Exoticizing Vesuvius? The historical and intellectual formation of Neapolitan historiography

This workshop will critically trace the historical and intellectual formations of Naples’ historiography as a form of ‘topography’. Thus this workshop examines the scholarly currents that have worked to marginalize Naples across the disciplines, especially in history, history of art, architectural history, and Italian Studies. We critically consider both those modes by which Naples has been represented as peripheral, or as subordinate to ‘centres’ elsewhere in Italy (eg Florence, Rome, Venice), and the modes whereby Naples’ topography has been crudely characterized, elegantly exoticized, or flatly overlooked in historical, visual and literary representations and scholarship. Concomitantly we consider the lack of intellectual porosity that has tended to mark Neapolitan studies and examine its principal causes and most significant consequences. Thus this workshop is designed to explore critically the principal historiographical patterns and models which have shaped scholarship across the disciplines (especially Neapolitan history, art and architectural history, literature studies, religious history) since Benedetto Croce, with critical reference to other particularly formative scholars, including Giuseppe Galasso, Roberto Pane and Anthony Blunt.