La sindrome ossessiva spazio-temporale degli Italiani

Abstract

The time-space continuum is Italy’s obsession. Italy is one of the very few
countries which has an obvious spatial identity. Its temporal identity,
however, remained dissociated for centuries. For a very long time the
Italians went on glorifying their past and deploring their current division. The
attempt to reconstitute the national space came to its climax with the
Risorgimento. But the unified Italians very quickly felt deep disillusion,
connected with the difficulties of the time, and started again to look back to
their past. Fascism even wanted to revive the grandeur of the Roman
Empire. The national obsession with the time-space continuum recently
acquired a paradoxical character: one political movement even denies the
spatial unity.