Out of Italy

by Fernand Braudel, Siân Reynolds (Translator)

A beautifully illustrated history reveals the grandeur and decadence of Italy from 1450 to 1650.

Other Details: 170 full-color illustrations 248 pages 10 1/4 x 10 1/4" Published 1991

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Art, Italian Literature, 16th Century

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Fernand Paul Achille Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects: The Mediterranean (1923–49, then 1949–66), Civilization and Capitalism (1955–79), and the unfinished Identity of France (1970–85). His reputation stems in part from his writings, but even more from his success in making the Annales School the most important engine of historical research in France and much of the world after 1950. As the dominant leader of the Annales School of historiography in the 1950s and 1960s, he exerted enormous influence on historical writing in France and other countries.

Braudel has been considered one of the greatest of the modern historians who have emphasized the role of large-scale socioeconomic factors in the making and writing of history. He can also be considered as one of the precursors of world-systems theory.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Baroque felt at home in empires: it had been imperial from birth.

This was a strange volume, one dashed off by Braudel possibly for an Italian publisher while he was at work on his mammoth history of capitalism. It is an unusual Braudel as there’s nary a longue durée in sight. There’s cursory economic analysis, detailed art criticism and some unsettling use of the term greatness. I had considered sharing an anecdote about the final aspect but that will have to wait.

I found this a palate cleanser, a suitable heady interlude. It isn’t likely to change anyone’s life.

[Nick Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not certain about the story behind this book. It isn’t one of Fernand Braudel’s more famous works and wasn’t published in French until after his death – and quickly translated into English by Sian Reynolds – but it had been published in Italian during the first half of the 1970s. It seems to date from that time which means Braudel wrote it while working on the three volumes of Civilization and Capitalism. It might have been Braudel’s idea of a relaxing break from the longer work, but I suspect it was a commission from an Italian publisher. A history of Italy from 1450 to 1650. If you know Braudel’s work you will not expect narratives and character studies: this is not the book to come to if you want to know about the military struggles between France and the Habsburg Empire, if you want to follow the rise of the de Medicis or the fall of the Borgias, if you want the lives of Leonardo, Titian or Galileo. Out of Italy is a thematic study and passes from subject to subject: Venetian trade routes and Genoese bankers, the baroque, the Commedia dell’arte, the rise of opera, etc, etc. But I’m not sure what holds it all together. A reoccurring theme is Italy’s place in and influence on Europe and the Mediterranean world and the title of the English translation privileges this theme, but while it is an important part of the book it isn’t dominant – or if it is meant to be, the book too often wanders off subject. Out of Italy feels as though Braudel quickly pulled together a mass of ideas that he had been pondering and lecturing on for years. I’m not implying that it is glib or lazy, Braudel expresses a deep scholarship and love of his subject, but the book works as a series of essays on a series of subjects, rather than having a unifying argument. There is a final chapter considering Italy’s ‘greatness’ during this period which is perhaps an attempt to pull everything together, but it is one of the least satisfactory parts of the book. I think you have to go with it, following Braudel from subject to subject, from interest to interest and relax into the fascinations of his insights and knowledge.

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written book, making all sorts of fascinating connections beyond the boundaries of Italy. Braudel and the Annales School more broadly have inspired some of my favourite Marxist historians and world-systems theorists, and I can see the wonderful way his mind works reflected in those subsequent works of Marxist literature. I want to read Braudel’s larger and more influential body of work on capitalism and social history sometime, but this happened to be the book digitally accessible from my local library (which is the main way I borrow now a days, I unfortunately haven’t stepped into a brick and mortar branch for quite sometime, though I think this will be rectified as the weather warms in the spring). All that being said, we still get his insights into the history of capitalism in this relatively small book on Italy, and I very much enjoyed my time with it.

