Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Milan (Italy) – Intellectual life – 18th century »

A Diary of a Journey to Italy and Switzerland in 1815–1816 written by Rozalia Dunin-Borkowska is one of few preserved descriptions of a journey to Italy made by a Polish woman in the early 19th century. Rozalia and her husband Stanisław embarked on their expedition on 27 May 1815 in Lvov; they went to Italy and spent nine months there, from October 1815 to July 1816. The Italian tour started in Venice and included Padua, Bologna, Florence (twice), Rome, Naples, Milan and Geneva. The spouses spent the journey actively although their main goal was to learn about the culture of the Italian Peninsula. Undoubtedly, their time in Italy was filled with admiring the works of art and visiting the most famous art galleries in almost every city on the itinerary. Consequently, the journal is full of reflections on the aesthetic value of Italian works of art. Rozalia Dunin-Borkowska was an informed traveller: while she admired the sights and paintings, sculptures and other works of art, she did that in a thoughtful way. She needed quality time to form her own opinions. Her journal demonstrates very well that visiting foreign countries was an intellectually stimulating experience. Getting to know a new culture significantly broadened the horizons of 24-year-old Rozalia. As her journal suggests, she was well-prepared for her European journey. The outstanding lesson that she learnt allowed her to reap the rewards of the tour and satisfy her intellectual aspirations. The Diary is a great source of experience accumulated by a Polish traveller; it provides an opportunity to find out about Rozalia’s cultural life, her preparation for the journey and how the trip affected her. Furthermore, Dunin-Borkowska’s testimony was compared with Katarzyna Platerowa’s and Teofilia Morawska’s diaries due to the fact that all three of them shared certain common features. Namely, their cultural background, material status and, most importantly, the travel itinerary. They were all well prepared for their respective journeys; they were also well educated, fluent in foreign languages and, above all, they were curious about the world and interested in learning about a new culture. Each of these travellers was influenced by the European journey which provided educational values combined with unforgettable experiences.

ResumoNeste trabalho, apresentaremos sumamente alguns aspectos da vida e legado de Maria Gaetana Agnesi, sobretudo em relação à sua juventude e inspirações que precederam ao surgimento de sua única obra matemática Instituzioni Analitiche ad uso dela giuveniu italiana, de 1748. Nos dias de hoje, Agnesi é relativamente conhecida, tendo seu nome principalmente associado à curva denominada Curva de Agnesi ou Curva da Bruxa, que consta em um dos tópicos de Instituzioni Analitiche, e pelo fato dela, ainda jovem, abandonar os estudos matemáticos para dedicar o restante de sua vida ao assistencialismo. Contudo, para vislumbrarmos não somente as possíveis razões que levaram Agnesi a escrever sua obra e ter abandonado seus estudos, devemos situá-la no cenário intelectual milanês, tendo como pano de fundo alguns aspectos do “Catolicismo Iluminado”, movimento responsável pela disseminação da filosofia natural na Itália setecentista. O surgimento de sua obra matemática dá indícios de que houve razões políticas, religiosas e culturais para sua produção, e as escolhas de Agnesi se mostram estreitamente relacionadas com esse movimento de reforma religiosa que se instaurava na Itália no período. Consideramos que a busca pela compreensão do lugar ocupado por Agnesi, especialmente em relação a sua obra Instituzione Analitiche, conduz à constatação de que seu trabalho se insere como parte do processo de produção e circulação dos saberes constituídos em meados do setecentos principalmente, e da divulgação da Análise e do Cálculo, particularmente com relação à “matemática pura” e às “matemáticas mistas” na Itália, no século XVIII. Contudo, neste artigo, nosso propósito é apresentar Agnesi, o entorno de sua formação e alguns episódios referentes a divulgação de seu trabalho matemático.Palavras-chave: Catolicismo Iluminado; Maria Gaetana Agnesi; Mulheres na Ciência.AbstractIn this work, we will present a few aspects of the life and legacy of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, especially in relation to her youth and inspirations that preceded the appearance of her only mathematical work Instituzioni Analitiche ad uso dela giuveniu italiana, from 1748. Nowadays, Agnesi is relatively well-known, with her name mainly associated with the curve called the Agnesi Curve or Witch's Curve, which appears in one of the topics of Instituzioni Analitiche, and because sheis abandoning mathematical studies still young, to devote the rest of her life to assistance. However, in order to glimpse not only the possible reasons that led Agnesi to write his work and to abandon his studies, we must situate her in the Milan intellectual scene, having as background some aspects of "Illuminated Catholicism", movement responsible for the dissemination of philosophy natural at eighteenth-century, in Italy. The appearance of his mathematical work gives indications that there were political, religious, and cultural reasons for his production, and Agnesi's choices are closely related to this movement of religious reform that was established in Italy in the period. We consider that the understanding of the place occupied by Agnesi, especially in relation to his work Instituzione Analitiche, leads to the realization that his work forms part of the process of production and circulation of the knowledges constituted in the mid-seventies mainly, and the dissemination of Analysis and of Calculus, particularly in relation to "pure mathematics" and "mixed mathematics" at eighteenth-century, in Italy. However, in this article, our purpose is to present Agnesi, the surroundings of his formation and some episodes referring to the dissemination of his mathematical work.Keywords: Illuminated Catholicism; Maria Gaetana Agnesi; Women in Science.

The first half of the 18th century, in a way, is a period of preparation, ending with two facts that will soon acquire a considerable symbolic significance: the death of Ludovico Antonio Muratori and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In Milan, Muratori’s legacy mainly lies in the historical studies, but it can also be seen in the project of an increasingly strong interaction between culture and society. The new intellectual generation, gathering around the periodical “Il Caffè”, adds to what Muratori had taught the explosive mixture of novelties from the transalpine countries, first of all, Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, and the revolutionary place it gives to ‘practice’ within the hierarchy of knowledge. “Il Caffè”, and works such as On Crimes and Punishments, Meditations on Happiness, and Observations on Torture, but even Parini’s civil poetry, hand down to the following century a multifarious reflection on justice, social coexistence, and improvement of mankind, which will become deeply rooted in the collective consciousness, thus reducing the 17th-century gap between Italy and Europe regarding science.

The first half of the 18th century, in a way, is a period of preparation, ending with two facts that will soon acquire a considerable symbolic significance: the death of Ludovico Antonio Muratori and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In Milan, Muratori’s legacy mainly lies in the historical studies, but it can also be seen in the project of an increasingly strong interaction between culture and society. The new intellectual generation, gathering around the periodical “Il Caffè”, adds to what Muratori had taught the explosive mixture of novelties from the transalpine countries, first of all, Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, and the revolutionary place it gives to ‘practice’ within the hierarchy of knowledge. “Il Caffè”, and works such as On Crimes and Punishments, Meditations on Happiness, and Observations on Torture, but even Parini’s civil poetry, hand down to the following century a multifarious reflection on justice, social coexistence, and improvement of mankind, which will become deeply rooted in the collective consciousness, thus reducing the 17th-century gap between Italy and Europe regarding science.

Abandoning undesired newborn infants was a Roman form of family limitation. They were exposed or given to foster mothers. Christianization alleviated their lot when in 374 CE, Emperor Valentinian’s law provided some protection. The Milan Foundling Hospital was established in 787 CE. When the Carolingian Empire fell apart during the 10th century, monastic networks (the Holy Spirit Order and Daughters of Charity) took over social support for the poor, the sick, and the insane. Foundling hospitals proliferated in Italy between the 13th and 15th centuries, in France during the 16th and 17th, and in Germany and Austria in the 18th century. Metropolitan hospices admitted thousands of infants each year. Most were not “found” exposed but were admitted anonymously via a revolving box or registered in an open office. Soon after admission, they were transported for foster care to wet nurses in villages. Sick infants, especially those suspected of suffering from syphilis, were denied the breast, and artificial feeding was tried with little success. Official death statistics were falsified by relating infant deaths not to admissions but to the total number of children cared for. Over 60% died during their first year of life, mostly from pre-admission problems such as malformation, hypothermia, and disease; from poor hygiene in overcrowded wards; and from artificial feeding. Although not intended for that purpose, the hospices became medical research institutions when in late 18th century, physicians and surgeons were employed by maternity and foundling hospitals.

