Not so parallel lives
The Exempla Virtutis in the German and Italian tradition
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12547821 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eveline G Bouwers (0000-0002-4449-006X, Leibniz Institute of European History, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 372-386 |
| Publication date | 2020-08-07 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Modern Italian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1354-571X • E-ISSN: 1469-9583 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1354571x.2020.1794376 |
| OpenAlex | W3090090822 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
In the eighteenth century, public statuary shifted from the commemoration of princes to the celebration of ‘great men’: men, less so women, who had excelled in the arts and sciences, on the battlefield or in the political-administrative realm. Reflecting ancient and Renaissance virtue ethics, these public recognitions of virtuous behaviour (exempla virtutis) were intended to encourage emulation in order to rally the nation to the revolutionary and Napoleonic war effort. This article analyses the gradual nationalization of the exempla virtutis in early nineteenth-century Italy and Germany. It retraces the creation of spaces to commemorate great men and charts the changing biographies of those selected for inclusion in the Roman Pantheon and Walhalla respectively. The article argues that rather than overcoming national divisions the eclectic selection of ‘great men’ actually functioned as a magnifying glass for tensions within the nation, thus undermining the very notion of a ‘national monument’
Ancient history · Art history · Battlefield · German · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Realm · Sociology · The arts · The Renaissance · Virtue · Central European national history · Classics · European Political History Analysis · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |