"In Farben gezeichnet". Orchestration and Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Symphonies and Overtures between Germany and Italy
Dr. Federica Di Gasbarro
In the late 17th century art theorists were engaged in a lively dispute over the relationship between drawing and colour, some challenging the prevailing view that line, as the essential expression of an idea, was primarily responsible for the perception of form, while colour was merely an ornamental addition. The famous Querelle du coloris emerged much later in the field of music. In the mid-19th century, the opinion prevailed that ...
Old Rulers of the Middle Ages: Kings, Doges and Popes. A Contribution to Gerontological Medieval Studies
Dr. Christian Alexander Neumann
Old age is a universal phenomenon that has multiple facets: on the one hand it is a gradual and continuous biological process, while on the other hand it is a cultural construction and therefore a variable research object. The overarching question is that of the relevance of the factor “age” on the nature of human behaviour, with particular focus on holders of political power. In concrete terms, the aim is to analyse the period of old age of ...
The Holy Spirit Hospital in Rome as the centre of a hospital system of European importance
Dr. Andreas Rehberg
The still active Hospital S. Spirito in Sassia was founded by Pope Innocent III around 1200. He entrusted the management of the project to Gui de Montpellier, who had already built up his own hospital community in his home country. Based on the documentation, found mainly in Roman State Archives and relatively consistent compared to the general state of sources on city life, this project shall develop some of the themes overlooked by research ...
(De)constructing Mediterranean Europe. Italian Farmers Facing the EEC's Southern Enlargement (1970s–1980s)
Dr. Antonio Carbone
Immediately after its launch in 1962, the EEC's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) turned out to be quite unfavorable for the agriculture of Mediterranean regions: whereas "continental" farm goods were subsidized, Mediterranean products enjoyed only tariff protection. Initially underestimated, this disadvantage proved to be substantial as the CAP became the most expensive item in the EEC budget. An important opportunity to ...
The Council of Ferrara/Florence and its repercussions on the Greek Church of Southern Italy – a new beginning or an ongoing decline?
Dr. Thomas Hofmann
In the context of the Council of Ferrara/Florence, the Roman Curia and various social circles in Italy were confronted with Greek theology and culture at an increasing rate. This effect was strengthened by some Greek protagonists who remained permanently at the Roman Curia, for example Isidore of Kiev and Bessarion. The latter, also called Cardinalis Graecus, took various measures to reorganize the Greek monasteries, combining these measures ...
Der Dienstkalender Benito Mussolinis, 1923–1945
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer, Dr. Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi
Mit dem Forschungsprojekt zu Mussolinis Dienstkalender soll in erster Linie eine elektronische Informationsquelle geschaffen werden, die es ermöglicht, die Arbeitsweise des faschistischen Diktators auf der Grundlage seiner persönlichen "Terminplanung" darzustellen. In einem ersten Schritt geht es darum, Mussolinis tägliche Audienzen aus den Akten seines persönlichen Sekretariats zu erschließen. Wichtigste Quelle ist dabei der von der ...
Die Last von Achsenbündnis und Besatzung. Nationale Erinnerungskulturen und deutsch-italienische Beziehungen 1945 bis heute
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer
Die Schatten des Zweiten Weltkriegs reichen bis in unsere Gegenwart hinein: Die politische und gesellschaftliche Auseinandersetzung um die Kriegsvergangenheit (Kriegsverbrecherprozesse, Rückerstattungsdiskussionen, Wiedergutmachungsabkommen, Mediendebatten, das Bild der "sauberen Wehrmacht" auf bundesdeutscher Seite, das des "bravo italiano" und des "cattivo tedesco" auf der Apenninenhalbinsel) prägten einen ...
Elitenwandel in Italien im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer
Seit dem 19. Jahrhundert sind Staat und Politik in Italien geprägt von starken gesellschaftlichen Beharrungskräften. Der Elitenwandel war in der liberal-nationalen Monarchie ein eng begrenztes Phänomen, was sich schon in der hohen Exklusivität des Wahlrechts widerspiegelt. Die adelig-großbürgerliche Elite geriet im Faschismus unter Druck, ohne jedoch vom Regime vollends entmachtet zu werden. Der Sturz Mussolinis, der 1943 von innen heraus und ...
Collection of sources on the commune of Rome in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Dr. Andreas Rehberg
Since 1998, as a permanent member of the DHI Rome, Andreas Rehberg has been engaged in the collection of urban Roman sources, thus continuing a traditional research area of the institute, which is linked to local and transregional Italian urban history. After a systematic review of relevant archival inventories in the early years of the project, a number of source materials, that had received little attention from the Italian side, were selected ...