His focus here is the period of 1450-1650, which he describes in this way:

“Our period, like that of Roman antiquity, was an age of vigorous expansion, an age of active exploitation of the Mediterranean, the Mare Internum, by shipping, by regular traffic, by a form of capitalism already versatile and far-reaching, with strings of solidly established trading posts. ”

You also get his core-periphery commentary that came to dominate Marxist world-systems theory and the work of Third World theorists like Samir Amin:

“One has constantly to be aware of both the detail and the overall picture—or more precisely to challenge the dialectic of internal and external factors, and seek a single unifying truth. Indeed, that wider stage on to which Italian life was projected makes sense only if it is constantly related to and set alongside what was happening inside Italy on home ground, at the heart of the system. It is sometimes said that light shed from the margin is the best, that a complex whole may best be apprehended from its outer limits. That may well be so, but we nevertheless have to deal with two separate geometries, two realities: core and periphery. Their contrasts and coincidences, and even more their failure to coincide, are the raison d’être of the debate we shall be following. But what a bundle of difficulties and dilemmas is contained within the enormous mass of history to be subjected to this double analysis. Relations between Italy and the countries and coastlines of Islam and Byzantium were by no means simple. ”

In this book, you also get a wonderful introduction to the history of opera and its arrival in France, with passing commentary on “de-Italianization” and Jean-Baptiste Lully, a miller’s son from Florence brought to France by Duc de Guise who was behind the Naples republican uprising:

“In France, the grand première of the opera was another Orfeo (libretto by Buti, music by Luigi Rossi) in 1647, thanks to Mazarin, who had brought an Italian company to Paris. French music, which had grown up on the “tradition of the song and the court ballet” suddenly became “Italianized” on the death of Louis XIII—and its “de-Italianization” was equally swift and politically calculated, after the death of Mazarin in 1661.
Was this a natural reflex, like all the about-turns to which France has accustomed us? It was too deep and long-lasting for us to be content with a circumstantial explanation—though one comes readily to hand in the person of Giambattista Lulli, or Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687), the Italian who wanted to be French.
It was apparently the frivolous Duc de Guise, the man behind the Naples uprising, who had, a few years earlier, in 1643, discovered and brought from Italy this child prodigy, a humble miller’s son born in Florence.”

This book’s history of science sections are also marvellous:

“there was in fact a “renaissance,” since the invention of printing had made available, belatedly but effectively, the pioneering thought of Archimedes and of Appolonios of Rhodes (on conics), and this contribution was decisive. One thinks of the times Leonardo da Vinci tried in vain to get hold of one of Archimedes’s manuscripts. Such publications made it easier for science to get off on a new footing.”

“It is probably improper to make a distinction, during these critical years at the very beginning of the long career of modern science, between pure and applied science, in other words between science and technology. The miraculous rendezvous between science and technology would take place only in the future; for the “practical knowledge of the artisan” would only very slowly combine with the abstract thought of scholars—or “logicians” as they were sometimes called by the men whom we should probably describe as the technicians of the period (such as the English Robert Norman, a former navigator and compass-maker, who published his book, The New Attraction, in 1581). Modern science would pursue a path between these two basic poles.
This was already the position of the pioneering thinker Francis Bacon (1561–1626), the “Christopher Columbus of philosophy”; here philosophy really meant science, or natural philosophy. In his De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (1605), Instauratio magna, and the Novum organum (1620), Bacon recommended experiment and observation before any attempt at logical interpretation. He therefore “very clearly perceived the status of modern science. It was a question of apprehending the concrete in order to apply correct theories to it.”

“According to Alexandre Koyré, modern physics “was born with and in the works of Galileo Galilei, and brought to completion in those of Albert Einstein.” Galileo was a thinker whose work powerfully anticipated the future. “Without Galileo, there would have been no Newton, and it is hardly paradoxical to say that without Newton there would have been no Galileo.” Galileo’s principle of relativity must surely be regarded as a first step on the path later taken by Einstein. Einstein himself was well aware of this: his enthusiasm is evident in the preface he wrote to his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems; indeed he says that he is in danger of exaggerating and giving a superhuman image of his hero, so great is his fascination with him.166 Looking resolutely into the future, Galileo came very close to making discoveries that came to light later. I am inclined to agree with Umberto Forti167 (as opposed to Alexandre Koyré) that Galileo understood, and analyzed, if he did not perfectly formulate it, the principle of inertia, and that he came very close to discovering universal gravitation and the infinitesimal calculus that would have completed his explanation of the world.”

