Southern Horizons in Italian History

Meridionalismo attitudes and policy vis-à-vis Southern Italy is a conceptual sphere approached from a wide range of viewpoints by people concerned with the fortunes of the Italian regions together with other, broader preoccupations. How are we to account for the success of this concept in politics and historiography? The Author views the long historical profile to highlight the essentially political nature of the southern question. In the most varied forms since the early twentieth century the southern horizon, seen as the eventual, evocative scenario for political action, has in an exemplary manner been able to represent, for Italy’s opposition parties fostered by men of the South, hopes betrayed by the Risorgimento, and for the southern elites with leading positions in the institutions of government, by contrast, a positive mission inherited with the creation of united Italy. If it is possible to speak of a Mezzogiorno without meridionalismo, it is impossible to ignore it in any account of Italy’s political and economic history.