IntroductionFirmly located within the discourse of visible culture as the lofty preserve of art exhibitions and museum artefacts, the noun “curate” has gradually transformed into the verb “to curate”. Williams writes that “curate” has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded to describe a creative activity. Designers no longer simply sell clothes; they “curate” merchandise. Chefs no longer only make food; they also “curate” meals. Chosen for their keen eye for a particular style or a precise shade, it is their knowledge of their craft, their reputation, and their sheer ability to choose among countless objects which make the creative process a creative activity in itself. Writing from within the framework of “curate” as a creative process, this article discusses how the state banquet for Queen Elizabeth II, hosted by Irish President Mary McAleese at Dublin Castle in May 2011, was carefully curated to represent Ireland’s diplomatic, cultural, and culinary identity. The paper will focus in particular on how the menu for the banquet was created and how the banquet’s brief, “Ireland on a Plate”, was fulfilled.History and BackgroundFood has been used by nations for centuries to display wealth, cement alliances, and impress foreign visitors. Since the feasts of the Numidian kings (circa 340 BC), culinary staging and presentation has belonged to “a long, multifaceted and multicultural history of diplomatic practices” (IEHCA 5). According to the works of Baughman, Young, and Albala, food has defined the social, cultural, and political position of a nation’s leaders throughout history.In early 2011, Ross Lewis, Chef Patron of Chapter One Restaurant in Dublin, was asked by the Irish Food Board, Bord Bía, if he would be available to create a menu for a high-profile banquet (Mahon 112). The name of the guest of honour was divulged several weeks later after vetting by the protocol and security divisions of the Department of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Lewis was informed that the menu was for the state banquet to be hosted by President Mary McAleese at Dublin Castle in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Ireland the following May.Hosting a formal banquet for a visiting head of state is a key feature in the statecraft of international and diplomatic relations. Food is the societal common denominator that links all human beings, regardless of culture (Pliner and Rozin 19). When world leaders publicly share a meal, that meal is laden with symbolism, illuminating each diner’s position “in social networks and social systems” (Sobal, Bove, and Rauschenbach 378). The public nature of the meal signifies status and symbolic kinship and that “guest and host are on par in terms of their personal or official attributes” (Morgan 149). While the field of academic scholarship on diplomatic dining might be young, there is little doubt of the value ascribed to the semiotics of diplomatic gastronomy in modern power structures (Morgan 150; De Vooght and Scholliers 12; Chapple-Sokol 162), for, as Firth explains, symbols are malleable and perfectly suited to exploitation by all parties (427).Political DiplomacyWhen Ireland gained independence in December 1921, it marked the end of eight centuries of British rule. The outbreak of “The Troubles” in 1969 in Northern Ireland upset the gradually improving environment of British–Irish relations, and it would be some time before a state visit became a possibility. Beginning with the peace process in the 1990s, the IRA ceasefire of 1994, and the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, a state visit was firmly set in motion by the visit of Irish President Mary Robinson to Buckingham Palace in 1993, followed by the unofficial visit of the Prince of Wales to Ireland in 1995, and the visit of Irish President Mary McAleese to Buckingham Palace in 1999. An official invitation to Queen Elizabeth from President Mary McAleese in March 2011 was accepted, and the visit was scheduled for mid-May of the same year.The visit was a highly performative occasion, orchestrated and ordained in great detail, displaying all the necessary protocol associated with the state visit of one head of state to another: inspection of the military, a courtesy visit to the nation’s head of state on arrival, the laying of a wreath at the nation’s war memorial, and a state banquet.These aspects of protocol between Britain and Ireland were particularly symbolic. By inspecting the military on arrival, the existence of which is a key indicator of independence, Queen Elizabeth effectively demonstrated her recognition of Ireland’s national sovereignty. On making the customary courtesy call to the head of state, the Queen was received by President McAleese at her official residence Áras an Uachtaráin (The President’s House), which had formerly been the residence of the British monarch’s representative in Ireland (Robbins 66). The state banquet was held in Dublin Castle, once the headquarters of British rule where the Viceroy, the representative of Britain’s Court of St James, had maintained court (McDowell 1).Cultural DiplomacyThe state banquet provided an exceptional showcase of Irish culture and design and generated a level of preparation previously unseen among Dublin Castle staff, who described it as “the most stage managed state event” they had ever witnessed (Mahon 129).The castle was cleaned from top to bottom, and inventories were taken of the furniture and fittings. The Waterford Crystal chandeliers were painstakingly taken down, cleaned, and reassembled; the Killybegs carpets and rugs of Irish lamb’s wool were cleaned and repaired. A special edition Newbridge Silverware pen was commissioned for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip to sign the newly ordered Irish leather-bound visitors’ book. A new set of state tableware was ordered for the President’s table. Irish manufacturers of household goods necessary for the guest rooms, such as towels and soaps, hand creams and body lotions, candle holders and scent diffusers, were sought. Members of Her Majesty’s staff conducted a “walk-through” several weeks in advance of the visit to ensure that the Queen’s wardrobe would not clash with the surroundings (Mahon 129–32).The promotion of Irish manufacture is a constant thread throughout history. Irish linen, writes Kane, enjoyed a reputation as far afield as the Netherlands and Italy in the 15th century, and archival documents from the Vaucluse attest to the purchase of Irish cloth in Avignon in 1432 (249–50). Support for Irish-made goods was raised in 1720 by Jonathan Swift, and by the 18th century, writes Foster, Dublin had become an important centre for luxury goods (44–51).It has been Irish government policy since the late 1940s to use Irish-manufactured goods for state entertaining, so the material culture of the banquet was distinctly Irish: Arklow Pottery plates, Newbridge Silverware cutlery, Waterford Crystal glassware, and Irish linen tablecloths. In order to decide upon the table setting for the banquet, four tables were laid in the King’s Bedroom in Dublin Castle. The Executive Chef responsible for the banquet menu, and certain key personnel, helped determine which setting would facilitate serving the food within the time schedule allowed (Mahon 128–29). The style of service would be service à la russe, so widespread in restaurants today as to seem unremarkable. Each plate is prepared in the kitchen by the chef and then served to each individual guest at table. In the mid-19th century, this style of service replaced service à la française, in which guests typically entered the dining room after the first course had been laid on the table and selected food from the choice of dishes displayed around them (Kaufman 126).The guest list was compiled by government and embassy officials on both sides and was a roll call of Irish and British life. At the President’s table, 10 guests would be served by a team of 10 staff in Dorchester livery. The remaining tables would each seat 12 guests, served by 12 liveried staff. The staff practiced for several days prior to the banquet to make sure that service would proceed smoothly within the time frame allowed. The team of waiters, each carrying a plate, would emerge from the kitchen in single file. They would then take up positions around the table, each waiter standing to the left of the guest they would serve. On receipt of a discreet signal, each plate would be laid in front of each guest at precisely the same moment, after which the waiters would then about foot and return to the kitchen in single file (Mahon 130).Post-prandial entertainment featured distinctive styles of performance and instruments associated with Irish traditional music. These included reels, hornpipes, and slipjigs, voice and harp, sean-nόs (old style) singing, and performances by established Irish artists on the fiddle, bouzouki, flute, and uilleann pipes (Office of Public Works).Culinary Diplomacy: Ireland on a PlateLewis was given the following brief: the menu had to be Irish, the main course must be beef, and the meal should represent the very best of Irish ingredients. There were no restrictions on menu design. There were no dietary requirements or specific requests from the Queen’s representatives, although Lewis was informed that shellfish is excluded de facto from Irish state banquets as a precautionary measure. The meal was to be four courses long and had to be served to 170 diners within exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes (Mahon 112). A small army of 16 chefs and 4 kitchen porters would prepare the food in the kitchen of Dublin Castle under tight security. The dishes would be served on state tableware by 40 waiters, 6 restaurant managers, a banqueting manager and a sommélier. Lewis would be at the helm of the operation as Executive Chef (Mahon 112–13).Lewis started by drawing up “a patchwork quilt” of the products he most wanted to use and built the menu around it. The choice of suppliers was based on experience but also on a supplier’s ability to deliver perfectly ripe goods in mid-May, a typically black spot in the Irish fruit and vegetable growing calendar as it sits between the end of one season and the beginning of another. Lewis consulted the Queen’s itinerary and the menus to be served so as to avoid repetitions. He had to discard his initial plan to feature lobster in the starter and rhubarb in the dessert—the former for the precautionary reasons mentioned above, and the latter because it featured on the Queen’s lunch menu on the day of the banquet (Mahon 112–13).Once the ingredients had been selected, the menu design focused on creating tastes, flavours and textures. Several draft menus were drawn up and myriad dishes were tasted and discussed in the kitchen of Lewis’s own restaurant. Various wines were paired and tasted with the different courses, the final choice being a Château Lynch-Bages 1998 red and a Château de Fieuzal 2005 white, both from French Bordeaux estates with an Irish connection (Kellaghan 3). Two months and two menu sittings later, the final menu was confirmed and signed off by state and embassy officials (Mahon 112–16).The StarterThe banquet’s starter featured organic Clare Island salmon cured in a sweet brine, laid on top of a salmon cream combining wild smoked salmon from the Burren and Cork’s Glenilen Farm crème fraîche, set over a lemon balm jelly from the Tannery Cookery School Gardens, Waterford. Garnished with horseradish cream, wild watercress, and chive flowers from Wicklow, the dish was finished with rapeseed oil from Kilkenny and a little sea salt from West Cork (Mahon 114). Main CourseA main course of Irish beef featured as the pièce de résistance of the menu. A rib of beef from Wexford’s Slaney Valley was provided by Kettyle Irish Foods in Fermanagh and served with ox cheek and tongue from Rathcoole, County Dublin. From along the eastern coastline came the ingredients for the traditional Irish dish of smoked champ: cabbage from Wicklow combined with potatoes and spring onions grown in Dublin. The