Europa (de)konstruieren – der Euroskeptizismus in der Geschichte der europäischen Intergration
BMBF-gefördertes Verbundprojekt
Das Forschungsprojekt bettet das Ideal des Zusammenhalts der Europäischen Union in die Geschichte der Skepsis gegenüber Europa ein. Diese Skepsis hat die europäische Einigung einerseits von Beginn an bedingt und begrenzt, andererseits hat sie eigene Formen des Zusammenhalts in Europa gestiftet. Während gegenwärtig vor allem politikwissenschaftliche, auf die jüngere Vergangenheit ausgerichtete Analysen das Forschungsfeld dominieren, verbindet das ...
European Counter-Movements. Eurosceptic Entanglements from the Beginnings of European Integration to the Present Day
Andrea Carlo Martinez M.Phil.
My research project aims to map out the development of 'Euroscepticism' in Italy during the post-war period. According to the common historical and popular narrative, Italy represents a traditionally pro-European country which "fell out of love" with European institutions, a process that can be traced back to the Treaty of Maastricht, having gained speed in the 2010s as a result of the Eurozone and migration crises.
Evidence from ...
Ferdinand Gregorovius: Poetry and Science. Collected German and Italian Letters
Dr. Angela Steinsiek (together with Prof. Dr. Martin Baumeister)
Ferdinand Gregorovius lived in Rome for more than 20 years, where he wrote his main work, the Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, which in 1876 made him an honorary citizen of Rome. In addition to his historiographical and literary oeuvre he has left several thousand letters in which he, a contemporary witness, sheds light on Italian and German history of science as well as on politics and culture of the 19th century. On the basis of ...
Fluid borders. Early Medieval Southern Italy in the Interplay between Competing Religious and Political Powers (9th – Early 10th Centuries)
Dr. Kordula Wolf
The research project deals with the Muslim presence in pre-Norman southern Italy by analysing it in connection with both border-region issues and questions of perception and of dealing with cultural or religious differences. Based on recent approaches of transcultural research, this study challenges common spatial categories and stereotypical group assignments, which until now have influenced relevant scientific literature. The main focus is on ...
Genealogy and Heraldry in the context of Federico Cesi "Linceo" (1585–1630): an example of the reception of the Middle Ages around 1600
Dr. Andreas Rehberg
Inspired by his new research on heraldry in Rome (Collection of sources on the commune of Rome in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance), Andreas Rehberg has ...
Imperial Imitation of the Papacy in the Early Modern Period
Prof. Dr. Alexander Koller
The universal pretense of the papacy concerning the spiritual domain in succession of the apostle Peter has been complemented at times by a more or less pronounced secular-political universalism during its history and combined with elements of imperial self-conception. In forming an image of themselves, the popes referred repeatedly to features of antique and medieval imperial symbolism, especially those popes whose name already suggested an ...
Capitalism, what now? Growth Strategies in Western Europe since 1979
Dr. Lars Döpking
Economically speaking, Italy has recently been through hard times. Between 1999 and 2019 annual economic growth averaged less than 0.5%, resulting in high unemployment (especially among youngsters), collapsing household savings and political upheaval. These "lost decades" between joining the euro and the turmoil of a global pandemic are generally interpreted as the result of a long historical decline. Since Italy was unable to ...
War diary of the German General to the Italian Eighth Army High Command – Italian edition
Dr. Gerhard Kuck (in collaboration with PD Dr. Thomas Schlemmer)
The war diary of the German General to the Italian Eighth Army High Command gains its importance from the fact that the war diary of the Italian Army High Command had gone missing. Although until recently numerous studies in Italy have been dealing with the Italian participation in the "Operation Barbarossa", the German invasion of the Soviet Union, little attention has been paid to the relevant German sources. Only the minor part of ...
The Coasts of the Patrimonium Petri as Hybrid Spaces
Dr. Kordula Wolf
Coasts are spaces that are constantly changing under the influence of very different factors. On the one hand they pose particular challenges for the people who inhabit and govern them, while providing them on the other hand with special resources and opportunities. A historical study of these near-sea regions as hybrid spaces incorporates several levels: a topographical level determined by the dichotomy and blurred boundary between land and ...
Conceptual history of music. Basic concepts of vocal music in terminological discourse
Dr. Sabine Ehrmann-Herfort
The fact that the designation of a subject and the subject itself influence each other in the formation of conceptual content, and that both strands of development are inextricably linked, adds a great deal to the fascination of conceptual history. The subject matter of the conceptual history of a discipline is to crystallise the process of the historical development of its technical terms. To analyse the contexts condensed in the technical ...
Myths and Monuments of the Nation: 'Early Music' in Italy between Unità and Fascismo
Dr. Carolin Krahn
To what extent was the concept of 'early Italian music' shaped as some form of national reference point in the period between the political unification of Italy and the end of the fascist regime? How did this affect the repertories and representations of Italian musical traditions? Using these questions as starting point, the research project focuses on the idea of 'early music' and its practical usage in the period from 1861 to 1943.