This comment about Italian engineers following Galileo’s trial was also written so comellingly:

““In short, without wishing to underestimate the acute tragedy for science represented by the trial of 1633, about which I shall have more to say, I cannot believe that Italian science and technology were immediately plunged into darkness. In the short term, it is simply not true. Neither science nor technology faded away overnight. In the crucial area of technology, Italy continued to export its engineers, who were probably the best of their time. They were to be found at work during the great siege of Antwerp in 1585, under the command of Alessandro Farnese, and at the equally large-scale siege of La Rochelle by Richelieu in 1628; they were still being employed in Vauban’s time. What was more, Italian treatises on machines were the finest in the world and often remained in use until the eighteenth century; examples are the works of Agostino Ramelli (published in Paris in 1588), Fausto Veranzio (1617), Vittorio Zonca (Novo Teatro di machine et edificii, Padua, 1624) and Benedetto Castelli (Delle Misure dell’Acque correnti, 1628).
Umberto Forti, the well-known expert on the history of science and technology, has recently re-edited the Nuove Macchine by Fausto Veranzio—a remarkable character, a humanist who wrote on every subject, amazingly intelligent and fascinated by all mechanical problems such as automatic milling, the various types of wind and water mills, even mills using tidal power. It is a pleasure to discover the ingenious processes the author proposes in this mechanical wonderland.
Finally, one should mention the pioneering activity of the Accademia del Cimento. It had been formed in 1651, though the official date of its foundation was 1657. The Grand Duke Ferdinand de’ Medici and his brother Leopoldo had had a laboratory built for their research scientists: the anatomist Borelli, the embryologist Redi, the anatomist and mineralogist Steno, and the astronomer Domenico Cassini all worked there. The experiments carried out by the Accademia were largely concerned with measuring temperature and atmospheric pressure, ballistics, the speed of sound and light, fluids, and the freezing point of water. ”

Braudel’s comments on the history of science, as a discipline, were also quite interesting:

“It is even clearer that there can be no sector of human life hermetically sealed off from the rest. Despite the very great esteem I have for Alexandre Koyré, I do not believe that there is such a thing as a history of science in itself; nor do I agree with the majority of art historians that art somehow falls outside social contingencies, in which it is in fact deeply rooted; nor that the economy is just one more compartment of human life, with its own history, and so on. History is made up of hundreds of correlations, and at best we manage to see a few of them. So let us not jump to conclusions on the basis of oversimple premises.”

One last excerpt on sea power is very relevant to my own research interests, and I will have to store this excerpt away for future reference:

“The five European examples of greatness chosen for comparison not surprisingly perhaps add up to a commentary on the notion of sea power as understood by Admiral Mahan. All of them were based on strength at sea. Being only half successful in this respect was a constant source of weakness in the case of France. France had money, population, competent commanders from the aristocracy, soldiers, political will, plentiful natural resources, a state established both early and comparatively solidly, and policies, energetically and skillfully pursued, that were at least as reprehensible as everyone else’s. But, in the sixteenth century, France lost Italy, of which it had so long dreamed, not on the field of Pavia in 1525, but three years later in 1528, when Andrea Doria abandoned the blockade of Naples and went over to the imperial camp with his galleys. Without the Genoese navy, it was impossible for the King of France to dominate either Italy or the Mediterranean, so imperial or “universal” domination was out of the question. Then in the seventeenth century, Louis XIV was defeated at La Hougue on May 26, 1692. His immediate response was to say “Forty-four of my ships have beaten ninety of my enemy’s,” which was true, but in reality the French navy never recovered from a “victory” that was in fact a disaster. And, finally, the great epic of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, that expenditure of huge capital to no avail, came to an unprofitable end at Trafalgar on November 21, 1805, between two in the morning and five in the afternoon. So on three separate occasions, for reasons so obvious that no one can fail to see them, France lost greatness just as it was within reach. A book written long ago by Emile Bourgeois pointed out the mortal conflict between France’s maritime and continental destinies. France lies at a crossroads of Europe, surrounded by lands and seas and unable to neglect any of them. Thus it has had to divide its efforts. England by contrast could afford to ignore land power.

…The Italian navies maintained their supremacy from the twelfth century until at least 1550 or so, possibly until about 1570. The date is uncertain because, unlike the French or Spanish cases, there was no major disaster to mark the end of the Italian fleet, no date to go down in history, no La Hougue or Trafalgar. But there can be no doubt that Italian greatness in this respect came to an end about then.”

Overall, an exemplary piece of historical writing for me, condensed and brilliant. I hope to write history some day a fraction as compelling as little throwaway pieces of history writing that Braudel produces. More Braudel reading I hope — soon. I will have to make the time.

