Oblicza Włoch według Stendhala

Abstract

Who is Stendhal - the author of Italian Chronicles? A writer trying to stimulate his readers' romantic imagination or just a stiff chronicler reporting crime stories taken from some 16th century manuscripts? Or might we consider him an anthropologist who investigates these crimes to discover the whole social and moral riches of the 16th century Italy? I dare say he may be called each of these individually and also all of them taken together. Stendhal's Italy is the country of crime and punishment, justice and lawlessness, superstition and piety. It is the place in which everything speaks of love - the place he discovers for us and which he allows us to discover on our own. Us - as the readers who are able to notice the ambiguity of his multi-level messages. And so we do see Stendhal as an author - anthropologist of the Renaissance Italy and as an object of the 21st century anthropological research, as both an analyst and creator of historical sources.