The making of Italian agricultural landscapes: Emilio Sereni, between geography, history and Marxism

The eclectic twentieth-century Italian intellectual and militant Emilio Sereni (1907-1977) is well known for his works dealing with the history of the Italian agricultural landscape, which enjoyed widespread editorial success and were translated into English and French. Yet his intellectual influences, as well as his scientific personality, have generated little academic interest. This is partly the effect of the relative academic marginality of Sereni, who was an example of an intellectual who alternated political work and 'pure' research outside the university. Using the primary sources held in the extraordinary archives Sereni left behind, and which have only recently been opened to researchers, this paper addresses his connection to geography, a discipline that played a pivotal and little-known role in his interdisciplinary work. It also shows the importance of the international transfer and circulation of knowledge to that work. At the same time, by retracing Sereni's references, the paper analyses the complex and controversial relationship between science and political commitment which characterised both his career and his intellectual generation.