La Grande Salute. Sul concetto michelstaedteriano di storia

The essay is divided into four moments. In the first one we discuss the "anti-historical Michelstaedter", who is the thinker given to us by a certain tradition of studies and of whom we highlight some inaccuracies: first of all, in Michelstaedter's texts we do not discuss so much the essence of history as the historicity of the living. In the second, dedicated to "physiologies and pathologies" of history, we examine, with the help of Croce and Nietzsche in deep dialogue with the young Carlo, the main historiographic conceptions of the nineteenth century, the "century of history", discussions in which Michelstaedter profitably inserts himself with a note "on history" written during his Florentine years. The third moment, with the proposal of a "historia salus vitae", establishes the correct interpretative canon of history according to Michelstaedter: it first of all gets rid of a certain "magisterial" conception of history ("historia magistra vitae") which, as Croce and Nietzsche also noted, can sometimes be an impediment to life; at the same time it founds the need for a history at the service of life ("historia ancilla vitae"), not very sensitive to collective healing (scientific, ethical or political) and aimed above all at individual health. The essay closes with a brief epilogue focused on the "ways to health" that can be derived from Michelstaedter's legacy: the "ascetic" way, of renunciation, resignation, withdrawal from the world and from life; the way of history, which also means an encounter with "rhetoric", but also and fundamentally testing an ideal that otherwise runs the risk of being shipwrecked in the sea of pre-history. Two different images-variants-symbols of Michelstaedter's "ways of health" close: the rock on the sea in front of Enrico Mreule's house in Savudrija and the "Campo della Salute" in Piran.