Public Statues Across Time and Cultures 2020048382, 2020048383, 9780367416386, 9780367815462, 9780367749347

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Preface and Acknowledgements
1 Statues and Public Space: An Introduction
2 How Accessible Were Statues in Pharaonic Egypt?
3 Portrait Statues in the Athenian Agora in the Roman Period: The Archaeological Evidence
4 Populating Public Palmyra: The Display of Statues and Their Impact on the Perception of Public Space in Roman Palmyra
5 The Statue in Byzantium: Some Questions and Cases
6 Looking Up in Judgement: How to See the Early Modern Statue Through the Late Medieval Crucifix in Italy
7 When Venus Mocked the Pope: Ancient Sculptures in the Possessi of Renaissance Rome
8 Monumentalising Burghers of the Low Countries: Living Statues in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Joyous Entries
9 Street Monuments and the Idea of National ‘Improvement’ Through Tolerant Coexistence in Post-Restoration Britain (1660-1770)
10 From Empires Past to Nation State: Figurative Public Statues in Istanbul
Index

Citation preview

Public Statues Across Time and Cultures

This book explores the ways in which statues have been experienced in public in diferent cultures and the role that has been played by statues in defning publicness itself. The meaning of public statues is examined through discussion of their appearance and their spatial context and of written discourses having to do with how they were experienced. Bringing together experts working on statues in diferent cultures, the book sheds light on similarities and diferences in the role that public statues had in diferent times and places throughout history. The book also provides insight into the diverse methods and approaches that scholars working on these diferent periods use to investigate statues. The book will appeal to historians, art historians and archaeologists of all periods who have an interest in the display of sculpture, the reception of public art or the signifcance of public monuments. Christopher P. Dickenson is an independent researcher based in Denmark.

Front cover: Sean Henry, Man with Cup, 2008, permanently installed on the façade of Salisbury Cathedral. Photograph courtesy of Sean Henry (www.seanhenry.com).

Routledge Research in Art History

Routledge Research in Art History is our home for the latest scholarship in the feld of art history. The series publishes research monographs and edited collections, covering areas including art history, theory, and visual culture. These high-level books focus on art and artists from around the world and from a multitude of time periods. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality art history research. Picturing Courtiers and Nobles from Castiglione to Van Dyck Self Representation by Early Modern Elites John Peacock The Reception of the Printed Image in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries Multiplied and Modifed Edited by Grażyna Jurkowlaniec and Magdalena Herman Iconology, Neoplatonism, and the Arts in the Renaissance Edited by Berthold Hub and Sergius Kodera History and Art History Looking Past Disciplines Edited by Nicholas Chare and Mitchell B. Frank Mobility and Identity in US Genre Painting Painting at the Threshold Lacey Baradel The Imperial Patronage of Labor Genre Paintings in Eighteenth-Century China Roslyn Lee Hammers Public Statues Across Time and Cultures Edited by Christopher P. Dickenson Mapping Impressionist Painting in Transnational Contexts Edited by Emily C. Burns and Alice M. Rudy Price For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/Routledge-Researchin-Art-History/book-series/RRAH

Public Statues Across Time and Cultures

Edited by Christopher P. Dickenson

First published 2021 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Christopher P. Dickenson to be identifed as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dickenson, Christopher P., editor. Title: Public statues across time and cultures / edited by Christopher P. Dickenson. Description: New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifers: LCCN 2020048382 (print) | LCCN 2020048383 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367416386 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367815462 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Statues—Psychological aspects. | Public sculpture—Psychological aspects. | Art and society—History. | Arts audiences—Psychology. Classifcation: LCC NB1145 .P83 2021 (print) | LCC NB1145 (ebook) | DDC 730.2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048382 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048383 ISBN: 978-0-367-41638-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-74934-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-81546-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of Figures List of Contributors Preface and Acknowledgements 1 Statues and Public Space: An Introduction

vii xi xiii 1

CHRISTOPHER P. DICKENSON

2 How Accessible Were Statues in Pharaonic Egypt?

32

CAMPBELL PRICE

3 Portrait Statues in the Athenian Agora in the Roman Period: The Archaeological Evidence

56

SHEILA DILLON

4 Populating Public Palmyra: The Display of Statues and Their Impact on the Perception of Public Space in Roman Palmyra

81

RUBINA RAJA

5 The Statue in Byzantium: Some Questions and Cases

102

PAROMA CHATTERJEE

6 Looking Up in Judgement: How to See the Early Modern Statue Through the Late Medieval Crucifx in Italy

121

PETER DENT

7 When Venus Mocked the Pope: Ancient Sculptures in the Possessi of Renaissance Rome

147

KATHLEEN W. CHRISTIAN

8 Monumentalising Burghers of the Low Countries: Living Statues in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Joyous Entries STIJN P.M. BUSSELS

176

vi Contents

9 Street Monuments and the Idea of National ‘Improvement’ Through Tolerant Coexistence in Post-Restoration Britain (1660–1770)

194

MATTHEW CRASKE

10 From Empires Past to Nation State: Figurative Public Statues in Istanbul

226

FAIK GÜR, MELIS TANER AND DENIZ TÜRKER

Index

257

Figures

Tony Matelli, Sleepwalker, 2016, The High Line, New York. John Rysbrack, statue of Queen Anne, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. Neil Simmon, statue of Margaret Thatcher at London’s Guildhall in its current location. 1.4 Antony Dufort FRSS, sculpture of Margaret Thatcher. 1.5 The north side of Parliament Square. Statues, from left to right: The Earl of Derby, Canning, Palmerston, Smuts, Lloyd George. 1.6 The statue of Robert E. Lee, Richmond after being daubed by grafti by protesters, July 2020. 1.7 The statue of Cecil Rhodes on the façade of the Rhodes Building, Oriel College, Oxford (centre top), during protests, 9 June 2020. 1.8 Waxwork of Margaret Thatcher fanked by Reagan and Gorbachev at Madame Tussauds, London. 2.1 Peristyle courtyard at the rear of Luxor temple, with mosque of Abu Haggag in the distance. 2.2a Collection of statues of the goddess Sekhmet relocated to Karnak temple from the temple of Amenhotep III. 2.2b Repositioned statue of Sekhmet at the entrance to temple of Ramesses III, Medinet Habu. 2.3 Scene from the Theban tomb chapel (no. 277) of Ameneminet, showing statues of deifed King Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. 2.4 The ‘Colossi of Memnon’, representing Amenhotep III, Kom elHeitan, western Thebes. 2.5 Aperture in the serdab of the tomb chapel of Ti at Saqqara (c. 2400 BCE); the statue of the tomb owner within is a replica of the original. 2.6 Naophorous statue of an ofcial named Hor, c. 590 bce, now in Manchester Museum. 3.1 John Travlos, plan of the Post-Herulian Wall, 1984. 3.2 R.C. Anderson, plan of the Athenian Agora (centre), second century ce, 1992. 3.3 Inscribed drum from the monument to Xenokles. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 3299. 3.4 The monument to Xenokles on site, inside the remains of Tower W2. 3.5 Base for the statue of Publius Appuleius Varus, built into Tower W4. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 928. H. 0.21 m. W. 0.79 m. D. 0.70 m. 3.6 Base for the statue of Tiberius Claudius Jason Magnus of Cyrene, built into Tower W4. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 6737. H. 1.24 m. W. 0.87 m. D. 0.56 m. 1.1 1.2 1.3

2 4 7 8 10 15 17 20 37 39 40 41 43 45 47 58 59 61 62 63 64

viii

Figures

3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5

Top view, with footprints and attachment holes, of the base for the bronze statue of Tiberius Claudius Jason Magnus of Cyrene, built into Tower W 4. L. of left footprint 0.29 m. Portrait of man wearing elaborate bust crown, perhaps an archon or agonothetes of the Panhellenion. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 3500. P.H. 0.36 m. Helen Besi, plan of proposed route of Pausanias through the Agora, 1973. Portrait head of Trajan worked for insertion into a statue, wearing laurel crown. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 347. H. 0.59 m. H. of head (from chin to crown, not including laurel crown) c. 0.28 m. William Bell Dinsmoor, Jr., plan of the Library of Pantainos and vicinity, with the location of Agora I7483 indicated, 1975. Base for a statue of Aurelius Appianus, set up in the frst half of the third century ce by the Council of the Areopagus and the Senate. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 673. H. 1.05 m. W. 0.50 m. D. 0.50 m. Portrait of a young man, early third century ce. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 954. H. 0.32 m. H. of head 0.25 m. Portrait of a mature man, mid-third century ce. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 950. H. 0.27 m. H. of head 0.25 m. Map of Palmyra, after Schnädelbach, 2010. View of tower tombs outside the city centre of Palmyra. Double loculus relief depicting a man and a woman, inv.no. 1028. Male sculpture in the round on base wearing himation, 170–200 ce. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv.no. AO 22252. Male sculpture in the round on base wearing himation and Parthian trousers and soft boots, second century ce. Palmyra Museum. Female marble statue found near the city council building, 200–225 ce. National Museum of Damascus, Damascus, inv.no. C4023. Statue displayed on column console on street, Palmyra. View of a stretch of street with the typical column consoles, Palmyra. Fragmented limestone male head from sculpture in the round imitating bronze sculpture, inv.no. 1028. Side view of fragmented limestone male head from sculpture in the round imitating bronze sculpture, inv.no. 1028. Wall paintings superimposed upon niche model. Charles Christensen, watercolour of female fgure from wall painting in Ḥairan’s grave. Charles Christensen, watercolour of female fgure from wall painting in Ḥairan’s grave. ?Giovanni Pisano, Crucifx, polychromed wood, c. 1300, San Nicola, Pisa. ?Marco Romano, Crucifx, polychromed wood, c. 1310, Museo Civico e Diocesano, Colle di Val d’Elsa. Crucifx, polychromed wood, early fourteenth century, San Domenico, Chioggia. Detail of Figure 6.3. Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus and Medusa, unveiled 1554, Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria, Florence.

64 65 67 69 71 72 73 73 82 82 83 85 86 87 88 88 89 90 92 93 94 129 130 132 133 134

Figures ix 6.6 7.1

Detail of Figure 6.5. Giambattista Nolli, Pianta Grande di Roma, 1748, marked with the location of the Via Papalis and of antiquities collections formed before the 1527 Sack of Rome: (1) Sassi; (2) Mellini; (3) Galli; (4) Riario; (5) Pasquino; (6) Pichi; (7) Massimo; (8) Piccolomini; (9) Della Valle; (10) Cafarelli; (11) Medici; (12) Alberini; (13) Cesarini; (14) Altieri; (15) Astalli; (16) de’ Rossi. 7.2 Maarten van Heemskerck, Courtyard of the Palazzo Della Valle di Cantone, c. 1532–1537, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv.no. 79.D.2, fol. 20r. 7.3 Hermann Vischer the Younger, House of the Palazzo ‘di Mezzo’ Della Valle, c. 1515, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv.no. 19,051. 7.4 Piazza di Pasquino, Rome; formerly known as Piazza di Parione. 7.5 Andrea Mantegna, ‘Carts of Spolia and Standard-Bearers’ from the Triumphs of Caesar cycle, 1484–1492, Hampton Court Palace, London. 7.6 Anonymous (after Maarten Van Heemskerck?), House of the Sasso d’Amateschi, c. 1530s, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv.no. Kdz 2783. 7.7 Attributed to Giovanni Ferri (Giovanni Senese), Cavalcata of the Roman Prefect Taddeo Barberini on the Via del Corso, detail, c. 1640, Banca di Roma, Rome. 7.8 Ancient statue of Pan formerly in the Della Valle collection, frst century bce, Capitoline Museums, Rome. 7.9 Maarten van Heemskerck, The Triumph of Bacchus, c. 1536/7, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 7.10 Giambattista Naldini, Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila, c. 1560, Ufzi, Florence, inv.no. 230 A r. 8.1 Abraham de Bruyn, ‘Swearing of the Oaths at the Grand Place’. Engraving in La joyeuse & magnifque entrée de Monseigneur François, plate 21. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1582. University Library Ghent, Res. 1373. 8.2 Pieter van der Borcht, ‘Antverpia Welcomes Albert and Isabella’. Engraving in Johannes Bochius, Historica narratio profectionis et inaugurationis Serenissimorum Belgii Principum Alberti et Isabellae . . ., 186–87. Antwerp: Ofcina Plantiniana, 1602. University Library Ghent, Acc. 1858. 8.3 Remy Dupuys, ‘First tableau vivant of the joyous entry of prince Charles in Brugge, 18 April 1515’. In La tryumphante entrée de Charles prince des Espagnes en Bruges 1515, Facsimile. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1973. 8.4 ‘Paris’ judgement in the joyous entry of Joanna of Castile in Brussels, 9 December 1496’. Manuscript 78D5, fol. 57, Kupferstichkabinetts SMB, Bildarchiv preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, inv.no. 00049763. 8.5 Jean Baptiste Houwaert, ‘Tableau vivant of the joyous entry of archduke Matthias in Brussels, 18 January˛1578’. In Sommare beschrijvinghe vande triumphelijcke Incomst. . . , plate XVII. Antwerp, 1579, 51. University Library Ghent, MEUL. 000334. 9.1 William Hogarth, Times of the Day: Night, print, 1833. Private collection of the author.

138

149 150 151 152 153 157 160 163 164 165

178

181

183

185

187 196

x

Figures

9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 10.1 a–b 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 a–d

Peter Scheemakers, statue of William III, 1734, Kingston upon Hull. John or Catherine Nost, statue of William III, 1735, Glasgow. Grinling Gibbons, statue of Charles II, 1685, Edinburgh. John Cheere, statue of William III, 1739, Petersfeld. The princes’ circumcision ceremony, in Hünername (The Book of Talents), Topkapı Palace Museum Library H. 1524, fols 119b–120a. Bezm-i Alem Valide Sultan’s Yıldız fountain (later removed to Topkapı) with the central globe on column motif, c. 1843. B. Kargopoulo, Parc a Yeldez, c. 1880s, Istanbul University Library, 90751–0044. First full-size statue of Kemal Atatürk in Sarayburnu. Taksim Republican Monument, Istanbul (author’s collection). Figure 10.5a represents the emergence of the Republic, Figure 10.5b the War of Independence.

202 203 205 210 229 231 232 245 246

Contributors

Stijn P.M. Bussels is Professor of Art History, especially before 1800, at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Paroma Chatterjee is an associate professor in the Department of the History of Art at Michigan University. Kathleen W. Christian is Professor of Early Modern Art and Director of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture known to the Renaissance at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Matthew Craske is Reader in History of Art in the School of History, Philosophy and Culture at Oxford Brookes University. Peter Dent is a senior lecturer in the Department of the History of Art at Bristol University. Christopher P. Dickenson is currently an independent researcher afliated to the Centre for Urbnet Network Evolutions (Urbnet), Aarhus University. Sheila Dillon is Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. Faik Gür is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Özyeğin University. Campbell Price is the Curator of Egypt and Sudan at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester. Rubina Raja is Professor of Classical Archaeology, centre leader of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions and head of the Palmyra Portrait Project. Melis Taner is an assistant professor in architecture at Özyeğin University. Deniz Türker is CIS Research and Outreach Associate and an afliated lecturer at the Department of History of Art and the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Preface and Acknowledgements

This book had its origins in a two-day conference that took place at Lincoln College, Oxford, in September 2016, the idea for which developed out of my own research into statues in the Greek world in the Roman period. The statues of antiquity are inescapably familiar, and yet the way the inhabitants of the ancient polis experienced them in daily life—in the marketplace, the temple, the theatre—somehow still eludes us. I wanted to call the familiarity of ancient statues into question and to try to fnd new perspectives for thinking about them. To do that I needed to learn more about what statues had meant in other times and places, and the best way to do that seemed to be to create the setting for a discussion between scholars working on statues of diferent periods and cultures, and from diferent academic backgrounds, about how these monuments and works of art had been used and experienced throughout history. I was delighted that the experts I invited—the contributors to this volume—accepted my invitation and that the event was every bit as thought provoking as I had hoped. The conference was generously funded by the John Fell Fund, the Zilkha Fund and a Craven Committee Research Grant. As is so often the case, the book has taken longer to appear than I once anticipated, and I am grateful to all of the contributors for sticking with the project. Thanks are also due to all those who attended the event in Oxford and took part in the stimulating discussions, especially to Jaś Elsner, Geraldine Johnson, Lukas Nickel and Peter Stewart, whose contributions played an important role in shaping some of the ideas that found their way into my introductory chapter. I would also like to thank Bert Smith for sharing his expertise on ancient sculpture and his generous guidance on my research project during my three-year stay in Oxford. Dominic Dalglish provided very useful feedback on a draft of my chapter and visited Parliament Square to obtain, at very short notice, some much-needed photos of the statues there. Anne Marie Pace, Kees van Tilburg, Gordon Baird, Micha Theiner, Karen Roe and ‘Rhodes Must Fall, Oxford’ were all also kind enough to let me use photos they had taken. I am grateful to Sean Henry, Tony Matelli and Antony Dufort for their permission to reproduce photos of their work and Katie Armstrong and Isabella Torrence at Routledge for all their assistance in seeing the book through to production. I would fnally like to thank Mr Dufort for some fascinating email exchanges about the work of the sculptor and his own public commissions. These discussions did much to lift my spirits when working on fnishing this book during lockdown in the spring of 2020. For a brief moment shortly after that, with summer approaching, statues captured the world’s attention and even briefy managed to steal the headlines from the disaster of Covid19. This latest eruption of the ‘statue wars’ necessitated some frantic

xiv

Preface and Acknowledgements

rewriting of parts of my chapter. As I say there, probably one of the most common reactions we have to statues as we walk about our modern towns and cities is simply to ignore them. Recent events suggest that statues are perhaps more important to us than we might think. Yet the reasons for their importance now and the things they mean to us are not necessarily the same as those in the past. The hope is that this book will provoke refection and further discussion on the ways in which statues in other times and places both were and were not quite like the sculpted likenesses of people that we today set up. Or those we take down. Christopher P. Dickenson Aarhus—August 2020 P.S. I learned too late of the existence of Stuart Burch’s recent book on the monuments of London to engage with it as fully as I would have liked in my chapter.

1

Statues and Public Space An Introduction Christopher P. Dickenson

Naked except for a pair of Y-fronts, the man lurches unsteadily forward, his weight shifting from the right to the left foot. His arms reach out limply before him, his hands loosely open. The slight paunch, the subtle variations in skin tone, the stretched veins on the backs of the hands, the creased underwear, all work toward a powerful illusion that this is a real man. Yet he does not follow through with his step. His frail hands betray not the slightest hint of a tremor. He does not breath. The tension between the fgure’s intense lifelikeness—its hyperreality in the parlance of art history—and the abject absence of life creates a sense of unease, which can somehow be sensed even on seeing it on a photograph. The brain perceives that this is not a real man at all. But then what is it? A creature that has materialised from a dream? The total lack of muscular tension, the loll of the head and closed eyes tell us that the man is himself dreaming, unaware of his surroundings and unaware of you or me as he staggers forward, sleepwalking. He is ‘Sleepwalker’, the creation of American sculptor Tony Matelli (Figure 1.1). In 2014, this piece of art achieved worldwide celebrity because of the controversy that arose after it was installed outside the Davis Museum on the campus of the all-women Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, to coincide with an exhibition of works by the artist inside the building. On the day that the work appeared, an undergraduate student of the college started a petition calling for its removal to inside the museum, explaining: Within just a few hours of its outdoor installation, the highly lifelike sculpture by Tony Matelli, entitled ‘Sleepwalker’, has become a source of apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts regarding sexual assault for some members of our campus community. While it may appear humorous, or thought provoking to some, the ‘Sleepwalker’ has already become a source of undue stress for a number of Wellesley College students, the majority of whom live, study, and work on campus. As the sculpture was placed in a highly trafcked location, it is difcult for students wishing not to see the ‘Sleepwalker’ to travel to the campus center and the residential and academic quads. (emphases added)1 The museum’s director issued an immediate response defending the decision to display the piece at that location on the grounds that art should provoke discussion, that ‘Sleepwalker’, far from being an aggressive predator, was a ‘vulnerable’ and

2

Christopher P. Dickenson

Figure 1.1 Tony Matelli, Sleepwalker, 2016, The High Line, New York. Source: Courtesy Tony Matelli Studio.

‘profoundly passive’ fgure and that many students clearly did not fnd him threatening but were interacting with him in a playful way, posing for selfes beside him.2 The petition eventually gathered some 1,012 signatures, a not insignifcant number considering that the college’s undergraduate body comprises around 2,700 students; but arguably more striking is how the episode briefy captured the attention of the world’s media.3 Interest in the controversy was in no small part due to its connection to larger questions about campus free speech, which have been fercely debated in recent years.4 The widespread popularity of the story, however, surely also had to do with to an inherent fascination for the power that this object, a crafted likeness of a human being, had to provoke such strong emotions and to generate such disagreement. The newspaper articles invariably included a photo of ‘Sleepwalker’ to spark interest. While the petition referred to the work as a ‘sculpture’, the word used to

Statues and Public Space

3

describe it by many newspapers and by many of those who left reasons for signing the petition—a word Matelli himself has also used of the work—was ‘statue’.5 The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following defnition of the word ‘statue’: 1. a.

A representation in the round of a person, animal, etc., which is sculptured, moulded, or cast in marble, metal, plaster, or a similar material; esp. such a representation of a god, allegorical fgure, or eminent person, usually life-size or larger. b. Figurative and in similative use, esp. with reference to being motionless or silent.

2. More generally: an efgy; an image, a portrait. Obsolete. 3. Usually in plural. Any of various children’s games in which players must stand still in diferent postures. Also more fully game of statues, statue game, statues game. Matelli’s ‘Sleepwalker’ certainly conforms to many aspects of these defnitions. Others, however, are more problematic, and if we probe the expectations that we would normally have of a statue a little deeper and test them against this piece of art, the ease of categorizing it—and indeed the possibility of readily defning what exactly a statue is—begins to break down. ‘Sleepwalker’ is most defnitely a sculpture in the round, a representation of a man. It is life-size. It is—though the subtle paint works to convince us otherwise—made of metal, bronze, in fact, a material used for creating statues since antiquity.6 But is it a portrait, or even a representation of a real person? The viewer has no way of knowing whether this sculpture was modelled on a real individual or whether it is a fgment of the artist’s imagination conjured into reality. Perhaps its dreamlike quality brings it closer to the realm of the gods and encourages us to see it almost as an icon. Yet its costume, stance and the indignity of being caught somnambulating in a state of undress suggest an ordinary everydayness. If it is an image of a real, living person, it would certainly not seem to be an eminent individual—the man’s dishevelled state and his unfattering circumstances hardly seem celebratory. Perhaps more saliently, the sculpture lacks the tell-tale nametag or inscription that is so often afxed to the bases of statues to tell us who they represent. For this fgure has no base. Perched on a pedestal, a statue quite literally elevates its subject above other mere mortals, the base a metaphor for the symbolic elevation inherent in the commemoration.7 But ‘Sleepwalker’ has been brought down to the ground, not only occupying the same space as us, his viewers, as all sculpture in the round does, but sharing the foor with us, walking among us, inviting us to interact with him. Surely one of the most common expectations we have of statues encountered on street corners or public squares is that they are not simply works of art but that they have been erected to commemorate someone or something. If the word ‘sculpture’ is a label that describes an artistic medium, the word ‘statue’ tells us something about the cultural meanings bestowed upon particular pieces of sculpture. The word ‘statue’, at least in the way that it has traditionally been used in Western history for the last few hundred years, most often suggests a ‘monument’. ‘Sleepwalker’ defes so many of our expectations of what a monument should be still. But is it perhaps still a statue after all?

4

Christopher P. Dickenson

Statues as Monuments, Statues and Publicness The power of statues to serve as commemorative monuments surely depends above all on their publicness. Statues have sometimes been set up to honour prominent individuals in private settings, but such works inevitably and quite deliberately refer to statues set up in the public sphere; such statues are also exclusively to be found in the houses of the rich and powerful, who enjoy both the wealth to aford them and the space to display them. Encountering John Rysbrack’s over-life-size statue of Queen Anne in the Library of Blenheim Palace (Figure 1.2) provokes surprise—as the frst Duchess of Marlborough no doubt intended when she had it installed—because everything about it, from its pose to the material used to its ornately carved pedestal, evokes the settings of the city square, the courthouse, or the cathedral, where we would expect to see such a sculpture. Indeed, the statue had originally been intended

Figure 1.2 John Rysbrack, statue of Queen Anne, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. Source: Photo by the author.

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for a more public location at an alms-house in St Albans but had only stood there for a short while before the dowager Duchess had it brought to its current location. But placing the work in the library does more than simply call to mind the public realm. It actively engages in the public sphere, since it was designed to convey a message to an audience beyond the palace’s walls. Queen Anne’s statue was not placed in the library for the private contemplation of the Marlborough family. It was a statement of the close relationship of friendship and patronage that the family, and the dowager in particular, had enjoyed with the deceased Queen and was intended as a veiled attack on the new reigning House of Hanover.8 It was intended to be noticed by visitors and discussed in polite society. If even such an ostensibly private statue can be thought of as a public monument, it is worth interrogating more deeply the nature of the relationship between statues and publicness for those that stand in settings to which a larger community has access. Cities throughout history and in all parts of the world have had places where people have gathered together: to trade, to participate in religious festivals, to take part in politics, to be entertained, to talk, to socialize, or to exercise. Spaces might be purposebuilt to accommodate such functions—we might think of plazas, market halls, theatres, bathhouses or parks—but other spaces of interaction, such as streets and areas of unused land between buildings, can develop more organically as areas of communal use. It is convenient to refer to such spaces as ‘public’, but on closer consideration, truly public space proves impossible to fnd. There are always conventions, rules and regulations that govern the types of people who have access to particular areas and the types of activities and behaviour that are tolerated there. The power to reshape or transform the appearance or layout of ‘public spaces’ is also always unevenly distributed throughout society. Modern theorists of urbanism have argued that a fundamental characteristic of ‘public space’ is its contested nature.9 How it is used, who it is used by and what it looks like are always determined by negotiations of power between the diferent groups with a vested interest in it. The idea that the publicness of space is relative rather than absolute is emphatically stressed by the geographer Don Mitchell, who argues that the ‘idea [of public space] has never been guaranteed. It has only been won through concerted struggle, and then, after the fact, guaranteed (to some extent) in law’ (emphasis in original).10 For most of the time the contest for public space proceeds slowly, through subtle acts of deviation or resistance to the society’s norms, through discussions about the use of space or through changes to the built environment; occasionally, tensions increase rapidly and reach a breaking point, erupting in protests against the ruling authorities or in confrontation between diferent groups and sometimes in violence. Most of the time there is an underlying, enduring quality to public space that serves to reproduce a society’s values and existing power structures. Public space acts as an arena in which familiar patterns of behaviour are played out repetitively day after day, sometimes, especially in pre-industrial societies, over many generations. The architecture that constitutes and frames public spaces has a permanence that grounds a community in a shared history. This again is especially true for the pre-globalized world, when people were typically much more rooted to their locales than they often are today. The power of the built environment to shape or infuence relations of power has been exploited by authoritarian governments since the dawn of civilisation, and most pronouncedly by modern totalitarian regimes. The political signifcance of public architecture is more subtle and less straightforward to read for societies with greater political freedom and

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higher collective participation in government, yet here too the built environment is of profound importance in reinforcing, and at times challenging, existing relations of power. The categories ‘building’ and ‘monument’ fade easily into one another. It is certainly useful to think of buildings that become particularly charged with meaning and thereby play an important role in reproducing cultural memory as monuments. However, there are also structures that have no practical function beyond commemoration; they cannot be entered and are intended primarily to be seen. Such structures are monuments in the truest sense and can take many—and in modern societies increasingly inventive—forms, including cenotaphs, triumphal arches, plaques on walls or street surfaces, or works of abstract art. Arguably the ultimate manifestation of the public monument, however, is the statue.11 Statues can commemorate abstract virtues, such as justice or liberty, or can be idealized imaginings of fgures of religious signifcance such as Christ, the Christian saints or Buddha or legendary or mythical fgures such as Theseus or Robin Hood. Most often, however, statues represent more specifcally individual, more securely attested subjects. Sometimes these individuals are still alive. More often they are dead, and sometimes they died a very long time ago. Whatever the subject, the decision to set up a statue is a profoundly political act. A statue is a statement in bronze, stone or some other durable material that its subject is somebody or something that a society wishes to commemorate. However, to twist Margaret Thatcher’s famous dictum that ‘there is no such thing as society’ to new purpose, we must recognise that there will rarely be a homogenous mass of people united in support for a particular statue. If public space is contested space, then the statues set up there are an important medium through which that contest is played out. Statues can be imposed by a group with authority against the wishes of others, or they can be set up as the result of discussions and compromise between diferent groups and individuals. In either case, statues are as much a refection of the balance of power within a community as they are a commemoration of whoever or whatever they represent. A range of factors that determine the message that a statue conveys will invariably be debated and perhaps fought over: the statue’s material, its size, its cost, the artist commissioned to make it, the fgure’s pose, its costume, the shape of the pedestal, the text of any inscription and, by no means least important, exactly where it is to stand. Statues—both proposed and carried out—of Thatcher herself have proven highly contentious and provide a good illustration of the ways that statues can become highly charged sites of contest. In the late 1990s, a stone statue of the former British prime minister holding her iconic handbag by Neil Simmons was set up in the museum of London’s Guildhall (Figure 1.3). The location frst proposed was the Members’ Lobby of the House of Commons, but a prohibition against setting up statues of still-living politicians there meant that an alternative venue had to be sought. In 2002, the statue made the news when it was decapitated by an opponent of Thatcher’s politics armed with a metal rope support.12 The statue was soon repaired and reinstalled. In 2003, the rule about statues in the House of Commons was changed, without doubt the result of intensive lobbying by Thatcher’s devotees, and a bronze statue of her by Antony Dufort at a scale of life and a quarter was set up there in 2007 alongside monuments to illustrious predecessors like Churchill, Attlee and Disraeli (Figure 1.4).13 Some opposition MPs have subsequently called for its removal. In July 2017, Westminster Council turned down a proposal for a third statue of Thatcher—this time one-and-a-half times lifesize, again in bronze, and showing her in the state robes that she wore in her later life

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Figure 1.3 Neil Simmon, statue of Margaret Thatcher at London’s Guildhall in its current location. Source: Courtesy of Micha Theiner.

as baroness—to be set up in a Parliament Square, outside the Houses of Parliament. Considerations that led to the rejection of the proposal included fears that the statue would become a focus for protests and vandalism, that it would overcrowd the square and leave no room for another planned statue (of the sufragist Millicent Fawcett, now installed), that Thatcher’s family had not given their permission and that the intended portrayal of Thatcher was not in keeping with the role of prime minister, for which she was most remembered.14 The fact that the statue would, remarkably, have been the frst one of a woman to stand in the square made the decision as to who should get that honour a particularly sensitive one. Margaret Thatcher remains a highly divisive fgure in the United Kingdom, loved and despised if not in equal measure then at least with equal fervour, so it is no wonder that plans to honour her in statuary form are so contentious; yet to a lesser degree, such debates lie behind the erection of any public statue and have done throughout history. The frst truly honorifc public statues set up in Classical Athens were those for the so-called tyrannicides, the two men who had publicly assassinated the brother of a late sixth-century tyrant, thereby ushering in the end of the regime and paving the way for the ffth-century democracy.15 It did not take long, however, as we know from the literary sources, for Athenian opinion to become divided as to whether the honour was deserved. The contention centred on whether the motive for the killing had really been political or had arisen instead from a private lovers’ feud.16 The modern habit of setting up statues in public spaces can be traced, at least indirectly, back to the Greeks

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Figure 1.4 Antony Dufort FRSS, sculpture of Margaret Thatcher. Source: Photo © Antony Dufort.

and Romans, and there are clearly similarities in the issues that were at stake now and in antiquity.

Statues and Spaces It might seem that we have strayed far from Matelli’s ‘Sleepwalker’. The statues of Margaret Thatcher in Guildhall, the Houses of Parliament and Parliament Square were all set up to be permanent memorials, while ‘Sleepwalker’ is a piece of modern art, its installation at Wellesley College temporary. Nevertheless, there are striking connections in the ways in which all of these works of sculpture are bound up with issues to do with power and space. All of these debates and controversies focused on the appropriateness of setting up a sculpted likeness of a human being in a particular

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location thought of as public. In the case of Thatcher’s statues, the emotional core of the debate has to do with whether people feel that the project of Thatcherism was ultimately benefcial or detrimental to the national well-being of the United Kingdom. In the case of ‘Sleepwalker’, the heart of the matter is whether the sculpture was a threat to the emotional safety of the female students frequenting the Wellesley campus. In both of these cases, the issue is at heart a political one about the competing rights of diferent groups to determine the meaning of spaces in which they feel they have a stake. In both of these cases the statues were not the only source of contention but also where they were—or were proposed to be—set up. The ‘highly trafcked’ location of the ‘Sleepwalker’ was cited in the petition calling for its removal. The erection of statues in public spaces weaves the fgures they represent into a narrative about who the public is, how the public sees itself and what its shared values are. Statues are thereby not merely placed within public space; they play a role in shaping how that space is perceived and experienced. The relationship between statue and space thus has the character of a conversation—rarely a conversation among equals, since power and infuence are rarely distributed equally—through which the meanings of both are produced. To think about how such conversations work, it is worth refecting on the very diferent associations of the three locations proposed as settings for the statues of Thatcher. Guildhall, traditionally the seat of the Corporation of the City of London, certainly ranks among London’s more venerable old buildings. Now, however, the building’s purpose is primarily ceremonial, as a dining hall for ofcial functions. The banquets hosted there by the Lord Mayor are attended by politicians, business leaders and foreign dignitaries and feature speeches by prime ministers and government ministers. These dinners therefore fulfl an important political function. Yet the proceedings are highly orchestrated, the participants carefully selected. This is not a space in which diferent groups interact freely. It is also not a building to which the general public has regular access; the building probably does not loom particularly large in the national consciousness, and the general public probably does not feel they have much of a stake in it. These factors combined to make the building a—relatively—unproblematic choice for the location of Thatcher’s frst statue. Moreover, the sculpture’s location(s) within the building worked to downplay its commemorative connotations: it was frst set up in the building’s art gallery, thereby safely containing the statue’s power as an honorifc monument and suggesting that it was, after all, just a work of sculpture. More recently, it has been moved to a corridor. The museum’s directors denied that this was a response to the controversy that the statue generated: although the corridor is of-limits to most visitors, it can be seen on request or by those who have access to that part of the building for ‘business or social reasons’; they also claim the lighting at the spot is particular good.17 However, in terms of prominence, the of-limits corridor clearly ranks below a spot in the museum itself and below an entranceway, hall or lobby. The statue is now less public than it originally was. The Members’ Lobby of the House of Commons and Parliament Square are decidedly more public. Both are also spaces of deep national signifcance. The statuary assemblage of each, however, gives the two settings a very diferent meaning. In the Members’ Lobby, the statues—and some busts—are exclusively of past prime ministers, making this a hall of fame of British leadership. Setting up a statue of Margaret Thatcher here asserts that her tenure of the ofce was of similar status and signifcance to the others around them. All four bronze statues in the space—of

10 Christopher P. Dickenson Churchill, Attlee, Lloyd George and Thatcher—are on the same scale (life and a quarter), placed on plinths of equal height and made of the same material, bronze. A rough equivalence in importance between them is thus implied, their signifcance greater than that of the 12 prime ministers depicted in bust form. Nonetheless, these four are also diferentiated. Precedence of position is given to Churchill and Lloyd George, the two wartime leaders, whose monuments fank the entrance to the Chamber itself. The four bronze statues are also distinguished chronologically from the three stone statues in the same room for Prime Ministers Disraeli, Balfour and Asquith, all of whom predate Lloyd George. All four bronze statues are shown in dynamic, lifelike poses as though captured at the moment of delivering a speech. Churchill’s statue is particularly charged with energy, as he leans forward defantly hands on hips. Thatcher’s with its contraposto stance and oratorically raised right hand calls to mind the Prima Porta Augustus, the famous statue of the frst Roman emperor now in the Vatican.18 The main audience for all of these statues are the MPs who work in the building, though the general public can visit the building as tourists. The meaning of Parliament Square is more layered and, since it is more accessible, also more contested. It is worth considering in slightly more detail how the signifcance of the space has evolved through time.19 In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the square (Figure 1.5) was a space similar to the Members’ Lobby, home to statues of illustrious prime ministers such as Canning (frst to receive a statue in 1832), Peel and Disraeli. All are portrayed in contemporary dress, with the exception of Canning who, incongruously to a modern viewer, is shown in a Roman toga (though

Figure 1.5 The north side of Parliament Square. Statues, from left to right: The Earl of Derby, Canning, Palmerston, Smuts, Lloyd George. Source: Courtesy Dominic Dalglish.

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with modern trousers and laced shoes!), an allusion to the civic values of the ancient Republic and an acknowledgement of the origin of the statuary form. Disraeli, in contrast to the civilian costume of his statue in the Members’ Lobby—appropriate inside the House—is shown in his robes as Lord Beaconsfeld. Churchill’s statue (unveiled in 1973) shows him holding a cane and wearing a trench coat, appropriate to the outdoor setting and recalling his presence on the streets of London during the Blitz. Even though all these statues are larger than those in the Lobby—most of them around twice life size—the space is also on a grander scale—it is really a large green—so that the statues are far more widely spaced and are therefore less able to dominate the setting. Following the addition of a statue of Abraham Lincoln in 1920, the square has transcended national boundaries to become a space for commemorating fgures of world signifcance. The addition of statues of Jan Smuts in 1956 and, in this century, of Nelson Mandela (2007) and Mahatma Gandhi (2015) have continued this trajectory. It is no coincidence that Lincoln, Gandhi and Mandela are all international icons associated with moral courage, peace and advancing civil rights.20 They stand in sharp contrast to the ‘gunboat diplomacy’ with which Palmerston, one of the frst recipients of a statue in the square, is probably most associated today. These more recent monuments work to create expectations that the square is a place where positive and universal human virtues are celebrated, although it is striking that both Gandhi’s and Mandela’s statues are both smaller (life and a third size) and placed on lower pedestals than those of the prime ministers. This continual editing of the statuary landscape of the square is an attempt to weave diferent and in many ways conficting visions of British history together in a seamless narrative. Ways of reconciling the contradictions do suggest themselves: two of the most prominent politicians, Churchill and Lloyd George, were war-time prime ministers who, by leading the country to victory, could be argued to have made a contribution to peace; and while the foreign leaders represented there might all be celebrated, more than anything, as advocates for peaceful protest and emancipation, they, like the British leaders, were also statesmen. Juxtaposing statues creates a conversation between them. Viewers of Churchill’s statue now seeing it alongside Gandhi and Fawcett might now be prompted not only to remember his wartime leadership but also his vehement opposition to Indian independence or to refect on his controversial relationship to the women’s liberation movement. New statues can change the meanings of old ones. And tensions remain, as is clear both in the occasional targeting of monuments, especially Churchill’s, by vandals and in the calls for the addition of new statues to create a new balance of meaning. Debates about which of Britain’s leaders deserve to be honoured there continue, and the most recent addition of a statue of a prime minister was that of Lloyd George in 2007. The scale is curiously the same as that of Gandhi and Mandela’s statues, although the pedestal is higher. The statues also fnd themselves interwoven in dialogue with the way that the space is used. In the twenty-frst century, the square has been the venue for several prominent demonstrations, most notably the ‘Parliament Square Peace Campaign’ started by Brian Haw in protest at the UK government’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Haw lived in the square from 2001 until his death in 2011, his fellow activist Barbara Tucker from 2005 until her eviction in 2013. The protests brought into sharp focus the contested nature of this ostensibly public space. Government forces turned to the courts to evict the protestors, fences were set up to prevent people camping on the

12 Christopher P. Dickenson grass, and debates in the press focussed on issues of access to the square. It was in this very period that Mandela’s statue was erected, Gandhi’s shortly afterward. There is an appreciable irony in real protestors being evicted by the ruling authorities from a space where those same authorities were setting up statues of men who had successfully challenged power structures through not dissimilar methods. Following his death there were calls, backed by high profle celebrities, for Haw himself to receive a commemorative statue in the square. In recent years, calls for statues of women to challenge the exclusive maleness of Parliament Square have also become increasingly prominent. This could have been— and surely was—put forward as an argument for adding a statue of Thatcher, but once again her divisive legacy raised questions about her appropriateness for the square. Whether her contribution to British politics was of the same magnitude, or was as positive for the country, as that of Peel, Churchill or Lloyd George are matters for debate. Even more controversial, particularly in light of the Falklands War, would be the implication that the inclusion of her statue ranked her alongside Gandhi or Mandela as an exemplar of moral courage. In 2018, to celebrate the centenary of voting rights for women in the United Kingdom, the sufragist Millicent Fawcett became, instead of Thatcher, the frst woman to be honoured with a statue on the square. We will have reason to return to her statue below. Displaying Matelli’s ‘Sleepwalker’ on the college campus, and even more so the decision to keep the statue there in the face of protest, were no less connected to questions of power, no less bound up with generating the meaning of the space in which it stood, than issues tied to the erection of the more overtly political portraits in London. Installing the statue asserted that the rights of those who believe that the function of art should be to surprise and even to discomft should take precedence over those of the students who were ofended by the statue. It is every bit as much a monument, albeit a temporary one, to the relative power and infuence of the various groups implicated in the controversy about its erection—the students, casual visitors, the college authorities, the local, national and international press and its readers. Debates about this work of art were, furthermore, just as much interwoven with the struggles for gender equality as those to do with the statues of Thatcher. Some advocates for Thatcher’s monuments are no doubt sincere in stressing her position as the UK’s frst female prime minister as a reason for honouring her; other admirers have probably seen her sex more cynically as leverage to persuade detractors that she deserves a statue. Although Matelli and the authorities at Wellesley College may not have considered that ‘Sleepwalker’ could be interpreted as a monument to male dominance, this is how it was experienced by the students who found its presence intrusive, disturbing and threatening, a manifestation of wider inequalities of gender relations just as much as was the assembly of great men in bronze that until recently was allowed to dominate Parliament Square. The scale of the two debates is admittedly diferent. Thatcher is a fgure of national signifcance, and the public that feels it has a stake in spaces such as the Houses of Parliament or Parliament Square extends far beyond those who actually frequent these spaces or will ever see the statues in real life. The controversy surrounding Matelli’s monument was much more parochial, and yet it was able to capture the imagination of an international audience; clearly it resonated with wider attitudes about portrait statues and attests to a general recognition of the power that they can hold to generate such strong feelings.

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The speed of the reaction to the installation of ‘Sleepwalker’ on Wellesley’s campus is a testimony to how immediate the transformative power of sculpture on its surroundings can be. While the statue’s critics were instilled with feelings of unease and distress, for others the efect was very diferent—it generated an atmosphere of fun. The statue has since been displayed in several other outdoor settings where it has apparently been accepted without controversy. Countless photos can now be seen online in which people pose beside the statue with big smiles or make play, pretending to hug or kiss it or to sleepwalk beside it. While these responses for some will no doubt be stimulated by recognising the work from the media, for others it is surely the delight of encountering this startling work of art in an unexpected setting that provokes these reactions. Statues rarely provoke similar responses in museums because we are conditioned to behave in a more respectful and circumspect manner, observing art from a distance, never touching. However, anybody who has ever seen the fairly common sight in the UK of a public statue wearing an orange trafc cone for a hat knows that statues outside museums are often treated with a good deal less reverence than their creators intended. When he is not scaring people, ‘Sleepwalker’ has the power to shake people out of the humdrum ordinariness of the day-to-day, to act spontaneously as they make their way about the city. For a moment, ‘Sleepwalker’ can inspire us to transcend deeply ingrained expectations about how we are supposed to behave in public space, to interact and have fun with a statue. In the sense that this is a challenge to the way that public behaviour is so often channelled to conform to the vested interests of business and government, this restoration of the public realm to the public is very much a political act.21 Of course ‘Sleepwalker’ does not stand alone in this respect. It has become increasingly common in recent years for public statues to come down from their pedestals, to be positioned standing on street level or sitting on park benches, inviting us to interact with them.

Calls for New Statues and ‘Statue Wars’ As monuments, permanent statues are intended to perpetuate cultural memory into the future. It is, however, hard to predict and even harder to control how successful they will be in this. The meaning of statues often changes over time. Some statues take on an iconic signifcance, becoming well known to a wide cross-section of the population for a long time after they are set up. This does not necessarily mean that they hold any deep signifcance for people. Most people in the United Kingdom can probably visualise Horatio Nelson with his one arm perched atop his famous column in Trafalgar Square, but fewer would be able to say why he is there, and I suspect very few indeed would be able to point on a map to the place where the battle after which the square was named took place or describe its precise signifcance to British history. In a more extreme form of cultural amnesia, individuals represented by statues are sometimes forgotten almost completely, as has happened with the equestrian statues on the three plinths around the base of Nelson’s column.22 As a society’s attitudes or values change, individuals once deemed of great importance can simply lose their relevance or interest. In modern Western societies, possibly the most common response to historic statues is simply not to see them. This indiference is arguably, at least in part, explained by ways that movements of people in our globalized economy have weakened our connection to place, but even in the ancient world, where migration

14 Christopher P. Dickenson was far less prevalent, there is evidence for memory of why statues were erected fading over time.23 Statues have certainly, however, not lost their importance in modern Western society, as frequent calls to erect statues to honour individuals of historic signifcance who, it is felt, have been overlooked make clear. The statue of Millicent Fawcett, mentioned above, is one of the most high-profle recent examples.24 The plan for the statue originated in a petition started by the activist Caroline Criado Perez, which gained over 80,000 signatures and the support of several leading public fgures. The unveiling of this frst statue of a woman in a square dominated by monuments to men (no fewer than 11 of them!) was celebrated nationally. Even this statue, however, was not without its controversies. A rival campaign was pushing for a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst instead.25 Pankhurst has, since 1930, had a statue a short walk away, at the southern end of the Palace of Westminster, but, once again, location is everything, and a location in Parliament Square is felt to carry greater prestige.26 Also in 2018, a plan to move the Pankhurst monument to the grounds of Regent’s University London was aborted in the face of opposition, again led by Criado Perez. The fact that the proposed new location was private space to which the public had no access was one of the most important objections to the scheme.27 Another statue of Pankhurst was unveiled later in 2018 in her native Manchester, the frst statue of a woman to be set up in that city after a monument to Queen Victoria.28 The new statue strikingly stands not on a pedestal but on a bronze chair as though Pankhurst is addressing a meeting in a town hall, thereby playing with the idea that the statue is sharing the space of the living, as ‘Sleep Walker’ does. A low semi-circular wall extends around the rear of the statue and is continued in the pavement across the front—the so-called ‘Meeting Circle’—which gently encourages people to keep their distance. The Invisible Women project extends the scope of the campaign for ‘more women on plinths’ to cities throughout the United Kingdom.29 There are similar campaigns in the United States, where women are also dramatically underrepresented in public statuary.30 The continued power of statues is even more vividly apparent in the controversies about existing monuments that have captured the world’s attention recently. In late May and early June 2020, in response to the killing of George Floyd in the United States, the Black Lives Matter movement inspired protests around the world. On 7 June, footage of protestors dragging a statue of the seventeenth-century slave trader and benefactor Edward Colston through the streets of Bristol and throwing it into the city’s harbour was broadcast globally and went viral on social media. In the days preceding that, several statues of historical fgures involved in the slave trade had already been attacked in the United States, and over the next month, in many countries, dozens of monuments to historical individuals associated with colonialism and racial atrocities were either torn down by protesters or removed by government authorities in response to protests. The largest number were in the United States—mainly monuments of Confederate generals and of Christopher Columbus—but several other monuments were taken down in the United Kingdom, Belgium, New Zealand, India and South Africa. The Wikipedia article on the subject lists over 220 monuments that had actually been removed by the middle of July as well as several that were under consideration for removal.31 The large majority of these monuments were statues. One equestrian statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, stands on top of a colossal pedestal which protestors covered in grafti thereby transforming it into a monument to the Black Lives Matter movement itself (Figure 1.6).

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Figure 1.6 The statue of Robert E. Lee, Richmond after being daubed by grafti by protesters, July 2020. Source: Courtesy Anne Marie Pace.

