New Italian nationalism

Abstract

As an organized political movement, twentieth-century Italian nationalism was born with the “congress of men of faith,” which took place in Florence, in December 1910.1 However, the movement’s origins, particularly those of its literary and aesthetic dimensions, date back a few years earlier. Italian nationalism went through a process of literary incubation in Florentine journals such as Hermes (1904), Leonardo (1903-1907) and, in particular, Il Regno (1903-1906), under the direction of the nationalists’ future ideologue, Enrico Corradini.2 While the first two journals reflected the diversity of nationalist thinking, especially on its aesthetic side, Il Regno prefigured key themes that nationalism would come to embrace: anti-parliamentarianism, antidemocracy, anti-socialism and antiliberalism.3 These themes remained philosophical and literary in their orientation and did not yet possess a political-programmatic character, though this was not their first appearance in the history of unified Italy. Anti-parliamentarianism and antidemocracy had appeared both during the rule of the liberal tendency known as the Historical Left (1876-1896) and under the ten-year guidance of the liberal statesman Giovanni Giolitti (1903-1914).