Untitled - Istituto di Storia dell'Europa Mediterranea - Cnr

VI
Luca Codignola Bo
provider of new knowledge about the identity of Mediterranean
Europe and of interpreter of its new and ever-changing nature.
By and large, the Institute examines how Mediterranean Europe has
shaped its identity. We do it from the privileged viewpoint of the
Italian peninsula in a long chronological framework, from the Middle
Ages until the present times that unfold, as we speak, under our very
eyes. The Institute has traditionally addressed issues arising from the
relations and the reciprocal influences of the European countries that
dwell on the northern Mediterranean shores. Let us recall, for
example, the relationship between present-day Catalonia, Sardinia,
and the Italian peninsula as a whole, or the maritime and commercial
expansion of the Genoa and Pisa republics. Furthermore, the
Institute’s mandate includes the improvement of the knowledge basis
on which Italy as a whole can make the most of its bridging role
between Europe and the non-European countries that dwell on the
opposite shore of the Mediterranean Sea. In recent times, however, the
expansion of Mediterranean Europe outside of itself, towards the
Black Sea to the East, and the Atlantic world to the West, has grown
into being a significant area of interest. This is shown, for example, by
new research on the Venetian navy and on the shaping of new
European identities in the literatures of Spanish and Portuguese
America, as well as of French- and English-speaking North America.
Human mobility and migration have also been a growing concern of
the Institute. Its researchers have always recognized that there did not
exist in Mediterranean Europe – or elsewhere, for that matter – existed
such a thing as a stable society that was not influenced by inward or
outward movements of people, objects, and ideas, or where languages
(technical or otherwise) were not subject to constant change and
reinvention. Throughout the years, the individual and its being part of
a community and of its culture has been at the centre of the Institute’s
interests. Given the Institute’s knowledge basis, this will probably
continue to be so in the foreseeable future. However, we cannot
determine whether new and large migration waves in the
Mediterranean basin will not urge researchers to address the origins
and developments over time of such movements, thus contributing to