International Labor and Working-Class, Inc.

The Andrea Costa Archives

Author(s): Manuel G. Gonzales
Source: Newsletter: European Labor and Working Class History, No. 2 (Nov., 1972), pp. 21-23
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Labor and Working-Class, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20519586 .
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 21

In addition to the research facilities and activities, the Institute sponsors a wide variety
of publications containing research, bibliography, and archival notices.
From 1947 to 1955 the Institute published the reviewMovimento Operaio dedicated to
historical research and bibliography on the Italian socialist and labor movements. It is still an
indispensable starting point for any study of Italian social movements.
The study sections publish the results of their activities in the Annali and in other special
periodicals and collections. These contain contributions in different languages and are written
by international study groups. Other collections include the Bibliografia dell stampa periodica
operaia e socialista italiana dall'Unita al 1926 which will contain 24 volumes subdivided accord
ing to the Italian regions-the volumes published to date cover the periodical literature of Milan
and Messina; La Comume de Parigi and Charles Fourier e la scuola societaria which describe the
rich collection of documents and pamphlets available at the Institute library; La Resistenza in
Italia (25 luglio 1943-25 aprile 1945) which provides a first gleaning of the clandestine papers
of the Resistance; Economia degli stati italiani prima dell'unificazione. Part I, Stati sardi di
terra firma (1 700-1860) containing the first complete bibliography of the Italian political
economists. The collection "Testi e documenti de storia moderna e contemporanea" has pub
lished, among others, the state papers of Giovanni Giolitti relating to the political life of Italy
from 1898 to the rise of fascism. The collection of historical studies and researches includes
the Opere complete of Antonio Labriola, the major Italian marxist theoretician.

The Institute is located at via Romagnosi, 3, Milan. It is closed during the month of
August. The rest of the year it is open from 9 to 1, 2:30 to 6:00.

Victoria de Grazia
ColumbiaUniversity

1. For a description, compare Descrizione sommaria della Biblioteca dell 'Instituto (Milan,

1957). A new updated edition will be published shortly.

THE ANDREA COSTA ARCHIVES

One of the most significant, yet neglected, figures in the history of the European social
istmovement is Andrea Costa (1852-1910). Costa, the first socialist deputy in the Italian Par
liament, was the man primarily responsible for bringing about the transition from anarchism to
socialism in his country ca. 1880. Together with Filippo Turati, consequently, he must be seen
as one of the two patriarchs of Italian socialism. Unfortunately, however, Costa has never
received the attention he merits, and while he has had his biographers (notably Paolo Orano,
Alessandro Schiavi, and Lilla Lipparini), none of them have treated their subject in a scholarly
fashion nor have they presented him in his true historical role.1

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 22

Undoubtedly themost valuable documents on Costa are the papers contained in his personal
archives (Fonda Costa) at the Communal Library in Imola, his native city. These materials have
been catalogued, both chronologically and alphabetically according to the name of the author, by
the Director of the library, Dottor Fausto Mancini, in Le carte di Andrea Costa conservate nella
Biblioteca Comunale di Imola (Rome: Ufficio Centrale degli Archivi di Stato, 1964), but the
archives are still relatively obscure. Nevertheless, the Fondo Costa is an extremely rich source of
primary information, not only on Costa himself but on the entire socialist movement in Italy (and
indeed inWestern Europe) during the nineteenth century. Consequently, a description of these
archives may be useful here.
Extremely helpful in understanding and evaluating Costa's life and though is his personal
correspondence contained in the archives. This collection covers the period from 1872 to 1910.
Unfortunately, however, his anarchist phase (i.e., before 1879) is not represented very well. In
fact, there are no letters at all for the years 1873-74. This epistolary selection, nevertheless, com
prises the largest single set of papers in the archives; 4564 letters are included there. The vast
majority of them, asmight be expected, are letters sent to Costa, or to his friends. For the sake
of convenience, they may be divided into two general categories:
(I) Letters from Italians.
Among the most meaningful are those from the following individuals (number of
letters in parentheses): Nullo Baldini (101), Giuseppe Barbanti-Brodano (30),
Enrico Bignami (9), Leonida Bissolati (49), Carlo Cafiero (3), Amilcare Cipriani
(13), Emilio Covelli (4), Enrico Ferri (52), Giuseppe Garibaldi (1), Osvaldo Gnocchi
Viani (9), Antonio Graziadei (2), Anna Kulischioff (284), Antonio Labriola (19),
Costantino Lazzari (1 5), Errico Malatesta (3), Anselmo Marabini (5), Giuseppe
Massarenti (10), Francesco Severio Merlino (8), Carlo Monticelli (47), Angelo Negri
(3), Germanico Piselli (16), Camillo Prampolini (67), Gaetano Salvemini (5), Luigi
Sassi (24), Filippo Turati (77), and Gaetano Zirardini (41).

