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Momigliano and de MartinoAuthor(s): Carlo GinzburgReviewed work(s):Source: History and Theory, Vol. 30, No. 4, Beiheft 30: The Presence of the Historian: Essaysin Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano (Dec., 1991), pp. 37-48Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505511 .
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MOMIGLIANO
AND DE MARTINO'
CARLO
GINZBURG
I
ArnaldoMomigliano'sreview of
Ernesto De Martino, La
terra del rimorso
(Milan,1961)begins, Questo ibro, bellissimo
n
forma
e
contenuto. 2Uncon-
ditional
positive
udgments
of this sort werenot
Momigliano's ustomary tyle.
Clearly,he followed
De Martino'swork with close attention.
The two men
shared
an
interest
n
themes ike the
person
and
the apocalypse,as Momigliano
himself
observed wenty-five ears aterin a posthumously
publishedessay on
Banfi
and De Martino. Aside
from
the
objective
reason
of theirconvergent
interests,Momiglianohad anotherand more personalmotive: InDe Martino
I
recognized
parallel,
and
thereforenon-intersecting,
ine
of
divergence rom
the tradition
of
Crocean
historicism,
o which
I
also owed and still owe an
enormousdebt. 3
The
impulse o investigateone'sown self, one's own roots
(not exclusively
intellectual nes)hadbecomestrong
n
Momigliano
n
his later
years.Still,
with
the
exception
f the short
preface
also
publishedposthumously
to
his
Pagine
ebraiche
Turin, 1987),
his
autobiographicalwritings
were
channeled nto
the
reconstruction f personsandmilieus.
De Martinooffered
Momigliano
an
op-
portunity
o
reflecton
his
own
analogous yet
different
experience.
It
is these
intermingledhreads hat
I
propose
to
untangle
here.
II
I
should state from the outset that De Martino'sdefection from Croceanism
was
onlytemporary-indeed,
according
o some
analysts,
t was more
apparent
than real.
In II
mondo
magico
(Turin,1948),
De
Martino
presented
magismo
magic
as
a
philosophical ystem
as
the characteristic
pecific
o
a
primordial
historical
ge
which
preceded
he formation
of the
categories
of the
spirit
as it
1.
This
essay has appeared
in
Italian
in
a special issue, Arnaldo Momigliano e la sua opera,
of
Rivista torica taliana100 (1988), 400-413.
2. Arnaldo Momigliano, Rivista storica italiana 74 (1962), 165-167,
quotation on 165; also
publishedn his Quarto ontribute llastoriadeglistudi classic e del mondo
antico Rome, 1969),
quotation on 577.
3. Momigliano, Per a storia delle religioni nell'Italia contemporanea:
Antonio Banfi
ed Ernesto
De Martino tra persona e Apocalissi, Rivista storica italiana 99 (1987), 435-456, esp. 436.
8/18/2019 Ginzburg Momigliano e de Martino H T 1991 30
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38
CARLO
GINZBURG
was dominatedby
a more
elementary
ask:
that
of
laying the foundations
or
the
presenceof the
individual
n
the world.
Croce reacted to
this move to
historicizehe
framework
f categories
n
a long
articleformulating
number
of objections.At first, De Martinodid not respond.In the succeedingyears,
he grew
closerto
Marxism,
became more
actively
militant, and,
in 1949,
he
joined
the
Communist
Party.
During his time,
he disavowed
he theses
stated
in
II
mondomagico
andfully acceptedCroce's
criticisms.4This contradictory
attitudemay
have hidden
some sort of
compromise
betweenhis
political
stance
and
his cultural
position,
not
an
infrequent
occurrence mong
Italian
ntellec-
tuals
of the Left of
De
Martino's
ndthe
preceding
eneration
as
with
Concetto
Marchesi,
or
instance).
This is
conjecture,
however,
and the
episode
of De
Martino's elf-criticism till remainsobscure,althoughit is clear that subse-
quently
he remained irmly
and
explicitly
oyal
to
Croce.
These
brief remarks
houldexplain
why
discussionof
De Martino
and his
work
hasforthe most
part
centered n
Il
mondo
magico.
ForGiuseppe
Galasso,
both
thatwork
and De Martino's
arlierNaturalismo storicismo
nell'etnologia
(Bari,
1941)
were
products
of
absolute
historicism,
arying if
at
all) by
their
different
ccentuation.
or
Galasso,
the reflectionof
existentialisthought
n
Il
mondo
magicooughtnot
to be overemphasized:
ven
De Martino'snsistence
on the themesof riskand crisis shouldbe compared o Croce'sreflectionson
the
vital
uring
he same
period,
even
if
De
Martinowas to become
aware
of
this
connection only
later. 5Cesare Cases also
acknowledges
De
Martino's
lasting
ies to
Croce,
but
he
sees
II
mondomagico
as a
workof
genuinely
original
speculation
and
one
that succeeded
n
expressing
he
anguished
experience
of
the
war in a
tightly
constructed
yet
idealistic)
critique
of
European
cultural
ethnocentricity.6
The divergencebetween
these two
judgments
explains
why Cases
saw De
Martino'sself-criticismas
springing
from a
dramatic intellectual solation,
whereasfor Galasso
it was
a
genuine
reversal
n
his thought. According
to
Galasso,
De
Martino,spurred
n
by
Croce's riticisms,
ecognized
hat
his book
suffered rom the dialectical
ice and returned
o the idealistic
historicism
n
whichhe had been
formed
and which
had
by
and arge
continued
o inspire
him.
