E se riprendessimo il confronto con la letteratura?

Recent attention paid to the relationship between history and space has led to renewed historiographical interest for images and representations, that is, the traditional material of the historian of the cities, which has nonetheless been used (and – sometimes – still is) in a disputable and controversial manner. The historian seems to have difficulty in defining their own approach when assuming, as their sources, objects of study which are typical of other branches of learning (art historians, literati etc.). From this point of view, a comparison with literature, with its modes of representation, seems particularly fruitful. This does not mean to put forward an alternative to the relationship with social sciences, but – starting from a fundamental category for the historian, i.e., that of space – it is an attempt to identify new paths towards the retrieval of a dialogue whose absence, it seems to me, has after all ended up impoverishing the historiographical practice. We will, thus, follow the locations of a famous novel, The Leopard by Tomasi di Lampedusa.