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The Kingdom of Italy’s capture of Rome, on 20 September 1870, signaled the end of the Catholic Church’s temporal power and the completion of the Risorgimento, but the day is no longer officially celebrated and has been largely forgotten by the public except for its prominent use in street names. The political and cultural amnesia surrounding the significance of September 20th to national unity reflects the unresolved challenges that Prime Minister Camillo Cavour had articulated when advocating for a free Church in a free State in 1861. Declared a national holiday by Francesco Crispi’s government in 1895, Mussolini stripped the date of its status to enhance his own in 1930. Postwar efforts to elevate its official standing have all failed, and the date’s significance has been marginalized across the political spectrum albeit with dissenting voices. Paradoxically, since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has reinterpreted its loss of temporal power as a providential act and, thus, Pope Francis emerged as the leading public celebrant of the sesquicentennial anniversary of September 20th in 2020. This article examines the historical events surrounding Rome’s capture and the subsequent treatment of those events in various understudied materials including those of journalists (e.g., Ugo Pesci, Roberto Stuart), patriotic painters (e.g., Carlo Ademollo’s La breccia di Porta Pia, Michele Cammarano’s Carica dei bersaglieri alle mura di Roma), contemporary photographers (Gioacchino Altobelli, Lodovico Tuminello), encomiastic writers (e.g., Raffaele Cadorna, Edmondo De Amicis), and television/films (e.g., La presa di Roma, Superfantozzi). This cultural documentation also exposes inconsistencies (e.g., the circumstances surrounding the death of the decorated Bersagliere, Major Giacomo Pagliari) that challenge the hegemonic narrative. The article’s analysis of material representations of September 20th is complemented by a reconstruction of both the political and religious responses to the date’s significance from 1870 to 2023. September 20th speaks to the unresolved issues identified by Cavour, and, hence, its contested interpretation remains relevant to current discussions of Church-State relations in Italy today.

Review of: Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History, Charles L. Leavitt IV (2020) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, xi + 313 pp., ISBN 978-1-48750-710-7, h/bk, $93.00 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chiara Ferrari. The Rhetoric of Violence and Sacrifice in Fascist Italy: Mussolini, Gadda, Vittorini. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2013. In the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana's 'Fascismo' entry, Benito Mussolini critiqued [...]

Gabriele D'Annunzio. Halcyon. Translated by J. G. Nichols. New York: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 263. Literary culture's love-hate relationship with D'Annunzio was memorably characterized by Montale, who in 'Gozzano, trent'anni dopo' [...]

Orientalismo eretico. Pier Paolo Pasolini e il cinema del Terzo Mondo. By LUCA CAMINATI. Pp. 131. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. 2007 In questa rilettura del cinema terzomondista di Pasolini, Luca Caminati [...]

The Piano Melodico was a mechanical musical instrument invented by the Italian Giovanni Racca in 1886. Between 1887 and 1908, Racca & Co. sold over 10,000 Piani Melodici. Purchasers of the instrument included such famous persons as Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of Abruzzi, Queen Elena of Italy, the Duchess of Aosta Maria Letizia Bonaparte, and Danilo, Crown Prince of Montenegro. Among these celebrities was the renowned poet Giovanni Pascoli, who acquired the instrument in 1906. Through unpublished letters and documents in the Pascoli Archives emerges the centrality of the Piano Melodico to Pascoli’s creative process and his role in defending its use in the copyright infringement case of Ricordi v. Racca in 1907. Moreover, the instrument figured in his relationship with the composer Giacomo Puccini. Pascoli’s Piano Melodico remains a fixture in what was the poet’s study. Thanks to Mario Mazzei’s restoration work on both the instrument and the 34 perforated music storage media belonging to the poet, today it is possible to listen to Pascoli’s music collection at the same qualitative level at which he enjoyed it over a century ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]