Some
of Galasso's
statements,
however-that
the
genesis
of
De Martino's
ethnological
nterests
must
be
sought
and
discernedcompletely
within the
4. See De Martino's reface o EmileDurkheim,HenriHubert,andMarcelMauss,Le origini
deipoteri
magici, ransl.Anna
De Martino Turin,1951)
and the concluding
bservations
n the
appendix
o the newedition(Turin,1957)
of II mondo magico,
whichalsoappears
n the reprint
edition
of 1973referred o here.
Thiseditionalso contains
an
introduction y Cesare
Cases which
alsoappears
n
Cases, I testimonesecondario:
aggie interventisulla
ulturedelNovecento
Turin,
1985],132-167),
to date the best
available tatementon
De
Martino.
In an essayuseful
for its
bibliographic
nformationbut overly
schematic
n
its interpretation,
ietro Angelini
stresses he
importance
or DeMartino's areer
f his turn-about
uring he years1949-1950:
ee Angelini,
La
collanaviola,
Studie material
di storia delle
religion
51 (1985),
299-339, esp.
311.
5. GiuseppeGalasso,
Croce,
Gramsci altristorici(Milan,
1969),
222-235, 258-260, 300-301.
For the expression
ritorno toricistico
ee 271, 297.
6. Cases,147-148.
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MOMIGLIANO AND DE MARTINO
39
purviewsof Crocean
culture as
mediated
by
Omodeo, or that those same
interests
houldbe seen
in
termsof thespontaneous ogic of
the development
of
the cultural movement nspired
and
guidedby
Croce -can
properly
be
appliedonly to Naturalismo storicismo,a still ingenuousand academicwork.7
Otherelementsand
otherexperiences,
which
can only partially
be inferred rom
the few extracts rom
letterspublishedby Galasso,entered nto
the
writing
of
Il
mondo magico.8
A groupof letters rom
De Martino o RaffaelePettazzoni,recentlydeposited
in the BibliotecaComunale f SanGiovanni n Persiceto
alongwithPettazzoni's
papersandpartof his private ibrary,
hed
new ight
on the
writing
of
Il
mondo
magico.9Writing rom
Bari on 19 January1939,De Martino ells Pettazzoni
that he has undertaken generalstudyof numinousenergyamong primitive
peoples
with
the intention
of
showinghow, through
hecycleof representations
andexperienceshat
it
implies,
the functionsof the cultivated
ntellect
become
liberatedand consolidated. This study had resulted
n
a book, about to
be
publishedby Laterza,
in
which
De
Martino
states
he
had
proved
hat the
religious ife of the primitives
orms,
n
general,a pedagogy
or the powersof the
spiritand,
in
particular,
hat
numinous nergy-
in its two
aspects,positively,
as
manaand, negatively,
as taboo is thepedagogyof the identifying unction
of
the intellect. The book in questionwas of courseNaturalismoe storicismo
nell'etnologia,
whichcame off the
presses
n
October
1940. Thesewords
n
part
anticipated
he final
page
of that
work,
where
De
Martino outlines
another
study
to determinewhetherand to
what
extent magism
can
be
considereda
pedagogy of
the
identifying
unction
in its
practical
use;
whetherand
to
what
extent
magismhas
helpedto liberate he lay power of the intellect. 10 learly,
as Cases
ndicates,
De
Martinoalready
had
Il
mondo
magico
in
mind.11
The letterto Pettazzonishows, however,
that a project of
the sort
existed,
at least in embryonic orm, earlier han the definitiveversionof Naturalismo
e storicismo. It is
possible
that
Croce and
Omodeo,
who
had read the first
chapters
f
the
manuscript on
the
prelogical
mentality
n
Levy-Bruhl)
s
early
as
January1939,suggested
o De
Martino hat
he limithimself o less ambitious
aims
n his
firstbook.
The
fact remains
hat Naturalismo storicismo ook
the
form of
a
discussionof
the
positions
of some of
the
principal
chools of eth-
nology. Early
n
1941,
when
the book
was
in
the processof publication,
how-
ever,
De
Martino
sent the
manuscript
of
an
essay containing
he first results
7. Galasso,
223-224;Cases, 132-135.
8. Galasso,Croce,
n.
54, 325-327.
9. My heartfelt hanksto Mario
Gandini or his generous
permission o consultand quote
material hat he intends o publish
n its entirety.The file
contains wenty-sevenetters rom De
Martinowritten
between1934and August
1943and sixteendraft copies of Pettazzoni's
nswers,
which
or the most partcontainbibliographical
nformation.
Relations
between
he
two
men
seem
to
have been
close during
he
period
n which
De
Martino
was
working
on
magic.
10. De Martino,
Naturalismo e storicismo
nell'etnologia (Bari, 1941), 74-75.
The emphasis is
in the text.
