ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an introduction to the book’s sections on Italy’s nineteenth-century medieval revival and on the rediscovery of its pre-Roman civilisations, chapters 5 and 6 respectively. In addition to presenting different local institutions involved in the writing of the urban, regional and national past after Unifi cation, the chapter discusses the role of historical discourse in the construction of identity. The following two chapters then examine the content of this historical discourse, drawing particular attention to Italy’s medieval revival and to the wide-spread fascination with its Etruscan past.
