News

Davide Sisto con il suo ultimo libro Ricordati di me, pubblicato da Bollati Boringhieri, è uno dei finalisti per la categoria Saggistica del Premio Napoli 2020.

Il 29 giugno Harvard Univerity Press pubblicherà Crime and Forgiveness. Christianizing Execution in Medieval Europe, traduzione inglese di Delitto e Perdono. La pena di morte nell'orizzonte mentale dell'Europa cristiana. XIV-XVIII secolo di Adriano Prosperi.

A provocative analysis of how Christianity helped legitimize the death penalty in early modern Europe, then throughout the Christian world, by turning execution into a great cathartic public ritual and the condemned into a Christ-like figure who accepts death to save humanity.

The public execution of criminals has been a common practice ever since ancient times. In this wide-ranging investigation of the death penalty in Europe from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, noted Italian historian Adriano Prosperi identifies a crucial period when legal concepts of vengeance and justice merged with Christian beliefs in repentance and forgiveness.

Crime and Forgiveness begins with late antiquity but comes into sharp focus in fourteenth-century Italy, with the work of the Confraternities of Mercy, which offered Christian comfort to the condemned and were for centuries responsible for burying the dead. Under the brotherhoods’ influence, the ritual of public execution became Christianized, and the doomed person became a symbol of the fallen human condition. Because the time of death was known, this “ideal” sinner could be comforted and prepared for the next life through confession and repentance. In return, the community bearing witness to the execution offered forgiveness and a Christian burial. No longer facing eternal condemnation, the criminal in turn publicly forgave the executioner, and the death provided a moral lesson to the community.

Over time, as the practice of Christian comfort spread across Europe, it offered political authorities an opportunity to legitimize the death penalty and encode into law the right to kill and exact vengeance. But the contradictions created by Christianity’s central role in executions did not dissipate, and squaring the emotions and values surrounding state-sanctioned executions was not simple, then or now.

“From a distinguished Italian historian of early modern Europe comes a profound yet subtle work, written with great passion. Prosperi explores the comparative dimensions of Christianity’s relationships with public execution and its legitimization, principally in France, Germany, the Iberian peninsula, and England, with a particular focus on the religious confraternities devoted to consoling those condemned to be executed.”—Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., University of Glasgow

Marco Revelli traccia su Doppiozero un Identikit sociale della pandemia:

"Nelle Considerazioni finali del Governatore della Banca d’Italia Ignazio Visco abbiamo sentito vibrare toni inusuali. Non solo per la citazione keynesiana in riferimento alla “giustizia sociale” (da quanti decenni il nome di John Maynard Keynes era bandito da via Nazionale?). E per l’insistenza sull’“incertezza” col socratico “so di non sapere” (quando mai un Governatore centrale si era esposto al rischio di dover bere la cicuta?). Ma anche per i reiterati richiami al problema dell’ineguaglianza, e ai rischi cui l’impoverimento degli strati sociali più svantaggiati può esporre l’intero sistema economico. Segni evidenti che ai piani alti la paura deve fare novanta, se il linguaggio si fa così esplicito. E quanto avviene “in basso” trova occhi e orecchi finalmente attenti."

Sono candidati all'edizione 2020 del Premio Napoli tre titoli rappresentati da Reiser:

- Antonio Prete: La poesia del vivente.

- Aldo Schiavone: Eguaglianza.

- Davide Sisto: RIcordati di me.

Su Youtube, sono state pubblicate le video candidature degli autori.

Prete: https://youtu.be/rybk0z_e2Z0

Schiavone: https://youtu.be/G23nmM4vhbo

Sisto: https://youtu.be/SlmKnwSanH4