11. Cases, 139.
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40 CARLO
GINZBURG
of
his
new research
to Croce, Omodeo, and Pettazzoni. Extracts from
their
responses have already been made known,
and the essay has been
identified as
the
article published
in
two issues of Studi e material di storia
delle religioni
(1942: 1-19 and 1943-1946: 31-84) under the title, Percezione extrasensoriale
e
magismo etnologico. 12
It
is clear, however,
from a letter from De Martino to Pettazzoni
(undated,
but certainly
immediately preceding
7
April
1941) that the manuscript version
of this
essay
must
have been
notably different from
the
published version. De
Martino writes:
As
regardsmy articleon thehistoricalapproach o
the problemof
magism,I of course
acceptyour observations:he
article
n
question s largely ncomplete
and
needs
further
elaboration. sent it to you only becauseI was nearlycertainof not beingable to get
back
to it due to pressing vents, and at any rate it
seemed o me
opportune o leave
n
your
handsa
paper
of
mine
that
is more an
expression
f
workingplans
than
a
realiza-
tion-even
an
approximate ne-of those
plans....
I
countonbeingable,
in
good time,
to revisethe article
for the next issue
of
SMSR.
In
reality, the rielaborazione turned into a
genuine rewriting that took until
late
1942.13
At that date the first
chapter of
II
mondo magico (which
presents a strong
contiguity, even in form, with the essay, Percezione extrasensoriale ) much
resembled the final
version. In the spring of 1941, on the other
hand, as the
central
portion
of
the
same letter to Pettazzoni shows,
De
Martino's study,
although fairly well
along,
was
still
in
the
project stage.
De
Martino states:
A
history
of
magismas it seems o me it should
be understood that is, as a contribu-
tion
to the
history
of
culture is
an
immense
ask
all
the difficulty
f
which
I
feel. Only
the
guidance
and the
counsel
of otherscholars
can,
at least
in
part,
smooth
theway
for
me. And for
that reason
I
have
for
some time beenorganizingmy work
and choosing
the authoritiesunder
the
guidance patrocinio] of whom
I
intend to
proceed.
For the
part
that is most
closely connected
with our
civilization have
turned o
Omodeo
and
to
Croce,
and
I
have
had
from
the two masters
noteworthy
eads and
suggestions.
am
also in
correspondence ith Cassirer,and
I
hope at
the
end of the
war
to be able to use
the
impressivematerialscollected
n
the
Warburg
Library.For knowledgeof
modern
12.
Galasso,
325-327. Croce'sand Omodeo's
ettersare dated
24 February; ettazzoni's
etter
is dated
27
February
1941.
13.
The etter o
Pettazzoni tating hat the
articlewas being
sent s dated
4
December 942,
and
the
eventi ncalzanti
mentioned
n
the quotationwereof course
those of the war:
as discussed
below,De Martinohad been called to active service.The proof that De Martinohadin mind a
reelaboration otally
different rom the final
productcan be
found
in
a postscript o the
letter:
It s myintention o
enlarge he
article n yourhandsaccording
o the following
generalworking
criteria:
)
to
give examples,with specific
references,of the inadequacy
f
current thnological
scholarship; ) to
found my theoryof the points
of
selectionand crisismore
broadlyand
more
concretely.
For
the
Renaissance am
availingmyselfof Croce's
and Cassirer's id
andcounsel;
or
Christianity
am much
ndebted o Omodeo; or the
ethnological
portion
R[enato]
Boccassino
s,
as I
have oldyou,
generouswith nvaluable
ibliographical
uggestions. am somewhat t a
loss,
however, egarding ancient eligion.
n
your
opinion, whatwouldbe, for the
aims of a
history
of
magism, he
fundamental oints of selectionand
crisis n the
realm
of
ancientreligion?And
whatgeneral exts
shouldbe read irst?Heartfelt
hanks
or
whatever idyou
mightbe ableto give
me on thesequestions.
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MOMIGLIANO
NDDE
MARTINO
41
German
houghtI am availing
myself of the aid and
counsel
of Banfiand the group
of
scholarsgathered
round he
reviewStudifilosofici.
For
ethnological
bibliography
am
making
use of the
generouscourtesy
of Renato
Boccassinoandthe materials
ollected
in the libraryof the
MuseoEtnologico
Pigorini.
For ancient eligion
I
am thinking
of
writing o
[Karl]
Kerenyi.And I intendto choose similarguidesfor the domainsof
psychoanalysis
nd parapsychology
two
sectorsof research
of
capital mportance,
n
my opinion,for a
history
of
magism).
Now I am
taking the libertyof
askingyou
for
guidance
nd
orientation egarding
oth
religious thnology
andancient eligion always,
obviously,
o thepurposeof
a history
of magism, he presuppositions
nd intentions
of
which were outlined
n
the paper
I
sent you).
De
Martino
was to write only
the preamble
to the book he
sketches
here:
indeed,
II
mondo
magico
bears the subtitle,
Prolegomeni
a una storia
del
magismo. The names that De Martino lists for Pettazzoni, however, hint of
a
project
of
broad
scope,
truly
international
in
outlook,
and
overstepping
the
confines of
school
and discipline.
De Martino's relations
with Banfi and
the
Studifilosofici
group-which
Momigliano
was quick
to note-are enough to
show that
his
project by
that time
had
parted
company
with
anything
resembling
the spontaneous logic of
development
of
Crocean thought. Also
in
1941,
Croce
launched a violent
attack on the
newly fledged review,
Studifilosofici,
in
which
an equally
violent
response from Banfi
soon appeared.
