Viaggiare tra Risorgimento e Restaurazione. Tre religiosi toscani a Roma nell'anno 1829
Author(s)
Cipriani, Piera
Date Issued
February 5, 2010
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
The topic of my thesis is the journey made to Rome in 1829 by three Tuscan churchmen: the
Camaldolese Silvestro Bernardini, the ex-parish priest Jacopo Bartolini, the treasurer of the
group, and the canon Gaetano Talej. They wrote a diary of this journey which is preserved in the
Historical Archive of the Monastery of Camaldoli.
The manuscript, marked Ms 134, is made of 142 sheets of paper numbered in progressive order
by the redactor, who never reveals his identity and states that e has just copied down the original text.
The protagonists are humble members of the lower clergy and cannot rely on large financial
resources, therefore travelling together allow them to amortize the expenses, moreover the
journey itself is conceived as an experience to share. As a matter of fact it a journey for pleasure, which takes the three men away from their world and put them in contact with a more various and open-minded reality.
I have tried to show how this experience developed, especially in Silvestro Bernardini, a lay value of the journey actually made.
The relationship with the guide written by Mariano Vasi is crucial.
The reference to this text confirms that the journey was thought as a series of steps following a planned route, even though the writer stresses on Bernardini’s and Talej’s dissatisfaction with Bartolini’s proposal not to travel more than eight days.
My thesis consists of 5 chapters.
The first introduces two types of travellers, the noblemen and the churchmen, who move within
and outside the Papal State in the modern age. The topic is also supported by unpublished
documents preserved in family important archives.
It is important to contextualize the manuscript in the historical background in which the journey
took place , therefore in the second chapter I have developed a mapping of the Italian travellers
who in the first years of the 19th century visit Rome for various reasons and I have tried to
emphasise the peculiar features of each journey. Different journeys and travellers witness a
process of democratization which involves the idea of travelling and gives it a “popular” value.
In a country which was not yet unified the travel contributed to make distant territories near and
to discover common elements across Italy.
The third chapter is a personal interpretation of the Camaldolese manuscript according to the
criteria of the traveller’s literature, and underlines the rise of contrasting positions between Bernardini and Bartolini who turn into characters.
The fourth one follows the outward and return journey of the three Tuscan churchmen, set in its
historical background.
Therefore I mapped the condition of the road network of the Papal State in the first half of the 19th century, a period of Risorgimento and Restaurazione, characterised by important changes; I have also shown how distant the three me’ culture is from the Risorgimento, even though it affected the objects of their interest and the journey itself.
The fifth chapter contains a list of the travel texts preserved in the cultural institutes I visited for my research.
The manuscript has been inserted as addendum.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Storia e cultura del viaggio e dell'odeporica in età moderna
Subjects
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