For a few weeks, statues—so often ignored as we move about our cities—were at the forefront of the public imagination, inspiring passionate feelings among detractors and defenders alike. A visitor to Parliament Square on the weekend of the 11 June would have seen many of the statues surrounded by large protective boxes, including those of Churchill, Mandela and Gandhi.32 These statues were seen as targets of violence by the left (Churchill after the words ‘was a racist’ had been sprayed on the

16 Christopher P. Dickenson statue’s base the previous weekend), the far right (Mandela), and both the left and right (Gandhi, since although he has generally being thought of as leading champion of human rights, he has in recent years come under attack from some quarters for his attitude toward black people during his years in South Africa). Political leaders and commentators waded into the debate on social media. Those pursing a more populist course on both sides of the Atlantic predictably tried to make capital from it by painting the statue protestors as vandals waging an assault on symbols of national pride. Their opponents accused them of using statues to distract attention from the underlying issues, playing to their base by stoking division. Perhaps the most bizarre scene in these weeks were photos of a group of men in the town centre of Nuneaton in Warwickshire forming a protective circle around a statue of nineteenth-century novelist George Elliot.33 What some commentators have referred to as the ‘Statue Wars’ may have reached a crescendo in 2020, but they had been simmering for several years. Many of the statues rapidly taken down or destroyed in 2020, including Colston’s, had been the focus of longstanding campaigns to either remove them, or at least alter their inscriptions to tell a more a complete story that would weigh the reason for their commemoration against their less palatable actions. One of the most prominent of these campaigns is the #RhodesMustFall campaign, which led to the removal of a statue of the nineteenth-century colonialist Cecil Rhodes from the campus of the University of Cape Town in 2015.34 The presence of the statue of a man whose racism and economic exploitation had made him extremely wealthy at the expense of immense sufering of the black African population had long been contentious. Amid increasing frustration at a perceived persistence of racial inequality within the university, the statue came to be seen as a symbol of oppression. #RhodesMustFall soon reached Oxford in the United Kingdom, where campaigners began calling for the removal of a stone likeness of Rhodes that stands in an alcove framed by columns above the main entrance of the Rhodes Building of Oriel College on the High Street.35 Rhodes had bequeathed money to the college after it had awarded him an honorary doctorate. Through another bequest to the university he had also founded the well-known Rhodes Scholarship for international postgraduates to study at Oxford. In 2016 the campaign reached a peak, but press attention, demonstrations (admittedly fairly low key) in Oxford and a narrowly won vote in the Oxford Union for taking down the statue were insufcient to persuade the college to do so. The debate reignited in 2020 (Figure 1.7), and in a new vote the college decided that it would indeed remove the statue. The recent controversies about Confederate statues across the United States have an even longer history going back decades but came to a head, in horrifc tragedy, in 2017. In August of that year, the so-called ‘Unite the Right Rally’ gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, with the ostensible aim of opposing the removal of another statue of Robert E. Lee. The event was marked by violent clashes between fascists and their opponents and culminated in an act of terrorism when one fascist drove a car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one and injuring 19 others.36 These recent events have prompted considerable discussion in the press and media about the importance of statues in modern society—about why we set them up, about who deserves to be commemorated in stone or bronze, about statues’ role in preserving history. Those who deplore the dismantling of statues have accused their opponents of trying to erase history and of attacking symbols of national pride. Defenders

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Figure 1.7 The statue of Cecil Rhodes on the façade of the Rhodes Building, Oriel College, Oxford (centre top), during protests, 9 June 2020. Source: Courtesy Rhodes Must Fall, Oxford.

of the movement have countered that history demands an active engagement with the past and that statues are fundamentally instruments for encouraging passive acceptance of particular narratives. They point out that statues are often less old than we might imagine and thereby reveal more about the time they were erected than the period of those they supposedly commemorate. The greater number of statues of Confederate generals in the United States were erected not in the immediate aftermath of

18 Christopher P. Dickenson the Civil War but at moments of advance of the civil rights movement in the twentieth century by the movement’s defant opponents.37 Colston lived in the seventeenth century, yet his statue is a late nineteenth-century monument intended, like so many other statues set up at that time, to encourage and express Victorian ideals of paternalistic philanthropy.38 Another issue of debate is what should be done with the statues that have been removed? Probably the most frequent suggestion is to put them in a museum, a solution not without its problems in terms of cost, space and resources for conservation. Some have suggested gathering collections of them in one place, a museum or park of commemoration like those for old Soviet era monuments in Budapest, Moscow or Lithuania;39 these parks demonstrate how transplanting statues and gathering them together can radically transform their meaning, in this case now provoking refection on the horrors of the regime and the oppressive weight of its propaganda rather than the intended glorifcation of the ruler. Colston’s statue was soon fshed out of Bristol’s harbour and plans initiated to conserve it in the state in which the protestors deposited it, still covered in grafti, for display in a museum in the city, where it will help tell the story of the protests. Pedestals deprived of their statues present a similar problem. Various solutions were proposed for Colston’s base, including one by Banksy that would have restored the statue at an angle in the process of being toppled by (statues of) the protestors. For a day in July 2020, the pedestal was occupied by a statue in resin and steel of one of the protesters, a local black woman, Jen Reid, representing the moment when she herself had climbed on top of the base following the statue’s destruction raising her fst, the gesture of the Black Lives Matter movement.40 The statue, by Marc Quinn, had been installed quickly and without permission on the morning of 15 July and removed on 16 July by the local council on the grounds that proper procedures needed to be followed to decide what if anything should replace the original monument. The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees has said that the decision will be taken democratically in consultation with the people of Bristol.41 Tellingly, in defending the statue’s removal, Rees stressed that Quinn was a London—in other words not a local—artist and had not requested ofcial approval. Once again, power relations between diferent groups and actors—the protestors, the artist, local authorities, the media, diferent segments of the population of Bristol—are implicated in the contest for a ftting monument at the spot. A suggestion that has been conspicuously absent in discussions about what to do with toppled statues is to simply destroy them completely. The reason there are so few surviving bronze statues from antiquity is that most were, at some later point in time, melted down for reuse. Yet we are reluctant to do the same with our unwanted statues. Of course that is partly because some people do still want them, which means authorities need to act sensitively to avoid stoking tensions. There is also, however, a palpable sense that, even though many of these statues are not particularly outstanding works of art, and even if we could agree that their subjects represent values that we no longer wish to commemorate, the very fact that they were at some point in the past set up in our public spaces requires their preservation. It is as though they, more than our buildings, arguably more than other types of artifact, have the power to reach through the decades or centuries and provide us a grasp, however fragile, however contested, on that bygone age. It is not so much that we are reluctant to release that grasp and let go of our statues as that they have some hold over us.

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Statues as Icons Again, we might seem to have strayed very far from the ‘Sleepwalker’. To suggest there is any connection between, on the one hand, the horrifc violence at Charlottesville and the systemic exploitation and oppression of a whole country at the heart of the anger directed at Rhodes’s statues, and, on the other, Matelli’s work of art might seem to be trivialising the frst two cases. Of course, the Black Lives Matter protests, #RhodesMustFall and the confrontations at Charlottesville were, in a deeper sense, not really about statues at all; the statues destroyed or more peacefully removed are symbols of larger and immensely important struggles for power and equality, struggles that have a long and complex history. Deeper issues were also at stake in the dispute about Matelli’s ‘Sleepwalker’, but that dispute was about a statue in a way that the other instances were not, and, of course, nobody died, was physically injured or sufered physical harm as a result of the art installation. However, symbols are important, and to dismiss statues of Rhodes, Lee, Columbus or Colston as just symbols, serving as catalysts or focal points for the eruption of deeper, underlying conficts, begs the question of why statues can fulfl that function so well. It seems that statues are often infused with a potency that few other symbols can match. Why that should be demands explanation. Part of the reason surely has to do with the ways that, as discussed above, statues are able to exert an infuence on their surroundings, shaping the meaning of the space around them. Another part of the explanation, however, must be that our connection with statues is one that operates at a level beyond the purely symbolic. Calls for hitherto-overlooked individuals to be honoured with statues tend to emphasise a desire to commemorate their achievements, which would make their monuments a refection of the stories we tell about ourselves—chapters, paragraphs or sentences in a shared historical narrative. However, behind such arguments is also the implicit idea that the statue is an honour to the individual. Debates about setting up and taking down statues are often couched in terms of whether the person in question ‘deserves a statue’. This implied link between statue and person is perhaps most emphatic when statues are seen as ftting way to make amends to notable individuals who, it is felt, have been treated undeservedly by a group or by society at large, often rebels whose contribution to society pitted them against the authorities in their own day but who, posthumously, have gained acceptance. The statues of Fawcett and Pankhurst might be seen in this light. Other examples might include statues of Alan Turing, the World War II code breaker and pioneer of computing who killed himself after prosecution for homosexuality in the early 1950s in Manchester and Bletchley Park, or the late Victorian Shelley Memorial at University College, Oxford, from which the Romantic poet had been expelled.42 Posthumously honouring outcasts and troublemakers with statues might be seen as a cynical strategy of co-opting their image by the establishment. Objectifed as a statue, the rebel is frozen in time and rendered passive, their power to challenge social norms safely contained.43 If we pause to think about it, there is also something inherently odd about the idea that somebody who is dead, and who possibly died a very long time ago, can be recompensed for unfair treatment by being immortalised as a statue. This perplexing aspect of our attitude toward statues derives from a sense in which, as representations of real people, they serve as stand-ins for their subjects, literally re-presenting them by making them present again among us. Statues are more than

20 Christopher P. Dickenson symbols because, unlike all other symbols, they look like us. And that certainly does bring us back, once again, to ‘Sleepwalker’. The reason ‘Sleepwalker’ is able to unsettle us is because, as an interloper in our space, he really does look just like one of us, down to the creases on his forehead and about his eyes and the individual hairs of the eyebrows. Its ‘hyperrealism’ is something we would more readily associate today with the uncannily accurate wax doppelgangers of celebrities on show in the various galleries of Madame Tussauds than with the metal and stone fgures that we usually see on top of pedestals and think of as statues (Figure 1.8). It is worth remembering the historic links between our modern waxworks and the lifelike efgies of rulers that were used in historic times as stand-ins for deceased rulers at their funerals.44 Many of

Figure 1.8 Waxwork of Margaret Thatcher fanked by Reagan and Gorbachev at Madame Tussauds, London. Source: Courtesy Karen Roe.

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these eerie objects are still to be seen on display in the crypt of Westminster Abbey.45 For at least the last 500 years, attitudes towards uncannily lifelike representations of people in Western culture have been characterised by tension: verisimilitude has inspired beliefs that likenesses were imbued with some kind of life force, has led to such likenesses being the focus for acts of devotion and has resulted in their condemnation by those who felt this smacked of idol worship so emphatically forbidden in the Old Testament.46 Lifelikeness usually required efgies to be coloured and was often achieved with materials such as clay, wood or wax, sometimes incorporating cloth or even real hair. The monochrome white marble or bronze statue with which much of our discussion here has been concerned emerged as a reaction to these images, inspired by incorrect ideas about the absence of colour on ancient Greek and Roman sculpture and by a belief that monochrome statues were a higher form of art because paint was not used to disguise the work of the sculptor.47 Yet the distinction has never been an absolute one, and, as such, the tension remains. One of the main arguments of David Freedberg’s important 1989 book The Power of Images was that the division between high and low art has never been absolute and that many of the ways in which people have responded to both—as erotically charged, as contact points with the divine and as infused with life—can be placed on the same spectrum.48 Freedberg concentrates primarily on paintings, yet his insights have bearing on sculpture. While the hyperrealism of ‘Sleepwalker’ might set it apart from the more austere statues of Thatcher, Fawcett and the rest, the intention in all of these sculptures is to capture the likeness of a real (or in the case of ‘Sleepwalker’, imagined?) individual. In creating public statues, attention—sometimes considerable attention—is often paid to physiognomy, pose and costume to conjure up the presence of the subject. The statue of Margaret Thatcher in the Members’ Lobby might seem further removed from an icon of a medieval saint than it is from ‘Sleepwalker’, and yet it portrays Thatcher as though animatedly giving a speech. There are also Conservative MPs who habitually touch the statue’s foot for luck on entering the House of Commons.49 It is worth refecting, too, on the potential dialogue between the streets and squares that we have focussed on here as public settings for portrait statues and the other main setting in which sculpted likenesses of men and women are to be found in greatest number, a setting where the realms of the secular and sacred become blurred—our old churches, especially cathedrals, with their portrait grave monuments. Questions of power and politics certainly lie behind the erection of such monuments, and as such they share many of the qualities of the more public sculpture discussed up to now; at the same time, however, the grief that motivated their erection speaks of a desire to retain the deceased within the world of the living. At least in a Catholic church, portraying the deceased in sculpted form also creates an interplay of meaning between the various saints and representations of Christ on display, hinting at a shared existence on the spiritual plane. These are the aspects of funerary sculpture that, conversely, carry over into venues for statuary display beyond the church and explain in part some of our more peculiar responses to and interactions with statues. That public statues, too, are so often set up posthumously and that so many old statues survive in our city spaces blurs the lines between the worlds of the living and the dead; immortalised in cold and unmoving materials, the deceased, through their statues, are brought back to stand among us. The Shelley Memorial blurs the line even further, since it was originally designed as a monument to mark his tomb in Rome and shows the poet lying motionless, as though we have just found him washed up on the beach dead.

22 Christopher P. Dickenson It is this sense of the statue as a proxy or stand-in for the individual that inspires us to interact with them or to talk about awarding a statue to someone long dead as something that he or she ‘deserves’. It is why a bronze likeness of Margaret Thatcher has become the focus for a superstitious ritual; it is why people can become so angry about a statue of Rhodes or Lee or so passionately enthusiastic about wanting to set up a statue to someone felt to be a hero, such as Millicent Fawcett or Emmeline Pankhurst. It explains the famous images of jubilant and angry Iraqis smashing up statues of Saddam Hussein following his downfall, why somebody could fnd such satisfaction in knocking the head of Thatcher’s statue in the museum in Guildhall and why following its toppling one of the protestors placed his knee on the neck of Colston’s statue, a powerful parody of the horrifc way that George Floyd had been killed. It is also why people pose for humorous photos beside the ‘Sleepwalker’; they do it not merely to have fun but to have fun with him. Whoever he is.

Public Statues Across Time and Cultures The meaning of statues is complex and many-layered and derives, as this introductory chapter has argued, from a number of diferent factors including political afliations, history, relationships to other monuments in the same setting, their ability to call to mind other types of sculpted likeness, the uncanny way in which they can evoke a living presence and, perhaps above all, from the signifcance of the space in which they stand. This sweeping overview has focussed mainly on recent history, mainly on case studies from modern Western countries, especially the United Kingdom and the United States. I have deliberately juxtaposed ‘Sleepwalker’—anonymous, coloured, hyperreal and standing on ground level—with a number of examples of the types of sculpture that would probably more readily spring to mind if most people were asked to think of a statue—monochrome, standing atop a pedestal inscribed with a name—in order to provoke refection on the range of meanings associated with statues in modern Western culture and on the ways in which our statues interact with their settings in public spaces to generate meaning. I have focussed on the things that statues in diferent times and places arguably have in common—the ways that decisions about setting them up and taking them down are bound up with power and politics, the ways that their meaning is shaped by and in turn shapes the setting in which they stand, and the ways that we respond to them. In light of this book’s title questions, which I hope will have been nagging the reader throughout, are to what extent attitudes toward and meanings of statues are culturally specifc and whether people in other parts of the world and at other times in history might have experienced, responded to and given meaning to the statues that they set up in their public spaces in very diferent ways. A full history of public statues has yet to be written, and it is not the aim of this book to fll that hiatus, but a brief overview of the phenomenon is useful to set the stage for the chapters that follow. Public statues are as old as cities themselves. As early as the third millennium bce, the frst urban cultures of Mesopotamia were erecting images of gods, worshippers and kings, sculpted in the round.50 In the course of the Bronze Age this Near Eastern tradition infuenced the development of statuary practices in Egypt,51 where sculpture became increasingly naturalistic, and Egypt in turn infuenced Greece. The debt of Egyptian models to Archaic Greek kouroi is well known and blatantly apparent.52 These fgures of naked male youths, standing with one foot striding forward, hands

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held at the side, with their elongated heads, almond shaped eyes and curious smile, were set up as votive oferings in sanctuaries and as grave monuments. Sometimes they seem to have represented gods, particularly Apollo, yet despite their non-individualised appearance they generally seem to have been intended as representations of real individuals. To the same period belong the clothed female statues known as ‘korai’ dedicated in large numbers on the Athenian Acropolis.53 Throughout the sixth century bce the appearance of statues became increasingly lifelike, leading to the well-known explosion of naturalistic human sculpture in the ffth century. Some of the earliest statues of real people set up in public spaces and sanctuaries were for athletes, but votive portraits dedicated to the gods also became increasingly common in religious space.54 In the fourth century, a culture of setting up honorifc statues for politicians, generals and civic benefactors developed, probably in several Greek cities simultaneously, though especially in Athens and, following in the wake of the expansion of Greek horizons with the conquests of Alexander, the practice spread throughout the Mediterranean world.55 This expansion went in hand with stylistic developments, a higher striving for realism and refection of character for politicians, a new heroic style for the kings who carved up Alexander’s empire and sought to emulate him, a more baroque, dramatic style for religious and mythological tableaux.56 For our purposes the publicness of these monuments is worth stressing—they were to be found in theatres, gymnasia and, especially, in the agora, the town square.57 Roman sources written under the Empire preserve traditions of commemorative portrait statues being set up in the city under the early Republic (5th—3rd century bce).58 There is, however, no hard evidence that early—certainly no archaeological evidence59—raising suspicions that the stories of these monuments were later inventions, perhaps attached to statues set up after the third century; statues of gods in human form presumably stood in temples from an early date, as they did in other Latin towns, and the neighbouring Etruscans had developed their own tradition of realistic human sculpture in terracotta for their grave monuments.60 However, once Rome had gained control of all of Italy and expanded its infuence into the Eastern Mediterranean (third–frst century bce), Rome embraced the Greek statuary habit with enthusiasm. Works of freestanding Greek sculpture were collected by powerful and wealthy Romans to decorate their villas, and public honorifc monuments began to proliferate in public spaces at Rome and other conquered towns.61 Under the Empire, the statuary habit arguably reached its peak. New statues were set up with increasing frequency. In the Greek world at least, they joined countless monuments that had been set up over the preceding centuries. Statues of emperors were ubiquitous, skilfully drawing on the repertoire of styles developed over preceding centuries to create an imperial image that served to consolidate the ruler’s power.62 Never before or since has there been an urban culture where statues were so ubiquitous. One source claims that at Rhodes, Athens and Delos in the frst century bce, there were 3,000 bronze statues.63 An astonishing fgure, even if exaggerated, since the living populations cannot have numbered more than a few tens of thousands. By the fourth century ce, it was so widely accepted that great cities needed an assemblage of public statues that Constantine and his successors brought large amounts numbers of them from elsewhere in the Empire to adorn their new capital Constantinople.64 By this time, however, the statuary habit was declining under economic and political pressures and the imperatives of new modes of expression brought by Christianity. Very few public statues were set up in Roman cities in the ffth century ce, and

24 Christopher P. Dickenson thereafter the habit disappeared, not to be revived until the ffteenth century, when the cities of Italy, especially Florence, in direct emulation of antiquity began setting up free standing statues of saints, fgures from Classical mythology and even political fgures on the facades of public buildings and on freestanding pedestals in public squares.65 Donatello, who created some of the most important early public statues in Renaissance Florence, is often credited with an important landmark in the revival of the ancient statuary habit—the frst public equestrian statue in over a thousand years, set up to honour the condottiero Erasmo di Narni (perhaps better known as Gattamelata, ‘Honeyed Cat’) in Padua in 1453, drawing explicitly on an antique model, the statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome.66 The statues of Renaissance Italy served a clear political purpose, acting as focal points for communal identity and conveying subtle messages about shifting power relations both between city-states and within them. From Italy, the statuary habit slowly revived across Europe. In a world comprised mainly of monarchies, such monuments were, for a long time, reserved mainly for kings.67 In the course of the nineteenth century, the twin forces of nationalism and empire conspired to create a need for new popular heroes—both contemporary fgures and fgures from history—and the statuary habit reached a crescendo throughout much of the world that contemporaries, at least in the United Kingdom, described as ‘statuemania’.68 It was then that Edward Colston’s statue was set up in Bristol, the Shelley Memorial installed at University College. In the twentieth century that mania subsided, at least in the Western world, as old certainties were shaken by the terrors of worldwide confict, as dictatorships were seen to deploy sculpted likeness of leaders as instruments of totalitarian control, and as modernism and then post-modernism called the very value of realistic representation in art into question. But it is only in comparison with the nineteenth century that we can speak of a decline in the statuary habit. Although we might not often pay attention to them, there are more statues to be seen in many modern towns and cities—and of a more diverse range of subjects—than at any time since the Roman Empire. Today, statues are just as, if not more, likely to be erected for writers, musicians, sportsmen or generic fgures with a link to the industry, culture or economy of a particular place, such as soldiers, miners or fshermen, as political leaders. This rapid overview is conventional and unlikely to generate controversy. It places emphasis on continuities and similarities. The debt to antiquity in statuary practice in later periods is incontrovertible and was often quite self-conscious—note again Canning’s toga. Nonetheless, continuity and similarity are only part of the story. If, as has been argued here, public statues have always been bound up with contestations of power and have thus played an important role in constituting publicness itself, this does not mean that the relationship between space and setting was the same in all times and cultures. The political relationships at stake were very diferent in the Syrian oasis city of Palmyra on the eastern fringe of the Roman Empire than in Georgian England. We might well ask how the types of activity taking place in settings where statues stood afected the way they were perceived by creating a particular audience for them. That audience would have been very diferent in the temple complexes of Pharaonic Egypt than on the streets of Renaissance Rome at carnival time. Religious modes of viewing statues are likely, too, to have shaped the way more secular monuments were viewed. The earliest Bronze Age statues in the Near East were seen as having a living presence—statues of kings spoke through the texts that were inscribed on their bodies, statues of gods were sent on ceremonial excursions from one temple to another and

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even between cultures. The idea that statues had a living presence is sometimes held to have been undermined by the Greek striving for ‘mimesis’, a more lifelike representation of the human form in the Classical period.70 As statues became more lifelike, the skill of the artist became more apparent, thereby supposedly transforming statues into mere representations rather than manifestations of a living presence. Realism is the most common mode for contemporary statues, and our secular disposition encourages us to project assumptions about the modern reception of statues onto the past and to suppose that people in past societies must have seen realistic looking statues as we do, primarily as works of art or as purely political monuments lacking any association with the icon. Yet can we really assume that in Greek and Roman antiquity, when the gods were still worshipped in statuary form in temples, that the associations with cult statues didn’t afect the ways that portraits of real people were viewed? In the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, ancient-looking statues suddenly returned to the public realm in great numbers—both new creations and genuine survivals from antiquity unearthed through excavation. Yet human likenesses had never completely disappeared from public view; they had simply shifted to the purely religious setting of the church. Is the experience of seeing public sculpture not then likely to have been shaped in profound ways of viewing sculptures of Christ, the Virgin, saints and martyrs, often in wood, as well as stone tombs of the rich and powerful in interior, sacred settings? The unease at viewing human likenesses in Western culture, which arises from the biblical prohibition against worshipping icons, has been referred to above. While such tensions have been much discussed, they have rarely been considered specifcally in relation to ‘the statue’, as argued here to be a very specifc category of sculpture and monument. And these tensions are likely to have been even more pronounced for people whose cultures have traditionally enforced an even stricter prohibition of images, such as the Jews and Muslims. How might public statues have been viewed in modern states like the Turkish Republic, where they had previously been almost completely unknown and associated with idolatry? As these questions and the foregoing discussion suggest, the meaning of and response to statues in any historical and cultural context is profoundly shaped both by spatial setting and the associations and meanings of other types of artwork, particular other types of sculpture, in that culture. And the issue of other artistic media—of human fgures sculpted in high relief or placed in niches, of three-dimensional images of non-human subjects in the round—brings us back to the problematic question with which we began—what, after all, is a statue? Rarely have scholars paused to consider the rich variety of meanings that rather similar—at least superfcially—practices of setting up objects that we so easily refer to as statues in past societies might conceal. That is the subject of this book. The contributions focus on some of the cultures alluded to here, but this is not a handbook, and no attempt is made to be comprehensive, either in the cultures considered or the issues addressed. The chapters do not systematically consider all of the issues touched upon in this introduction for their respective times and cultures. Instead, it is hoped that that this collection of articles will provoke refection on the diversity of ways that public statues have been used in past societies, about the ways in which they have been given meaning and have in turn exerted an infuence over the meaning of the spaces around them and the people who have frequented those spaces. Statues have shared our public spaces for so long that it is all too easy to take their presence for granted, both when moving about our own cities and imagining those of past cultures. When the public 69

26 Christopher P. Dickenson statues of past societies have been considered, whether by art historians, historians or archaeologists, there has been rather little discussion between those working on diferent places and periods. This book is a call to pay more attention to statues as a cultural phenomenon. It is also an argument that there is much to be gained from bringing together a range of experts from diferent academic backgrounds and working on different periods and, as such, with very diferent evidence at their disposal. The book is ofered in acute awareness of the many, many periods and places where statues have been set up that are not included. There is no consideration of the famous Terracotta Army of Qin China, of the rich tradition of religious statuary in Hindu culture, of ways in which the legend of the golem might relate to attitudes to statues in Jewish culture, of the traditions of three-dimensional sculpted images that developed separately in Mesoamerican cultures. It is to be hoped, however, that by broadening our conception of and approach toward public statues, the discussions here might prompt consideration of similarities—and arguably much more interesting, diferences—in how people viewed and interacted with statues in these cultures. The use of public statues across time and cultures is a potentially vast region of comparative study that would repay more expansive exploration. This book might be seen as a preliminary foray into that terrain—not the fnal word on the subject but rather the opening up of a discussion. The considerable recent attention for the question of what statues mean to us today suggests that this is a discussion worth having.

Notes 1. www.change.org/p/president-h-kim-bottomly-move-the-sleepwalker-inside-the-davismuseum [accessed 20.8.2020]. 2. The response can be found beneath the petition at the change.org website. See n.1. 3. In the United Kingdom alone, the story was featured in the Times, the Independent, the Guardian, the Mirror, the Metro, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph and also made it to the BBC website. 4. The episode is discussed briefy as an example of such controversies by McDermott 2016, 26–27. 5. Matelli refers to the piece as ‘this statue or sculpture’ in an interview for the online art magazine, The Creative Independent, https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/tony-matellion-the-power-of-objects [accessed 20.8.2020]. 6. On the earliest bronze statues in the Near East, see Bahrani 2017. For the beginnings of life-size bronze statues in Greek culture, see Mattusch 1996. 7. For some interesting considerations on the relationship between sculpture and pedestals, see the essays in Gerstein 2007. 8. This interpretation of the monument’s signifcance is proposed convincingly by Craske 2007, 234–235. 9. For a highly theorized investigation of modern public space as contested, see the studies of the plazas of Costa Rica by Low 2000. 10. Mitchell 2003, 5. 11. There are, of course, statues of enormous scale that can be entered, the Statue of Liberty being the most famous, but such statues are still not buildings. They are still designed to be seen and not used. 12. White, Michael. Thatcher Statue Decapitated, 4 July  2002, The Guardian: www. theguardian.com/uk/2002/jul/04/artsnews.redbox [accessed 20.8.2020]. 13. Unveiling of a Statue of Baroness Thatcher in Members Lobby, House of Commons: www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-archive/acwa/thatcherstatue/ [accessed 20.8.2020]. 14. Mason, Rowena. Proposal for Margaret Thatcher Statue Near Parliament Turned Down, 6 July  2017, The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/proposals-formargaret-thatcher-statue-near-parliament-turned-down and Walker, Peter. Westminster

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15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

27

Council Rejects Margaret Thatcher Statue Plans, 23 January 2018, The Guardian: www. theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/23/plans-margaret-thatcher-statue-westminster-rejected [accessed 20.8.2020]. Roman period copies of the statues survive and there is ample iconographic and literary evidence that they were famous throughout the ancient world—Azoulay 2017. The disagreement about the monument’s meaning is touched upon by the two great historians of the ffth century: Herodotus Histories 5.55–56, 5.63–64 and Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War 6.53–59 and 1.20.2. Furness, Hannah. Gallery Denies ‘Banishing’ Decapitated Baroness Thatcher Statue, 27 January  2015, The Telegraph: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howabout that/11372871/Gallery-denies-banishing-decapitated-Baroness-Thatcher-statue.html [accessed 20.8.2020]. Though the pose is not a reference to that work but rather a representation of Thatcher's own description of how she was in the habit of standing at the despatch box—personal communication, Antony Dufort. For a diferent—and more detailed—consideration of the meanings of the statues of Parliament Square discussed here, see Burch 2020, 41–44, 65–82, 100–106, 112–114, 115–123. It is no coincidence that Barack Obama has referred to the three—together with Martin Luther King, with whom they are often mentioned in the same breath—as sources of inspiration: https://timesofndia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Lincoln-Gandhi-Mandela-are-myheroes-Obama/articleshow/4742860.cms [accessed 20.8.2020]. The political dimensions of playful behaviour in public space have been explored by Stevens 2007. As discussed by Cherry 2006. Under the Roman Empire, the Greeks developed the cost-efective way of honouring powerful Romans by simply inscribing their names on existing statues. The orator Dio Chrysostom, in his well-known 31st oration, berates the people of Rhodes for the practice; the speech makes plain that they had forgotten who the original recipients of many of their old statues had been. See the collection of photos of the unveiling in The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/gallery/2018/apr/24/millicent-fawcett-statue-unveiled-in-parliament-squarein-pictures [accessed 20.8.2020]. Purvis, June. A Sufragist Statue in Parliament Square Would Write Emmeline Pankhurst Out of History, 27 September 2017, The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/ sep/27/sufragist-statue-parliament-square-emmeline-pankhurst-millicent-fawcett [accessed 20.8.2020]. The statue was unveiled in 1930 but moved to its present location, from a spot further south, in 1958, when it was incorporated within a curved wall that included a bust of Emmeline’s daughter Christabel, who had died that year, on one of its ends; Matthews 2012, 38–39. Khomami, Nadia. Anger Over Plan to Move Pankhurst Statue Away From Parliament, 17 August 2018, The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/aug/17/anger-over-planto-move-pankhurst-statue-away-from-parliament [accessed 20.8.2020]. Yarwood, Sam. Emmeline Is Coming Home—Plans for Statue of Sufragette in St Peter's Square Approved, 9 February  2018, Manchester Evening News: www.manchester eveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/emmeline-pankhurst-sufragette-statuemanchester-14265979 [accessed 20.8.2020]. www.invisiblewomen.org.uk [accessed 20.8.2020]. Baird, Julia. Why We Should Put Women on Pedestals, 4 September 2017, New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/opinion/women-statues.html [accessed 20.8.2020]. See the list in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_and_memorials_ removed_during_the_George_Floyd_protests [accessed 20.8.2020]. Anonymous. London Monuments Boarded Up Ahead of Protests, 12 June  2020, BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53020306 [accessed 20.8.2020]. Hussain, Danyal. ‘Are They Worried About Jane Austen Fans?’: Statue Defenders Draw Scorn as They Stand in Front of Sculpture of Writer George Eliot During Black Lives Matter Protest, 16 June  2020, Mail Online: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8426005/ Statue-defenders-stand-sculpture-writer-George-Eliot-Black-Lives-Matter-demo.html [accessed 20.8.2020].

28 Christopher P. Dickenson 34. Nyamnjoh 2016. 35. Robinson, Yussef. Oxford’s Cecil Rhodes Statue Must Fall—It Stands in the Way of Inclusivity, 19 January 2016, The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/19/ rhodes-fall-oxford-university-inclusivity-black-students [accessed 20.8.2020]. 36. Astor, Maggie, Christina Caron, and Daniel Victor. A Guide to the Charlottesville Aftermath, 13 August 2017, New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesvillevirginia-overview.html [accessed 20.8.2020]. 37. Olusoga, David. Statues Are Not the Issue. These Are ‘History Wars’, a Battle Over the Past, 27 August 2017, The Guardian: As historian David Olusoga has argued; www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2017/aug/26/statues-were-not-erected-to-teach-us-history-but-toexert-power [accessed 20.8.2020]. 38. Edward Colston Statue Toppled: How Bristol Came to See the Slave Trader as a Hero and Philanthropist, 8 June 2020, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/edwardcolston-statue-toppled-how-bristol-came-to-see-the-slave-trader-as-a-hero-and-philanthropist140271 [accessed 20.8.2020]. 39. E.g. Moss, Chris. Why the Toppling of Colston's Statue Was a Missed Opportunity, 9 June  2020, The Telegraph: www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/colston-statue-monumentsto-malefactors/ [accessed 20.8.2020]. 40. Emelife, Aindrea. ‘Hope Flows Through This Statue’: Marc Quinn on Replacing Colston with Jen Reid, a Black Lives Matter Protester, 15 July  2020, The Guardian: www. theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jul/15/marc-quinn-statue-colston-jen-reid-black-livesmatter-bristol [accessed 20.8.2020]. 41. Bland, Archie. Black Lives Matter Sculpture of Jen Reid Removed from Colston Plinth, 16 July 2020, The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/black-lives-mattersculpture-of-jen-reid-removed-colston--bristol [accessed 20.8.2020]. 42. On the Shelley memorial, see Haskell 1978. 43. The way that the Pankhurst Memorial contributed to the transformation of Emmeline Pankhurst’s posthumous reputation from dangerous subversive to symbol of the steady march of democratic progress is explored by Mayhall 1999. 44. Pilbeam 2003, 1–16. 45. Harvey and Mortimer 1994. 46. For an excellent recent history of lifelike sculpture see Syson 2018. On the tensions produced by images (not just statues) when they began to proliferate in the Early Modern period, see Cole and Zorach 2009; and Nagel 2011. 47. As Luke Syson has shown: Syson 2018. 48. Freedberg 1989. 49. Anonymous. Churchill and Thatcher Statues ‘Under Threat’ from Touching by MPs, 2  August  2013, The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/02/churchillthatcher-statues-mps-touching [accessed 20.8.2020]. 50. Evans 2012; Feldman 2020, 362–365. 51. On which see Price, this volume. 52. A good recent overview can be found in Fullerton 2016, 23–68. The standard work remains Richter and Richter 1942. 53. Keesling 2003. 54. Smith 2007; Keesling 2017. 55. Dillon 2006; Ma 2013; Biard 2017. 56. On stylistic developments in Hellenistic sculpture see Pollitt 1986; and Smith 1991. 57. On the agora as setting for statues, see Dickenson 2017. 58. Pliny the Elder, for instance, refers to statues dating to the sixth or ffth century bce, of a Vestal Virgin (34.25), the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (34.26), the Athenian general Alcibiades (34.26) and the Roman general Horatius Cocles (34.22). 59. One of the earliest examples of Roman portrait statuary, the famous ‘Capitoline Brutus’, a bronze bust tenuously associated with the man who had expelled Rome's last king and thereby initiated the Republic in 509 bce, is now thought to date to anywhere between the fourth and second centuries bce; Papini 2015, 104. 60. On early Roman sculpture, see Kleiner 1992, 23–27. Etruscan sculpture: Brendel and Serra Ridgway 1995.

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61. On collecting, see Rutledge 2012; Bounia 2004. On statues in Roman culture under the Empire, see Stewart 2003 and Fejfer 2008. 62. The literature is immense, but for an introduction with bibliography, see Kellum 2015. 63. Pliny Natural History 34.36. 64. Bassett 2015. See also Chatterjee, Chapter 5, this volume. 65. On the end of the statuary habit in antiquity, see Smith and Ward-Perkins 2016. On the rebirth of public statuary in Renaissance Florence, McHam 2000. 66. Stewart 2012, 273. 67. For example, by the early nineteenth century in Britain, public statues were still almost exclusively for royalty—see Craske, Chapter 9, this volume. 68. Hall 1999. 69. Sumerian sculpture Bahrani 2017, 66–75; Akkadian Statues, 117–125, statues of Gudea 134–153. 70. E.g., by Bahrani 2003 with the purpose of highlighting how art in earlier times had been experienced very diferently.

References Azoulay, Vincent. 2017. The Tyrant-Slayers of Ancient Athens: A Tale of Two Statues. New York: Oxford University Press. Bahrani, Zainab. 2003. The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Bahrani, Zainab. 2017. Mesopotamia: Ancient Art and Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson. Bassett, Sarah. 2015. The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biard, Guillaume. 2017. La représentation honorifque dans les cités grecques aux époques classique et hellénistique. Paris: de Boccard. Bounia, Alexandra. 2004. The Nature of Classical Collecting: Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Brendel, Otto, and Francesca R. Serra Ridgway. 1995. Etruscan Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Burch, Stuart. 2020. London and the Politics of Memory: In the Shadow of Big Ben. Abingdon: Routledge. Cherry, Deborah. 2006. “Statues in the Square: Hauntings at the Heart of Empire.” Art History 29, no. 4: 660–697. Cole, Michael W., and Rebecca Zorach, eds. 2009. The Idol in the Age of Art: Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Craske, Matthew. 2007. The Silent Rhetoric of the Body: A History of Monumental Sculpture and Contemporary Art in England, 1720–1770. New Haven, CT: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press. Dickenson, Christopher P. 2017. “The Agora as Setting for Honorifc Statues in Hellenistic and Roman Greece.” In The Politics of Honour in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire, edited by Onno M. van Nijf and Anna Heller, 432–454. Leiden: Brill. Dillon, Sheila. 2006. Ancient Greek Portrait Sculpture: Contexts, Subjects, and Styles. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Evans, Jean M. 2012. The Lives of Sumerian Sculpture: An Archaeology of the Early Dynastic Temple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fejfer, Jane. 2008. Roman Portraits in Context. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Feldman, Marian H. 2020. “Mesopotamian Art.” In A Companion to the Ancient Near East, 2nd edn, edited by Daniel C. Snell, 355–375. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Freedberg, D. 1989. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

30 Christopher P. Dickenson Fullerton, Mark D. 2016. Greek Sculpture. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Gerstein, Alexandra, ed. 2007. Display and Displacement: Sculpture and the Pedestal from Renaissance to Post-Modern. London: Courtauld Institute of Art Research Forum in association with Paul Holberton Publishing. Hall, James. 1999. The World as Sculpture: The Changing Status of Sculpture from the Renaissance to the Present Day. London: Chatto & Windus. Harvey, Anthony, and Richard Mortimer. 1994. The Funeral Efgies of Westminster Abbey. Woodbridge and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. Haskell, Francis. 1978. “The Shelley Memorial.” Oxford Art Journal 1, no. 1: 3–6. Keesling, Catherine M. 2003. The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keesling, Catherine M. 2017. Early Greek Portraiture: Monuments and Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kellum, Barbara. 2015. “Imperial Messages.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture, edited by Elise A. Friedland, Melanie G. Sobocinski, and Elaine K. Gazda, 423–435. New York: Oxford University Press. Kleiner, Diane E. E. 1992. Roman Sculpture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Low, Setha M. 2000. On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Ma, John. 2013. Statues and Cities: Honorifc Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Matthews, Peter. 2012. London’s Statues and Monuments. Oxford: Shire Publications. Mattusch, Carole C. 1996. Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Mayhall, Laura E. N. 1999. “Domesticating Emmeline: Representing the Sufragette, 1930– 1993.” National Women’s Studies Association Journal 11, no. 2: 1–24. McDermott, Nancy. 2016. “The ‘New’ Feminism and the Fear of Free Speech.” In Unsafe Space: The Crisis of Free Speech on Campus, edited by Tom Slater, 22–33. London: Palgrave Macmillan. McHam, Sarah B. 2000. “Public Sculpture in Renaissance Florence.” In Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, edited by Sarah B. McHam, 149–188. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York and London: The Guilford Press. Nagel, Alexander. 2011. The Controversy of Renaissance Art. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Nyamnjoh, Francis B. 2016. # RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa. Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG. Papini, Massimiliano. 2015. “Republican Rome and Italic Art.” In A Companion to Roman Art, edited by Barbara E. Borg, 95–113. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Pilbeam, Pamela M. 2003. Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks. London and New York: Hambledon and London. Pollitt, Jerome J. 1986. Art in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richter, Gisela M. A., and Irma A. Richter. 1942. Kouroi: A Study of the Development of the Greek Kouros from the Late Seventh to the Early Fifth Century BC. New York: Oxford University Press. Rutledge, Steven H. 2012. Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, Roland R. R. 1991. Hellenistic Sculpture: A Handbook. New York: Thames & Hudson. Smith, Roland R. R. 2007. “Pindar, Athletes, and the Early Greek Statue Habit.” In Pindar’s Poetry, Patron’s and Festivals: From Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire, edited by Simon Hornblower and Catherine Morgan, 83–140. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Smith, Roland R. R., and Bryan Ward-Perkins, eds. 2016. The Last Statues of Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stevens, Quentin. 2007. The Ludic City: Exploring the Potential of Public Spaces. Abingdon: Routledge. Stewart, Peter. 2003. Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stewart, Peter. 2012. “The Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius.” In A Companion to Marcus Aurelius, edited by Marcel van Ackeren, 264–277. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Syson, Luke. 2018. “Polychrome and Its Discontents: A History.” In Like Life: Sculpture, Color and the Body, edited by Luke Syson, Sheena Wagstaf, Emerson Bowyer, and Brinda Kumar, 14–41. New Haven, CT and London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Distributed by Yale University Press.

2

How Accessible Were Statues in Pharaonic Egypt? Campbell Price

Introduction Statues dominate both popular and academic reimaginations of ancient Egypt, a civilization which spanned three millennia from ‘state’ formation around 3000 bce. Egyptian statue-images range in scale from portable statuettes of various forms to colossal sculptures representing divine and royal persons. To gauge the extent to which the ancient Egyptian population as a whole could interact with statuary requires a critical reassessment of both our own expectations and of the surviving evidence of this most quintessential product of Pharaonic material culture. Ancient Egyptian distinctions between ‘public’ and ‘private’ space were conceptually diferent from other ancient or more recent societies; encounters with sculpture were more architecturally and culturally circumscribed than modern experiences of the remaining spaces might suggest. In ancient Egypt, statues provided a terrestrial anchor for nonphysical and preternatural entities, namely deities and the dead.1 Egyptian statues exerted an infuence and had an immediacy not easily shared by other object categories. Especially in the museum setting in which most Pharaonic sculpture is now located, with its emphasis on public display and anticipated reaction, this power is very apparent when observing encounters between people and statues. These interactions can be instructive in recognising our assumptions about access. The Egyptian displays at the British Museum during the nineteenth century— particularly over-life-sized sculptures—were marked out as aberrant and lacking in intellectual value compared to those of Greece and Rome. Despite often carrying impenetrable hieroglyphic texts, Pharaonic works: did not require the same kind of contemplation and insight that the classical antiquities required; they could be read promptly, easily and without any prior knowledge . . . [they were] more legible for this less educated visitor.2 Somewhat paradoxically, therefore, Egyptian sculpture has often been perceived to be inherently accessible—a cultural judgement that has persistently informed reconstructions of the statues’ original settings and functions. For the ancient Egyptians themselves, however, both physical and intellectual access to sculpture was mediated by several factors that are likely to have difered from the constraints present in other cultures, ancient or modern. Images of Egyptian deities, kings and the elite stood apart to a degree which, it may be suspected, was unusual for the ancient world. In this chapter, I explore the main forms and contexts of Egyptian

Pharaonic Egypt 33 sculpture in relation to issues of access and consider how statues addressed those permitted to encounter them. I examine divine images, colossal statues of the king and sculptures of non-royal persons in turn. The main context for most types of Pharaonic sculpture was in the temples of the gods; public spaces corresponding to the streets, agoras and forums of Greece and Rome, for example, are not obviously attested in the Egyptian archaeological record.3 While tomb chapels appear to have been the location in which non-royal sculpture frst appeared, this function was soon shared and eventually almost completely monopolised by the temple. In contrast to fantastical Hollywood recreations, evidence of sizeable sculpture from royal palaces is extremely limited.4 It is, however, worth noting that settlement sites from ancient Egypt are relatively little-explored, meaning that evidence for possible domestic settings for statues is especially obscured. Household (‘private’) chapels of gods and ancestors—as found at a ffteenth-century bce urban villa at the southern site of Tell Edfu5—may be an exception to an otherwise much more circumscribed set of engagements with sculpture of any considerable size. Domestic spaces lay at the most humble end of a cultural continuum on which the large stone-built temples are the most prestigious and exclusive. Creating sizeable sculpture required resources monopolised by the ancient Egyptian elite, and our sources for statue interaction come generally from elite contexts: that is, tomb or temple depictions of statues in two dimensions, with their inherent biases and distortions, or the statues themselves. Egyptian statues are rarely found in situ; where it is possible to establish, their ‘archaeology’ tends to be of deliberate, secondary depositions—so-called cache(tte)s—that provide only incidental information about the original use-lives of sculptures. The intentional gathering and careful burial of large amounts of sculpture—and other objects that saw ritual use—in temple areas throughout the Pharaonic period implies that the function of these items was thought to continue indefnitely despite their lack of physical accessibility to the living.6 Numbers of statues in wood and metal are likely to have been signifcant in Pharaonic Egypt, but these have not survived evenly (wooden sculpture in particular is almost exclusively known from closed tomb contexts), with a resulting bias in favour of stone. Texts inscribed on some statues—normally those representing non-royal elite persons—occasionally prescribe their own role and function, allowing a special glimpse into Pharaonic conceptualisations of statue interactions.7 Much of this material is little known outside of Egyptology and is here ofered in the context of the fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue enjoyed at the workshop on which this volume is based.

Encountering the Divine Arguably, the statue an ancient Egyptian was least likely to encounter was that representing a god. There were, however, gradations in divine imagery ranging from numerous modest votive fgurines through sizeable stone images to relatively small cult images made of precious materials. Manufacture of any image was a highly skilled, quasi-divine process in Pharaonic Egypt, efected chiefy by trained and properly initiated people. Making an image of a god was a particularly special act, as in other cultures.8 In Egypt, one among several accounts of the creation of the universe, attested from around 700 bce, describes the god Ptah: ‘He gave birth to the gods.  .  .  . He placed the gods in their shrines. . . . He made their bodies according to their wishes. Thus the gods entered into their bodies, of every wood, every stone, every clay’.9 Two

34 Campbell Price key points arise from this. First, that Egyptian deities could be immanent in physical forms made from a multiplicity of materials and, second, that these statue forms ought to be placed in—and were to some extent constrained by—containers (i.e., shrines and temples). The Egyptian gods were omnipresent yet—in physical form, at least—also vulnerable, and required protection. Thus, the aging sun god is described in a mythic text known as the ‘Book of the Celestial Cow’ (versions appear in royal tombs, 1325–1150 bce) as having bones of silver, fesh of gold and hair of lapis lazuli.10 Although this text is often quoted to demonstrate the ideal materials from which to craft divine statues as the principal focus of cult, it in fact describes a sub-par manifestation of the sun god, who is compromised by age and appears semi-fossilised, not at full strength. Even if composed of apparently enduring and untarnishable materials, the gods’ physical bodies on earth were susceptible to attack. This anxiety about statue bodies is stated explicitly in texts on non-royal statues (see below) and explains to some extent the need for circumspection in approaching divine statues. All divine images, especially cult images, were defned by their secrecy—with one term for divine statue (bes) actually meaning ‘secret’.11 For most of the Pharaonic period, divine images were housed chiefy in stone-built temples known as a ‘mansion-of-the-god’ (hut-netjer), of which the complex at Karnak (modern Luxor) in southern Egypt is the most expansive surviving example. A similarly extensive complex centred on the worship of the god Ptah once existed at the northern capital, Memphis. The modern city of Cairo is built on top—and often from the remnants—of this series of structures. Similar conditions afect the survival of other, perhaps somewhat more modest, Pharaonic temples built in honour of hundreds of other gods throughout Egypt. Architectural restrictions aimed to limit those with direct access to and therefore knowledge of the cult images of the gods, but also to other statue forms that might be located within sacred precincts. Upon entry, the standard plan of an Egyptian temple progressed from wide, open areas, through columned halls, to the increasingly dark, intimate space of the sanctuary at the rear.12 On a fundamental level, the divine image was (meta)physically protected by being located at this innermost part of the temple, probably enclosed within a gilded wooden shrine with bolted doors within a stone version of the same (often termed a ‘naos’, from Greek); ritual texts describe the important act of opening such a shrine, and comparable physical examples have survived in the undisturbed tomb of Tutankhamun. The normal inaccessibility of the divine image is suggested by a private letter of around 1100 bce in which a man appeals directly to the god: I was looking for you (the deity) to tell you some afairs of mine, but you happened to be hidden in your sanctuary, and there was nobody having access to it to send in to you. Now, when I was waiting, I found Hori, this scribe of the temple . . . and he said to me ‘I have access’, so I am sending him to you. Look, you must cast of mystery today and come out in the course of a procession, so that you may judge the matters.13 The writer here was someone conversant with the vizier—the chief civil authority in Pharaonic Egypt—and the letter is written on expensive papyrus. This suggests that even for a relatively important individual, access to the god’s statue within its temple was not always easy, and certainly not automatic, but required mediation by select temple staf.

Pharaonic Egypt 35 As the earthly home of a divinity, temples in ancient Egypt were essentially inwardlooking and exclusionary and did not accommodate nor target congregational worship. In countless repeated scenes on their walls, it is only ever the Pharaoh shown interacting directly with the gods; waking, clothing, feeding and attending the deity. In this way Egyptian temples were self-sustaining, as wall representations reifed the rituals they depicted. These images should not be taken as an accurate account of the king (or his delegate) actually coming face to face with particular statues, although they have often been read as such.14 Rather, they are hieroglyphic, prospective, idealised and hyperreal—in the sense that they depict ritual actions which need not always have been carried out in reality but existed and were eternally valid simply by being depicted. Pharaoh is regularly shown at the same scale as the deity with whom he is interacting, emphasising their conceptual equivalence in terms of status. Yet this artistic conceit may have helped foster the inference that divine cult statues were themselves life-sized. In the case of ithyphallic gods such as forms of Amun and Min, some commentators assume that this might permit simulation of sexual acts of regeneration.15 However, judging by the size of remaining stone naos shrines, cult statues seem more likely to have been rather small—little more than a foot high.16 That such cult statues were most likely made from precious materials accounts for the fact that so few have survived. Unlike in Classical Greece, Egyptian cult statues were not colossal (but see below), and this can only have helped maintain the secrecy surrounding them. It is an Egyptological axiom to state that the king could not possibly be in every temple at once, and so he delegated the daily duty of cultic performance to temple staf. Inscriptions in temples of the Ptolemaic period (c. 300–30 bce) such as Edfu make this explicit by recording the formalised speech of those sanctioned (and sanctifed) to enter the temple: ‘I am a god’s-servant. It is the king who has sent me to see the god. . . . I am pure’.17 At entrance portals of the contemporary temples of Esna and Philae (built and decorated between 300 bce and 250 ce) are inscribed complex stipulations concerning people entering the temple and even interdictions against those in a state of impurity.18 These texts refect a more general concern with proper purifcation for upstanding members of society, both during life and after death.19 Degrees of interaction with the god’s statue depended on a hierarchy of purity and initiation; we may assume, therefore, that the high priest of each temple normally performed rituals for the divine statue. However, that specifc role is rather poetically designated by another priestly title—‘Opener of the Doors of the Sky’ (a typically cosmic Egyptian metaphor for sacred space)—which was held by those other than the highest priests.20 While it is generally agreed amongst Egyptologists that only the most privileged initiates of the god’s service—including women—could enter the holy of holies, it is often assumed that larger numbers of people could gain access to the outer parts of the temple. This issue is at the core of understanding the accessibility of Egyptian sculpture, as most of it—depicting gods, royalty and elites—stood within the temple itself. So who could gain access to temple spaces in order to actually see most statues?

