Gli hegeliani di Napoli e il Risorgimento: Bertrando Spaventa e Francesco De Sanctis a confronto (1848-1862)

The aim of this article is to analyse the role of Neapolitan Hegelianism within the general context of the Risorgimento highlighting the connections between Hegel’s reception in Italy and the process of national political emancipation. It first describes the relations between Hegelianism and the Risorgimento and then focuses on the confrontation between the two prtogonists of Hegelianism in Naples, Bertrando Spaventa (1817-1883) and Francesco De Sanctis (1817-1883). Aiming at understanding the whole phenomenon from a transnational perspective it highlights this aspect both in Spaventa’s “theory of the circulation of Italian and European thought” (1862) and by means of De Sanctis’ exile experience in Zurich (1856-1860) and his reflections on the Italian republican tradition.