An insightful look into the origins of modern Italian media culture by examining a sensational crime and trial that took place in Rome in the late 1870s, when a bloody murder triggered a national spectacle that became the first great media circus in the new nation of Italy, crucially shaping the young state's public sphere and image of itself.

Autorentext
THOMAS SIMPSON ****Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Italian at Northwestern University, USA.

Inhalt
The Crime and its Coverage * Journalism in Rome after National Unification * Chronology of a Circus Trial * The Killer, the People, and the Weeping Widow * "In Corte d'Assise" * King and Quartermaster: The Battles of San Martino * "to liberate Italy from the Italians" * Poor Giovanni Fadda * Circus * Characters