With Gothic Italy: Crime, Science, and Literature after Unification, 1861–1914, Stefano Serafini offers an innovative contribution to the study of post-unification Italy and its culture, providing a nuanced analysis of how Gothic literature played a crucial role in the construction of the country’s identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The author examines a number of literary sources and contends that the Gothic was not merely a marginal literary phenomenon but can be used as a privileged lens to read the fears and collective anxieties of a newly unified and still fragile nation. During the years under examination – from 1861 to 1914 – Italy experienced social, political and economic strains, while simultaneously attempting to define its own identity in a time of rapid transformation, when old structures were disrupted by modernity. By reading Serafini’s work, one can fully understand how Italian society lived during this time and the tensions between the promotion of modern social values and ‘the uncontrollable emergence of what modern societies seek to control and repress’ (p. 4); the fight ‘against those forces (premodern beliefs, Catholicism, superstitions) and forms of deviance’ (p. 6) versus ‘the dark, disturbing side of individuals, cultures, and societies’ (p. 4); excess versus measure; instability versus the rational.
The book is structured into three main chapters – ‘Gothic Cities’, ‘Gothic Minds’ and ‘Gothic Bodies’ – each divided into sections. An introduction and a conclusion broaden the perspective to a dialogue with the present and beyond the Italian context.
‘Gothic Cities’ focuses on Naples, Milan and Florence – three iconic centres, with distinct social, cultural and economic dynamics, that are useful for a compelling comparison. Naples’ ‘teeming, dark underbelly’ (p. 26) contrasts sharply with the rapidly growing city centres of Milan and Florence. In the two latter cities, the lower and working classes start to occupy urban spaces that were once the prerogative of the wealthy bourgeoisie. Attention is therefore directed towards the idea of class, which becomes the ground categorising dangerous individuals – namely, those who do ‘not conform to what the middle class viewed as important to society’ (p. 27).
Drawing on several texts – primarily, Francesco Mastriani’s I vermi (1863–4) and I misteri di Napoli (1869–70), Lodovico Corio’s Milano in ombra: Abissi plebei (1885), Paolo Valera’s Milano sconosciuta (1878–9), Giulio Piccini’s Firenze sotterranea (1884) and Matilde Serao’s Il ventre di Napoli (1884) – Serafini highlights how Gothic literature reflected this categorisation. Writers of the time felt the ‘labyrinthine nature’ of these centres, and of their inhabitants too, and interpreted society’s fear of the other and the fear of being infected by the other as well. Infection was a key concept that triggered a ‘combination of morbid fascination … and profound anxiety’ (p. 28) and dialogued with studies by exponents of Italian positivist criminology, such as Raffaele Garofalo, who explored the link between social and biological factors and the propensity to commit crimes.
The interplay between repulsion and attraction, and the reciprocal infection and corruption, is particularly evident in the second chapter, ‘Gothic Minds’, devoted – as the title suggests – to the exploration of the complexity of minds. The section entitled ‘The guilty mind’, for example, delves into the crime-confession pattern – a typology also analysed by scientists like Cesare Lombroso – and, through a close reading of works including Italo Svevo’s short story L’assassinio di via Belpoggio, Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Giovanni Episcopo, Emilio De Marchi’s Il cappello del prete and Luigi Capuana’s Il marchese di Roccaverdina, unveils critiques of Italian society and its injustices. More importantly, it exposes how authors came to terms with the obscure harboured behind the ordinary, the monstrosity – sexual monstrosity in particular – that ‘no longer constitutes an aberration of nature that is entirely and easily discernible’ (p. 88), thus envisioning a complexity hidden within individuals and society that destabilises the surface.
The last chapter, ‘Gothic Bodies’, examines what was considered female deviance (e.g. the femme fatale, infanticidal mothers, vampires), with women’s bodies serving to reaffirm their subordinate status and at the same time nurturing anxieties towards those who disrupt rules and roles and, in general, towards the nation-building process trapped between modernity and emancipatory instances. Works such as D’Annunzio’s L’innocente, Mastriani’s La Medea di Porta Medina and Carolina Invernizio’s Storia d’una sartina exemplify a vision of women ‘infected’ by maternity, irrationality, instability and compliance with honour and societal norms, and their bodies become problematic sites where gender, sexuality and power deploy their force. The result, according to Serafini, is ‘a pluralization of approaches that problematize a straightforward, linear reading of science and literature as operating within the same deeply moralizing and paternalistic cultural framework that suppresses female emancipation and reinforces patriarchal ideologies’ (p. 112).
The book’s conclusion begins with an evocative sentence – ‘A Gothic presence lurks in the shadows of Italy’s troubled path to modernity’ (p. 126) – and brings us back to the present, highlighting the enduring significance of the Gothic on the path to understanding Italy’s complex journey to modernity and opening up new avenues for research and inquiry in continuity with the past.
Ultimately, Gothic Italy: Crime, Science, and Literature after Unification, 1861–1914, through its interdisciplinary approach, is an invaluable work and offers a new perspective to the study of the Italian context during a period of intense social, cultural and political transformation. By highlighting the importance of the Gothic as a key to interpreting the innovations and modernities experienced by Italy and its inhabitants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Serafini’s book illuminates how the undercurrents of the human are viewed, told, metabolised and processed, thus making Gothic narratives not only a marginal literary canon but a broader cultural and social sensibility with strong significance in shaping Italy’s post-unification identity.
