I discorsi del Presidente Napolitano sull'unità nazionale come professione di fede: per uno studio semiotico della religione civile

The conceptof ‘civil religion’ was introduced by Rousseau,and then elaborated by Bellah. During the 1990s, Italian journalists and scholars opened a debate on the existence and features of a civil religion in Italy. Still,the concept of civil religion is often opaque and contradictory. The existent theories about the phenomenon in question should be further developed in order to be applied to different cultural realities and to the complex Italian context. The present essay proposes a semiotic study based on concepts such as value, belief, trust, truth, contract, and covenant. As a first example of such approach, it presents an analysis of the discourses the President of the Italian Republic,Giorgio Napolitano,pronounced during th ecelebrationsof the 150° anniversary of the national unification in 2011. The analysis reveals the presence of some religious features, the proposal of a system of values, and the purpose of strengthening or confirming the Italians’ trust in the national unity and the national State. The discourse composed by the President’s speeches could be considered as a profession of faith in the value of national unity, required, on the one hand, by the celebrative context and, on the other hand, by the difficult socio–political situation.