Access and Exclusion The extensively decorated Egyptian temple was addressed chiefy to the gods; scenes and texts were often difcult to see, read or interpret with the human eye beyond those actively involved in the construction and decoration of these spaces. Hieroglyphic script is described in Egyptian as ‘divine words’ (medu netjer), which need

36 Campbell Price not have been visible to be efective. The population at large—lacking literacy or comprehension of hieroglyphic script—simply does not appear to have fgured in this scheme. This is doubtless due to the exclusive nature of Ancient Egyptian high culture. John Baines and Norman Yofee have articulated this most efectively for ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, stressing the importance of the world of the gods as a target for elite communication rather than the present world of the living. Material and symbolic resources were tightly controlled by elites who were ‘scarcely subject to cultural requirements to disburse them in fulflment of social obligations’,21 within a wider context of restricted access to high cultural forms in society generally. Secrecy was central to high culture in Pharaonic Egypt, particularly with regard to divine images; the root of the name of the chief god ‘Amun’ means ‘he-who-ishidden’. Leaving the interior space of the temple, divine statues were enclosed in portable shrines carried within model boats (often termed ‘barques’ by Egyptologists) and obscured and shielded by a billowing linen curtain.22 The very act of shading or causing a shadow to fall on a divine image seems to have been understood to indicate the spiritual presence of the deity;23 such concealment was apparently a constant feature of popular cultic display.24 Processional display of an uncovered statue of the ithyphallic god Min—who bore the epithet ‘he who faunts his potency’25—appears to have been a notable exception to the usual hiddenness of the divine image, at least as represented on temple walls. Another, more permanent, form of secrecy is represented by the well-attested process of deliberately gathering and caching statues of deities, kings and elites within and underneath sacred areas.26 This act ensured the hiddenness and security of the sculptures while also giving them a permanent presence and rendering their intentions visible exclusively to the gods and also the dead. The term ‘public’ is frequently employed in Egyptological discourse in relation to the question of access to temples but without any real qualifcation of who ‘the public’ were. Anachronistic connotations of an undiferentiated populace similar to many parts of the modern, urban world are inescapable, creating a persistent and generally unchallenged reconstruction of a curious ‘middle class’ milling around waiting for something to happen. The vast majority of the ancient Egyptian population are likely to have been farmers and their families, engaged in agricultural work.27 An inner elite of individuals with some signifcant degree of literacy, especially those with any contact to the royal court, are likely to have been a small group.28 They were in turn surrounded by service personnel who were actively involved in supplying the needs of elite life, including the creation of sculpture. Several Egyptologists have sought a place for the non-elite in the interior of enclosed sacred spaces. Most notably, Lanny Bell envisaged widespread occasional access to the main temple courtyard, using the temple of Luxor as a case study.29 Bell draws on much more recent socio-religious practice at the festival of the Islamic saint Abu Haggag as a comparable spectacle for large numbers of people to enter the colonnade courtyard at Luxor.30 Bell suggests that a designated ‘people’s gate’, along with hieroglyphic depictions of the rekhyt-bird (symbolic of the ‘people of Egypt’), acted as signposts for access by the non-elite to enter the temple on certain festival occasions. This theory has, however, been convincingly rejected by Kenneth Grifn,31 who interprets the rekhyt symbol as an emblem ensuring the metaphysical presence of the entire ‘people of Egypt’, perpetually in the act of adoration within the temple. As Grifn

Pharaonic Egypt 37

Figure 2.1 Peristyle courtyard at the rear of Luxor temple, with mosque of Abu Haggag in the distance. Source: Photo by the author.

highlights, the symbol also appears in some of the innermost parts of the temple, where the actual presence of such people would not be permitted. The strongly exclusionary nature of Egyptian temple architecture is important to consider here. John Baines poses the problem concisely: ‘Egyptian temples . . . enclose spaces whose vastness people now fnd it difcult to comprehend if they were never flled with crowds’32 (Figure 2.1). Modern cinematic recreations amplify assumptions of how these spaces were originally populated—teeming with crowds as, for example, in scenes from the 1955 flm ‘Land of the Pharaohs’, which use monolithic Pharaonic temple architecture as the settings for proclamations to assembled multitudes. These scenes are as much a refection of scholarly assumptions as of cinematic licence, and such flms themselves subsequently had an impact on both academic research and popular ideas about ancient Egypt. Even broad thoroughfares, such as processional avenues fanked by sphinx statues, do not appear to have been freely accessible in ancient times. Thus, contemporary inscriptions located near the avenue between Karnak and Luxor describe it as being backed by walls during at least the fourth century bce.33 These routes were intended for the ritual navigation of gods and a select group of ritualists—to allow the gods’ statues to be carried in ritual safety between one enclosed sacred area and another.34 These routes were not designed for the quotidian needs of ‘ordinary’ people. In recent decades, most Pharaonic temples and other archaeological sites have been comprehensively cleared to facilitate the movement of large groups of tourists, and it is easy to assume that this was an original intention of the structures’ planners. Viewed through our own unrestricted gaze and the rose-tinted underlying assumption of egalitarian access in the ancient world, these sweeping vistas seem primed for both physical and intellectual access to the site by a curious visitor. The ancient reality appears to

38 Campbell Price have been far more circumscribed. Firm evidence of access comes in the form of graffti recording the presence of certain visitors in tombs and other sacred spaces (such as ruined ancient pyramids and temples35)—but these appear to have been executed by a literate (sub-)elite long after the spaces had ceased to have an active cultic function. Conversely, unauthorised ancient incursions into sacred space were to be deplored. This is highlighted by an apparently rather specifc account from a stele commemorating the restoration of elite statues at Karnak by the temple’s High Priest, a man named Bakenkhonsu, around 1184 bce:36 he saw the statues of the praised ones, the statues of the ancestors, the statues of the august kings which have fallen into a state of destruction in the enclosure of the gates of the open court, some on their sides, others on their backs, in the great forecourt of the way(?) of the temple, by the hands of the wretched people. The implication is of an aberrant state of afairs, possibly caused by civil unrest, in which ‘wretched’ commoners had wantonly gained entry to the sacred area of the temple and wreaked havoc. The same theme appears in later biographical texts, which link individuals’ pious embellishment of temples with the ‘purifcation’ of enclosed spaces through removal of encroaching dwellings, people or other potential impurities.37 Although the repeated motif in several texts may imply something of a literary cliché, it also suggests an underlying anxiety about the experienced reality of temple spaces and the safety of sculpture within them.

Perambulating Deities Egyptian deities were, as has been suggested, characterised by their multiplicity of manifestations. Although Egyptologists often assume a ‘main’ image for cult rituals, in fact several cultic images of the same god might exist in diferent contexts, including those designed to leave the temple in procession.38 The most numerous collection of statues of a single deity to survive—and most probably ever to have been created—is that composed of hundreds of examples of the lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet set up at the west Theban mortuary temple of Amenhotep III (c. 1390–1352 bce).39 It seems to have been necessary for certain rituals, notably the heb sed jubilee festival celebrated by Egyptian kings after a reign of 30 years, to gather together statues of the gods for the king’s reinvigoration and to confrm his divinity.40 While many of Amenhotep’s Sekhmets are of extremely fne execution, the quality of craftsmanship is notably varied across the set,41 pointing towards an overall intended efect of the group. Even so, the statues ought not to be interpreted in the manner of large numbers of ornamental statues elsewhere in the ancient word; each Sekhmet was an efective vessel to house the goddess’ spirit and to act as a participant in ritual. After an earthquake damaged the temple in around 1200 bce, many of the Sekhmet statues were relocated to new ritual contexts—notably across the river Nile to the temple of the goddess Mut in southern Karnak.42 Much more recently, individual Sekhmet statues have been moved to new locations, creating the misleading impression for modern viewers that now-isolated examples were intended to stand alone or, perhaps most misleadingly, to fank door- or gateways (Figures  2.2a and 2.2b)—implying a degree of accessibility that was not in keeping with their original setting at Amenhotep III’s temple. The sheer number and iconographic similarity of the set strongly implies

Pharaonic Egypt 39

Figure 2.2a Collection of statues of the goddess Sekhmet relocated to Karnak temple from the temple of Amenhotep III. Source: Photo by the author.

a programmatic approach to manufacture, for one or more ritual reasons.43 Such a ritual purpose did not require a sizeable human audience. To quote Baines and Yofee, ‘part of the extravagance of high culture is that its meanings should be fully received by few or none’.44 One context in which an ‘ordinary’ ancient Egyptian might encounter a divine statue was that of a ritual procession, attested in tomb and temple scenes and in texts. For those outside the temple (i.e., the vast majority), processions of portable divine statues carried in their barques provided a potential opportunity to gain physical proximity to the divine outside normal interactions within the closed temple. Processions could encompass long journeys between temples or short trips, such as from the sanctuary onto the temple roof to ‘re-charge’ the image like a battery with divine energy from direct sunlight.45 The latter process emphasises the usual hiddenness of the statue, sequestered in the dark sanctuary, and was itself shielded from outsiders’ gaze. It is also a reminder of the immense power statues were believed to store, which—by means not fully understood—could become depleted or be replenished. Once outside the temple enclosure, processions would likely have moved along demarcated routes, resting in designated barque shrines along the way. Shouldering the barque aloft on carrying poles was a privilege that individuals boasted of in biographical texts on tomb chapel walls and on temple monuments;46 this performance allowed the possibility for those nearby to have physical proximity to the divine presence even if not directly with the divine statue. Deir el-Medina—the town built to house the builders of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings (c. 1500–1070 bce)—furnishes us with evidence of attempted communication with gods through their statues. A series of written questions and suggested answers addressed to the

40 Campbell Price

Figure 2.2b Repositioned statue of Sekhmet at the entrance to temple of Ramesses III, Medinet Habu. Source: Photo by the author.

deity carried in procession have been found at the site of the town in the form of inked fakes of limestone.47 These imply that the fakes—with two or more options— were placed on the ground as a procession passed. Observers might therefore interpret the swaying motion of the barque carried aloft as a response from the god—a little to the left, perhaps, represented one answer; a little to the right another, whether connected with a suggested written response or only in the mind of an observer. The transitory nature of such a divine encounter served to heighten its value for the participant; what social restrictions may have been placed on close attendance at such processions is unknown.

Pharaonic Egypt 41

Figure 2.3 Scene from the Theban tomb chapel (no. 277) of Ameneminet, showing statues of deifed King Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. Source: Photo by the author.

Some senior ofcials of Deir el-Medina also chose to decorate their tomb chapels with scenes of divine statues in procession, apparently neither enshrined nor veiled. These parallel similar scenes in some nearby elite tomb chapels in western Thebes. One example is that of Ameneminet, a priest in the mortuary temple of King Amenhotep III, who lived some 200 years after that king’s death. Ameneminet’s tomb chapel (Theban Tomb no. 277) lay only a short distance away from the temple in which he served. In the chapel appear depictions of statues of the deifed Amenhotep III and his wife, Queen Tiye, being dragged on sledges in the context of a funeral procession (Figure 2.3). Although the content of this scene is prospective—presumably being painted some time before the funeral actually took place—it shares with those depictions from Deir el-Medina a degree of familiarity with statuary not commonly experienced outside a relatively restricted and initiated group of craftsmen and ritualists. As an ofciant within Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple, Ameneminet would have performed rituals for some of the many statues that existed within that complex. A tomb chapel was the arena of maximum boastfulness; here the owner vaunts his access to the divine (images) he claims to have enjoyed in life, in the same way as important workmen did at Deir el-Medina. The whole raison d’etre of that community lay in the fashioning of images in royal tombs, and the village was saturated with a heightened awareness of rituals, of the presence of kings past and present and other gods in both two- and three-dimensional representations. It is important to note Ameneminet’s depiction of these statues on sledges—as the sledge can also be used in ancient Egyptian art to indicate the divinity of whatever is placed on top;48 this is an important reminder that any Pharaonic scene cannot be read simply and that the procession may, therefore, not have happened in actuality as it is represented.

42 Campbell Price These depictions of apparently intimate encounters with royal-divine statues are fltered through the lens of decorum and special privilege; the survival of these particular scenes should not necessarily be taken to refect the experiences of ancient Egyptians more widely.

Approaching the Colossal It might reasonably be assumed that colossal statues of Pharaoh and the gods—so emblematic of ‘Ancient Egypt’ in general—were the most visible and therefore the most accessible of sculptures for the Egyptians themselves.49 Paired groups of royal colossi typically fronted the outer pylon gateways of temples, where they stood to some extent at the interface of the sacred and profane realms. While colossi were part of the monumental presentation of kingship that belonged within the temple, they also looked outwards. Egyptologists have tended to assume a propagandising intention aimed at an audience among the living. Yet, as I have cautioned elsewhere,50 these statues are best interpreted as principally addressed to the gods; their colossal scale was intended to put the (living) king on a par with the divine. Yet the colossi also afrm the king’s (semi-)divine position to himself, and Amenhotep III and Ramesses II—rulers who had the most colossi raised in their image—ought to be counted as an important target audience for their own monuments.51 To an unusually extensive degree, both rulers mobilised worship of themselves whilst they were still alive; they individualised many of their colossal statues by giving each a name representing a divinised form of the living Pharaoh, allowing each ‘cult colossus’ a separate identity to act as an individual object of veneration.52 While the quarrying, transportation, installation and activation of the colossi would have provided opportunities for interaction with signifcant numbers of people,53 it is also important to recognise potential forms of mediation that may have been in efect to control access—physical and spiritual—to these huge statues. Access to the colossi would have been limited by enclosure walls beyond the outer walls of the temple proper,54 and there is evidence that several cult colossi had their own specifed priests.55 The impression of unimpeded physical approachability is mainly due to the depredations of time. To take one well-known example, the one-time ‘singing’ colossus of Amenhotep III (c. 1390–1352 bce) is one of a pair that fronted the king’s mortuary temple at western Thebes (Figure 2.4) and which were damaged by a signifcant earthquake in the frst century bce. As a result, the northern of the two statues reportedly emitted an ethereal twang at dawn and was associated by Greek and Roman visitors with the tragic Ethiopian hero Memnon.56 Previous earthquake damage had led to the intensive use of Amenhotep’s temple as a quarry only a couple of centuries after it had been completed, stripping the colossi of their intended architectural context by Graeco-Roman times. The statues’ pathetic ruined state and apparently isolated location only added to their romance for Roman tourists before the colossus fell silent after repair at the end of the second century ce. The mournful sentinels inevitably appealed to orientalist painters of the nineteenth century,57 and their popularity in this form endures even today in the Ptolemaic Period landscape recreations in the computer game Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Over 100 Greek and Latin grafti left by Roman period sightseers cover the legs of the northern ‘Memnon’ colossus58 and are the best evidence of a loosening of restrictions on access to the colossi by the frst centuries ce; similar grafti on the legs of the

Pharaonic Egypt 43

Figure 2.4 The ‘Colossi of Memnon’, representing Amenhotep III, Kom el-Heitan, western Thebes. Source: Photo by the author.

rock-cut colossi of Abu Simbel illustrate the same trend of increased access after the end of active cult a few centuries earlier. The scenario is imagined, rather colourfully, by the French artist Dominique-Vivant Denon: ‘when the ancient Egyptian government and the jealousy of the priests no longer forbade strangers to touch these monuments, the love of the marvellous retained its empire over the minds of those that came hither as visitors’.59 Any mediation of access by local ‘priests’ or interpreters may have been a more opportunistic way of capitalising on the interest of visitors than an attempt to safeguard the sculptures themselves;60 the popular desire for tactile contact with the sculptures is also worth noting. Another, much earlier—and even larger—pair of colossi are noteworthy in this regard. Representing King Amenemhat III (c. 1831–1786 bce) and situated at Biahmu near the Faiyum lake, these colossi are sometimes remarked upon as being unusual for Egyptian colossal sculpture in appearing to have been originally isolated and exposed, lacking any obvious indication of an adjacent temple structure. Yet there is clear evidence that although visible from some distance away, the colossi were in fact originally surrounded by walls that enclosed a chapel area in front of them61—thus restricting the ability to approach them directly. In the 1240s ce, the historian Al-Nablusi refers to the popular belief in the healing efects of the colossi, with incense being burnt at their feet.62 These practices refect a local Islamic tradition in the Faiyum region63 and need not be taken as indicative of Pharaonic times, when access to the colossi appears to have been much more circumscribed. The Sphinx of Giza—the largest single sculpture to survive from ancient Egypt— poses similar questions of architectural access. Although the statue’s original identity and purpose are a matter of continuing debate, by the early New Kingdom (c. 1400

44 Campbell Price bce), the Sphinx was worshipped as a manifestation of the sun god, Haremakhet (Horus-in-the-Horizon) and appeared as the object of devotion on a number of royal and non-royal monuments in a manner very similar to representations of the cult colossi discussed above. The enclosure from which the Sphinx is hewn was referred to during the New Kingdom as setepet ‘the chosen or select (place)’, and mudbrick walls built to protect it from encroaching sand served also to limit human access to it,64 signalling that even the most colossal and apparently well-known statue may not necessarily have been approached directly. In each of these cases of colossal sculpture, direct physical access to the statue itself was not a prerequisite for the pious devotion each inspired.

Private Persons and Portraits By far the most numerous sculptures in many Egyptian temples were those of private (i.e., non-royal) persons. Non-royal sculpture evolved from the fundamentally bipartite nature of the elite Egyptian tomb, with its sealed and supposedly secure burial space, usually underground, and an open tomb chapel to receive visitors and oferings. The tomb chapel was the primary context of non-royal sculpture in the Old Kingdom (or ‘Pyramid Age’, c. 2600–2200 bce). So-called ‘appeal to the living’ texts were inscribed on walls, encouraging passers-by to stop and perform ritual service for the deceased. At their most elaborate, such texts developed into contracts drawn up with local temple staf to provide regular oferings for the deceased tomb owner(s), present in the form of a statue. A tension clearly existed between the desire for a steady stream of living people to enter a tomb chapel in order to perform rituals and to leave oferings and the fear that they might do so in a state of impurity or threaten the security the burial itself. Thus, a text in the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2400 bce) tomb of Pehenwikai at Abusir has a curse: ‘as for any man who will enter upon these images (= statues and/ or two-dimensional reliefs) of mine in his impurity there will be judgement with him in the place where judgement is’.65 Statues were the main conduits for spiritual forces and the focal points of funerary cult rituals. As such, a real fear existed that the statue, as a serviceable alternative body for the spirit of the deceased, would be damaged with unspecifed but presumably negative efects on the deceased’s existence in the afterlife. Pharaonic statues were individualised and activated principally by inscriptions and did not aim for mimetic portraiture. Therefore, a statue might readily be repurposed by even partially reinscribing it with a new owner’s name. This created a social and cultural need for the Egyptians to place statues of the (normally male) tomb owner— and those of wives, other family members and even servants—within an enclosed chamber called the serdab (the Arabic word for ‘cellar’), usually visible to the living visitor through a small aperture in a wall of the chapel (Figure 2.5). Another slightly less labour-intensive solution to the same problem was to sculpt statues directly out of the rock—often multiple times—as an insurance against removal. Unlike statues of deities and the pharaoh, which were more likely to be assured of some form of regular ritual service, the statues of private persons were dependant on those who might happen to stop by the tomb chapel. Particular occasions, notably a series of annual festivals, are often specifed in inscriptions. A certain cynicism may have developed regarding the assurance of funerary obligations, which was what perhaps led to a shift in the early second millennium bce from tomb chapels as the main locus of private sculpture to statues placed in temples of the gods.

Pharaonic Egypt 45

Figure 2.5 Aperture in the serdab of the tomb chapel of Ti at Saqqara (c. 2400 BCE); the statue of the tomb owner within is a replica of the original. Source: Photo by the author.

Readily accessible tomb sculpture persisted until the end of the second millennium bce, and the number of surviving examples displaying signs of deliberate damage is signifcant. Tomb chapel sculpture tended to favour the conjugal ‘pair statue’ showing both man and wife together—connecting the potential of sexual union with rebirth and potency in the afterlife. On the other hand, temples tended to house individual male statues, in an attitude vis-à-vis a deity. The privilege of having a statue within a temple was aforded to the elite from the Old Kingdom, c. 2400 bce, and became progressively more common until the temple became the principal setting for non-royal statuary in the frst millennium bce. Just as tombs of the Old Kingdom onwards carried inscribed ‘appeals’ to the living, so elite statues between 1800 and 30 bce made appeals targeted at the temple staf, whom it was hoped would frequent the areas in which the statues stood. Thus, a typical example from around 300 bce asks those few with privileged access (and therefore more likely to be able to read the hieroglyphic text on monuments) to act for

46 Campbell Price the statue: ‘O initiates of Amun, lector priests and pure priests of the sacred place, you shall say “He shall favour you” for this statue, you shall bend your arms (in ofering) for it’.66 With a growing number of statues in sacred spaces clamouring to be read and respected, a strongly competitive environment emerged. Some texts imply the expectation that oferings would be so extensive that statues would require cleaning: You [the god Amun] shall establish it [the statue] in your house for eternity, among your followers, who do what you want in pouring water for my form, protecting (my) statue from all the remains of your oferings, wiping away the dirt from me, consisting of (remains of) his [the deity’s] oferings . . . . (He) who removes me from my place, the same shall be done to him; (but) you shall cause me to remain. I have entered into your house (because) I know (that) the god reciprocates.67 This text enters into a typically rhetorical reciprocal arrangement of promise and threat; what you do shall in turn be done to you. In the same vein, a curse text on another statue warns: As for anyone, any scribe, any junior, any learned man of this temple who destroys (my) statue in this temple or damages its writing, they shall fall to the anger of Amun and they shall be guilty ones of the king.68 Such anxiety about damage must have arisen from experience. Even within the sacred precincts of the temple, statues might be deliberately damaged. Defacements and usurpations were the result of engaging with a literate audience; inscriptions allowed an individual to be identifed and singled out for veneration—or attack. Egyptian statues could thus be the sites of contest and of protest, refecting the interlinked social networks—and corresponding rivalries and resentments—of generations of the same families within temple society.69 Simple seated or standing statue forms do not appear to have been common in temples; much more popular was the compact ‘block’ type, which provided a conveniently squat, sturdy monument with a generous amount of relatively fat space both (vertically) to cloak the fgure in inscriptions and, as implied earlier in this chapter (horizontally) to rest oferings. Although sometimes characterised as a passive stance, the ‘block’ form also implies the favoured status of an individual,70 not least as a conspicuous consumer of linen in which the fgure is represented as shrouded. More obviously active poses developed later, making explicit the function of the statue (owner) as a participant in temple ritual. Inscriptions reify this intent and address the deity directly. Thus, on a statue of an ofcial named Udjahorresnet from around 520 bce, which depicts him holding a naos-shrine with an image of the god Osiris within, a text specifes the reciprocal relationship between the divine and the statue (owner): ‘O Osiris, lord of eternity, the Chief Physician Udjahorresnet has placed his hands around you in protection. Your Ka-spirit shall command that everything good be done for him, inasmuch as he has made protection around you forever’.71 By being shown in the act of protecting the divine image, the statue (owner) might beneft from god’s benevolence—reciprocity represented in three-dimensional stone. Given the concern to avoid damage to the statue, one wonders whether there was another practical concern motivating the depiction of men holding divine images; individuals could thus in

Pharaonic Egypt 47 some sense ‘hide’ behind the divine efgy, using it as something of a talismanic shield, hoping the presence of the deity would dissuade any would-be attackers or usurpers from harming the statue and incurring divine wrath. The shrine-bearing form appears to have been introduced by an enterprising ofcial called Senenmut around 1450 bce. He held numerous high-ranking titles during the reign of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. Proximity to the throne and commensurate access to resources enabled Senenmut to commemorate himself in an unusually large number of statues, experimenting with a number of new forms.72 Thereafter statues of elite men (apparently never women) increasingly depict them as holding or supporting a representation of a divine image (a so-called ‘theophorous’ pose) or within a shrine (‘naophorous’) (Figure 2.6). These statues were themselves set up mostly within temples, and their forms claim physical and ritual knowledge of usually hidden divine images, emphasising the privilege of gaining access to them. These statues display the

Figure 2.6 Naophorous statue of an ofcial named Hor, c. 590 bce, now in Manchester Museum. Source: Photo by the author.

48 Campbell Price ‘exclusive intimate service’ of ritual procession,73 appropriate to display in a temple setting but a privilege unlikely to have been permitted to all those allowed within the sacred precincts. This implies a relatively small audience of those with the required cultural knowledge to understand and appreciate the meaning of these sculptures. A similar desire to stand out from the crowd in order to secure the attention of temple staf, and presumably of the gods themselves, is illustrated by the deliberate evocation of old-fashioned or outmoded forms, through which it was possible to catch the eye of those (few) with knowledge of much older, venerable sculpture. This phenomenon of ‘archaism’ is sometimes explained by Egyptologists as motivated by a general sense of nostalgia. Rather, the trend is more likely to have been driven by a more prosaic need to attract oferings and prayers, based on the assumed observation of and comparison with the statues of great men of the past that still received attention.74 Again, the number of individuals with the requisite experience and appreciation of sculptural forms within the temple was limited—but even amongst this small group, competition is likely to have been active. Desired visual salience might also be achieved by simply usurping a particularly striking-looking older piece of sculpture. To take one example, an almost life-sized statue of the Mayor of Thebes, Sennefer, and his wife (c. 1450 bce) is unusual in a temple context for displaying the conjugal pairing of man and wife—more suited to the tomb. In fact, their statue pair may have originated from the couple’s tomb chapel on the west bank of Thebes and was for some reason transported over to Karnak at a later period. Distinctive patterns of abrasion on the lap of the statue and an additional dedication inscription carved onto the side of the sculpture seem likely to have occurred after the monument was transferred to Karnak, the abrasion over a prolonged period of time, as a result of temple staf habitually touching the sculpture.75 Similar wear occurs on the laps of several statues depicting a roughly contemporary Master of Works under King Amenhotep III, Amenhotep son of Hapu, as a squatting scribe.76 This prestigious sculptural form proclaimed literacy and therefore administrative power. Several of Amenhotep’s statues make the unusual assertion in their inscriptions that they were given as a personal gift from the king during his lifetime, a privilege that doubtless added prestige. Even more unusually, a number of Amenhotep’s statues claimed to be able to transmit prayers or petitions spoken to their ears directly to the gods. Almost exceptionally for non-royal people, Amenhotep son of Hapu was later deifed and became associated with healing; one wonders if the claims made by his statues—and indeed the reputation they helped to generate—may have helped promote him to divinity. Such an intermediary function was an ideal rhetorical device to secure the attention (as well as anticipated oferings and prayers) from those within the temple and was also mobilised by another relatively rare statue-type: mendicant or ‘begging’ statues, the so-called ‘chauves of (the goddess) Hathor’. Through their apparently abject attitude, these bald-headed squatting fgures must have arrested the attention of those passers-by able to access sacred spaces because they are unlike most other, rather more ‘dignifed’ elite sculptures found in great numbers elsewhere in temples. Like Amenhotep son of Hapu, the chauves’ inscriptions vaunt special access to the divine and claim to be able to pass on messages in exchange for beer poured into their cupped hands or ointment applied to their bald heads.77 A later form of the same strategy appears with so-called ‘healing statues’. Again, these statues are a relatively rare and visually striking type, able to stand out in a

Pharaonic Egypt 49 crowded courtyard because they are entirely covered in text, except the face. The inscriptions are predominantly composed of spells against snakebites and scorpion stings, and the statues display a prominent ‘Horus cippus’ element, a powerful magical motif depicting the innocent child god Horus overcoming ferocious and poisonous creatures.78 A handful of examples of the healing statues and a signifcant number of other statues of the last centuries bce and early years ce display apparently ‘lifelike’ facial features and have attracted the attention of a number of commentators, for whom they demonstrate the infuence of Greek and Roman lifelike portraiture.79 Egyptian sculpture was never concerned with mimetic reproduction of the face. Statues were not located in the same contexts as Graeco-Roman sculpture until well into the Roman period. Rather, the incidence of sculpted faces that could have belonged to living individuals—always incongruously attached to generically young and athletic bodies— were designed to arrest the attention of the initiated passer-by, a deliberate ploy to maximise the efectiveness of the statue in the context of a temple flled with many other statues, each jostling for an interface with the living and the gods. It is often assumed that the ‘healing statues’ (and, to a lesser extent, those of Amenhotep son of Hapu and the chauves), were placed for ‘public access’ and intended for the common good—that is, for those unable to access the inner parts of the temple. Elsewhere, I  have argued against such a sentimental vision of elite concerns in Pharaonic Egypt.80 Each of these examples directly address their audience, exploiting weaknesses and insecurities of those within the temple, who were doubtless eager for a ‘quick fx’. As Rosenmeyer observes of apparently devotional Greek and Latin graffti on the Memnon colossus, perhaps unsurprisingly, piety often overlaps with selfinterest.81 A rather cynical picture of elite monopolisation of access to sculpture seems likely, emphasising the recondite nature of high culture; to those commissioning, consuming and creating such works of statuary, those outside are hardly of account.82

Conclusion Statues in ancient Egypt were to a signifcant extent self-sustaining. To be represented as a statue conferred the qualities of idealised perfection, durability and divine permanence upon whomsoever was represented. Additional ‘statue-ness’ was conveyed, almost without exception, by the presence of a solid base-pedestal and the inclusion of a back pillar, providing (meta)physical strength and stability. Thus, Egyptian sculpture was in essence the hieroglyphic script realised in three dimensions—replicating earlier versions of itself rather than referring back to the observable world. The resulting poses are static and unnaturalistic when compared to Greek and Roman sculpture— yet canonical Pharaonic forms endured for over three millennia and attracted the attention and admiration of many subsequent viewers. Whether representing gods, kings or non-royals, Egyptian statues had the power to act as one among several hosts for the spiritual essence of a being. Ideally, the sustenance of that spiritual force was provided and maintained by a living group of pious individuals. As such Egyptian statues were vessels that demanded attention. A series of strategies were employed, from active or unusual ritual poses, to evoking ancient statues’ types and displaying lifelike faces. None of these ploys aimed at the mimetic reproduction of life but deployed a culturally constructed ideal of ‘livingness’; the statue could be described as a ‘living image’ (tut ankh), enlivened through ritual rather

50 Campbell Price than the appearance of life. Extensive inscriptions on non-royal statues express the wish to share the security and seclusion of the gods, enjoying perpetual prayers and food and drink oferings from the gods’ ofering tables, protected from contamination and destruction. It is repeatedly stated that desired interactions were with the literate, properly sanctioned (and sanctifed) people permitted access to sacred space. Statues were set up by the elite for the elite, depending on systems of personal patronage and occasionally royal permission; as such, given the numbers of people involved, these served small-scale private concerns, despite the fact that much statuary was located in sweeping open spaces that might seem instinctively ‘public’ to a modern Western mind. The strangeness of Egyptian sculpture—its ability to reproduce a recognisable ‘Egyptian’ ideal—makes it intriguingly familiar to a modern viewer; photography and epigraphic techniques make the material apparently more ‘knowable’ to scholars and interested laypersons, providing a far greater, global overview of Egyptian works of sculpture than was ever available to the ancient Egyptians themselves. In a deeply unequal society, temples and even elite tomb chapels were accessible to very few. Our expectations of how ancient Egyptian sculpture ought to have been seen is fundamentally shaped by our own unrestricted access to pieces in museums and at sites, which are far more open than they were ever intended to be in ancient times. The modern appeal of Egyptian sculpture in popular and academic media does not equate to its accessibility in ancient times.

Notes 1. I intentionally keep Egyptological references to a minimum. For an overview of the three relatively distinct categories of divine, royal and non-royal sculpture in ancient Egypt with bibliography, see Price 2020. 2. Moser 2006, 227. 3. See Dillon, Chapter 3, this volume. 4. For aspects of Egyptian palace architecture, see recently: Bietak and Prell 2018. The unusual palace site of Amarna may be a special case: Hill 2012, 153–163. 5. Recently excavated by a University of Chicago Oriental Institute team: Ministry of Antiquities. 2018. ‘New Discoveries of a Domestic Shrine for Ancestor Worship of the Early New Kingdom (c. 1500 bce) at Tell Edfu’: https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/tell-edfu/ latest-news [accessed 7.4.2019]. 6. On the composition and purpose of the Karnak Cachette, the largest such deposition of sculpture to survive from Egypt; see Jambon 2016, 131–175. Dating is unclear, but the Cachette must have been ‘complete’ by the frst century ce. 7. For examples of non-royal sculpture dating to between 1400 and 1100 bce, with insightful discussion of ekphrasis in an Egyptian context, see Frood 2019. The forms and functions of later non-royal sculpture (c. 750–30 bce) are addressed in my doctoral dissertation (Price 2011a), currently being revised for publication (Price Forthcoming). 8. A discussion of Egyptian evidence in a more broadly anthropological context can be found in Meskell 2003, 87–115, although a similar multidisciplinary approach to Egyptian sculpture has rarely been attempted otherwise. 9. A reliable translation can be found in Lichtheim 1976, 55. 10. For a relatively accessible discussion of some rather arcane material, see Assmann 2001, 113–114. 11. Standard concise dictionary of ancient Egyptian: Faulkner 1962, 84. 12. For a general overview of the Egyptian temple, see Wilkinson 2000. A more detailed account of functions and stafng is given by Shafer 1997, 1–30. 13. Translation: McDowell 1999, 110.

Pharaonic Egypt 51 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

On the purpose of Pharaonic temple decoration, see Eaton 2013. For example, the vivid reimagining of Eighteenth Dynasty temple ritual in Cooney 2014, 39. Lorton 1999, 128. Quack 2013, 127. Quack 2013, 119–122. Gee 1998. Broekman 2011, 93–115. Baines and Yofee 1998, 233. Excellent discussion of the meanings associated with linen and wrapping in ancient Egypt: Riggs 2014, 167–170. Brand 2007, 61–65. Baines 2006, 268. Frood 2007, 127. On the largest and best-known deposit ever found in Egypt, the so-called ‘Karnak Cachette’, see Coulon 2016; for a smaller group of divine statues also found buried at Karnak, compare Charloux et al. 2017, 1189–1204. For example, see the still-useful discussion of Butzer 1976. Baines and Eyre 2007, 65–67. Bell 1997, 164–172. Bell 1997, Fig. 74. Grifn 2007, 66–84. Baines 2006, 283. Razik 1968, 157. On the function of processional routes at Thebes in Pharaonic times, see Cabrol 2001. Navrátilová 2007. Translation of this rather complex text: Boraik 2007, 125. Spencer 2010, 441–490. Lorton 1999, 145–147; Eaton 2007, 15–25. Bryan 1997, 37–81. Amenhotep III specifcally states in an inscription that he ‘rejoiced greatly’ because of the numerousness of ‘monuments’ in his temple (Bryan 1997, 57). Frandsen 1990, 188–189. Indeed, several of Amenhotep’s many divine statues carry the hieroglyphic epithet ‘lady/lord of the jubilee’, providing their ritualised raison d’être. I am grateful to Hourig Sourouzian, Director of the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project, for sight of newly excavated examples at Kom el-Heitan in December 2017. Fazzini 2005, 85–94. Bryan 1997, 37–81. Baines and Yofee 1998, 236. Lorton 1999, 146. Visibility of the temple roof for someone on the ground—even nearby— would have been extremely limited. Useful series of translations: Frood 2007, 35–116. McDowell 1999, 107–109. Yamamoto 2011, 284–285. For example Malek 1996, 862, which exemplifes the assumptions of many Egyptologists. Price 2011b, 407, n. 45. A perceptive observation made by Beard 2018, 68. On the context and interpretation of royal colossi, see Price 2011b, 403–411. Price 2008, 113–121. The exclusionary efect of massive mudbrick walls that once enclosed temple complexes, especially during the frst millennium bce, is often underestimated (e.g. Golvin and Hegazy 1993, 145–160). At least one colossus of Ramesses II at the King’s mortuary temple on the Theban west bank was located inside a courtyard (Kitchen 1982, 175). For evidence of the statue cults, see Amer 1996, 1–7. The plural ‘Colossi of Memnon’ is, thus, a misnomer. On the Graeco-Roman reception of the colossi, see Rosenmeyer 2018. De Meulenaere 1992, 58–61. Rosenmeyer 2018, esp. 33–38.

52 Campbell Price 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

Denon 1803, II: 92–96; Rosenmeyer 2018, 180–183. Rosenmeyer 2018, 11, n. 31, 16. For an account by the excavator of the site, see Petrie 1889, 53–57, pl. 26. For this and other mediaeval Arabic sources, see El Daly 2005, 52–53. Keenan 2005, 204. Compare the earliest known colossal statues from Egypt—those apparently depicting the ithyphallic god Min—with deep gouges created some time after they toppled over. Zivie-Coche 2002, 73. Translation: Strudwick 2005, 232. Price 2011a, 49–50. Price 2011a, 58–59. Price 2011a, 26. For some examples of damage at Karnak, see Price 2011a, 254–255. For in depth discussion of the meaning of the ‘block’ statue form, see Schulz 1992; for the specifc association between this form and ‘favoured’ status, see Price 2011a, 160–172. Baines 1996, 91. A useful summary of Senenmut’s monuments and his innovations within the context of Hatshepsut’s reign is provided by Roehrig 2005, 117–133. The theological signifcance of the theophorous and naophorous poses is discussed by Klotz 2014, 291–293. On archaism as a tool to engender interaction, see Price 2011a, 219–220. Legrain (1916, 153–158), points out that with some statues of deities Ptah and Sekhmet have a polish caused by ‘hundreds of worshippers’ up until fairly recent times, when restrictions on access were not in place. Amenhotep son of Hapu is interesting because some of his statues appear, exceptionally, to have been found in what might be considered their ancient context, next to a pylon gateway at Karnak (Varille 1968). Gateways were important because they optimised opportunities for interactions in temple activity and the attention of those permitted to pass into or out of large open spaces. Clère 1995 provides a comprehensive study of the chauve statues. For a summary of the forms and functions of ‘healing statues’, see Price 2016, 169–182. The existence of real portraiture in the last centuries bce in Egypt was a major preoccupation of art historian Bernard Bothmer, whose exhibition catalogue on the subject (1960) still dominates studies of this feld. See Price 2016, 175–179. Rosenmeyer 2018, 25. Baines and Yofee 1998, 238.

References Amer, Amin M. A. 1996. “Some Observations on the Statue-Cults of Ramesses II.” Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 26: 1–7. Assmann, Jan. 2001. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Baines, John. 1996. “On the Composition and Inscriptions of the Vatican Statue of Udjahorresne.” In Studies in Honor of William Kelly Simpson, edited by Peter Der Manuelian, 83–92, Vol. I. Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts. Baines, John. 2006. “Public Ceremonial Performance in Ancient Egypt: Exclusion and Integration.” In Archaeology of Performance: Theaters of Power, Community, and Politics, edited by Takeshi Inomata and Lawrence S. Coben, 261–302. Lanham, MD: AltaMira. Baines, John, and Christopher Eyre. 2007. “Four Notes on Literacy.” In Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt, edited by John Baines, 63–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baines, John, and Norman Yofee. 1998. “Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.” In Archaic States, edited by Gary M. Feinman and Joyce Marcus, 199–260. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Pharaonic Egypt 53 Beard, Mary. 2018. Civilisations: How Do We Look? London: Profle Books. Bell, Lanny. 1997. “The New Kingdom ‘Divine’ Temple: The Example of Luxor.” In Temples of Ancient Egypt, edited by Byron E. Shafer, 127–184. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press; I.B. Tauris. Bietak, Manfred, and Silvia Prell, eds. 2018. Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Palaces, Vol. I: Proceedings of the Conference on Palaces in Ancient Egypt. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Boraik, Mansour. 2007. “Stela of Bakenkhonsu, High Priest of Amun-Re.” Memnonia 18: 120–126. Bothmer, Bernard V. 1960. Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period, 700 B.C. to A.D. 100. New York: Arno Press. Brand, Peter. 2007. “Veils, Votives, and Marginalia: The Use of Sacred Space at Karnak and Luxor.” In Sacred Space and Sacred Function in Ancient Thebes, edited by Peter F. Dorman and Betsy M. Bryan, 51–83. Chicago, IL: Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago. Broekman, Gerard. 2011. “Theban Priestly and Governmental Ofces and Titles in the Libyan Period.” Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 138: 93–115. Bryan, Betsy M. 1997. “The Statue Program for the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III.” In The Temple in Ancient Egypt, edited by Stephen Quirke, 57–81. London: British Museum Press. Butzer, Karl W. 1976. Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt: A  Study in Cultural Ecology. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press. Cabrol, Agnes. 2001. Les voies processionnelles de Thèbes. Leuven: Peeters. Charloux, Guillaume, Christophe Thiers, Mohammad Abd Al-Aziz, Mona Ali Abady Mahmoud, Stéphanie Boulet, Camille Bourse, Kevin Guadagnini, Juliette Laroye, and Ahmed Mohammed Sayed El Nasseh. 2017. “The Afterlife of Egyptian Statues: A Cache of Religious Objects in the Temple of Ptah at Karnak.” Antiquity 91, no. 359: 1189–1204. Clère, Jacques J. 1995. Les chauves d’Hathor. Leuven: Peeters. Cooney, Kara. 2014. The Woman Who Would Be King. New York: Broadway Books. Coulon, Laurent, ed. 2016. La Cachette de Karnak: nouvelles perspectives sur les découvertes de Georges Legrain. Bibliothèque d’étude 161. Le Caire: Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Institut français d’archéologie orientale. De Meulenaere, Herman. 1992. Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth Century Painting. Knokke-Het Zoute: Berko. Denon, Dominique-Vivant. 1803. Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt. London: T.N. Longman and O. Rees. Eaton, Katherine. 2007. “Types of Cult-Image Carried in Divine Barques and the Logistics of Performing Temple Ritual in the New Kingdom.” Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 134: 15–25. Eaton, Katherine. 2013. Ancient Egyptian Temple Ritual. Abingdon: Routledge. El Daly, Oshaka. 2005. Egyptology: The Missing Millennium. London: UCL Press. Faulkner, Raymond. 1962. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fazzini, Richard A. 2005. “The Precinct of the Goddess Mut at South Karnak 1996–2001.” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 79: 85–94. Frandsen, Paul J. 1990. “Editing Reality: The Turin Strike Papyrus.” In Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim, edited by Sarah Israelit-Groll, 166–199. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University. Frood, Elizabeth. 2007. Biographical Texts from Ramessid Egypt. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Frood, Elizabeth. 2019. “When Egyptian Statues Speak About Themselves.” In Statues in Context: Production, Meaning and (Re)uses, edited by Aurélia Masson-Berghof. Leuven: Peeters.

54 Campbell Price Gee, John L. 1998. The Requirements of Ritual Purity in Ancient Egypt. Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University. Golvin, Jean-Claude, and El-Sayed Hegazy. 1993. “Essai d’explication de la forme et des caractéristiques générales des grandes enceintes de Karnak.” Cahiers de Karnak 9: 145–160. Grifn, Kenneth. 2007. “A Reinterpretation of the Use and Function of the Rekhyt Rebus in New Kingdom Temples.” In Current Research in Egyptology 2006: Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Symposium Which Took Place at the University of Oxford, April 2006, edited by Maria Cannata and Christina Adams, 66–84. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Hill, Marsha. 2012. “Statues: Repertoire and Purpose.” In In the Light of Amaran: 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery, edited by Friederike Seyfried, 153–163. Petersberg: Michael Imhof. Jambon, Emmanuel. 2016. “La Cachette de Karnak: étude analytique et essais d'interprétation.” In La Cachette de Karnak: nouvelles perspectives sur les découvertes de Georges Legrain, edited by Laurent Coulon, 131–175. Cairo: Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities; Institut français d'archéologie orientale. Keenan, James G. 2005. “Landscape and Memory: Al-Nabulsi’s ta’rikh al-Fayyum.” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 42: 203–212. Kitchen, Kenneth A. 1982. Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II. Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Klotz, David. 2014. “Replicas of Shu: On the Theological Signifcance of Naophorous and Theophorous Statues.” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 114, no. 2: 291–337. Legrain, Georges. 1916. “Observation d’un phénomène optique.” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 16: 153–158. Lichtheim, Miriam. 1976. Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. II: The New Kingdom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lorton, David. 1999. “The Theology of Cult Statues in Ancient Egypt.” In Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East, edited by Michael B. Dick, 123–209. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Malek, J. 1996. “Colossal Statue.” In The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, 862–863. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited. McDowell, Andrea G. 1999. Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Love Songs. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meskell, Lynn. 2003. Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers. Moser, Stephanie. 2006. Wondrous Curiosities: Ancient Egypt at the British Museum. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Navrátilová, Hana. 2007. The Visitors’ Grafti of Dynasties XVIII and XIX in Abusir and Saqqara. Prague: Set Out. Petrie, William M. F. 1889. Hawara, Biahmu and Arsinoe. London: Field & Tuer. Price, Campbell. 2008. “Monuments in Context: Experiences of the Colossal in Ancient Egypt.” In Current Research in Egyptology 2007: Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Symposium, Swansea University 2007, edited by Kenneth Grifn, 113–121. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Price, Campbell. 2011a. Materiality, Archaism and Reciprocity: The Conceptualisation of the Non-Royal Statue at Karnak During the Late Period (c. 750–30BC). Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Liverpool. Price, Campbell. 2011b. “Ramesses, ‘King of Kings’: On the Context and Interpretation of Royal Colossi.” In Ramesside Studies in Honour of K. A. Kitchen, edited by Steven Snape and Mark Collier, 403–411. Bolton: Rutherford Press. Price, Campbell. 2016. “On the Function of ‘Healing’ Statues’.” In Mummies, Magic and Medicine in Ancient Egypt: Multidisciplinary Essays for Rosalie David, edited by Campbell Price, Roger Forshaw, Andrew Chamberlain, and Paul T. Nicholson, 269–283. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Pharaonic Egypt 55 Price, Campbell. 2020. “Statuary.” In The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology, edited by Ian Shaw and Elizabeth Bloxam, 441–456. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Price, Campbell. Forthcoming. Perfected Forms: Contextualising Elite Sculpture of the Egyptian Late Period. Turnhout: Brepols. Quack, Joachim F. 2013. “Conceptions of Purity in Egyptian Religion.” In Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism, edited by Christian Frevel and Christophe Nihan, 115–158. Leiden: Brill. Razik, M. Abd el-. 1968. “Study on Nectanebo Ist in Luxor Temple and Karnak.” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 23: 156–159. Riggs, Christina. 2014. Unwrapping Ancient Egypt. London: Bloomsbury. Roehrig, Catharine H. 2005. “The Statuary of Senenmut.” In Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, edited by Catharine H. Roehrig, 117–133. New Haven, CT and London: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rosenmeyer, Patricia A. 2018. The Language of Ruins: Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Memnon Colossus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schulz, Regine. 1992. Die Entwicklung und Bedeutung des kuboiden Statuentypus: eine Untersuchung zu den sogenannten “Würfelhockern”. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg. Shafer, Byron E. 1997. “Temples, Priests, and Rituals: An Overview.” In Temples of Ancient Egypt, edited by Byron E. Shafer, 1–30. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press; I.B. Tauris. Spencer, Neal. 2010. “Sustaining Egyptian Culture? Non-Royal Initiatives in Late Period Temple Building.” In Egypt in Transition: Social and Religious Development of Egypt in the First Millennium BCE, edited by Ladislav Bareš, Filip Coppens, and Květa Smoláriková, 441–490. Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University in Prague. Strudwick, Nigel. 2005. Texts from the Pyramid Age. Atlanta, GA, Leiden, and Boston, MA: Society of Biblical Literature; Brill. Varille, Alexandra. 1968. Inscriptions concernant l’architecte Amenhotep, fls de Hapou. Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. Wilkinson, Richard. 2000. The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson. Yamamoto, Kei. 2011. “The Sledge-Shaped Base in Ancient Egyptian Sculpture: Interpreting an Unusual Late Period Statuette Base from North Abydos.” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 47: 279–292. Zivie-Coche, Christiane. 2002. Sphinx: History of a Monument. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

3

Portrait Statues in the Athenian Agora in the Roman Period The Archaeological Evidence Sheila Dillon

Introduction The travel writer Pausanias’ Description of Greece, written in the later second century ce, is a rich source of information for understanding the buildings, monuments, and topography of the city of Athens. His detailed account of the Acropolis and the Agora are invaluable for reconstructing the monument landscape of these two important sites.1 Pausanias’ text, however, is not without its problems, particularly if one is interested in the monuments of the period in which he himself lived, as it has been well documented that Pausanias’ chief concern was the buildings and statues of the Archaic and Classical periods.2 In his description of the Agora, for example, he mentions encountering over 20 portrait statues, all of which—save for the statue of Hadrian—are pre-Roman in date.3 We know from the archaeology of the site that Pausanias passed over without mention a number of prominent post-Classical buildings that were certainly standing when he visited Athens, such as the monumental Stoa of Attalos and the nearby Library of Pantainos. Archaeology also shows us that Pausanias failed to mention a large number of post-Hellenistic portrait monuments that he surely would have seen during his peregrination through the Agora. The aim of this chapter is to focus specifcally on the archaeological evidence for these Roman-period portrait statues. I  argue that our reliance on Pausanias in reconstructing the statue landscape of the Agora has led to the misinterpretation of the area as a ‘museum’ or memorial space where one would have seen mostly old statues.4 The archaeological evidence presented here demonstrates that the Agora remained in the Roman period a very prestigious place in which to set up portrait statues of both local and foreign benefactors, and that most of these monuments were public honorifc statues set up by the polis authorities, a continuation of pre Roman-period practice.5 Athens had a rich and long history of publicly displayed portrait statues that goes back at least to the early ffth century bce. Because of this long history, which continues into late Antiquity,6 and the central importance of the portrait to Athenian sculptural production, one could certainly understand fundamental aspects of the public art of Greece and Rome by focusing exclusively on portraiture. This is not a claim that can be made for any other genre of Classical sculpture.