[David Sogge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Composed in the 1970s by one of the the 20th century’s most influential historians, this book locates origins of the modern world system in Italy's ‘long sixteenth century’. In that period, Italy as a nation-state did not exist, being more like a set of entrepots: Naples, Livorno, Rome and especially Genoa and Venice. Braudel zooms in on the mercantile practices, technologies and diplomatic relations of those economic principalities, and zooms out to trace their linkages and rivalries across the Mediterranean and beyond. Italy's dynamics then bear resemblances to those seen in today's world. This is clearest in the concluding chapter, which discusses the eclipse of Italian dominance as its elites became unproductive rentiers. They lent their money abroad or put it into landed estates. For those elites, manufacturing and infrastructure weren't of much interest and for Church prelates, scientific advances were unwelcome. Braudel analyses (though not always convincingly) in spirit-of-the-age terms the rise Baroque art and lavish entertainments. But his political economy analysis of decadence is compelling. Intoxicated by rent-seeking and leisure pursuits, the Italians were ultimately overtaken by more assertive and cunning English and Dutch. Such were the pitfalls of wheeling and dealing in money, and of indulging in status goods. Sound familiar ? For Braudel they had a contemporary ring: “Italy during these two centuries of the early modern era was not unlike France in a later period or the United States today”.

[Gabriel Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this , perhaps because it is atypical Braudel or Annales. Addressing two centuries of Italian history and cultural transmission, It is a very short book at under 300 pages, really just a titillating survey for further reading, with some hypotheses thrown in, none of them startling.

Weirdly, this book first appeared in Italian in the seventies. French and English editions followed almost twenty years later.

However you sift or restructure history it is always either a story or at the service of some story.

Otherwise no one would read it. Unless of course they were forced.

The Braudel historical product is as weirdly cinematic in its way as Ridley Scott. It is the bustle of trade, great ships of varying tonnage lading in ports whose names are evoocative: Ragusa, Trebizond, Chios.

This came ouit during the global mainstreaming of the second generation Annales school. Great men are out. Humanism was viewed as "an ideology", a "naive program". The enlightenment would face a similar reappraisal.

All his materiel for racing through the spread of humanism in chapter 1 comes from a renown French art historian ten years younger, Andre Chastel: "L'age de la Humanisme." Chastel is quoted giving receipts that in France, "the flame of humanism was revived by Italians." Looks like a good book.

Pure economic history presented to readers or by writers not versed in the narratives which preceded it would be very strange and almost hermetic. It would be like watching some alpine valley in which you have never walked thaw and freeze in time lapse for centuries with never a chance to watch a cow graze let alone some humans interact.

In this less rigorous example of "Annales" history you have the amalgam....behind the growth and genesis of European capitalism you can discern all the operatic leads: Visconti, the Venetian Signoria and the "Universal Spider", the "savage exultation" with which Florence smashed Pisa, making you want to read the "cold and scornful account" of Gino de Neri Caponi.

One source which is a poster child for Annales History is the much referenced "Datini" archive, a massive cache of 14th century commercial account books and correspondence discovered in Tuscany in 1870 which then had to wait almost a century for the historical vogue which would give it fullest expression.

Think of the time and work invoilved in fructifying such a resource. It is all on line now in english at the touch of a key!

Annales history would be oppressive and unreadable without frequent asides and incursions into cultural and poltical history. It can only be a palimpsest, an overlay.

The bulk of the book is in the second chapter, divided into three periods which are delineated politically, by the peace of Lodi, Spanish invasion and the 1559 treaty of Cateau- Cambresis. It is full of nuggets, yes, stories. We only eat the oatmeal for the raisins, in truth.

Remember, this was written for the Italian market. The last two short chapters would have reassured the Italian reader. The seventeenth century decline was not, or not entirely a product of parochial closed culture from the trial of Galileo on, as in the liberal capitalist hymnal which was Gusdorf's La Revolution Galiléene, but due to economic changes and volumes of trade. The "Looking Back" Chapter is a dense and brilliant historical musing.



On page 229, Braudel revealingly states that "I do not believe that gthere is such a thing as a history of science in itself."

[Ethan Strombeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first hands-on experience with Braudel doing history, in this case dealing with the cultural
propagations produced by Italy between 1450 and 1650. I was of course dazzled by the breadth of his cultural explorations and especially by his notion of the “Baroque” as a more impactful Italian export than the High Renaissance—“wave after wave” versus “a few drops” in the larger European context, as he puts it.