new season’s broad beans and carrots were served with wild garlic leaf, which adorned the dish (Mahon 113). Cheese CourseThe cheese course was made up of Knockdrinna, a Tomme style goat’s milk cheese from Kilkenny; Milleens, a Munster style cow’s milk cheese produced in Cork; Cashel Blue, a cow’s milk blue cheese from Tipperary; and Glebe Brethan, a Comté style cheese from raw cow’s milk from Louth. Ditty’s Oatmeal Biscuits from Belfast accompanied the course.DessertLewis chose to feature Irish strawberries in the dessert. Pat Clarke guaranteed delivery of ripe strawberries on the day of the banquet. They married perfectly with cream and yoghurt from Glenilen Farm in Cork. The cream was set with Irish Carrageen moss, overlaid with strawberry jelly and sauce, and garnished with meringues made with Irish apple balsamic vinegar from Lusk in North Dublin, yoghurt mousse, and Irish soda bread tuiles made with wholemeal flour from the Mosse family mill in Kilkenny (Mahon 113).The following day, President McAleese telephoned Lewis, saying of the banquet “Ní hé go raibh sé go maith, ach go raibh sé míle uair níos fearr ná sin” (“It’s not that it was good but that it was a thousand times better”). The President observed that the menu was not only delicious but that it was “amazingly articulate in terms of the story that it told about Ireland and Irish food.” The Queen had particularly enjoyed the stuffed cabbage leaf of tongue, cheek and smoked colcannon (a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes with curly kale or green cabbage) and had noted the diverse selection of Irish ingredients from Irish artisans (Mahon 116). Irish CuisineWhen the topic of food is explored in Irish historiography, the focus tends to be on the consequences of the Great Famine (1845–49) which left the country “socially and emotionally scarred for well over a century” (Mac Con Iomaire and Gallagher 161). Some commentators consider the term “Irish cuisine” oxymoronic, according to Mac Con Iomaire and Maher (3). As Goldstein observes, Ireland has suffered twice—once from its food deprivation and second because these deprivations present an obstacle for the exploration of Irish foodways (xii). Writing about Italian, Irish, and Jewish migration to America, Diner states that the Irish did not have a food culture to speak of and that Irish writers “rarely included the details of food in describing daily life” (85). Mac Con Iomaire and Maher note that Diner’s methodology overlooks a centuries-long tradition of hospitality in Ireland such as that described by Simms (68) and shows an unfamiliarity with the wealth of food related sources in the Irish language, as highlighted by Mac Con Iomaire (“Exploring” 1–23).Recent scholarship on Ireland’s culinary past is unearthing a fascinating story of a much more nuanced culinary heritage than has been previously understood. This is clearly demonstrated in the research of Cullen, Cashman, Deleuze, Kellaghan, Kelly, Kennedy, Legg, Mac Con Iomaire, Mahon, O’Sullivan, Richman Kenneally, Sexton, and Stanley, Danaher, and Eogan.In 1996 Ireland was described by McKenna as having the most dynamic cuisine in any European country, a place where in the last decade “a vibrant almost unlikely style of cooking has emerged” (qtd. in Mac Con Iomaire “Jammet’s” 136). By 2014, there were nine restaurants in Dublin which had been awarded Michelin stars or Red Ms (Mac Con Iomaire “Jammet’s” 137). Ross Lewis, Chef Patron of Chapter One Restaurant, who would be chosen to create the menu for the state banquet for Queen Elizabeth II, has maintained a Michelin star since 2008 (Mac Con Iomaire, “Jammet’s” 138). Most recently the current strength of Irish gastronomy is globally apparent in Mark Moriarty’s award as San Pellegrino Young Chef 2015 (McQuillan). As Deleuze succinctly states: “Ireland has gone mad about food” (143).This article is part of a research project into Irish diplomatic dining, and the author is part of a research cluster into Ireland’s culinary heritage within the Dublin Institute of Technology. The aim of the research is to add to the growing body of scholarship on Irish gastronomic history and, ultimately, to contribute to the discourse on the existence of a national cuisine. If, as Zubaida says, “a nation’s cuisine is its court’s cuisine,” then it is time for Ireland to “research the feasts as well as the famines” (Mac Con Iomaire and Cashman 97).ConclusionThe Irish state banquet for Queen Elizabeth II in May 2011 was a highly orchestrated and formalised process. From the menu, material culture, entertainment, and level of consultation in the creative content, it is evident that the banquet was carefully curated to represent Ireland’s diplomatic, cultural, and culinary identity.The effects of the visit appear to have been felt in the years which have followed. Hennessy wrote in the Irish Times newspaper that Queen Elizabeth is privately said to regard her visit to Ireland as the most significant of the trips she has made during her 60-year reign. British Prime Minister David Cameron is noted to mention the visit before every Irish audience he encounters, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague has spoken in particular of the impact the state banquet in Dublin Castle made upon him. Hennessy points out that one of the most significant indicators of the peaceful relationship which exists between the two countries nowadays was the subsequent state visit by Irish President Michael D. Higgins to Britain in 2013. This was the first state visit to the United Kingdom by a President of Ireland and would have been unimaginable 25 years ago. The fact that the President and his wife stayed at Windsor Castle and that the attendant state banquet was held there instead of Buckingham Palace were both deemed to be marks of special favour and directly attributed to the success of Her Majesty’s 2011 visit to Ireland.As the research demonstrates, eating together unites rather than separates, gathers rather than divides, diffuses political tensions, and confirms alliances. It might be said then that the 2011 state banquet hosted by President Mary McAleese in honour of Queen Elizabeth II, curated by Ross Lewis, gives particular meaning to the axiom “to eat together is to eat in peace” (Taliano des Garets 160).AcknowledgementsSupervisors: Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire (Dublin Institute of Technology) and Dr Michael Kennedy (Royal Irish Academy)Fáilte IrelandPhotos of the banquet dishes supplied and permission to reproduce them for this article kindly granted by Ross Lewis, Chef Patron, Chapter One Restaurant ‹http://www.chapteronerestaurant.com/›.Illustration ‘Ireland on a Plate’ © Jesse Campbell BrownRemerciementsThe author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article.ReferencesAlbala, Ken. The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe. 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Dégueulasse is French slang for “disgusting,” derived in 1867 from the French verb dégueuler, to vomit. Despite its vulgar status, it is frequently used by almost every French speaker, including foreigners and students. It is also a term that has often been employed to describe the 1973 cult film, La Grande bouffe [Blow Out], by Marco Ferreri, which recounts in grotesque detail the gastronomic suicide of four male protagonists. This R-rated French-Italian production was booed, and the director spat on, at the 26th Cannes Film Festival—the Jury President, Ingrid Bergman, said it was the most “sordid” film she’d ever seen, and is even reported to have vomited after watching it (Télérama). Ferreri nevertheless walked away with the Prix FIPRESCI, awarded by the Federation of International Critics, and it is apparently the largest grossing release in the history of Paris with more than 700,000 entries in Paris and almost 3 million in France overall. Scandal sells, and this was especially seemingly so 1970s, when this film was avidly consumed as part of an unholy trinity alongside Bernardo Bertolucci’s Le Dernier Tango à Paris [Last Tango in Paris] (1972) and Jean Eustache’s La Maman et la putain [The Mother and the Whore] (1973). Fast forward forty years, though, and at the very moment when La Grande bouffe was being commemorated with a special screening on the 2013 Cannes Film Festival programme, a handful of University of Melbourne French students in a subject called “Matters of Taste” were boycotting the film as an unacceptable assault to their sensibilities. Over the decade that I have been showing the film to undergraduate students, this has never happened before. In this article, I want to examine critically the questions of taste that underpin this particular predicament. Analysing firstly the intradiegetic portrayal of taste in the film, through both gustatory and aesthetic signifiers, then the choice of the film as a key element in a University subject corpus, I will finally question the (dis)taste displayed by certain students, contextualising it as part of an ongoing socio-cultural commentary on food, sex, life, and death. Framed by a brief foray into Bourdieusian theories of taste, I will attempt to draw some conclusions on the continual renegotiation of gustatory and aesthetic tastes in relation to La Grande bouffe, and thereby deepen understanding of why it has become the incarnation of dégueulasse today. Theories of Taste In the 1970s, the parameters of “good” and “bad” taste imploded in the West, following political challenges to the power of the bourgeoisie that also undermined their status as the contemporary arbiters of taste. This revolution of manners was particularly shattering in France, fuelled by the initial success of the May 68 student, worker, and women’s rights movements (Ross). The democratization of taste served to legitimize desires different from those previously dictated by bourgeois norms, enabling greater diversity in representing taste across a broad spectrum. It was reflected in the cultural products of the 1970s, including cinema, which had already broken with tradition during the New Wave in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and became a vector for political ideologies as well as radical aesthetic choices (Smith). Commonly regarded as “the decade that taste forgot,” the 1970s were also a time for re-assessing the sociology of taste, with the magisterial publication of Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979, English trans. 