This did
not
keep
De Martino from publishing in the same review, one year later, a long review
of
Remo
Cantoni,
Il
pensiero
dei
primitive.14
De Martino's
letters to Banfi seem
to have
been lost, with the
exception
of
one letter
dated
12
February
1941
(hence
immediately previous
to
the letter
to
Pettazzoni just
quoted). It states:
Illustre
professor,
I
much appreciated
our
letter, so rich
in
valuable
nformation.
Heartfeltthanks.
Unfortunately,
too
have
been
called
to
active
service,
and
I
am afraid that
for the
moment
my
scholarly
work must be interrupted.
Your observations n
Italian dealism
express
a sentiment
and a conviction hat
some time
ago
took
form in
myself.
As an
ethnologist
nd a
student
of
Kulturgeschichte,
haveoften had occasion
o observe
hat
the life of the
spirit
s in
realitysomething
much
richerand
more
complicated
han
it
appears
when one insists
on
viewing
it
through
the four
forms.
Only
a
relatively
limited
historical
horizoncanto some extent
explain
such a
simplistic
estriction
f
the
problematics
f spiritual
ife.
But historiographical
onsideration
f
religionand myth
and,
above
all,
investigation
f
magical
civilizations
put
the
scholar
nto contactwith
spiritual
henomena
hatrefuse
o be
forced
o fit nto
the
Crocean
quadripartite
cheme.
I
stillfirmlybelieve
hat
philosophy
must
be considered
s
a
methodology
f
history,
but
preciselybecause believethis, I also hold that sucha methodologymustbe founded
on
a
broadhistorical
ase and
mustbe
open
to a
wide
variety
of
interests
nd
problems.
I
am
currently
working
on
a
History
of
Magism
and
on a
speculative
essay
on
the
relationbetween
heory
and
practice
n
religious
experience.
The inclusion
n
our
14.
B[enedetto]
C[roce],
La critica 39 (1941),
262-264;
A[ntonio]
B[anfi],
Studi filosofici
2
(1941), 379-381.
For De
Martino's review of Cantoni,
Ilpensiero deiprimitivi,
see
Studifilosofici
3 (1942),350-355. It
is also available
n an anastaticreprint
edition as Studi
ilosofici: Rivista
trimestrale
difilosofia
contemporanea,
4 vols.
(Bologna,
1972),
which contains an introductory
essay by Eugenio Garin.
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42
CARLO
GINZBURG
historiographical
orizon
of forms of civilization
emotefrom
our own
for example,
the magical
seems
o be
a healthy atalyst
o counter
he many
curtailments
f
spiritual
life in speculation.
I ammuch
interested
n
psychopathology
nd
in
metapsychics.
have
become
con-
vinced hat some psychopathic henomena nd all metapsychic henomena an be con-
sideredas relics,
within Westerncivilization,
of
magical
civilization.
My
work
on the
magical
akes
tsinspiration
romthisidea(among
others),
which
I
considerparticularly
fecund.
Several
days ago
I
finished
writing
a study entitled
Intorno
'impostazione
storica del problema
del magismo
On
he
HistoricalApproach
to the Problem
of
Magic ],
but
I
am much
afraid
that further
revision
and
polishing
will
be interrupted
by
imminentmilitaryobligations.
In my
reading
of Cassirer,
he only
workthat is
still unavailable
s
Das Erkenntnis-
problem n
der
Philosophie
und Wissenschaft
er
neuerenZeit,
3 vols.
(as well as
Zur
EinsteinschenRelativitdtstheorie,921).I was evenwilling o buy it or arrange o have
it acquired
by one
of the libraries
n my city, but
a response
camefrom
Germany hat
the work is
unavailable.
assirer
would be willing
to sell me
a
copy
of the
work for
50
Swedish
crowns, but
it
seems to
me extremely
difficult,at
this moment,
to find
a
bookseller
n
G6teborg
willingto
risk the operation.
Before
I
strikeout
on this
path,
however,
I would
like to
findout
if the university
ibrary
has the work
in
question
and
if
I
can
find it on
the antiquarian
ook
market.
Oncemore,
I
thank
you
for
the
indicationsyou
have
furnishedme and
for others o
come.
I
hope
to
profit
greatly
from
your
kindness
n
my
regard. 5
It is clear that during this crucial phase of his intellectual development, De
Martino
was
moving
with
great
independence,
guided
by
the
problems
inherent
to the
investigation
he was conducting.
His explicit impatience
with Crocean
orthodoxy anticipates
nearly
word
for
word
a
passage
in
II
mondo
magico.16
De Martino's
interest
in
Cassirer's
work
was
an
equally
important
influence,
however,
and evidently Banfi
had
already spoken
of
it
in his earlier
letters. As
early
as
his letter to Pettazzoni
of 19
January
1939
in which he
outlines,
in
confused
and
embryonic
form,
the themes
he later took up
in
Naturalismo
e
storicismo and IImondo magico, De Martino declares
his intention to
make use
of
volume
two
of
Cassirer's
Philosophy
of Symbolic
Forms
(more
precisely,
15. A
postscript
ollows:
P.
S.
I will write
you
again as soon as
I have
in
some
way
clarified
my
position regardingmy military
obligations.
The
IstitutoBanfiof
ReggioEmilia,
where his
letter
s conserved,
has
no other etters
rom
De Martino xcept
one
note, written
ome
years ater
to accompany
letter o Remo
Cantoni.
