Intervenants et résumés des communications > Elisa MARAZZI

Elisa MARAZZI (Università degli Studi di Milano) : « Vie de Jésus in Italy between Censorship and Laicism (1863-1914) »

Elisa Marazzi is postdoctoral researcher in book history at the University of Milan. Her researches deal with popular, educational and science popularisation publishing in 19th and 20th century with a transnational focus. Currently, she is carrying out a project on the role of Italian publishers in the reception of Positivism. Besides papers in journals and collected volumes, she has published Libri per diventare italiani. L'editoria per la scuola a Milano nel secondo Ottocento (2014) and Sotto il segno di Barbanera. Continuità e trasformazioni di un almanacco tra XVIII e XXI secolo (2017).

The paper will deal with the Italian editions of Vie de Jésus by Renan (the first one of which was published in Milan by Daelli in 1863). The aim is to collocate the translation of the work and its fortune in the social political and cultural context. Two key issues to understand the reception of this work in the country will be taken into account: on the one hand, the life of a text that was blacklisted in the Catholic Index librorum prohibitorum together with Renan's other writings; on the other hand the appreciation of Renan and his works especially in some Italian areas. In fact, the reception of the French author was influenced by words of appraisal Renan had expressed towards the Italian Risorgimento and by the interest of Mazzini and other political activists and intellectuals for Renan's ideas concerning the will of people in the process of nation building.