1984). As Bourdieu refuted Kant’s differentiation between the legitimate aesthetic, so defined by its “disinterestedness,” and the common aesthetic, derived from sensory pleasures and ordinary meanings, he also attempted to abolish the opposition between the “taste of reflection” (pure pleasure) and the “taste of sense” (facile pleasure) (Bourdieu 7). In so doing, he laid the foundations of a new paradigm for understanding the apparently incommensurable choices that are not the innate expression of our unique personalities, but rather the product of our class, education, family experiences—our habitus. Where Bourdieu’s theories align most closely with the relationship between taste and revulsion is in the realm of aesthetic disposition and its desire to differentiate: “good” taste is almost always predicated on the distaste of the tastes of others. Tastes (i.e. manifested preferences) are the practical affirmation of an inevitable difference. It is no accident that, when they have to be justified, they are asserted purely negatively, by the refusal of other tastes. In matters of taste, more than anywhere else, all determination is negation; and tastes are perhaps first and foremost distastes, disgust provoked by horror or visceral intolerance (“sick-making”) of the tastes of others. “De gustibus non est disputandum”: not because “tous les goûts sont dans la nature,” but because each taste feels itself to be natural—and so it almost is, being a habitus—which amounts to rejecting others as unnatural and therefore vicious. Aesthetic intolerance can be terribly violent. Aversion to different life-styles is perhaps one of the strongest barriers between the classes (Bourdieu). Although today’s “Gen Y” Melbourne University students are a long way from 1970s French working class/bourgeois culture clashes, these observations on taste as the corollary of distaste are still salient tools of interpretation of their attitudes towards La Grande bouffe. And, just as Bourdieu effectively deconstructed Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgement and the 18th “century of taste” notions of universality and morality in aesthetics (Dickie, Gadamer, Allison) in his groundbreaking study of distinction, his own theories have in turn been subject to revision in an age of omnivorous consumption and eclectic globalisation, with various cultural practices further destabilising the hierarchies that formerly monopolized legitimate taste (Sciences Humaines, etc). Bourdieu’s theories are still, however, useful for analysing La Grande bouffe given the contemporaneous production of these texts, as they provide a frame for understanding (dis)taste both within the filmic narrative and in the wider context of its reception. Taste and Distaste in La Grande bouffe To go to the cinema is like to eat or shit, it’s a physiological act, it’s urban guerrilla […] Enough with feelings, I want to make a physiological film (Celluloid Liberation Front). Marco Ferreri’s statements about his motivations for La Grande bouffe coincide here with Bourdieu’s explanation of taste: clearly the director wished to depart from psychological cinema favoured by contemporary critics and audiences and demonstrated his distaste for their preference. There were, however, psychological impulses underpinning his subject matter, as according to film academic Maurizio Viano, Ferrari had a self-destructive, compulsive relation to food, having been forced to spend a few weeks in a Swiss clinic specialising in eating disorders in 1972–1973 (Viano). Food issues abound in his biography. In an interview with Tullio Masoni, the director declared: “I was fat as a child”; his composer Phillipe Sarde recalls the grand Italian-style dinners that he would organise in Paris during the film; and, two of the film’s stars, Marcello Mastroianni and Ugo Tognazzi, actually credit the conception of La Grande bouffe to a Rabelaisian feast prepared by Tognazzi, during which Ferreri exclaimed “hey guys, we are killing ourselves!” (Viano 197–8). Evidently, there were psychological factors behind this film, but it was nevertheless the physiological aspects that Ferreri chose to foreground in his creation. The resulting film does indeed privilege the physiological, as the protagonists fornicate, fart, vomit, defecate, and—of course—eat, to wild excess. The opening scenes do not betray such sordid sequences; the four bourgeois men are introduced one by one so as to establish their class credentials as well as display their different tastes. We first encounter Ugo (Tognazzi), an Italian chef of humble peasant origins, as he leaves his elegant restaurant “Le Biscuit à soupe” and his bourgeois French wife, to take his knives and recipes away with him for the weekend. Then Michel (Piccoli), a TV host who has pre-taped his shows, gives his apartment keys to his 1970s-styled baba-cool daughter as he bids her farewell, and packs up his cleaning products and rubber gloves to take with him. Marcello (Mastroianni) emerges from a cockpit in his aviator sunglasses and smart pilot’s uniform, ordering his sexy airhostesses to carry his cheese and wine for him as he takes a last longing look around his plane. Finally, the judge and owner of the property where the action will unfold, Philippe (Noiret), is awoken by an elderly woman, Nicole, who feeds him tea and brioche, pestering him for details of his whereabouts for the weekend, until he demonstrates his free will and authority, joking about his serious life, and lying to her about attending a legal conference in London. Having given over power of attorney to Nicole, he hints at the finality of his departure, but is trying to wrest back his independence as his nanny exhorts him not to go off with whores. She would rather continue to “sacrifice herself for him” and “keep it in the family,” as she discreetly pleasures him in this scene. Scholars have identified each protagonist as an ideological signifier. For some, they represent power—Philippe is justice—and three products of that ideology: Michel is spectacle, Ugo is food, and Marcello is adventure (Celluloid Liberation Front). For others, these characters are the perfect incarnations of the first four Freudian stages of sexual development: Philippe is Oedipal, Michel is indifferent, Ugo is oral, and Marcello is impotent (Tury & Peter); or even the four temperaments of Hippocratic humouralism: Philippe the phlegmatic, Michel the melancholic, Ugo the sanguine, and Marcello the choleric (Calvesi, Viano). I would like to offer another dimension to these categories, positing that it is each protagonist’s taste that prescribes his participation in this gastronomic suicide as well as the means by which he eventually dies. Before I develop this hypothesis, I will first describe the main thrust of the narrative. The four men arrive at the villa at 68 rue Boileau where they intend to end their days (although this is not yet revealed). All is prepared for the most sophisticated and decadent feasting imaginable, with a delivery of the best meats and poultry unfurling like a surrealist painting. Surrounded by elegant artworks and demonstrating their cultural capital by reciting Shakespeare, Brillat-Savarin, and other classics, the men embark on a race to their death, beginning with a competition to eat the most oysters while watching a vintage pornographic slideshow. There is a strong thread of masculine athletic engagement in this film, as has been studied in detail by James R. Keller in “Four Little Caligulas: La Grande bouffe, Consumption and Male Masochism,” and this is exacerbated by the arrival of a young but matronly schoolmistress Andréa (Ferréol) with her students who want to see the garden. She accepts the men’s invitation to stay on in the house to become another object of competitive desire, and fully embraces all the sexual and gustatory indulgence around her. Marcello goes further by inviting three prostitutes to join them and Ugo prepares a banquet fit for a funeral. The excessive eating makes Michel flatulent and Marcello impotent; when Marcello kicks the toilet in frustration, it explodes in the famous fecal fountain scene that apparently so disgusted his then partner Catherine Deneuve, that she did not speak to him for a week (Ebert). The prostitutes flee the revolting madness, but Andréa stays like an Angel of Death, helping the men meet their end and, in surviving, perhaps symbolically marking an end to the masculinist bourgeoisie they represent.To return to the role of taste in defining the rise and demise of the protagonists, let me begin with Marcello, as he is the first to die. Despite his bourgeois attitudes, he is a modern man, associated with machines and mobility, such as the planes and the beautiful Bugatti, which he strokes with greater sensuality than the women he hoists onto it. His taste is for the functioning mechanical body, fast and competitive, much like himself when he is gorging on oysters. But his own body betrays him when his “masculine mechanics” stop functioning, and it is the fact that the Bugatti has broken down that actually causes his death—he is found frozen in driver’s seat after trying to escape in the Bugatti during the night. Marcello’s taste for the mechanical leads therefore to his eventual demise. Michel is the next victim of his own taste, which privileges aesthetic beauty, elegance, the arts, and fashion, and euphemises the less attractive or impolite, the scatological, boorish side of life. His feminized attire—pink polo-neck and flowing caftan—cannot distract from what is happening in his body. The bourgeois manners that bind him to beauty mean that breaking wind traumatises him. His elegant gestures at the dance barre encourage rather than disguise his flatulence; his loud piano playing cannot cover the sound of his loud farts, much to the mirth of Philippe and Andréa. In a final effort to conceal his painful bowel obstruction, he slips outside to die in obscene and noisy agony, balanced in an improbably balletic pose on the balcony balustrade. His desire for elegance and euphemism heralds his death. Neither Marcello nor Michel go willingly to their ends. Their tastes are thwarted, and their deaths are disgusting to them. Their cadavers are placed in the freezer room as silent witnesses to the orgy that accelerates towards its fatal goal. Ugo’s taste is more earthy and inherently linked to the aims of the adventure. He is the one who states explicitly: “If you don’t eat, you won’t die.” He wants to cook for others and be appreciated for his talents, as well as eat and have sex, preferably at the same time. It is a combination of these desires that kills him as he force-feeds himself the monumental creation of pâté in the shape of the Cathedral of Saint-Peter that has been rejected as too dry by Philippe, and too rich by Andréa. The pride that makes him attempt to finish eating his masterpiece while Andréa masturbates him on the dining table leads to a heart-stopping finale for Ugo. As for Philippe, his taste is transgressive. In spite of his upstanding career as a judge, he lies and flouts convention in his unorthodox relationship with nanny Nicole. Andréa represents another maternal figure to whom he is attracted and, while he wishes to marry her, thereby conforming to bourgeois norms, he also has sex with her, and her promiscuous nature is clearly signalled. Given his status as a judge, he reasons that he can not bring Marcello’s frozen body inside because concealing a cadaver is a crime, yet he promotes collective suicide on his premises. Philippe’s final transgression of the rules combines diabetic disobedience with Oedipal complex—Andréa serves him a sugary pink jelly dessert in the form of a woman’s breasts, complete with cherries, which he consumes knowingly and mournfully, causing his death. Unlike Marcello and Michel, Ugo and Philippe choose their demise by indulging their tastes for ingestion and transgression. Following Ferreri’s motivations and this analysis of the four male protagonists, taste is clearly a cornerstone of La Grande bouffe’s conception and narrative structure. It is equally evident that these tastes are contrary to bourgeois norms, provoking distaste and even revulsion in spectators. The film’s reception at the time of its release and ever since have confirmed this tendency in both critical reviews and popular feedback as André Habib’s article on Salo and La Grande bouffe (2001) meticulously demonstrates. With such a violent reaction, one might wonder why La Grande bouffe is found on so many cinema studies curricula and is considered to be a must-see film (The Guardian). Corpus and Corporeality in Food Film Studies I chose La Grande bouffe as the first film in the “Matters of Taste” subject, alongside Luis Bunuel’s Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast, and Laurent Bénégui’s Au Petit Marguery, as all are considered classic films depicting French eating cultures. Certainly any French cinema student would know La Grande bouffe and most cinephiles around the world have seen it. It is essential background knowledge for students studying French eating cultures and features as a key reference in much scholarly research and popular culture on the subject. After explaining the canonical status of La Grande bouffe and thus validating its inclusion in the course, I warned students about the explicit nature of the film. We studied it for one week out of the 12 weeks of semester, focusing on questions of taste in the film and the socio-cultural representations of food. Although the almost ubiquitous response was: “C’est dégueulasse!,” there was no serious resistance until the final exam when a few students declared that they would boycott any questions