The Centro Interdipartimentale di studi 'Colli-Montinari' su Nietzsche e la cultura europea (Interdepartmental Center of Studies on Nietzsche and European Culture "Colli Montanari") aims at the organization and development of the project of research on Nietzsche and the European culture started at the University of Lecce (Italy)
The Center gathers a group of scholars and students coming from two major areas such as History of Philosophy and German Literature.
Such a group recognizes the Nietzsche reading tradition started by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari as its common ground of reference and inspiration.Hence the dedication of the center to the two outstanding scholars whose huge historical and philological work has been one of the major factors in the renewal of Nietzsche's image and in the beginning of a new interpretative perspective on Nietzsche's thought.
Several studies and essays about the genesis and methods of the critical edition of Nietzsche's works, its historical and cultural reasons, together with some previously unpublished texts have been published by G. Campioni founder and president of the center, and supervisor of the research group at the University of Lecce.
The group, following the path opened by Colli and Montinari, contributed to the historical and critical work of research and reconstruction of Nietzsche's posthumous texts and to the mapping of Nietzsche's sources and cultural environment. The results of such a long and patient research have been published in Nietzsche-Studien, in the section "Beitraege zur Quellenforschung" ,and in several essays in Italian and other European languages (viz.. La trama del testo. Su alcune letture di Nietzsche (edit. M.C. Fornari),G. Campioni Les lectures françaises de Nietzsche. See the page Biblioteca on this site ).
An extremely significant outcome of the group's efforts is the new Italian edition of Nietzsche's Works and Letters, and publication of the new catalogue of the Nietzsche Library, which offers a detailed description, page by page, of Nietzsche's reading signs (underlining, side marks, etc) and marginalia on all the books owned and read by Nietzsche, gathered at the "Goethe-Schiller" Archiv and at the "Anna-Amalia" library at Weimar. The catalogued edited by G. Campioni, P. D'Iorio, M.C. Fornari, F. Fronterotta, A.Orsucci, R. Müller-Buck, is forthcoming by the publisher de Gruyter
The aim of the Center is to coordinate and promote the research on Nietzsche's philosophy, its connections to the culture of the XIX century, and its fortune and reception. One of the major targets of the Center is the formation and direction of young scholars, graduate students, and independent amateurs who are interested in Nietzsche. Young students, who indeed are extremely sensitive to Nietzsche's fascination, need to be introduced to a "slow" and circumstantial reading of his works, which avoids the easy and mystifying interpretations and opens onto a deeper understanding of Nietzsche's thought. In this perspective Nietzsche provides important suggestions either for the analysis of the complex articulation of the modern culture and for a critical comprehension of our present reality.
A major part of such a formative commitment will be the organization and promotion of multidisciplinary activity of study and research (seminars, colloquia, meetings, publications) within a national and international range of cooperation. Moreover, the Center together with the Centro interdipartimentale di studi su Descartes e il Seicento (Univ. of Lecce) and the Centre d'Etudes cartésiennes at Paris IV, Sorbonne, has created an international doctorate in "Forms and History of Philosophical Knowledge of Modern and Contemporary Europe"

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