RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

European culture and the problem of otherness: historiography, politics, science of man in modern Europe (XVI-XIX centuries)

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di NAPOLI "L'Orientale" - SCIENZE SOCIALI - ()

Research Unit Leader

Girolamo Imbruglia

Description

The dynamics of secularization of the idea of the right to civilization, from the XVI century to the XIX century, will be analysed by the unit directed by prof Imbruglia according to the perspective of intellectual and cultural history.
The unit will study the crisis of the religious world, in particolar from the inside of the Catholic church institutions. Prof. Di Fiore will study the debate about the catholic oriental missions. In the dynamics of the secularization of power, also of religious power, an important role was played not only by the growing of a radical and secular culture (which had its climax in the Enlightenment), but also by the gradual decay of organicistic theories – to use a sant-simonian language. From this point of view, the struggles among the factions that tore the catholic structure may be of high interest. The polemics between jansenists and jesuits, made not only of theories, but also of material interests; the different strategies of evangelization of the jansenists, jesuits and Franciscans, and the different relationship of these Orders with the central political powers are some elements of the violent debates which arose about the missions in China and uncovered the existence of deep conflicts within the Roman hierarchy, which in the long run led to the abolition of the Society by the Pope in 1773. Prof. Di Fiore intends to complete his study of a source important for this history. It is the complete version of the Giornale della Legazione della Cina, which is the diary of the mission of the ambassador sent by Pope Clemente XI in 1721 to the emperor K'ang-his. Against the Jesuit theories, C. A. Mezzabarba had to impose the condemnation of Chinese rites and to restore the orthodox preaching of Catholicism. His failure was attribute to the Society and it represented an important episode in that controversy and in the decline of the Society of Jesus in the East missions.
The difficulty of the catholic Church in maintaining its relationship with the internal otherness will be studied by dr. R. Rosolino. In Middle Age, the Catholic Church had always shown a great ability in ruling social conflicts with its own canonic laws. Not only in the field of justice, but also in that of economics (for instance, the case of usury) the catholic norms had had a great importance. But, from the XVI century onwards, the lawyers and judges, the French robins or noblesse the robe succeeded in imposing their sacred power in Europe. Dr. Rosolino wants to study the way in which the Neapolitan ‘togati’ limited the force and the presence of the ecclesiastical power in South Italy. The history of the Neapolitan jurisdictionalism from the point of view of social history is still to be written. The togati and their program of secular jurisprudence offered a much more modern relationship between the political power and the civil society, and the program of their legislation was able to promote the economic needs of the society.
Proff. Postigliola, Imbruglia and Porciani will study the process of cultural secularization in the age of Enlightenment and in the XIX century.
Prof. Postigliola will discuss the problem of the relationship between European culture and otherness in Montesquieu’s work. Montesquieu inquired into the theme of the secularization of civilization with great originality and he uncovered the two aspects of this idea which are at the core of our research. On the one hand he said that the reason of the superiority of European civilization and therefore the right it had to civilise other societies laid in its «industrie» and in its liberty, which were unknown outside Europe; on the other hand, he built the history of the European civilization and of its institutions and its moral and intellectual system of ideals. Prof. Postigliola’s analysis will be focused upon ‘Esprits de lois and ‘Considerations sur les romains’. The confrontation with otherness represented by the historical past will be studied with special reference to two concepts that had been crucial for Montesquieu: the concepts of honour and virtue in the classical and modern worlds, and the birth and characters of the modernity.
Prof. Imbruglia will study the Jesuit idea of mission and the critique that the culture of Enlightenment addressed to it. Of the Jesuit idea of mission, prof. Imbruglia will show that the Society of Jesus acknowledged that Jesuits were creating a new form of empire, whose essential character was the peculiar spiritual power they exercised upon the Jesuits themselves and upon their subjects in their missions. The discussions that in enlightened Europe flourished upon this experience was an important way of secularization. Prof. Imbruglia will follow three cases. First, the interest that Spanish and French governments had into the Jesuit missions, which they considered an useful exemple in order to build new forms of dialogue with non European nations. Second, the utopian thinkers, especially Morelly’s ‘Code de la nature’ proposed that the ideal law-giver had to imitate the example of the Jesuit missionaries in order to give happiness, freedom and justice both to european and non european societies. Finally, there was a radical critique of the Jesuit missions. In those missions Diderot saw the image of the most despotic power, represented by their ‘spiritual power’. But this spiritual power appeared to Diderot also as the inner structure of every politics, because the relationship between politics and religion was still at work in European societies. Because of this religious and irrational origin, politics was a permanent threat to virtue, happiness and freedom, which were the true, secular moral goals of human sociability.
Prof.sa Porciani will study the history historiography. Historiography, from Voltaire, Hume or Gibbon onwards became one of the most important aspect of European culture, and identity. This genre spread in all Europe, but in different ways and with different timing, becoming an essential feature in the process of nation building. History became both a national issue and a professional – often very masculine - discipline. We already know much about the beginnings of the historical profession and about the construction of strong ties between historiography and nation in some of the European countries. Yet, we still largely ignore what happened in other areas, which have been long excluded from the international literature, often because of language barriers. It is time to include them both in a larger comparison and in the study of cultural transfer. Prof. sa Porciani presents a large and innovative project which aims at a major European-wide comparison. It uses cartography to represent the development of the historical institutions as well as the presence of relevant networks and communities from the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Prof. sa Porciani will produce comparative thematic essays which take into consideration many aspects of the historical profession (the representation of the professor; journals, academies, associations, role of different social classes etc.) For the first time the gendered character of the historical profession is also mapped in all the European countries.

Expected books or critical editions of texts
Book upon social, religious and political conflicts in Sicily in XVIIcentury (Rosolino)
Book upon Montesquieu and the classical world (Postigliola)
Book upon the imperial strategy of the Society of Jesus (Imbruglia)
Book upon Neapolitan civilization during the XVIII century (Calaresu)
Book upon the historiography in XIX century
Critical edition of some books of Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois (Postigliola)
Critical edition of some books of Raynal’s and Diderot’s Histoire politique et philosophique des deux Indes in the editino of their Oeuvres; and of some chapters of Essai sur les mœurs by Voltaire (Imbruglia)