Abstract

The essay focuses on Giuseppe Giarrizzo's relationship with the profession of historian, a relationship experienced, in the wake of the lessons of Croce, with a strong civil tension, supported by constant reflection on the contemporary era from which to draw questions and awareness of one's own role, and by a rigorous philological practice. The heart of the article consists of an examination of amonograph of local history, "Un comune rurale della Sicilia etnea. Biancavilla. 1810-1860", marking - in the 1960s - his «conversion» to Sicilian history. Biancavilla offers Giarrizzo the opportunity to broaden the scope of his research from cultural to social and economic history, and becomes the grounds for experimentation of a paradigm of «political history» to which the scholar will remain substantially faithful throughout his scientific activity. In his studies, politics - the primacy of politics - is the level that holds together the most varied aspects of the past, giving them meaning and identity. It is with this approach that we read his explicit «passion» for the study of «power», and the option for a «generalist» history (the term is Giarrizzo's) defining hierarchies and strong moments of historiographical interpretation precisely around the political dimension.