Giancarlo Conestabile della Staffa: un nobile in viaggio tra l'arte e il Risorgimento
Author(s)
Stocchi, Francesca Romana
Date Issued
February 5, 2010
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
My thesis consists in the analysis of a travel notebook made of 37 autograph sheets of papers
collected under the title da Roma a Napoli e descrizione dei vari monumenti di questa città e dei suoi punti di vista, di Giancarlo Conestabile(1842). The notebook includes 17 papers which the author entitled Appunti di un viaggio a Napoli and which are short comments on his stay in Naples. The other notebook I refer to in my essay, even though more slightly, is made of 30 autograph sheets and is called Viaggio in Umbria Marche e Romagna (1844) di Giancarlo Conestabile della Staffa.
All the papers are contained in the manuscript 2435 which is formed by quadernetti e taccuini all
written by the Perugian nobleman and belonging to the extremely interesting «Fondo Conestabile
della Staffa», which is preserved in the Augusta Library in Perugia. A part of the original
documentation was acquired by the Archivio dell’Università degli Studi in Perugia and the Archivio di Stato in the same city.
Giancarlo Conestabile della Staffa, famous among the scholars of Archeology is a well.known man
in the cultural European milieu of scholars of antique, he travels widely in Italy as well as abroad, both for study and for pleasure.
He arrives in Naples for the first time in 1842, he is 18, longing to see the artistic beauty of the city and fascinated by the lively and vivacious perspective which it can offer.
The essay is made up of 5 chapters and deals with the journey of the young Perugian and
contextualizes it in the special historical background in which it takes place: in the 40s of the Risorgimento in the Papal State and the Bourbon Kingdom. It also compares this journey with the ones of other travellers in Italy since the 17th century.
In my essay I mean to get the different points of view from which the different travellers look at the places they visit and how the places themselves always look like a different and changing reality.
Chapter I: it is on documents, some unpublished, written by travellers from and to Rome, along the
Via Francigena; these travellers are Italian but also from abroad:
- churchmen
- noblemen travelling by themselves or with their families
- English travellers, tutors, collectors of art, all men on their Grand Tour
The Società Geografica Italiana, the Fondo Caetani, the Doria Pamphili Archive, the Angelica
Library, the Archivio di Stato of Rome, the Corsiniana Library, the Archivio delle Cerimonie del Vaticano, the library at the Montevergine Sanctuary are the libraries where I collected the
information about the travellers of the 18th century: they were churchmen, noblemen but also
scientists and explorers.
Chapter II: its contents are
- the Fondo Conestabile della Staffa and the shelf-marks of the manuscripts. They are 100
works about the cultural and artistic experiences of ancient civilizations, and studies on Italic
antiquities. Many documents are about discoveries and finds, others are notes of lessons;
- the documents object of my thesis: a small notebook written when he decided to move to
Naples after spending five months in Rome, an another booklet concerning a journey to
Umbria, Marche and Romagna in 1844;
- their author, Giancarlo Conestabile della Staffa, his life, his studies and his relationship with the political and cultural environment of his time;
- the nature of the journey and of the traveller together with the analysis of the reasons why he
travelled;
In this chapter I have collected some records of travellers of the 19th century, stressing the variety of the experiences and comparing them with the one lived by Conestabile; I have also inserted a list of Italian and foreign travellers who share some affinity with Conestabile about the places they visit and the historical events which involve them;
Chapter III: it is about the analysis of the manuscript. The description of the journey in 4
paragraphs.
- The first one concerns the journey to the Papal State and includes the description of the route,
of the staging posts from the point of view of the traveller: a learned 18 year old young man
enthusiastic about his new experience. The second paragraph describes the journey to the
Bourbon Kingdom until the Dogana Vecchia Road at Capodichino. The third one is on
Conestabile’s arrival in Naples and his perception of the city. The fourth and last paragraph is dedicated to the impression the young man has of the city and its territory. Here the young man is aware that this experience “assicura una abilitazione a esercitare il proprio magistero, quello di studioso dell’arte”, equating travel with knowledge;
Chapter IV: It is a comment on the manuscript set in the critical context of the travel literature
and on its importance; it also contains the presentation of two other autograph texts about a
journey to Umbria.
Chapter V: it 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 nell'età moderna
Subjects
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
frstocchi_tesid.pdf
Size
4.1 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6a5c4d06d2c6973c5a9c923dd1cb56c5