Articles

From Britain to Italy through France: A Preliminary Survey of the News about Walter Scott Published in the Italian Gazettes of the Early Nineteenth Century

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Abstract

This article examines the circulation and reception of news about Walter Scott in the Italian gazettes during the early nineteenth century, tracing the complex networks of information transmission from Britain to Italy, through a French mediation. Based on a corpus of gazettes from Milan, Turin, Genoa, Parma, Florence, and Naples,the study reveals how the Italian periodical press contributed to Scott’s celebrity status across the peninsula through systematic republishing of foreign news articles. Through detailed genealogical analysis of specific news items, it shows how information flowed from north to south within the peninsula, creating a polycentric network of cultural transmission. French newspapers served as primary intermediaries, translating and filtering British news before its dissemination in Italy. In turn, Italian journalists adopted a largely passive, osmotic approach toward foreign sources, prioritising quantity over critical analysis, while placing Scott-related news in general sections alongside political events, thereby elevating his status to an international significance. This investigation contributes to the understanding of how the networks of European gazettes functioned as vehicles for cultural unification in pre-unitary Italy, decades before political consolidation, and illuminates the mechanisms through which foreign literary figures such as Scott were popularised outside their country of origin. 

Keywords: Walter Scott, Italian gazettes, nineteenth-century periodical press, information networks, literary journalism

How to Cite:

Cremona, C. & Penso, A., (2025) “From Britain to Italy through France: A Preliminary Survey of the News about Walter Scott Published in the Italian Gazettes of the Early Nineteenth Century”, Journal of European Periodical Studies 10(2), 58–75. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/jeps.81954