neoclassical vision that introduces an enlightened interpretation of the virtue of clemency into the absolutistic context. Demonstrating the ability to forgive, and setting his own needs aside to accommodate his subjects, Tito is an enlightened ruler, who is both morally irreproachable and sensitive. By forgiving and preserving his subjects, the enlightened ruler allows them to become enlightened themselves

Sicurezza vs. libertà costituzionali: la «legge Reale» n. 152 del 22 maggio 1975

Il referendum per l’abrogazione della «legge Reale», posto in votazione nel giugno 1978 dall’iniziativa del partito radicale, che se ne era fatto promotore, era la prima consultazione referendaria dopo quella sul divorzio, ma fu condizionata nel risultato dall’assassinio di Aldo Moro e dall’esperimento del compromesso storico. Ben 24 milioni di cittadini pari al 76,5% si pronunciarono per il mantenimento della Legge. La Legge reale per alcuni autori mirava a tutelare un ordine pubblico inteso come ordre dans la rue, dove la strada appariva come lo spazio simbolico e più appariscente dell’emergere delle tensioni sociali e del dissenso politico

“Educational Plans” in the Jacobin and Napoleonic Piedmont

Il presente contributo è incentrato sui “piani d'educazione” formulati dai Governi provvisori succedutisi durante i mutamenti istituzionali che interessarono il regno di Sardegna dal dicembre 1798 sino all'annessione del Piemonte alla Grand Nation. L’istruzione infatti, sulla scia degli ideali e delle concezioni giacobine – e in particolare partendo dalle riflessioni del penalista francese Michel Le Peletier De Saint-Fargeau –, era individuata, anche dai “giacobini piemontesi” come l’elemento essenziale e necessario per dar vita ad una società nuova.The years from April 1796 to September 1802 constitute for Piedmont a dramatic historical period that sees various regime change in less than a decade: the Savoy government (until December 8th 1798), the Republican Provisional Government (until April 2, 1799), the French receivership (until May 28, 1799), the Austro-Russian military occupation (until June 14, 1800), a government commission flanked by a French extraordinary minister and a legislative council (until 19 April 1801) and finally a General Administrator of the 27th Military Division, which governed Piedmont until its annexation to France (22 September 1802).However, it is the so-called years of the "Bufera" (“the storm”), more precisely the period of the six months from December 1798 to the temporary French retreat beyond the Alps in June 1799, those in which are realized institutional changes and complex political evolutions that will bring the integration of Piedmont into the Napoleonic empire.It is a storm that metaphorically upset the political and social structure of the Kingdom of Sardinia, closing an era and starting a new one, in which men belonging to different social classes began to fight against absolutism and for the affirmation in Piedmont of the ideals of the French Revolution.This essay is focus on the "education plans" (particularly those destinated to primary and secondary school) formulated by the provisional Governments that succeeded each other during the cited institutional changes that involved the Kingdom of Sardinia from December 1798 to the time before the annexation of Piedmont to the Grand Nation. Education in fact, in the ideals and conceptions of the Revolution - and in particular starting from the reflections of Michel Le Peletier De Saint-Fargeau - was identified, even by the "Piedmontese Jacobins" as the essential and necessary element to give life to a new society

L’eredità dei giusti. Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo di Nicola Sani e Falcone e Borsellino di Marco Tutino

[The Legacy of the Good Men. Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo by Nicola Sani and Falcone e Borsellino by Marco Tutino]. The essay examines two recent operatic works: Falcone e Borsellino. L’eredità dei giusti by Marco Tutino and Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo by Nicola Sani. These operas represent two different examples of a “musical theatre of memory” that, bringing on stage two protagonists of Italian history, interrogate the audience about the legacy left by these two pivotal figures, who paid with their life their desire of justice

I deputati nizzardi e savoiardi al parlamento subalpino: le ‘petites patries’ tra nuovo diritto pubblico europeo e principio di nazionalità

L’esame dell’attività parlamentare della rappresentanza di Nizza e Savoia al Camera subalpina – eletta per la prima volta il 27 aprile 1848 e rinnovata per sette legislature fino all’annessione alla Francia, avvenuta nel 1860 in adempimento delle clausole degli accordi di Plombières – oltre ad essere un caso di studio peculiare per analizzare i rapporti centro-periferia, riveste un certo interesse poiché evidenzia quali fossero le idee e le posizioni politiche di questi deputati, sollecitati in prima persona dall’applicazione del principio “rivoluzionario” di nazionalità e dall’azione cavouriana tutta rivolta allo “scenario europeo”