Lauri, Zoe. The Nature of the Risorgimento : Science, Environment and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Italy / [electronic resource] : / by Zoe Lauri.. — 1st ed. 2025.. — 330 p. : online resource. — (Cultural History of Science ;) 1. - Cultural History of Science ; 1 .

Open Access

Анотація:
Following Italy’s unification in 1861, the new state faced the complex task of achieving political, administrative and cultural cohesion, which also required a unified body of knowledge about the national territory and its natural environment. This book explores how knowledge of Italian nature was produced, circulated, and institutionalised in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as part of the broader nationbuilding project, and how it contributed to the symbolic and material construction of the nation. Scientists played a crucial role in articulating a naturalistic unity of the peninsula, mapping its resources, and defining the idea of a distinct ‘Italian’ landscape. Through a critical analysis of scientific practices, actors, and institutions, the study reveals how Italian nature served as a symbol of national identity, an instrument of political legitimacy, and a means of shaping and consolidating a shared vision of Italy as Il Bel Paese – an image that remains deeply embedded in the country’s cultural imagination today. open access.

ISBN: 9788869775345

Standard No.: 10.65272/978-88-6977-534-5 doi

Subjects--Topical Terms:
Europe--History--1492-.
Social sciences.
Ethnology--Europe.
Culture.
History of Modern Europe.
Society.
European Culture.

LC Class. No.: D203.2-475

Dewey Class. No.: 940.903