1. Gaetano, Arangio-Ruiz, ‘L'odierna questione costituzionale inglese. Note di cronaca e raffronti’, Rivista di Diritto Pubblico e della Pubblica Amministrazione in Italia , 3, I, 1911, pp. 447–159. Here, as elsewhere in the debate I analyse, ‘England’ was used to mean ‘Great Britain’. I have decided to retain that use where I am quoting or summarizing Italian sources.Google Scholar

2. Ibid. , p. 453.Google Scholar

3. That the Lords failed to endorse Lloyd George's measures was interpreted by the government in two ways: first as an attempt to defend the class interests of the landed aristocracy from which the vast majority of the members of the Lords came; and secondly as a political move, given that the Lords was largely made up of Conservatives hostile to the Liberal government (they had obstructed other important measures in the past). It was at that point that the government resolved to get long-planned measures for a radical reform of the Lords under way. The Parliament Act was approved by the Lords under the royal threat to create a crop of new Liberal peers to counter the overwhelming in-built Tory majority. It removed the Upper House's veto, gave the Commons the last word in passing ‘money bills’—by which was meant both spending and taxation measures—and sketched out a future reform of the composition of the Lords. That there was widely perceived to be a connection between tax reform and constitutional reform is confirmed in Alberto Ferraboschi's reconstruction of the Italian debate at the time: ‘La crisi costituzionale britannica del 1909–1911 e la sua recezione in Italia’, Storia Amministrazione Costituzione. Annale Isap , 2, 1994, pp. 129–150. However Ferraboschi considers this political reading of the clash in Britain to have been due to a failure in Italy to grasp the constitutional implications of the issue. For a different perspective, uniting a concern for the institutions and the social role of the aristocracy, see Di Gregorio, Pinella, ‘I “Campi Elisi” del potere. Le Camere Alte e i Senati nell'Ottocento europeo’, Meridiana, 30, 1997, pp. 73–106.Google Scholar

4. See Chabod, Federico, Storia della politica estera italiana dal 1870 al 1896 , Laterza, Bari, 1976, pp. 529 ff; see also Romeo, Rosario, Cavour e il suo tempo, Laterza, Bari, 1977, pp. 607–618; Ghisalberti, Carlo, ‘Il sistema costituzionale inglese nel pensiero politico risorgimentale’, Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento, 66, 1979, pp. 25–37; De Ruggiero, Guido, Storia del liberalisme europeo (1925), Laterza, Bari, 1949, passim but esp. pp. 367 ff. Google Scholar

5. On this point see Romani, Roberto, ‘Anglofilia degli economisti lombardo-veneti e carattere nazionale’, in L'economia politica del Risorgimento italiano , Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1994, pp. 201–241.Google Scholar

6. See Quagliariello, Gaetano, ‘L'isola che non c'è più. Il “modello inglese” e una crisi di fine secolo’, in Les familles politiques en Europe occidentale au XIXe siècle , Ecole française de Rome, Rome, 1997, pp. 41–68, esp. p. 59. A rapid sketch of this model's genealogy, from Burke and Constant, Guizot and Tocqueville, to Bagehot and Buckle, is in Romani, ‘Anglofilia degli economisti’, pp. 224–226. There is also a summary in Jennings, J. R., ‘Conceptions of England and its constitution in nineteenth-century French political thought’, Historical Journal, 29, 1986, pp. 65–85.Google Scholar

7. See Mangoni, Luisa, Una crisi fine secolo. La cultura italiana e la Francia fra Otto e Novecento , Einaudi, Turin, 1985, esp. chapter 2.Google Scholar

8. On this point see Pozzi, Regina, ‘Tra tradizionalismo e liberalismo: i conservatori positivisti della seconda metà del secolo XIX’, in Quagliariello, Les familles politiques , pp. 115–128, esp. p. 117; a fuller treatment of the issue is in idem, Hippolyte Taine. Scienze umane e politica nell'Ottocento, Marsilio, Venice, 1993, pp. 205 ff., 235 ff. Michele Battini places reactionary traditionalism in the framework of the organicism of nineteenth-century European culture in his L'ordine della gerarchia. I contributi reazionari e progressisti alle crisi della democrazia in Francia 1789–1914, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1995.Google Scholar

