This chapter investigates how ideological and political motivations prompted Italian Hegelians in the second half of the nineteenth century to posit a contrived identification between the Renaissance and the Risorgimento, recognising in them a common revolutionary character. By focussing on Italian Hegelians’ interpretations of Giordano Bruno’s philosophy and Tommaso Campannella’s work, this chapter deals with ideas of modernity, interpretations of the Renaissance in nineteenth century Europe, and anticlericalism in the Risorgimento.

The Tudors’ Welsh ancestry and doubtful claim to the English throne rendered them conscious successors of King Arthur, and the mythology surrounding Arthur and Merlin became central to the construction of Tudor power from 1485 onwards. Accusations and rumours of magic were rife at the court of Henry VIII and played a key role in the downfall of Anne Boleyn as queen, but allegations of magic also swirled around Cardinal Wolsey in Henry’s early reign. However, it was not until the reign of Elizabeth that a Tudor monarch embraced her ‘Arthurian’ identity to the extent of seeking the advice of a latter-day Merlin, a role eagerly fulfilled by John Dee. At the high point of Dee’s influence a magically inspired idea of a British empire briefly influenced official policy under a queen so fascinated by the occult arts that she personally practised alchemy. At the same time, the Italian religious exile (and possible spy) Giordano Bruno saw himself as an ‘occult missionary’, bringing his particular brand of Hermetic magic to England.

The question of the treatment of the Steward Malvolio is one of the crucial interpretive issues in Twelfth Night, and the placement of audience compassion is central to the history of that debate. Recent readings focusing on the social function of laughter have reached diverging conclusions. Is Malvolio the legitimate victim of a ‘community of laughers’, or does laughter fail to achieve social correction and cohesion in the play? Elisabetta Tarantino argues that the play’s audience is expected to achieve a higher understanding of the motives why compassion may be granted or withheld by different groups of characters within the play. Reading the play in its international political context, she argues that the ambivalent representation of Malvolio is a central part of the play’s semantic strategy. On the basis of new intertextual evidence, she suggests that Twelfth Night addresses issues of community and compassion in a direct historical and political sense, with reference to the contemporary relationship between England and Europe.