(II) Letters from Other Europeans.

Among themost important of these are the following: the French, Arthur Arnould
(1), Paul Brousse (I 5), Eugene Fourniere (9), Andre Gely (3), Clovis Hugues (1),
Jean Jaures (3), Jean Labusquiere (1), Hubert Lagardelle (1), A. Lavy (1), Benoit
Malon (7), Alexandre Millerand (1), Andre Morizet (1), Pierre Renaudel (1),
Xavier de Ricard (1), Gustave Rouanet (2), and Edouard Vaillant (1); the Swiss,
Hermann Greulich (1), James Guillaume (2), Adhemar Schwitzguebel (2), and
A. Spichiger (2); the Belgians, Luis Bertrand (1), Frederic Borde (5), and Cesar
de Paepe (1); the Germans, Eduard Bernstein (2) and C. Hugo, pseudonym of
Hugo Lindemann, (1); the Russians, Angelica Balabanoff (1) and Peter Lavroff (1);
and the Austrian, Victor Adler (1).
Only 330 of the letters in the collection were written by Costa. The main recipients of these
letters were Kuliscioff (27), Costa's mistress for many years, and Negri (44) and Sassi (47), fellow
imolesi and two of his chief lieutenants in the Romagna. Other letters were sent to Cipriani (1),
Gabriele D'Annunzio (I ), Ferri (I ), Jaures (I ),Marabini (8), Prampolini (2), and Turati (1).
In addition to his correspondence, the archives contain 135 other documents which concern
Costa, either directly or indirectly. These papers include unpublished articles, manifestoes, and
speeches. There are also published materials; 65 articles and pamphlets by contemporaries on

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 23

Costa and 35 articles and pamphlets by the socialist leader himself.

Other collections include 718 postcards (71 written by Costa) and 151 photographs. The
latter are especially interesting. Aside from Costa these photographs show, among others,
Bissolati, Cipriani, Jaures, Kuliscioff, Lazzari, Massarenti, Prampolini, and Turati.
Finally, the archives hold a vast collection of newspaper and magazine obituaries (694
articles in 3 volumes) on Costa written from January 19, 1910, to August 8, 191 1.Many of
these articles-which include selections from periodicals throughout the world-contain
biographical data on the Romagnol not found anywhere else. Some of the most interesting of
these are the pieces written by Ferri, Turati, and Benito Mussolini.

Manuel G. Gonzales
Diablo Valley College

1 These deficiencies encouraged me to do my doctoral dissertation on the subject, "Andrea

Costa and the Rise of Romagnol Socialism, 1880-1892." Although it is not a full biographical

study, this thesis deals with the most productive years of Costa's life and thus serves as a beginning

toward a serious and comprehensive biography.

TEACHING LABOR HISTORY

SEMINAR IN ENGLISH LABOR HISTORY BASED ON THE BEALES COLLECTION*

The Beales Collection consists of some 3500 books and 2000 pamphlets dealing with the
history of economic thought and the condition of the working class in England during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. The collection was assembled by H. L. Beales, for many years a reader in
economic history in the University of London, and was purchased from him in 1968 by Wesleyan
University. The collection is particularly rich in pamphlets from the first several decades of the
nineteenth century discussing economic issues in terms of developing classical economic theory,
including public finance, tariff policy, and the economic effects to be expected from workers'
organizations. There are also a large number of books and pamphlets describing conditions of life
and labor in various industries and regions. A selection of about 80 books and 160 pamphlets was
made to provide material for an undergraduate research seminar, given during the spring term
1971-72.
Students in the seminar were asked to recreate the life of a representative British worker
during a given decade, using only materials published during that decade contained in the Beales
Collection. They were also asked to identify gaps in their sources, and to "fill in" those gaps in
their papers tising some plausible theoretical construct; this was intended to encourage them to
go beyoind their direct evidence when necessary, and to look for connections between their dis

* Readers who have not already done so are encouraged to inform the Newsletter about courses in labor history
they have taken or taught. The next issue will carry a report based on this information.

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