9. This change is reconstructed by Fulvio Cammarano in, ‘Il modello politico britannico nella cultura del moderatismo italiano di fine secolo’, in Camurri, Renato (ed.), La scienza moderata. Fedele Lampertico e l'Italia liberate , Franco Angeli, Milan, 1992, pp. 309–338, esp. pp. 327–334.Google Scholar

10. Brunialti, Attilio, Il diritto pubblico inglese e la sua trasformazione, Biblioteca di scienze politiche e amministrative, series II, Vol. 3, part I, Unione Tipografica Editrice, Turin, 1896, pp. 6–7. The passage is also cited by Pasquale Beneduce, ‘Culture dei giuristi e “revisione” orlandiana: le immagini della crisi’, in Mazzacane, Aldo (ed.), I giuristi e la crisi dello Stato liberale in Italia fra Otto e Novecento, Liguori, Naples, 1886, pp. 55–106, pp. 102–103. On Brunialti's work as a cultural organizer, see Porciani, Ilaria, ‘Attilio Brunialti e la “Biblioteca di Scienze politiche”. Per una ricerca su intellettuali e Stato dal trasformismo all'età giolittiana’, in Mazzacane, (ed.), I giuristi e la crisi, pp. 193–229. On Brunialti's interest in the English model, see Camurri, Renato, ‘Gli esordi di Attilio Brunialti nella scienza politica italiana (1869–1884)’, Ricerche di Storia Politica, 2, 1987, pp. 5–23.Google Scholar

11. The Ecole Libre, like the complex figure of Hippolyte Taine himself, certainly cannot be assimilated into the anti-democratic element of French political culture. The Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques had been founded in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war with the aim of contributing to the ‘intellectual and moral reform’ of the country, in Renan's phrase, through the restructuring of teaching in secondary education which was deemed to have been a decisive factor in Germany's drive for expansion. Nonetheless the model the Ecole Libre adopted, in terms of educational systems too, was Britain. Thus the institution's aim was not to oppose, but to give technocratic backing to democracy in the Third Republic by promoting the selection of new elites. See Favre, Pierre, Naissances de la science politique en France, 1870–1914 , Fayard, Paris, 1989, pp. 21 ff.; Gemelli, Giuliana, Le elites della competenza. Scienziati sociali, istituzioni e cultura della democrazia industriale in Francia (1880–1945), Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997, pp. 130–138. In this regard, Pierre Rosanvallon underlines Boutmy's role in his La rivoluzione dell'uguaglianza. Storia del suffragio universale in Francia, Anabasi, Milan, 1994, pp. 385–396.Google Scholar

12. Brunialti used: Leclerc, Max, Les Professions et la Société en Angleterre , Colin, Paris, 1894, and Boutmy's ‘Il governo locale e la riforma dello Stato in Inghilterra’, and ‘La riforma dell'amministrazione locale in Inghilterra’, which appeared in the school's Annales, issues dated 15 April 1886 and 15 January 1889.Google Scholar

13. The reference to Le Play can be found in Attilio Brunialti, ‘Il governo parlamentare in Inghilterra e in Italia’, Prefazione to Alpheus Todd, Il governo parlamentare in Inghilterra, Biblioteca di scienze politiche , 3, Unione Tipografico-Editrice, Turin, 1886, pp. 5–95, p. 45. (Battini underlines Le Play's importance in reassessing the British aristocracy's role in preserving social hierarchies in his L'ordine della gerarchia, p. 151.) The reference to Taine's Les origines de la France contemporaine, set alongside the Burke, Edmund of the Reflections on the French Revolution, is in Brunialti, ‘Il governo parlamentare’, p. 38.Google Scholar