Problems of the Evidence Before discussing the archaeological evidence for Roman-period portrait statues in the Agora in more detail, we must frst understand some of the problems with and

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 57 limitations of that evidence. Surely one of the main reasons that scholars have been reluctant to rely on the inscriptions and sculpture found in the Agora excavations for reconstructing its statue landscape is that in many cases it is impossible to be sure this material originally came from the Agora. In reference to Daniel Geagan’s volume on the dedicatory monuments, Christopher P. Dickenson states: ‘it is impossible to be certain that any of the several hundred monuments discussed actually stood on the agora’.7 P.J. Rhodes went so far as to call into question the usefulness of publishing together the groups of objects found in the Agora excavations: An area corresponding approximately to the Athenian Agora can be designated as a distinct site for excavation, as has been done; but the objects found within this area are not intrinsically diferent from the objects found outside, and in that respect the Agora is not a separate site whose fnds automatically deserve to be published separately from items found elsewhere in Attica.8 And in a later review of Woodhead’s volume on the decrees, Rhodes states that ‘the concept of a corpus of public inscriptions found in the Agora is therefore a dubious concept’.9 These authors do have a point. In addition, Andrew Stewart, who has recently published a series of important articles on sculpture from the Agora excavations, cautions the following: First, however, a caveat about provenance and chronology. Unfortunately, the discovery of a piece of sculpture in the Agora by no means guarantees that it once stood there. In the Byzantine, medieval, and Turkish periods, huge quantities of broken-up marble architectural elements, sculptures, and inscriptions were ferried into the Agora from all over Athens (the Acropolis included) for use as building material. As a result, only those pieces found in authentically ancient contexts, preferably ones that predate the Herulian sack of A.D. 267, can be assumed prima facie to have stood within the Agora or its immediate environs.10 These evidentiary difculties are surely why, when trying to understand and reconstruct the portrait statue landscape of the Agora, so many have relied almost exclusively on literary testimonia, and have focused either on the pre-Roman statue landscape11 or on the few high profle portrait monuments, such as the Tyrannicides and the Demosthenes, about which a great deal is known.12 For what can we possibly say about the Roman-period statues that Pausanias failed to mention but that were surely standing in the Agora in his day? Stewart’s suggestion that one must look for material from ‘authentically ancient contexts’ provides, I  believe, a way forward. While he specifcally highlights the importance of pre-Herulian deposits, which—while they do exist—are few and far between,13 the building of the Post-Herulian Wall ofers another archaeological context, secure in its later third century ce date, that is known to have incorporated material which was close to hand, either in its face or in its fll (Figure 3.1).14 For example, the section of the wall that stretched the entire length of the Stoa of Attalos contained many architectural members from this building, including fragments of its monumental inscription, which allowed for its secure identifcation.15 The section of the wall to the south of the Stoa of Attalos was built directly on top of the remains of the Library of Pantainos and the South Stoa and contained much architectural material

58 Sheila Dillon

Figure 3.1 John Travlos, plan of the Post-Herulian Wall, 1984. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

from these buildings, including the inscribed lintel from the library that allowed for its identifcation.16 And fnally, the fll of the stretch of the wall by the sanctuary of City Eleusinion, the urban annex of the shrine of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis, contained many fragments of the Attic Stelai, which we know stood in this sanctuary.17 Although some of the material used to build the wall could in theory have been brought in from

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 59 outside the Agora, most of the architecture has been shown to come from buildings in the Agora. The same, then, is likely to be the case for the inscribed statue bases that were found in the wall. According to Geagan’s catalogue, there are about 50 Roman-period statue bases that were found in the Post-Herulian Wall, with most of the material concentrated in Towers W4, W5, and W6 in the area of the Stoa of Attalos. While, with perhaps one exception, we do not know precisely where these monuments stood in the Agora, the inscribed bases give us a good idea of at least some of the statues that stood in the vicinity of the Stoa of Attalos and along the Panathenaic Way up until the time the wall was built. The many monument foundations preserved in this area, both in front of the Stoa and along the Panathenaic Way next to the Odeion of Agrippa, also suggest a dense statue landscape (Figure 3.2). That these Roman-period portrait

Figure 3.2 R.C. Anderson, plan of the Athenian Agora (centre), second century ce, 1992. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

60 Sheila Dillon monuments mostly stood on the eastern side of the Agora might help to explain why Pausanias does not include this area in his description: this was an overwhelmingly Roman statue landscape.

Portrait Monuments in Front of the Stoa of Attalos and Along the Panathenaic Way The long terrace wall in front of the Stoa of Attalos was a prime location for statue monuments. On certain plans of the area one can see numerous foundations of various sizes that constituted an almost continuous series of monuments which once stood in the front of the building (see Figure  3.2).18 Most prominently at the centre, just behind the bema, is the roughly square foundation of the so-called donor’s monument, more than a hundred blocks of which were found built into Tower W6 of the PostHerulian Wall.19 This monument, which presumably originally honoured Attalos II of Pergamon as donor of the stoa, was a tall pedestal that supported a bronze four-horse chariot group, similar to the monument for Agrippa, the great Roman general, statesman, and righthand man of the emperor Augustus, at the entrance to the Acropolis. The monument for Attalos was rededicated in the Imperial period to the emperor Tiberius by the People (Demos), the Senate (Boule), and the Council of the Areopagus.20 Also found in Tower W6 were the fragments of a semi-circular monument of c. 140 bce. that supported the bronze portrait statues of three male members of a prominent Delian-Athenian family, set up by another family member, Kleopatra of Myrrhinoutte.21 This monument, which may have been an exedra with space for seating, surely stood in front of the stoa facing the Panathenaic Way.22 Two additional statue bases from Tower W6 show that the area in front of the stoa continued to attract monuments well into the Roman period. A highly fragmentary base set up in the second century ce honours a woman for her moral excellence (arete), goodwill (eunoia), and nobility of character (kalokagathia) toward her homeland. Such language suggests this was a public honorifc monument. Then, in the late-second or early-third century, the city set up a statue of Claudius Sopsis, altar-priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries, who was a member of the great Claudii family of Melite, one of the districts of Athens that included the Agora.23 The statue stood on a tall slender base made of Pentelic marble with heavy projecting upper mouldings. Additional members of this distinguished family were honoured nearby with a group portrait statue monument that stood along the street to the Roman Agora, discussed in more detail below.24 Tower W5, at the southwest corner of the Stoa of Attalos,25 yielded the largest number of bases for portrait statue monuments—12 in all.26 That such a large concentration of statues stood in the vicinity is not surprising; the general area—at the end of a stoa and at the intersection of the Panathenaic Way and the street that led to the Roman Agora—would surely have been a prominent and prestigious location for statue monuments.27 With the exception of two of the bases,28 all of the monuments are late-Republican or early-Imperial period in date. Three are for equestrian statues,29 one—that of Julius Caesar—supported a colossal standing bronze statue,30 and fve are from column monuments.31 None of the column monuments are well enough preserved to reconstruct their original height, but we can get some idea of what they looked like from two betterpreserved examples: the column monument for Quintus Lutatius that stood at the opposite (northern) end of the Stoa of Attalos and the other for Xenokles of Rhamnous,

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 61 a four-term hoplite general, an important magistrate responsible for the city’s grain supply,32 which must have stood further south along the Panathenaic Way, as it was found rebuilt into Tower W2 just below the City Eleusinion.33 The monument for Q. Lutatius consisted of four unfuted column drums of Hymettian marble, with the lowest drum bearing the inscription. The total height of the column was just over 7 meters. The capital, into which the statue would have been set, has not been found. Assuming a statue height of around 2 m, the complete monument would have been around 10 m tall; about, therefore, as high as the Stoa of Attalos itself.34 The monument for Xenokles (Figures 3.3–3.4) also comprised four Hymettian marble drums for

Figure 3.3 Inscribed drum from the monument to Xenokles. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 3299. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

62 Sheila Dillon

Figure 3.4 The monument to Xenokles on site, inside the remains of Tower W2. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

a column height of 7.5 m; in this case, both the white marble Ionic base and capital are preserved, for a total monument height of 8.15 m.35 With its statue, this column monument would then have been about the same height as the one for Q. Lutatius. Given the similar dimensions of the preserved drums from the fve column monuments from Tower W5, I think we can safely assume they too would have reached equally lofty heights.36 Tower W4, built over the northwestern corner of the Library of Pantainos just opposite Tower W5, contained the bases for six portrait monuments, fve of which are still embedded in the wall.37 The tower itself was built over the foundations of a large nearly square monument base (5.15 × 5.35 m), which was very prominently positioned at the entrance to the street to the Roman Agora. The bases from the tower are all for single bronze statues: three from the early Imperial period and three from the second century ce. The earliest honours the Athenian Antipatros of Phlya after his seventh hoplite generalship, set up by the merchants in the late frst century bce.38 Two Romans are honoured in the early frst century ce: the statue of an Imperial legate, whose name is not preserved, was set up by the demos, and Publius Appuleius Varus, who was honoured by the People, the Senate, and the Council of the Areopagus on account of his moral excellence (arete) and goodwill (eunoia) (Figure 3.5).39 Both statues stood on low bases made of Hymettian marble. From the second century ce

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 63

Figure 3.5 Base for the statue of Publius Appuleius Varus, built into Tower W4. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 928. H. 0.21 m. W. 0.79 m. D. 0.70 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

come two statues of archons of the Panhellenion, a religious organization established by Hadrian and based in Athens that was a league of eastern Greek city-states.40 One, for Titus Flavius Kyllos of Hypata, a member of a very infuential family from Roman Thessaly, was set up by the koinon of the Thessalians, surely with local authorization. The statue honoured Kyllos for his service as agonothetes or festival organizer of the Great Panhellenic Games and for his arete and eunoia towards the Panhellenion and the city of Athens.41 The second, an over-life-size bronze portrait statue of Tiberius Claudius Jason Magnus of Cyrene, was set up by his homonymous son with permission from the Areopagus (Figures 3.6–3.7).42 Both statue bases are made of Pentelic marble, stand over a meter in height, and have projecting molded profles both above and below.43 The fact that both bases are in the lowest foundations of Tower W4 and are completely preserved suggests to me, as it did to Benjamin, that the statues originally stood nearby.44 And if Lee Ann Riccardi is correct that the over-life-size marble head of a man wearing an elaborate bust crown found in the Agora Excavations possibly represents an archon (chief magistrate) or agonothetes of the Panhellenion (Figure 3.8), these two portrait statues would have been impressive indeed.45 From the evidence, then, of the inscribed statue bases found in the Post-Herulian Wall, we can say that in the second century, the Roman-period portrait monuments on the eastern side of the Agora—in front of the Stoa of Attalos and to its south along

64 Sheila Dillon

Figure 3.6 Base for the statue of Tiberius Claudius Jason Magnus of Cyrene, built into Tower W4. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 6737. H. 1.24 m. W. 0.87 m. D. 0.56 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

Figure 3.7 Top view, with footprints and attachment holes, of the base for the bronze statue of Tiberius Claudius Jason Magnus of Cyrene, built into Tower W 4. L. of left footprint 0.29 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 65

Figure 3.8 Portrait of man wearing elaborate bust crown, perhaps an archon or agonothetes of the Panhellenion. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 3500. P.H. 0.36 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

the Panathenaic Way—included at least the following: a chariot monument on top of a tall pillar at the centre of the stoa, seven statues on columns, three equestrian statue monuments, a colossal bronze Julius Caesar, the statue of an Imperial legate, and two statues of archons of the Panhellenion. A landscape of such statue monuments would surely have been impressive. This clustering of portrait statues demonstrates in a powerful way how ‘statues attract statues’ and how proximity and grouping might act both as a suggestion of relationships between statues and as a multiplier efect to impress or overwhelm the viewer.46 In addition to the dramatic backdrop of the Stoa of Attalos, the location of the bema at the centre of this monumental building may have made the area particularly attractive as a location for Roman-period monuments, given its potential as a focus of audience attention.47 The concentration of so many monuments to Romans in the vicinity of the street that led to the Roman Agora may also have been deliberate—these were, after all, public honorifc monuments whose placement by the authorities was surely not arbitrary.

66 Sheila Dillon The setting of so many Roman-period statues on the eastern side of the Agora may also in part have been practical: this is where there was available space. From Pausanias’ description and from in-situ monument foundations, we know that the western side of the Agora was a favoured location for portrait statues beginning in the fourth century bce, when such monuments frst begin to be set up in the Agora. By the time of the Roman period, this side of the Agora was crowded with statue monuments and therefore would not have ofered an obvious epiphanestatos topos (the most prominent location), particularly if one desired some degree of isolation for their honorifc monument. In addition to a less densely populated statue landscape, at least initially, and the dramatic backdrop of the Stoa of Attalos, the eastern side of the Agora may have also ofered proximity to the venerable monument of the Tyrannicides: if a recent study by Elizabeth Baltes is correct, this statue group stood on a monumental stepped base at the northeast corner of the Odeion, across the Panathenaic Way and directly opposite the Stoa of Attalos.48 A display location for one’s statue in the general area of the Tyrannicides would clearly have constituted an epiphanestatos topos, as proximity to this monument was regulated by law, at least through the Hellenistic period.49 In sum, although none of these Roman-period statue monuments were mentioned by Pausanias, we know from their fnd contexts that they must have been standing on the Agora when he visited. And Pausanias certainly describes other statues and buildings in close proximity to these monuments, so he surely must have seen them (Figure 3.9).50 His selective bias against Roman monuments and his keen interest in the antique and the sacred is also evident even in his more complete description of the statue monuments on the western side of the Agora. In front of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios (1.3.2), Pausanias mentions the image of Zeus Eleutherios, the portraits of Konon, Timotheos, Evagoras, all of the fourth century bce, and a statue of the emperor Hadrian, but he passes over a large exedra for statues that was dated by the excavator to the Hadrianic period.51 Pausanias comments on the statue of Apollo Patroos by the late Classical sculptor Euphranor in that god’s temple but neglects to mention the statue of the emperor Claudius as Apollo Patroos, which is also thought to have stood in the shrine.52 He does mention the statue monuments of the Hellenistic Kings in the area in front of the Odeion of Agrippa (1.8.2–9.4, 1.11.1), but he hardly takes note of any statues later than the Hellenistic period. His passing over the forest of Roman-period monuments on the eastern side of the Agora is therefore not surprising—Pausanias clearly could not describe everything he saw, and he was primarily interested in the monuments and statues of earlier periods.

Statues of the Roman Emperors in the Athenian Agora The dramatic architectural transformation of the Agora in the early Imperial period, with the construction of the Odeion of Agrippa, the re-erection of the Temple of Ares, transplanted from Pallene, and the building of the Southwest Temple, using material from a Doric building at Thorikos, is typically interpreted as a striking example of the Romanization of this venerable civic space.53 Portraits of the emperors are also thought to have had a transformative efect on the statue landscape of the Agora. By the early Imperial period, Geofrey Schmalz has claimed that ‘honorifc images of the imperial family began to crowd the Agora’.54 But was this in fact the case? Approximately 24 bases for portrait statues of members of the Imperial family were found in the Agora excavations, ranging in date from the mid-frst century bce to the

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 67

Figure 3.9 Helen Besi, plan of proposed route of Pausanias through the Agora, 1973. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

68 Sheila Dillon frst half of the third century ce.55 Most of these statue bases, however, come from post-Antique or modern contexts, so we cannot be certain that they actually originally stood in the Agora. The same is the case for the large number of Imperial altars found in the excavations, the majority of which came from the demolition of the modern houses prior to excavation.56 While these altars have been interpreted as one of the ‘manifestations of the imperial cult in the Agora’,57 we cannot on present evidence be at all certain that they originally stood in the Agora. In addition, it has recently been argued that the fragment of an inscribed statue base for a Roman subject, which was a crucial piece of evidence in the argument that one of the rooms of the late frst century bce annex of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios housed the Imperial cult in the Augustan period,58 does not belong to the base that stood in the annex’s southern chamber.59 The inscription, which was found built into a nearby late Roman wall, is now broadly dated by Geagan to the frst century bce–second century ce. Finally, while the transplanted Temple of Ares was long considered to have housed the Imperial cult, there seems to be no hard evidence to support this view.60 If we adhere to the guidelines set out above, that is, to include only those inscribed bases found in authentically ancient contexts, how many Imperial statues can we say for certain actually stood on the Agora? Out of 24, only three: the statue of Tiberius, which replaced Attalos II as the honorand of the tall pillar monument in front of the Stoa of Attalos;61 the statue of Claudius as Apollo Patroos, which stood inside the temple to that god;62 and the statue of Trajan, from the so-called Street Stoa.63 The base for a bronze statue of Livia as Artemis Boulaia may well constitute a fourth; while it was found in a Byzantine-period wall near the Southwest Temple, it is thought with good reason to have stood either in that temple or in the Bouleuterion precinct.64 The sculptural evidence for portraits of the emperors is similarly sparse. At present, there are only fve portraits found in the excavations that are identifed as emperors: two very fragmentary armoured statues, both probably of Trajan, from the Street Stoa;65 a head of Trajan, which may belong to one of these statues (Figure 3.10);66 a headless armoured statue of Hadrian;67 a well preserved bust of Antoninus Pius, also wearing armour, from a late Antique house on the slopes of the Areopagus;68 and a small fragment from a cuirass bust that may represent either Marcus Aurelius or Lucius Verus, found in the wall of a late Roman house.69 Of this material evidence, we can only be certain that the statues of Hadrian and Trajan originally stood in the area of the Agora. The busts come from late contexts and could easily have been brought in from elsewhere, and their format also suggests that they were originally meant for interior domestic display. The armoured statues from the Street Stoa were displayed somewhere in that building,70 and the statue of Hadrian, which was found reused in late Antiquity as a cover slab of the Great Drain near the Metroon, likely stood on the western side of the Agora.71 This may well be the statue Pausanias saw standing in front of the Stoa of Zeus (1.3.2), as it was found not too far from this location, although its fne state of preservation suggests the possibility that it stood in an interior setting. The placement of these Imperial statues—mostly set up in shrines or in interior spaces—difers from the typical locations in which one would have encountered the portraits of Athenian citizens and foreign civic benefactors,72 which mostly stood outside on the square and along the Panathenaic Way. That is, the way in which the public would have come into contact with statues of the Imperial family is unlike how they would have seen and experienced these other honorifc images. One of the other

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 69

Figure 3.10 Portrait head of Trajan worked for insertion into a statue, wearing laurel crown. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 347. H. 0.59 m. H. of head (from chin to crown, not including laurel crown) c. 0.28 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

main diferences is that the statues of Imperial subjects were clearly in the minority; the notion that the images of the imperial family crowded the Agora in any period is simply not borne out by the available evidence.73

The Importance of Public Portrait Statues in Athens The setting up of marble and bronze statues—what is called the ancient statue habit— was a distinctive feature of Classical Mediterranean culture. Statues were powerful symbols of a broad array of religious, social, and political concerns, and they monumentalized a range of relationships—between, for example, gods and humans, rulers and their subjects, the city and its benefactors, and family members. The ancient Mediterranean statue habit also has an exceedingly long history, beginning in about 600 bce and continuing until about 600 ce, with the peak output in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. This habit is particularly well documented at Athens. Indeed, few ancient centres can match the range, density, and chronological scope of the Athenian evidence: we know more about where and why portrait statues were set up in Athens over its long history than just about any other city in the Greek East. Portrait statues stood not only in the Agora but also on the Acropolis, in the Theatre of Dionysos, in the city’s many gymnasia, in its urban shrines, such as the City Eleusinion and the

70 Sheila Dillon Asklepieion, in various public buildings, and at deme sites such as Rhamnous, and they were also an important feature of the great sanctuary of the Two Goddesses at Eleusis, particularly in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods.74 Athens was a city of portrait statues. In terms of sheer numbers, there were probably more portraits in the city than any other kind of statue. Just as at Rome, in Athens portrait statues constituted what has vividly been called a city’s ‘other populace’.75 While the Acropolis was likely the most prestigious sanctuary in the city in which to set up a portrait, the Agora was the most prestigious civic space for these monuments. And unlike a sanctuary, where access might sometimes have been restricted or at times even blocked altogether, the Agora was not a space that could be closed. Major roads ran through the Agora—the Panathenaic Way was not only the grand processional thoroughfare for the parade in celebration of Athena’s birthday, but it was also the principal route from the city’s main gate to central parts of the city and would therefore have been in constant daily use. This accessibility was surely one of the things that made the Agora such a desirable location for one’s portrait statue. Portrait statue monuments were meant—indeed they needed—to be seen. The requirement of visibility is what is behind the stipulation in some decrees that a statue be set up in the most prominent location (epiphanestatos topos).76 The desire for accessibility is in stark contrast, for example, to Pharaonic Egypt;77 portrait statues in Classical Mediterranean culture seem to have been widely accessible to the public, placed in locations where they could be seen (or ignored) on a daily basis by the full range the city’s inhabitants. That the Athenian Agora continued to be a very vibrant space with lots of activity right up until the time of the Herulian sack in 267 is shown by the fact that portrait statue monuments continue to be set up there even after Pausanias’ visit. We know this both from inscribed statue bases and portrait sculpture. For example, in the late second–early third century, a family group monument was set up by the Areopagus, the Senate, and the People in a privileged position in front of the Street Stoa and along the street that led to the Roman Agora (Figure 3.11).78 The base, part of which is still in situ, supported the portrait statues of three members of the Claudii Metelli, an infuential Athenian family who had deep Eleusinian connections and who claimed descent from a famous ancestor of the Classical period: Perikles. A base for the bronze statue of the young ephebe Aurelius Appianus, son of the kosmetes Aurelius Chrestos, an ofcial in charge of the gymnasium, was found nearby, built into the Post-Herulian Wall at the northwest corner of the Library of Pantainos (Figure 3.12).79 The statue, which stood on a tall base, was set up by the Council of the Areopagus and the Senate in the frst half of the third century. We know from a diferent inscription that Appianus was killed by accident during a religious festival;80 perhaps this statue was set up as compensation for his untimely and tragic loss. Finally, there are two well-preserved male portrait heads that were found in Herulian debris deposits and therefore likely stood in the Agora.81 Both are dated to around the middle of the third century ce, and both were found in a well near the Tholos. One depicts a young man with a thick cap of hair worn low on the forehead (Figure  3.13). He has a wispy moustache and the beginnings of a beard, and thick eyebrows that meet in the middle at the root of the nose. The other head, which is not nearly as fne a work, represents a more mature man with short curly hair and a closecropped moustache and beard (Figure 3.14). There is evidence of burning underneath

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 71

Figure 3.11 William Bell Dinsmoor, Jr., plan of the Library of Pantainos and vicinity, with the location of Agora I7483 indicated, 1975. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

the chin and at the back of the head, damage sustained surely during the sack. The relatively fne state of the surface preservation of both heads shows neither was on display for very long. Given the context in which they were found—the well is located in between the Tholos and the Bouleuterion—the statues surely stood somewhere in this area, perhaps on one of the many monument foundations preserved in front of the Metroon.82

Conclusion The archaeological, epigraphic, and sculptural evidence presented here clearly demonstrates that the Agora remained a very important and prestigious display location

72 Sheila Dillon

Figure 3.12 Base for a statue of Aurelius Appianus, set up in the frst half of the third century ce by the Council of the Areopagus and the Senate. Agora Excavations, inv.no. I 673. H. 1.05 m. W. 0.50 m. D. 0.50 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

for portrait statues throughout the Roman period. The People and the Senate continued to vote these statue honours, just as they had in the pre-Roman period. These Roman-period monuments stood mostly on the eastern side of the Agora, in front of the Stoa of Attalos, along the Panathenaic Way, and on the road to the Roman Agora, although there were clearly some Roman portraits interspersed among the older statue monuments on the square’s western side as well. The continual addition to the statue landscape of contemporary imperial-period monuments underscores the vibrant and ever-changing nature of this important civic space.

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Figure 3.13 Portrait of a young man, early third century ce. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 954. H. 0.32 m. H. of head 0.25 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

Figure 3.14 Portrait of a mature man, mid-third century ce. Agora Excavations, inv.no. S 950. H. 0.27 m. H. of head 0.25 m. Source: Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

74 Sheila Dillon

Notes 1. For Pausanias in the Athenian Agora, see Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 204–207. Pausanias’ description of the Agora is contained in Book 1, Chapters 3–17. For his route through the Agora, see Vanderpool 1949. Leone 2020 came to my attention too late to integrate into the text of this chapter. Where possible, I have inserted into the notes references to his catalogue of statue bases. 2. Habicht 1985, 22–24, where he also indicates Pausanias’ preference for sacred over public buildings and sacred over secular statues; Dickenson 2017b, 435, who states that Pausanias ‘does not mention a single honorifc statue on any of the agoras he visited that dates later than the Hellenistic period’, Pausanias’ interests do, however, include the history and monuments of the Roman period much more than has been allowed, as Arafat (1996) has demonstrated. See also Leone 2020, 15–28, for a discussion of why Pausanias might have included certain statue monuments and not others in his description of the Agora. 3. The statues Pausanias mentions are most easily accessible in Wycherley 1957, 207–217. 4. Walker 1997 (museum); Alcock 2002, esp. 51–71 and 88–89 (memorial space); Spawforth 2012, 70 (museumifcation). For a recent critique of the Agora as a museum, see Dickenson 2017a, 396–401. For the continued importance of the Agora as a prestigious site for monuments in the Roman period, see Dickenson 2017b. 5. For the priority of the demos and the boule, see Oliver 2007, 197–198, who analyzes the decrees of the Hellenistic period. 6. Gehn 2016. 7. Dickenson 2017b, 436. The difculties with the evidence of inscribed statue bases is also one of the main reasons Dickenson did not deal at length with honorifc statues in agorai in his book On the Agora—Dickenson 2017a. 8. Rhodes 1976, 194. 9. Rhodes 1998. 10. Stewart 2012, 269. 11. E.g., Krumeich and Witschel 2009, 197–209. 12. E.g., Demosthenes: Shear 2017; von den Hof 2009; and Dickenson 2020, 115–117. Tyrannicides: Azoulay 2017. 13. For destruction or damage associated with the sack of Sulla and its aftermath, see Hof 1997; Parigi’s recent analysis of the archaeological evidence from the Agora (Parigi 2019) is much more conservative in its conclusions. 14. Built in the reign of Probus (ce 276–282) or slightly after: Frantz et al. 1988, 11; a sectionby-section description of the wall and its material by Travlos is provided in an appendix, 125–141. For a more recent assessment of the wall’s date, with construction completed by ce 300, see Theocharaki 2020, 125–126. 15. Frantz et al. 1988, 131–133. 16. Frantz et al. 1988, 130–131. 17. Frantz et al. 1988, 128–130. 18. Thompson 1950, 318; Ma 2013, 104. For the importance of this side of the Agora for statues of Romans, see Krumeich and Witschel 2009, 208–209. 19. Camp 2010, 122–123; for a full description of this section of the wall and its excavation see Frantz et al. 1988, 131–136; material found in Tower 6: 133–134. 20. Geagan 2011, H253; Leone 2020, cat.no. 37, 187–188. 21. Geagan 2011, H329. 22. For this monument and its relationship to the Delian monuments of this extended family, see Dillon In Press. 23. Geagan 2011, H381; Clinton 1974, 85 n. 13. 24. Clinton 2004; and Woloch 1969. Members of this family were also honored with monuments at Eleusis. 25. For a description of some of the material found in Tower 5, the interior of which was used as a church (Panagia Pyrgiotissa), see Frantz et al. 1988, 133. 26. Julius Caesar: Geagan 2011, H251; Leone 2020, cat.no. 8, 162–163; Tiberius: Geagan 2011, H252; Leone 2020, cat.no. 25, 177–178; Claudius as Apollo Patroos: Geagan 2011, H258; Leone 2020, cat.no. 46, 194–195; Euthyphron: Geagan 2011, H337; Tiberius

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 75

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

Claudius Atticus Herodes: Geagan 2011, H371; Leone 2020, cat.no. 74, 219–220; Quintus Caecilius Metellus: Geagan 2011, H410; Leone 2020, cat.no. 6, 159–160; Appius Claudius Pulcher: Geagan 2011, H411; Leone 2020, cat.no. 7, 161–162; Gaius Cocceius Balbus: Geagan 2011, H412; Leone 2020, cat.no. 11, 165–166; Paullus Aemilius Lepidus: Geagan 2011, H414; Leone 2020, cat.no. 13, 167–168; Publius Cornelius Dolabella: Geagan 2011, H415; Leone 2020, cat.no. 26, 178–179; Sextus Vibidius Virro: Geagan 2011, H421; Leone 2020, cat.no. 31, 182–183; Gaius Asinius Pollio: Geagan 2011, H425; Leone 2020, cat.no. 32, 183–184; Publius Memmius Regulus: Geagan 2011, H426; Leone 2020, cat.no. 40, 190–191. The dromos on Delos shows a similar concentration of statue monuments at the end of a stoa and along an important street: Dillon and Baltes 2013. Geagan 2011, H337 (Euthyphron, Hellenistic), H371 (Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes, Hadrianic). Ibid., H410 (Quintus Caecilius Metellus, 67–62 bce), H421 (Sextus Vibidius Virro, early frst century ce), H426 (Gaius Asinius, c. ce 20). Ibid., H251 (Julius Caesar, 49 bce). The size of the statue, in bronze holding a spear, is derived from the size of the block into which the statue was set: H. 27 cm; W. 1.145 m; Th. 87 cm. Ibid., H252 (Tiberius, before ce 4), H412 (Gaius Cocceius Balbus, 45–27 bce), H414 (Paullus Aemilius Lepidus, 31–22 bce), H415 (Publius Cornelius Dolabella, 30 or 7 bce), H425 (Gaius Asinius, c. ce 20). Geagan 1967, 18–31. For the description of their fnd spots, see Frantz et al. 1988, 129. Quintus Lutatius (c. 87–84 bce): Geagan 2011, H408, H. and D. of inscribed drum: 1.6 m, 88 cm; Leone 2020, cat.no. 2, 156–157. Xenokles (end of frst century bce): Geagan 2011, H345, H. and D. of inscribed drum: 1.78 m, 75 cm; Leone 2020, cat.no. 19, 173. The size and diameter of the preserved inscribed drums: Geagan 2011, H252 (Tiberius) H. 1.10 m, D. 79 cm; H412 (Gaius Cocceius Balbus) H. 2.04 m, D. 67 cm; H414 (Paullus Aemilius Lepidus) H. 1.66 m, D. 73 cm; H415 (Publius Cornelius Dolabella) H. 1.34 m, D. 73; H425 (Gaius Asinius) H. 1.83, D. 65. For a brief discussion of these column monuments, see also Schmalz 1994, 83–84; and Dickenson 2017a, 168–169. For a description of some of the material found in Tower 4, see Frantz et al. 1988, 130–131. The bases include Antipatros of Phlya (c. 18/7 bce or later): Geagan 2011, H343; Leone 2020, cat.no. 16, 170–171; Tiberius Claudius Sostratos (late frst–early second century ce): Geagan 2011, H367; Leone 2020, cat.no. 64, 210–211; Titus Flavius Kyllos (after ce 157): Geagan 2011, H402; Leone 2020, cat.no. 97, 238; Tiberius Claudius Magnus (after ce 161): Geagan 2011, H404; Leone 2020, cat.no. 98, 239; Publius Appuleius Varus: (early frst century ce): Geagan 2011, H423; Leone 2020, cat.no. 34, 185; unnamed Roman magistrate (imperial legate, ce 1–50): Geagan 2011, H430; Leone 2020, cat.no. 48, 196–197. Schmalz 2009, 149–150, n. 186. Schmalz 2009, 187–188, n. 239. Benjamin 1968. On the Panhellenion, see Spawforth 2012, 246–255, with further bibliography. Sekunda 1997, 218–219, who traces the long history of this important Thessalian aristocratic family. Spawforth and Walker 1986, 98–100. Geagan 2011, H402 (Titus Flavius Kyllos) H. 1.33 m, W. 48 cm; H404 (Tiberius Claudius Jason Magnus) H. 1.24 m, W. 87 cm. Benjamin 1968, 338. Agora Excavations inv. S 3500: Riccardi 2007. The head, which is broken of from a statue, was found in 2002 in Byzantine fll south of the City Eleusinion. Phrase used by Ma, who analyzes in depth the spatial dynamics of statues—Ma 2013, 111–151. See Dickenson 2017a, 168–169. Baltes 2020. On the statues of the Tyrannicides in the Roman period, see Azoulay 2017, 139–161.

76 Sheila Dillon 49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

54. 55. 56. 57.

Azoulay 2017, 124; Oliver 2007, 198–199. See also the plan of his route in Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 206, Fig. 52. Thompson 1937, 58, 68; Dickenson 2017b, 442, n. 33. Geagan 2011, H258; the statue was dedicated by Dionysodoros of Sounion, who had served as hoplite general and priest of the Imperial cult, and made by the sculptor Euboulides of Piraeus. Although the base was found in Tower W5, the statue is thought to have stood in the temple: Shear 1981, 363; a view endorsed by Arafat 1996, 86. Shear 1981; Walker 1997; Alcock 1993, 192–198; Alcock 2002, esp. 51–64; Spawforth 2012, 59–86 (on the Odeion of Agrippa). For the suggestion by John Hayes that the Odeion was actually built by a diferent Agrippa altogether and in the mid-frst century ce, see Raja 2012, 106, n. 401. For a more nuanced view of the ‘Romanization’ of the Agora in the early Imperial period, see Dickenson 2017a, Ch. 3 passim. Schmalz 1994, 84. The prominence of the imperial image on the Agora is implied in Alcock 1993, 195–196; Alcock 2002, 60–64. Geagan 2011, H249–271; and a second statue of Trajan not included in Geagan’s catalogue: Shear 1973, 175–176, n. 2; Højte 2005: no. Trajan 101. Geagan 2011, H273–315. Of the 43 altars, only one (H 281), perhaps for Augustus, was found in a context that predated the Herulian sack, which means that it is the only one surely to have come from the immediate area. Alcock 1993, 182: manifestations of the imperial cult in the agora will be discussed in some detail below (pp. 195–196), and here it is simply worth noting that of the ffteen public Athenian altars to Augustus, all but one were found in or near this area.

58. Thompson 1966; Alcock 1993, 195; Alcock 2002, 60; Spawforth 2012, 132 (although earlier he was more uncertain about the association: cf. Spawforth 1997, 186, n. 21). 59. Geagan 2011, H470; broadly dated to the frst century bce–second century ce, with the observation that the ‘profles of the chamfered upper edges do not align closely enough to confrm Thompson’s association with capping stones from the Annex to the Stoa of Zeus’. 60. Stewart 2016, 601–602, nn. 56–57; Stephanidou-Tiveriou 2008, 25–26; both provide extensive earlier bibliography. 61. Geagan 2011, H253 (the extent of the reuse—simply reinscription or a new statue?—is not known). 62. The base for the statue of Claudius as Apollo Patroos (Geagan 2011, H258) was found at Tower W5 (Church of Panagia Pyrgiotissa) in 1871. 63. Inscribed base for the statue of Trajan: Shear 1973, 175–176, n. 2; Højte 2005: no. Trajan 101. Sculptural remains of the statue of Trajan from the Street Stoa: Dillon 2019 in preparation. On the Street Stoa, see Camp 2010, 128–130, n. 47. 64. Geagan 2011, H254; Leone 2020, cat.no. 36, 186–187. For the location of the temple, see Camp 2010, 68, n. 20. The statue of the empress was set up by the boule, the demos and the Areopagus, suggesting that it indeed stood in the Agora. 65. Agora Excavations inv.no. S 2518, legs of armored statue: Riccardi 2009, 62, Fig. 60 (only publishing a small selection of the fragments that belong to this statue); for fuller publication see Dillon Forthcoming; second armored imperial statue: Agora Excavations inv.nos S 2501, 2502, 2504 (unpublished). 66. Agora Excavations inv.no. S 347: Harrison 1953, 27–28, cat.no. 17; Leone 2020, cat.no. 53, 201 (portrait of a man of the Flavian-Trajanic period); Freyer-Schauenburg and Goette 2020, 173–175, B1.1, fg. 17a–f; Dillon Forthcoming. 67. Agora Excavations inv.no. S 166: Harrison 1953, 71–74, cat.no. 56; Gergel 2004; Leone 2020, cat.no. 71, 216–217. 68. Agora Excavations inv.no. S 2436: Shear 1973, 170–177. 69. Agora Excavations inv.no. S 1855: Dillon 2018, 383, Fig. 3. 70. Dillon Forthcoming. 71. Harrison 1953, n. 56, 71–74; Gergel 2004; Bergmann 2010; Spawforth 2012, 255–261; Karanastasi 2012-2013. 72. Smith 2015, 733, where he also notes that ‘Statue honors for the emperor and his family were in the minority’.

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 77 73. For the argument that local visual history, rather than stylistic infuence from Rome, profoundly shaped the appearance of Attic portraits of the Roman period see Dillon Under Review. 74. Clinton 2005 includes around 300 portrait statue bases in his catalogue, which makes up around 45% of the total number of inscriptions from Eleusis. The majority of these inscribed statue bases are Roman in date. 75. Stewart 2004, 118. 76. For a full discussion of the locations of statues, see Ma 2013, 67–110. On decrees from Athens and the location of honorifc portraits, see Oliver 2007. 77. See the chapter by Price (Chapter 2) in this volume. 78. Agora Excavations inv.no. I 7483: Clinton 2004. 79. Geagan 2011, C145; Harrison 1960, Fig. 37. 80. IG II2 3765. 81. Harrison 1953, 51, n. 38 (ce 215–225), 62–63, n. 48 (ce 253–268). 82. Camp 2010, 63, n. 15.

References Alcock, Susan E. 1993. Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Alcock, Susan E. 2002. Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Arafat, Kerim W. 1996. Pausanias’ Greece: Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Azoulay, Vincent. 2017. The Tyrant-Slayers of Ancient Athens: A Tale of Two Statues. Translated by J. Lloyd. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Baltes, Elizabeth P. 2020. “A  Monumental Stepped Statue Base in the Athenian Agora.” Hesperia 89, no. 2: 339–377. Benjamin, Anna S. 1968. “Two Dedications in Athens to Archons of the Panhellenion.” Hesperia 37, no. 3: 338–344. Bergmann, Birgit. 2010. “Bar Kochba und das Panhelleion: Die Panzerstatue  Hadrians aus Hierapytna-Kreta (Istanbul, Archäologisches Museum Inv. Nr. 50) und der Panzertorso Inv. Nr. 8097 im Piräusmuseum von Athen.” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 60: 203–289. Camp, John McK. 2010. The Athenian Agora Site Guide, 5th edn. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Clinton, Kevin. 1974. The Sacred Ofcials of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 64.3. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society. Clinton, Kevin. 2004. “A  Family of the Eumolpidai and Kerykes Descended from Perikles.” Hesperia 73, no. 1: 39–57. Clinton, Kevin. 2005. Eleusis: The Inscriptions on Stone: Documents of the Sanctuary of the Two Goddesses and Public Documents of the Deme, Vols IA (text) and IB (plates). The Archaeological Society at Athens Library, No. 236. Athens: Archaeological Society. Dickenson, Christopher P. 2017a. On the Agora: The Evolution of a Public Space in Hellenistic and Roman Greece (c. 323 BC–267 AD). Mnemosyne Supplements. History and Archaeology of Classical Antiquity, Vol. 398. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Dickenson, Christopher P. 2017b. “The Agora as Setting for Honorifc Statues in Roman Greece.” In The Politics of Honour in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire, edited by Anna Heller and Onno M. van Nijf, 432–454. Brill Studies in Greek and Roman Epigraphy 8. Leiden: Brill. Dickenson, Christopher P. 2020. “Antique Statuary in Roman Greece.” In Urban Space and Urban History in the Roman World, edited by Miko Flohr, 111–139. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Dillon, Sheila. 2018. “Portrait Statuary in Roman Athens: Reconsidering the Material from the Athenian Agora.” In What’s New in Roman Greece? Recent Work on the Greek Mainland

78 Sheila Dillon and the Islands in the Roman Period, edited by Valentina Di Napoli, Francesco Camia, Vasilis Evangelidis, Dimitris Grigoropoulos, Dylan Rogers, and Stavros Vlizos, 379–390. Meletemata 80. Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation. Dillon, Sheila. 2019. “Attic Funerary Portraiture in the Roman Period.” In Funerary Portraiture in Greater Roman Syria, edited by Michael Blömer and Rubina Raja, 213–228. Studies in Classical Archaeology, Vol. 6. Turnhout: Brepols. Dillon, Sheila. Forthcoming. “An Armored Portrait Statue of the Emperor Trajan from the Athenian Agora.” In Ρωμαϊκή πλαστική στην Ελλάδα: νέα ευρήματα και νέες έρευνες, Athens, December 12–14, 2019, edited by Dimitris Damaskos, Pavlina Karanastasi, and Theodosia Stephanidou-Tiveriou. Thessaloniki: University Studio Press. Dillon, Sheila. In Press. “Portrait Statues of Athenians in Late Hellenistic Delos and Athens: Honorands, Patrons, and Portrait Styles.” In The Portrait Face: Understanding Realism and Verism in Greek and Roman Portraiture, edited by Sheila Dillon and Marina Prusac. Papers and Monographs from the Norwegian Institute at Athens. Dillon, Sheila. Under Review. “Portraiture in the Greek East in the Roman Period: The View from the Athenian Agora.” In Comparing Roman Hellenisms, edited by Basil Dufallo and Riemer Faber. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Dillon, Sheila, and Elizabeth P. Baltes. 2013. “Honorifc Practices and the Politics of Space on Hellenistic Delos: Portrait Statue Monuments Along the Dromos.” American Journal of Archaeology 117, no. 2: 207–246. Frantz, Alison, Homer A. Thompson, and John Travlos. 1988. Late Antiquity: A.D. 267–700: The Athenian Agora, Vol. 24. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Freyer-Schauenburg, Brigitte, and Hans R. Goette. 2020. “Nochmals zur Statue des Trajan auf Samos – ein Beitrag zu umgearbeiteten Kaiserbildnissen mit Kränzen.” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 135: 163–236. Geagan, Daniel J. 1967. The Athenian Constitution After Sulla. Hesperia Supplement 12. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Geagan, Daniel J. 2011. Inscriptions: The Dedicatory Monuments. The Athenian Agora, Vol. 18. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Gehn, Ulrich. 2016. “Athens.” In The Last Statues of Antiquity, edited by Roland R. R. Smith and Bryan Ward-Perkins, 190–199. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Gergel, Richard A. 2004. “Agora S 166 and Related Works: The Iconography, Typology, and Interpretation of the Eastern Hadrianic Breastplate Type.” In Χαρις: Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr, edited by Anne P. Chapin, 371–409. Hesperia Supplement 33. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Habicht, Christian. 1985. Pausanias’ Guide to Ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Harrison, Evelyn B. 1953. Portrait Sculpture: The Athenian Agora, Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Harrison, Evelyn B. 1960. Ancient Portraits from the Athenian Agora: Excavations of the Athenian Agora Picture Book, No. 5. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Hof, Michael C. 1997. “‘Laceratae Athenae’: Sulla’s Siege of Athens in 87/6 B.C. and Its Aftermath.” In The Romanization of Athens, edited by Michael C. Hof and Susan I. Rotrof, 33–51. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Højte, Jakob K. 2005. Roman Imperial Statue Bases from Augustus to Commodus. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Karanastasi, Pavlina. 2012-2013. “Hadrian im Panzer: Kaiserstatuen zwischen Realpolitik und Philhellenismus.” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 127–128: 323–391. Krumeich, Ralf, and Christian Witschel. 2009. “Hellenistische Statuen in ihrem räumlichen Kontext: Das Beispiel der Akropolis und der Agora von Athen.” In Stadtbilder im Hellenismus, edited by Albrecht Matthaei and Martin Zimmermann, 173–226. Berlin: Antike Verlag.

The Athenian Agora in the Roman Period 79 Leone, Silvio. 2020. Polis, Platz und Porträt: Die Bildnisstatuen auf der Agora von Athen im Späthellenismus und in der Kaiserzeit (86 v. Chr.-267 n. Chr.). Urban Spaces 9. Berlin and Boston, MA: Walter de Gruyter. Ma, John. 2013. Statues and Cities: Honorifc Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World. Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Oliver, Graham. 2007. “Space and the Visualization of Power in the Greek Polis: The Award of Portrait Statues in Decrees from Athens.” In Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, Style, Context, edited by Peter Schultz and Ralf von den Hof, 181–204. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Parigi, Caterina. 2019. Atene e il sacco di Silla: Evidenze archeologiche e topografche fra l’86 e il 27 a.C. Kölner Schriften zur Archäologie, 2. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Raja, Rubina. 2012. Urban Development and Regional Identity in the Easter Roman Provinces, 50 BC–AD 250: Aphrodisias, Ephesos, Athens, Gerasa. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculum Press. Rhodes, Peter J. 1976. Review of The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. 15: The Athenian Councillors by Benjamin D. Merrit and John S. Traill (Princeton, NJ); and The Political Organization of Attica: A Study of the Demes, Trittyes, and Phylai, and Their Representation in the Athenian Council (Hesperia Supplement 14, 1975) by John S. Traill, Phoenix 30, no. 2 (1976): 194–204. Rhodes, Peter J. 1998. Review of The Athenian Agora, Vol. XVI: Inscriptions: The Decrees by A. Geofrey Woodhead. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Bryn Mawr Classical Review (4.5.1998). http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1998/98.5.04.html [accessed 12.2.2020]. Riccardi, Lee A. 2007. “The Bust-Crown, the Panhellenion, and Eleusis.” Hesperia 76, no. 2: 365–390. Riccardi, Lee A. 2009. “Roman Portraits from the Athenian Agora: Recent Finds.” In The Athenian Agora: New Perspectives on an Ancient Site, edited by John McK. Camp II and Craig A. Mauzy, 55–62. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern. Schmalz, Geofrey C. R. 1994. Public Building and Civic Identity in Augustan and JulioClaudian Athens. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan. Schmalz, Geofrey C. R. 2009. Augustan and Julio-Claudian Athens: A New Epigraphy and Prosopography. Mnemosyne, Supplements 302. Leiden: Brill. Sekunda, Nicholas V. 1997. “The Kylloi and Eubiotoi of Hypata During the Imperial Period.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 118: 207–226. Shear, Jr. Theodore L. 1973. “The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1971.” Hesperia 42, no. 2: 121–179. Shear, Jr. Theodore L. 1981. “Athens: From City-State to Provincial Town.” Hesperia 50, no. 2: 356–377. Shear, Julia L. 2017. “Writing Past and Present in Hellenistic Athens: The Honours for Demosthenes.” In Writing Matters: Presenting and Perceiving Monumental Inscriptions in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, edited by Irene Berti, Katharina Bolle, Fanny Opdenhof, and Fabian Stroth, 161–189. Berlin: De Gruyter. Smith, Roland R. R. 2015. “The Greek East Under Rome.” In A Companion to Roman Art, edited by Barbara E. Borg, 656–684. Malden, MA and Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Spawforth, Anthony J. S. 1997. “The Early Reception of the Imperial Cult in Athens.” In The Romanization of Athens, edited by Michael C. Hof and Susan I. Rotrof, 183–201. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Spawforth, Anthony J. S. 2012. Greece and the Augustan Cultural Revolution. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Spawforth, Anthony J. S., and Susan Walker. 1986. “The World of the Panhellenion II: Three Dorian Cities.” Journal Roman Studies 76: 88–105.

80 Sheila Dillon Stephanidou-Tiveriou, Theodosia. 2008. “Tradition and Romanization in the Monumental Landscape of Athens.” In Athens During the Roman Period: Recent Discoveries, New Evidence, edited by Stavros Vlizos, 11–40. Athens: Benaki Museum. Stewart, Andrew. 2012. “Hellenistic Freestanding Sculpture from the Athenian Agora, Part 1: Aphrodite.” Hesperia 81, no. 2: 267–342. Stewart, Andrew. 2016. “The Borghese Ares Revisited: New Evidence from the Agora and a Reconstruction of the Augustan Cult Group in the Temple of Ares.” Hesperia 85, no. 3: 577–625. Stewart, Peter. 2004. Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response. Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Theocharaki, Anna M. 2020. The Ancient Circuit Walls of Athens. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter. Thompson, Homer A. 1937. “Buildings on the West Side of the Agora.” Hesperia 6, no. 1: 1–226. Thompson, Homer A. 1950. “Excavations in the Athenian Agora: 1949.” Hesperia 19, no. 4: 313–337. Thompson, Homer A. 1966. “The Annex to the Stoa of Zeus in the Athenian Agora.” Hesperia 35, no. 2: 171–187. Thompson, Homer A., and Richard E. Wycherley. 1972. The Agora of Athens: The History, Shape and Use of an Ancient City Center. The Athenian Agora, Vol. 14. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vanderpool, Eugene. 1949. “The Route of Pausanias in the Athenian Agora.” Hesperia 18, no. 1: 128–137. von den Hof, Ralf. 2009. “Die Bildnisstatue des Demosthenes als öfentliche Ehrung, eines Bürgers in Athens.” In Rollenbilder in der athenischen Demokratie: Medien, Gruppen, Räume im politischen und sozialen System, edited by Christian Mann, Matthias Haake, and Ralf von den Hof, 193–220. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Walker, Susan. 1997. “Athens Under Augustus.” In The Romanization of Athens, edited by Michael C. Hof and Susan I. Rotrof, 67–80. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Woloch, Michael. 1969. “Four Leading Families in Roman Athens (A.D. 96–161).” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 18, no. 4: 503–510. Wycherley, Richard E. 1957. Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia. The Athenian Agora, Vol. 3. Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

4

Populating Public Palmyra The Display of Statues and Their Impact on the Perception of Public Space in Roman Palmyra Rubina Raja

Palmyrene Society and the Sculptural Habit in Palmyra— An Urban Matter Palmyra in the Syrian Desert is a famed oasis city which fourished in the frst three centuries ce. It did so as a result of the trade relations that the city managed to upkeep through its connections based on the caravan trade, which gave a substantial basis for a solid and fourishing economy that was only entirely destroyed when the Romans under the emperor Aurelian sacked the city in 272 ce.1 The city was situated more or less halfway between the river Euphrates and the Mediterranean coast in a region that can be termed steppe desert, which means that parts of the hinterland could be cultivated as well as used for pasturing.2 Although Palmyra was a city highly aware of its surrounding world and an important player in parts of the global trade networks of the Roman period, Palmyra was not, and never became, a metropolis like Rome, Alexandria or Antioch. It was at the larger end of the spectrum of middle-sized cities, covering about 120 hectares at its largest extent (Figure 4.1).3 With the surge in urban wealth, which can be detected already from the late frst century bce, followed a physical monumentalisation of the urban landscape and its surroundings, which was intensifed in the frst and second centuries ce and continued well into the third century ce.4 With the monumentalisation of the urban settlement followed also the monumentalisation of the funerary environment, since as the society expanded, there also came a growing need for disposing of the dead (Figure 4.2).5 Palmyrene society was a tribal-based society and had a set of strong elite families that dominated the public and religious life of the city.6 Men were most important, but we have some evidence testifying to the fact that women could also hold property and take part in some aspects of public life.7 It was the wealth and social status of primarily the male elite members that we see refected both in the public and religious sphere in Palmyra as well as in the funerary sphere.8 As Jean-Baptiste Yon has aptly put it: ‘the history of Palmyra in the Roman period is mostly the history of its elites’.9 The funerary sphere was dominated by a set of monumental grave buildings, namely the large grave towers, which hover over the city to this day and are characteristic features of Palmyra.10 The tower tombs were followed by the introduction of large underground graves, hypogea, which were not that visible in the landscape. However, they were impressively monumental in their underground architectural expressions, and some could hold up to 400 burials. In these graves, locally produced limestone funerary portrait busts were set up (Figure 4.3). This portrait tradition continued for almost 300 years, supplemented by the sarcophagi adorning numerous of the graves

82 Rubina Raja

Figure 4.1 Map of Palmyra, after Schnädelbach, 2010.

