ABSTRACT
In theory, authors might think, the debate on myths of origin should be important in development of profile of national community. The reasoning developed by Cuoco is both fascinating and sophisticated in its constant reference to the relationship between a timeless national spirit and context-specific features produced by the historical process. In Cuoco’s description, part of society closest to its original features was the popular part, despite its primitive nature and lack of education, while the educated part, which had become French or English, had made itself radically separate. The connections take the shape of transpositions of symbolic and narrative forms from the sphere of religious history to that of national history. During the ‘triennio patriottico’, the notion of brotherhood, deriving from development of ideas in revolutionary France, entered the constellation of concepts relating to national discourse, but was then subjected to a reinterpretation which placed it in a direct relationship with Christian image of community of brothers in Christ.
