Patriottismi tradotti: L’essai sur les garanties individuelles tra Grecia e Italia

It was not until the nineteenth century that the painful process of national unification, both for Greece and Italy, was completed. The editorial history of one of the cornerstones of early nineteenth-century liberalism, the Essai sur les Garanties individuelles que réclame l’état actuel de la société (1818), is useful for reconnecting the threads of a precise cultural matrix common to the two liberal cultures that has remained to date in shadow. Reflecting on the essential guarantees that every State should recognise to each individual, author P. C. F. Daunou elaborated a particular blend of public action and erudition, offering France and Europe a plausible and, more importantly, feasible political model in different historical and cultural contexts. In 1825, at a decisive moment for the process of Hellenic independence, an edition of the Essai was published in Greek as a result of the successful partnership between Adamantios Korais and Philippos Fournarakis. The Italian scenario was to confirm and relaunch the existence of a dense network of transnational ties: in 1848, during the ephemeral but intense Tuscan constitutional experience, it was the translation of the second part of Daunou’s work, that was displayed as a libertarian flag by a deputation from Pistoia in open controversy with the exceptional laws supported by the deputy Vincenzo Salvagnoli. The two contexts, divided chronologically and geographically, are linked by a precise political use of Daunou’s work, which in both cases became the ideological compass with which to legitimise the respective liberal and patriotic claims. By reconstructing the editorial history of the Essai, it will be possible to illuminate some unprecedented aspects of a European liberal culture which put down roots in the last years of the previous century, and was forced to come to terms with a revolutionary experience that extended far beyond the French borders.