Figure 4.2 View of tower tombs outside the city centre of Palmyra. Source: Photo by the author.

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Figure 4.3 Double loculus relief depicting a man and a woman, inv.no. 1028. Source: Courtesy of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek; photographer Anders Sune Berg.

from the second century onwards. These sarcophagi were lavish monuments displayed in the family graves underlining the importance of the elite families and their family connections.11 The surviving locally produced limestone funerary portraits from Palmyra number more than 4,000, which all have been collected since 2012 within the framework of the Palmyra Portrait Project.12 The portraits were made in a signifcant and characteristic local style, which is recognizable throughout the 300 years in which they were produced.13 Since many portraits have been lost over time as a result of looting—also in antiquity—vandalism and general deterioration of the often fairly soft limestone, we must assume that many more existed in antiquity.14 However, whether all graves were ever meant to have been flled up remains an open question. The Palmyrene graves over time became lavish family galleries where the development of a family could be studied over generations and connections between families could be made out by the individuals who were granted access to the graves.15 The portrait habit which we detect in Palmyra was strong for about 300  years and allows us a unique insight into its development and continuity—at least in the

84 Rubina Raja funerary sphere.16 However, as will be shown in this contribution—perhaps not surprisingly—the public sphere was no diferent, and here the portrait habit also seems to have been particularly strong.17 What did, however, difer is that the sculptural habit in the public sphere seems to have been more diverse and drew on sculptural trends, including imported material, from a much broader palette than the funerary material. While we are now able to study the development of the funerary sculpture in detail, the role statuary played in the public sphere of Palmyra and how it would have impacted the urban experience for inhabitants and visitors to Palmyra remain much less studied. This is due to the fact that much less sculpture from the public sphere has survived. In this chapter I focus on this material and explore central aspects on the basis of case studies.

The Public Sculptural Environment in Roman Palmyra—Social Media of Antiquity As Palmyra rapidly expanded from the frst century ce onwards, the urban core grew and became monumentalised. All buildings and complexes were constructed in the local limestone that came from the numerous quarries situated in the hinterland of the city, while only some elements were imported, such as granite columns and a few other architectural elements.18 The local limestone was of varying quality from very good—almost resembling marble when polished—to quite poor and porous. Streets lined with columns were laid out, and porticoes, public monuments such as theatres, baths and agora as well as temples with large courtyards were constructed as, of course, were private houses.19 The streets of Palmyra stand out today, since they, in addition to a few other large monuments, remain for tourists to stroll through—at least until 2011, when the confict in Syria broke out and made it impossible to visit the country as a tourist. The number of stretches of street left with columns that carry statue bases testify to the fact that the public spaces in Palmyra must have been crowded with visual representations of the city’s elite—mostly men, but also women, who we know could receive honorifc statues for their deeds. In many ways, this situation parallels the one encountered in the graves—namely a dense representational landscape of faces and bodies—confronting the visitor. One large diference would of course have been that whereas the focus in the graves were on the immediate family, the focus in the public spaces would have been on the elite in general. Today the public sculpture from Palmyra makes up a much smaller corpus of material in comparison to the vast amounts of funerary sculpture due to a number of factors. These include the fact that the funerary sculpture was often much better preserved, since the sculpture was located within the grave buildings—protected in the tower graves and the underground graves. Furthermore, some public sculpture in antiquity was made of bronze and marble. Both materials were considered precious, and they were imported to Palmyra, often from far away. They were therefore reused and recycled intensely over time, since they were non-indigenous to the region. Bronze and marble sculpture in Palmyra have therefore not survived to any large extent. Bronze would have been melted down in later periods for reuse, and marble was often burned to lime slake for use in later building projects. In total, only about 60 more or less fragmented sculptures belonging to the public sphere and assigned as being honorifc statues survive from Palmyra. They include sculptures made in the local limestone, imported marble as well as bronze

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(Figures 4.4–4.6). The surviving examples clearly show that the public statuary displayed variety in a very diferent way than the funerary sculpture. In the public sphere, many more choices could be made. These concerned the material used, namely local limestone (Figures 4.4–4.5), marble (Figure 4.6) or bronze as well as the style in which the statue was executed. The marble statuary was mainly imported in a fnished or close-to-fnished state. The evidence available shows that the imported marble sculpture aligned with the general sculptural trends in the Roman Empire, in the case of both male and female representations.21 The limestone sculpture was produced in the local workshops, none of which have been found. However, these workshops can be distinguished in the sculpture to a certain extent.22 Their sculptural expressions adhered to the local traditions of displaying men and women in the local clothing in Parthian-inspired styles as well as in Graeco-Roman-inspired clothing styles—both styles that also were present in the funerary sculpture.23 The locally produced sculptures in the round were adapted for display on the column consoles lining the streets as well as for display on bases. From the architectural remains, we can deduce that sculptural representations would also have been set up widely in sanctuaries and other public spaces such as the agora.24 The bronze sculptural material is very fragmentary, 20

Figure 4.4 Male sculpture in the round on base wearing himation, 170–200 ce. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv.no. AO 22252. Source: Palmyra Portrait Project, Ingholt Archive at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, PS 558.

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Figure 4.5 Male sculpture in the round on base wearing himation and Parthian trousers and soft boots, second century ce. Palmyra Museum. Source: Photo by the author.

and not much can be said about the overall patterns of these sculptures. From the scattered evidence available, it is possible to conclude that the representations of the Palmyrene elite in the public spaces in Palmyra were more diverse in their choice of style than in the funerary sphere. In the funerary sphere, the focus was exclusively on the representation of the family and its important members. However, attention was rarely given to their importance in the public life of the city.25 What we can conclude from the architectural, epigraphic and sculptural evidence in Palmyra’s urban landscape is that the habit of representing individuals in the public space was one which was used extensively in the city throughout almost 300 years. This is specifcally seen in the evidence for the monumentalisation of the city in the period in which the main street and side streets as well as many public and religious monuments were constructed. The streets were colonnaded, and one unique feature, only encountered in a few other places in the East, such as Apamea, but nowhere to the extent that they were used in Palmyra, was the consoles, which protruded from the columns lining the streets (Figures  4.7–4.8). On these consoles, statues would have been located. We know this for a fact because the bases carry imprints from the statues and clamp holes. Furthermore, inscriptions are often located below the consoles, which tell us who was displayed in the Palmyrene public sphere.26 The consoles, which were placed several meters above street level, seem to have been introduced at the time when the streets were laid out, going hand in hand with the introduction of the extensive use of portraits—also in the graves. The statues standing on the consoles would have been visible from afar and hovered over the urban landscape, reminding

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Figure 4.6 Female marble statue found near the city council building, 200–225 ce. National Museum of Damascus, Damascus, inv.no. C4023. Source: Palmyra Portrait Project, Ingholt Archive at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, PS 1130B.

the people in the city about the deeds and wealth of the various individuals as well as society in general. These statues would have been more visible than those standing on the ground, and they would have represented an entire new level of sculptural environment that almost was foating above the city. Judging from the number of consoles (several hundred) as well as statue bases stemming from statues standing on the ground found in Palmyra, it can be concluded that the public spaces in Palmyra—and not only the graves—must have been flled with visual representations of Palmyrene citizens who had done well in their hometown and therefore were given the honour or were allowed by the city council to put up

88 Rubina Raja

Figure 4.7 Statue displayed on column console on street, Palmyra. Source: Photo by the author.

Figure 4.8 View of a stretch of street with the typical column consoles, Palmyra. Source: Photo by the author.

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statues of themselves or family members. The dedication of honorifc statues was a common practice throughout the Roman world. Palmyra was, so to say, stacked with visual representations of its elite citizens—both in the public and the funerary sphere. This piling up of visual representations would have had an impact on the viewers, and it would have given them something to talk about, something to experience and something to strive for—namely to get one for themselves.

Other Media Refecting Trends in the Public Sculptural Representations—Imitating Bronze and Marble The Imitation of Bronze Sculpture in the Local Limestone Sculpture—A Rare Phenomenon Bronze statuary from Palmyra is not plentiful in the evidence from the city. A  few scraps from statues have been recovered and published. As mentioned above, this is due to the fact that such metal objects would have been recycled in post-antiquity and are therefore rarely handed down to us. Nonetheless, we know that such statuary was present in Palmyra. It has often been assumed that it was imported in a fnished state. However, there is evidence that points in a diferent direction and also gives insight into knowledge about bronze-working in Palmyra. This evidence comes in the shape of a sculptural fragment which most likely comes from the public sphere in Palmyra (Figures 4.9–4.10). It is an intriguing piece which until now has not been connected with knowledge of bronze-working. Nonetheless, this fragment gives insight into

Figure 4.9 Fragmented limestone male head from sculpture in the round imitating bronze sculpture, inv.no. 1028. Source: Courtesy of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek; photographer Anders Sune Berg.

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Figure 4.10 Side view of fragmented limestone male head from sculpture in the round imitating bronze sculpture, inv.no. 1028. Source: Courtesy of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek; photographer Anders Sune Berg.

complex layers of the sculptural habit in Palmyra and into the processes surrounding the production as well as the knowledge which circulated about the various materials and the ways in which they were worked. The object is a slightly over-life-size male limestone head in the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, originally purchased by the Danish consul Julius Løytved for Carl Jacobsen’s private collection.27 The head was broken of from a sculpture in the round just below the neck, as the working of the sculpture on all sides indicates. According to the measures of the sculpture as well as the fact that it was well-worked on all sides, including the back side, it most likely belonged to an over-life-size sculpture in the round, which would have been displayed in the public sphere—either on a column console or on a base standing directly on the ground or a podium. The male head looks straight ahead. The hair is arranged in fve rows of well-shaped locks, the direction of which alternate from row to row. The individual thick strands of hair are clearly indicated by incised lines. The face of the male is oval-shaped, and there are two slightly upward curving furrows over the middle of the forehead—one almost disappears under the front hair, which has been depicted as brushed forward over the front head. The eyebrows, rendered through thin protruding ridges, are curving and start from the root of the nose. The eyes are large and almond-shaped and have thick and clearly carved eyelids. The pupils and irises are indicated through deeply incised concentric circles. The ears

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are elongated and lie fat on the head with the helix, tragus, scapha and the earlobes clearly carved. The nose, which is broken of, is wide, and the mouth slim with thin lips. The chin is rounded and the neck long and broad with a curving groove. The piece is well worked and shows a high level of artisanship. When looking at the carving technique applied in the production of this high-quality piece of locally produced limestone sculpture, it is clear that it drew on knowledge about the way in which bronze sculptures were produced. The techniques applied are not techniques needed for the production of limestone sculpture. The rigidly incised lines in the hair, which divide the hair into neat rows, as well as the carefully organised strands of hair forming the locks, call to mind bronze sculpture of the Classical and later periods. Furthermore, the carving of the eyes with small incisions on the inner side of the pupils as well as above them are traits that are drawn from techniques known from the production of bronze sculpture. This locally produced limestone sculpture dated to about the turn of the second century ce was therefore a conscious imitation of a bronze sculpture or at least a sculpture which sought to imitate bronzesculpture production techniques even in its smallest details. This points to the fact that the maker/craftsman would have had frst-hand knowledge about bronze sculpture and about how it was made and which traits were common for it. There is absolutely no reason to have applied these incision techniques except to imitate—and through this imitation show of a superb inside knowledge of—bronze-working. This is a very exciting observation in the large corpus of the limestone sculpture, which underlines that despite the fact that Palmyrene sculpture has often been characterised as provincial and of poor craftsmanship, there are indeed surprising pieces if one takes the time to look at the details. What remains a riddle to us is whether the sculpture might have been painted to look as if it was bronze or whether it was simply done in a bronze-working technique to show of the abilities of the carver. There are no visible colour traces left on the sculpture. The piece does not defnitely prove whether bronze-working took place at Palmyra or whether bronze objects were exclusively imported in fnished state. It is, however, suggestive of a local bronze-working tradition. In recent years, it has become clear that even middle-sized cities could possess bronze workshops, and therefore it should not be ruled out that Palmyra also possessed such workshops.28 The male head testifes to the fact that sculptural trends in Palmyra were even more wide-ranging than previously thought. Evidence for Public Statuary as Refected in Wall Paintings—The Case of the Tomb of Ḥairan While the public statuary remains scarce in the evidence from Palmyra, wall paintings from the funerary sphere provide further indications of its existence. The underground tomb of H ִ airan in the Southwest Necropolis of Palmyra was excavated by Harald Ingholt during one of his feldwork campaigns.29 Among other fnds, the tomb held almost life-size wall paintings which depicted honorifc statues of the tomb’s owner and his wife. Parts of the tomb were published in 1932, where focus was given to the wall paintings discovered inside the tomb.30 The most detailed accounts of the tomb, however, come from Ingholt’s unpublished excavation diaries, which were written in Danish.31 The frst observations and descriptions of the tombs stem from his 1924 campaign diary. In the 1932 publication of parts of the grave, Ingholt named the tomb

92 Rubina Raja after its founder, the tomb of H ִ airan, after having called it by a variety of other names in earlier diaries.32 Through a combination of the accounts from Ingholt’s 1924 and 1928 diaries and his sketch from 1925, a full overview of the tomb’s layout can now be given.33 The tomb was of a larger T-shaped type, composed of a central middle chamber and two side chambers. In the diary, Ingholt notes that there were four niches followed by a small chamber, an exedra with frescos and four niches.34 It is in the exedra that the wall paintings were located (Figure 4.11). On the ceiling of the exedra, an eagle is depicted in its ‘natural colours’, as Ingholt describes it, while the leaves are painted in green.35 On the back wall of the exedra, there is a medallion with the portrait of a man. He is fanked by two winged fgures with dark brown hair. They are holding wreath and palm branches. The width of the medallion is c. 0.53 m.36 Ingholt also notices a partial inscription in two lines. He gives the transcription and translation of it in the dairy: ‘Image of M . . .’.37 He further notes that the back wall in the exedra is ‘red with black edges’.38 Of interest to this chapter, however, are the two depictions of life-size honorifc statues on the sidewalls of the exedra fanking the burial niches. At the time of the campaign, two watercolours were made by a Danish

Figure 4.11 Wall paintings superimposed upon niche model. Source: By Scott McAvoy and Rubina Raja.

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architect, Charles Christensen, who accompanied Ingholt to Palmyra. On the basis of the watercolours and Ingholt’s descriptions as well as the 1932 publication, we get a good impression of how the wall painting looked at the time of discovery. To the right on the sidewall of the exedra, a woman, surrounded by lush red and green vines with large clusters of purple grapes, is depicted (Figure 4.12). The woman is painted with black hair pulled back with a row of small curls visible across her front head. According to Ingholt’s notes, her skin colour was ‘very light yellow’.39 She wears a green tunic with a red band (clavus) on her right side and a yellow himation fastened with a brooch over the left shoulder. From the brooch, two keys are suspended. She wears a veil of the same yellow colour, which is pulled over her hair. She is wearing black closed shoes. The woman measures 1.65 m in height (including base), and she is 0.48 m wide.40 She is standing on a high square base with a profle, which is only

Figure 4.12 Charles Christensen, watercolour of female fgure from wall painting in Ḥairan’s grave. Source: Courtesy of Mary Ebba Underdown.

94 Rubina Raja partly visible. The base is a clear indication that this is not a representation of a person in the fesh but is a painted representation of a sculpture in the round. The same is the case with the man, who is represented in a wall painting on the left short side exedra wall, also standing on a base with a profle (Figure 4.13). He is identifed by an inscription above his head as being H ִ airan, son of Taimarsou. He is surrounded by green and red vines with lush purple clusters of grapes. Above the vine motifs, an architectural setting is also painted (part of a pediment or architrave). This setting gives a clear impression that the statue is painted as standing in front of a building, or potentially in a niche in or outside a building. H ִ airan’s hair is brown and waves are indicated, imitating a curly hairdo. He wears a yellow tunic with a black band running over his right shoulder down the front (a clavus). On top of the tunic he wears a yellow himation (‘arm-sling’ type) with neat red fnishing bands along the edges and thicker fnishing stripes on the lower left side as well as tassels. He wears black shoes.

Figure 4.13 Charles Christensen, watercolour of Hairan ִ from wall painting in Hairan’s ִ grave. Source: Courtesy of Mary Ebba Underdown.

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He measures 1.45 m in height (including base) and 0.45 m across the chest. Both wall paintings are executed in a high quality. They incorporated a range of colour choices and showed the tomb owner H ִ airan and his wife as they would have been represented in the public sphere in Palmyra. These two wall paintings are in fact representations of honorifc statues of the two individuals, which would have been set up in some public space because of their importance to Palmyrene society, most likely as benefactors in some connection unknown to us.41 As such, these wall painting are important evidence for the sculptural habit in Palmyra but have until now not been brought into the discussion about how sculpture in the round would have looked when displayed in the public realm in Palmyra. The colour scheme applied in both cases also raises questions about whether—or to which extent—Palmyrene sculpture in the public sphere was polychrome. In the case of the tomb of H ִ airan, the public sphere was, so to say, brought into the funerary sphere, which rarely happened in Palmyrene grave settings. However, in this unique case, the founder of the tomb and his wife were displayed— most likely framing their funerary portraits, which are gone—as important public persons in Palmyrene society.

Palmyra: One World—Many Habits While Palmyra is undoubtedly the city in the eastern Roman world that has left us the most evidence for a strong and continuous portrait habit stretching over almost 300 years, the evidence from the public sphere is fairly scarce due to the fact that the sculpture from the public sphere has become lost over time. Nonetheless, the city’s architecture, namely the consoles on the columns and the statue bases dispersed across the Roman-period city, bear witness to a time in which the city would have been crowded with visual representations of the Palmyrene elite. Held together with the large corpus of funerary portraiture, some unique examples imitating techniques from other production spheres such as bronze, a few wall paintings in graves and the representations from the public sphere, it has here, however, been brought to the forefront just how multifaceted the portrait habit in the city was and that it displayed a much larger diversity and knowledge of broader trends and uses of media than is usually accepted. Palmyrene society and its sculptural habit drew on a range of local and nonlocal traditions as well as knowledge of the world outside Palmyra. This knowledge, however, needs to be teased out of a complex set of fragmented material. This journey has only just begun but promises to be one which will give an entirely new view on the sculptural habit of this fascinating oasis city.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Christopher P. Dickenson for inviting me to give a paper at what turned out to be a thought-provoking and stimulating conference in 2016. Furthermore, I thank the Carlsberg Foundation for funding the Palmyra Portrait Project since 2012, which has allowed me together with my research group to collect the largest known corpus of limestone funerary sculpture from one site in the ancient world. I also thank the Danish National Research Foundation for the grant for the establishment of Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (grant: 119), which has allowed me to explore the urban complexities of Palmyra to a much larger extent than would otherwise be possible. I also thank Christopher Hallett and Bert Smith for discussing

96 Rubina Raja the limestone head—which imitates bronze statuary—with me when it was on display in the special exhibition ‘The Road to Palmyra’ at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, which I curated together with Anne Marie Nielsen. A large thank you goes to the Palmyra Portrait Project team members for their dedicated and thorough work within the project. Without their dedication and eye for detail, the project would not be the success that it is. Last but not least, I thank assisting centre administrator Mie Egelund Lind for the editing of my text and the copyeditor at Routledge as well.

Notes 1. Seland 2015, 2016; Schörle 2017; Gawlikowski 2019. 2. Meyer 2013, 2017. 3. For comparison, a city such as the Decapolis city Gerasa covered about 85 hectares, circumferenced by city walls constructed in the second century ce. Rome at its height is estimated to have covered 1,400–1,800 ha. See Graham 2013, 283. 4. Sommer 2017; Sartre 1996, 2001; Sartre-Fauriat and Sartre 2008. 5. Raja 2018. 6. Yon; 1999a, 1999b, 2019. 7. Yon 1999b, 2002, 2002-2003; Krag 2018; Krag and Raja 2019; Yon 2019. No priestesses are known from Palmyra, and religious ofces seem to have been restricted exclusively to men. See Raja 2017a, 2017b, 2019c. 8. Discussions about the nature of these tribes have been undertaken elsewhere and are complex. They should not be looked upon merely as tribes, a term which often carries colonial baggage, but rather as organised groups, such as the phylai known from the Greek cultural sphere. For an outline of the discussions, see Kaizer 2002, 43–51. Also see Smith 2013, 33–54. Also Piersimoni 1995a, 1995b (both unpublished) but summed up by Kaizer 2002, 48–49. 9. Yon 2019, 93. 10. Henning 2013a, 2013b, 2019; Gawlikowski 1970, 2003. Also see Schmidt-Colinet 1987, 1992. Discussions about the nature of these tribes have been undertaken elsewhere and are complex. 11. Raja 2015c, 2019b, 2019d. For one quite exceptional sarcophagus, see Schmidt-Colinet 2007. 12. Raja 2019b. Also see: https://projects.au.dk/palmyraportrait/ [accessed 25.7.2020]. 13. Raja 2019d. 14. Østrup 1894, 1895; Raja and Sørensen 2019; Raja 2015b, 2016a, 2016c. 15. Raja 2019a, 2019c. 16. For a standard work on the Palmyrene funerary sculpture, see Ingholt 1928. See also Blömer and Raja 2019a, 2019b, 2019c for a new volume with several contributions on funerary sculpture from the region. This volume presents the most up-to-date overview of the research status on funerary sculpture in Roman Syria. 17. Raja 2019f. 18. Schmidt-Colinet 1995, 2017. Also see Raja and Steding (Forthcoming) for a set of contributions which deal with production economy in Greater Roman Syria, including imported material in Palmyra (e.g., Hirt Forthcoming). 19. Gawlikowski 2019. Also for further references. 20. Dunant and Stucky 2000; Balty 2005; Wielgosz 2000, 2010. For the various materials, see Colledge 1976, 89–93; Balty 2005, 321–341; Wielgosz 2000, 2005, 2010. Nine of the fragments stems from female honorifc sculptures: see Krag 2018, 114, who mentions about 40 fragments. This number in the Palmyra Portrait Project database is now higher. We have up to now registered 21 sculptures either without a known context or found in a secondary context and 36 statues with a known context (sanctuary of Baalshamin: 22; sanctuary of Nabu: 1; temple of Allat: 1; near the Agora: 1; near the Senate Building: 1; Baths of Diocletian: 1; Great colonnade: 1). 21. Krag 2018, 114–115. Furthermore, for the funerary sculpture and female representations under Roman infuence, see Krag and Raja 2016, 2017, 2018.

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22. Steding 2020. 23. Kropp and Raja 2014a, 2014b. 24. Balty 2005; Delplace and Dentzer-Feydy 2005; Gawlikowski and Pietrzykowski 1980; Dunant and Stucky 2000. 25. See Long and Sørensen 2017 for a collection of contributions on how and where civic status was expressed in the sculptural spheres in Palmyra. In these contributions, it is clear that there were distinctly diferent traditions in the public and the funerary spheres in place. Also see Raja 2015c for this observation as well as the term ‘knowledge culture’, underlining the fact that Palmyrene society was highly aware of the choices made in the diferent cultural spheres of which they were a part. 26. Hillers and Cussini 1996; Yon 2002, 2019. Yon 2019, 96, for the inscriptions relating to the caravan trade. 27. Raja 2019g; I.N. 1093, 267. Also for further references. The portrait is 33.5  cm high, 20.5 cm wide and 22 cm deep in its current state. I did not note the bronze-working knowledge evidence in my 2019 catalogue, since by the time of printing of the catalogue, this was work in progress and further studies were necessary. Also see Nielsen 2019, as well as Raja 2019g for further information on the history of this collection, which is the largest collection of Palmyrene funerary sculpture outside of Syria. The collection also holds some of the public statuary as well as a signifcant group of the so-called banqueting tesserae. For these, see Raja 2015a, 2016b, 2019e. 28. Khalil, Seigne, and Weber 2013. 29. Raja et al. 2020 for the newest publication relating to the grave and Ingholt’s excavations. 30. Ingholt 1932. 31. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming). 32. Sørensen 2016. 33. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming). 34. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming); and Sørensen 2016. 35. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming); and Sørensen 2016. 36. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming); and Sørensen 2016. 37. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming); and Sørensen 2016. 38. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming); and Sørensen 2016. 39. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming); and Sørensen 2016. 40. Raja and Yon (Forthcoming); and Sørensen 2016. 41. Raja 2019f.

References Balty, Jean-Charles. 2005. “La Sculpture.” In L’Agora de Palmyre, edited by Christiane Delplace and Jacqueline Dentzer-Feydy, 321–341. Bordeaux and Beirut: Institut Français du Proche-Orient. Blömer, Michael, and Rubina Raja, eds. 2019a. Funerary Portraiture in Greater Roman Syria. Studies in Classical Archaeology 6. Turnhout: Brepols. Blömer, Michael, and Rubina Raja. 2019b. “Funerary Portraits in Roman Greater Syria: Time for a Reappreciation.” In Funerary Portraiture in Greater Roman Syria, edited by Michael Blömer and Rubina Raja, 1–4. Studies in Classical Archaeology 6. Turnhout: Brepols. Blömer, Michael, and Rubina Raja. 2019c. “Shifting the Paradigms: Towards a New Agenda in the Study of the Funerary Portraiture of Greater Roman Syria.” In Funerary Portraiture in Greater Roman Syria, edited by Michael Blömer and Rubina Raja, 5–26. Studies in Classical Archaeology 6. Turnhout: Brepols. Colledge, Malcolm A. R. 1976. The Art of Palmyra. London: Thames & Hudson. Delplace, Christiane, and Jacqueline Dentzer-Feydy. 2005. L’Agora de Palmyre. Bordeaux and Beirut: Institut français du Proche-Orient. Dunant, Christiane, and Rolf A. Stucky. 2000. Le Sanctuaire de Baalshamîn à Palmyre: The Sculptures, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana: Le Sanctuaire de Baalshamîn à Palmyre. Rome: Institut Suisse de Rome.

98 Rubina Raja Gawlikowski, Michał. 1970. Monuments funéraires de Palmyre. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Éditions scientifques de Pologne. Gawlikowski, Michał. 2003. “Palmyra: From a Tribal Federation to a City.” In Kulturkonfikte im Vorderen Orient an der Wende vom Hellenismus zur römischen Kaiserzeit, edited by Klaus S. Freyberger, Agnes Henning, and Henner von Hesberg, 7–10. Rahden/Westf: Leidorf. Gawlikowski, Michał. 2019. “The Making of a City.” In The Road to Palmyra, edited by Anne Marie Nielsen and Rubina Raja, 77–90. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Gawlikowski, Michał, and M. Pietrzykowski. 1980. “Les sculptures du temple de Baalshamîn à Palmyre.” Syria 57: 421–452. Graham, Shawn. 2013. “Counting Bricks and Stacking Wood.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome, edited by Paul ErdKamp, 278–296. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Henning, Agnes. 2013a. Die Turmgräber von Palmyra: Eine lokale Bauform im kaiserzeitlichen Syrien als Ausdruck kultureller Identität. Rahden: Verlag Marie Leidorf. Henning, Agnes. 2013b. “The Tower Tombs of Palmyra: Chronology, Architecture and Decoration.” Studia Palmyrenskie 12: 159–176. Henning, Agnes. 2019. “Houses of Eternity: The Funerary Monuments of Palmyra.” In The Road to Palmyra, edited by Anne Marie Nielsen and Rubina Raja, 156–172. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Hillers, Delbert R., and Eleonora Cussini. 1996. Palmyrene Aramaic Texts. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hirt, Alfred M. Forthcoming. “Palmyra, Syria, and ‘Imperial’ Marble.” In Production Economy in Greater Roman Syria: Trade Networks and Production Processes, edited by Rubina and Julia Steding. Studies in Palmyrene Art and History 2. Turnhout: Brepols. Ingholt, Harald. 1928. Studier Over Palmyrensk Skulptur. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzels Forlag. Ingholt, Harald. 1932. “Quelques fresques récemment découvertes à Palmyre.” Acta Archaeologica 3: 1–20. Kaizer, Ted. 2002. The Religious Life of Palmyra: A Study of the Social Patterns of Worship in the Roman Period. Oriens et Occidens: Studien zu den antiken Kulturkontakten und ihrem Nachleben 4. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Khalil, Lutf A., Jacques Seigne, and Thomas M. Weber. 2013. Metal Casting in Roman Gerasa: Preliminary Reports on the Jordanian-European Cultural Heritage Conservation Program at Jerash in 2012. Amman: Deutscher Akademischer Austauchdienst. Krag, Signe. 2018. Funerary Representations of Palmyrene Women: From the First Century BC to the Third Century AD. Studies in Classical Studies 3. Turnhout: Brepols. Krag, Signe, and Rubina Raja. 2016. “Representations of Women and Children in Palmyrene Funerary Loculus Reliefs, Loculus Stelae and Wall Paintings.” Zeitschrift für OrientArchäologie 9: 134–178. Krag, Signe, and Rubina Raja. 2017. “Representations of Women and Children in Palmyrene Banqueting Reliefs and Sarcophagus Scenes.” Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 10: 196–227. Krag, Signe, and Rubina Raja. 2018. “Unveiling Female Hairstyles: Markers of Age, Social Roles, and Status in Funerary Sculpture from Palmyra.” Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 11: 242–277. Krag, Signe, and Rubina Raja, eds. 2019. Women, Children and the Family in Palmyra. Palmyrene Studies 3. Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Kropp, Andreas, and Rubina Raja. 2014a. “The Palmyra Portrait Project.” Syria: Archéologie, art et histoire 91: 393–408. Kropp, Andreas, and Rubina Raja. 2014b. “The Palmyra Portrait Project.” In Centro y periferia en el Mundo Clásico: Actas XVIII Congreso internacional de arqueología clásica, edited by José-María Alvarez Martínez, Trinidad Nogales Bassarrate, and Isabel Rodà de Llanza, 1223–1226. Mérida: Museo Nacional de Arte Romano.

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Long, Tracey, and Annette H. Sørensen, eds. 2017. Positions and Professions in Palmyra. Palmyrene Studies 2. Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Meyer, Jørgen C. 2013. “City and Hinterland: Villages and Estates North of Palmyra: New Perspectives.” Studia Palmyreńskie 12: 265–282. Meyer, Jørgen C. 2017. Palmyrena: Palmyra and the Surrounding Territory from the Roman to the Early Islamic Period. Oxford: Archaeopress. Nielsen, Anne Marie. 2019. “Palmyra in the Glyptotek.” In The Road to Palmyra, edited by Anne Marie Nielsen and Rubina Raja, 24–40. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Østrup, Johannes E. 1894. Skiftende Horizonter. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel Forlag. Østrup, Johannes E. 1895. Historisk-Topografske Bidrag til Kendskabet til den Syriske Ørken. Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Piersimoni, Palmiri. 1995a. “Compiling a Palmyrene Prosopography: Methodological Problems.” ARAM 7: 252–260. Piersimoni, Palmiri. 1995b. The Palmyrene Prosopography, 2 vols. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCL. Raja, Rubina. 2015a. “Cultic Dining and Religious Patterns in Palmyra: The Case of the Palmyrene Banqueting Tesserae.” In Antike: Architektur: Geschichte: Festschrift für Inge Nielsen zum 65: Geburtstag, edited by Stephan Faust, Martina Seifert, and Leon Ziemer, 181–200. Aachen: Shaker Verlag. Raja, Rubina. 2015b. “From Studying Portraits to Documenting Syria’s Cultural Heritage.” In Harald Ingholt and Palmyra, edited by Rubina Raja and Annette H. Sørensen, 10–13. Aarhus: Fællestrykkeriet, Aarhus Universitet. Raja, Rubina. 2015c. “Palmyrene Funerary Portraits in Context: Portrait Habit Between Local Traditions and Imperial Trends.” In Traditions: Transmission of Culture in the Ancient World, edited by Jane Fejfer, Mette Moltesen, and Annette Rathje, 329–361. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Raja, Rubina. 2016a. “Illegal Trade and Export of Cultural Goods: The Case of the Palmyrene Funerary Portraiture.” In Fighting the Looting of Syria’s Cultural Heritage: Report from the Sofa Conference 16 September: Initiatives to Stop Illicit Antiquities Trade Financing the Syrian Confict: Awareness Rising, 11–12. Sofa: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. Raja, Rubina. 2016b. “In and Out of Contexts: Explaining Religious Complexity Through the Banqueting Tesserae from Palmyra.” Religion in the Roman Empire 2, no. 3: 340–371. Raja, Rubina. 2016c. “The History and Current Situation of World Heritage Sites in Syria: The Case of Palmyra.” In Cultural Heritage at Risk: The Role of Museums in War and Confict, edited by Kurt Almqvist and Louise Belfrage, 27–47. Stockholm: Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation. Raja, Rubina. 2017a. “Priesthood in Palmyra: Public Ofce or Social Status?” In Palmyra: Pearl of the Desert, edited by Rubina Raja, 77–85. Aarhus: Sun-Tryk. Raja, Rubina. 2017b. “To Be or Not To Be Depicted as a Priest in Palmyra: A Matter of Representational Spheres and Societal Values.” In Positions and Professions in Palmyra, edited by Tracey Long and Annette H. Sørensen, 115–130. Palmyrene Studies 2. Copenhagen: The Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters. Raja, Rubina. 2018. “Urbanizing the Desert: Investigating the Diversity of Urban Networks Through the Images of Deceased Palmyrenes.” In Urban Network Evolutions: Towards a High-Defnition Archaeology, edited by Rubina Raja and Søren M. Sindbæk, 75–80. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Raja, Rubina. 2019a. “Family Matters: Family Constellations in Palmyrene Funerary Sculpture.” In Family Lives: Aspects of Life and Death in Ancient Families, edited by Kristine Bøggild Johannsen and Jane H. Petersen, 245–270. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum. Raja, Rubina. 2019b. “Funerary Portraiture in Palmyra: Portrait Habit at a Crossroads or a Signifer of Local Identity?” In Funerary Portraiture in Greater Roman Syria, edited by Michael Blömer and Rubina Raja, 95–110. Studies in Classical Archaeology 6. Turnhout: Brepols.

100 Rubina Raja Raja, Rubina. 2019c. “It Stays in the Family: Palmyrene Priestly Representations and Their Constellations.” In Women, Children and the Family in Palmyra, edited by Signe Krag and Rubina Raja, 95–156. Palmyrene Studies 3. Copenhagen: Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters. Raja, Rubina. 2019d. “Portrait Habit in Palmyra.” In The Road to Palmyra, edited by Anne Marie Nielsen and Rubina Raja, 137–154. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Raja, Rubina. 2019e. “Religious Banquets in Palmyra and the Palmyrene Banqueting Tesserae.” In The Road to Palmyra, edited by Anne Marie Nielsen and Rubina Raja, 221–234. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Raja, Rubina. 2019f. “Stacking Aesthetics in the Syrian Desert: Displaying Palmyrene Sculpture in the Public and Funerary Sphere.” In Visual Histories of the Classical World: Essays in Honour of R. R. R. Smith, edited by Catherine M. Draycott, Rubina Raja, Katherine Welch, and William T. Wootton, 281–298. Studies in Classical Archaeology 4. Turnhout: Brepols. Raja, Rubina. 2019g. The Palmyra Collection. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Raja, Rubina, and Annette H. Sørensen. 2019. “Historiography: Danish Research from Johannes Østrup to the Palmyra Portrait Project.” In Les Tombeau des Trois Frères à Palmyre: Mission Archéologique Franco-syrienne 2004–2009, edited by Hélène Eristov, Claude Vibert-Guigue, Walîd Al-As’ad, and Nada Sarkis, 59–64. Beirut: Institut français du Proche-Orient. Raja, Rubina, and Julia Steding. Forthcoming. Production Economy in Greater Roman Syria: Trade Networks and Production Processes. Studies in Palmyrene Art and History 2. Turnhout: Brepols. Raja, Rubina, and Jean-Baptiste Yon. Forthcoming. The Excavation Diaries of Harald Ingholt. Brepols: Turnhout. Raja, Rubina, Scott McAvoy, Olympia Bobou, Jesper V. Jensen, Ditte K. Johnson, and Nathalia B. Kristensen. 2020. “Archive Archaeology in Palmyra. A  New 3D Reconstruction of the Tomb of Ḥairan.” Journal of Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 19: e00164. Sartre, Maurice. 1996. “Palmyre, cité grecque, in Palmyra and the Silk Road.” Annales archéologiques de Syrie 42: 385–405. Sartre, Maurice. 2001. D’Alexandre à Zénobie: Histoire du Levant antique, IVe siècle avant J.-C.-IIIe siècle après J.-C. Paris: Fayard. Sartre-Fauriat, Annie, and Maurice Sartre. 2008. Palmyre: La cité des caravanes. Paris: Découvertes Gallimard. Schmidt-Colinet, Andreas. 1987. “Palmyrenische Grabarchitektur.” In Palmyra: Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur der syrischen Oasenstadt, edited by Erwin M. Ruprechtsberger, 214–227. Linz: Druck- und Verlagsanstalt Gutenberg. Schmidt-Colinet, Andreas. 1992. Das Tempelgrab Nr. 35 in Palmyra: Studien zur Palmyrenischen Grabarchitektur und ihrer Ausstattung. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Schmidt-Colinet, Andreas. 1995. “The Quarries of Palmyra.” Aram Society for SyroMesopoteamian Studies 7: 53–58. Schmidt-Colinet, Andreas. 2007. “Zwei Neufunde Palmyrenischer Sarkophage.” In Symposium des Sarkophag-Corpus, Marburg 2001, edited by Guntram Koch, 284–290 and Taf, 284–290. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Schmidt-Colinet, Andreas. 2017. “Die antiken Steinbrüche von Palmyra: Ein Vorbericht.” Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 149: 159–196. Schörle, Katja. 2017. “Palmyrene Merchant Networks and Economic Integration in Competitive Markets.” In Sinews of Empire: Networks in the Roman Near East and Beyond, edited by Eivind H. Seland and Håkon F. Teigen, 147–154. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Seland, Eivind H. 2015. “Palmyrene Long-Distance Trade: Land, River, and Maritime Routes in the First Three Centuries CE.” In Long-Distance Trade, Culture, and Society, edited by Mariko N. Walter and James P. Ito-Adler, 101–131. Cambridge: Cambridge Institutes Press.

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Seland, Eivind H. 2016. Ships of the Desert and Ships of the Sea: Palmyra in the World Trade of the First-Third Centuries CE. Munich: Harrassowitz Verlag. Smith, Andrew M. I. 2013. Roman Palmyra: Identity, Community, and State Formation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sommer, Michael. 2017. Palmyra: A History. New York: Routledge. Sørensen, Annette H. 2016. “Palmyrene Tomb Paintings in Context.” In The World of Palmyra, edited by Andreas Kropp and Rubina Raja, 103–117. Palmyrene Studies 1. Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Steding, Julia. 2020. Carvers and Customers: The Production Economy of Limestone Loculus Reliefs in Roman Palmyra, 1st to 3rd Century AD. Ph.D. Dissertation, Aarhus University. Wielgosz, Dagmara. 2000. “Le sculture in marmo proconnesio a Palmira.” Rivista di archeologia 24: 96–105. Wielgosz, Dagmara. 2005. “La presence de marbres précieux à Palmyre.” In Aux pays d’Allat: Mélanges oferts à Michał Gawlikowski, edited by Piotr Bieliński and Francizek M. Stępniowski, 303–324. Warsaw: Instytut Archeologii, Uniwersytet Warszawski. Wielgosz, Dagmara. 2010. “La sculpture en marbre à Palmyre.” Studia Palmyreńskie 11: 75–106. Yon, Jean-Baptiste. 1999a. “La présence des notables dans l’espace périurbain à Palmyre.” In Construction, reproduction et représentation des Patriciats urbains de l’Antiquité au XXe siècle, edited by Claude Petitfrère, 387–400. Tours: Université François Rabelais, Centre d’histoire de la ville moderne et contemporaine. Yon, Jean-Baptiste. 1999b. Les notables de Palmyre, Ier siècle avant J.-C. -IIIe siècle après J.-C.: études d’histoire sociale. Thèse de doctorat en Histoire, Université François Rabelais. Yon, Jean-Baptiste. 2019. “Palmyra and Its Elites.” In The Road to Palmyra, edited by Anne Marie Nielsen and Rubina Raja, 92–108. Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Yon, Jean-Baptiste. 2002. Les Notables de Palmyre. Beirut: Institut Français du Proche Orient. Yon, Jean-Baptiste. 2002–2003. “Zenobie et les femmes de Palmyra.” Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes 45–46: 215–220.

5

The Statue in Byzantium Some Questions and Cases Paroma Chatterjee

Statues were ubiquitous in Constantinople.1 Right from the city’s dedication in 330 ce by emperor Constantine I (who, in the words of one commentator, raped and plundered all other cities in order to adorn it) up to the depredations of the Crusaders during the sack of the capital in 1204 ce, statues dominated the physical landscape. Brought from various other parts of the empire and/or crafted from scratch, these were usually wrought of materials such as bronze or marble. They stood in all the major public spaces of the capital such as the diferent fora and the baths, along the Mese (the main street), and, if we are to believe at least one account, even in the great church, Hagia Sophia. The Hippodrome, or sporting arena, was a veritable sculpture gallery, with statues studding the length of the barrier (spina) around which the races occurred. Gods and goddesses, mythological heroes, fantastic birds and beasts, and historical fgures were some of the three-dimensional characters one could spot whilst strolling in the city.2 Indeed, so imposing were some of these (a statue of Herakles was reported to be so huge that one of its thumbs measured the size of one man) that they were inescapable to the passersby. Accordingly, they were also invested with a mighty and often fearsome charisma which was perceived to work either for or against the inhabitants of the capital, depending on the historical moment at hand.3 Despite the fact that several sources spanning the Byzantine era (even well beyond the Fourth Crusade) mention, describe, and wax eloquent on the statuary of Constantinople, art historical scholarship has produced relatively little literature on the subject. Whilst there are studies of a few individual pieces (a couple of instances would include the now lost statue of Constantine I that was positioned on that emperor’s eponymous column and the still extant obelisk of Theodosius I),4 the category of the Byzantine statue as a whole is remarkable for the scarcity of scholarship it has elicited. Historians such as R.M. Dawkins, Cyril Mango, and Gilbert Dagron drew attention to their importance in the textual record and aspects of their reception, and Averil Cameron, Judith Herrin, and Albrecht Berger delved into the patriographic tradition, in which statues loom large (all discussed in detailbelow), but art historians have concentrated on the sacred icon in media such as mosaic, fresco, ivory, and wood, to the relative neglect of the statue. The standard, most comprehensive work in art history on the latter is Sarah Bassett’s meticulous examination of the corpus of objects that were brought to and set up in the city from the fourth to the sixth centuries ce, although Liz James and Benjamin Anderson’s contributions to the subject in the specifc genre of patriography are important for the feld.5 The paucity of scholarship on the statue is partly to do with the perception of a sharp divide between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, with the latter being regarded as a period almost exclusively

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devoted to the production of Christian art and the disavowal of its pagan counterparts.6 Certainly, in the case of Byzantium, the Orthodox icon is usually posited as its most signifcant and characteristic feature, which is no surprise given the greater numbers in which its exemplars exist both in situ and in museum collections. Yet a perusal of the textual evidence (as collected by the scholars mentioned above) suggests that the pre- and non-Christian statues that stood in the capital of the Eastern Romans were not simply forgotten or rendered invisible with the passing of antiquity, even to the most fervently Orthodox viewer. They remained an imposing and crucial part of the experience of Constantinopolitans and visitors alike and, to judge from the evidence of Byzantine patriographies, chronicles, and novels, were much pondered upon and written about. In light of the above points, this chapter has a twofold goal. First, it will discuss some of the most important historical studies regarding the statues of Constantinople. These are signifcant for the various issues they raise, many of which intersect squarely with art historical concerns. Second, the essay presents evidence for the long-lasting resonance of the statues in the spheres of prophecy and temporality. Indeed, it was the pre- and non-Christian statue rather than the Christian Orthodox icon that was perceived to be particularly powerful in those arenas and were treated as such in the genre of patriography and the chronicle. Although the chapter will gesture to a variety of texts, for reasons of space it will examine in detail one from each genre: the tenthcentury Patria (a large portion of which is derived from an earlier compilation known as the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai) and the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor from the ninth century. The Patria is a straight-forward refection of the material consequence of statues in the Byzantine topographical imagination. The chronicle of Theophanes, on the other hand, does not mention statues as often. However, the modes in which it presents the Orthodox image is in telling contrast to the statues and highlights the extent to which the Christian icon was perceived to have failed precisely when its powers were needed the most. In thus analyzing the statue in tandem with the sacred icon in Byzantium, this chapter argues for the necessity of studying these images in relation to each other rather than as distinct and separate categories, all the better to appreciate the reasons why the former was at times valued equally, if not even more, than the latter.

The Problem of the Byzantine Statue: The Historical Perspective When the Crusaders attacked Constantinople, they made sure that the bulk of its statuary that stood in the fora, the Hippodrome, the marketplaces, and along the Mese or the main ceremonial artery of the city was melted down, carted away, and/ or smashed. These statues have left few physical traces, but they certainly abound in the textual tradition (as mentioned above). How then do we, as art historians, attempt to recuperate this category of image when it is essentially absent in the modes we are accustomed to dealing with? Our discipline certainly makes use of textual sources and integrates them into analyses of the visual corpus. The feld of Byzantine studies, in particular, has produced several excellent studies on the relationships between words and images, not to mention a series of fnely calibrated meditations on topics such as ekphrasis and image theories in the period.7 However, in most cases the texts serve to augment, complicate, and/or supplement our understanding of an extant image or category of images. The texts are anchored to a set of images or objects whose continued

104 Paroma Chatterjee material existence into the present enables their productive use; without the images, the texts would remain unmoored from the imperatives of a specifcally art historical inquiry. That is why we would be hard put to fnd an art historical publication (treating almost any period) with absolutely no accompanying imagery whatsoever. Given the above, it is no surprise that until recently most scholarship on the Byzantine statue emanated from archaeologists invested in recovering the history of ancient masterpieces and historians seeking to understand the Byzantine attitude toward Antiquity. The historians require some elaboration, as a number of their concerns directly refect those that art historians currently grapple with. The earliest systematic treatment of the statues in the twentieth century is the foundational article by R.M. Dawkins dating to 1924 titled ‘Ancient Statues in Medieval Constantinople’ and published in the journal Folklore. It attempts to recover audience response to the pagan statues of the capital through the lens of the textual record.8 No pictures are included. The project was prompted partly by Dawkins’ personal interest in modern Greek folklore and explains his wish to highlight the quotidian experiences of the ‘vulgar’, as opposed to the erudite elite; the unlettered and unlearned citizen who passed by, looked upon, and interacted with those ancient monuments on a regular basis.9 Some 40  years later, Cyril Mango’s article ‘Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder’ sought to capture the efects of pagan statues on their spectator. How did he look upon these statues? Did he admire them and derive from them some inspiration for his own artistic creations? Was he, on the contrary, shocked by them, or perhaps simply indiferent? The purpose of asking these questions is to set up a test case of the Byzantine attitudes towards antiquity.10 Like Dawkins, Mango asserts that even those unschooled in the classics (‘the butcher, the candle-maker, and the lower-class saint’) ‘could and did look at these statues’.11 Although Mango goes further than Dawkins in attempting to detect traces of classical statuary in examples of Byzantine art, their goals are both remarkably similar and strikingly modern in tenor. Above all, their questions delve into one of the issues at the heart of art historical inquiry: the reception of images. A third scholar in this context is French historian Gilbert Dagron, whose magisterial book, Constantinople Imaginaire, does not deal with statues per se but with the major literary sources that record their existence: the patriographies.12 Dagron’s greatest contribution was his insistence that these particular records—incoherent, badly written, and sometimes downright wrong—were nonetheless invaluable for the links they revealed between memory and site, lived history, and history accumulated through book reading (or otherwise, since the author/s of the patriographies seem not to have read too much or too accurately). But the importance of their interpretations foreground once more the deep interest in recovering a non-elite and usually forgotten dimension of the culture at hand. Although Dagron’s work does not evince the sort of (sometimes accidental) art history so evident in Dawkins’ and Mango’s publications, the preface nicely articulates certain themes that the discipline has lately been attentive to: the links between what was and is and what one reads, says, and sees. Each of those acts—reading, saying, and seeing—may yield incongruent results at diferent moments of time even if performed on the same subject.13 Dagron was referring to the author/s of the patriographies when he made the above observation, but they are a signal reminder of the dangers and responsibilities attending the examination of

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physical objects by scholars who must needs account for them in a completely diferent medium (in this case, words). The frst serious exploration of the patriographic evidence—a major source of our knowledge of Byzantine statues—was performed by Averil Cameron and Judith Herrin.14 Their insights are invaluable for the recent work on the subject by art historians such as Liz James and Benjamin Anderson, who have recuperated important attitudes toward viewership, image theories, and authorship in their studies, thus paving the way in the discipline for a consideration of these hitherto under-examined texts.15

Prophecy The prophetic abilities of the Constantinopolitan statues is a constant in the genres of the patriography and chronicle. It is also evident in the Byzantine novels scripted in the twelfth century, if to a less striking extent. There is no doubt that the Byzantine court in the middle years of the empire and beyond had a fascination with the putative tools one could manipulate in order to predict the future. Some of the most glaring instances of prophetic pronouncements intersect with the image debates that occurred in the same period. In one infamous case, Methodius the monk (soon to be patriarch) was imprisoned in the royal palace by the iconoclast emperor Theophilus because he predicted the deaths of three emperors—all iconoclasts—including that of Theophilus himself. The prophecies reached the ears of the emperor probably because they had been distributed by the iconophiles, thus attesting to the propagandistic value perceived to reside in such predictions.16 Although astrology was prohibited in theory during some periods, it continued to be practiced along with other modes of divination such as lecanomancy (dish divination, or using the water poured in a vessel to divine the future), cloud-chasing, and dream interpretation.17 Some of these techniques were imported to Byzantium from the Arab world, but the deciphering of prophecies as they were spelled out by statues is distinctively Byzantine, as Paul Magdalino has pointed out.18 The implications of this insight are twofold. First, if Byzantium were unique in developing this particular form of divination, then Constantinople, which features as the focus of such activities, also must have been a unique urban centre in the medieval era in being endowed with such objects. Indeed, no other medieval city seems to have possessed such a plethora of prophetic statues. Second, studies have posited these objects as symbols of the wide reach and resources of the early Byzantine emperors, who could plunder the most precious booty of other cities to adorn their chosen capital. Sarah Bassett has argued that the statues were put up with a view to constructing an urban history for Constantinople rooted in the rise and fall of more venerably ancient cities such as Rome and, in her view, also Troy.19 ‘What mattered in the long run to the Roman imagination was the legitimating force of hoary, epic antiquity, and this is the bond that was claimed for Constantinople in the great Constantinian collections’.20 Emperor Constantine I wished to project ‘an all-encompassing vision of romanitas, the city’s sculptured installations were intended to shore up that vision . . . and ensure Constantinople pride of place among the already distinguished cities of the Roman world’.21 Imperial pride, urban splendour, and the weight of a noble lineage projected through sculptural and architectural embellishment: these are the themes informing most recent studies on the foundation and early history of the New Rome on the Bosphorus.22

106 Paroma Chatterjee But the patriographies remind us that in later periods those very objects refected imperial tensions. Two extant texts constitute this genre in Byzantium: the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai and the Patria. The Parastaseis is notorious for the difcult, often erroneous Greek it deploys and the puzzling information it furnishes regarding the topography of Constantinople and the behaviour of its monuments and viewers.23 Nonetheless, it is an invaluable document recording attitudes to antiquity (the era most of the monuments described are from) and prevailing attitudes to contemporary image theory. It also gives us a fair idea of the look of urban Constantinople, even if scholars are sceptical about some of its claims. Paolo Odorico argued convincingly that the texts comprising the Parastaseis were most probably put together for the purposes of a historical chronicle.24 The Patria, dated to the tenth century, repeats large chunks of the Parastaseis, thus testifying to the latter’s perceived historical validity and value in the Byzantine era.25 Both texts posit public statues as a category of images that are decidedly resistant to imperial control and which, sometimes, even damage imperial prestige.26 As the repositories of arcane prophecies,27 the statues thwart the eforts of emperors to decipher them or profer up disquieting omens when they do deign to reveal their secrets. Or to put it another way, these texts refect a dimension of imperial activity that is markedly diferent from the normative one in which emperors busy themselves in building or tearing down monuments, depending on their fnances and proclivities. In this particular case, the emperors are at a loss as to what some of those objects mean; often, they are overtly apprehensive of them. Furthermore, the facility with which imperial fgures apparently tampered with, removed, and/or destroyed holy icons, especially during the period of Iconoclasm in the eighth and ninth centuries, is in telling contrast to the problems they encounter when trying to do the same with the statues mentioned in the patriographies.

