The Formation of a National Audience in Italy, 1750–1890

The late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries witness significant advancement in the production and, crucially, the consumption of culture in Italy. During the long process towards and beyond Italy becoming a nation-state in 1861, new modes of writing and performing – the novel, the self-help manual, theatrical improvisation – develop in response to new practices and technologies of production and distribution. Key to the emergence of an inclusive national audience in Italy is, however, the a