If anything was a letdown, it is that his tripartite division of historical change is not really explained here, it seems to be assumed that the reader is already familiar with his books on the Mediterranean and Civilization and Capitalism. Here, his elusive references (without elaboration) to the economic “conjoncture” as a confident marker for cultural shifts feel, well, like conjecture. The last chapter on “greatness” is a good effort at rationalizing an ultimately subjective judgment, but it again feels detached from the laboriously researched historical sections.

[niste eroi · Rating 5 out of 5]

History tells you who sold who to who.
As i was reading this book something struck me as very familiar . The merchants who were doing business with the enemies of friends or allies.
Say Venetians , Venetian empire you can say Germany nowadays selling the Heart and Soul of Europe to the Turk or Tamerlan or by its proper name to Putin " for pepper and spice trades" :
" In any case, how could Venice live
without the Turks, without their cheap raw materials and the huge
markets they represented? By April 1454, the Signoria was coming to
terms with the Sultan. The instructions given to the Venetian ambassador
were quite clear: “Et dispositio nostra est habere bonam pacem et amicitiam
cum domino Imperatore Turcorum” (“Our intention is to have a good peace
and friendship with the lord Emperor of the Turks”) "
And dont forget the most important argument of the pacifists : " Each time Italy embarked on a period of prosperity, the rest of
Europe followed suit—or sometimes even preceded it."

So help Germany to embark on a period of prosperity for Europe with the gas of Putin and of course we will fight the Turk with the glitters of german cars bought by the russians oligarchs .

[Erik Wirfs-Brock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of halfway between an essay and a fully fleshed out book, wonderfully erudite as all Braudel works, but not fully satisfying because the thesis wasn't anything new (i feel like the other Braudel books I have read made the same argument about placing back the time the Mediterranean was no longer the driver of the world economy) and also kind of rambly.

[Mark Singer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide ranging survey of the “long sixteenth century” of Italy from 1450 through 1650, through the lenses of politics, military, and cultural history. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the Renaissance and Baroque.

[Ed Stoddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had a long interest in the Annales school of history but it has been quite some time since I read one of its practitioners. In translation, Braudel's prose is as dazzling as his analysis. He connects dots between the flood of American silver into Europe - a product of Spanish conquest - and the changing cultural landscape including the rise of opera.
I do find some of his terminology curious, such as his frequent references to "economic recessions". A recession is now defined as two straight quarters of contraction in gross domestic product (GDP), a 20th century concept that is difficult to measure in the 15th to 17th centuries. Still, there were clearly periods of economic stagnation and prosperity in Italy and Europe in this period. Inflation was also more of a thing than I had previously realised in this era.
I look forward to reading more of Braudel and his long view of history ...

[David C Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essay by the great Braudel about Italy, first published in the ‘70s, that follows the usual Annales School structure of center and periphery - Italian society on the peninsula and Italian influence extending out across the world. Control of banking and culture was key. Braudel knows so much but sometimes his world connections are too tenuous because the viewpoint is too long or distanced. (You can see why the Annales school project of huge problems was replaced, even among the practitioners, with specific, even micro, studies.) The better sections are when he’s focused, especially on the culture of the Baroque which he sets up as the equal of the Renaissance. 4 stars for style; 3 for substance.

[Karla Molinar arvizo · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7 rating

[José Augusto Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

O melhor livro que li esse ano (talvez um dos melhores da vida). A elegância e o bom humor na escrita de Braudel encontram perfeita guarida em sua erudição ímpar. Ao falar da Itália como modelo ocidental, Braudel delineia ondas, aponta casas mercantes, tonéis de vinho e a rivalidade de Bernini e Borromini na arquitetura da Roma barroca como sintomas desse carrossel de referências que faz a Europa passear. Dali vemos que a Itália exportou modas, geriu a prata espanhola e trouxe o oriente para as feiras de Champanha. Entre 1450 de 1650 Braudel renegocia a noção de auge, de tempos gloriosos e estica nossa percepção sobre o momento italiano, que é mais que renascimento e maior que o barroco da contrarreforma.
Mas para muito além da erudição, a pena ensaistica de Braudel inspira qualquer historiador apaixonado e contrito com seu ofício. Há lugares da narrativa e na análise que produzem a história per se. A escrita é o próprio método e se revela a cada palavra. Refuta o olhar teleológico (quando fala da decadência do capitalismo italiano) e abre enormes portas de percepção para se tocar o passado, refazendo-o e reimaginando-o como preconizava Colingwood.
Braudel termina seu livro dizendo que quando a noite cai sobre a Itália, a Europa toda se iluminou. Foi o que senti ao fechar o livro, iluminado à contra-luz da pena desse enorme historiador.

