This project aims to shed new light on the figure of the abbot Giovanni a Prato, who played a prominent role in nineteenth-century Trentine politics, journalism, and culture, and who also maintained deep connections with the Mitteleuropean and Italian worlds. During the revolutionary and constitutional biennium of 1848–49, he was elected as a deputy to the Nationalversammlung in Frankfurt am Main and then to the Reichstag in Vienna and Kremsier (now Kroměříž); subsequently, in the 1870s, he served as a member of the Austrian Parliament. Politically, he aligned himself with the left-leaning liberal flank, from which he fought primarily for the administrative and parliamentary autonomy of the Italian Tyrol, but also for important items on the liberal agenda, such as the separation of Church and State. He founded several newspapers and contributed to many others; he was a teacher, a patron of the arts, and a translator from German and Hebrew—a true Zwischenmensch (as Claus Gatterer described him), that is, a bridge between the Italian and German political, religious, and cultural worlds.

Despite his significance as a historical figure, the scholarly literature devoted to Prato is relatively sparse, and in any event it is dated. What is notably lacking are updated, philologically rigorous editions that gather at least a portion of his epistolary and journalistic output, remarkable both in quantity and quality.

The overall aim of this project is therefore to publish an anthology with a selection of Giovanni a Prato’s writings, annotated and divided into three volumes: (1) letters; (2) political and cultural writings; and (3) political and other speeches.

The project stems from a collaborative effort among the Centre for Regional History, the Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati, and the Società di Studi Trentini di Scienze Storiche.