on La Grande bouffe. I had not actually included any such questions in the exam. The student evaluations at the end of semester indicated that several students questioned the inclusion of this “disgusting pornography” in the corpus. There is undoubtedly less nudity, violence, gore, or sex in this film than in the Game of Thrones TV series. What, then, repulses these Gen Y students? Is it as Pasolini suggests, the neorealistic dialogue and décor that disturbs, given the ontologically challenging subject of suicide? (Viano). Or is it the fact that there is no reason given for the desire to end their lives, which privileges the physiological over the psychological? Is the scatological more confronting than the pornographic? Interestingly, “food porn” is now a widely accepted term to describe a glamourized and sometimes sexualized presentation of food, with Nigella Lawson as its star, and hundreds of blog sites reinforcing its popularity. Yet as Andrew Chan points out in his article “La Grande bouffe: Cooking Shows as Pornography,” this film is where it all began: “the genealogy reaches further back, as brilliantly visualized in Marco Ferreri’s 1973 film La Grande bouffe, in which four men eat, screw and fart themselves to death” (47). Is it the overt corporeality depicted in the film that shocks cerebral students into revulsion and rebellion? Conclusion In the guise of a conclusion, I suggest that my Gen Y students’ taste may reveal a Bourdieusian distaste for the taste of others, in a third degree reaction to the 1970s distaste for bourgeois taste. First degree: Ferreri and his entourage reject the psychological for the physiological in order to condemn bourgeois values, provoking scandal in the 1970s, but providing compelling cinema on a socio-political scale. Second degree: in spite of the outcry, high audience numbers demonstrate their taste for scandal, and La Grande bouffe becomes a must-see canonical film, encouraging my choice to include it in the “Matters of Taste” corpus. Third degree: my Gen Y students’ taste expresses a distaste for the academic norms that I have embraced in showing them the film, a distaste that may be more aesthetic than political. Oui, c’est dégueulasse, mais … Bibliography Allison, Henry E. Kant’s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2001. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1984. Calvesi, M. “Dipingere all moviola” (Painting at the Moviola). Corriere della Sera, 10 Oct. 1976. Reprint. “Arti figurative e il cinema” (Cinema and the Visual Arts). Avanguardia di massa. Ed. M. Calvesi. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1978. 243–46. Celluloid Liberation Front. “Consumerist Ultimate Indigestion: La Grande Bouffe's Deadly Physiological Pleasures.” Bright Lights Film Journal 60 (2008). 13 Jan. 2014 ‹http://brightlightsfilm.com/60/60lagrandebouffe.php#.Utd6gs1-es5›. Chan, Andrew. “La Grande bouffe: Cooking Shows as Pornography.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 3.4 (2003): 47–53. Dickie, George. The Century of Taste: The Philosophical Odyssey of Taste in the Eighteenth Century. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. Ebert, Roger, “La Grande bouffe.” 13 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/la-grande-bouffe-1973›. Ferreri, Marco. La Grande bouffe. Italy-France, 1973. Freedman, Paul H. Food: The History of Taste. U of California P, 2007. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Trans. Joel Winsheimer and Donald C. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 1999. Habib, André. “Remarques sur une ‘réception impossible’: Salo and La Grande bouffe.” Hors champ (cinéma), 4 Jan. 2001. 11 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/cinema/030101/salo-bouffe.html›. Keller, James R. “Four Little Caligulas: La Grande bouffe, Consumption and Male Masochism.” Food, Film and Culture: A Genre Study. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co, 2006: 49–59. Masoni, Tullio. Marco Ferreri. Gremese, 1998. Pasolini, P.P. “Le ambigue forme della ritualita narrativa.” Cinema Nuovo 231 (1974): 342–46. Ross, Kristin. May 68 and its Afterlives. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2008. Smith, Alison. French Cinema in the 1970s: The Echoes of May. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2005. Télérama: “La Grande bouffe: l’un des derniers grands scandales du Festival de Cannes. 19 May 2013. 13 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.telerama.fr/festival-de-cannes/2013/la-grande-bouffe-l-un-des-derniers-grands-scandales-du-festival-de-cannes,97615.php›. The Guardian: 1000 films to see before you die. 2007. 17 Jan. 2014 ‹http://www.theguardian.com/film/series/1000-films-to-see-before-you-die› Tury, F., and O. Peter. “Food, Life, and Death: The Film La Grande bouffe of Marco Ferreri in an Art Psychological Point of View.” European Psychiatry 22.1 (2007): S214. Viano, Maurizio. “La Grande Abbuffata/La Grande bouffe.” The Cinema of Italy. Ed. Giorgio Bertellini. London: Wallflower Press, 2004: 193–202.

The curtain rose. The howling of desert wind filled the performance hall in the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Into the center stage, where a scenic construction of a mountain cliff and a desert landscape was dimly lit, entered the character of the Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu (1849–1931), performed by Chen Yizong. Dressed in a worn and dusty outfit of dark blue cotton, characteristic of Daoist priests, Wang began to sweep the floor. After a few moments, he discovered a hidden chambre sealed inside one of the rock sanctuaries carved into the cliff.Signaled by the quick, crystalline, stirring wave of sound from the chimes, a melodious Chinese ocarina solo joined in slowly from the background. Astonished by thousands of Buddhist sūtra scrolls, wall paintings, and sculptures he had just accidentally discovered in the caves, Priest Wang set his broom aside and began to examine these treasures. Dawn had not yet arrived, and the desert sky was pitch-black. Priest Wang held his oil lamp high, strode rhythmically in excitement, sat crossed-legged in a meditative pose, and unfolded a scroll. The sound of the ocarina became fuller and richer and the texture of the music more complex, as several other instruments joined in.Below is the opening scene of the award-winning, theatrical dance-drama Dunhuang, My Dreamland, created by China’s state-sponsored Lanzhou Song and Dance Theatre in 2000. Figure 1a: Poster Side A of Dunhuang, My Dreamland Figure 1b: Poster Side B of Dunhuang, My DreamlandThe scene locates the dance-drama in the rock sanctuaries that today are known as the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, housing Buddhist art accumulated over a period of a thousand years, one of the best well-known UNESCO heritages on the Silk Road. Historically a frontier metropolis, Dunhuang was a strategic site along the Silk Road in northwestern China, a crossroads of trade, and a locus for religious, cultural, and intellectual influences since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Travellers, especially Buddhist monks from India and central Asia, passing through Dunhuang on their way to Chang’an (present day Xi’an), China’s ancient capital, would stop to meditate in the Mogao Caves and consult manuscripts in the monastery's library. At the same time, Chinese pilgrims would travel by foot from China through central Asia to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, playing a key role in the exchanges between ancient China and the outside world. Travellers from China would stop to acquire provisions at Dunhuang before crossing the Gobi Desert to continue on their long journey abroad. Figure 2: Dunhuang Mogao CavesThis article approaches the idea of “abroad” by examining the present-day imagination of journeys along the Silk Road—specifically, staged performances of the various Silk Road journey-themed dance-dramas sponsored by the Chinese state for enhancing its cultural and foreign policies since the 1970s (Kuang).As ethnomusicologists have demonstrated, musicians, choreographers, and playwrights often utilise historical materials in their performances to construct connections between the past and the present (Bohlman; Herzfeld; Lam; Rees; Shelemay; Tuohy; Wade; Yung: Rawski; Watson). The ancient Silk Road, which linked the Mediterranean coast with central China and beyond, via oasis towns such as Samarkand, has long been associated with the concept of “journeying abroad.” Journeys to distant, foreign lands and encounters of unknown, mysterious cultures along the Silk Road have been documented in historical records, such as A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Faxian) and The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Xuanzang), and illustrated in classical literature, such as The Travels of Marco Polo (Polo) and the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West (Wu). These journeys—coming and going from multiple directions and to different destinations—have inspired contemporary staged performance for audiences around the globe.Home and Abroad: Dunhuang and the Silk RoadDunhuang, My Dreamland (2000), the contemporary dance-drama, staged the journey of a young pilgrim painter travelling from Chang’an to a land of the unfamiliar and beyond borders, in search for the arts that have inspired him. Figure 3: A scene from Dunhuang, My Dreamland showing the young pilgrim painter in the Gobi Desert on the ancient Silk RoadFar from his home, he ended his journey in Dunhuang, historically considered the northwestern periphery of China, well beyond Yangguan and Yumenguan, the bordering passes that separate China and foreign lands. Later scenes in Dunhuang, My Dreamland, portrayed through multiethnic music and dances, the dynamic interactions among merchants, cultural and religious envoys, warriors, and politicians that were making their own journey from abroad to China. The theatrical dance-drama presents a historically inspired, re-imagined vision of both “home” and “abroad” to its audiences as they watch the young painter travel along the Silk Road, across the Gobi Desert, arriving at his own ideal, artistic “homeland”, the Dunhuang Mogao Caves. Since his journey is ultimately a spiritual one, the conceptualisation of travelling “abroad” could also be perceived as “a journey home.”Staged more than four hundred times since it premiered in Beijing in April 2000, Dunhuang, My Dreamland is one of the top ten titles in China’s National Stage Project and one of the most successful theatrical dance-dramas ever produced in China. With revenue of more than thirty million renminbi (RMB), it ranks as the most profitable theatrical dance-drama ever produced in China, with a preproduction cost of six million RMB. The production team receives financial support from China’s Ministry of Culture for its “distinctive ethnic features,” and its “aim to promote traditional Chinese culture,” according to Xu Rong, an official in the Cultural Industry Department of the Ministry. Labeled an outstanding dance-drama of the Chinese nation, it aims to present domestic and international audiences with a vision of China as a historically multifaceted and cosmopolitan nation that has been in close contact with the outside world through the ancient Silk Road. Its production company has been on tour in selected cities throughout China and in countries abroad, including Austria, Spain, and France, literarily making the young pilgrim painter’s “journey along the Silk Road” a new journey abroad, off stage and in reality.Dunhuang, My Dreamland was not the first, nor is it the last, staged performances that portrays the Chinese re-imagination of “journeying abroad” along the ancient Silk Road. It was created as one of many versions of Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a genre of music, dance, and dramatic performances created in the early twentieth century and based primarily on artifacts excavated from the Mogao Caves (Kuang). “The Mogao Caves are the greatest repository of early Chinese