Between the fifteenth and the eighteenth century, princely courts dominated the Italian political scene. These courts were effervescent centers of cultural production. As such, they became a model for European monarchies who imported Italian courtly forma del vivere (‘style of life’) to legitimize their power and to define social status. This phenomenon included architecture and painting, theater and music, manners and aesthetics, and all the objects, behaviors and beliefs that contributed to homogenize European culture in the age of the Old Regime. It involved a hemorrhage of art and a contin

Italian Courts and European Culture

When looking at the US from a European perspective a sort of paradox immediately emerges. On the one hand, the ‘American way of life’ has been penetrating in depth our everyday life and, even more, our Western culture through the music, the movies, the literature and all possible consumerist habits. But, on the other hand, all recurrent statements have been emphasizing the ‘American exceptionalism’ of political institutions, that is, how different and distant the North American institutions are from the European ones with regards to the government leadership, the relationships between existing

The American Exceptionalism Revisited

We live in a world in which almost all states purport to be republican. Very few adhere to the Ciceronian concept of res publica, understood as “that which belongs to the popolo (respublica respopuli) [...] and which has the observance of the law and the commonality of interests as its foundation”. The concept of republicanism is traditionally connected to the principle that true political freedom consists of not being subject to the arbitrary will of any man or group of men, and it requires equality of civil and political rights. Republicanism has attracted scholars who aim to develop insight

Republicanism

La corte del granduca

Il potere dello spazio

Marcello Fantoni

Fès et Florence

Critical revision and fingering by Marcello Fantoni of "Variazioni per la Chitarra composte e dedicate al Signor Versace dal Signor Conte Luigi Moretti y Gascon"