This article examines some of the social implications of Italy's limited purge of the bureaucracy and Fascist political class following the Second World War. Using the postwar personal correspondence of former Fascist government ministers Giuseppe Bottai (1895–1959) and Dino Alfieri (1886–1966), the article analyses the informal networks that promoted the continued influence of these ex-Fascists with high-ranking bureaucrats and other prominent individuals (such as Pope Paul VI and Aldo Moro). Thanks to the long-standing social practice of the raccomandazione, Bottai and Alfieri maintained their Fascist-era connections well into the postwar period, often serving as intermediaries between ‘ordinary Italians' and governmental, political and cultural elites. Although they no longer held political power, these ex-Fascists represented a class of ‘alternative elites' unassociated with the democratic values of the new Republic.

A distinguishing feature of the Berlusconi era has undoubtedly been his personal conflict with the judiciary. Therefore, this article explores the impact of Berlusconi's 20 years in politics on the Italian judicial system. The main argument developed in this analysis is that, thanks to a strong institutional framework built with the 1948 constitution, the Italian judiciary continued to guarantee an effective mechanism of checks and balances. In spite of reiterated attempts by the centre–right majority to modify judicial procedures and organisation to advantage Berlusconi in solving his judicial troubles (ad personam laws), the judiciary was, in the long run, successful in restraining these actions. In fact, several of the ad personam laws were abrogated by rulings of the Constitutional Court, or made substantially ineffective in the implementation stage. Moreover, no substantial reforms of the judicial system have been accomplished, although they were frequently announced. Nevertheless, it may be argued that Berlusconi's anti-judicial rhetoric has had a significant impact on public attitudes towards the judiciary, and contributed to exacerbating the polarisation between two opposite views of the justice system in Italy. The persistent anti-judicial message affected public opinion and was deeply incorporated by centre–right voters, creating a real cleavage on the issue of justice. Moreover, this huge conflict on the justice issue increasingly distracted the attention of political actors from the real organisational problems of the system of justice.

This article focuses on the experience of a group of traceurs (people practising parkour) in the urban context of Genoa. It describes a public area of the town – the ‘spot' most frequently used for training – from the specific point of view of the traceurs. Genoa is made up of different and relatively autonomous public spaces with specific and cultural characters, but parkour originates from the attempt to disrupt and reconfigure the city's institutional framework. Genoese traceurs share some of their orientation with other parkour groups in Europe and North America: they are attempting to define new ways of moving and new meanings for urban spaces and to expand the standard definition of a citizen. However, in the urban environment of Genoa, traceurs have to face diverse forms of opposition to their attempts to define their own pathways through the everyday flow of people, and in the disciplinary gaze of other citizens.

The debate surrounding German Social Democracy during the era of the Second International represents an important chapter in the historiography of post-Second World War Italy. At the same time, it also marks some crucial moments in the political and intellectual life of Republican Italy. This article aims to show the close relationship between the investigation of the past and the ongoing political struggle that has characterised research on this issue. Study of the topic was practically monopolised by left-wing historians, who, in dealing with the history of German Social Democracy, aimed also to direct the political strategy of workers’ parties. Considering the studies appearing after the 1956 crisis and in the mid-1970s, such a goal seems evident. It was only during the 1980s that the research opened itself to different perspectives – no longer influenced by ideological controversies.

This paper shows how girls and women who practise parkour cross the gendered divisions of space, sport and other symbolic territories that are brought into play by so-called risk-taking sports, and how it may therefore be considered a subversive action. The strategies of negotiation produced by such symbolic crossings are examined via the concepts of reproductive and resistant agency and of gender manoeuvring. In particular the concept of gender manoeuvring will be used to examine the mechanisms of inter- and intra-gender inclusion and exclusion which, within subcultures, pass through a recognition of authenticity. Indeed, in the culture of parkour the question of authenticity emerges when media dissemination produces a split into two distinct practices: art du déplacement and freerunning. The traceuses cross this boundary because of their different origin (they are from the streets as opposed to the gym), thereby building within their gender further discourses on authenticity.

The recent English translation of Caludio Pavone's book on the Italian civil war (1943–1945) represents an occasion to reconsider Resistance historiography and memory politics. This paper discusses Pavone's book and looks back on its genesis, while at the same time reflecting on its legacy. The aim is to offer some insight on the evolution of historiographic narratives concerning the Resistance and the civil war in the last decades.

This article considers the changed role of the Italian presidency and the impact and legacy of Silvio Berlusconi on this. After consideration of some of the methodological difficulties raised by these issues, the article looks at the role of the presidency up to 1992, when the presidency was interpreted in narrow terms set by the framers of the 1948 constitution and by the predominance of the party leaders of the period over the political direction of the State. The article considers how presidents from Sandro Pertini (1978–85) on, sought in different ways to expand the political role of their office. The article analyses the different ways that Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Giorgio Napolitano used their formal and informal powers both to maintain the status of the office and to promote political goals, and concludes with an assessment of the likely long-term impact of these changes and of Berlusconi's role in them.

This article explores the encounter between parkour as an unstructured and culturally innovative practice, challenging both physical as well as organisational spaces, and UISP (Unione Italiana Sport per Tutti/Italian Union of Sport for All) as a sport-promotion body open to organisational and cultural experimentation. Drawing on a multi-method qualitative approach (analysis of documentary material, interviews and focus groups), it looks at the role of UISP in the diffusion and legitimisation of parkour within the Italian context, investigating the interplay between the cultural and organisational logics of both this new practice itself on the one hand, and the organisations that are trying to accommodate it on the other. The incorporation in a sport-for-all organisation like UISP provides traceurs with a safe and legitimised space, which is, however, ‘loose' enough to maintain the fluidity of the practice. Nonetheless, by enabling the coexistence of different and competing definitions and uses of parkour, this fluid organisational space reproduces tensions among traceurs and weakens their voice in UISP's decision-making processes.

This article explores the ways in which Silvio Berlusconi might figure in collective memory. It approaches this from a number of angles. First, consideration is given to the way political figures of the past have resonated culturally and the role of institutions including the mass media in this. Second, Berlusconi's own efforts to situate himself in relation to a shared past are explored, with reference to the place of three nostalgic appeals that figured with varying intensity at different points in his career. Third, Berlusconian aesthetics are investigated to explore the relative roles of kitsch and glamour. It is shown that kitsch gained the upper hand and that this also manifested itself in the monarchical aspects that his personality cult took on. Finally, Berlusconi is considered as a possible subject for a biopic and a discussion is offered of the way his life and career might be presented in different variants of this genre. Overall, it is suggested that expectations that he will be damned by history fail to take account both of the way he imposed himself on the collective consciousness and of the generic requirements of the mass media.