Monumental memory of school in post-unitarian Italy

Why should stone tablets and statues be of interest to education historians? This essay analyses epigraphic and sculptural artefacts as manifestations of public memory of school as well as cultural devices for shaping collective imaginary about education and citizenship, in a chronological arc beginning with the Italian unification. While treating a set of monumental samples, particular attention is focused on the political reasons behind the choices of installing memorials in honour of personages of school – ranging from teachers to education ministers, passing through educationalists. Throughout the shifts in power under way from the second half of 19th century onwards, what emerges is the major heuristic potential lying in those material historical sources: first of all, the monumental phenomenology is revealed to be the expression of a self-celebratory strategy promoted by the ruling classes to legitimate themselves as the guardians of a honourable school past; moreover, the public use of school memory turns out to be designed to strengthen feelings of belonging to a particular community, be it educational, professional teaching, local or national; lastly, monumental traces in the anthropic space are shown to be the signs of a diffused pedagogy trying to instil a virtuous model of educator and more generally of citizen into the folds of collective mentality. By penetrating into the official idea of schooling behind inscribed slabs and three-dimensional portrays, what the author has defined as monumental archaeology of school imaginary offers an untried standpoint on cultural history of education.