ABSTRACT
The achievements of the so-called ‘Italian economic miracle’, which got under way increasingly during Alcide de Gasperi’s distinguished and crucial premiership (1945–53), have been widely and rightly admired. Thanks partly to massive support from the Allies and especially from America, but also to a remarkable, partisan-bred spirit of energetic self-renewal in the Italians themselves, many of the worst consequences of the war were repaired or dispelled surprisingly quickly, especially after inflation had effectively (albeit temporarily) been stemmed in 1948. 1 The move away from the sanction-bound autarky of the late fascist period, towards full founder-membership of the European Common Market (inaugurated by the Treaty of Rome in 1957–8), naturally had huge repercussions on the national psyche that affected the entire orientation of Italian culture.
