Medievalismi siciliani: il mito dei Vespri nella cultura storiografica, politica e militare siciliana tra i secoli XIX e XXI

The article analyses the ways in which, during the nineteenth century in Sicily, an interesting phenomenon of political Medievalism developed, original and different from the rest of peninsular Italy. In particular, on the island, the Middle Ages were reworked and invented both by the monarchical and notable classes of the kingdom, to support the claims and the absolutism of the Bourbon Monarchy in Sicily, and by intellectuals, artists, poets, patriots of the Risorgimento, in antiBourbon and independentist function. This contribution has therefore highlighted how the 1282 Vespers revolt was reworked and used by historiography, from Vito Maria Amico to Michele Amari, and by Sicilian politics, which adopted the symbols of the medieval revolt as new symbols of the Sicilian Nation and of the reborn Parliament of the Kingdom of 1848. The symbols of the Regnum Siciliae also recurred in the armed forces of the newly constituted island kingdom, such as in the uniforms of the National Guard, but also in the postage stamps, an expression of the brief Sicilian independence experience, still coveted by various sectors of society even after 1861.