art,” states Mimi Gates, who works to increase public awareness of the UNESCO site and raise funds toward its conservation. “Located on the Chinese end of the Silk Road, it also is the place where many cultures of the world intersected with one another, so you have Greek and Roman, Persian and Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures, all interacting. Given the nature of our world today, it is all very relevant” (Pollack). As an expressive art form, this genre has been thriving since the late 1970s contributing to the global imagination of China’s “Silk Road journeys abroad” long before Dunhuang, My Dreamland achieved its domestic and international fame. For instance, in 2004, The Thousand-Handed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara—one of the most representative (and well-known) Dunhuang bihua yuewu programs—was staged as a part of the cultural program during the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. This performance, as well as other Dunhuang bihua yuewu dance programs was the perfect embodiment of a foreign religion that arrived in China from abroad and became Sinicized (Kuang). Figure 4: Mural from Dunhuang Mogao Cave No. 45A Brief History of Staging the Silk Road JourneysThe staging of the Silk Road journeys abroad began in the late 1970s. Historically, the Silk Road signifies a multiethnic, cosmopolitan frontier, which underwent incessant conflicts between Chinese sovereigns and nomadic peoples (as well as between other groups), but was strongly imbued with the customs and institutions of central China (Duan, Mair, Shi, Sima). In the twentieth century, when China was no longer an empire, but had become what the early 20th-century reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) called “a nation among nations,” the long history of the Silk Road and the colourful, legendary journeys abroad became instrumental in the formation of a modern Chinese nation of unified diversity rooted in an ancient cosmopolitan past. The staged Silk Road theme dance-dramas thus participate in this formation of the Chinese imagination of “nation” and “abroad,” as they aestheticise Chinese history and geography. History and geography—aspects commonly considered constituents of a nation as well as our conceptualisations of “abroad”—are “invariably aestheticized to a certain degree” (Bakhtin 208). Diverse historical and cultural elements from along the Silk Road come together in this performance genre, which can be considered the most representative of various possible stagings of the history and culture of the Silk Road journeys.In 1979, the Chinese state officials in Gansu Province commissioned the benchmark dance-drama Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, a spectacular theatrical dance-drama praising the pure and noble friendship which existed between the peoples of China and other countries in the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.). While its plot also revolves around the Dunhuang Caves and the life of a painter, staged at one of the most critical turning points in modern Chinese history, the work as a whole aims to present the state’s intention of re-establishing diplomatic ties with the outside world after the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, it presents a nation’s journey abroad and home. To accomplish this goal, Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road introduces the fictional character Yunus, a wealthy Persian merchant who provides the audiences a vision of the historical figure of Peroz III, the last Sassanian prince, who after the Arab conquest of Iran in 651 C.E., found refuge in China. By incorporating scenes of ethnic and folk dances, the drama then stages the journey of painter Zhang’s daughter Yingniang to Persia (present-day Iran) and later, Yunus’s journey abroad to the Tang dynasty imperial court as the Persian Empire’s envoy.Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, since its debut at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the first of October 1979 and shortly after at the Theatre La Scala in Milan, has been staged in more than twenty countries and districts, including France, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Latvia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and recently, in 2013, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.“The Road”: Staging the Journey TodayWithin the contemporary context of global interdependencies, performing arts have been used as strategic devices for social mobilisation and as a means to represent and perform modern national histories and foreign policies (Davis, Rees, Tian, Tuohy, Wong, David Y. H. Wu). The Silk Road has been chosen as the basis for these state-sponsored, extravagantly produced, and internationally staged contemporary dance programs. In 2008, the welcoming ceremony and artistic presentation at the Olympic Games in Beijing featured twenty apsara dancers and a Dunhuang bihua yuewu dancer with long ribbons, whose body was suspended in mid-air on a rectangular LED extension held by hundreds of performers; on the giant LED screen was a depiction of the ancient Silk Road.In March 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping introduced the initiatives “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” during his journeys abroad in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. These initiatives are now referred to as “One Belt, One Road.” The State Council lists in details the policies and implementation plans for this initiative on its official web page, www.gov.cn. In April 2013, the China Institute in New York launched a yearlong celebration, starting with "Dunhuang: Buddhist Art and the Gateway of the Silk Road" with a re-creation of one of the caves and a selection of artifacts from the site. In March 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, released a new action plan outlining key details of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Xi Jinping has made the program a centrepiece of both his foreign and domestic economic policies. One of the central economic strategies is to promote cultural industry that could enhance trades along the Silk Road.Encouraged by the “One Belt, One Road” policies, in March 2016, The Silk Princess premiered in Xi’an and was staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing the following July. While Dunhuang, My Dreamland and Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road were inspired by the Buddhist art found in Dunhuang, The Silk Princess, based on a story about a princess bringing silk and silkworm-breeding skills to the western regions of China in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) has a different historical origin. The princess's story was portrayed in a woodblock from the Tang Dynasty discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a British archaeologist during his expedition to Xinjiang (now Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) in the early 19th century, and in a temple mural discovered during a 2002 Chinese-Japanese expedition in the Dandanwulike region. Figure 5: Poster of The Silk PrincessIn January 2016, the Shannxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe staged The Silk Road, a new theatrical dance-drama. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, the newly staged dance-drama “centers around the ‘road’ and the deepening relationship merchants and travellers developed with it as they traveled along its course,” said Director Yang Wei during an interview with the author. According to her, the show uses seven archetypes—a traveler, a guard, a messenger, and so on—to present the stories that took place along this historic route. Unbounded by specific space or time, each of these archetypes embodies the foreign-travel experience of a different group of individuals, in a manner that may well be related to the social actors of globalised culture and of transnationalism today. Figure 6: Poster of The Silk RoadConclusionAs seen in Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road and Dunhuang, My Dreamland, staging the processes of Silk Road journeys has become a way of connecting the Chinese imagination of “home” with the Chinese imagination of “abroad.” Staging a nation’s heritage abroad on contemporary stages invites a new imagination of homeland, borders, and transnationalism. Once aestheticised through staged performances, such as that of the Dunhuang bihua yuewu, the historical and topological landscape of Dunhuang becomes a performed narrative, embodying the national heritage.The staging of Silk Road journeys continues, and is being developed into various forms, from theatrical dance-drama to digital exhibitions such as the Smithsonian’s Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottes at Dunhuang (Stromberg) and the Getty’s Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road (Sivak and Hood). They are sociocultural phenomena that emerge through interactions and negotiations among multiple actors and institutions to envision and enact a Chinese imagination of “journeying abroad” from and to the country.ReferencesBakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1982.Bohlman, Philip V. “World Music at the ‘End of History’.” Ethnomusicology 46 (2002): 1–32.Davis, Sara L.M. Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China’s Southwest Borders. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.Duan, Wenjie. “The History of Conservation of Mogao Grottoes.” International Symposium on the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property: The Conservation of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and the Related Studies. Eds. Kuchitsu and Nobuaki. Tokyo: Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties, 1997. 1–8.Faxian. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms. Translated by James Legge. New York: Dover Publications, 1991.Herzfeld, Michael. 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«Music conveys different meanings to everyone, and sometimes, it can even communicate different things at different times to the same person», Daniel Barenboim once said. This is tantamount to saying that music is influenced by the context in which it is played, whilst at the same time influencing the context of those who are listening to it. As such, music exists within a system of relationships. From this, it follows that music can be interpreted as a public art – when it is performed in front of an audience – when it is played by one or more musicians in the presence of a listener or listeners who witness the performance. This premise sparks an initial reflection: music, the most ephemeral of all the arts, excepting the work of composers (the technicians who “create” music), is born, grows, develops and dies in the moment of the performance, in which its entire existential cycle resides. And the proof of its existence can only be found in that moment of contact between the artist and their audience. That is the moment in which music exists. The period of history that we are currently living through – the social context of the pandemic, with theatres and concert halls shuttered – has relegated the existence of music to the medium that plays it. In this specific moment, music exists only if it is “recorded” on a medium – in other words, deprived of the vital force of the act of “live” public performance, which is the very proof of its existence. Although there have always been forms and genres of music that have evolved specifically for private settings (chamber music, for example), it is nonetheless a feature of our time to give even those forms and genres a public dimension; indeed, since the 19th century, chamber music has been performed in public settings – concert halls, auditoriums, theatres. That very same private dimension that defines chamber or home concerts instead takes on a public nature: as such, we find home concerts being played as part of major festivals (think of the “Piano City” model, which has now spread worldwide), bringing the public into private