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Education serving politicsPage 1 of 4
The reforms of 1822 also revived the scholastic book market as, a result of two new types of textbooks. - Some texts were produced under the direct control of the Magistrate of the Reform, according to a measure from 1824; this was also probably desired by Taparelli D’Azeglio, who considered the use of teaching material consistent with the requirements of the new law and essential for his educational and political plans; - Other textbooks were written spontaneously, or simply upon invitation from the Magistrate. In the first category were texts on teaching Italian, published for the first time between 1823 and 1824 by the Stamperia Reale and reprinted many times in subsequent decades: - Antologia italiana approvata dall’eccellentissimo Magistrato della Riforma per le scuole superiori, Turin, at the Stamperia Reale, 1823; - Antologia italiana approvata dall'eccellentissimo magistrato della riforma per le scuole superiori; - Trattato della locuzione oratoria e dell'arte poetica approvato dall'eccellentissimo Magistrato della riforma ad uso delle scuole; - Grammatica italiana approvata dall’eccellentissimo Magistrato della Riforma ad uso delle scuole, Turin, at the Stamperia Reale, 1823. These were decidedly advanced texts compared with those in use in Piedmont schools until that time. Anthologies of Italian literature entered Piedmont’s schools for the first time including modern authors, prior to that point excluded from studies. Since Piedmont did not have a proper model for looking at the anthologies wanted by the Magistrate of the Reform they had as a model Antologia italiana ad uso dell’umanità maggiore nelle scuole del Regno d’Italia, published in Milan, by the Società tipografica de’ classici italiani, in 1810. Not by chance, the reference authors were the same; or rather the authors then become classics, such as the great Tuscan poets and humanists such as Bembo and Macchiavelli. But to these were added classic authors from Piedmont, in particular Vittorio Alfieri. The second category includes textbooks not commissioned by the government or that were written and published on the initiative of individuals. Among these texts, those relating to three subjects are interesting for the purposes of our discussion on teaching: Italian grammar, history and geography. As regards grammar, just as for the anthologies, authors from Piedmont looked to the neighbouring Lombardy where texts were in use which the government of Vienna had made teachers trained at the Normalschule in Vienna write, such as Giovanni Gherardini, Francesco Cherubini, Tommaso Grossi, Giovanni Berchet, Stefano Franscini, Ferdinando Bellisomi and the young Carlo Cattaneo. They brought books to Italy written on the basis of the precepts of the normal method “of second generation”, or rather that were developed in Austria by Peitl and Milde, as a change to the teaching methods of Felbiger. Those written for Austrian Lombardy were without doubt the most advanced textbooks of the time. The fact that they were imitated in Piedmont is very significant, because it certifies that for the first time the Kingdom of Sardinia opened itself up to a foreign method of teaching, with a strong air of having been created and designed for a different school system. In Turin there were, in fact, two texts reprinted by Milanese authors, the Grammatica della lingua italiana by Bellisomi (edited by Reviglio in 1833 and in 1837) and the Introduzione alla grammatica italiana by Gherardini (Carlotti, Bazzauni e C., 1851). Many were later produced by Piedmont teachers, united by thefact that they were part of the editorial staff of “Annotatore degli errori di lingua”, led by Michele Ponza . Ponza proved himself to be a most prolific author, printing more than a dozen textbooks, some of which were later reprinted in Milan.
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