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Alessandro Blasetti’s career reaches a turning point in 1942: at the end of the year Quattro passi fra le nuvole is released. The film is retrospectively considered a forerunner of Neorealism. Since then, Blasetti focuses on realistic dramas in humble settings e.g., Nessuno torna indietro (1944), up to the partisan resistance themed Un giorno nella vita (1946). However, from the late 30s to the first half of 1942, Blasetti works mainly on historical films, such as Ettore Fieramosca (1938), Un’avventura di Salvator Rosa (1939), La corona di ferro (1941) and La cena delle beffe (1942). As a result of this productive repositioning, how does Blasetti change his critical posture to reconfigure himself within the field? The paper aims to retrace Blasetti’s works in parallel with his public statements on the press to find fluctuations and shifts. To do so, the author uses the concepts of producer’s game and critic’s game derived from Altman’s genre theory, together with some of Bourdieu’s tools. Blasetti’s repositioning takes place within a context of drastic political and cultural changes, from the first signs of the Second World War to the Postwar period, from the fascist Regime to Neorealism.

This article analyzes the antiquities trade between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the construction of the two regimes’ diplomatic relationship before and during World War II. Both regimes made antiquities a medium of their political and ideological propaganda. During the delicate stages of their alliance in and after 1936, the Fascist regime, which considered itself the legitimate heir of the ancient Roman Empire, intensified the promotion of its role as a leading arbiter of cultural matters. A sense of Italian cultural superiority underlay the antiquities gifted or authorized for export to fulfill the Nazi leaders’ requests. Alongside this ‘legitimate’ trade, many other antiquities were illegally exported, sold, or stolen by art dealers, troops, and common citizens. Drawing on intense archival research conducted in Italian archives, the article presents different cases that shed light on the ways in which antiquities were manipulated for ideological and political purposes by the Fascist and Nazi regimes.

The essay starts from the analysis of Dallo Stato liberale al regime fascista - published in 1973 - which contains the guidelines of Nicola Tranfaglia's reflection on fascism and follows its developments up to the end of the nineties and the early 2000s. In this path it thematizes the debate on continuity/rupture in the history of Italy and mentions the debate on the biography of Mussolini by Renzo De Felice and the matter of historiographical revisionism on fascism.

This essay aims to investigate the connection between a local archive and global history, with a glocal perspective in a school environment. The work will deal with the archive of a high school in Milan, Italy, and examine how this community, with its principal, teachers and students, looked at (and was involved with) international events between 1935 and 1945. This was the period when fascist Italy declared war on Ethiopia and took part in the Second World War in its quest for an Empire and, later, for a new role in a Nazi-ruled Europe. Fascist foreign policy, which meant “war policy” in that period, and the way the Italian schools dealt with it became part of the totalitarian design of the regime. Changes in the local perspective regarding international events reflect changes in the regime’s political agenda.

Between the end of the XIX Century and the beginning of the XX Century dictation was one of the main tools to teach Italian to an almost illiterate people. With the advent of the fascist regime, dictation took on other purposes and was used daily by teachers as propaganda of the fascist regime. Although dictation is rarely mentioned in the Elementary School Programs of 1923 and 1934 its diffusion continued without any significant debate on its usefulness, as well as on the different ways of proposing it or how to correct mistakes. The reconstruction of this practice through the analysis of national curricula, school journals and, in some cases, school exercise books, opens a track to grasp the contradiction between what is declared and what is done inside the classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Toruńskie Studia Polsko-Włoskie / Studi Polacco-Italiani di Toruń is the property of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Faculty of Law & Administration and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Constitutional History / Giornale di Storia Costituzionale is the property of Giornale di Storia Costituzionale (Journal of Constitutional History) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)