RISULTATI RICERCA

The scarce interest in literature shown by part of the scholars who deal with counter-revolution is surprising. And yet novels, short stories, poems, songs and numerous others literary genres are rich in references, commentaries, thoughts and scenarios linked to that phenomenon. Much in the same way, writers that are somehow linked to it abound. Literature must attract the interest of historians not as a source or as a purely decorative element, but as an integral part of their historical work. In this work, dealing with literature and counter-revolution in southern Europe, this meant contributing to rethinking the history of counterrevolutionary movements in a more complex and problematic way.

Though the very origins of the historic center and the efforts to safeguard its architectural heritage, combined with the feeble guidance provided by urban planning, economic and social policies, have resulted in glaring contrasts on the regional level, it must be recognized that geographers have devoted little attention to detailed investigations of individual urban situations, and even less to investigations at the intraurban scale. This is an area where the Laboratory for Socio-Territorial Analysis and Documentation has been concentrating its efforts in a series of studies whose findings are presented in this issue: Loda and Mancini-Burzio on Florence; Amato and D’Alessandro on Naples; Faravelli on Milan; Guarrasi on Palermo; Zanetto on cities and their historic centers; and, in conclusion, Biagi on the political and administrative repercussions of the historic center’s problems.