Flying News, Perpetual memories: Remembering Catastrophe in Early Modern period

Abstract

The innovative European news literature of Early Modern Period provides valuable evidence of a perceptible change in the way catastrophes are perceived, interpreted and narrated. To the ephemeral, flying character of catastrophe news and the materials that spread it corresponds a complex and longer-lasting relationship with memory: the informative tale of the catastrophe settles and stereotypes very quickly, builds a composite shared baggage of anecdotes and protagonists shared by the various printing centers, provides a field of political tension coveted by the various news genres of the time that highlight a common desire to grab the most reliable and truthful version of the calamitous event for posterity. The survey of a sample of relazioni (reports) dedicated to catastrophes and published in the decades of maximum development of European pre-periodical genres (1600-1650), aims at observing the relationship between news and disaster memory by reconstructing the different levels of sedimentation, elaboration and memorialistic manipulation that emerge between the meshes of the tale.