The Patria The Patria is emphatic about the importance of prophetic imagery and the need to decipher it properly.28 The text, as mentioned, was compiled in the late tenth century and consists of three major portions: an account of the legendary foundation of Byzantion up to the time of Constantine the Great, an account of the statues and buildings of the city, and an account of the construction of Hagia Sophia in the reign of Justinian I. Legend and fact are intertwined in each of these accounts, but they are no less important for that. Indeed, the very range of objects and events included attests to the accommodation of a fuid, vibrant, and even contradictory sense of the city as it was understood by the compilers and audience of the text. In it, Constantinople emerges as a protean entity, constantly subject to change, which allows for its very continuity into time and space. The city also allows rank outsiders to inhabit and manipulate it, with particular consequences, as we shall see. This section focuses on the statues listed and described in Book Two of the Patria (as given in the latest edition of the text), but will also skip back and ahead to Books One and Three where useful. Book Two largely consists of material from the Parastaseis, with some changes.29 It begins with a series of places and objects that start with the letter alpha. These passages were excerpted from the work of a sixth-century author, John Lydos. Chapter 1 talks about the region of Adiabene, while 2–14 mention statues (agalmata). These are not said to be located in Constantinople, but since Chapter 15 is about the Augoustion,

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from which point we are taken to various sites within the capital, it would only make sense that Chapters 2–14 are also somewhat concerned with Constantinople. Clearly the editor/s of the Patria deemed those parts of John Lydos’ work to be pertinent to the patriographic account they were compiling. They are worth examining for how statues were imagined in a written discourse associated with the city. Chapters 2–14 profer a wealth of detail for the art historian. Take the contents of Chapter 2: On the statue of January—The statue of January is represented as a tetramorph because of the four seasons. Others fashion him holding a key in his right hand, as the beginning of the year, as both the opening of the year and its doorkeeper, while others show him holding three hundred pebbles in his right hand, and sixtyfve in his left, like the year. Hence Longinos attempts to interpret him as being Aionarios, the father of time.30 Whilst leaving us in the dark about its location and audience (other than the said ‘Longinos’, about whom we know not much else other than his name), the passage elucidates on the reasons why this particular statue of January was fashioned as a tetramorph and how he is represented by ‘others’, scrupulously attributing a reason for each of the forms crafted. A similar dynamic of brief description and explication informs Chapters 3–14. A statue of Athene is said to hold a spear and shield ‘because of her steadfastness and courage, and because she wards of every scheme by her wisdom’; her helmet signifes the peak of wisdom, an olive branch refers to purity, and a Gorgon on Athene’s breast alludes to the ‘quickness of her mind’.31 And so on with the agalmata of Apollo, Hera, Zeus, Aphrodite, Hermes, Priapos, and others.32 These passages are not representative of extant Byzantine texts on images, be they in the genre of the chronicle, the novel, sermons, or treatises. Their very zeal in matching the attributes held by the personages to their innate qualities renders them exceptional. The norm is either a far less detailed reference to an image or images or, in contrast, a far more forid ekphrastic exercise which is also—and often deliberately—imprecise and elliptical;33 where the latter is concerned, the audience has to grope toward the sculpture, navigating a sea of adjectives which do more to conjure impressions rather than to pin down any specifc features the objects might possess. But Chapters 2–14 in the Patria certainly demonstrate a desire for precision when it comes to the statues of the pagan gods; a need to explain, for instance, why Hera should be shown clutching a pair of scissors (a metaphor for cleanliness, it is claimed) and Apollo a lyre (a metaphor for harmony and the creation of life).34 One particular episode further foregrounds the importance perceived to reside in the appreciation of such details.35 Describing the area known as the Kynegion (which was situated by the acropolis in the northeastern part of the city), it proceeds thus: On the Kynegion—Formerly, the condemned were thrown into the Kynegion; there were also some statues there. When the lector Theodore went there with Himerios the chartoularios, he saw a statue that was small in stature and very squat. ‘While I was marvelling, Himerios said: ‘You are right to marvel, for he is the builder of the Kynegion.’ When I  said: ‘Maximinos was the builder and Aristides the architect,’ the statue immediately fell from the height there and dealt Himerios a great blow and killed him on the spot. In my terror I sought asylum in

108 Paroma Chatterjee the Great Church, and when I recounted what had happened, I was not believed until I  resorted to confrmation by oath. So the dead man’s relatives and the friends of the emperor went with me to the Kynegion and, before approaching the man’s body, marveled at the fallen statue.’ A certain John, a philosopher, said that ‘I found beneath this statue the depicted relief image of a man who will be killed.’ When the emperor Philippikos was informed about this, he ordered that the same statue be buried in the same place.36 This pithy paragraph in the Patria makes a case for images: beneath the statue was depicted the relief image of a man who would be killed, according to John the philosopher. Whether the relief was positioned beneath the statue itself or whether there was a diferent block of stone or metal with the relief engraved/incised on it is unclear in the text, just as the characters named in it, apart from the emperor Philippikos, are also enigmatic. Theodore and Himerius seem from their designations of ‘lector’ and ‘chartoularious’ to have been a reader and a fscal administrator, respectively, in the Byzantine court. By the same token, the ‘Demosthenes’ mentioned might refer to the ancient philosopher of the same name, but the text simply does not clarify whether this is, in fact, the case. The same episode, when described in the earlier Parastaseis (which, as mentioned above, was a rich source for the contents of the Patria), posited ‘the writings of Demosthenes’ as the only marker of the identity of the man destined for death. Notice how in the Patria it is not writing but the image beneath the statue which showed the man himself. That image is presented as an unambiguous object of interpretation, disclosing identity and destiny with clarity, even if it is located beneath the statue and uncovered after the fact. Is there a hint here of supplementary images lurking around or under statues and thereby bestowing a prophetic charge on them? The detail is perhaps too slight to elaborate upon, but it is worth considering. Similar hints—of statues gradually revealing or concealing more than appears to the eye—also appear in other texts in later periods. For instance, in the ffteenth century, the diplomat and scholar Manuel Chrysoloras mentions a ‘statue made of white stone or marble, which seems to rest on its elbow’ before going on to claim that ‘There are many other such things that I have not seen myself, but that I heard are hidden in certain places’. Despite their brevity and sometimes seemingly casual mention, these details allude to an enigmatic dimension of the city, one which is expressly related to its wealth of statuary. Possibly the most enigmatic and magical site in Constantinople, as posited by the Patria (and the Parastaseis), is the Hippodrome. As the main sporting arena of the city and the site where foreign dignitaries were received, prisoners of war paraded, and emperors acclaimed and/or publicly humiliated, the Hippodrome was a highly charged sociopolitical space. The most interesting episode regarding the site concerns the visit of the emperor Theodosius to the arena in an efort to interpret its statues. The resulting predictions by the ‘philosophers’ charged with the task all concern the fate of the capital and, by extension, the empire itself. It is notable that the Patria is painstaking about setting down the wide-ranging provenance of the objects placed in the Hippodrome, in contrast to the other sites of the city it describes. Chapter 73 opens with the statement that many ‘extraordinary pieces’ were brought from Rome and Nikomedeia, as were statues brought by Constantine the Great from Athens, Kyzikos, Kaisareia, Tralles, Sardis, Mokesos, Sebasteia, Satala, Chaldeia, Antioch the Great, Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, Chios, Attaleia, Smyrna and Seleukeia,

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and from Tyana, Ikonion, Nikaia in Bithynia, Sicily and all the towns of the east and west, which were set up and enchanted, and those that pass by and are experienced fnd there infallible knowledge of the last days.37 In no other section of the Patria do we encounter such a litany of towns, nor such insistent signposting as to the original locations of the objects at hand. The Hippodrome emerges as a site refective not of Constantinople per se but of the various places ‘of the east and west’ from where statues were plundered. The Patria thus marks the Hippodrome as a space expressly inhabited by foreign idols. Although this was certainly the case in actuality, it is intriguing that the dimension of foreignness is not emphasized to the same degree for other spaces similarly inhabited by statues from elsewhere, such as the Forum of Constantine. Why is the Hippodrome singled out in this respect? Chapter 79 gives us a clue: The other statues of the Hippodrome, both male and female, the various horses, the stone and bronze columns of the turning points, the bronze obelisks of the turning points, the reliefs on the obelisk, the charioteer’s statues with their relief bases, the columns of the galleries with their capitals and bases, those in the Sphendone, their balustrades and wall revetments, their steps and podia, and simply every place where an inscription can be found, especially on the bronze statues—all these are depictions of the last days and of the future. Apollonios of Tyana set them up to commemorate these events as they are imperishable. In a similar way, he also enchanted the statues throughout the city. Those who are experienced with the workings of statues will fnd everything without missing anything. The tripods of the Delphic pots and the equestrian statues also bear inscriptions, explaining why they have been set up and what they mean.38 Might there be a connection between the foreign origins of these statues and the ‘last days’ depicted on them? It is certainly plausible if we consider the prophecies that circulated in Constantinople and were expressly mapped out on the city’s topography.39 The so-called Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was the most enduring prophecy that gained currency from the eighth century on throughout the medieval world and which was translated into Greek, Latin, Armenian, Coptic, and Old Slavonic, among others.40 This prophecy positioned New Rome at the centre of the last days to come and described its capture by a Western power. The Greek interpolation notes the progress of the conquering invaders in baleful detail, starting from the Xylokerkos gate and moving across the Forum of Arkadios to the Forum of the Ox. It reads thus, Woe to you, city of Byzas, that Ishmael will conquer you. Since every horse will cross over and the frst of them will set up his tent opposite you, Byzas, and will begin the fght and crush the Xylokerkos gate and enter until the Forum of the Ox. Then the Ox will bellow loudly and the Xerolophos will roar since they are being smashed by the Ishmaelites.41 The interpolation possibly refers to the Arab siege of 717–18 ce but was also perceived to map out the trajectory of future invaders. The Xylokerkos gate, the Forum of the Ox and the Xerolophos, the seventh hill of Constantinople, were strongly associated with the apocalypse and shaped the city’s urban planning.42 Isaac II, who reigned in

110 Paroma Chatterjee the last part of the twelfth century and then again briefy in the thirteenth had the Xylokerkos gate walled up to prevent the Crusaders from storming the city.43 Thus, it is not a stretch to claim that the emphatic foreignness of the Hippodrome statues in the Patria alludes to those who shall, in due course, lead to the fnal days of Constantinople. These statues call attention to the fact that they do not really belong to New Rome at all, despite having stood on its soil over centuries. This outsider status, if you will, is most visible in the notorious episode of the enraged Constantinopolitan mob that pulled down the imposing statue of Athena in the Forum because it believed she was beckoning the enemy invaders toward the city. The episode may not have actually occurred, but since it is recorded at some length it makes for a compelling instance of how a statue could be perceived as an enemy collaborator. Indeed, the notion that an ancient statue might be in league with inimical foreigners had long historical roots, as Andrew Feldherr has shown in his discussion of the Greek statues brought to Rome as spolia which, instead of commemorating Roman victory, appeared ‘to have taken Rome captive’ instead.44 The editor/s of the Patria were convinced that the city would have to confront its last days, no matter how illustrious its past and present. It even identifes the people who would bring Constantinople to its knees. Chapter  47 describes an equestrian statue on a four-sided stone cut plinth with relief narratives of the fnal days of the city, of the Rhos who will conquer this city. . . . Similarly, both the huge, hollow column there and the Xerolophos have the story of the fnal days of the city and its conquests depicted as relief.45 These ominous events can and should be deciphered by the experienced viewer who, the Patria claims, shall not ‘[miss] anything’. The text is vehement about the necessity of close and careful viewing: of the ten chapters devoted to the Hippodrome, the longest ones observe that those experienced in looking at statues can uncover what they portend. Cursory glances do not sufce for apocalyptic imagery, which needs to be mined with a fne-toothed comb, a searching gaze buttressed with a wealth of knowledge. The fip side of this exhortation is that the inexperienced viewer (the vast majority, it would seem) would not be able to understand the images, no matter how hard s/he tried. The objects that demand such a refned viewer are literally standing testimonials to the relative futility and powerlessness of the grandees— emperors, charioteers, court ofcials, aristocrats—who preside at the site in the present moment, for they point inescapably to the future which shall annul—or at the very least, diminish—any immediate triumphs. Importantly, those far-of (but also frighteningly near) events are described as being ‘imperishable’. And they are inscribed on statues. In light of the above, it is apparent that the inexorability of the ‘last days’ conferred a corresponding invincibility on the statues upon which they were etched out. This is by no means a literal invincibility; statues were certainly moved about and destroyed by individual emperors and other people, as the Parastaseis and Patria attest (as in the actions of emperor Philippikos in burying the murderous statue discussed above, to give one instance). But of importance here is the perception that statues were endowed with a vital and sometimes inaccessible knowledge. This knowledge grants them an edge over their Christian counterparts (i.e., Orthodox icons) and enables them to endure in the literary landscape of Byzantium. It is surely signifcant that holy icons

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are nowhere mentioned in this context. Indeed, they are barely mentioned at all in the Patria or the Parastaseis, which is odd given that both texts were compiled during and in the aftermath of Iconoclasm, when sacred images formed the very substance and crux of the debates over their validity. But perhaps it is not odd when we consider the functions of images in the eighth and ninth centuries in the context of prophecy and eschatology. Paul Magdalino posits a defnite shift in the eighth century interpretation of holy icons in this sphere. The Historia Ecclesiastica of patriarch Germanos (715–30 ce)—an important player in the frst phase of Iconoclasm—observes that the Orthodox liturgy was not an already realized eschatology, as Maximos the Confessor (Germanos’ predecessor) had asserted. Instead, in his text Germanos wished to issue an authoritative statement to the efect that eschatology was still about 300  years from being realized . . . the patriarch’s purpose . . . [was to] divest the liturgy and, perhaps, other images of Christ, of the expectancy that surrounded them, and to dismiss any idea that the terrible events through which the empire was living were the Last Things. (emphasis added)46 If patriarchal eforts were engaged in divesting holy icons of any supposed prophetic and/or apocalyptic powers, then it is surely plausible that other images were required to fulfl those functions in their stead. Those ‘others’, the Parastaseis and Patria suggest, were the prevailing pagan statues which had escaped the persecutions of the iconoclasts because they were not deemed holy or, in fact, worthy of destruction, even as their Christian counterparts were subjected to the same. Indeed, they were divested of any autonomous power at all. But in an ironic twist, it was those very statues that posed a potent challenge to imperial authority at a time when some emperors were engaged in destroying and/or prohibiting Christian imagery. In the patriographic tradition, the statues emerge unscathed for the most part, and sometimes even triumphant, against imperial domination.

Temporality The History of Theophylact Simocatta, considered the last major historian of Late Antiquity, includes an intriguing episode. Book Eight, which describes the dreadful end of emperor Maurice, also mentions ‘an act most worthy of record and particularly worthy of the tablets of history’.47 It seems that a calligrapher in Alexandria was returning home after a midnight revel. [A]s he was approaching the city’s Tychaeum, as it is called (this is a famous place in Alexandria), he saw the famous statues stealing down from their pedestals; they emitted to him a very loud utterance, addressing the man by name, and in loud and vehement utterance describing the calamities which had attended the emperor Maurice on that day.48 Suitably awed by this vision, the calligrapher recounted it to the authorities. When it came to the ears of Egypt’s prefect, the latter forbade the calligrapher to speak to anyone of ‘these mysterious and secret descriptions’. Nine days after

112 Paroma Chatterjee the incident, a messenger arrived with news of Maurice’s murder, after which the prefect, having discerned the outcome of the events predicted by the statues, or to speak more appropriately demons, publicly paraded the prophecy, brought to prominence the man who wrote for adornment [the calligrapher], and pointed him out as the authority for the story.49 The anecdote is worth examining for several reasons, not least the fact that the Egyptian prefect at the time was a relative of Theophylact’s, thus attesting to the high social and administrative position of the historian’s family in Egypt.50 No less compelling is the emphasis on the augury of Maurice’s death, since such predictions could be used as proof of the deceased’s saintliness. The person who made the prophecy public was Theophylact’s relative, thereby serving as an extension of the historian in crafting a story that would establish Maurice’s holiness.51 The story is repeated in abbreviated form in the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, dated to the ninth century.52 This is not surprising, given that the genre of the chronicle was dependent on looking back, cross-referencing, and outright copying from past exemplars. The anecdote reveals some of the same powerful tropes concerning statues that informed texts such as the Parastaseis and the Patria. Imperial prophecy forms the crux of the story, although in this case the statues seem to make their pronouncements even as the gory events unfold in Constantinople, almost in simultaneity. But even more remarkable, the statues seem to enact the downfall of the emperor and his family. The calligrapher apparently saw the more famous statues ‘stealing down from their pedestals’.53 Even as Maurice had his head cut of and his body fung into the sea, so too the more renowned inhabitants of the Tychaeum of Alexandria efaced their own grandeur, stepping of their pedestals as they narrated the dire fate that befell the imperial family. The attitudes of these statues seem to refect an identity with imperial fortune, or misfortune, that is surely disconcerting. Apart from the falling statues in Egypt, Theophylact of Simocatta’s narrative does not dwell too much on those objects. Theophanes the Confessor’s narrative, on the other hand, deploys them in ways that need some comment. Theophanes was an abbot who probably fell afoul of the iconoclast authorities. He drew extensively on various extant and lost works whilst composing his chronicle.54 The chapter describing the events of annus mundi 6099 commences with the tyrant Phokas marrying his daughter Domentzia to a patrician, Priskos. Phokas then ordered horse-races to be held in celebration of the marriage. Consequently, the leaders of the two factions ‘erected images of Priskos and Domentzia with the imperial portraits on a four-columned monument’,55 which were probably statues (discussed in more detail below). This incurred the wrath of Phokas to such an extent that he had the leaders of the factions stripped naked in the Hippodrome and ordered their execution. First, though, he sent his chief courier to ask them what had prompted them to do this. They said that the artists had followed custom in doing it. . . . The artists were asked why they had done it. They said, ‘Everyone called them children of the Emperor; we did it for their sake.’ Since the masses were crying for him to have mercy on the leaders of the demes, the Emperor acquiesced.56

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It is further reported that Priskos was terrifed by and resentful of Phokas’ anger, from which point onward he was never in agreement with his father-in-law. The story is unusual in including artists as agents of their own time rather than invoking their Biblical and Classical counterparts. These artists are also quite powerful in their own right. Their product invites a vehement imperial response. Although they are not publicly chastised, as are the unfortunate faction leaders, they are important enough to be interrogated. In justifcation they point back to tradition, a classic Byzantine manoeuvre. They also raise the question of naming: everyone called them (the imperial couple) the children of the emperor, and therefore their images were deemed worthy of being positioned along with that of their illustrious father. This is simply an imperial family portrait, the artists seem to assert. That the emperor read it as a statement of imperial power-sharing, or worse, rivalry, adds a signifcant undertone to the image and the possible framework of responses such a portrait could elicit. It also underlines the diference between a distinctly imperial visuality and others; the former cannot tolerate any ambiguities in its own presentation, whereas the others—the faction leaders, the artists, and even ‘the masses’—are not particularly troubled by it. One should not dismiss Phokas’ fury as the typical reaction of the paranoid ruler (although one would be somewhat justifed in doing so); rather, his extravagant wrath refects the stringent rules by which imperial representations had to abide if they were to be at all efective. What sparked of the brouhaha was putting up Phokas’ image along with that of his daughter and son-in-law; the ensemble, in the emperor’s eyes, compromised the imperial representation. Finally, and most tellingly, the images in question are most probably statues, stationed as they are on a ‘four-columned monument’, like other imperial statues located on such high pedestals. In this particular context, the images have the power to trigger executions and to change the course of history itself by pitting an emperor and his son-in-law against each other.

The Powers and Limits of Icons The chronicle of Theophanes does not completely eschew the mention of Christian images. Various objects pertaining to the Orthodox church do crop up in the course of events described: a diadem from the church of the Mother of God at Artake,57 an acheiropoietos (not made by hands) image of Christ,58 the relic of the True Cross,59 and the remains of holy people such as Eustathios and John the Baptist.60 Only once, though, are holy images mentioned. During the annus mundi 6218, the Saracens attacked Nikaia in large numbers. Even after a long siege and the partial destruction of the walls, they could not enter Nikaia’s sacred precinct of the honoured and holy fathers because of its inhabitants’ prayers, which were acceptable to God. The images of the fathers were set up there, and have been honoured until the present by their fellow believers.61 In the same chapter we read of an incident concerning the humiliation of an icon when a groom threw a stone at, then broke and trampled on, an image of the Theotokos (Mother of God), for which act his head was smashed the following day in battle. All

114 Paroma Chatterjee these events are contextualized against the iconoclastic policy of Leo III who, Theophanes claims, was an impious fellow . . . mistaken about the natural reverence due the revered icons, but also about the intercession of the wholly sacred Mother of God and of the saints. Like his teachers the Arabs, the totally bloody man loathed their remains.62 The chapter ends with a brief description of Leo’s harassment of the patriarch Germanos and all those who revered icons. While there is no doubt that Theophanes reviled Iconoclasm and the destruction of holy images it entailed, there is also surprisingly little in his narrative attesting to any substantive powers invested in holy images per se, other than the sole incident at Nikaia mentioned above. If anything, more anecdotes concern the failure of Christian images at moments of crisis. The harrowing events leading to the murder of the boy prince Tiberius are a case in point. The henchmen of Philippikos found Tiberius in the church of the Blachernai, ‘holding with one hand the leg of the altar’s holy table . . . with the other the True Cross. Round his neck were protective amulets’.63 None of these sacred accoutrements saved Tiberius. Not only was he brutally murdered; the amulets were fastened around the neck of one of the murderers during the bloody deed, and the True Cross was, rather tamely, ‘put on the holy table’. Furthermore, Philippikos is vehemently denounced by Theophanes as an impious and shameless ruler. Despite this, the holy altar and the True Cross are powerless against his actions. Although Theophanes is a ferce critic of various emperors, including the iconoclasts, the chronicle’s stance toward sacred objects as they are handled by these characters is not entirely consistent with iconophile assumptions regarding the sheer might of icons or even church buildings. For instance, Emperor Justinian II is uniformly criticized for his rashness in political and military matters. Yet when he demands that the patriarch ‘make a prayer so he could tear down the metropolitan’s church dedicated to the Mother of God . . . to erect a fountain and build seats for the Blue faction so its members could receive the Emperor there’, his plans go unopposed. The patriarch Kallinikos demurs, then gives in; the church is torn down, and the fountain built.64 At fault here, Theophanes suggests, is the clergy and its inability to withstand imperial pressure as much as the emperor’s essential wrong-headedness. And whilst Theophanes is emphatically not in favour of pulling down churches for fountains, the fate of that worthy monument does not seem to matter as much as the actions of the emperor and the patriarch. Churches, icons and even altars seem to be tools at the hands of the powerful to be used as they please. These objects should be revered, it is implied, but they are not endowed with any incipient powers against their enemies other than in the lone incident of the siege of Nikaia. At this point, it is important to review some observations regarding the status of holy images in the tenth century and beyond. Annemarie Weyl Carr had called attention to the surprising dearth of sacred icons in our evidence regarding Byzantine court culture, a point that has not received the attention it should.65 Carr rightly observes that the Byzantine emperor is hardly—indeed, never—shown with an identifable icon, although he does feature with Christ and the Theotokos. Not only is the presence of specifc holy icons a rarity in imperial imagery, so is their occurrence in court ceremonies and rituals of state. The tenth-century Book of Ceremonies contains references to very few icons, most of which are mentioned in passing, mere ‘place-markers in the

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ritual’ rather than the goal of processions or focal points of rites. This was probably because the great icon cults had not yet developed in Constantinople, a possibility that Carr doubts but which ought to be considered seriously given the paucity of evidence for such cults.66 More recently, Anthony Kaldellis has argued that post-Iconoclasm, holy icons became no more than weapons in the imperial arsenal so as not to detract from the emperor’s personal glory. This was particularly pertinent to icons of the Theotokos, the protector of Constantinople. Kaldellis shows that where once in the year 626 ce she had apparently defended the capital against the ferce Avars and brought triumph to the Romans, later ‘her icons  .  .  . provided no guarantee of victory, at least not in the view of the later historians’.67 Primary agency was retained by human actors, whilst the Theotokos’ images were relegated to the background of these narratives so crucial to the fate of Byzantium. So we read in Anna Comnena’s Alexiad that her father, emperor Alexios Comnenos, carried the maphorion (the Theotokos’ cloak, and a revered relic) into battle against the Scythians (Pechenegs). When his entire army fed, the emperor stood on the battlefeld, the maphorion in one hand and a sword in the other, but to no avail. Michael Attaleiates’ chronicle tells us that the Theotokos icon of the Blachernai church was taken on military campaigns as ‘an invincible weapon’,68 but curiously, the context Attaleiates locates it in is that of failure, namely, the Battle of Mantzikert (1071 ce), which was catastrophic for the Romans. Eustathios of Thessalonike scofs at the Constantinopolitan belief that ‘the Hodegetria, the protectress of the city (poliouchos) will be enough all by itself, to secure our welfare’.69 And Nicetas Choniates records that ‘the icon of the Mother of God, which the emperors of the Romans make their fellow general’ was captured by the Latins, eventually leading to the disaster of the Fourth Crusade (1204 ce). In each case, the emphasis on the icon’s status as a fellow general only goes to highlight its abject omissions. Theophanes’ chronicle may be convincingly read as part of the larger trend governing the genre between the ninth and twelfth centuries, whereby the very real limits of icons in theatres of confict were heavily underscored.

Epilogue Constantinople’s hefty sculpted arsenal wasn’t of much help in critical situations either—or at least the chronicles do not let on if they were. Indeed, Theophanes’ chronicle ends with the siege of Constantinople by Krum, ruler of the Bulgars, who whilst raiding the capital, also ‘loaded the bronze lion from its hippodrome, the bear, the water-spouting dragon, and selected marbles into wagons’.70 Nonetheless, the genre construes this body of objects as integral both to the notion and representation of the uninterrupted continuity of the Roman empire. Holy icons simply do not sustain such an association. This may have been partly owing to their more recent eruption into history, a fact that the chronicles gesture toward overtly or covertly and which the patriographies do by means of the sheer numbers and emphasis they place on statues. The antiquity of Constantinople’s statues was equated with the charismatic aura of old age and, thereby, the privilege of coming ‘frst’, or at least ‘before’ the images of Christ and the saints. It is pertinent here to refer to Susanne Conklin Akbari’s comments on the role of image-making as a temporal and spatial marker in the ordering of history in the medieval era more broadly. The rise and fall of idols (or statues)

116 Paroma Chatterjee delimited the beginning and end of key moments, even entire eras, in the universal histories composed in the period. Akbari highlights three diferent models for the deployment of idols to signify temporal disjunctions: frst, a ‘historiographical’ model in which the idol marks a boundary between time periods; second, the ‘incarnational’ model in which the destruction of idols marks the imminence of a new era and the advent of Christ; and third, a ‘covenantal’ model in which the idol marks the foundation of the Mosaic law and the establishment of an agreement, or bond, between God and man.71 We detect all three models in the Byzantine chronicles, although the ‘historiographical’ and ‘incarnational’ recur more frequently and forcefully than the ‘covenantal’. When accorded the role of the gatekeepers of time, the sculpted bounty of a capital city acquires a weighty, special resonance, particularly at transitional and decisive moments. In this light, Nicetas Choniates’ epilogue to his chronicle, composed right after the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, comes as no surprise. Through lavish verbal renditions of the statues, Choniates brings them vividly to life even as he laments their destruction at the hands of the Crusading armies. The violence inficted on the statues is registered as the violence wrought on the empire itself, which leads to its temporary, but still shocking, dissolution. While the statues stood, Constantinople and Romania remained somewhat intact. The former’s disappearance spells death for the latter on an overarching scale; a shattering of temporal continuity and the end of civilization as Choniates and the Romans knew it.

Notes 1. Constantinople was perhaps the only city in the Roman world signifcantly invested in setting up statues on a large scale well after the habit was mostly dead in other cities. See Gehn and Ward-Perkins 2016, 136. 2. For a list of the statues and their locations, see the appendix in Bassett 2004. 3. Chatterjee 2018, 243–266. 4. A few instances are Ousterhout 2014, 304–326; Angelova 2015, 130; Kiilerich 1998; and Safran 1993, 409–435. 5. Bassett 2004; James 1996, 12–20; Anderson 2011, 1–19. 6. A recent and useful summary of this narrative is found in Anderson 2016, 290–309. 7. A few recent examples include James 2007; Barbers 2002; Chatterjee 2013, 209–225. 8. Dawkins 1924, 209–248. 9. Mackridge 2000, 185–195. 10. Mango 1963, 53 and 55–75 at 55. 11. Mango 1963. 12. Dagron 1984. 13. Art historians have recognized this in their own discipline. See Nelson 2000, 143–168 and Muth, Neer, Rouveret, and Webb 2012, 219–236. 14. See Cameron and Herrin 1984, 89–91. 15. James 1996, 12–20; Anderson 2011, 1–19; and Chatterjee 2017, 137–149. 16. Treadgold 2004, 229–237. 17. Magdalino 2006, 134. 18. Magdalino 2006, 134. 19. Bassett 2004, 76. 20. Bassett 2004, 76. 21. Bassett 2004, 78. 22. See also Angelova 2015, 129. 23. Cameron and Herrin 1984. 24. Odorico 2014, 755–784. 25. Berger 2013.

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26. See Cameron and Herrin 1984, 107–111, in which one emperor’s downfall is predicted and laughed about; 111–15 in which statues identify emperors as fornicators; 117–121 in which an emperor pursues thieves who steal a statue and is upset when the statue is drowned. 27. Paul Magdalino remarks that the Parastaseis, to his knowledge, is the earliest text to use the word stoicheion to refer to enchanted statues in Magdalino 2006, 134. 28. General studies on the Patria include Dagron 1984; Berger 1988; Sevcenko 1992, 279–293; and Kazhdan 1987, 196–250. 29. Berger 2013, XIV. 30. Berger 2013, 49–51. 31. Berger 2013, 51. 32. Berger 2013, 49–57. 33. Literature on ekphrasis is vast. For a few representative works on Byzantine ekphrases see, James and Webb 1991, 1–17; Webb 2009; Webb 2007, 13–31; and Chatterjee 2013, 209–225. 34. Berger 2013, 51. 35. Berger 2013, XIII, comments that more than half the entries in Book 2 of the Patria are derived from the Parastaseis. 36. Berger 2013, 65–67. 37. Berger 2013, 101. 38. Berger 2013, 103. 39. Berger 2008, 135–156. 40. Bonura 2016, 260–276. 41. Kraft 2012, 27. 42. Berger 2008, 136–137; Brandes 2008, 193–195. 43. Magoulias 1984, 222. 44. Feldherr 1998, 42–44, at 43. 45. Berger 2013, 83. 46. Magdalino 1993, 22–23. 47. Whitby and Whitby 1986, 231. 48. Whitby and Whitby 1986, 231. 49. Whitby and Whitby 1986, 232. 50. Whitby and Whitby 1986, footnote 81. 51. Whitby and Whitby 1986, footnote 82. 52. Turtledove 1982, 2. 53. Whitby and Whitby 1986, 231. 54. See the introduction in Mango and Scott 1997, XLIII-C; and Kazhdan 1999. 55. Turtledove 1982, 5. 56. Turtledove 1982, 5. 57. Turtledove 1982, 9. 58. Turtledove 1982, 14. 59. Turtledove 1982, 30. 60. Turtledove 1982, 109, 130. 61. Turtledove 1982, 97. 62. Turtledove 1982, 98. 63. Turtledove 1982, 77. 64. Turtledove 1982, 65–66. 65. Carr 2004, 81–100. 66. Carr 2004, footnote 37. 67. Kaldellis 2013, 61. 68. Kaldellis 2013, 68. 69. Kaldellis 2013, 71. 70. Turtledove 1982, 182. 71. Akbari 2012, 139.

References Akbari, Susanne C. 2012. “The Other’s Images: Christian Iconoclasm and the Charge of Muslim Idolatry in Medieval Europe.” In Images of Otherness in Medieval and Early Modern

118 Paroma Chatterjee Times: Exclusion, Inclusion, and Assimilation, edited by Anja Eisenbeiss and Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch, 132–150. Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag. Anderson, Benjamin. 2011. “Classifed Knowledge: The Epistemology of Statuary in the ‘Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai’.” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35, no. 11: 1–19. Anderson, Benjamin. 2016. “The Disappearing Imperial Statue: Toward a Social Approach.” In The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture, edited by Lea Stirling and Troels Myrup Kristensen, 290–309. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Angelova, Diliana. 2015. Sacred Founders: Women, Men and Gods in the Discourse of Imperial Founding, Rome Through Early Byzantium. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Barbers, Charles. 2002. Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bassett, Sarah. 2004. The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berger, Albrecht. 1988. Untersuchungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos. Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt. Berger, Albrecht. 2008. “Das apokalyptische Konstantinopel: Topographisches in apokalyptischen Schriften der Mittelbyzantinischen Zeit.” In Endzeiten: Eschatologie in den monostheistischen Weltreligionen, edited by Wolfram Brandes and Felicitas Schmieder, 135–156. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Berger, Albrecht, trans. 2013. Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bonura, Christopher. 2016. “A Forgotten Translation of Pseudo-Methodius in Eighth-Century Constantinople: New Evidence for the Dispersal of the Greek Apocalypse of PseudoMethodius During the Dark Age Crisis.” In From Constantinople to the Frontier: The City and the Cities, edited by Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Theofli Kampianaki, and Lorenzo M. Bondioli, 260–276. Leiden: Brill. Brandes, Wolfram. 2008. “Kaiserprophetien und Hochverrat: Apokalyptische Schriften und Kaiservaticinien als Medium antikaiserlicher Propaganda.” In Endzeiten: Eschatologie in den monotheistischen Weltreligionen, edited by Wolfram Brandes and Felicitas Schmieder, 157–200. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Cameron, Averil, and Judith Herrin, eds. 1984. Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Carr, Annemarie W. 2004. “Court Culture and Cult Icons in Middle Byzantine Constantinople.” In Byzantine Court Culture from 829–1204, edited by Henry Maguire, 81–100. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Library. Chatterjee, Paroma. 2013. “Viewing and Description in ‘Hysmine and Hysminias’: The Fresco of the Virtues.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 67: 209–225. Chatterjee, Paroma. 2017. “Viewing the Unknown in Eighth-Century Constantinople.” Gesta 56, no. 2: 137–149. Chatterjee, Paroma. 2018. “Charisma and the Ideal Viewer in Nicetas Choniates’s De Signis.” In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, edited by Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Martha Rust, 243–266. Leiden: Brill. Dagron, Gilbert. 1984. Constantinople Imaginaire: Etudes sur le recueil des Patria. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Dawkins, Richard M. 1924. “Ancient Statues in Medieval Constantinople.” Folklore: Transactions of the Folklore Society 35, no. 3: 209–248. Feldherr, Andrew. 1998. Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Gehn, Ulrich, and Bryan Ward-Perkins. 2016. “Constantinople.” In The Last Statues of Antiquity, edited by Roland R. R. Smith and Bryan Ward-Perkins, 136–144. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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James, Liz. 1996. “‘Pray Not to Fall Into Temptation and Be on Your Guard’: Pagan Statues in Christian Constantinople.” Gesta 35, no. 1: 12–20. James, Liz, ed. 2007. Art and Text in Byzantine Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. James, Liz, and Ruth Webb. 1991. “‘To Understand Ultimate Things and Enter Secret Places’: Ekphrasis and Art in Byzantium.” Art History 14, no. 1: 1–17. Kaldellis, Anthony. 2013. “The Military Use of the Icon of the Theotokos and Its Moral Logic in the Historians of the Ninth-Twelfth Centuries.” Estudios bizantinos 1: 56–75. Kazhdan, Alexander P. 1987. “‘Constantin imaginaire’: Byzantine Legends of the Ninth Century About Constantine the Great.” Byzantion 57: 196–250. Kazhdan, Alexander P. 1999. “The Monastic World Chronicle: Theophanes the Confessor.” In A History of Byzantine Literature 650–850, edited by Alexander Kazhdan in collaboration with Lee F. Sherry and Christine Angelidi, 205–235. Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation Institute for Byzantine Research. Kiilerich, Bente. 1998. The Obelisk Base in Constantinople: Court Art and Imperial Ideology. Rome: G. Bretschneider. Kraft, Andras. 2012. “Constantinople in Byzantine Apocalyptic Thought.” Annual of Medieval Studies at Central European University 18: 25–36. Mackridge, Peter. 2000. “R.M. Dawkins and Byzantium.” In Through the Looking Glass: Byzantium Through British Eyes, edited by Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jefreys, 185–195. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Magdalino, Paul. 1993. “The History of the Future and Its Uses: Prophecy, Policy and Propaganda.” In The Making of Byzantine History: Studies Dedicated to Donald M. Nicol on His Seventieth Birthday, edited by Roderick Beaton and Charlotte Roueche, 3–34. Aldershot: Variorum. Magdalino, Paul. 2006. “Occult Science and Imperial Power in Byzantine History and Historiography (9th-12th Centuries).” In The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, edited by Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavroudi, 119–162. Geneva: La Pomme d’Or. Magoulias, Harry J., trans. 1984. O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Mango, Cyril. 1963. “Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17: 53, 55–75 at 55. Mango, Cyril, and Roger Scott, trans. 1997. The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Muth, Susanne, Richard Neer, Agnes Rouveret, and Ruth Webb. 2012. “Texte et l’image dans l’Antiquité: lire, voir et percevoir.” Perspective 2: 219–236. Nelson, Robert S. 2000. “To Say and To See: Ekphrasis and Vision in Byzantium.” In Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw, edited by Robert S. Nelson, 143–168. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Odorico, Paolo. 2014. “Du recueil a l’invention du texte: le cas des ‘Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai’.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 107: 755–784. Ousterhout, Robert. 2014. “The Life and Afterlife of Constantine’s Column.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 27: 304–326. Safran, Linda. 1993. “Points of View: The Theodosian Obelisk Base in Context.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 34, no. 4: 409–435. Sevcenko, Ihor. 1992. “The Search for the Past in Byzantium Around the Year 800.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 46: 279–293. Treadgold, Warren. 2004. “The Prophecies of the Patriarch Methodius.” Revue des Études Byzantines 62: 229–237. Turtledove, Harry, ed. and trans. 1982. The Chronicle of Theophanes, Anni Mundi 6095–6305 (A.D. 602–813). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

120 Paroma Chatterjee Webb, Ruth. 2007. “Accomplishing the Picture: Ekphrasis, Mimesis, and Martyrdom in Asterios of Amaseia.” In Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, edited by Liz James, 13–31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Webb, Ruth. 2009. Ekphrasis: Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. Whitby, Michael, and Mary Whitby, trans. 1986. The History of Theophylact Simocatta. New York: Clarendon Press.

6

Looking Up in Judgement How to See the Early Modern Statue Through the Late Medieval Crucifx in Italy Peter Dent

Introduction In the 1320s, the sculptor Paolo di Giovanni was commissioned to furnish his hometown of Florence with statues of the Virgin and saints for two of the city’s new gates, the Porta Romana and the Porta San Gallo.1 Florence had embarked on the construction of its fnal circle of walls in the mid-1280s, and these gates straddled the major arterial roads linking the city to the wider world.2 Such gates were important public assertions of civic identity for the self-governing communes of central Italy in the late medieval period. The Porta Romana, for example, faced south towards Rome, as its modern name suggests. Originally known as the Porta San Pier Gattolino, it was traditionally the gate through which new bishops appointed by the pope would arrive before processing along the streets and across the main squares in an elaborate ceremony that included a symbolic marriage to the Florentine church.3 Paolo di Giovanni was required to carve fgures of the papal saints, Peter and Paul, to stand on this ‘Roman’ Gate, images that acknowledged the status of the universal church. But this gate also received prominent statues of the Virgin, to whom the new cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore was dedicated, and of John the Baptist, the city’s most important patron saint, in whose church of San Giovanni all young Florentines were baptised. In other words, the sculptural decoration of the gate asserted the particular and local identity of the city. Some of these fgures from the Porta Romana have survived: a seated Virgin and Child and Saints Peter and Paul. In his pioneering discussion of the fgural decoration of city gates in medieval Italy, an important genre of public statuary, Julian Gardner observed that the contract for the second gate, the Porta San Gallo, instructed Paolo to produce fgures of a size required by the height (‘sicut requiritur dicte altitudini’).4 According to Gardner, this phrasing suggests a ‘visual sensitivity of some moment’ that is refected in the ‘stilting’ of the surviving works.5 In other words, the slender and confned proportions of the standing fgures in particular have been determined by their elevation in relation to the viewer. There is perhaps some ambiguity here in how the document might be interpreted. The height of the statues themselves is specifed— not the height of their location—and their overall proportions should be calibrated according to that height (dicte altitudini—the said height), not necessarily according to their height of the ground.6 That said, the very fact that the document makes a point of recording the instruction in this way implies that the relationship between height and proportions was signifcant for such a location.

122 Peter Dent The idea of accommodating a viewer’s position through optical corrections is ancient.7 Amongst others, Plato mentions it in the Sophist. As is often the case in philosophical discussions of sculpture as a medium, the context concerns the relationship between truth and appearance. Sculpture produces the truest likenesses because the medium is able to capture ‘the proportions of the original in terms of length and breadth and depth, and in addition to that also gives it the colours that belong to each part’.8 In colossal works, however, the sculptor must sacrifce this kind of accuracy in order to make sure that the image appears correct for the viewer looking up at it; otherwise optical distortions arise: ‘If they reproduced the true proportions of the various parts of the body, then as you know the upper parts would appear to us smaller than they should and the lower parts bigger’.9 Plato is here concerned with a wider discussion of the nature of knowledge and, in particular, how we can judge whether the eponymous sophist is somebody who deals in likenesses or apparitions. Visual art serves as an illustration of the diference between appearance (apparition) and reality (likeness). However, the observation refects an important issue in relation to public sculpture, not just confned to colossal works, or even to those elevated at steep angles to the viewer on structures such as columns, plinths, facades and gates (like the example from Florence). Should the sculptor’s priority be to represent the required subject matter as truthfully as possible, in and of itself, without regard to the viewer, or is it better to make an image that efectively accommodates the viewer’s location even if the content must be distorted in the process? In other words, should the sculptor focus on accuracy or appearance, on the internal truth of the message or on its efective presentation to an audience? This is precisely the concern voiced by the Visitor from Elea in the Sophist: ‘So don’t the artists in this case say goodbye to the truth, and instead create those proportions in their images that seem beautiful instead of the actual proportions?’10 These issues of public sculpture, viewer location and judgements about truth, as they play out in the transition from the middle ages to the early modern period, are the focus of this chapter. Plato’s text was unknown in late medieval Italy. It was only during the sixteenth century that observations of a similar sort began to appear, this time not primarily in philosophical discussion but in the emerging discourse on art. A motivating factor here must have been Marsilio Ficino’s translation of the Sophist in the mid-1460s, followed by his commentary Icastes of 1496.11 The idea of painting as a sophistic art subsequently entered the paragone debate.12 Both artists and intellectuals contributed to the paragone, a comparative discourse concerned with the aesthetic merits of the various arts, which became particularly popular in sixteenth-century Italy. The Florentine writer Benedetto Varchi, who collated and codifed many of the arguments in the years around 1550, observed in his Due lezzioni that ‘painting is, as we would say, sophistic, that is only appearance and not the truth . . . which is not the case in sculpture’.13 The issues of knowledge and judgement remain fundamental in this new context, although they are now reconfgured around the ability to judge art, a feld in which good judgement—taste—itself can be visibly performed.14 Frequently, the ability to judge the diference between appearance and reality is also deployed in order to articulate tensions in the changing relationship between artist and patron. Anecdotes of this sort, for example, form part of the stock of stories that Giorgio Vasari told about sculptural works in his groundbreaking Lives of the Artists, frst published in 1550 and in a much-expanded edition in 1568.

Looking Up in Judgement 123 In the life of Donatello, for example, Vasari recounts an anecdote about the statue of St Mark that the Guild of Linen Drapers commissioned in 1411 for Orsanmichele in Florence: This fgure was wrought by Donato with so great judgement that its excellence was not recognized, while it stood on the ground, by those who had no judgement, and the Consuls of that Guild were inclined to refuse to have it put into place; whereupon Donato besought them to let him set it on high, saying that he wished to work on it and to show them a diferent fgure as a result. His request being granted, he covered it up for a fortnight, and then uncovered it without having otherwise touched it, flling everyone with wonder.15 In other words, Donatello had anticipated the viewer’s location and accommodated this in designing the work. A similar tale is subsequently told about Michelangelo’s David. The patron, Piero Soderini, complained about the fgure’s nose, which Michelangelo then pretended to recarve. Vasari reveals Soderini’s error of judgement arose because of his ignorance: he was standing in the wrong location ‘beneath the Giant, and . . . his point of view prevented him from seeing it properly’.16 Like the statues imagined in the Sophist, not only was the David a colossus, it was also originally intended for a location high on the cathedral with a steep angle of view. Whether either Donatello or Michelangelo actually did much to accommodate the viewer’s location in either case has, in turn, become an issue of art historical judgement, with diferent scholars arriving at diferent conclusions. But these anecdotes should probably be understood as didactic fctions. The reader is instructed in a question of judgement and, as Pat Rubin puts it: ‘The artist’s judgment in matters of art prevails’.17 In pursuing this question of judgement—both in relation to art and to truth more generally—in what follows, I am interested in how a late medieval confguration of these elements—public sculpture, viewer location and judgement—persists into the early modern period. It is not easy, however, to ascertain late medieval attitudes towards sculpture as a medium. While there are texts that discuss sculptural objects, they rarely address the medial qualities of sculpture in ways that diferentiate it from other types of image.18 More to the point, although the practical question of accommodating a viewer’s perspective must have repeatedly arisen for sculptors across these centuries, it never enters the written record as a concern that might carry epistemological weight. The contract about the gates from Florence is perhaps a unique testimony, but here, at most, only the practical consequences are at issue, not their wider implications. As Gardner dryly observes after discussing the surviving statues and documents: ‘The rest is silence’.19 We can, however, fll this silence with evidence drawn from other sources in order to assemble a working picture of how questions of judgement might be related to sculptural practice in the late medieval period. With this in mind, I will give particular consideration to the most common sculptural encounter during which such questions arose—interaction with the sculpted crucifx, an image typically encountered within the public space of the church nave. In a book about statues, it might be objected that the crucifx cannot really be described as a statue at all. Indeed, in some important respects the image of a man hanging from a cross is almost the deliberate anti-type of the fgure of status raised on a plinth.20 But a stricter adherence to a narrower defnition that excludes the sculpted crucifx would miss the profound way in which

124 Peter Dent medieval Europe came to be oriented towards this sculpted image of the body. And, after all, the statue is not a universal category but one that is historically and culturally defned, and far from straightforward even in the original Roman context.21 However, at the end of the medieval period, there was a concerted return to a ‘classical’ statue. In order to explore this reorientation, I will return to Florence and its public statuary, with an early modern example, Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa. The marked contrast with the medieval crucifx is deliberate. The Perseus is as characteristic in its own way of early modern sculpture as the wooden crucifx is in the medieval context. Certainly, the Perseus sets a new standard for public statuary in a piazza that had become one of the great arenas for comparative judgements about art, a kind of openair gallery against which all similar confgurations came to be measured. Through an extended case study, I hope to demonstrate that for all their diferences, there are some fundamental continuities between these medieval and early modern contexts. The issues of judgement raised by the Perseus are informed in some profound respects by the patterns established in the late medieval encounter with the crucifx.

