"Philologie romane [...] un titre excellent et significatif": Qualche considerazione rapsodica dal Belgio francofono sull'inattualità di una disciplina attuale

One of the most important challenges for European integration is the strengthening of the sense of a European cultural identity. The investigation of the origins of the European culture is at the core of the Romance Philology, a discipline that has a very prestigious tradition, but that seems now inexorably destined to disappear. How can we explain this paradox? In this paper, I will investigate the status of the Romance Philology in the French-speaking Belgian universities, with particular consideration for the initial stage, the establishment of the discipline at the University of Liège at the end of the nineteenth century.