Filologia Germanica – Germanic Philology is the first periodical entirely devoted to Germanic philology and closely related disciplines published so far in Italy. By a singular coincidence, it sees the light of day at a time when a series of radical changes are taking place in the Italian university that will inevitably touch this disciplinary field as well. For reasons that it is not given to discuss here, a good number of the current disciplinary sectors will cease to exist as such in the Italian university regulations and will be ‘amalgamated’, together with other (more or less) related teachings, into broader and less specfic groupings. This will, in all likelihood, also be the fate of Germanic Philology, with the somewhat paradoxical consequence that the name of this periodical – consciously chosen by the AIFG (Italian Association of Germanic Philology), which is its funding body – will no longer correspond to a specific area of university teaching and research. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that, despite all the institutional changes that may be put in place, Germanic philology, as a well-defined and broad field of study, will continue to be cultivated, in Italy and elsewhere, with the same intensity and competence in the future as in the present. We, for our part, hope-perhaps with a hint of immodesty-that scholarly interest in this discipline can be consolidated also by the presence of this journal. And so, in launching it, we are confident that we are acting for the best.
Although designed primarily for an Italian audience, the journal is open to contributions from scholars around the world (hence the appropriateness of giving it a bilingual title). Articles may be written, in addition to Italian, in English or other languages in international use.
As established by the AIFG, each issue of the journal will deal with a specific theme. Thus, the first issue is about the ‘Language and Culture of the Goths’; the second (scheduled for 2010) will deal with the relations between the Germans and Italy, and so on. However, contributions outside the specific theme of a given issue may also occasionally be accepted.
This first volume is dedicated to the memory of Piergiuseppe Scardigli (October 13, 1933 – May 27, 2008), who was not only one of the founders of Germanic philology studies in Italy – and certainly the one who, more than anyone else, worked to ensure that this discipline became an autonomous field of study, that is to say, without subservient ties to other disciplines, such as glottology and German language and literature, in whose bosom it saw the light of day many decades ago – but also one of the world’s leading scholars of Gothic culture and literary tradition. For this we must be eternally grateful to him.
Fabrizio D. Raschellà
(Editor in Chief)