16.07.2019

New EGO article »Model Italy, 1450–1650« by Cornel Zwierlein

The »Italian Model« or »Modèle italien« is perhaps the oldest and most common in our received tradition of writing history because Fernand Braudel published his history of the Italian Renaissance in French under the title »Le modèle italien«. The major question and the answers are the same: when and how do civilizational or cultural entities interact and why does the Mediterranean culture serve as a model? In his new published article on the EGO-Website, Cornel Zwierlein speaks about the historical roots of the ›Model-Model‹. How was the question of the diffusion of Italian Renaissance and Baroque culture across Europe rooted in pre- and post-World War II historiography? What were the implicit and explicit assumptions underlying such a project between the 1930s and the 1980s? This leads to a discussion of how such a historical narrative can still be adopted today. Defining then a narrow concept of the »Italian Renaissance as Model«, the article sketches what could be a History of the Italian Renaissance as model for and in Europe.

EGO | European History Online is a transcultural history of Europe on the Internet. It investigates processes of intercultural exchange in European history whose impact extended beyond state, national and cultural borders. EGO describes Europe as a constantly changing communicative space, which witnessed extremely varied processes of interaction, circulation, overlapping and entanglement, of exchange and transfer, but also confrontation, resistance and demarcation.

Zwierlein, Cornel: Model Italy, 1450–1650, in: European History Online (EGO), published by the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz 2019-06-18. URL: http://www.ieg-ego.eu/zwierleinc-2019-en URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2018090308 [YYYY-MM-DD].

Lion of Saint Mark, the symbol of the Republic of Venice, at Frangokastello, Dimos Sfakia, Nomos Chania, Crete, Greece (a one-time possession by Venice), colour photography, 2007, photograph: Olaf Tausch; source: Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.