“Pubblico” e “opinione pubblica”: osservazioni su due luoghi comuni del lessico politico italiano del Settecento

This article deals with the issue of the emergence of the “public” and the “public opinion” in the eighteen-century’s Italian political discourse. The emergence of these categories is connected with some structural transformations in the power’s ideology, in particular with the crisis of the traditional doctrine of the “arcana imperii”. The aim of this article is to underline the divergence between this discursive reality and the public sphere as a political and cultural reality in the eighteen-century’s Italy.