Engineers and the Nation in Italy (1750–1922): Local Traditions and Different Conceptions of Unity and Modernity

Abstract

This paper deals with the changing relationship between the Italian engineering profession and the idea of Nation in Italy between the 18th and the early 20th centuries. The main premise is that the modernization of the conditions for exercising the profession began in the pre‐unification states, well before the movement towards national unification, and that it is precisely in this diverse history that the essence of the identity of Italian engineers is to be found. Many specific features of the Italian engineering landscape can be traced back to this history: from the strength of ‘localism’, embodied for example by municipal engineers, to the various legacies inherited from the professional organizations of the Ancien Régime. The aim of this article is to analyse changes in the national identity of Italian engineers in relation to the specific form of nation‐state building process the country experienced and to the specific forms of professional organization in the peninsula.

Keywords:

• Engineers
• Italy
• Italian Unification
• Ancien Régime
• Modernization

Notes

[1] Hughes, American Genesis. So as not to clutter the bibliography, we mostly cite general works by historians, where the reader may find detailed bibliographies and first‐hand sources.

[2] Buchanan, The Engineers.

[3] Picon, L’invention de l’ingénieur moderne.

[4] Grelon and Lundgreen, Ingenieure in Deutschland.

[5] For a balanced view on this model, see Picon, ‘French Engineers’, and Belhoste and Chatzis, ‘From Technical Corps’, in this issue.

[6] Ferraresi, Per una storia dell’ingegneria, 97.

[7] Ibid., 102.

[8] Russo, La Scuola d’Ingegneria di Napoli, 7.

[9] Pepe, ‘La formazione degli ingegneri’, 301.

[10] See, for example, Gouzévitch et al., La formation des ingénieurs.

[11] Minesso, L’ingegnere dall’età napoleonica, 261.

[12] See Belhoste and Chatzis, ‘From Technical Corps’, published in the present issue.

[13] Pepe, ‘La formazione degli ingegneri,’ 304.

[14] Minesso, L’ingegnere dall’età napoleonica, 262.

[15] Russo, La Scuola d’Ingegneria di Napoli, 35.

[16] Verdi, L’istituzione del Corpo.

[17] Ferraresi, Per una storia dell’ingegneria, 198.

[18] One of these was Francesco Brioschi (1824–1897), whose career as a student and later as a civil servant shadowed the march towards national unity. See Lacaita, Francesco Brioschi.

[19] Parisi, Luigi Giura.

[20] Fox and Guagnini, Education, Technology.

[21] We should note that in 1860, the railways were still a private business, in the hands of the Rothschild family in the north and of various investors in the south. The unification of the railway networks was not a national project, at least until the 1875 electoral campaign, but here again, what was at stake was more the conception of the role of the state in the management of infrastructures and the economy than a vision of territorial unity.

[22] Bocquet and Lafi, Local élites.

[23] Minesso, L’ingegnere dall’età napoleonica, 279.

[24] Ibid., 280

[25] Russo, La Scuola d’ingegneria di Napoli, 15.

[26] De Pieri, 19th Century Municipal Engineers in Turin. De Pieri, Il Controllo Improbalile.

[27] Soresina, Colletti bianchi; Melis and Varni, Burocrazie non burocratiche.

[28] Clifton, Professionalism.

[29] Zucconi, La città contesa.

[30] Gaspari, L’Italia dei municipi.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Denis Bocquet

Denis Bocquet is a Senior Researcher at Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés (LATTS), (CNRS‐Université Marne la Vallée‐Ecole des ponts et chaussées), France. E‐Mail: [email protected]