On October 21st, at 6.30 pm, the Italian Cultural Institute of London will host the presentation of Giovanni Rizzoni’s volume ‘Encyclopaedism and Parliamentarism. Parliamentary democracy in an Age of Fragmentation’ (Hart Publishing, 2024). The Secretary General of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Cllr Fabrizio Castaldi, and professors Emma Crewe (SOAS University of London), Peter Leyland (SOAS University of London), and Nicola Lupo (LUISS University of Rome) will take part in the presentation. The director of the Italian Cultural Institute Francesco Bongarrà will moderate the roundtable.
The event intends to offer an opportunity for comparison between Italian and British parliamentary culture starting from the central theses of Rizzoni’s volume. The book traces the cultural origins of modern parliamentarism in parallel with the birth of the great national encyclopedias, one of the great intellectual achievements of modern Europe. During the history of our democracies, parliaments have not only been political institutions but also ‘thinking machines’ thanks to their ability to process an enormous amount of information and produce new knowledge for the benefit of the entire political community. To do this, legislative assemblies have traditionally made use of ‘encyclopedic’ patterns, capable of organizing political representation through circular and all-encompassing structures. How can these traditional structures renew themselves in the face of the great transformations underway in the digital ‘infosphere’? How can a new parliamentary encyclopedia respond to the citizens’ changing demands for a political representation closer to their needs? The roundtable intends to address these issues by looking at one of the central themes for our democracies: the relationship between knowledge and political decision.
This event will be in presence at ICI London and held in English.
BOOK HERE