Ginzburg Momigliano e de Martino H T 1991 30

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Wesleyan University

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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2/13

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.


3/13

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.


4/13

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.


5/13

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.


6/13

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.


7/13

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.


8/13

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.


9/13

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


10/13

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.


11/13

46

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.


12/13

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.


13/13

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.

Ginzburg Momigliano e de Martino H T 1991 30

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