[Yong Kwon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Braudel presents the case for how Italy may have had greater influence in Europe and the Mediterranean Sea in the period between the 14th and 17th centuries. Perhaps most interestingly, the author suggests that Italy's decline can be attributed to not only commonly cited factors like northern Europe's growing maritime supremacy but also the profitability of agriculture, which diverted resources from finance and commerce.

Despite these features, the book falls short of being recommendable because it lacks organization. It is also sprinkled with references that are not readily accessible to first time readers of Italian history.

The closing thoughts make me wonder whether the author intended for this book to be less an examination of Italy and more a reflection on France's own decline after the Second World War. In which case, I would have rather read an essay that straightforwardly addressed the author's fears of the historical parallels.

[Robert Reinhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The number of writers/historians that were capable of such full knowledge are few anywhere. This discourse of the influence and then decline of Italy astonishes in its connections. The quality and design of the book with its gorgeous full color illustrations make it one of the most beautiful to hold in the hand and that's not even giving credit to the power of the images themselves to accompany the history.

[Ognjen Lopusina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ja сам мислио да ћу овој књизи добити некакав покушај да се дефинише и објасни специфична важност и јединственост италијанске културе. То сам и добио до душе али на један прилично ограничен тврдо куван начин.
Бродел се у овој студији пре свега бави Италијом из своје златне хуманизам и ренесанса фазе те у та два века од краја ХIV до почетка XVII века. Како смо и навикли од њега све ће бити објашњено финанијско-пословним односима, развојем привреде и транспорта као и пратећим културним нуспроизводима.
Добар део књиге се у том смислу и састоји из његове плитке анализе културно-уметничких постигнућа (пре свега настанак и развој ренесансе те у потоњем делу овог периода барока). Ове информације наравно нису епохалне за било кога ко макар површно познаје историју уметности али опет са друге стране дају занимљив увид у везе са привредом.

Врло су занимљиви циклуси које идентификује у развоју и декаденцији империја (у Италији је у том периоду идентификовао два циклуса). Највеће домете у култури и уметности Бродел асоцира са периодима који следе непосредно након највећих потонућа. Није превелико изненађење да Бродел долази до закључка да сваки раст империја и култура пре свега потиче од искоришћавања ”других” географија (у италијанском случају експлоатација медитерана кроз трговину, окупацију итд; у случају Шпаније пљачкања Америке; итд итд)

Нисам претерано уживао зато што сам очекивао некакву емоцију и бављење тим je ne sais quoi-ом, а уместо тога сам добио Фернанову клиничку анализу аутпута и инпута.

[Nosemonkey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This lesser-known work is a neat indicator of both Braudel's strengths and his weaknesses: The massively macro perspective (going far beyond Italy's borders and the two hundred year timeframe he's set himself to lay out his explanations of why the Renaissance was so dominated by Italy, and why it subsequently declined) down to ridiculous detail about seemingly obscure and unimportant issues, which somehow demonstrate the macro shifts.

It's not as superficial as his History of Civilisations, nor as granular as his Mediterranean, and has far less of a clarity of hypothesis than any of his books that I'm aware of.

Why was it Italy that saw so many great advances in art and science and commerce and more over such a short period? TBH, after all this I'm still not sure - and I'm not even convinced that the question is the right one, due to insufficient comparative analysis of other countries and cultures.

Braudel talks much of "destiny" at the start - a profoundly unhistorical concept, at least for most of the last century - and concludes with something along much the same lines. It's frankly unsatisfying.

But then, I found his train of thought with this one much harder to follow than usual - almost as if this is little more than preparatory notes as he tried to order his thoughts for what turned out to be Civilisation and Capitalism, his massive three-volume global study which has been gathering dust on my shelf for a few years now. Was that the origin of this one? If so, it becomes more interesting than it is as a standalone work.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to Braudel’s writings on the longue durée, outlining the economic, social and cultural role of Italy in the development of Europe and, relatedly, the world-system from 1450 through 1650. I’m planning to read Civilization and Capitalism this year and this has been a good primer on Braudel’s style and Mediterranean fetishism.