This information
has been furnished
me
(together
with
a photocopy
of the letter
dated
12
February
941)by
the Secretary
f the
Banfi nstitute,
Dr. Luigi
Rustichelli,
whom I thank
for
his invaluable
elp. Theletter
s typewritten
nd is
faded
n places,
requiringminorcompletions. havealso italicized he titlesof Cassirer's ooks.
16. See
De Martino, I
mondomagico,
194:
Every hilosophical
ystemization
hat
recognizes
only the
traditional
orms (for
example,
the Crocean
system
of the
four forms)expresses,
n
substance,
he methodological
moment
of an experience
imited
o
Western
ivilization,
and for
thatreason
t drawson a
circumscribed
umanism....
Thusa lack
of humanity
nhistoriographical
awareness,
ne
of
its internal
imitations, omes
o be
hypostatized
n magic:
nstead
of discovering
the negative ide
of a
thought
t is unable
o comprehend,
he object
not
understood
s considered
as
unendowed
with true
historiographical
eality.
This last sentence
betraysan implicit
quarrel
with the position
formulated
y Omodeo
n
a letter
dated
24 February
941,
an extract
of which
is
quoted
n Galasso,n.
54, 326:
strictly peaking,
he historyof magism
does
not
exist,
because
historycan be made
of the positive,
not
of
thenegative.
Magisms a power
hat is stripped
ff
in
the processof reason,preciselybecause t turnsout to be inadequate ndnot creative.
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MOMIGLIANO
AND
DE MARTINO
43
volume
two,
part two,
chapter
two,
Foundations
of a
Theory
of Mythical
Forms:
Space,
Time,
and Number ). 7
modeo
had alreadysent him
other
works
byCassirer
n November
1940.18
De Martino
ead heseworks
at the
same
timeas works on psychoanalysis ndparapsychology,opics that, as we have
seen,
he considered
highly
important
or
the
study
of
magic.
De Martino
became
interested
n
parapsychology
as
we
know
from
the
studies
of R.
Di
Donato19)
s an
outgrowth
f an intense
personal
and
ntellectual
relationship
withhis
father-in-law,
he historian
of
comparative
eligions
Vit-
torio Macchioro.
Through parapsychology,
De
Martino
encountered
the
problem
notmentioned
n his
letter
to Pettazzoni
quoted
above)
of the
reality
of magical
powers.20
n the
summer
of
1941
he must
have
beenconcentrating
on thistopic. On4 Octoberhe sentPettazzonian article, Etnologia eligious
e storicismo,
he German
ranslation
of which, Religionsethnologie
nd
His-
torizismus,
appeared
n Paideuma:
Mitteilungen
zur
Kulturkunde
(1941-
1943),
178-196.
Other
articles
that
can be considered
as preparations
or
or
anticipations
of
II mondo magico
are: Lineamenti
di
etnometapsichica,
n
Problemi
di metapsichica
Rome,
1942),
113-139;
Di alcune condizioni
delle
sedutemetapsichiche
lla
luce delmagismo
sciamanistico,
Rivistadi antropo-
logia
34
(1942-1943),
479-490;
and
Percezione
xtrasensoriale
magismo
etno-
logico, alreadycited, sentto Pettazzoni n December1942.His study,begun
toward
he end
of
1940,
had
perhaps
already
reached
ts
definitive
ormin
the
summerof
1943,
before
the
harshestphase
of the
war. We cannot
exclude
he
possibility,
however,
hat
the manuscript
avedby
De Martino's
wife from
the
ruins
of Cotignola as
we
canread
in
the
dedication
of
II mondo
magico)
had
been
revised
before it
was
sent
to Pavese
in
August
1946,
and perhaps
even
during
he
two years
betweenthen
and when the
work was published.21
These considerations
ast
a different ight
on the
relationship
between
De
Martinoand
Banfias well.
Momigliano
observes
hat
De
Martino,
whenhe
was
writingII
mondo
magico,
could
not
have
known
that Antonio
Banfi
some
years
earlier,
around
1942-43,
had
. . .
considered
as characteristic
of
the
contemporary
risis
precisely
he
crisisof
the
person. 22
n
reality,
the
writing
of
Il
mondo
magico
andBanfi's
manuscripts
n the
person
are
exactly
contempo-
17. ErnstCassirer,
hilosophie
dersymbolischen
ormen,3 vols.
(Berlin,
1923-1929),
vailable
in Englishas
ThePhilosophy
of
Symbolic
Forms,transl.
RalphManheim,
3
vols. (New
Haven,
1953-1957).
18. Galasso,
n. 54, 326.The editor
does not state
which
books.
19. R. Di Donato,
paper
presented
n a seminar
n
De Martino
under
he direction
f
Arnaldo
Momigliano,
Scuola
Normale
di Pisa,
spring1987,
forthcoming.
20. De Martino
himself
peaks
critically,
n his review
of
Cantoni, lpensiero
del
primitive,
51,
of the
lack of
discussion
n
Naturelismo
storicismo
on the results
of
parapsychological
esearch.
21.
Omodeo's etter
of
24 November
1940,quoted
n
Galasso,
327,
represents terminus
nte
quem.
A
copy
of Pavese's
etter,
dated30August
1946, s conserved
n the
archives
f the
Einaudi
publishing
irm,
DeMartino
ile.
