Abstract

In the light of some studies published in Italy over the last months, this paper recalls the importance of Montaigne’s thought on the understanding of certain phenomena occurring in the early modernity. In particular, as it has been pointed out in a recent book by Carlo Montaleone, the writer from Bordeaux was probably the first to understand the disruptive impact of the discovery of America on the Old Europe. But Montaigne is also the writer who, rather than idealizing the other , recounts the events of the conquest, i.e. the depredations, the torture, the genocide. At the same time, while describing the New World and relativizing the alleged barbarism of the customs of Native Americans, Montaigne looks to Europe, and France in particular. Casting the eye of the cannibals over the Europeans, he observes that his country is ravaged by rivalries of all kinds: on the one hand, it is barbarized by the conflicts between the Catholics and the Huguenots, while on the other hand it is characterized by an increasing inequality in the social order