14. Luigi Luzzatti's repeated references to the English constitution have been interpreted in this way. Luzzatti was more concerned to emphasize the constitution's economic and social aspects with the aim of preventing conflict and managing the democratization process than he was to follow its historical development closely. See Pombeni, Paolo, ‘Luigi Luzzatti e il modello liberale inglese’, in Ballini, Pier Luigi e Pecorari, Paolo (eds), Luigi Luzzatti e il suo tempo , Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, Venice, 1994, pp. 29–56, esp. pp. 34–35. Quagliariello also argues that the Italian moderates’ Anglophilia was overwhelmingly focused on social issues and not interested in an exact understanding of the institutions (‘L'isola che non c‘è più’, p. 62).Google Scholar

15. Luzzatti, Luigi, ‘Decadenza e risorgimento dei reggimenti parlamentari’, Nuova Antologia , 74, 15 January 1899, pp. 347–364, p. 356. The article reproduces the introductory lecture to his university course in constitutional law at Rome.Google Scholar

16. Brunialti argued along the same lines. He had clearly set himself against Sonnino's call to ‘return to the Statuto’ by restoring royal prerogatives (see Porciani, ‘Attilio Brunialti e la “Biblioteca”’, p. 223). To some extent this is also true of Carlo Francesco Ferraris who was in favour of a return to the letter of the Statuto on condition that concrete social and political reforms based on the English model were set in place. (Indeed this had been the position adopted originally by Sonnino himself.) See Romani, , ‘Anglofilia degli economisti’, p. 218. On the Italian moderates’ opposition to Crispi that was informed by the British model, see Cammarano, Fulvio, Il progresso moderato. Un'opposizione liberale alla svolta dell'Italia crispina (1887–1892), Il Mulino, Bologna, 1990.Google Scholar

17. Demolins, Edmonde (in Boers et Anglais: où est le droit?, extract from La Science Sociale , Firmin-Didot, Paris (no date)), interprets British imperialism in this way.Google Scholar

18. Boutmy, Emile, Essai d'une psychologie politique du peuple anglais au XIX siècle , Colin, Paris, 1901, pp. 445, 447.Google Scholar

19. See Ferrero, Guglielmo, L'Europa giovane , Treves, Milan, 1897. Nevertheless it should be pointed out that Ferrero put Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples in the same category. Noting the unbridgeable gap between English industrial capitalism and the economies of the Latin countries, he proposed adopting the German model which had the advantage of still having to catch up on the Anglo-Saxon world—thus making it a more realistic target to aim for.Google Scholar

20. Neal, Thomas [pseud. of Angelo Cecconi], ‘Sempre le solite razze’, Il Marzocco , 4, 46, 17 December, 1899, p. 3.Google Scholar

21. Ferdinando, Nobili-Vitelleschi, ‘La questione del Transvaal. Lettera dall'Inghilterra’, Nuova Antologia , 83, 16 September 1899, pp. 348–354.Google Scholar

22. Einaudi was annoyed by British proposals to raise the price of coal, ‘a tax of five million a year that Italy has to shoulder because of the war that the English want to fight against the Boer republics’ (‘L'agitazione inglese contro il dazio di uscita del carbone’ (29 April 1901), in Cronache economiche e politiche di un trentennio , I, Einaudi, Turin, 1964, p. 345).Google Scholar

23. ‘Ouida’, ‘Joseph Chamberlain’, Nuova Antologia , 84, 1 December 1899, pp. 574–585.Google Scholar

24. Ibid. , pp. 577–578.Google Scholar

25. Gaetano Mosca argued that one small group of Europeans who had managed to adapt to ‘savage’ living conditions and draw new vitality from them did not seem likely to share this fate: the Boers. See Mangoni, , Una crisi fine secolo , p. 226.Google Scholar

26. Il Regno proposed that Chamberlain the man be treated separately from his economic policy because of a fear that ‘the new protectionism could be harmful to English interests, that is to say from the point of view of English nationalism’ (Calderoni, Mario, ‘Nazionalismo antiprotezionista?’, Il Regno (1904), in Frigessi, Delia Castelnuovo (ed.), La cultura italiana del ‘900 attraverso le riviste ‘Leonardo’, ‘Hermes’, ‘Il Regno’ , Einaudi, Turin, 1979, pp. 472–476.Google Scholar

