Images and imagery of «Europe’s Garden». Cultural, artistic and natural heritage in reading books for the Italian schools abroad, in D. Caroli, E. Patrizi (edd.), "«Educating for beauty the youth of the new Italy». Schooling, cultural heritage and building of the national identity from Unification until the post-Second World War period" ,

The present essay aims to analyze the evolution of the representation of the cultural, artistic and natural heritage in the reading books published for the Italian schools abroad in the Twenties and Thirties of the XXth century and how it relates to the attempt to build a new concept of Italian citizenship. The introduction will outline certain aspects of the history of Italian schools abroad, which were set up not only in countries with a high density of emigrants (such as Brazil and Argentina) but also in the Italian colonies. It will also examine some methodological considerations about the analysis of school textbooks of this period under the fascist regime. The two main parts, subdivided into two sections will analyze respectively the features of the readings presented in the reading books for the 1st-3rd classes and 4th-5th classes of the primary school published prior to the Law of January 7th, 1929 about State schoolbooks, paying particular attention to the so-called process of fascistization which occurred after 1925. The second part will present, in two sections, the textbooks for the 1st-3rd classes and 4th-5th classes published after this same law which introduced a unique school book in order to demonstrate the different image that the fascist regime wanted to present of the country’s cultural, artistic and natural heritage.