Introduction: Whole or nothing. The method: hermeneutics between Gadamer and Betti ; The story: humanism between Petrarch and Gramsci
Primi and ultimi: Petrarch's corpus. Introduction: total Petrarch, different Petrarch? ; "I was not born to be a slave of my body": (Re-)writing the past ; Reading the future ; Including the excluded: Petrarch's familiar invectives ; Conclusion
The purpose of literary criticism: Francesco De Sanctis's (Anti-)Petrarchism. Introduction: Italian Petrarch, (Un-)congenial Petrarch ; A rhetorical existence ; "Going to the people": literary criticism as moral philosophy ; The anti-Petrarch ; Conclusion: Petrarch as Pharmakon
"Do not grow weary of reading, for I do not grow weary of writing": Goldoni's reform of Italian literature. Introduction ; Enough is enough: the Italian comic complex ; Reforming...from without ; "With the mask I'm Brighella, without the mask I'm a man": reforming...from within ; Conclusion: if not Molière, then what?
The Vichian resurrection of commedia dell'arte: reciprocating modernity between Italy and France. Introduction ; Vico's laughter ; Giving and receiving modernity: a shared vichism ; "À quoi bon le théâtre italien?" ; Conclusion
Remembering is not thinking: Croce, Gramsci, and Italian intellectual autobiography. Introduction ; Beyond laughter ; For a "reform" of Italian thought" ; "A tall and blond Marx": Antonio Labriola and Benedetto Croce ; Rehearsing the anti-Croce ; The (auto-)biography of a nation ; Conclusion
Conclusion: the last Renaissance man.