The Late Medieval Sculptural Encounter Medieval sculptors certainly had to anticipate viewers situated well below the planned location of their work. Church exteriors, for example, were perhaps the most characteristic site in which such issues arose. For the Italian context, Christopher Lakey has recently demonstrated at length that the programmes of relief sculpture designed for church facades were carefully calibrated to viewers entering the building below.22 These ideas reach a particular sophistication in the decades leading up to 1300, with the Florentine sculptor-architect Arnolfo di Cambio. The Italian art historian Angiola Maria Romanini has argued that Arnolfo frequently operated according to a criterion of visibility, with optical efects and elements of the fnishing geared towards viewer location.23 Arnolfo is signifcant here because of his involvement in two major civic building projects in the heart of Florence: the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and, perhaps, the Palazzo della Signoria. Over the long term, extending well beyond the span of Arnolfo’s involvement, these projects also entailed the opening of large squares around both edifces. The Palazzo della Signoria and its piazza form the public stage to which we will return in due course as the context for Cellini’s work. The wider context for Arnolfo’s practice lies in a burgeoning interest in optics developing in the thirteenth century at the new universities, amongst the medicant orders, and at the papal court. Not only was there considerable debate around the mechanics of competing models of vision but also concern about vision itself as a potentially fallible sense, one easily deceived by appearances, and the attendant moral implications of its defciencies.24 Elements of these debates were disseminated in vernacular contexts, through poetry, for example, or by means of preaching informed by texts like the Moral Treatise on the Eye composed by the Sorbonne theologian Peter of Limoges at some point between 1274/75 and 1289.25 In other words, some key elements—sculptural interest in viewer location and the epistemological value of sight—were clearly in place. The missing ingredient in this late medieval context appears to be an explicit discourse binding these into a coherent relationship in the context of sculptural aesthetics. It is not until Francesco Petrarch’s dialogues on sculpture and painting in De remediis utriusque fortunae, composed at some point in the decade or so after the mid-1350s, that the claim that sculpture

Looking Up in Judgement 125 represents reality with greater fdelity than painting is frmly articulated.26 In these dialogues, two protagonists—Reason and either Joy, Hope, Sorrow or Fear—debate the value of a multitude of diferent topics. When sculpture arises in the dialogue ‘On statues’ and Joy enthusiastically but uncritically declares that ‘Statues please me’, Reason immediately interjects that ‘Sculpture is nearer to nature than painting. Pictures appeal much to the eye, but sculptures can be touched, feel substantial and solid, and are of durable body’.27 In short, largely by reason of its three-dimensionality, sculpture is more faithful in representing reality than its sister art. In the present context, it is also interesting, of course, that the opposition is not strictly between painting and sculpture but between painting and statues. This is partly a result of Petrarch’s orientation to the classical world. He adopts his terminology from Pliny’s Natural History, and many of his examples also derive from this source.28 At this date, in vernacular contexts, ‘statue’ is rather rare. Writers tend to settle for looser terms such as image or fgure, perhaps with a qualifying adjective indicating that it is carved or sculpted. The insistence on ‘statues’ gives Petrarch’s text a distinctly classical favour, in line with a reinvention of the ‘classical’ statue at the end of the medieval period. At the same time, however, the term statue also grounds Petrarch’s moral purpose, and it is this matter of moral judgement running in parallel with the frst foreshadowing of a paragone debate that renders this text particularly valuable. Throughout the dialogues, Reason shows Joy and its companions how to navigate the snares of good and bad fortune: ‘if the mind were submissive or obedient to reason, it would lead you to a better end by a straighter way’.29 When it comes to the question of sculpture, Reason laments that once ‘statues were the hallmarks of virtue; now, they are attractions for the eyes’.30 The examples Reason cites are all public images of exemplary or deplorable fgures. The emphasis on statues rather than on sculpture more generally helps to maintain this core focus on representations of individuals, connecting it frmly to the rhetoric of praise and blame through which Petrarch articulates these moral judgements. The dialogue concludes with Reason recapitulating the fnal line of the First Epistle of John—‘keep yourselves from idols’—and instructing Joy to look towards the Creator of all things, who puts to shame any earthly work of art. In other words, at this point Petrarch’s text combines moral and aesthetic judgement, although it is important to recognise that this distinction would have made little sense to Petrarch himself. Art in the modern sense has no special place in the scheme of his work, and the judgement of works of art is not diferent in quality from the judgement of other objects. Although Petrarch’s brief foray into comparative aesthetics may point forward to the future development of a discourse on art, the overarching moral framework broadly aligns with the ethical concerns of other late medieval writers. Paying attention to this framework makes it easier to recognize similar concerns in a key text of the early fourteenth century in which the distinctive aesthetic claims of sculpture are not explicitly articulated but are implicitly present: the Commedia by Dante Alighieri. The experience of being guided, in Petrarch’s words, to ‘a better end by a straighter way’ is the fundamental dynamic of the poem. The Dante-character is led frst by Virgil through Hell and Purgatory and then by Beatrice towards a vision of the Trinity in Paradise. As with Reason in Petrarch’s text, Virgil and Beatrice help this pilgrim to navigate his way correctly through a multitude of encounters. One of these encounters involves works of sculpture. Just beyond the gate into Purgatory, Dante describes a series of three narrative reliefs carved into the mountain wall: the Annunciation, King David dancing before

126 Peter Dent the Ark of the Covenant, and Trajan and the Widow [Purgatorio, 10]. These three are supplemented by a further series of scriptural and classical subjects carved into the foor [Purgatorio, 12]. None of these are statues like the examples cited by Petrarch, but they are certainly imagined as public works of sculpture. They have been put here for the instruction of every penitent sinner who enters Purgatory. And on one level they serve a similar purpose as the statues of good and bad fgures discussed by Petrarch. The main individuals represented in the wall reliefs—Mary, David and Trajan—are exemplars of humility to be emulated, while those depicted on the foor should be shunned for their acts of pride. This sculptural encounter is extremely rich in its signifcance, taking place close to the centre of the poem at a threshold, a defnitive turning point in the narrative.31 But in the present context we can restrict the discussion to the other elements of interest here—viewer location and judgement. The text makes it clear that the Dante-character must frst move into the right position in order to see each relief clearly. This is spelled out as his attention shifts from the Annunciation to King David. Virgil prompts him— ‘Do not fx your mind on one place alone’—and Dante turns to see ‘another story carved in the rock’. Glimpsing it from an oblique angle, he steps past Virgil ‘so that it would be wholly before my eyes’.32 It is clear from how Dante discusses optics elsewhere that this location is signifcant because the eye is perpendicular to the object of attention, meaning that visual information enters the pupil in the most efective fashion, via the centric ray.33 Once in this sweet spot, Dante stands the best chance of being able to judge the true signifcance of the image. However, this sculptural encounter is not only a visual experience. Dante also imagines that he hears and smells certain elements. In front of the second relief this sensory engagement indicates that a process of cognition is underway that will conclude in some kind of judgement.34 He thinks that he smells incense and hears choirs in song. The three senses afected—sight, hearing and smell—engage in a brief dialogue: Before it [the ark of the covenant] appeared people; and all of them, divided into seven choruses, made one of my two senses say: ‘No,’ the other: ‘Yes, they are singing.’ Just so the smoke of the incense imaged there made eyes and nose discordant as to yes and no. [Purgatorio, 10.58–62]35 The ‘sic et non’ (‘l’un: “No,” l’altro: “Sì”. . . e al sì e al no’) structure in the lines above recalls the dialectic of medieval theological debate.36 What we glimpse here is Dante processing the information provided by his diferent senses in the internal faculty of the ‘common sense’ before it is presented to the intellect for judgement.37 We know that this process has been successful when Dante declares that the images are ‘precious to see’ not only as exemplars of humility but ‘also because of their maker’. In other words, he has correctly absorbed their message and understood that they also function as signposts that direct him further along the path towards salvation and his ultimate goal, his Creator. Unlike Petrarch’s text, the Commedia ofers a phenomenological description of a lived encounter with works of public sculpture. This description shows how viewer location is fundamental in forming a correct judgement about what is seen. This judgement is both moral and aesthetic at the same time, but aesthetic in the pre-Kantian

Looking Up in Judgement 127 sense of concerning the way in which the senses mediate our experience of the world.38 This is not to say that Dante has no interest in something like the category of ‘art’. In fact, this section of the poem (cantos 10–12) is full of references to this kind of activity and its products. But these elements are entirely integrated into the moral universe that he has constructed. However, approached through Petrarch’s text, it becomes easier to see how the elements of interest here—public sculpture, viewer location and judgement—were not only discussed in a late medieval context but also organised into a coherent relationship.

Looking Up at the Sculpted Crucifx Dante, however, was hardly a typical fgure. To what extent were members of the public in all their variety able to parse these elements in their own sculptural encounters? As suggested above, relevant ideas were, by this date, beginning to circulate in the vernacular, in sermons and in texts like the Commedia itself, but without some kind of practical framework it seems unlikely that these would enter the habitual viewing practices of the general population. I would argue, however, that just such a practical ‘framework’ existed in this period and that it was perfectly suited to ingraining habits that might guide interaction with other public works: the sculpted crucifx. The wooden polychromed crucifx was probably one of the most ubiquitous sculptural images encountered by late medieval viewers. It was found primarily in church interiors in various locations: raised above altars; standing on dividing screens or beams; suspended from walls and pillars. In all these locations, and also by virtue of the fact that it represented a body nailed to an upright cross, the real (and implied) position for the viewer entailed an upwards gaze. In the decades around 1300, there is an increase in the number of surprising and unexpected efects that enrich the experience of looking up towards Christ from acute angles of view. I will turn to some of these efects in a moment, but frst something needs to be said about the ‘public’ context of the church interior. As the contributions to this volume illustrate, what constitutes public and private space in any particular period is culturally determined, if such a boundary is drawn at all. For the late medieval period, the church nave is fundamentally a public space, and the images within are in this sense public works of art. The body of the church was often divided by a substantial screen separating the area around the high altar from the rest of the building. Access beyond the screen tended to be restricted according to status and gender.39 The area outside the barrier in the nave was to all intents and purposes open to all and was also, to a certain extent, the sphere of the laity. It generally contained an altar known as the lay altar where members of the congregation engaged in communion. This lay altar was often dedicated to the cross and sometimes carried a sculpted crucifx, but such images were certainly available in this area of the church, especially at specifc points in the liturgical calendar, as we will see. Activities conducted in the nave extended well beyond religious worship. Amongst other things, it was a place of business, a hall for meetings, and a storage space for goods.40 In other words, in Italy the nave functioned in part as a piazza shaded from both summer heat and winter showers. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this similarity to the piazza was more evident than might now be apparent. In many central Italian towns, the old medieval

128 Peter Dent centres were densely packed with buildings and lacked large open spaces. In scale, a cathedral nave, for example, could well rival a piazza. As populations increased, however, towns expanded, relieving pressure on the centre, which was often remodelled in the process. This sequence of events led not only to the new walls with city gates and sculptural decoration at Florence, for example, but also to the new squares carved out in the heart of the city during the 1300s. Another driver for this process was the construction of new churches by the mendicant orders, primarily the Franciscans and Dominicans, from the thirteenth century onwards.41 As preaching orders keen to engage urban congregations, these groups tended to build large churches on the periphery of the old centres fronted by equally large squares. Florence again is a good example. Both interior and exterior spaces were geared towards the activity of preaching, with pulpits often attached to the outer façade. Structurally, this meant that the piazza and church façade functioned as a unit in a similar way to the nave and the internal screen, from which sermons were also often delivered. In some respects, even this structural similarity underestimates the continuities between square and nave. The extended, ad-hoc nature of building campaigns meant that mendicant churches tended to be experienced as semi-permanent construction sites. The zones furnished with walls and roofs most rapidly were those at the east end, housing the high altar. The nave meanwhile might spend years in a state of incompletion, in use by the laity, but without vaulting and bounded perhaps only by a low wall that marked its limits. In other words, these spaces began life as open squares and only subsequently became covered naves. The paradigmatic sculptural encounter in this nave-piazza was the wooden crucifx, and the century running from 1250 through to 1350 witnesses some quite dramatic changes in these images. In line with a growing devotion to Christ’s sufering humanity, crucifxes focussed increasingly, for example, on the physical contortion of Christ’s body, or on the many wounds that he received during the Passion. In seeking to engage viewers with these elements of Christ’s human embodiment, sculptors developed new efects, some relatively subtle, others quite dramatic. Many of these efects have previously gone unremarked in the scholarship on these objects, not least because they require the modern viewer to approach them like a medieval devotee. Indeed, such crucifxes reveal a new level of attention to the location of this devotee, above all in terms of subsidiary views alongside the canonical frontal view of the image, especially in close proximity along an arc running from directly below and round to Christ’s righthand side. These subsidiary views assume a beholder looking up at a relatively steep angle towards Christ’s body. While not new in itself, it is this habit of looking upwards at the crucifx that draws together viewer location and judgement into a single experience. Of the various cases I have identifed, I would frst like to ofer two examples in relatively quick succession that illustrate this way of organising a subsidiary view, before turning to a third, more complicated example after some further contextual discussion.42 The frst case is an early fourteenth-century crucifx from San Nicola in Pisa attributed to Giovanni Pisano (Figure 6.1).43 When we move away from the canonical frontal view towards Christ’s right, we fnd ourselves looking up at his halflidded eyes and open mouth. As a subtle signal that frames this view, a set of formal correspondences also emerge at this point. The curved swags of cloth that run out across the knees mirror the arch of the rib cage. The lappets hanging down across the thigh pick up the fow of blood from Christ’s side wound. Even the intersection of the pectoral muscle and armpit fnds its echo in a kink along the upper edge of the loin

Looking Up in Judgement 129

Figure 6.1 ?Giovanni Pisano, Crucifx, polychromed wood, c. 1300, San Nicola, Pisa. Source: Photo by the author.

cloth. These formal resonances operate almost below the level of conscious recognition, but they ofer a structured address that raises the dialogue between subject and object to a heightened pitch at this particular location. The second example exploits a similar angle of view but in more dramatic fashion. It is also attributed to a sculptor from central Italy, one of Giovanni’s younger contemporaries, Marco Romano (Figure 6.2).44 It ofers a blunter and more direct version of the same address. From his right, Christ’s face clearly appeals to the viewer with an unexpected expression of agony when compared to the relatively subdued frontal view. Here it is the more direct formal correspondence between the mouth and the side wound that indicates to the beholder that a signifcant angle of approach has been constructed. In both this case and in Giovanni’s crucifx at Pisa, the subsidiary view involves eye contact between Christ and the beholder. As with Dante’s description of the experience before the reliefs in Purgatory, these privileged angles of view are only fully available to one person at a time standing in

130 Peter Dent

Figure 6.2 ?Marco Romano, Crucifx, polychromed wood, c. 1310, Museo Civico e Diocesano, Colle di Val d’Elsa. Source: Photo by the author.

the right location. With the crucifxes, we can account for such a viewer in two ways. If Christ is making eye contact with any fgure in this area to his right, it would be his mother, who generally appears in this position in representations of the Crucifxion.45 Indeed, a sculpted crucifx might well be fanked by a statue of the Virgin with just such an interaction built into the ensemble. However, it is equally likely that the Virgin’s location was not occupied by an actual sculpted image but merely implied by Christ’s gaze, meaning that the viewer could step into her shoes and share imaginatively in her emotional reactions to the spectacle of her son in the midst of his sufering. The desire to experience the Crucifxion through the Virgin was a characteristic development of medieval piety.46 A second set of circumstances also brought individual viewers into close proximity with the crucifx in a way that is of particular relevance to its public function: the Easter rite of the Adoration of the Cross. This ritual provided the communal backdrop to individual acts of viewing. During the Adoration on Good Friday, the privileged view below the cross was shared by the congregation as a sequence of individuals carrying out the same actions.47 For the Adoration, a veiled crucifx was brought out into the public space of the nave, where it was displayed to those present and then unveiled. Congregants subsequently crept forward to this cross, or others set aside in the church for the same purpose, bowing and praying, before kissing Christ’s feet. All crucifxes would have been covered with a veil throughout the entirety of Lent. In this context, the privileged view acquired during the ritual of the Adoration functions as a

Looking Up in Judgement 131 reward for the devotee after the austerities of Lenten penance. Given the late medieval desire to identify with Christ, it is no surprise that this sweet spot usually revolved around two key features, often in combination, the side wound and the face. Both lead the viewer beyond the exterior representation of Christ’s sufering towards his interior sorrow, the face as the window for the soul and the side wound as the route to his heart. They are the points at which the beholder might transcend the immediate presence of the sculptural object towards an experience that goes beyond it. What might the signifcance of this transcendent experience be for a viewer arriving at this location? A miraculous story involving a sculpted crucifx acquired by the Dominican friar Blessed Giacomo of Bevagna (d. 1301) ofers a clear answer.48 As Giacomo’s vita tells us, he set the work up in his church, where it can still be seen. Kneeling in front of it and looking up towards Christ, he began to pray for a sign confrming his salvation. A miracle then occurred. Christ spoke to him through the crucifx, saying ‘Let this be a sign and symbol’. With these words blood and water sprayed from the side wound, striking the friar on the lips. For Giacomo, this experience of looking up at Christ’s face and at the side wound is fundamentally tied to the question of judgement. He seeks a sign of salvation and is rewarded by a miracle. Implicitly, he is standing close to the crucifx at this point, given that he is struck by blood and water. Indeed, we can go further and assume that he stands to Christ’s right in view of the wound itself. In representations of Christ in judgement, the saved are always positioned on his righthand side, the damned to his left. In other words, the question of judgement arises in a powerful fashion here in relation to the viewer’s location. This judgement concerns frstly the viewer’s ability to address the image correctly, that is, to get into the right position like Dante before the reliefs in Purgatory. It also fundamentally concerns existential judgement, the question of whether the viewer is saved or damned. The nature of this existential judgement is readily available in the context of the crucifx. The image, after all, represents the act by which the possibility of salvation—the possibility of being judged positively—is extended to everybody. As the viewer looks up in expectation, Christ looks down in judgement. These aspects are all on display in a remarkable late medieval crucifx from the church of San Domenico in Chioggia (Figures 6.3–6.4).49 It is probably the work of an itinerant sculptor from north of the Alps. The image is immediately striking for its scale. The fgure of Christ is 330 cm tall, and the full crucifx towers some four and half metres of the ground, dwarfng the viewer. In the context of medieval crucifxes, it is colossal, and some of the optical implications addressed in the Sophist come into play in an interesting fashion. From a distance, Christ’s form is grotesquely contorted, but if the viewer approaches and stands beneath it by the lacerated feet, the distortions of legs and arms and head largely resolve themselves. In this case, these do function as optical corrections to compensate in part for the enormous scale of the work. While the exaggerated size of the head ensures that the face remains prominent from this angle, there is no exchange of glances on this occasion. Instead, a peculiar detail comes to the fore once the beholder is stood beside the feet and slightly to Christ’s right. Two strange swellings on the upper lip of the side wound that are inexplicable from the frontal view are now transformed into two drops of blood. This transformation is produced by the moving viewer who, standing below, not only sees the drops as drops for the frst time but lies directly in their path as they are about to fall, binding the viewer to the image in a moment of contact that possesses the most profound signifcance.

132 Peter Dent

Figure 6.3 Crucifx, polychromed wood, early fourteenth century, San Domenico, Chioggia. Source: Photo by the author.

Indeed, I would suggest that the entire experience of viewing the crucifx functions in this case as an analogue for the process of salvation. The beholder encounters something like the experience granted to Giacomo, but without the miraculous elements. From a distance the fgure of Christ is woefully contorted as a result of the accommodations required for the view beside the feet. But these distortions can be folded into the narrative of Christ’s sufering on the cross, which is caused by the sin of each and every viewer. This sin is often also described as distance from the saviour, whereas salvation corresponds to proximity. As the viewer moves forward towards a position by the feet, the distortions start to resolve themselves as the perspective shifts until from below they acquire a kind of beauty. It is at this point that the drops of blood ofer the beholder a visceral experience that communicates precisely how fnal proximity to Christ, ultimate reconciliation with the saviour, might be acquired, through his saving blood shed on the cross and shared on the altar.

Looking Up in Judgement 133

Figure 6.4 Detail of Figure 6.3. Source: Photo by the author.

An Early Modern Sculptural Encounter: Perseus and Medusa It is hard to overstate the centrality of the sculpted crucifx within the late medieval context. Indeed, it could be argued, given their ubiquity, that such objects ofered the defnitive sculptural experience of this period in Latin Christendom. Crucifxes certainly bore the full scrutiny directed at Christ’s body that is such a salient characteristic of the religious culture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But to what extent did the habits of viewing that developed around such images shape or prepare the ground for encounters with public sculpture on the other side of the profound shifts in visual culture that we associate with the long Renaissance, running from the fourteenth through to the sixteenth century? From a modern perspective, there is a tendency to focus on what changes across this epochal divide. However, while it is easy to see such changes in the form and content of images, it is harder to reconstruct how this new material was absorbed in part through deeply ingrained cultural habits that persisted well into the early modern period. Without some understanding of this process, it is easy to misread, for example, the evolving relationship between moral and aesthetic judgement and to overstate, as a result, the distinctive nature of (early) modernity. This is a large question with many facets, so I am able to ofer only a provocative juxtaposition here as a way of indicating some possibilities. This juxtaposition deliberately involves a very diferent type of statue, Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa,

134 Peter Dent

Figure 6.5 Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus and Medusa, unveiled 1554, Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria, Florence. Source: Photo by the author.

which stands in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, looking out onto the Piazza della Signoria (Figure 6.5). Cellini’s own testimony suggests that he came to the Perseus with the classical relationship between judgement and location as it had been revived in the ffteenth century fresh in his mind. Later in life he wrote a treatise on sculpture containing a section on how to fashion the perfect colossus. This recounts his experience of working on a colossal fgure for the King of France. Sure enough, before unveiling the full-scale model, Cellini took care to position the king so that he would see it from the right perspective: ‘I made him enter the court-yard, placing him at the point whence my great statue told to the best advantage’.50 The king duly arrived at the correct judgement of the work, praising it as a success. However, before bringing it to completion, Cellini was granted permission for a temporary return to Italy, where Duke Cosimo I  de’ Medici immediately commissioned the Perseus. Whether this anecdote refects actual

Looking Up in Judgement 135 events or is a partial fction fashioned to the same template followed by writers like Vasari, it confrms that Cellini was well aware of this way of confguring the relationship between sculpture, viewpoint and judgement. Nevertheless, is it possible that the ostensibly very diferent type of relationship between sculpture, viewpoint and judgement engaged when looking up at a wooden crucifx could also have been a factor for Cellini or his audience? As a work of public sculpture, the Perseus and Medusa is utterly unlike the tradition of sculpted crucifxes discussed above: it is mythological in subject matter rather than Christian; it is cast in bronze rather than carved in wood; it is monochrome rather than polychrome; the representation of the human form is robust and classical rather than sufering and gothic; and the fgure stands on a plinth rather than hangs from a cross. The siting is also a point of contrast. Cellini’s Perseus is positioned beneath the eastern bay of the large fourteenth-century loggia that runs along the south edge of the Piazza della Signoria. Framed by an arch, it is partly sheltered by the building, not quite physically in the square but certainly in dialogue with the other sculptural works along its borders. Indeed, by the mid-sixteenth century, the Piazza della Signoria had become a celebrated arena for public sculpture, playing host to works by Donatello, Michelangelo and Baccio Bandinelli.51 In such a location, for all of the diferences just mentioned, the Perseus enjoyed a level of attention comparable to the scrutiny directed at the crucifx by late medieval viewers. The setting for Cellini’s bronze, however, should caution against overstating the obvious contrasts with the crucifxes. It has already been observed that the nave and the piazza were not entirely unrelated spaces for late medieval viewers. This probably still holds true to some extent even in the sixteenth century. The Loggia dei Lanzi itself possesses a partial similarity to the architecture of the church interior, extending like a vaulted but incomplete aisle alongside the open ‘nave’ of the square. Be that as at it may, the square itself is largely a late medieval artefact. The frst section—the Platea Ubertorum immediately to the north of the Palazzo della Signoria—was cleared towards the end of the thirteenth century.52 This space was then extended in a series of campaigns during the course of the fourteenth century, with the Loggia (1374– 1382) as a late addition just before the western limit was completed in the mid-1380s. Although there were many subsequent cosmetic changes, from this point until Duke Cosimo commissioned Cellini to work on his new statue in 1545, the structure of the piazza remained essentially intact. In other words, the Perseus was an early modern ornament in a largely medieval setting. This medieval setting was not a neutral backdrop. It resonated with political and aesthetic signifcance. The origin of the Platea Ubertorum, the frst section of the piazza, lay in the destruction of the Uberti family towers in 1258 by the primo popolo. This act of political erasure was in part an assertion of a new type of communal government over disruptive and factional elements in the ruling elite. Marvin Trachtenberg has argued that the subsequent development of the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of government, and the surrounding piazza was geared towards making sure that this expression of civic power was as imposing as possible. In his view, several generations of urban planners were working towards an ideal set of viewpoints around this building in order to ensure that the architecture would have maximum impact on the viewer.53 The visual logic underpinning this approach to urban planning was based on the same optical science employed by Dante in relation to the reliefs on the Ledge of Pride. That is to say that there are certain angles of view that best impress the

136 Peter Dent eye.54 For the present discussion of the view from below, this meant ensuring that the relationship between the height of the building and the location of the viewer tended towards an ideal angle of 45°. For the Palazzo della Signoria, this view was achieved from the northwest corner of the piazza in its fnal phase. At the beginning of the ffteenth century, this diagonal view across the piazza acquired further aesthetic signifcance with the introduction of single point perspective, a development that we retrospectively associate with the art of painting.55 The concepts underpinning this way of producing an illusion of three-dimensionality for a viewer standing in a predetermined location were developed by Filippo Brunelleschi, recently engaged as an architect at the cathedral. He demonstrated his discovery by creating two panels. One of these panels depicted the Baptistery seen from the entrance to the new cathedral. The second reproduced the ideal view of the Palazzo della Signoria seen from the far corner of the square. This longer history of the site in which the aesthetic and the political are intertwined was certainly of interest in the period from 1545 to 1554, while Cellini was working on the Perseus. In 1550, Vasari published the frst version of his Lives of the Artists. In the section on Brunelleschi, he described this second panel that ‘portrayed the palace, the piazza and the loggia de’ Signori’ and recounts how both demonstration images aroused the curiosity of other artists, who studied them with great attention.56 Cellini’s sculpture was commissioned to stand at the heart of this perspective, a perspective that had in efect also become an artefact in its own right. A great deal was at stake for both the patron and the artist on this very public stage. A successful work would secure both men a permanent monument in a space on which the political and artistic history of the city was inscribed. Indeed, these two intertwined strands have inevitably informed the two main lines of interpretation that have opened up around the commission.57 One approach contextualises the Perseus within the Duke’s political propaganda and his brutal suppression of opposition; the other, in Cellini’s attempts to position himself against his sculptural forebears and competitors. Both interpretations depend upon a dialogue with the other statues in the space, such as Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes and Michelangelo’s David. On the one hand, these earlier works detail previous stages in the political relationship between the Medici family and the city; on the other, they were also displays of sculptural mastery that documented the contours of an evolving tradition of Florentine art. To a certain extent, these parallel demonstrations of political and artistic power worked hand in hand. To paraphrase Alfred Gell, Cellini’s mastery of his art corresponds to Duke Cosimo’s mastery of his state.58 Whatever Cellini can do to the bronze, Cosimo can do to his subjects. This interrelationship, however, is not normally addressed from the ‘perspective’ provided by the medieval framework of the square. Indeed, Cellini’s own views on sculpture dictate that the ideal statue has no principle perspective as such. In 1546, shortly after he began work on the Perseus, he intervened in the paragone debate with a letter to Benedetto Varchi, who was collecting contributions on the topic: ‘I say that the art of sculpture amongst all the arts involving design is seven times greater, because a sculpted statue requires eight views, and they must all be equally good’.59 Only the sculptor lacking in love for his art would content himself with one or two views. To a certain extent this concern for multiple perspectives is borne out by Cellini’s design. Although the statue is framed by the loggia, Cellini sought to avoid this becoming the dominant approach.60 A surviving wax model records an early design that involved a cylindrical base. The fnal work has a more conventional rectangular

Looking Up in Judgement 137 plinth, but the implied four-directional mode of address is of-set by Medusa’s body, which lies athwart this form like a disruptive second support, inspired by Donatello’s earlier bronze Judith and Holofernes. Perseus stands astride the body, one foot planted towards the front corner on his right side, the other hanging back to the rear corner on his left. As a result, his whole posture twists on its axis towards the point defned by the dramatic fow of blood that spurts from the severed neck of the corpse below. However, in reproductions of the statue, this perspective is rarely adopted. The dominant views are assumed to be frontal or from the north east.61 After seeing the statue from above in 1997, John Shearman noted that these assumptions were probably a mistake: Only then did I see what ought to have been apparent before . . . the design of the body in the free space of the bronze-sculptor’s envelope, turned in relation to the base about ten degrees to its left—that is, to the centre of the Piazza. That centre is defned by the plastic design itself as the principal viewpoint.62 Shearman goes on to relate this insight to the resulting lateral view of the two marble giganti, Michelangelo’s David and Bandinelli’s Hercules, arguing that it reinforces the conceit that these fgures are the petrifed victims of Cellini’s work.63 However, to say that the statue is oriented towards the centre of the square is to think of that space defned as an abstract volume rather than as a piazza experienced by a viewer. There is no view from the centre that is not frst preceded by a view from the margins. In turning towards the centre, Perseus also turns towards the visitor entering the square from the north-west corner where the via Calzaiuoli leads of towards the Duomo. This viewer initially sees the statue from the perspective defned by the fourteenth-century town planners, the perspective that Brunelleschi adopted for his demonstration panel. In turn, it could be said that Cellini’s demonstration of sculptural aesthetics as multidirectional, three-dimensional form is embedded within a vista defned by the pictorial aesthetics of linear perspective with its singular and ideal point of view. The Perseus stands towards the focal point of this vista, but the fgure does not address such a viewer directly. From a distance the statue is not easily extracted from the loggia, and at certain times of the day the dark bronze is barely legible in the shadows. This obscurity in itself is an invitation to move closer. We know from contemporary accounts that visitors sought out the city’s sculptural highlights, and the whole cluster of sculpted fgures around the base of the Palazzo and in the Loggia functions as a point of attraction to pull the viewer across the square.64 At the same time, this viewer perhaps steps forward with a certain trepidation through such an open space haunted by acts of political violence and exposed below the looming presence of the Palazzo della Signoria. As the visitor draws nearer and the detail of the statue begins to emerge, it becomes clear that from this angle of approach the faces of the two protagonists are almost juxtaposed one above the other, although neither looks directly at us. Indeed, the uncanny similarity between the features of the victor and his victim foregrounds this as a choice: to which of these two faces should we be aligned?65 In turn, the resulting ambiguity complicates the question of which way the sculpture itself ‘faces’. Approaching diagonally across the square, Medusa is more prominent. Her head is encountered frst, elevated in our feld of vision; her gaze is also aligned with the frontal view. But this does not make her sightline more desirable. After all,

138 Peter Dent the question of the gaze here is right at the forefront of our ability to process the subject matter of the group, given that Medusa’s face, even in death, retains the power to petrify within the fction of the story. As a result, her traditional apotropaic role operates here as a deterrent to adopting the frontal view. Meanwhile, Perseus’s face is withdrawn: not simply further back in our feld of vision but also lost in triumphant contemplation as he stares down towards the severed neck of the corpse lying at his feet.66 The only way to meet his ‘living’ gaze is to step right up to the plinth itself. Once in this location, the viewer can fnally look up into a face and is rewarded with eye contact (Figure 6.6). But now a new choice arises: in order to reciprocate the hero’s gaze, we must stand squarely in the path of the Gorgon’s blood. It is this blood that caught the attention of early viewers. In 1552, Bishop Bernardetto Minerbetti wrote to Vasari, having seen the sculpture before installation: I say that in the countenance of this statue can be seen a remarkable pride in such a sweet face; the gesture of the left arm, which holds the head of Medusa by its

Figure 6.6 Detail of Figure 6.5. Source: Photo by the author.

Looking Up in Judgement 139 mane, is an incredible thing, that seeing it, it seems as though as a living being he shows it to the world; and in that head death can be seen to have carried out his cruel ofces in the eyes and in the mouth. I cannot get enough of watching the blood that pours impetuously from the trunk. This, although it is metal, seems nonetheless so real, and it drives others away out of fear that they will be soaked with it.67 Indeed, Minerbetti almost sets out the parameters of the engagement sketched here: a comparison of the two faces leads to an encounter with the blood. But having avoided the Gorgon’s baleful stare, Minerbetti nevertheless fnds himself transfxed. We have been here before: the downward gaze, the fow of blood. It is as though Cellini has reconfgured the sculpted crucifx for a new cultural context. Such a thought is less counter-intuitive than it might at frst appear. Perseus himself was already understood as a type of Christ. In his Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Boccaccio selected Perseus in order to demonstrate the nature of interpretation: Perseus, the son of Jupiter, killed the Gorgon in the poetic fction, and, victorious, he fies up into the air. . . . [A]n anagogical interpretation would say that the fable reconfgures the ascension of Christ to the Father after overcoming the ruler of the world.68 Scholars have also argued that the pedestal of the statue takes the form of a Roman altar. This has a basis in the mythological context, with interesting ramifcations for both the political and artistic claims made through this subject matter by Cellini and his patron.69 But the pagan altar inevitably calls forth its Christian counterpart, reinforcing the impression that the statue inverts the viewer’s expectations of the bleeding fgure who would normally occupy this space within a church. Even without these prompts, I would argue that the correlation between blood fow and gaze is enough to invoke the dynamics of that sculptural encounter. In a brilliant study of the Perseus, Michael Cole has demonstrated the complex signifcance of the blood fow in relation to Cellini’s own craft of casting the bronze with a single pour and in playfully elaborating on the mythological subject matter.70 But if we approach the sculpture now with the kind of visual habits formed around crucifxes like that at Chioggia, we can read the encounter in a diferent fashion. To do as Minerbetti did—to look up at the countenance of Perseus—requires us to get close to the foot of the plinth. But once in this location, we are exactly where the fow of blood has its greatest impact, exactly where we might—as Minerbetti says—be driven away for fear of being soaked. Indeed, if we look up even further, the severed head also hovers over our own.71 In Perseus’s downward gaze, in the fow of blood that threatens to spatter the viewer, Cellini has apparently transformed the sculptural encounter found in the late medieval crucifx and turned it into a dreadful parody. Instead of the ofer of salvation, there is a threat: a monstrous efusion, not a fow of sacred and redemptive lifeblood. The pressure to move, to get out of the way, forces the viewer into a decision, similar to that faced in a crucifx. And this I think is precisely the point. We must exercise our judgement whether to step to the left or right. And just like a crucifx, this decision functions as an analogue for judgement in general. In other words, judgement is at stake in the fow of blood: the Perseus is like the crucifx at Chioggia or the Blessed

140 Peter Dent Giacomo’s miraculous experience of blood at Bevagna. But here the similarity ends. In the cross, the judgement is about salvation or damnation, and the spot from which the work is transcended corresponds to the source of the blood: the side wound. Through that wound the viewer embarks on a new kind of journey, a spiritual journey, with the journey round the image complete. In contrast, the blood of Medusa represents a diferent point of departure. Whether we jump left or right we are thrown immediately back into the work itself—there is no point of rest from which to transcend the object. Indeed, this is reinforced by what happens if we take the obvious choice to move towards the frontal view: we fall immediately beneath Medusa’s apotropaic gaze, and so the fction moves us on again. In other words, Cellini forces the viewer to encounter his sculpture in the round and therefore to apprehend its sculptural quality. No self-respecting sculptor, according to Cellini, would be happy with just one or two views. As a result, our movement round the statue is not about moral judgement; it is aesthetic judgement that is at stake: is the work good or bad in terms of art? One fnal detail of the statue seems to confrm this line of thought. Even as the viewer contemplates the sweet sight of Perseus’s face and feels the pressure to fee the spurting blood, a third element comes into focus. In the mid-zone, where in a crucifx we might expect to see the side wound, we fnd instead a leather strap running across Perseus’s fank. Clearly picked out on its surface, we can read Cellini’s name. The immediate reference is Michelangelo’s famous signature on the ribbon that traverses the Virgin’s breast in the St Peter’s Pieta. In other words, it evokes another sculptural image of a woman and a man, another image that combines a living fgure and a corpse: the Virgin bearing the body of her son across her lap. And in calling up that image of Christ’s Passion, it also reworks it by reversing the genders. But perhaps more importantly, the signature itself reorients the nature of the encounter. Where the function of the medieval crucifx was to lead the viewer towards Christ, Cellini’s work leads us just as surely back to his own hand. Rather than the open door of the side wound, it bears the unmistakeable stamp of the work of art, the artist’s name. It would be wrong, however, to take this as yet another mark of the traditional gulf that separates the medieval from the early modern. Cellini’s presentation of this idea shows that these things are not yet worlds apart but actually still so close as to overlap, to be amenable to superimposition.

Coda In many ways, of course, these two worlds were superimposed. The churches of early modern Italy were full of crucifxes, many of late medieval origin. Some of these crucifxes had already become cult objects by Cellini’s day.72 The sixteenth-century beholder of Cellini’s Perseus may well have arrived straight from an encounter with a crucifx. Indeed, the bronze statue was fnally unveiled towards the end of April 1554 in the period immediately after Easter. Most of the public had probably participated in the annual Good Friday unveiling and Adoration ceremony. Perhaps that experience was still fresh in their minds as the Perseus itself was unveiled in the square. But these two worlds were also superimposed in Cellini’s career. Shortly after completing the Perseus, he embarked in earnest on his fnal major project, a life-size marble crucifx.73 This was a personal labour rather than a commissioned work. It began as a dreamvision that Cellini experienced in 1539 while imprisoned in Rome. He saw Christ Crucifed, and the Virgin and Child, accompanied by two angels and St Peter. His will

Looking Up in Judgement 141 of 1555 contained plans to carve the crucifx and set it up in association with a tomb in Santa Maria Novella in Florence. In this case, Brunelleschi was explicitly mentioned in the arrangement. Cellini’s tomb and crucifx were to stand opposite Brunelleschi’s wooden crucifx so that the two images of Christ on the Cross would read as a pair. In other words, just as the Perseus was inserted into the scenography of a public square defned as a scene by Brunelleschi’s demonstration panel, so the marble crucifx was to be inserted into a church interior in association with the same artistic forebear. In his autobiography, Cellini describes his original request to the friars that he ‘be allowed to construct on the ground under the foot of my Crucifx a little tomb to receive me after I was dead’.74 This proposal immediately ran into difculties, and in the end the crucifx was acquired by Duke Cosimo and subsequently gifted to Philip II of Spain, who installed it at the Escorial. The crucifx is in many ways an innovative work. Carved from a single block of marble, it was another opportunity for Cellini to demonstrate his artistic mastery in the feld of sculpture. Christ has the same beautiful proportions and well-defned musculature as the Perseus. In style and execution, his physique is a long way from the sufering and disfgured bodies depicted in the polychromed wooden crucifxes of the early fourteenth century. But they are not entirely diferent: Cellini’s Christ inclines his head to the side; his gaze is turned sharply down; his eyes are still open; his mouth ajar. Perhaps Cellini imagined St Peter, stood at the foot of the crucifx, turned towards Christ, interceding on his behalf, as he did in the vision all those years before. But perhaps he also imagined himself, lying in the tomb below, gazing upwards endlessly into Christ’s eyes in the hope that God would judge him worthy in the end of salvation.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

Gardner 1987, 211. Najemy 2006, 97–99. Strocchia 2007, 346–368. Gardner 1987, 211. Gardner 1987, 211. ‘Item facere et intalliare fguram siue ymaginem beati Johannis baptiste et sancte Reparate, altitudinis quelibet ipsarum fgurarum bracchiorum quattuor et grossitiei sicut requiritur dicte altitudini et fguris’ [‘Item to make and to carve a fgure that is an image of the blessed John the Baptist and Saint Reparata, each of those fgures of the height of four bracchia and of the size as required by the said height and fgures’]. Milanesi 1901, 39. See Pucci 2003, 15–16. Plato, Sophist, 235e1 (trans. Rowe 2015, 127). Plato, Sophist, 235e5–236a (trans. Rowe 2015, 127). Plato, Sophist, 236a5 (trans. Rowe 2015, 127). See Allen 1989. See Hessler 2014, 132–138 in particular. ‘la pittura è, come noi diremmo, sofstica, cioè apparente e non vera . . . il che non avviene nella scultura’. Varchi in Barocchi 1960, 41 [22]. On taste and judgement, see Agamben (trans. Francis 2017). Vasari (trans. de Vere 1996, Vol. 1, 366) An anecdote recorded by the Byzantine writer John Tzetzes (c.1110–1180) in the Chiliades (book 8.38, story 193, lines 340–69) may also be pertinent. He tells how Phidias and Alcamenes both carved statues of Athena and that Alcamenes was judged to have produced the better work until the statue by Phidias was placed on its column. For an English translation, see www.theoi.com/Text/Tzetzes Chiliades1.html [accessed 31.1.2020]. Vasari (trans. de Vere 1996, Vol. 2, 654).

142 Peter Dent 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

Rubin 1995, 336. For an overview of the medieval discourse on art in the European context, see Levi 2010. Gardner 1987, 211. See in general terms Camille 1994 and Fricke 2015 for the medieval status of the statue as a category and the opposition between the image of the crucifx and the idol (often represented as a cult statue on a column). Stewart 2003, 19–45, in particular. Lakey 2018. For a recent consolidation of this argument, see Righetti 2009, 547–563. Romanini made multiple contributions to this topic. Rather than listing them here, the reader is referred to D’Achille and Pomarici 2006 (see for example the entries for Romanini on pp. 228–229, 229–231, 248, 256–258, 258–259, 284, 288–289, 290, 291, 302, 307, 307–308, 316–318, 327, but also those by: Pomarici, pp. 242–243; Simi Varanelli, pp. 244–245, 249; Caglianone and Iazeolla, pp. 250–251; Refce, pp. 255–256; D’Achille, pp. 305–306, 314, 331; Ballardini, pp. 309–310; Cecchini, pp. 310–311, 311; and Moskowitz, p. 316). On this, see in particular Denery 2005. See Newhauser 2012 and Clark 1977, 329–343. For the wider context of discourse on art in this period, see Baxandall 1971 (51–66 for Petrarch). Rawski 1991, Vol. 1,130. The best recent study of these sections of the work is Perucchi 2014 (182–191 for text and translation of De statuis and 262–277 for commentary). See Perucchi 2014, 264. For an introduction to the text, see Kircher 2009, 245–253. Kircher cites this explanation given by Reason to Joy, which is found in dialogue 1.63 on fshponds, at 247. Rawski 1991, 133. The critical literature is extensive. For a classic account, see Barolini 1992, 122–142. For a discussion by the present author, see Dent 2012, 86–100. “Non tener pur ad un loco la mente,”/ disse ’l dolce maestro. . . . Per ch’i’ mi mossi col viso, e vedea . . . un’altra storia ne la roccia imposta; / per ch’io varcai Virgilio, e fe’mi presso, / acciò che fosse a li occhi miei disposta. (Translation and text here and subsequently from Durling 2003, 160–161 Purgatorio 10.46–54).

33. See Dante’s Convivio, 2.9.4–5: ‘nevertheless that which enters along a straight line into the center of the pupil is the only one that is truly seen and which stamps itself upon the imagination’. Lansing’s translation, which can be consulted here with the original Italian: https:// digitaldante.columbia.edu/text/library/the-convivio/ [accessed 23.8.2020]. 34. See Casagrande 1990, 21–57, also available here www.gicas.net/purg.html#* [accessed 4.6.2020]. 35. Dinanzi parea gente; e tutta quanta, / partita in sette cori, a’ due mie’ sensi / faceva dir l’un: ‘No’, l’altro: ‘Sì, canta’. / Similemente al fummo de li ’ncensi / che v’era imaginato, li occhi e ’l naso / e al sì e al no discordi fensi. (Purgatorio 10 58–62) 36. Sic et non was a medieval scholastic text by Peter Abelard. 37. This is a very compressed account. For late medieval models of cognition, see Karnes 2011. 38. For a wider discussion of the pre-Kantian context, see Nehamas 2007; Konstan 2015; Porter 2010, 1–69. 39. See Cooper 2011, 90–107. 40. See Thompson 2005, 23–24. 41. See Bruzelius 2014, 124–133 in particular. 42. For further discussion with additional examples, see: Dent 2017a, 208–239; Dent 2018, 73–87; and Dent 2017b, 18–32. 43. See Seidel 2000, 79–94 (90–92 in particular). 44. See the catalogue entry by Alessandro Bagnoli in Bagnoli 2010, 176–180 (cat.no. 7).

Looking Up in Judgement 143 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

There are other possibilities, but the Virgin Mary is the most important. For a good overview, see Bino 2008. For a brief overview in the Italian context, see Thompson 2005, 324–326. For a good contextual discussion, see Lunghi 2000, 39–50 and the catalogue entry by Lunghi in Bassetti and Toscano 2012, 171–178 (cat.no. 6). For the vita, see Paoli 1997, 253–299. See Mor 2013, 47–59 (54) and Tosello 2006, and Dent 2017b. Cellini (trans. Ashbee 1967, 142). For an overview of Florentine public sculpture of this period, see McHam 1998, 149–188 (esp. 158–188 for the Piazza della Signoria). For the piazza’s origins, see Trachtenberg 1997, 87–147. On medieval building campaigns, as well as Trachtenberg 1997, see Trachtenberg 2010 (with specifc reference to the Piazza della Signoria at 186–205). See Trachtenberg 1997, 223–243. For the relationship between these panels and the urban development of the Piazza della Signoria, see: Trachtenberg 1997, and the short recapitulation in Trachtenberg 2002, 697– 698, along with his earlier article, Trachtenberg 1988, 14–44. Vasari (Bettarini and Barocchi eds. 1966–1987, 188 [295–296]), consulted at www.memofonte. it/home/fles/pdf/vasari_vite_torrentiniana.pdf [accessed 5.6.2020]. My translation. See the comments in Shearman 2003, 19–36. Gell 1992, 52. Letter to Benedetto Varchi, dated 28 January  1546, published in Barocchi 1960, Vol. 1, 48 [80]. Consulted at www.memofonte.it/home/fles/pdf/scritti_varchi1.pdf [accessed 5.6.2020]. My translation. For the evolution of the design and Cellini’s main sources of inspiration, see the account in Pope-Hennessy 1985, 163–186 (168–170 in particular). This is the view in the standard survey text, Pope-Hennessy 1996, plate 144. Shearman 2003, 29. This interpretation is frst developed in Shearman 1992, 44–58. Shearman 1992, 44. On the similarity of the faces, see Corretti 2015, 26. For Donatello’s David as one source for the downward gaze, see Pope-Hennessy 1985, 183–184. Dico che questa fgura si vede nel volto una ferezza mirabile in una faccia dolcissima; el moto del braccio manco, che sostiene per e’ crini la testa di Medusa, è cosa incredibile, che vedendola par che vivamente la mostri al mondo; et in quella testa si vede la morte negli ochi e nella bocca fare el suo crudele ofzio. E quel che non posso saziarmi di guardare con stupore è el sangue, che impetuosamente esce del tronco, che, ancorchè di metallo sia, par niente di meno tanto da dovero, che scaccia altrui per paura di essere insanguinato. (Minerbetti to Vasari, 20 August 1552 in Barocchi 1973:2:1198–1200)

68. 69. 70. 71.

Boccaccio 2011, 51. Weil-Garris 1983, 409–410; and Cole 1999, 226–227. Cole 1999, 215–235. Corretti argues that the viewer ends up standing beneath Perseus’s sword and that the ‘Greek hero seems to watch for the spectator’s reaction’. Corretti 2015, 109. I would argue that his gaze only encompasses the viewer when standing at the corner by Medusa’s neck. 72. For Florence specifcally, see Holmes 2013. 73. For this work, see Pope-Hennessy 1985, 253–260. 74. Bull 1998, 387.