After completing Wallerstein’s Modern World-System series (and in light of local and international political developments in recent years), I’m increasingly interested in communism in the longue durée; the concept that, much as capitalism struggled to be born throughout the second millennia, communism (or post-capitalist social forms) will develop in fits and starts throughout this one. Just as Vasco da Gama was shocked to find Italians in Calicut in 1498 (a fun anecdote in this text), I imagine JDPON vanguardists finding an MPLA flag in a Danish apartment in 2098.

[Mica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braudel foi um historiador francês e um dos mais importantes representantes da Escola dos Annales. Doutor pela Sorbonne, integrou a Primeira Missão Francesa, que firmou o nascimento da Universidade de São Paulo, onde foi professor entre 1935 e 1937.
O modelo italiano trata-se de uma coleção de pequenos ensaios articulados ao contexto da história socioeconômica da Itália, entre 1450 e 1650. Nesse período, a Itália como Estado ainda não existia, assemelhando-se mais a um conjunto de entrepostos: Nápoles, Livorno, Roma, Genova e Veneza, especialmente. O autor nos apresenta as práticas mercantis, economia, relações diplomáticas, artes. E enfatiza como as transformações econômicas trouxeram uma enorme influência cultural, expressadas nas artes e nas ciências, produzindo uma série de inovações que geraram riqueza ao velho mundo. A escrita do historiador é deliciosa, e esse pequeno recorte da história italiana é explorado de maneira muito agradável e fácil. Excelente leitura!

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A piece of old fashioned historiography. Well written and entertaining but based on the pretty nonsensical premise that there are epochs when certain "nations", or rather regions achieve "greatness" by exercising an extraordinary amount of influence over world history. Partly this stems from the word choice of "greatness" but one can't but see a certain normative bias that modern historiography is avoiding. It doesn't make it better that he portraits the quest for greatness as a zero sum game between competing "nations". Furthermore there are quite few clichés and simplifications that make a good story but that modern historiography has rebuked in the meantime.
Nevertheless a well researched piece from an intriguing perspective on a topic that was much more well known by generations of the past than by ours.

[Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Braudel is such a pleasure to read. In this, he contextualizes italy in between 1350 to 1650 - describing what differentiated italy materially into originating the renaissance and later on falling behind the rest of western europe. The differentiators being italy’s oatchwork of independent city states that gobbled wealth from Mediterranean trade but failed to coalesce and unite into italian nation state until way too late.

Braudel explores the developments in arts, culture and science that italy produced and popularized in the rest of europe at the time, and provides a beautiful diagnosis for periods of cultural greatness (relative to others): that it occurs in the twilight of material hegemony. One wonders what that pertains for this declining period of american hegemony and where the artistic output is ever degrading.

[Ignas Stanevičius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short essays interconnected in the context of Italian socio-economic history. The book reads easily, but the author often deviates from the main thrust of the chapter. Nevertheless, it is full of various historical curiosities and cultural themes that have been little studied by historians.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been wanting to read something of his for awhile now because he's supposedly fantastic. I settled on this because it's the only thing on Audible, and I was looking for something to listen to, and it was pretty disappointing and I didn't make it far. Supposedly he wrote it for a rich Italian patron and it's not representative of his other work, so I'll have to try something else.

[Red Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very solid and enjoyable work, absolutely packed with ideas. There’s not many histories from this period that are not incredibly outdated, but this still felt remarkably fresh, if a bit heavy on the aesthetics.

[Al Maki]

A study of the greatness of Italy from the Renaissance through the Baroque ending with musing on the nature of national greatness. It felt like a summing up of his life’s work. History can illuminate the present and I thought this did it better than most.

[Kerem Demirtas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bütün Avrupa, Ceneviz, Venedik, Floransa'nın cüzdanından çıkmış

[Dave Trembley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Braudel chronicles the rise and fall of Italian cultural dominance between 1450-1650 very well. His contrast of the Renaissance vs. Baroque period is particularly interesting.

[Marcello Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma história social da grandiosidade e decadência da Itália, que poucos poderiam escrever.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'I must tell you I am in Paris ... What shall I say about this country? I will tell you that it is a world.'" (quoting Giambattista Marino, 193)

[Leonardo Marques · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mais um dos tentáculos d'O Mediterrâneo. Magistral.