Eredità romantiche e risorgimentali nella cultura post-unitaria. Una difficile identità

The historical and cultural periodization of the nineteenth century in Italy is inevitably linked to the event of unification in 1861, whereas in the rest of Europe the dividing line is generally placed in 1870. Moving from some si- gnificant judgments of European intellectuals on the new italian State, the essay aims to evaluate the impact of the unification turning point on Italian culture, which until that moment had been characterized by an accentuated politicization, due to the link between romanticism and the Risorgimento. First of all, the twentieth-century and contemporary critical debate on Italian romanticism in its relationship with the Risorgimento instances is reconstructed, distinguishing two interpretative lines that are essentially opposed, and underlining the crucial phase of the pre-unification decade as a period consciously aimed at rethinking and overcoming the romantic tradition in function of the imminent foundation of a new political reality. Some elements of continuity and discontinuity in the culture of the second half of the nineteenth century are then indicated.