History of the formation of the Italian national encyclopaedic tradition: The Treccani Project (1925–2025). A preliminary enquiry
Abstract
The study examines the emergence and development of Italy’s national encyclopaedic tradition as shaped by the activities of the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani. Its centenary in 2025 provides an important context for reassessing its cultural mission. The research uses descriptive and analytical methods to systematise, interpret, and compare primary and secondary sources related to Italian encyclopaedism. It identifies the core features that established the Treccani project as a state-building intellectual initiative. These include the early integration of academic expertise, geographically and disciplinarily diverse authorship, and a sustained commitment to presenting verified knowledge within a unified humanistic paradigm. The analysis shows how the Institute evolved from an ambitious interwar publishing initiative into a major scholarly institution with long-term influence on the humanities and social sciences in Italy. Particular attention is devoted to the digital transformation undertaken in the twenty-first century. This transformation significantly expanded the accessibility, thematic breadth, and public relevance of the Institute’s encyclopaedic resources. Ukrainian-related materials within the Institute’s print and digital collections are also explored, with no evidence found of direct participation by Ukrainian scholars in the creation of the original encyclopaedic corpus. This absence indicates the need for further research into how Ukrainian topics have been mediated through Italian intellectual traditions and represented within European reference culture. The findings highlight Treccani’s role as a durable model of national knowledge consolidation and demonstrate the broader significance of encyclopaedic institutions for cultural diplomacy and transnational intellectual history. Future research should examine how Ukrainian-related entries in Treccani are constructed at the level of authorship, sources, and narrative framing, as well as how these representations differ from those found in Ukrainian encyclopaedic traditions.
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