ABSTRACT
This chapter has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it analyzes the specificities of the selection of articles from Italian Luoghi della memoria volumes translated into French in 2007 under the title L’Italie par elle-méme. Oriented by the representations of Italian history widespread in France in the early 2000s, the choice made in this shorter book is also the fruit of the sensibility of French historians who were used to working and conducting their research at the Ecole franéaise de Rome in the late 1980s and early 1990s. On the other hand, the article deals with the setting up of the Italian edition of Sites of Memory. To do so, it traces the troubled intellectual and political context of the 1990s in Italy and analyzes the reasons behind the collective enterprise directed by Mario Isnenghi. The group of historians of different left-wing political sensibilities gathered around this project aimed to constitute a constellation of national identity reference points in a framework of harsh discussion on the founding narrative of the Italian post-war Republic.
