THE UISPP JOURNAL
Alessandro Guidi – ITALIAN PREHISTORIANS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH FOREIGN COLLEAGUES
In this paper I try to trace a brief history of this peculiar intellectual interplay, specially looking at the interrelationships with the foreign institutes created by many countries in Rome, between the unification of Italy (1860) and the end of the Second World War, by subdividing this long-time span into four phases: from the Italian unification (but also taking into account some of the important events which took place between 1850 and 1860) to 1871, year which saw the important International Congress in Bologna; from 1872 to 1900; from 1901 to 1921; the period between World War I and II (1922–1945). On the background of this intellectual adventure it is possible to see an ever latent conflict between the dominant stream of Italian archaeology made by classical studies and history of ancient art, born in an international climate together with the “Grand Tour” tradition and this new “Cinderella” of Italian archaeology, the paleoethnology (a word invented during the 1865 meeting of natural scientists in La Spezia meaning “ethnology of ancient peoples”), surely with deepest roots in the national tradition, very strong in the age of the glorious “Risorgimento”.
Reference as:
Guidi A. 2018. Italian prehistorians and their relationships with foreign colleagues. UISPP Journal 1, pp 73–84. https://doi.org/10.62526/MH2PP8
