A benefit concert for Italian troops during World War I, a meeting of Nazi and Fascist youth, a demonstration for free (private) schools, a commemorative concert at Ground Zero, a show for the fiftieth anniversary of the State of Israel, a meeting of Italy’s Lega Nord, a French yellow-vests demonstration … All these events have just one thing in common: a performance of Verdi’s Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves was their high point.

This book offers to go back to the roots of the popularity of a piece composed in 1842 that is often referred to as the unofficial anthem of the Republic of Italy, and to write the song’s history.

Over and above the song’s successive appropriations by various political regimes, the construction of Italy’s national identity and history also play out in how the song is perceived beyond the nation’s borders. An analysis of the renewal in its staging and of the song’s appearance in both books and films, as well as its many uses at political gatherings and demonstrations allow the author to render the multiplicity of forms of writing for a founding myth of contemporary patriotisms.

Thus is an entire political history written between the lines of a slaves’ song.