Publisher's Synopsis
The volume, dedicated to the great historian Arnaldo Momigliano (Caraglio, Cuneo 1908 - London, 1987), offers a fundamental contribution to the understanding of his work. The first part of the text retraces the key episodes of the life of the scholar, who is here compared to the English historian Edward Gibbon for their common ability to give birth to a new idea of historiography, starting from tradition. From the Fascist period to the years of the Second Republic, the author focuses on the moments that most marked the work of Momigliano, such as the experience of the Italian Encyclopedia or the period of exile in Great Britain. Some of the fundamental issues of epistemology of history are also addressed, including truth as the essential task of the historian, and its pursuit as the main purpose of research. Momigliano's contribution to these issues is still considered essential. A wide-ranging essay, suitable for scholars as well as for the general public, that pays tribute to one of the greatest historians of the last century.
