"La Festa di Dante". Mito dantesco e pedagogia in una rivista popolare per l'anniversario del 1865

In 1865 Italy celebrated both the sixth centenary of Dante’s birth and the displacement of the capital city from Turin to Florence. Especially in Florence, the anniversary was conceived as a national celebration and glorious moment for the Florentine people and their ethos. Two newspapers prepared the elaborated feast through the previous year: the official Giornale del Centenario and La Festa di Dante, conceived by the same authors “for the people”. The latter is a very interesting example of pedagogical literature, intertwining the local and national dimension, in which seemingly liberal ideals are tamed by a paternalistic view of the lower classes, and by the conception of Dante’s worship as one of the many duties which the new Italian citizens were expected to perform.