Abstract

In recent years, research on southern Italy has been in a state of ferment. The political and social history of the pre-unification Mezzogiorno has been revisited, focusing on the conflict between constitutionalism and absolutism. The conflict between reactionary and progressive forces also influenced public time. Since the mid-eighteenth century, time had become an object of political conflict and debate. The challenge was marked between those who supported its reform according to the model in force in the major European powers and those who opposed any change by defending the authority of tradition. The relationship between state and measurement of time thus took on a peculiar physiognomy in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. After 1815, the monarchy achieved an ambivalent balance in which temporal principles dearer to conservatives agreed with those typical of advocates of change and progress.