In fact, he begins, in what might be his strongest chapter, by taking to task Italianists who study "literature of emigration" in a rather single-minded way.

The first took place in 1994 and dealt with Aspekte der Gegenreformation" (Aspects of the Counter-Reformation) from the points of view of historians, art historians, sociologists, Italianists, librarians, musicologists, social philosophers, legal historians, and literary historians coming from Germany, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

It will appeal not only to Italianists, but also to comparativists, to scholars with an interest in the novella and theory of fiction, to students of narratology.