27. Pareto, V., ‘L’éclipse de la liberté’, Gazette de Lausanne , 8 June 1903, published in Italian in Giornale degli economisti, June 1903, and in Pareto, V., Ecrits politiques. Reazione, libertà, fascismo, published by Giovanni Busino, Droz, Geneva, 1974, II, p. 389.Google Scholar

28. Pareto, Vilfredo, ‘Il crepuscolo della libertà’, Rivista d'Italia (February 1904), in Ecrits politiques , p. 405.Google Scholar

29. There is an incisive profile of Dalla Volta in Lanaro, Silvio, Nazione e lavoro. Saggio sulla cultura borghese in Italia 1870–1925 , Marsilio, Venice, 1979, pp. 157–162. Lanaro highlights Dalla Volta's anti-Giolittian position and his reluctance to recognize any political role for the labour movement. Salvatore Cingari also provides information on Dalla Volta in the anthology edited by Zanfarino, Antonio, Politica costituzionale e scienze sociali alle origini della ‘Cesare Alfieri’, CET, Florence, 2001, pp. 264–269.Google Scholar

30. ‘Adam Smith has already provided a complete and clear demonstration … of the fact that the colonial system was a long way from contributing to the wealth and prosperity of Great Britain, and many of his arguments can be directly applied to today's debate’, Volta, Riccardo Dalla, ‘Protezionismo, imperialismo e libero scambio, memoria presentata all'Accademia dei Georgofili’, 3 January 1904, in Saggi economici e finanziari sull'Inghilterra , Sandron, Milan, 1912, p. 75. On other occasions he cut the argument short by saying that the protectionist campaign was the result of ‘mistakes’ due to ‘ignorance’ and a failure to recognize the benefits of the sixty years of liberalism that had been heralded by the work of Richard Cobden: ‘Per il centenario di Riccardo Cobden, discorso all’ “Accademia dei Georgofili”, 5 June 1904, in Saggi economici e finanziari, pp. 191–208. In comparable terms he had re-evoked John Bright's beneficial campaign for free trade, ‘Commemorazione di John Bright, memoria presentata all” “Accademia dei Georgofili”’, 2 June 1889, in Saggi economici e finanziari, pp. 163–190.Google Scholar

31. ‘Protezionismo, imperialismo’, p. 61.Google Scholar

32. See Buxton, Sydney, A Handbook to Political Questions of the Day and the Arguments on Either Side , 11th edition, John Murray, London, 1903.Google Scholar

33. On the two educational institutions and their basis in the English model, see Quagliariello, Gaetano, ‘I rapporti tra il “Cesare Alfieri” e l'Ecole libre des sciences politiques attraverso sette documenti inediti’, Il Pensiero Politico , 25, 2, 1992, pp. 239–251. More generally, see Spadolini, Giovanni, Il ‘Cesare Alfieri’ nella storia d'Italia. Nascita e primi passi della scuola fiorentina di scienze sociali , Le Monnier, , Florence, 1975; Lotti, Luigi, ‘Gli studi politici e sociali: il “Cesare Alfieri” da Istituto a Facoltà’, in Lotti et at, Storia dell'Ateneo fiorentino. Contributi di studio, Parretti, Florence, 1986, pp. 523–542; and Rogari, Sandro, ‘L'Istituto di Studi superiori e la Scuola di scienze sociali’, Ibid., pp. 961–1,030. However it should be pointed out that despite the fact that the founders ‘aim had been to select a new elite that could serve as a political class with the intellectual skills needed to address the new unified state's problems, for a long time the Cesare Alfieri institute had the role of preparing the sons of the aristocracy for careers in politics and diplomacy.Google Scholar

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35. Bardoux, Jacques, Essai d'une psychologie de l'Angleterre contemporaine. Le crises politiques. Protectionnisme et radicalisme , Alcan, Paris, 1907, pp. 267–268. See also Bardoux's ‘Outre-Manche. Lendemain d'elections’, Revue des Deux Mondes, 66, 1 April 1910, pp. 590–620.Google Scholar

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