The Formation of a National Audience in Italy, 1750-1890

'The late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries witness significant advancement in the production and, crucially, the consumption of culture in Italy. During the long process towards and beyond Italy becoming a nation-state in 1861, new modes of writing and performing - the novel, the self-help manual, theatrical improvisation - develop in response to new practices and technologies of production and distribution. Key to the emergence of an inclusive national audience in Italy is, however, the audience itself. A wide and varied body of consumers of culture, animated by the notion of an Italian national cultural identity, create in this period an increasingly complex demand for different cultural products. This body is energized by the wider access to education and to the Italian language brought about by educational reforms, by growing urbanization, by enhanced social mobility, and by transcultural connections across European borders.^ This book investigates this process, analyzing the ways in which authors, composers, publishers, performers, journalists, and editors engage with the anxieties and aspirations of their diverse audiences. Fourteen essays by specialists in the field,