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Popular High Culture in Italian Media, 1950–1970

Mona Lisa Covergirl

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Emma Barron

    1. Department of History, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

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  • Examines how Italy incorporated its rich cultural heritage into its modern identity during industrialisation
  • Offers case studies from popular magazines, television and advertising to trace collapsing boundaries between elite and mass culture
  • Foregrounds overlooked cultural materials such as popular magazines in the cultural history of Italy in the 1950s and 1960s

Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies (IIAS)

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: The Mona Lisa Covergirl

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 1-20

  3. Italia domanda: A Question of Culture

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 21-54

  4. Dear Intellectual: The Cultural Advice Columns

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 55-92

  5. Lascia o raddoppia?: Contestants and the Classics

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 93-138

  6. Lip-Syncing Rossini: The Highs and Lows of Italian Television Opera

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 139-176

  7. Puccini, Botticelli and Celebrity Endorsements: The Art of Magazine Advertising

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 177-213

  8. Reciting Shakespeare for Amaretto di Saronno: The Art of Carosello

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 215-244

  9. The Classics and the Everyday: From I Promessi Sposi to I Promessi Paperi

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 245-276

  10. Patrolling the Border: I Promessi Sposi on RAI Television

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 277-308

  11. Conclusion: The Smile of Bergman, the Body of Rita and the Face of Mona Lisa

    • Emma Barron
    Pages 309-315

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 317-337
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Keywords

About this book

When Mona Lisa smiled enigmatically from the cover of the Italian magazine Epoca in 1957, she gazed out at more than three million readers. As Emma Barron argues, her appearance on the cover is emblematic of the distinctive ways that high culture was integrated into Italy’s mass culture boom in the 1950s and 1960s, a period when popular appropriations of literature, fine art and music became a part of the rapidly changing modern Italian identity. Popular magazines ran weekly illustrated adaptations of literary classics. Television brought opera from the opera house into the homes of millions. Readers wrote to intellectuals and artists such as Alberto Moravia, Thomas Mann and Salvatore Quasimodo by the thousands with questions about literature and self-education. Drawing upon new archival material on the demographics of television audiences and magazine readers, this book is an engaging account of how the Italian people took possession of high culture and transformed the modern Italian identity.

Reviews

“This book re-invents the history of Italian television. By looking in detail at the heady mix of 'mass' and 'high' culture used by the medium in the early days of Italian television, Barron provides a fresh, exciting and fascinating insight into the ways Italians interacted with and utilised television and its role in Italian life as a whole. An important study which will open up debates in a series of areas.” (John Foot, Professor of Modern Italian History, Bristol University, UK)

“Emma Barron’s study of the role of high culture in the formation of Italian mass culture is a path-breaking work that is required reading for any scholar orstudent interested in the country’s postwar development. It is a brilliant and original analysis of a topic that has not hitherto had the attention it deserves.” (Stephen Gundle, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick, UK)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of History, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Emma Barron

About the author

Emma Barron teaches European film and history in the Department of History at the University of Sydney, Australia, and is an Honorary Research Associate at the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Popular High Culture in Italian Media, 1950–1970

  • Book Subtitle: Mona Lisa Covergirl

  • Authors: Emma Barron

  • Series Title: Italian and Italian American Studies

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90963-9

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-90962-2Published: 31 August 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-08142-3Published: 14 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-90963-9Published: 20 August 2018

  • Series ISSN: 2635-2931

  • Series E-ISSN: 2635-294X

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 337

  • Number of Illustrations: 16 b/w illustrations, 9 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: History of Italy, History of Modern Europe, Cultural History, Popular Culture

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