At the turn of the twentieth century, Italian literature became a contested arena for competing visions of modernity, as the nation struggled with the unfulfilled promises of the Risorgimento and the disorienting pressures of rapid modernization. This chapter examines the ideological and epistemological crisis that unfolded between 1895 and 1897, when debates over literature’s role in national life mirrored broader anxieties about cultural decline, social fragmentation, and political disillusionment. Focusing on Ugo Ojetti’s 1895 literary enquête, Alla scoperta dei letterati, and D’Annunzio’s 1897 electoral campaign, the chapter reconstructs an intellectual landscape where nationalist and cosmopolitan, secular and religious, democratic and elitist visions of cultural renewal collided. Within this context, D’Annunzio sought to recast literature as an instrument of moral and national regeneration, advancing a vision of a new Renaissance grounded in racialized myth, aesthetic heroism, and the cult of the artist-leader. His literary nationalism should be understood within a broader spectrum of fin-de-siècle efforts to establish new epistemological and cultural foundations for identity and spiritual meaning in an era of uncertainty.