ARCHIVIO STORICO ITALIANO

ITALIAN HISTORICAL ARCHIVE. - Florentine review founded in 1841, in a period of general renewal of historical studies, by a Genevan who had already promoted the Antologia, Gian Pietro Vieusseux, at the instigation of Gino Capponi. The review had the primary aim of publishing new “accessiones” to the “Rerum Italicarum Scriptores” of Muratori, uniting the testimonies of the various regions of Italy relating to the most glorious centuries of our history. It was not, however, a mere resumption of the Muratorian initiative, for alongside the publication of texts, mostly given in appendices, the review also published scholarly contributions of sometimes considerable scope, indeed—as the program made clear—placing at the foundation of the enterprise “the study of legal history and that of the prevailing customs according to times and places,” with the aim of revealing “the inner life of States and that of peoples,” aligning itself thus with the tendencies of historiography outside Italy. In practice, however, the review almost never reached general history, but rather, both in its texts and in its contributions, it became an organ of a distinctly Tuscan local character. This initial character was reaffirmed when, after the first twenty years in which it had been sustained by the personal sacrifice and care of Vieusseux, in 1864 it became the organ of the Royal Tuscan Deputazione di Storia Patria, which began its third series, followed by a fourth (1878 ff.) and a fifth (1888 ff.). From the first direction of Vieusseux and Capponi, whom the Deputazione replaced with Milanesi, Gelli, and lastly Rodolico, the review, in a century of life, has seen in its historical fascicles scholars of many generations pass by: from Villari and Tabarrini to Chiappelli and Salvemini, from Anzilotti and Schiaparelli to Panella and the even younger.