Beiheft 30
The Presence of the Historian: Essays in Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano
Cover image: photograph of Arnaldo Momigliano, from Joelle Grosso’s “The World of Renowned Historian Arnaldo Momigliano,” in i-Italy.
+ MICHAEL S. STEINBERG, Introduction to The Presence of the Historian: Essays in Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano, History and Theory 30 (December 1991), Bei. 30.
No abstract.
+ KARL CHRIST, Arnaldo Momigliano and the History of Historiography, History and Theory 30 (December 1991), Bei. 30, 5-12.
Unlike so many present-day historians, Momigliano did not proceed according to the absolute dogmas of a new program of historical scholarship, method, or perspective. Rather, his scholarly work grew organically from the connection between personal initiatives and existential forces. Momigliano's lifelong theme was the historical dimension of the contacts among cultures, religions, and civilization. He made no absolute claims for his own method. His scholarly works are briefly summarized, including: his concern with the problematic of Johann Gustav Droysen's position and of Hellenism in general; his general review of the Italian investigations into Greek history and examination of the structure of the history of the Imperium Romanum; his activities during the years at Oxford; and his inaugural lecture as professor of ancient history at University College London in 1952, as well as the wide variety of individual studies which followed. Momigliano welcomed the worldwide expansion of scholarly work in his field, but saw more clearly and earlier than others the dangers that grew with the field. In his view, only the safeguarding of the historical foundations and precise knowledge of the history of historiography solidly based on them would ensure the continuation of historical scholarship.
+ JOANNA WEINBERG, Where Three Civilizations Meet, History and Theory 30 (December 1991), Bei. 30, 13-26.
Resonances of Samuel David Luzzatto's characterization of Italian Jewry can be heard in the personal memoirs of Arnaldo Momigliano. Pagan, Jewish, and Christian -these were the three civilizations which dominated Momigliano's life work. Between 1930 and 1934 Momigliano wrote four major works on representative areas of the triple civilizations: one on the Maccabean tradition; two articles on Josephus' defense of Judaism, the Contra Apionem; a presentation of his conception of first century Pharisaic Judaism; and Alien Wisdom, in which he explored the Hellenistic discovery of Jews, Celts, Romans, and Iranians, and Rome's meeting of these cultures. Momigliano's discussions of the ways that Judaism both absorbed GrecoRoman culture and reacted to it should be taken into account when examining the central texts of rabbinic literature, for the Rabbis themselves were conscious that they belonged to the triple civilizations. Through an analysis of the Midrash, it is shown that Momigliano helps us to appreciate some of the characteristics which emunah holds in common with pistis or fides. An example of the way Jews reacted to the imposition of Roman rule is given in their reaction to the imperial cult.
+ G. W. BOWERSOCK, Momigliano's Quest for the Person, History and Theory 30 (December 1991), Bei. 30, 27-36.
The concept of the person provides a convenient point of entry into a nexus of problems that much engaged Arnaldo Momigliano during his final three years. The closer one looks at Momigliano's papers on the person between 1985 and 1987, the more the disparate elements that he emphasized there can be seen to have a common core. Biography and autobiography, race and religion, traditional Judaism, and apocalyptic literature -which he introduced in the discussion of Judaism and biography in the Graeco-Roman period - all point in one direction, that is to Momigliano himself. As he had suggested in his first paper on Marcel Mauss, the quest for the person led directly to a quest for self- knowledge as reflected in autobiographical texts. The presence of Momigliano's own person in his discussion of the person illustrates admirably the views that he expounded. The link that Momigliano forged between Judaism and biography (and autobiography), for example, represented simultaneously a sense that there was a parallel between rabbinic interpretations of personal character and Greek ones, and his own private preoccupations with Judaism. From biography and autobiography by way of the person Momigliano reached what was for him the ultimate person: himself.
+ CARLO GINZBURG, Momigliano and De Martino, History and Theory 30 (December 1991), Bei. 30, 37-48.
De Martino offered Momigliano an opportunity to reflect on his own analogous yet different experience. The connection between the study of prehistory and the threat of the end of the world, and more generally, the idea that we need to respond to today's crisis by enlarging historical research to unknown and unpredictable phenomena might lead us to conclude that, at least momentarily, Momigliano's and De Martino's paths had touched. In reality, however, as Momigliano lucidly saw, theirs were parallel paths that could never meet. Studies that culminated in Il Mondo Magico had carried De Martino, albeit temporarily, outside Croceanism, and toward a more radical historicism immune from ethnocentric limitations, in particular with regard to Cassirer's works. Momigliano's detachment from Croceanism can be located between two divergent statements: that the sun had set on the idea of antiquitates, while also looking forward to the affirmation of a new antiquarianism under the guise of sociology or anthropology. It became increasingly clear as the years passed that for Momigliano all forms of historicism were unacceptable because they were threatened by relativism.
+ OSWYN MURRAY, Arnaldo Momigliano in England, History and Theory 30 (December 1991), Bei. 30, 49-64.
The impact on Momigliano of being an academic refugee of "the Bund" group at Oxford during the war was profound. It is this experience which turned him from the learned but orthodox Italian ancient historian into the European polymath, who took the whole classical tradition as his domain. A crucial turning-point for Momigliano was his decision to study the history of historiography. From 1951 Momigliano, as Professor of Ancient History at University College London, was a central figure in historical studies. Three grand themes had matured in his mind during his middle period in England: the history of late antiquity, the history of historiography, and the origins of Rome. The first two were to have great impact on English classical scholarship. In 1965 there began a series of seminars at the Warburg Institute in which Momigliano played a significant role, and which focused particularly on the relationship between ancient history and anthropology and the attempt to write a history of Greek biography. In studying Momigliano's life in England, the distinctive quality of his literary style and the continuities in his approach to history become especially clear.