A spotlight on the lecture: Discussing the Influence of American Culture in Pre-World War II Italy with Prof. Guido Bonsaver (Oxford)
On September 26th, 2024, the Center for Italian Studies, co-sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, at the University of Notre Dame hosted a thought-provoking lecture by Guido Bonsaver, Professor of Italian Cultural History at the University of Oxford. His lecture, titled "Italian Culture Between Belle Époque and Jazz Age”, explored the emergence of American culture in Italy between the two world wars, offering fresh insights on a lesser-explored topic. Drawing from his recent monograph, America in Italian Culture: The Rise of a New Model of Modernity, 1861-1943, Professor Bonsaver illuminated how American culture began to shape Italy’s cultural landscape long before the well-known success of American culture in the post-World War II period.
Cultural Parallels: Migration and Cultural Exchange
In reflecting on historical influences, Professor Bonsaver draws parallels with contemporary cultural shifts in Italy, particularly migration and its portrayal in modern media. Indeed, the interest in this topic originates from reflections on the cultural impact of contemporary migration to Italy and how it is portrayed in modern media and narratives. Drawing a parallel, Professor Bonsaver shifts focus to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, asking whether insights from that period can be applied to today’s cultural analysis. Specifically, he examines how cultures merge and interact to create lasting cultural shifts. In this context, the arrival of American culture in pre-World War II Italy serves as a valuable point of comparison for understanding present-day migration and the inherent cultural exchange that it causes.
Recontextualizing American Influence in Pre-War Italy
Contrary to common perceptions of fascist Italy as uniformly anti-American, Professor Bonsaver emphasized the need to reframe this narrative. While it is true that American culture was often viewed with suspicion by the regime, its influence was nonetheless profound and varied, making significant inroads into Italian culture even before the post-WWII Americanization. This shift, however, was nuanced, and Professor Bonsaver highlighted the ambiguity within the fascist regime regarding the adoption of American culture, which was often absorbed and adapted in ways that transcended mere rejection. To illustrate the breadth of this influence, Professor Bonsaver’s analysis explored six key cultural domains where American culture left its mark.
The Cultural Landscape through Six Fields of Study
Professor Bonsaver’s analysis examined six key fields in which American cultural influence was most apparent in pre-World War II Italy: the press, literature, cinema, music, radio, and comics. He argued that these cultural mediums illustrate the gradual shift from the dominance of French highbrow culture in Italy to the rise of the United States as a new transnational model of modernity. This transformation began to affect all social classes, signaling the growing influence of American mass culture across different strata of Italian society.
Two Phases of American Influence: Pre and Post-World War I
The influence of American culture over Italy can be, therefore, divided into two distinct phases. The first phase, from Italy’s unification in 1861 to the end of the First World War, saw France as the main cultural mediator, especially in intellectual circles. During this period, American literature often reached Italian audiences through French translations. As an example, the works of Edgar Allan Poe were introduced to Italy through Charles Baudelaire’s translations, and the poetic liberties taken by Baudelaire influenced the Italian perception of Poe’s work. This highlights the limited number of Italian translators directly working from English, as well as the prominence of French culture as a gateway to American literary works. However, this cultural influence, mediated through French, remained limited during this phase to the upper social classes. It was only with the rise of mass culture that American influence began to permeate more significantly across various spheres of Italian society.
The Fascination with American Mass Culture
American mass culture—literature, film, music, and comics—became a unifying force in Italian society, bridging the gap between higher and lower classes. Professor Bonsaver pointed to the popularity of Hollywood films, jazz music, and American comics like Mickey Mouse, which were sometimes smuggled into the country through comedy films. This fascination created an undeniable cultural link, even as the regime attempted to control foreign influences. While American culture was seen as a threat in certain ideological spheres, the fascist regime also borrowed extensively from American mass production and marketing techniques, as evidenced by figures like Olivetti and Agnelli, who frequently traveled to the U.S. to adopt these innovations.
The Regime’s Ambiguity
By 1938, the fascist regime’s ambiguity towards American culture became increasingly apparent. Through his examination of journalism, literature, film, music, radio, and comics, Professor Bonsaver revealed how, despite the regime's attempts to promote a distinct national identity, American cultural elements permeated Italian society. For instance, in cinema, American directors like King Vidor collaborated with Italian filmmakers such as Vittorio De Sica as early as the 1930s, illustrating a cultural exchange that predated the post-war neorealist movement.
Architecture and Education: Further Evidence of American Influence
Architecture provides another lens to explore the American cultural influence on fascist Italy. While it's commonly believed that the regime rejected American styles, evidence suggests otherwise. Professor Bonsaver highlighted examples like the Torre Piacentini and the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, which reveal clear traces of American architectural inspiration. The Palazzo della Civiltà, part of the EUR 42 neighborhood, was conceived as a symbol of the regime’s greatness, intended to be showcased during the World Exhibition of 1942, an event that never occurred. Interestingly, to celebrate the regime’s accomplishments, its architects looked to American standards of design. Marcello Piacentini, a key figure in the project, had even traveled to the United States in the 1920s, drawing inspiration from places like Stanford University for his design of Sapienza University’s campus in Rome. This reveals a complex relationship where, despite their ideological differences, fascist Italy sought to align itself with American architectural innovation. Given the profound latent influence that American society and industrial development had on the fascist regime, it is essential to acknowledge just how deep this fascination with American culture truly ran.
Education and foreign languages
A key point to consider is the crucial role that language plays in promoting a culture beyond its borders. Therefore, education played a pivotal role in shaping Italy’s engagement and disengagement with American culture, particularly through the lens of foreign language learning. During Giolitti’s government, Luigi Credaro, as Minister of Education, sought to expand linguistic education by creating the Liceo Moderno, a school designed to broaden the intellectual horizons of Italy’s elite by introducing English alongside traditional subjects. However, this progressive approach was soon curtailed. In 1923, Giovanni Gentile’s educational reforms, under the fascist regime, replaced the Liceo Moderno with the more restrictive Liceo Femminile, a high school exclusively for women and that did not give access to University. Ironically, this was the only school where English remained part of the curriculum, underscoring the shifting priorities and tensions in Italy’s educational system regarding foreign language instruction.
A Reassessment of Cultural Exchange
By examining these pre-war influences, Professor Bonsaver not only challenges the perception of a uniformly anti-American Italy but also lays the groundwork for understanding the profound Americanization that reshaped Italy in the post-war period. This lecture provided a nuanced view of the American influence on Italian culture before World War II. By examining the multifaceted ways in which American culture permeated Italian society—whether through jazz, literature, or architecture—his analysis challenges the notion of a uniformly anti-American fascist Italy. Instead, he presented a complex picture of cultural exchange, where American mass culture both shaped and was shaped by Italian society, paving the way for the profound Americanization that would follow after the war.
About the author
Salvatore Riolo, a Ph.D. candidate in Italian studies at the University of Notre Dame, earned a B.A. in languages, civilization, and the science of language at the University of Venice and an M.A. in linguistics at the University of Bologna. He was selected as a Nanovic Institute Graduate Fellow for the 2023-25 academic years and serves as co-editor for Europe in the World. His research background includes foreign languages and translation, specifically German, English, and Russian, textual linguistics in literary studies, and semiology. He also has experience as a teacher of Italian as a second and foreign language.