The ...
States of Emergency in Transnational Perspective. Politics, Ideas, and Mentalities in Europe and its Colonies, c. 1800–1960
Dr. Amerigo Caruso
The multiple crises of the twenty-first century have brought into sharper focus emergency politics and the surrounding debates. However, this field remains a domain of political science, philosophy, and jurisprudence, whereas the practice and theory of emergency politics has not received the same degree of scholarly attention among historians. Most of the existing research focuses on national experiences, especially on the use and abuse of ...
Re-constructions: Changing Times for Germany and Italy since 1989
Joint project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Resarch (BMBF)
The project "Re-Constructions of the German-Italian Academic Forum for Contemporary History and Politics", developed in cooperation with "Villa Vigoni - German-Italian Centre for European Dialogue" and funded by the BMBF, examines the patterns of reaction to political and social crises, starting from the situation triggered by the Covid-19 epidemic.
The part of the project being rolled out by DHI Rome (Max Weber ...
Repertorium Germanicum. List of people, churches and places of the German Kingdom mentioned in the various series of Vatican registers and in cameral sources
Editor: Dr. Thomas Hofmann
The "Repertorium Germanicum" is a collection of regesta which comprise the names of all German people, churches and places mentioned in the various series of Vatican registers and in cameral sources. It covers the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire, and chronologically the period between the Great Schism and the Reformation (1378–1517). The information is kept in a more
Shadows of the Occident. Catholicism in the Political Thought of Post-War Europe, 1945–1960
Dr. Simon Unger-Alvi
This project examines the intellectual evolution of Catholic-conservative movements across Western Europe. Specifically, it focuses on the relations between Christian Democrats and former supporters of dictatorial regimes in Italy, Germany, and France. In this context, the project primarily analyses the role of the Catholic Church in Europe's political landscape. Thereby, it questions narratives of post-war historiography that mainly revolved ...
Technocrats with Government Authority in Italy since the 1990s
Dr. Sarah Lias Ceide
As part of the project "Re-Constructions of the German-Italian Academic Forum for Contemporary History and Politics" (financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research [BMBF], in cooperation with Villa Vigoni – German-Italian Centre for the European Dialogue). Over the course of the last decades, 'technocrats' have strongly impacted Italian politics, as demonstrated by the example of the ...
The Global Pontificate of Pius XII. Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945–1958
Dr. Simon Unger-Alvi (Principal Investigator)
We are a group of historians analyzing newly available sources on Pope Pius XII in the Vatican Archives. Our team unites scholars from the German Historical Institutes in Rome and Warsaw, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the University of Oxford, KU Leuven, Fribourg University, and Collegium Carolinum Munich.
While the opening of the Apostolic Archive in 2020 has been accompanied by strong media attention and many questions about the ...
Übergangsgesellschaften im Vergleich. Überlegungen zur "Sattelzeit" auf der italienischen Halbinsel und in Europa
PD Dr. Lutz Klinkhammer
Ausgehend von der Analyse der Reaktionsmuster der Bevölkerung im linksrheinischen Deutschland und in Piemont auf die französische Herrschaft von 1798 bis 1814 zielt das Projekt auf eine Bewertung bestimmter Transformationsprozesse in Staat und Gesellschaft vom späten 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Restaurationszeit. Im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit steht die Generierung von neuem gesellschaftlichen Wissen, das sich erweitert um politische ...
History and Translation in the German-Italian Linguistic Area during the 19th and 20th Centuries
Dr. Gerhard Kuck
In the beginning of the 20th century the number of translations increased considerably both in the literary and – in the broadest sense – non-fictional field and did not even diminish during the period of Fascism and National Socialism. The project is aimed essentially at studying this period and primarily the field of non-fictional essays, the translation of which until now, in contrast to literary works, has been largely neglected. In the ...
Venice and the Radical Reformation
PD Dr. Riccarda Suitner
The religious landscape of the mid-16th-century Republic of Venice was characterized by the attempt of the Inquisition to infiltrate and repress the (prevalently Anabaptist) reformed conventicles which had sprung up throughout the Region. The penetration of ideas of the so-called “Radical Reformation” into this territory was easier than elsewhere in Italy, given many factors: the larger volume of international contacts and the existence of ...
On the "Transformation" of the New Political Elites in Italy – from the 1990s to Today
PD Dr. Francesco Di Palma
As part of the project "Re-Constructions of the German-Italian Academic Forum for Contemporary History and Politics" (financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research [BMBF], in cooperation with Villa Vigoni – German-Italian Centre for the European Dialogue).
This research project examines the question of whether, to what extent and why there has been a "transformation" ...