It
is
unclear
n whatevidence
Galasso
tates
Galasso,
244)
that
Il
mondo
magico
was already
written
n 1944-45 a
phrase
quoted
slightly naccurately
gih
scritto
nel
1944-45 becomes
simply
scritto
nel
1944-45 )
n
Cases,
139.
22. Momigliano, Per a storiadellereligioni, 46.
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44
CARLO
GINZBURG
rary.13
We do not know whether the
theme of the
threat of loss of presence owes
something to
De
Martino's
exchanges
with Banfi
and his collaborators
(first
among
them
Cantoni).
To ascertain
this
point,
we
would have to
reconstruct
in detail the various stages of a process that we can sense involved feverish
toil
-
a
stratigraphical
investigation
that
might give highly
relevant results.
One
example
of such a
reconstruction may
suffice.
In
a note
to Religionsethnologie
und Historizismus, De
Martino acknowl-
edges his debt to Cassirer
(some of whose major
works he refers to)
for
the
way
in
which he posed the
problem of the
essence of magic.24Pettazzoni
had asked
De Martino
to eliminate Cassirer's
name because it
was possibly unwelcome
(since
Cassirer was
Jewish)
to the German
periodical
in
which the
essay
was to
be published. De Martino expressed his regret, and although at first he declared
himself
willing to accept Pettazzoni's
advice, he
obviously changed his mind
eventually
and decided
to
retain
the note.25
In
the
other essays that
preceded II mondo magico
Cassirer's
name also crops
up
insistently.
In
the final
pages of his Lineamenti di
etnometapsichica (1942),
De Martino states that
there is also a
philosophical argument in
favor of the
interpretation of paranormal powers
as phenomena
that pertain to a bygone
phase
of human
history.
Thanks to
Kant'santisubstantialist
position, he states:
the possibilityopenedup to consider he individual/cosmos elationship s a dynamic
and
functionalrelation
n
which the cosmos is
articulated ccording o the modes of
plasmationof
the spirit.
Anotherpossibilityopenedup as
well: that of
considering he
powers
of
the
subject
over
the object,in
their turn, not as
univocallydefinablebut as
tending
o
evolve
historically
n
relation o the evolutionof
the functional
ubject/object
relation.26
This
deliberately anachronistic
reading ( doubtless
Kant was not fully aware
of his
discovery )
derives,
on the one
hand,
from
Hegel,
who took
a
notable
step toward historical consideration of the subject/object relationship and, on
the
other,
to
Cassirer, who, although
he failed to
confront the
problem
of
the
powers
of the
subject
over
the
object,
nevertheless
affirms
n
the most
energetic
fashion and on the basis
of
a wealth
of documentation
(even
ethnological)
the
idea of the
functional
subject/object
relationship. 27
23. Antonio
Banfi,
La
persona, ed.
Livio
Sichirollo (Urbino,
1980).
On the
dating
of
these texts
to 1942-1943, see 8-9. The
editor's hesitancy
( On the other hand, a simple
reference
.
.
. to the
posthumous writings of Husserl might shift the date, even notably ; 9) are unnecessary if Banfi's
allusion to the
phenomenological solution
of the
relationship between the limited nature of
experi-
ence and the act of reason
already evident
in
Husserl
himself, especially
if
his posthumous
writings
are considered
(37) refers to the volume
Erfahrung und
Urteil, ed. Ludwig Landgrebe
(Prague,
1939). For
further support of
1942-1943 as the dates for the
final version of
II mondo magico, see
also Luciano
Eletti,
II
problema delta persona in Antonio
Banfi (Florence, 1985),
76.
24. De
Martino,
Religionsethnologie, n., 195.
25.
Biblioteca Comunale, San Giovanni in
Persiceto, Fondo Pettazzoni,
Fascicolo De Martino:
draft
of a
letter from Pettazzoni
to De
Martino
(20 October
1941)
and
letters
from
De Martino to
Pettazzoni (23
October
1941
and 18 February
1942).
26. De
Martino, Lineamenti, 137.
27. Ibid., 138 and n. 2, 138, where he refers to various of Cassirer's works: Die Begriffsform
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MOMIGLIANO
ND DE MARTINO
45
Cassirer
figures equally
prominently
in the
final
pages
of Percezione
extra-
sensoriale
e
magismo etnologico.
28The
passages
of the second volume
of Philo-
sophie
der symbolischen
Formen
(which
De Martino was trying
to persuade
Einaudi to translate at precisely that time)29on the limited validity of the unity
of the
feeling of
self'
in
mythic thought
and on
the
relationship
between the
I
and external
reality conceived as a
process
rather than as a given
come to
mind
when
we read passages
from
Il
mondo
magico like
the following:
Kant
assumedas
a uniformhistorical
giventhe analytical
unity of
apperception-that
is, the
thoughtof
the I thatdoes not
vary
in
its contents
but comprehends
hem as its
own,
and he posits
the transcendental
ondition
of
this given
in
the
syntheticunity
of
apperception.
But as elementsand data
of consciousness
do not
exist
(exceptperhaps
by abstraction),o theredoesnot exist any presence,anyempirical beinghere, hat
might
be a datum,
anoriginalmmediacy
eyond
all riskand
ncapable
n
its
own
sphere
of anysort of drama
and of any development-that
is,
of a
history.30
The thesis-which
Croce sharply criticized-of
the historicity of
categories
reelaborates,
in extreme
form, some
of Cassirer'spositions.
