The present article deals with Italy’s housing crises after the Second World War and in the 1960s, which signalled the onset of the Italian “economic miracle.” In the immediate aftermath of the war, the crisis amounted to a housing shortage caused by wartime destruction and social stagnation in the fascist period, demographic growth and a. Rural exodus and housing crisis in Italy, 1950-1970 In the conclusion, the author reiterates his own definitions of civil and political religions and the different historical combination of these secular religions with the traditional religions, which is one of conflict or of syncretism according to historical situations. In this perspective, the author proposes a redefinition of the concept of civil and political religions, by considering the different approach to the religious phenomenon, that cannot be confined only to the dimension of the divine, but has to be broadened to the dimension of the sacred. The author give relevance to the modernity of the process of the sacralization of politics and to its various permutations in contemporary age, since the age of the democratic revolutions of the 18 th century to the present time. This paper is a critical survey of the debate on civil and political religions, and a reappraisal of the main issues dealing with the different views on the relationships between politics and religion, beyond the traditional experiences of the Church and State associations in the form of established religion or religious policy of the sovereign. The immense and ambitious scope of this book, its ability to follow diverse histories in detail, and its effort to explain stabilization-and not just revolution or breakdown-have made it a classic of European history. While most previous accounts presented the decade as a prelude to the Depression and dictatorships, the author suggests that the stabilization of the 1920s, vulnerable as it was, foreshadowed the more enduring political stability achieved after World War II. Arguing that a common trajectory calls for a multi country analysis, the book provides a comparative history of three European nations-France, Germany, and Italy-and argues that they did not simply return to a prewar status quo, but achieved a new balance of state authority and interest group representation. Based on extensive archival research, the book examines how European societies progressed from a moment of social vulnerability to one of political and economic stabilization. The author, one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of European history, published this, his first book, in 1975. Il Vittoriale, his villa near Gardone on Lake Garda, is one token of this.139
Far from shunning the limelight, D’Annunzio knew well how to attract it. Despite the undisputed quality of his work, Il vate (the “Bard”) - as he is widely known in Italy - commanded so much attention because of his extravagant lifestyle and amorous adventures, which turned him into a media icon during his lifetime. Yet D’Annunzio remains as a literary point of reference - if only for those who wish to mark a distance from his exalted Symbolist style. He was not only a renowned lyrical poet, dramatist and novelist, but also a notorious playboy and dandy, as well as a politician and war hero.138 The British journalist Sisley Huddleston had already singled him out in 1924 as Mussolini’s John the Baptist, and consequently his reputation suffered after the Second World War on account of his affinity with Fascism. Gabriele D’Annunzio, born in 1863 in Pescara, Abruzzo, is the best-known and most controversial Italian writer of the fin de siècle.