Giulio Dalla Grana

Giulio Dalla Grana earned his PhD in Contemporary History in 2024 through a joint doctoral programme between the University of Turin and the University of Amsterdam. He completed his Master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations in 2019 as part of a double-degree programme between the University of Padua and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

Throughout his academic career, he has collaborated with the Institute for the History of the Resistance and Contemporary Society in Vicenza, Vilnius University, the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, and the University of Vienna.

His research focuses on the interactions between political power and religious authority, the history of political and religious thought and movements, and the complex mutual influences between political and religious ideas within both political and civil religions. He is particularly interested in the socio-religious movement led by the Polish thinker Andrzej Towiański (1799–1878).

The project

Title: Towianism Between the Church and the Parisian Intellectual Circles

"This research project explores the presence of the Towianist movement in France between 1840 and 1849. Emerging from Polish messianism, Towianism advocated a spiritual renewal rooted in Christian values and an inner transformation of the individual, with the aim of achieving a moral and political reorganisation of the world. In Paris, Andrzej Towiański’s ideas attracted key figures of the Polish émigré community, such as Adam Mickiewicz, as well as French intellectuals including Victor Hugo, George Sand, and Edgar Quinet.

The project focuses on two main dimensions: the social and intellectual networks surrounding the ‘Work of God’, and the movement’s often conflictual relationship with the French religious and political authorities. Despite opposition from the Catholic Church and Towiański’s eventual expulsion, the movement continued to grow in France, revealing the unexpected influence of Polish messianism on the European intellectual landscape."

Selective Bibliography

• “Dangerous and Pernicious Doctrines for the Health of the Souls”. Andrzej Towiański and the Reaction of the Roman Catholic Church, dans Esoteric Catholicism / Esoterischer Katholizismus, Helmut Zander et Viktoria Vitanova-Kerber (dir.), Berlin, DeGruyter, 2025, pp. 211-242.
• Fight and Contemplation. The Towianists amid the European Revolutions of 1848, “The Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture”, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2023, pp. 13-31.
• Esoteric Resonances in Andrzej Towiański’s Thought, “The Polish Review”, Vol. 65, No. 4, Winter 2020, pp. 3-22