Nevertheless,
in
II
mondo magico,
two of
the three
references
to Cassirer's works
are
accompanied
by the
expressionof reservations,
and
the
third
is a
simple
citation.3' De
Martino
gives
the impression
of
having decided
at
the last minute to
imitate the lion of
the fable, who erases his tracks with his own tail.
De Martino
was
perfectly
aware of the direction
he
was taking. The
final page
of his commemoration
of Omodeo,
his first teacher, states
explicitly:
In
substance,
Adolfo
Omodeo emained
aithful o the dealistic
ndactualistic
pproach
of
historicism
n the canonical orm that
Croce
and Gentilehad given
it....
Crocean
historiographical
ethodology
was bornas reflection
on a historical xperience
imited
essentially
o that segment
of humanhistoryranging
rom Hellasto
our own day. Now
it is clear
hatan
effectivencremento
thatmethodology
tothe point
of radical enewal)
can
be
brought
aboutonlyby virtue
of an enlargement
f
the
historiographical
orizon
thanks o the inclusionof forms of civilization emote romourown
-the
civilizations
encountered
n the
history
of religions,ethnology,
and paleoethnology.
This,
then,
is
the
great evivifying
ndremoulding fficacy
f
an
experiment
imed
at
putting
historicist
methodology
o
the test
in
a domainof historical xperience
rom
which t did not
spring
in its current orm.32
im
mythischenDenken (Leipzig, 1922);
the second volume
of
PhilosophiedersymbolischenFormen
(Berlin,1925); ndividuum nd Kosmos in der PhilosophiederRenaissance Leipzig,1927).
28. De Martino, Percezione, part 2,
n. on 82.
29. The project came
to
naught because Cassirer's
widow
insisted
that the
work be
translated
in its entirety.
30. Ernst Cassirer,
Lafilosofia
delleformesimboliche,
transl. Eraldo Arnaud,
3
vols. (Florence,
1961-1966); vol. 2 (1964): II pensiero mitico,
2nd ed. (Florence, 1977), 230,
279ff.
De Martino,
II
mondo magico, 188 (a passage that is also quoted, not totally accurately,
in
Galasso,
243-244). In
note 1, p. 189 of the same work De Martino
writes of his own position as a further extension and
deeper elaboration
of
the polemic of
modern
thought against reality per
se.
31. De Martino,
II
mondo magico, n. 3,
95-96, 135-136, 187.
32. De Martino,
Adolfo
Omodeo, Studi
e material distoria dellereligioni 19-20(1943-1946),
255-260, quotation on 260.
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CARLO
GINZBURG
Studies that culminated
in II
mondo magico had
carried De Martino
-
albeit
temporarily
-
outside Croceanism.
But
not outside historicism.
III
In
Momigliano's case,
his
detachment from Croceanism manifested itself
in
much less dramatic though irreversible forms. Others more competent than
I
may wish to reconstruct this process analytically; the best
I
can do here is to
recall a few essential points.33
We may begin with the justly famous essay, Ancient History and the Anti-
quarian
(1950).34
By demonstrating that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
antiquarian erudition had made a decisive contribution to the rise of historiog-
raphy in the modern sense of the term, Momigliano in fact contradicted the
subordinate function that Croce
had
assignedto
erudition
(but
which he himself
practiced
with
highest mastery).
This subordination was later reaffirmed
by
Momigliano as regards the present, however. The fusion
of
the
antiquarian
method and historiography, first practiced by Gibbon, brought an end to the
autonomous function of
antiquarianism, although
occasional
regressions
to
antiquarian attitudes were always possible.
Seventeen years later, his essay Prospettiva 1967 della storia greca sounded
a
different note. Momigliano follows
an
ironic description of professors and
students of
things
classical
who
accept
without
batting
an
eyelash
the news
that
the Athenians
in
their
symposia
ate
potato
salad
and tomatoes
and
drank coffee
with
sugar
with a
quite serious declaration
in
which sharp criticism and self-
criticism mingle:
The passion
for
abstractwords, of whichwe all have been victims o some extent, s in
greatpart
the
resultof
.
. . simple gnoranceof ancient ife. Hence the importance f
returningothetraditional ublic,private,military, ndreligious ntiquities returning,
that
is,
with
the
precaution
f
calling
hem
sociologyand,
let us admit
t, treating
hem
as
sociologists
would.Because he
sociologists,
as
I
havestated
o
many imes,
are
merely
antiquarians
rmed
with
modern
methods
or
combatting
he
follies,youthful
and
senile,
of
historicism.
In
1950,Momigliano declared that the sun had set
on
the idea of antiquitates;
in
1967 he
looked forward to the affirmation
of
a neo-antiquarianism
under
the
guise
of
sociology
or its close
relative, anthropology.
Between these
two
divergent
statements
(which
are not
formally contradictory, however)
we
can
locate Momigliano's detachment from Croceanism. It might be seen as coin-
33.
I
have
made similar
observations in Intorno a storia locale e
microstoria, in La
memoria
lunga:Le raccolte
di storia ocaledall'erudizionella
documentazione, tti del
convegno Cagliari,
28-30 aprile 1984), ed. P. Bertolucci
and Rino Pensato
(Milan, 1985), 16ff.
