storiografia

Storiografia, or historiography in English, is the study of the writing of history. It examines how historians interpret past events, select topics, and construct narratives, as well as the intellectual, cultural, and political contexts that shape historical writing. The field analyzes methods, sources, criteria of evaluation, and how explanations of the past have evolved over time.

Methodologically, historiography covers source criticism, contextualization, and argumentation about causation and significance. It engages with a range of sources, including archival documents, inscriptions, literary remains, and, increasingly, oral history and digital data. It also reflects on issues of bias, perspective, and the historian’s own position in shaping interpretation.

Historico-writing has developed through various traditions. In antiquity and the medieval period, chronicles and annals framed events in narrative or providential terms. Modern historiography emerged with rational inquiry and archive-based methods, later expanding to positivist approaches that emphasized verifiable evidence, and to critical and theoretical movements that challenged objectivity. Schools such as the Annales School and other cultural, social, and Marxist approaches broadened focus to long-term structures, daily life, class, gender, and memory. More recently, postmodern and feminist critiques have questioned language, authority, and the construction of historical knowledge. Digital historiography uses computational tools and online archives to reframe research questions and accessibility.

The aim of historiography is not merely to recount events but to understand how knowledge of the past is produced, contested, and transmitted, and how historiographical choices influence memory, identity, and scholarly practice.