homes, giving the masses a taste of a type of musical creation designed for a reserved, elegant, unique setting; a type of musical creation that requires an attentive ear, but that is no longer the preserve of the few. From this starting point, it becomes clear how music, in its ephemerality, is nonetheless conditioned by the historical and social context of the time in which it is played, and not only the historical context in which it is created. Here again is the theme of creation: it is at this level that the material factors – namely the writing techniques adopted by individual composers to create their music, the music of each specific moment in history, the music of each specific geographical place – become intertwined with the cultural factors. Since the time when music transitioned from the dimension of oral transmission, as it originated, to the dimension of written transmission, the techniques of writing music have undergone a process of constant evolution by which they have ultimately created a structure within a system that has long been recognised – at least to the ear of Western listeners – as the koiné, the only possible musical language: the tonal system. This includes the majority of what is commonly referred to as the “classical” repertoire – the body of work studied in music schools, according to general consensus, despite the fact that it is also very much a feature of the “pop” repertoire, which is somehow perceived as an element that exists in contrast with the former. So much so that the introduction of courses of study dedicated to pop music in conservatories has truly shocked and bewildered some, as if the existence of two concepts of making music – which have always been considered distant from one another – within the same educational system were entirely inconceivable. Art music and pop music: two opposing faces that form a double-sided mirror reflecting the ways in which music is conceived today. And yet, there are forms and genres of what we now consider to be art music – forms and genres that have been incorporated into a “classical” musical repertoire, the preserve of specific audiences in specific venues – that were once the pop of yesteryear. Because pop is not merely the “song” genre (the canzone, the lieder, the chanson, etc.): pop is also – as we have been reminded on many occasions, even recently – opera, for example, not because “pop” is simply short for “popular”, and the word therefore comes with an implied meaning of “common” or “simple”, but because it forms an integral part of the cultural and social fabric, both in Italy and beyond. The same language and the same writing technique can therefore be adapted to two incredibly different ways of making music (art music and pop music); the technique is the same, yet it is used in different ways, some being more complex, others somewhat simpler; what changes is the context in which the music is made – the cultural position that we intend to attribute to the music itself. The idea of giving music a certain cultural position has had a clear influence on public consciousness and tastes: indeed, the very fact that our idea of “art” music is defined by its origins in a repertoire tradition, built up and stratified over time, within which there is actually hidden a “pop” dimension – as defined above, with reference to the example of opera – has resulted in that specific musical model being pigeonholed into a sector, contrasting it with a broader social dimension that recognises as music what we now conceive as commercial music, “pop” music in the pejorative sense of the term, divorced from its nobler roots. The relationship between technical and cultural factors has always marked the history of music, with the various historical periods – each with their own social context – ultimately deciding whether it is the former or the latter that prevail in the relationship between the two. Moreover, the relationship between material factors (compositional and writing technique) and immaterial factors (the cultural context of those who make and listen to music) intersects with the products of another key relationship, namely that between creativity and technique, the unique combination of which gives rise to any given piece of music. Indeed, much as is the case for the relationship between technique and culture, the relationship between creativity and technique also shifts and transforms depending on the historical period. This even holds true within the same “musical type”: just think of the technique/creativity relationship as applied to the classical repertoire and the technique/creativity relationship as applied to art music, be it classical or contemporary. Although we are in the same cultural context – what is, as a gross oversimplification, commonly considered the context to which art or classical music belongs – but the balance of power between the two factors is entirely subverted. This leads us to the conclusion that the relationship between creativity and technique does not necessarily involve an equation. Just think of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and, in particular, his instrumental chamber music (which, as previously mentioned, we have made into a public form by inserting it into contexts with a public audience) or his symphonic music. How many times have we heard it defined as simple, melodic, catchy, pleasant? This is the general consensus; it is the social dimension of Mozart’s music that makes it a largely accessible listening experience even to the “untrained ears” of those who do not have a musical background. What lies behind this way of thinking about and considering music – specifically Mozart’s music, in this case – is an enormous misconception: the idea that music that is easy to listen to and enjoy is music written easily, or in other words, that what underpins this ease of listening is technical simplicity. Mozart’s writing absorbs into itself all its technical complexities, which are rendered imperceptible to the listener, as if disguised by the final audible product, and yet present within it: in short, Mozart did not write “simple” music. He was wholly familiar with technique, particularly instrumental technique, and thus demanded the maximum possible performance from each individual instrument in terms of sonority, timbre, colour; he did this in a new way compared to his contemporaries, ultimately producing a catalogue whose longevity and usability over time is destined to last eternally. Let us return to the intersection between our two relationships: technique/culture and technique/creativity. Mozart wrote differently from the other composers of his time: whilst nowadays, we listen to his music without any difficulty, his contemporaries struggled to understand him and his work. In terms of technique vs. creativity, when it comes to Mozart’s output, we could be forgiven for believing that it is the creative dimension that “wins”. And yet, Mozart’s music is anything but simple: it is not the result of a spur-of-the-moment burst of creativity, but rather the result of a creative act that is the culmination of his technical mastery and deeply intimate knowledge of instruments. Staying with the technique/creativity dichotomy for a moment, let us instead consider the effect that The Rite of Spring had on its listeners in Paris on 29 May 1913, but let us also consider how we feel today when we listen to a piece of contemporary art music. The relationship between that very same pair of qualities seems to be subverted: the creative act seems to be transformed into a show of pure technique. So what has changed? First of all, the koiné, as mentioned previously, has changed: from the Short Century onwards, composers started working and continue to work not only in an effort to create new forms of art, but also to create new forms of linguistic expression. This has served to distance art music from the listener (a distancing which has only further driven a wedge between the worlds of “classical” music and “pop” music, as touched upon previously) as a result of feeling betrayed, having lost their ability to understand. It is once again the immaterial factor, as represented by the cultural context, that conditions how the public receives the work of musical art and influences whether that same musical object will exist only in the moment of its creation and first performance or whether it will stand the test of time. Music’s relationship with time – a factor that affects the technique/culture duality, if it is indeed true that the passage of time and historical eras, with all the resultant changes, see the former of the two material and immaterial factors prevail over the latter at times, and vice versa at others, making music a heteronomous art – develops in complex directions. Time is one of the essential components of music, together with pitch, intensity and timbre: time, understood as the duration of each individual sound, within the “musical discourse”, structured into periods and phrases, organised within a system of measurement that recognises in each beat, measure or bar the set of values (notes of a specific duration) encompassed between two vertical lines placed on the stave. Time is thus understood to be one of the fundamental components of musical structure. And amongst the arts, this particular definition of time is only found in music. In much the same vein, the temporal dimension that underpins the concept of performance is unique to music (and the non-plastic arts): indeed, music only exists as public art for as long as it is being performed by a performer. To add a further layer, each performer has their own internal sense of time, their own way of experiencing and conceiving of time, which in turn affects the timing of their performance. This is what makes each performance – even of the same piece – different from the others in terms of both its total duration and the duration of each individual musical gesture made by each individual performer. Then there is the need for music – though the same can be said of architecture as well as any other form of artistic expression – to last over time. A need which, in the case of music, is satisfied on the one hand by merely overcoming the hurdle of the very first performance, following which there is X number of subsequent performances, demonstrating the longevity of a specific piece over time, thanks to performative actions repeated by different performers; on the other, by the identification and use of media which allow for the reproduction of specific performative actions, making them available to listen to ab aeterno, albeit with the loss of the public dimension of the music. Played back, these performances become a source of inspiration and imitation for other performers: a piece of music that stands the test of time due to being performed and played back multiple times will become part of the repertoire. The definition we are referring to here is a collection of sheets, pieces, works that time does not tarnish, but rather cements and preserves, reviving the audience’s need to listen to them again, because the audience recognises themselves in them, feels comforted and satisfied, despite acknowledging that each performance has characteristics that differ from previous ones and that will differ from subsequent ones. This demonstrates how the figure of the performer becomes part of music itself, playing a rather significant role in the redefinition of the creative process: if the piece being played is the same (i.e. written by a specific composer or group of composers), what makes each rendition unique is the co-creative action of the performer or performers. The performer(s)’ being involved in the creation of the work does not always necessarily presume the existence of a systemic or choral logic which establishes links between the creator of the work (i.e. the composer), the performer(s) and the audience. This type of three-way relationship is possible in a context in which the three participants in the system act “simultaneously”, so to speak. In other