I ROMANZI DEGLI ARTISTI. CONFLITTI GENERAZIONALI E DI 'GENERE' NELL'OPERA DI GIUSEPPE ROVANI

In his novels, the Italian writer Giuseppe Rovani (1818-1874) expressed the hopes and disillusions of the young men born after the Battle of Waterloo, and recounted their generational fight against the “cruel fathers”, who were considered guilty of having betrayed the Revolution of Bonaparte. The rejection of the patriarchal authority was mated by Rovani with the proposal of a new merit-based society, to be built around a middle class of young people dedicated to a free and disinterested artistic activity. Later, this suggestion was met with enthusiasm by the young members of the art movement "Scapigliatura", who raised to fame after the end of the Risorgimental riots and the unification of Italy. However, the loyalty to the old Napoleonic world view prevented Rovani from understanding his own contemporary times, and thus prevented him from going far beyond the historical novel.