34. Arnaldo Momigliano,
Ancient History and the
Antiquarian, Journal of the Warburg
and
Courtauld
nstitutes13(1950),
285-315;
lso
in his
Contributo
lla
storia
degli
studi
classici
Rome,
1979), 67-106; in
Italian translation
in
his Suifondamenti della storia antica
(Turin, 1984), 3-45.
35.
Momigliano, Prospettiva 1967 della storia
greca,
in his
Quarto contribute alla storia
degli
studi classici e del mondo antico (Rome, 1969), 43ff., esp. 52ff.
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MOMIGLIANO
AND DE MARTINO 47
ciding symbolically
with the
deeply felt
description of
De Sanctis
and Croce at
the door of the
Biblioteca Nazionale of
Turin in
1928
that closes
the
essay
written ten years before, on the death
of De Sanctis. Momigliano
took his leave
of the teachers of his youth by inserting a few strongly critical notes into his
overall picture
of
their activities.
In the
polemical
movement to renew Italian
culture,
De Sanctis
and Croce
were ed ntorigidity
oncerning ertain lements
f German ulture,by thenarchaic, hat
theyhadabsorbed
theHegelian ncyclopediaor Croce; he Boeckhian
ncyclopedia
or
De Sanctis). Thus
they undervaluednew currentsof semantic,
social, and religious
investigationhat,
in spiteof their nitialcrudity,n fact latercontributed
o the renewal
of European ulture.
A judgment of this sort presupposes that the person who formulates it has
changed
direction
in
respect to his own
earlier formation. Momigliano
refers
to it with sober concision
in
the preface (dated 1958)
to
his Secondo
contribute,
in
which the essay
on De Sanctis appeared. He states:
For
the men of
my
generation (especially
but
not uniquely
in
Italy)
it
was
their
lot,
in
their
mature
years, to
have to
revise
their own critical principles,
consequently,
to
have
to
learn new languages, adopt new techniques
of research,
and meditate upon
new experiences. 36
The true significance
of these sentences emerges
when we
compare them with a passage in the paperread before the Congresso Internazio-
nale di Studi Storici
in
1955, which
they repeat
in
abbreviated
form.
In
an
attempt to get
to the root
of what
is perhaps
the
typical
difficulty
of our time
in the study of
ancient history: how to distinguish between
the certain, the
probable, the possible,
and the
unlikely, Momigliano writes:
Excavationhas accustomed
us to unforeseen
revelations:psychology,sociology,
and
anthropologyhave opened unexpected
vistas into the
world of individual
and
social
events.
Theextension
of
research o
prehistory
nd
among
he nomad
peoples
hascarried
us backto socialandreligiousexperiences,o a lifestyle (as is saidtoday)thatwe did
not knowor that
we kepthalf slumbering
n oursubconscious.New languages
avecome
to
light.
This
broadening
f our horizons
adds,
for
the
historian,
o the
oddities,
the
horrors,
and
the
supremeuncertainties f
other
aspects
of contemporaryife,
on
which
it is unnecessary
o waste words.37
More
in
general,
he states some
pages earlier,
attention
to
the transition
from prehistory to history today results
from the uncertainty
that spreads over
the future of
our
civilization. 38
The connection between the study
of prehistory and the threat of the end of
the world
and,
more
generally,
the idea
that we
need to respond
to
today's crisis
by enlarging
historical research to unknown and unpredictable
phenomena
might lead us to
conclude that at least momentarily Momigliano's
and De Mar-
tino's
paths
had touched.
In
reality,
however, as Momigliano lucidly saw, theirs
36.
Momigliano,
Secondo
contribute alla
storia
degli
studio classici
[1960]
(Rome,
1984),
preface, 9.
37. Ibid.,
346-347.
38. Ibid., 329.
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48
CARLO GINZBURG
were parallelpaths that could
never meet. For the De
Martino of II mondo
magico, to abandonCroceanismmeant opting for a more
radicalhistoricism
immune rom ethnocentricimitations. t became ncreasingly
learas the years
passed hat for Momiglianoall formsof historicismwereunacceptable ecause
they werethreatened y
relativism. Justbecause
history
eaches
us
how many
moralcodes mankindhas had,
we cannotderivemoral udgment
rom history.
Even the notion of transforminghistory by studyinghistory
mplies a meta-
historical aith, he states in HistoricismRevisited. 39his
is why we sense a
deliberately utobiographical
ote in the words that Momigliano
wrote about
Jacob Bernays: Having eceived
a faith, he did not have to look to history or
one,
as
many
of his contemporaries id. 40
Universityof California,Los Angeles
TRANSLATED
FROM
THE ITALIAN
BY
LYDIA
G. COCHRANE
39. Momigliano, Historicism ivisited, Mededelingen
erKoninklijkeNederlandseAkademie
van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterfunde, n. s. 37 (1974), 63-70,
quotation on 68;
in
Italian as
Stoicismo rivisitato in his
Suifondamenti, 455-464, quotation
on 461.
40. Momigliano,
Jacob Bernays, in his Quinto contribute alla storia degli studi classic e del
mondo antics,
2
vols.
(Rome, 1975), I, 127-158, quotation
on
152;
in
Italian translation
in
his
Pagine ebraiche, 157-180, quotation on 179). See also his Historicism Revisited, 68.