Creating places of public memory through the naming of school buildings. A case study of urban school spaces in Bologna in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This contribution sets out to analyse the official names of Italian schools in the 19th and 20th centuries, considering these schools as places of civil, political and scholastic memory. Studying national legislation and based on historical research into specific schools in Italy, the work focuses on the naming of the school buildings found today in the city of Bologna (Italy) during the period from Unification until the Second World War. Examining as-yet unexplored archive sources, the study investigates the motivations underlying the school names, the contexts in which they were debated and decided, the inauguration ceremonies and the relative official speeches given by the authorities, the stones laid or busts displayed in or outside the schools and the complex scenography set up for the local people offering a "pedagogic" and yet political discourse, as an authentic educational heritage of "public memory" and political pedagogy for the generations of the time and those to come. This study also shows some interesting surprises concerning famous and less well-known figures and personalities pointed out in the local school memory but legible on many levels of historical and educational interpretation. This work has confirmed that officially named of Italian school buildings are authentic places of memory assigned from birth to play a civil and public function for national education and cultural memory, as well as the literacy of the new generations