Dissenting Words: Rinascimento and Risorgimento in 19th-Century Italy

AThis chapter explores how the 19th-century linguistic shift between rinascimento (rebirth) and risorgimento (resurgence) functioned as a philological act of political dissent. While risorgimento came to define Italy's political unification, both terms shared an entangled, overlapping history often translated globally as "revival." By analyzing key intellectuals like Bertrando Spaventa and Francesco De Sanctis, Cotugno demonstrates that choosing one term over the other was a deliberate tactic to contest and shape political ideology, anchoring Italian identity within a broader, transnational debate.