words, whilst this was possible in Mozart’s day, when the composer himself wrote specific sheets of music earmarked for specific performers – consider, for example, his Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, the last sheet composed by Mozart and allocated to his friend and brother Mason, an extraordinary virtuoso of the instrument, Anton Stadler – it is obviously no longer possible to achieve this today, with the same Concerto entrusted to a performer who not only has no way of hearing Stadler’s original performance, but also has no way of establishing a dialogue or relationship with the composer. Not to mention the public dimension of the performance, with its contemporary rituality, so far removed from that of Mozart’s era. The “circuit” of the systemic logic laid out above therefore “breaks” when the “maker” of the work eventually dies, but this ultimately lends any connection added value as compared with the context of “simultaneous” creation: for the performers, this relationship with the composer is a plus. Being able to co-create a piece by playing it in the presence of the person who composed it not only allows the performer to fully capture the essence of the written music, but also gives the composer an opportunity to determine that when performed, their work does in fact correspond to what they committed to paper. Here, the duality of technique/creativity crops up once again: creativity, which forms the foundation of the act and process of composition, is finally faced with the technical capabilities of the instrument(s), whose repositories are the performers themselves, capable of playing their part in the simultaneous creation by offering the composer guidance in terms of technical and performance-related issues, even though this may impact upon the composer’s creative freedom. Nevertheless, the systemic-choral logic can also be applied in music coloured by other nuances of meaning, in reference to specific musical genres, be it chamber music, symphonic music, choral music, etc. These are all genres which live and die on cooperation between groups of people, interaction between peers – such as the members of a quartet, for example – or complementary interaction between performers of different “ranks” in a hierarchy, where within individual groups (the sections of an orchestra being a prime model), certain specific instrumentalists are given a primary role as compared with others. In all these cases, the co-creative action which links together composer and performer is complemented by the co-creative action that consists of multiple performers coming together to play and, in doing so, collaboratively bring to life a specific musical object. As the result of the composer’s primal act of creation, subsequently co-created by the performer(s), every type of music ultimately “exists” only at the moment when it encounters the audience. This encounter, this meeting, takes the form of a ritual of sorts in performance venues, theatres, concert halls and auditoriums, but it is by no means limited to these places. Music aspires to escape from those environments, as if to invade society. In other words, music is not just a public art: it is also a social art, in that it establishes relationships between artists and audiences, as well as between members of these audiences themselves; the latter phenomenon occurs not only at the moment of shared listening, but also after the fact, at the moment of reflection on what they have heard. That it is a social art, in the sense of being able to bring together different components of society, does not necessarily mean that it is an art that engages with social issues. The subjective dimension of the primordial creative act may very well derive from a wholly pure and extremely personal creative urge, an impulse, a need, entirely divorced from any kind of socio-political involvement. Music is pure art par excellence, especially instrumental music. Hence even today, it is possible to choose to make “music for music’s sake”, according to an agenda that has echoes of Parnassianism: “l’art pour l’art”, as famously proclaimed by Théophile Gautier, has no social, moral, educational or utilitarian purpose - rather, it is an end in itself. On the contemporary music scene, however, it is nonetheless true that an increasing proportion of composers are drawing their creative drive from the world around them. Social engagement has entered the world of “pop” music - it can be found in sheets of contemporary art music. It was in the 1960s that Luigi Nono brought music into workrooms and factories. Indeed, his thoughts on the matter are well known: «For me personally, making music is about having an effect on contemporary life, on the contemporary situation, on the contemporary class struggle [...]». Nowadays, it is no longer a question of the class struggle, nor do we feel a pressing need to bring contemporary music to the masses – after all, that is the purpose of “pop”. Art music interprets the reality around it by placing an emphasis on issues of gender – the theme of equal opportunities being a mainstay of contemporary music – of integration – with contemporary Western music being played on ethnic instruments, instruments from the cultures of people who have immigrated to the West, or even contemporary art music interacting with styles from other musical cultures – of the needs of young people, both performers and composers, to whom specific projects, calls and competitions are dedicated. The musical language of contemporary society, in all its many and varied forms, allows the younger composers in particular to enjoy an expressive and creative freedom that simply has no equal in any other context or at any other time in history. Having dismantled the common koiné, contemporary art music – as a combinatorial art – opens up a world of multifaceted and incredibly diverse possibilities for the synthesis of technique and creativity. This does not mean leaving the composer free to create without a formal education; on the contrary, it means structuring the educational path of a student/composer in a way that allows them to discover how music can come into contact with other languages, mix with other artistic forms, go beyond its own boundaries to absorb and draw upon what contemporary culture and society can offer, in terms of inspiration, to the trained ear of the musician. In order to be a musician nowadays, it is no longer sufficient to simply have a knowledge of the more material factors, the techniques (of both composition and performance) referred to at the start of this text: the performer and the composer are at the heart of an “extended” educational system that offers them professional development that does not become apparent in the mere act of creation or performance, but instead nourishes their relationship with the world of the production, reproduction, distribution and marketing of music. And yet, all this is still not enough to guarantee a future for music. In order to spark a social transformation that would make music a part of people’s lives – and not simply for the pleasure of listening to it, as a soundtrack in the background of other activities, but as a discipline with the power to actually improve people’s lives, which music is, to all intents and purposes, in view of the studies demonstrating that a knowledge of it bolsters the intellectual faculties of the individual – it is necessary for music to grow in step with the individual, in the context of educational courses shared by all students, not just those who intend to enter the world of music professionally. A step in this direction has already been taken – albeit with a top-down approach, at the level of higher musical and university education – with the development of study programmes that establish links between music and the scientific disciplines (for example, the agreement between the Milan Conservatory and the Politecnico di Milano) as well as the humanities (for example, the agreement between the Milan Conservatory and the University of Milan). The future of music lies in its ability to resume its central position in the world of higher education. Indeed, this role had been attributed to it since the Middle Ages: a fundamental aspect of higher education, music took pride of place amongst the liberal arts, a part of the Quadrivium together with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, and alongside grammar, rhetoric and dialectic in the Trivium. Heteronomy is therefore a consubstantial characteristic of music from and throughout every age, and is now pushing it towards a more free, open and constant dialogue with other disciplines than some other arts manage, especially in its relationship with new technologies, ultimately with a view to creating brand-new professional profiles.

The present work examines the literary criticism expressed by Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi in several of her unpublished letters.
The first part outlines the cultural and historical tradition of Venice during the Eighteenth Century. Particular attention is subsequently given to the intellectual role of women, their contribution to the literary salons of the time, and the neoclassical tradition. This first part is essential in that it supplies a valuable context to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi's writings.
In the second part, I examine Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi's literary criticism of major European authors and works. Through these criticisms she exposes her misvision of the literary world to which she aspired, and reveals that although she was influenced by the subtle preromantic tendencies, she remained faithful to the neoclassical school.

Defence date: 14 December 2017
Examining Board: Prof. Ann Thomson, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Pavel Kolář, European University Institute; Prof. Clorinda Donato, California State University; Prof. Richard Whatmore University of St. Andrews
Cesare Beccaria, renowned author of the 1764 Enlightenment treatise Dei delitti e delle pene, has long been celebrated as the voice of the abolitionist movement against the death penalty, the founding father of modern criminology, and the go-to source on penal reform. These personalities have been fuelled by the instant global success of Beccaria’s text, however this celebrity trajectory has clouded many of his less sensational identities in its wake: Beccaria, reluctant man of letters, enlightened Habsburg bureaucrat and practical philosopher. This thesis recovers these entangled personas and, in so doing, provides an intellectual history of Cesare Beccaria that emphasises his substantial contribution as a philosopher, not just on the page, but in practice. Beccaria envisioned an ambitious social project. Proposing a vision of society in which the social contract served to protect “the greatest happiness divided between the greater number” and which was based upon a hedonistic calculation of human nature, Beccaria concluded that individuals had the equal right to pursue pleasure and that government was obliged to provide this opportunity. Interpreting this in economic terms, Beccaria presented a case for the removal of all institutionalised obstacles to the pursuit of wealth: while not everyone could achieve riches, all had the equal chance at improving their lot. His philosophy was the product of both a rich reading culture and intellectual network, which were simultaneously patriotic and cosmopolitan. On the one hand, local, specialised and concerned with matters of public utility, on the other, internationally, intellectually and socially diverse. However, the social contract was no utopian vision, but rather a blueprint for the political classes. In the field of public health in particular, Beccaria demonstrated his commitment to providing equal access to the pursuit of pleasure, abiding by the tenets of his contract at all costs. It is this practically inclined philosophy that the thesis argues is Beccaria’s most important contribution to the Enlightenment.