Luigi Settembrini, According to Himself

Abstract This chapter, the first in Part I ‘Autobiography and Revolution’, starts by showing that, in the Risorgimento, personal memoir and adventurous fiction played an outsized role in inspiring revolutionary action. A systematic comparison between The Neoplatonists and Settembrini’s Memoirs then uncovers close parallels between the two, showing that, for Settembrini, the past was a source of happiness, a place where recollections of early childhood and memories of ancient Greece blended into one uncorrupted sense of wonder and wellbeing. The classical past not only provided inspiration for the utopian future, but offered a means of building resilience in the present, which was marked by political failure, near execution, incarceration, fear, and physical pain. Nostalgia, in other words, was an important resource, motivating revolutionary action and the ability to withstand its consequences.