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Looking Up in Judgement 145 Dent, Peter. 2017b. “The Late Medieval Action Figure and the Living Image.” In Dolls, Puppets, Sculptures and Living Images: From the Middle Ages to the End of the 18th Century, edited by Kamil Kopania, 18–32. Białystok: The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. Dent, Peter. 2018. “Agency, Beauty and the Late Medieval Sculptural Encounter.” In The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Materials, Power and Manipulation, edited by Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, Ika Matyjaszkiewicz, and Zuzanna Sarnecka, 73–87. New York and Abingdon: Routledge. de Vere, Gaston du C., ed. and trans. 1996. Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 2 vols. By Giorgio Vasari. London: David Campbell. Durling, Robert M., ed. and trans. 2003. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Vol. II: Purgatorio. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fricke, Beate. 2015. Fallen Idols, Risen Saints: Sainte Foy of Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art. Turnhout: Brepols. Gardner, Julian. 1987. “An Introduction to the Iconography of the Medieval Italian City Gate.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41: 199–213. Gell, Alfred. 1992. “The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology.” In Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, edited by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton, 40–63. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hessler, Christiane J. 2014. Zum Paragone: Malerei, Skulptur und Dichtung in der Rangstreitkultur des Quattrocento. Berlin: De Gruyter. Holmes, Megan. 2013. The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Karnes, Michelle. 2011. Imagination, Meditation & Cognition in the Middle Ages. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press. Kircher, Timothy. 2009. “On the Two Faces of Fortune: ‘De remediis utiusque fortune’.” In Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works, edited by Victoria Kirkham and Armando Maggi, 245–253. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press. Konstan, David. 2015. Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lakey, Christopher R. 2018. Sculptural Seeing: Relief, Optics, and the Rise of Perspective in Medieval Italy. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Levi, Donata. 2010. Il discorso sull’arte: Dalla tarda antichità a Ghiberti. Milan and Turin: Mondadori. Lunghi, Elvio. 2000. La Passione degli Umbri: Crocifssi di legno in Valle Umbra tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Foligno: Orfni Numeister. McHam, Sarah B. 1998. “Public Sculpture in Renaissance Florence.” In Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture, edited by Sarah B. McHam, 149–188. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Milanesi, Gaetano. 1901. Nuovi documenti per la storia dell’arte Toscana. Florence: Dotti. Mor, Luca. 2013. “Il Crocifsso trecentesco della Pieve di Sant’Andrea di Bigonzo e alcune segnalazioni tra Veneto e Friuli.” Il Santo 53, no. 1: 47–59. Najemy, John. 2006. A History of Florence 1200–1575. Oxford: Blackwell. Nehamas, Alexander. 2007. Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Newhauser, Richard, trans. 2012. The Moral Treatise on the Eye by Peter of Limoges. Toronto: Pontifcal Institute of Medieval Studies. Paoli, Emore. 1997. “La vita del beato Giacomo Bianconi scritta da Ventura da Bevagna: un testo ritrovato?” Hagiographica 4: 253–299. Perucchi, Giulia. 2014. Petrarca e le arti fgurative: De remediis utriusque Fortunae, I.37–42. Florence: Le lettere.

146 Peter Dent Pope-Hennessy, John. 1985. Cellini. London: Macmillan. Pope-Hennessy, John. 1996. Italian High Renaissance  & Baroque Sculpture, 4th edn. New York: Phaidon. Porter, James I. 2010. The Origins of Aesthetic Thought in Ancient Greece: Matter, Sensation, and Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pucci, Giuseppe. 2003. “L’antichità greca e romana.” In Estetica della Scultura, edited by Luigi Russo, 9–46. Palermo: Aesthetica. Rawski, Conrad H., ed. and trans. 1991. Petrarch’s Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul: A Modern English Translation of De remediis utiusque fortunae, 2 vols. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Righetti, Marina. 2009. “Sistemi-teorie della visione e memoria dell’antico in Arnolfo di Cambio.” In Medioevo: Immagine e memoria, edited by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, 547–563. Milan: Electa. Rowe, Christopher, ed. and trans. 2015. Plato’s Theaetetus and Sophist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rubin, Patricia L. 1995. Giorgio Vasari: Art and History. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Seidel, Max. 2000. “‘Sculpens in ligno splendida’: Sculture lignee di Giovanni Pisano.” In Sacre Passioni: Scultura lignea a Pisa dal XII al XV secolo, edited by Mariagiulia Burresi, 79–84. Milan: Federico Motta. Shearman, John. 1992. Only Connect  .  .  .  Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shearman, John. 2003. “Art or Politics in the Piazza?” In Benvenuto Cellini: Kunst und Kunsttheorie im 16. Jahrhundert, edited by Alessandro Nova and Anna Schreurs, 19–36. Cologne: Böhlau. Stewart, Peter. 2003. Statues in Roman Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strocchia, Sharon T. 2007. “When the Bishop Married the Abbess: Masculinity and Power in Florentine Episcopal Entry Rites, 1300–1600.” Gender & History 19, no. 2: 346–368. Thompson, Augustine O. P. 2005. Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes 1125– 1325. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Tosello, Vincenzo, ed. 2006. Il Cristo e la Chiesa di San Domenico. Chioggia: Nuova Scintilla. Trachtenberg, Marvin. 1988. “What Brunelleschi Saw: Monument and Site at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 47, no. 1: 14–44. Trachtenberg, Marvin. 1997. Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trachtenberg, Marvin. 2002. “A Question of Origins.” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 4: 697–698. Trachtenberg, Marvin. 2010. Building-in-Time: From Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Weil-Garris, Kathleen. 1983. “On Pedestals: Michelangelo’s ‘David’, Bandinelli’s ‘Hercules and Cacus’ and the Sculpture of the Piazza della Signoria.” Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 20: 377–415.

7

When Venus Mocked the Pope Ancient Sculptures in the Possessi of Renaissance Rome Kathleen W. Christian

In Renaissance Rome, each pope marked the beginning of his reign with a ceremonial possesso, a procession in which the new pontif and his retinue traversed the city, marching in triumph from the Vatican to St John Lateran and back again. The event asserted the pope’s status as Rome’s bishop through the ‘possession’ of his episcopal seat at the Lateran. At the same time, on his march through Rome, he took symbolic possession of the city itself, opening up controversies surrounding the papal appropriation of civic authority.1 On these occasions the residents of the Via Papalis—the name given to the route of the possesso since at least the twelfth century—festively outftted the street with decorations such as tapestries, fowers and greenery hung from windows. It was also longstanding practice to set up triumphal arches on the Via Papalis, and by the time of Alexander VI’s possesso of 1492, if not earlier, these had become the most elaborate element of the street décor.2 As will be the focus of this discussion, beginning at least from the time of the possesso of Pope Julius II (1503) and likely that of Alexander VI (1492), noble Roman families living along the Via Papalis displayed their antique sculptures on temporary arches set up along the route. When incorporated into ephemeral decoration, ancient statues added to the splendour of the event and underscored its laudatory themes. Yet they could also, as I will argue, assume more challenging and disruptive identities when removed from the private sphere and exhibited on the street. Just as Valeria Cafà has linked the construction of new palaces by Roman noble families on the Via Papalis with the desire to contest the ascendance of papal power, ancient statues could assert a sense of native pride, expressing native Roman ownership of the city and its heritage.3 Moreover, as I  will suggest, statues of pagan gods and goddesses in public space had the potential to invert hierarchies, in keeping with the possesso’s raucous atmosphere.

Antique Statues and Public Space: The Via Papalis The pope’s frst foray into the Urbs was rife with political tension and undercurrents of violence. Each possesso took place immediately after the disorder of the sede vacante (the interregnum between popes), when the popolo vented their antagonisms with looting targeted at the new pope and other high-ranking members of the curia.4 The possesso was known for its rowdiness and could on occasion descend into riots: one of its recurring rituals was the theft by the Romans of the pope’s white mule and the baldacchino covering him, which was sometimes ripped apart by the crowd. During the possessi of Sixtus IV (1471) and Innocent VIII (1484), fghts over the mule and

148 Kathleen W. Christian baldacchino were so violent as to interrupt the event, amid fears for the pope’s safety.5 During his possesso, Julius II handed over his baldacchino and mule in a carefully managed ceremony in order to avoid possible conficts. Yet even in his highly staged entry in 1513, Pope Leo X could not avoid hazing from the crowd and, as will be discussed below, in one part of the procession it was a nude antique statue of Venus who mocked him. While the possesso has sometimes been understood as a blunt assertion of papal authority, recent research has emphasised the participatory nature of the event: each possesso was an expression of interests and counter-interests, a negotiation carried out in the language of triumphal imagery, inscriptions, statues and poetic recitations. It ofered an opportunity to Roman citizens and a wide variety of social groups and nationalities to voice their expectations, to remind the pope of his obligations to Rome and also to suggest their capacity for rebellion.6 Arguably, as will be explored here, the expansion of private antiquities collections in Rome can itself be linked to the increasingly prominent role given to ancient statues in the possesso. Although there were many diferent, complex factors that contributed to the spread of collecting towards the end of the ffteenth century, one can trace signifcant overlaps between the logistics and history of antiquities collecting, the possesso and the Via Papalis. A high proportion of Rome’s antiquities collections were sited along the processional route, and collectors residing on the street took the opportunity to exhibit them in public space during papal entries, thereby claiming the power to script the event. Considered from the perspective of the possesso, collections can be understood as lasting traces of ephemeral celebrations and a type of display similar to triumphal spolia and triumphal arches. Examining these relationships in more detail loosens an overly strict understanding of Rome’s early collections as private ‘museums’ and focuses attention on the movement of antique sculptures between private and public space. Now enshrined in museums, ancient sculptures seem far removed from the history of processions and temporary décor. However, even if they seem to exist in the austere realm of Winkelmann’s ‘noble simplicity and calm grandeur’, their ability to be displayed on the street during papal entries may have been an important part of their appeal for collectors. In Rome, fragments of antiquities had long been integrated as spolia in the streetfacing decor of houses and palaces, as is still visible in the twelfth-century Casa di Crescenzio, an exceptional surviving example of what must have been a widespread practice. From the mid-Quattrocento onwards, however, these practices shifted as collections of fgural reliefs and free-standing, often life-sized marbles began to be displayed in gardens and courtyards; an important development in this move seems to have been Sixtus IV’s Restauratio Romae of the 1470s and ’80s, when the porticoes that had previously lined the Via Papalis and other Roman thoroughfares were demolished. It seems it was around the same time that collectors increasingly favoured mythological subjects and fgural nudes arranged in interior reception spaces. While objects immured on public façades were often portraits or heraldic images, closely related to family stemme or civic symbolism, in the more controlled and restricted atmosphere of the collection, poetic themes and fgural works valued as artistic masterpieces were favoured. As the display of antiquities moved inwards, their relationship with the public was governed by rules of admission and physical or psychological boundaries (such as doors and gates, or the presence of a servant who could supervise entry). It may be that some collections were partially visible from the street, at least during the day when doors were open, yet it seems it was only via a specifc process of admission that pilgrims, tourists and artists were able to enter collections to take a closer look.7 While

When Venus Mocked the Pope 149 private collections of antiquities certainly rivalled and evoked the age-old practice of viewing Rome’s famous Mirabilia in public,8 since they existed in private space they were incorporated into host–guest relationships and reception rituals. The proprietor could control who entered (only men? only Christians or only the socially elite?), when they were able to visit, as well as the collection’s over-arching setting and context. When antiquities moved onto the street during possessi, the parameters changed. During these events, noble families on the Via Papalis took the opportunity to align themselves with the pope by celebrating his election with solemn panegyrics and laudatory imagery complemented by antique works of art. They themselves took ‘possession’ of public space by displaying their statues like the spolia the ancient Romans had paraded in triumphal processions. At the same time, collecting families put a type of pagan, often nude or sexualised imagery usually reserved for a more restricted audience in public space. This move seems itself characteristic of the boundary-crossings and the loss of restriction typical of Carnival and other inversion rituals; it hints as well at the power of the Roman nobility to upend social convention in public space, precisely when and where these families were confronted with papal authority. I frst began to investigate the relationship between antiquities collections and the papal possesso after mapping the most important collections of antique sculpture in Rome formed between c. 1470 and the Sack of 1527.9 Looking at a map showing major collections of antique sculpture known before 1527 (Figure 7.1), one can

Figure 7.1 Giambattista Nolli, Pianta Grande di Roma, 1748, marked with the location of the Via Papalis and of antiquities collections formed before the 1527 Sack of Rome: (1) Sassi; (2) Mellini; (3) Galli; (4) Riario; (5) Pasquino; (6) Pichi; (7) Massimo; (8) Piccolomini; (9) Della Valle; (10) Cafarelli; (11) Medici; (12) Alberini; (13) Cesarini; (14) Altieri; (15) Astalli; (16) de’ Rossi. Source: Image of map courtesy of University of Oregon Nolli Map, © 2006, and reprinted by permission of the University of Oregon Nolli Map Project (http://nolli.uoregon.edu).

150 Kathleen W. Christian discern a distinct relationship between the location of these collections and the route of the Via Papalis. Many of Rome’s early collections of antique statuary were located along the processional route, for example, at the houses of the Sasso d’Amateschi, the Massimi, the de’ Rossi or the Della Valle. Prominent and relatively broad stretches of the street became favoured sites for antiquities collections, and one can even discern a correlation between the location of well-known collections and the sites of the mutationes, the ceremonies marking the hand-over of the pope’s baldacchino from one group to another. The mutationes were solemnly observed at signifcant openings of the Via Papalis. During the possesso of Innocent VIII, the papal Master of Ceremonies Johannes Burchard specifes 13 spots where they took place, including at the Piazza di Parione, at the houses of the Della Valle (Figures 7.2–7.3), the palazzi of the Cesarini family and San Marco.10 The display of antique statuary at these key nodes is suggestive of an inherent link between antiquities collecting and what was arguably Rome’s most important public ritual. The stretch of the Via Papalis where antiquities collections formed is roughly equivalent to the current via del Governo Vecchio and the broad, trafc-ridden Corso Vittorio Emanuele II (Figure 7.1). Before the construction of the Corso Vittorio in the nineteenth century, the Via Papalis was a narrow passage winding through densely inhabited quarters. Traditionally, it hosted very few shops and only a handful of churches, and was dominated instead by the palazzi of the Roman nobility.11 On the west end was the Orsini’s fortifed cluster of houses at Monte Giordano; then, at a wide opening of the processional street at Piazza di Parione, was the Palazzo Orsini rented by Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, where Carafa displayed his famous statue of Pasquino

Figure 7.2 Maarten van Heemskerck, Courtyard of the Palazzo Della Valle di Cantone, c. 1532–1537, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv.no. 79.D.2, fol. 20r.

When Venus Mocked the Pope 151

Figure 7.3 Hermann Vischer the Younger, House of the Palazzo ‘di Mezzo’ Della Valle, c. 1515, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv.no. 19,051.

(Figure 7.4). Further along the route were the palaces of other Roman noble families: the Pichi, Massimi, Alberini, Cafarelli and Cesarini, all of them collectors of antique sculpture. As Valeria Cafà has argued, the local nobility vied to establish a presence on the street as soon as they had achieved sufcient status and wealth. As an example, just months before his death in 1505, Jacopo Galli, the Roman merchant-banker and

152 Kathleen W. Christian

Figure 7.4 Piazza di Pasquino, Rome; formerly known as Piazza di Parione. Source: Photo by the author.

early sponsor of Michelangelo, managed to purchase a large palace on the papal street directly across from the Pasquino.12 Cafà points out that almost all of the important palazzi built new by Roman nobles in the sixteenth century, such as those of the Pichi, Massimi, Alberini and Cafarelli, were sited on the Via Papalis. The inaugural procession of the pope through such emphatically Roman territory set up a poignant encounter between the new de facto ruler of Rome and the noble residents of the Via Papalis. As Cafà has highlighted, Romans’ investment in grand palazzi along the route can be understood as an expression of pride and autonomy set before the eyes of the pope. After the return of the papacy from Avignon, as has often been described, the papacy assumed an increasingly monarchical identity vis à vis the Roman nobility. The late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento was a time when the papacy and the powerful foreigners who populated the Cardinals’ college and the Curia siphoned away the city’s laws, its powers to tax and govern, and even its control over the city’s ancient monuments. Palazzi on the Via Papalis and the display of ancient statues during the possesso allowed the native Roman nobility to express

When Venus Mocked the Pope 153 a sense of pride in their own Romanitas while staking a claim on the city, its past and its antiquities. If the Via Papalis was the territory of the Romans, architecture, ephemeral decoration and the display of antique sculpture along the route could be understood as a reminder to the pope to recognise and honour Rome’s nobility.13 One aspect of collecting was likely the desire to vaunt the possession of ancient spolia in a triumphal context; by the end of the Quattrocento, the exhibition of the sort of objects that had been processed as spoils in the ancient Roman triumph—statues sculpted by master artists and other works—once again became symbols of victory and power during the ceremony of the possesso. Andrea Mantegna’s famous Triumphs of Caesar (Figure  7.5) refects the artist’s knowledge of Plutarch’s account of the triumph of Aemilius Paullus, in particular his description of over 200 cartloads of ‘captured statues, paintings and colossi’ displayed during the frst day, followed on the next by wagons of weapons and armour.14 Written descriptions of the ancient triumph likewise ofered a vivid exemplum and point of reference for antiquarians and collectors in Renaissance Rome. So too did surviving antique triumphal arches, which clarifed an association between the display of artistic spolia and the triumphal procession.

Figure 7.5 Andrea Mantegna, ‘Carts of Spolia and Standard-Bearers’ from the Triumphs of Caesar cycle, 1484–1492, Hampton Court Palace, London. Source: Photo: Bridgeman Art Library.

154 Kathleen W. Christian The Arch of Constantine, with its integrated reliefs and statues of barbarian prisoners, ofered a particularly prominent example of the ancient practice of exhibiting sculptural spolia on arches in public space. At the same time, the display of ancient spolia along the Via Papalis arguably raised the spectre of pillage, or the ‘rights of spoil’ traditionally asserted by the people of Rome through the looting and lawlessness of the sede vacante. Triumphalist imagery and the display of ancient statues in public space played upon the tensions that ran through the ceremony of the possesso, opening up unresolved questions about the balance of power between the pope, the local aristocracy and the popolo. Nude gods and goddesses, Bacchus and his entourage, and such fgures normally visible in controlled environments were presumably extraordinary sights when they moved from private to public space. Such imagery may have seemed appropriate since the ceremony was— like the Carnival or like the pillage unleashed by each pope’s death—a moment of upheaval and transition. Moving antique sculpture onto the street was a ftting compliment to these ‘ruptures’ and a channel for the expressive and dynamic qualities of antique imagery highlighted by Aby Warburg, who considered the Renaissance revival of pagan imagery an expression of ‘exuberant vitality, the awareness of a germinating, creative will-to-life, and an unspoken, maybe an unconscious opposition to the strict discipline of the Church’.15 Up until the mid-sixteenth century, at least, the possesso was not only a papal triumph but also a festival of the popolo, ofering up fountains of wine, carnival-like elements and the reversal of social norms.16

Pagan Imagery, Ephemeral Décor and Public Festivals in Rome The issue of the display of antiquities as a proud marker of native Romanitas by the local nobility has been explored in an expanding body of scholarship on antiquarianism and antiquities collecting by Roman aristocratic families.17 Less often discussed is the overlap between the development of antiquities collections and the subjects and appearance of festival apparati. Even if Jacob Burckhardt already expressed an interest in the study of triumphal arches and ‘festival sculpture’, these topics have lingered on the periphery of art history and antiquarian studies.18 A closer consideration of ephemeral décor suggests, however, a correlation between the expansion of antiquities collecting and interest in pagan-themed ephemera. Over the course of the second half of the Quattrocento, triumphal arches decorated with all’antica painting, stucco sculptures, and classicizing inscriptions gradually replaced allegorical carri inspired by Petrarch’s Triumphs. Rather than personifcations of Christian virtues, characters from the ancient past made appearances at weddings, banquets, processions, triumphal entries and carnival celebrations. Bacchic imagery and other pagan subjects could suggest exuberance and the loosening of social convention, as when paper mâché giants, fauns, and Pans appeared on the streets of Florence during the Festa di San Giovanni of 1475.19 In Rome, the transition towards the display of antique and all’antica imagery in ephemeral decoration took place at a time when the ancient triumph became the dominant conceptual model for festivals of all sorts. As Charles Stinger put it, in Rome the theme of triumph was more important than elsewhere, not only because the ancient triumphs of Rome’s imperial glory had actually taken place there, but also because triumph was fundamental to the meaning and purpose of the city.20

When Venus Mocked the Pope 155 In Rome particularly, a signifcant development was the antiquarian research in the late 1450s of Flavio Biondo, who in his Roma triumphans would compare the ancient Roman triumph to the papal possessi of his own time.21 The ancient triumph became in the ffteenth century a paragon for rituals of entry, reception and procession in Rome, with transformative efects in the genre of ephemeral décor. A striking, early example is a quasi-pagan procession held in honour of Pope Paul II. While the event has been associated with Carnival, it was one of a list of honours granted to Paul II for his rapid and successful campaign against the Counts of Anguillara in 1465. The pope himself provided the funds for a triumphal procession put on by the city of Rome and celebrated in April 1466. For the occasion, the pope’s biographer Michele Canensio writes, actors dressed in pagan garb and images of the ancient gods were paraded through the streets: Advancing in orderly fashion, at the front was the masquerade of the giants, then winged Cupid with his arrows, then Diana on horseback, surrounded by a large band of nymphs, then one hundred sixty youths, or even more, in white . . . then the king and other generals conquered by the Romans, ambitious Cleopatra conquered by Augustus Caesar, Mars, Fauns, Bacchus and a large crowd of those whom the ancients falsely believed to be gods.22 Although a seventeenth-century source gives the date of this procession as ‘26 April’, the event likely coincided with festivities for the birthday of Rome, traditionally identifed as the 21st of that month. The same source describes the route of this triumphal entry, Bacchic triumph and celebratory parade, which went from San Marco, to Santa Maria sopra Minerva, along the Via Papalis and then to Piazza di Parione, where the carri ended their journey.23 Arguably, the foats and ‘living images’ of gods and goddesses paraded in Paul II’s triumphal procession are part of a larger transition towards all’antica festival ephemera that developed hand-in-hand with antiquities collecting in the private sphere.

Antiquities and possessi: Sixtus IV to Julius II At the same time that processions and celebrations became more classicising, urban projects of the ffteenth and sixteenth centuries helped to transform Rome into a grand stage for ceremonial and street processions. Sixtus IV widened the Via Papalis, as did Innocent VIII and Julius II.24 Ephemeral decorations for the possessi became more signifcant, requiring more substantial creative input from artists.25 Unfortunately, descriptions of the possessi of Sixtus IV in 1471 and Innocent VIII in 1484 are limited and shed little light on the decorations that might have adorned the Via Papalis during their triumphal entries.26 The documentation is more abundant, however, for Alexander VI’s possesso of 1492. According to Marcello Fagiolo and Maria Luisa Madonna, his was the frst that could be considered an all’antica triumph. For Ingersoll, it marks the moment in which ‘the possesso was defned from the papal point of view. The triumph . . . became its organizing metaphor’.27 A picture of the expense and efort the papal treasury put into the event is given by the records of payments authorised by the Camera Apostolica for temporary architecture, singers and musicians, crimson brocade and painted standards.28 A description of the event by the Milanese historian Bernardino Corio gives a sense of the elaborate decorations set up through papal

156 Kathleen W. Christian and private enterprise; most of the street from Banchi to San Giovanni was ‘covered with blue cloth’, the ground carpeted with herbs and fowers, the route adorned with ‘superbissimi archi trionfali’. The most elaborate arches were those near San Celso: one was modelled on the Arch of Constantine, with four large columns topped by fgures of armed men ‘a guisa d’antichi baroni’. The other was stafed by young girls who recited verses in honour of the pope in Latin and Italian, actors dressed as representatives of East and West, and a personifcation of Rome in the middle with a papal mitre in her hands and a globe at her feet. Apparati were set up further along at the house of Franceschetto Cybo, at the palazzo of Cardinal Carafa and at the house of Ludovico Agnello.29 Other triumphal arches—of which unfortunately no description survives—were constructed at the house of the Massimi, at the piazza San Marco and on the approach to the Lateran. The sources for Alexander’s possesso describe actors dressed as nymphs, gods, and classical allegories who enlivened the triumphal arches set up on the street.30 At the same time, the earliest indications of the practice of antiquities collecting on the processional route date to around the time of Alexander VI’s possesso. A letter of 1490 by the courtier Giovanni da Tolentino, for example, references antique sculptures in the house of the Della Valle which were ‘probably not inferior’ to those in public settings.31 Many more private antiquities collections were mentioned in a poem written by the ‘Prospettivo Milanese’ and published under the title Antiquarie prospetiche romane.32 Dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci, the poem recommends a visit to Rome to see the city’s ancient marvels, including collections of antique statues on the Via Papalis such as those of the Cafarelli, Massimi, Della Valle and Astalli. While the date the poem’s publication had been the subject of much controversy, recent research has established that it was printed in either 1495 or 1496.33 Another source which seems to be from the 1490s or early 1500s, the so-called Nota d’Anticaglie, praises many of the same collections as well as others on the Via Papalis, such as those of the Sassi (Figure 7.6) and de’ Rossi.34 Taken together, these texts reveal that by the last quarter of the ffteenth century a transformation had taken place. By the time of the papal Jubilee of 1500, visitors to Rome moving between the Vatican and the Lateran could, following the owners’ rules for admission, visit private collections of sculpture along the Via Papalis. One of the statues exhibited on the Via Papalis was the Pasquino. The Antiquarie prospetiche romane is the frst source to mention the fgure, locating it ‘in Parione’ and describing it as a representation of Hercules.35 In 1501, Cardinal Carafa set up the Pasquino on a high base inscribed with his name at the corner of his residence, the Palazzo Orsini in the Piazza di Parione, on the route of the VIa Papalis. A slightly later history of the Pasquino relates that before Carafa’s intervention the statue had been lying on the ground, ‘not many feet away’ from his palazzo, in a neglected and pitiful state.36 When Carafa took it over, the statue seems to have already been the recipient of anonymous anti-clerical poems. This is the impression given by Johannes Burchard, who records a verse posted on a notice-board near the statue in 1501, a short epigram predicting the death of the ‘Ox’, Pope Alexander VI Borgia, and his succession by the ‘Wheel’, Cardinal Jorge da Costa.37 After the Cardinal’s rededication of the Pasquino, which is frst documented by the dedicatory base of 1501, the fgure was better known as the centrepiece of the annual Festa di Pasquino. It has been suggested that the Cardinal formally adopted the statue and organised a literary festival around it to

When Venus Mocked the Pope 157

Figure 7.6 Anonymous (after Maarten Van Heemskerck?), House of the Sasso d’Amateschi, c. 1530s, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv.no. Kdz 2783.

attempt to silence the Pasquino’s critical voice. As Reynolds has argued, Carafa may have taken on ‘a supervisory role’ as guardian and also censor of the statue.38 Under Carafa’s protection, annually on 25 April contestants vied to compose the best poems in the voice of the Pasquino, who was assigned a new identity every year (e.g., Hercules, Mars or Apollo). The Pasquino would be dressed in an appropriate costume, and a team of artists would transform the statue into the selected character, using temporary additions in papier mâché and other materials.39

158 Kathleen W. Christian Once installed in its new setting, the Pasquino became a focal point of the piazza, standing where the papal cortège would pass him during each possesso (Figure 7.4). In a recent monograph on the Pasquino, Maddalena Spagnolo has emphasised the close relationship between the famous statue, the piazza and the Via Papalis which ran through it. The sources mention a triumphal arch constructed near Carafa’s residence during Alexander VI’s possesso in the Summer of 1492: an arch at the ‘Palazzo di Napoli’ said to have been decorated ‘with many capitals, festoons, all’antica paintings and other things’.40 Given that the Prospettivo Milanese must have seen the Pasquino sometime before 1496, Spagnolo has questioned whether the Pasquino may even have frst appeared in the Piazza di Parione as part of the temporary decorations set up in 1492.41 Although this question remains open, certainly Carafa’s decision to display the statue in such close rapport with the Via Papalis is indicative of a confuence by the late ffteenth century between the papal triumph and the display of antique sculpture. Eventually, the statue would become fully integrated with the event, and in 1513, during the possesso of Leo X, the Festa di Pasquino (in that year, paid for by the Pope himself) was closely synchronised with Leo’s possesso.42 For the literary contest in April 1513, the Pasquino was given the identity of Apollo, underscoring the idea of the renewal of the arts, the same themes that, as is discussed below, were emphatically stressed during the possesso in March.43 This was Pasquino’s panegyric role, but his permanent presence on the street gave him another identity as a critic and mouthpiece of the popolo. There are many factors that shaped the statue’s role as a spokesman of both praise and blame—for example, the nature of the Piazza di Parione as the centre for Rome’s printers, scribes and copyists, or the presence of cedulae, or notice boards, at the Pasquino, as was mentioned by Burchard. Yet Pasquino’s ability to voice accord or discord is also related to his position on the Via Papalis. John M. Hunt has described the atmosphere of the possesso as generally auspicious and, although much of the temporary decoration was aimed at reminding the pope of his duty to care for Rome’s citizens, it was not an occasion for direct insults (of the sort seen in the most biting of the anonymous Pasquinades).44 At the same time, the raucous event ofered the Romans the rare opportunity for humour and playful acts of hazing alternating with praise. The Pasquino’s sharp wit, its ability both to extol and taunt, its role as a critic of the papacy and its chameleon-like power to assume new identities, defned by ephemeral apparati, all echo the function and nature of the possesso. The next possesso to follow Alexander VI’s was that of Julius II in 1503. For this occasion, the possesso was for the frst time split of from the ceremony of the inauguration. The separation of the two events allowed more time for the procession through Rome, perhaps in recognition of the complexity and abundance of street décor and tableaux vivants that the possesso now inspired. Unfortunately, however, surviving descriptions are lacking in detail.45 One of the only accounts is Burchard’s terse account of the event, which states that the pope processed by an arch at the house of Stefano de’ Rossi in the Botteghe Scure.46 Burchard does not describe the structure, but the de’ Rossi owned most important antiquities collections in Rome, which they would display on the Via Papalis for the possesso of Leo X. It seems highly likely that they also integrated their collection into the ephemera set up for Julius’s possesso.47 Another spot where antique sculptures may have been displayed was at the Palazzo of the Cesarini, located on the Via Papalis at the site of the current Largo Argentina. In

When Venus Mocked the Pope 159 1510, when Francesco Albertini described the house of Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, he emphasised two of its features: frst, its ‘ancient statues’, and second, above the door of this palace, the arms of the Della Rovere, along with the verses in gilded letters: ‘With golden acorns growing again on the oak/Julius solemnly promised peace, and he gave it.’ The words have the tone of an inscription on a triumphal arch, and might be interpreted as a lasting trace of decorations laid out for Julius II’s possesso in 1503. The door and whatever temporary apparatus the family may have constructed for the event perhaps incorporated works from their well-known antiquities collection.48

The possesso of Leo X, 1513 The possesso of Leo X in 1513 was the most elaborate papal inauguration to date. It is also the frst possesso to inspire a detailed description by a frst-hand witness, a printed account by the Florentine physician Jacopo Penni.49 The event was billed as the beginning of a new Golden Age, celebrated with fountains fowing with wine and coins thrown out to the crowd. For Pope Leo X it was also an especially poignant moment, since it was held on 11 March, the one-year anniversary of his capture by the French at the Battle of Ravenna. The procession involved hundreds of participants, including bishops and archbishops, all cardinals, the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino, the Signori of Camerino, and innumerable standard-bearers, musicians, and courtiers. Familiars of Cardinals to high-ranking priests to stable grooms were decked out in silk, scarlet, and gold. A large number of Florentines walked in solidarity with the pope, and the ephemeral decor at the Florentine quarter of Banchi was particularly elaborate. Given this emphasis, the pope’s arrival in Rome might have seemed a Florentine invasion. It was billed to the Romans, however, as the homecoming of a local hero, since Leo’s mother was the Roman noblewoman Clarice Orsini. After Leo X’s cortège left the Vatican, it moved to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where the pope participated in the infamous ritual humiliation of Rome’s Jews; representatives of the Jewish community ofered the pope a Torah scroll, which he received, then summarily threw to the ground with the words confrmamus sed non consentimus, ‘we allow but do not agree’.50 The procession then entered the abitato, which had been decorated by the residents of the Via Papalis. Antiquities collectors displayed their prized statues on the street, and every resident of the Via Papalis set up some form of celebratory display in the form of banners, tapestries, carpets or perhaps other precious objects and works of art. Paolo Giovio reports that ‘doors were adorned with fowers and branches, windows and streets with textiles, while triumphal arches appeared at every intersection, decorated in a marvellous way, following the example of ancient grandeur, with paintings and statues’.51 An image of the magnifcent décor set up for Leo’s possesso is suggested by artistic representations of later processions, such as a painting attributed to Giovanni Ferri of the cavalcata of the Roman prefect Taddeo Barberini, showing carpets or cloths hanging from every window along the via del Corso (Figure 7.7).52

160 Kathleen W. Christian

Figure 7.7 Attributed to Giovanni Ferri (Giovanni Senese), Cavalcata of the Roman Prefect Taddeo Barberini on the Via del Corso, detail, c. 1640, Banca di Roma, Rome. Source: Photo: Fondazione Zeri.

Dominant motifs in the overall decor included the Medici symbols of the palle or the diamond ring, while the procession as a whole emphasised the beginning of a Golden Age of peace and a fourishing of the arts under the new pope. The triumphal arches echoing these themes included one set up near the Castel Sant’Angelo by its Castellan, the Sienese Bishop Rafaello Petrucci. This arch, featuring the image of Apollo with his lyre, laudatory frescoes and fountains of water and wine, was perhaps designed by the Sienese artist Baldassare Peruzzi. The next arch was that constructed by Agostino Chigi, also likely designed by Peruzzi, situated near the Chigi bank. This arch featured the inscription ‘Venus had her time, Mars had his and now Pallas [Minerva] has hers’, in reference to the end of the voluptuous Alexander VI and the bellicose Julius II (in whose pontifcate the Pasquino had been dressed as Mars, in reference to

When Venus Mocked the Pope 161 the pope’s love of war) and the ascendency of Leo, the wise Minerva who would bring back peace.53 Here, live actors dressed as Apollo and Mercury sang, while ‘nymphs’ and ‘small Moors’ recited verses. The witty epigram, written by Benedetto Lampridio, uses the imagery of Graeco-Roman gods and goddesses to evoke a type of political allegory deemed appropriate for the transition of power: the reign of one divine fgure is superseded by the triumph of a more appropriate or benevolent one. This metaphor of triumph—seemingly a classicization of Petrarch’s Christian allegorical triumphs—is already evoked in the time of Pius II in 1458, judging from the pope’s own memoirs. As Pius wrote in his Commentaries, ‘What had been a city of Mars all at once became a city of—well, I will not say Venus, mother of Aeneas of Troy—but a city of Peace and Quiet. Everywhere, joy and tranquillity reigned’.54 This was a type of political allegory of critique and praise that contextualised the display of antique statues in the possesso, just as it was signifcant in the identities chosen for the Pasquino at his annual Festa. It was a type of metaphor turned on its head by a statue of Venus, which the pope encountered a few steps away from Chigi’s magnifcent arch as he moved towards the Zecca (the papal mint). This was a fgure which the goldsmith Antonio da San Marino set up above his shop with an inscription playing upon the inscription in Chigi’s arch, ‘There was Mars, now Pallas, but I will always be Venus’. As Penni delicately described it, ‘clearest water spouted continuously from the statue’.55 A less censored description of the statue by an eye witness observer, Giovanni Paolo de Calzonibus, adds further details. According to this letter, included in Marino Sanuto’s Diarii, the fgure was a ‘statua de una donna marmorea’ and therefore, one can presume, an ancient statue. Remarkably, the letter relates that water spouted from the statue’s ‘natura’, drenching everyone passing by, including the pope.56 The sexually-charged joke mocked papal decorum, taking a swipe at the regal pretentions of the ceremony. Antonio da San Marino’s display is a startling example of how the ownership of pagan antiquities gave a local resident the license to participate in the event by adding elements of mockery and hazing. In this case, the owner avoided any statement of solidary with the pope of the sort seen in the antiquities displays of noble families, giving open expression to the fgure’s humorous and ludic elements. The memory of this event, recorded an unoffcial description but not in the printed accounts, ofers a glimpse into the possibilities of disorder incited by pagan imagery in the possesso. In this instance a sexualized, nude female fgure is given the upper hand, mocking the pope and turning the event’s carefully staged hierarchy on its head. Further along the route the pope passed an elaborate, bifurcated arch co-sponsored by the Florentine merchant community and Johann Zink, representative of the Fugger bank in Rome and head of the Zecca. The structure, Zink’s side of which may have been constructed by Bramante, formed a bivium marking the juncture between the outgoing route to the Via Papalis and the return route from the via Florida towards the Vatican.57 After passing Monte Giordano, the pope then reached a replica of the ancient Spinario on the Capitoline hill made into a fountain, with water spurting from the wound on his foot. Leo’s possesso took place on 11 April, and a poem posted nearby played upon the fact that several important events of Leo’s life had all taken place on the 11th day of the month: 11 December was the day of his birth, on 11 April he had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Ravenna, and on 11 March he had been elected pope.58 According to Penni, the poem near the Spinario read, ‘Decembre fu al suo natal favore. Aprile al cor li diè pena et tormento.

162 Kathleen W. Christian Marzo cavato l’à d’ogni dolore’ (‘December was favourable to his birth. April gave his heart torment. March liberated him from all pain’).59 A copy of Rome’s famous thorn-puller thus became a visualisation of the word cavare (‘to extract’ or ‘to liberate’), with an inscription that activated the work, suggesting yet another way in which antique images (or, in this case, a copy of a famous antiquity) were given a voice in the procession. Further along the route, on the Via di Parione ‘near the piazza di Parione’, the pope encountered an elaborate arch constructed by Ferdinando Ponzetti, Chierico of the Camera Apostolica, featuring fgures of Perseus and Apollo.60 Moving through the piazza di Parione, Leo X then processed past the statue of Pasquino on the corner of the Palazzo Orsini. Neither Penni nor de Calzonibus mention the fgure, yet it may have been incorporated into the decorations for the possesso by the tenant then residing at the Palazzo, Cardinal Antonio Maria Ciocchi Del Monte. According to Vasari, the artist Niccolò Soggi, a pupil of Perugino, went to Rome where he visited Messer Antonio di Monte [Antonio Maria Ciocchi Del Monte] who was then a Cardinal. He . . . immediately put him to work to paint, at the time of the beginning of Leo X’s papacy, a large fresco of the pope’s coat of arms on the façade of the palazzo where the statue of Maestro Pasquino stands. In the middle were the arms of the Popolo romano and those of the Cardinal.61 Judging by the description, it may well be that the commission was part of the overall decor marking Leo X’s possesso, tying together the event, the statue and its sponsor with an enduring record of the papal entry. The frescoes suggest that the possesso was key to the meaning of this antique statue for its public audience, not only during the annual Festa, but also year-round. It seems that the Pasquino could have been costumed or otherwise decorated during papal possessi; descriptions of the practice are known from later possessi such as that of Gregory XIV in 1590, when the statue was equipped with a helmet, a pair of scales, a sword and loaves of bread to remind the pope of the importance of distributing bread to the popolo. During Innocent X’s possesso in 1644, his regalia was even more elaborate: dressed as Neptune, Pasquino rode in a shell-shaped chariot pulled by two sea horses.62 After passing the Pasquino, further down the Via Papalis Leo X encountered an arch set up by the Della Valle family richly decorated with antique statues from the family’s antiquities collection, including their famous pair of Pans, now in the Capitoline museums (Figure  7.8). Penni praises the arch ‘not as a sublime construction, but as a memory of the ancient Romans’. On one side of this structure were pedestals topped by the twin antique Pans; on the other side of the arch, Mercury and Hercules on matching bases. Underneath, on both sides, were ancient statues of Ganymede, Apollo and Bacchus, set amongst other fgures and portrait busts. The abundance of antique statues on this arch was rivalled only by that by the de’ Rossi family further down the Via Papalis, which was also bedecked with selected objects from their collection of antique sculpture. According to Penni, the arch included fgures in ‘marble, alabaster and porphyry’ worth an entire treasury. An alabaster Diana, Neptune with his trident, Apollo with a horse, Marsyas playing the pipes, and many others appeared, ‘all unfragmented, very ancient and beautiful’, along with 12 heads of emperors and famous Romans. While Penni does not describe how these objects were arranged,

When Venus Mocked the Pope 163

Figure 7.8 Ancient statue of Pan formerly in the Della Valle collection, frst century bce, Capitoline Museums, Rome. Source: Photo by the author.

de Calzonibus states that ‘on one side of the street and on the other, many beautiful antique marble statues were set up on certain high steps’.63

Antiquities Collections and Papal possessi For Roman families, the exhibition of privately owned antique sculpture in the possesso of Leo X was an efective means of claiming a role in the papal ceremony, one that would be recorded for posterity in Penni’s printed description of the event. Placing their collection before the eyes of the pope, they could assert the role that the Romans—particularly, the native Roman nobility—could play in each new papacy and in each new resurgence of Rome’s ancient splendour that was expected to come with it. Antiquities in triumphal arches had the potential to herald the arrival of a Golden Age of peace and liberality, signalled by the fourishing of the arts. While celebrating

164 Kathleen W. Christian the pope, displays of antique sculpture set out expectations for the pope’s protection of the city’s ancient past; their poor reputation in this regard is echoed in Raphael’s famous ‘Letter to Leo X’, which claims that some popes were just as guilty as the Goths and Vandals in failing to protect Rome’s antiquities, her ‘povere reliquie’. At the same time, in this complex and multifaceted event, one can imagine that the pontif’s solemn procession past satyrs and pagan fgures set on the street played up the more raucous elements of the ritual. The Venus pudica set up by a goldsmith serves as a reminder of the ripe potential for satire and inversion when antique statues on the street were juxtaposed with the papal cortège. One can also consider the Della Valle Pans, which numbered among the most celebrated antique sculptures on the Via Papalis, sited at one of its most prominent openings, and which echo the possesso’s themes of triumph, celebration and possibly also satire.64 Later, the Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck would recycle the imagery of the Pans in his painting of the Triumph of Bacchus, where a bloated and naked god of wine—rather than the pope—is carried past a triumphal arch towards the Temple of Bacchus (Figure 7.9). The examples above suggest that antiquities collecting as a whole was shaped by the combination of solemnity and frivolity characteristic of the possesso, by the nature of private decorations set up for these events on the Via Papalis and by the history of ephemeral décor. The close relationship between antiquities display, the possesso and the Via Papalis suggests that the contrast between the Pasquino in public space and objects in private collections is not as stark as it may seem. It also suggests that ephemeral events on the street had a profound impact on the visual culture of antiquities collecting in Rome. One can draw parallels with the history of Roman architecture as it has been written by Manfredo Tafuri, Allan Ceen, Marcello Fagiolo, Maria Luisa Madonna and others, who have traced the lasting efects of rituals and processions on Rome’s built environment.65 Temporary decorations set up for the possesso of Leo X have been understood, for example, as an inspiration for the façade of Raphael’s Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila, decorated with festive

Figure 7.9 Maarten van Heemskerck, The Triumph of Bacchus, c. 1536/7, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Source: Photo: Bridgeman Art Library.

When Venus Mocked the Pope 165

Figure 7.10 Giambattista Naldini, Palazzo Branconio dell’Aquila, c. 1560, Ufzi, Florence, inv.no. 230 A r.

garlands and medallions that imitate the forms of triumphal arches (Figure  7.10). Alexander VI had constructed the via Alessandrina, a straight, processional street, as the frst leg of the Via Papalis leading out from the Vatican, and thereafter it became a showcase for triumphalist architecture. Raphael’s palazzo for Jacopo da Brescia, also built on the via Alessandrina during Leo X’s papacy, featured a Medici stemma and triumphal arch, set not on the main facade but on the corner facing the street, where it could face processions moving past.66 Many architectural historians have argued that Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s Zecca of circa 1525 likewise responds to the procession of Leo X that had taken place before it on the Via Papalis. Its convex curve echoes the shape of the street, while its triumphal arch-like facade design originally decorated with the Medici coat of arms seems to echo the visual language of temporary arches.67 Further down the Via Papalis, the famous curved loggia of the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, built by Baldassare Peruzzi in the 1530s, honours the shape of the processional route running in front of it, closely joining the palazzo to the street. The efects of ephemera and ritual have been read in palace architecture or urban planning, but the display of sculpture, too, was profoundly connected to the history of ceremonial. Temporary arches built for the possesso had a lasting efect on the day-to-day display of sculpture in Roman antiquities collections. It is notable, for example, that the exhibition of statuary often seems to follow a triumphalist aesthetic and mimic the visual language of the triumphal arch.68 One element is the pairing of two mirror-image sculptures across from each other at an entryway, as if marking a passage through a triumphal arch. An example can be seen in the courtyard of the Sasso D’Amateschi family, just of the processional route (Figure  7.6). Here the family paired two similar statues—an Apollo and a statue then identifed as Marcus Aurelius—at the

166 Kathleen W. Christian springing of an arch in a manner suggestive of triumphal entryway. One can also consider the palaces of the Della Valle, where the sculptures the family set on a triumphal arch for Leo’s possesso were displayed year-round. In the 1530s, Maarten van Heemskerck made a drawing in the house where the Pans were displayed at a loggia built sometime before 1516. Adjacent to it was the Palace of Bishop Andrea Della Valle and his brother Bartolommeo, drawn circa 1515 by Hermann Vischer the Younger. The courtyard display in both palazzi recalls the format of the triumphal arch, the frst in the paring of Pans around an entrance and the second in its elevation of fgural statuary above a colonnade and intermediary architrave created from joined-up fragments of ancient spolia (Figures 7.2–7.3, 7.8). After Leo X’s possesso, the smaller collections of the native Romans that had frst sprung up in the Quattrocento began to vanish from the Via Papalis. This possesso was the last, it seems, in which the Roman families living on the Via Papalis would exhibit their antique statues; neither Hadrian VI in 1522 nor Clement VII in 1523 had a possesso, and by the time Paul III came to the throne in 1534, in the midst of an austere atmosphere after the Sack of Rome, triumphal arches and other decorations were more restrained. The papal possesso shed many of its traditional elements and, as Irene Fosi has remarked, after Leo X’s entry became more universal, and was addressed primarily to an international rather than local audience.69 Rome’s ancient statues also began to vanish from the triumphal route. As antiquities became more costly and more competitively sourced, powerful collectors absorbed the earlier, more informal collections of downtown Rome. Some were transported to elite façades (as is seen in surviving examples such as the Palazzo Spada-Capodiferro, the Villa Medici on the Pincian or the Villa Borghese), while most moved to the gardens of the Cardinals and popes in the suburban parts of Rome. In this manner displays of classical sculpture were removed from abitato and from the Via Papalis. The collections in downtown Rome that did survive became more secluded and more private, as is seen in the courtyard and ‘hanging garden’ of antique statues built in a palace constructed by Cardinal Andrea Della Valle in the 1520s. Signifcantly, this palace was not sited on the Via Papalis but set back from it, and its courtyard collection of antique sculpture was constructed in an elevated storey removed from the public sphere. Here one fnds borrowings from the visual language of the triumphal arch, particularly the Arch of Constantine, in the use of inscribed dedications in the upper register of the statue court or in the display of reliefs taken from the ancient Arcus Novus that once spanned the Via Lata (the via del Corso). In this sense, the statue court carries forward the theatrical and triumphal elements of the earlier Della Valle collections, but it did not continue their close relationship with the possesso, the Via Papalis and public space.70 Arguably, the triumphal display of pagan statues on the Via Papalis had accelerated their removal from the territory of the Roman nobility and the popolo. Although these statues would presumably have been for many spectators unfamiliar, startling and even fear-provoking, their public exhibition helped to normalise the imagery of the antique and the practice of private collecting. Public display helped bring about overall aesthetic adjustments, speeding up cultural and artistic interest in antique sculpture. The movement of antiquities onto triumphal arches for the possesso ultimately incited the envy of the powerful popes and Cardinals who participated in the event and who were competitive collectors themselves. In 1517, four years after pope Leo

When Venus Mocked the Pope 167 X had processed past the de’ Rossi’s statues on the Via Papalis, the family would realise the risks of publicly exhibiting their antiquities in the possesso. In that year pope Leo X attempted to seize the de’ Rossi collection by force, using the artist Raphael as his agent.71 Elsewhere, I have argued that the intention may have been to appropriate antique treasures for the villa Madama that Leo X and Raphael were then planning for Monte Mario.72 While this particular attempt failed, the sequence of events suggests that the sixteenth century possessi had a similar efect on private collecting of statuary which the triumphal procession had had in antiquity. In ancient Rome, the public display of statues in triumphs brought about a fetishization of Hellenistic sculpture by elite collectors, a vast increase in demand for statues and ultimately a rise in more exclusive, more private methods of collecting sculpture.73 In the sixteenth century, it seems that a similar scenario emerged, as the display of ancient statues in possessi likewise precipitated their removal to settings that were increasingly museological, static, private and elite. The overall result was to cut ancient statues of from the street and the public sphere.

Notes 1. For the possesso in general, see Cancellieri 1802; Cruciani 1983; Ingersoll 1985, 171–223; Ingersoll 1993; Fagiolo and Madonna 1997b; Fosi 1997; Eadem 2002; Visceglia 2002, 53–117; Nuti 2015; Hunt 2016, 257–263. 2. For descriptions of twelfth-century possessi that passed through ancient as well as temporary triumphal arches, see Cancellieri 1802, 8–10; Nuti 2015, 117–118. 3. Cafà 2010. 4. Nussdorfer 1987; Ginzburg 1991; Paravicini Bagliani 2000, 153–155; Hunt 2016. 5. Cancellieri 1802, 45; letters from Nicodemo da Pontremoli and Giovanni Blancho da Cremona to the Duke of Milan in Cruciani 1983, 147–150; Burchard’s description of Innocent VIII’s possesso in Ibid., 196–203. 6. Interpretations of the possesso as a dialogue between competing interests are presented in Hunt 2016, 257–263; Idem, 2019. 7. For processes of admission to Roman antiquities collections, see Cofn 1982 and Stenhouse 2005. 8. In a letter of 1490, the nobleman Giovanni da Tolentino describes how a ‘Roman citizen’ had persuaded him to visit the collections of the Della Valle on the Via Papalis, where he would see ‘works in a private house probably not inferior to those you have seen in public’, ‘Tum civis quidam Romanus: “Quid si in privatorum quoque aedibus non inferiora fortasse his quae publice vidisti ofenderes?”,’ trans. and cit. Schofeld 1980, 256. 9. Christian 2010, 156–157. 10. Burchard 1883–1885, Vol. 1, 87; Ingersoll 1985, 196–197. 11. For the Via Papalis, see Adinolf 1865; Ceen 1977, 104–171; Cafà 2010; Valtieri 2018. The lack of churches on the street is noted in Ceen 1977, 122; Ingersoll 1993, 40. 12. Galli bought this palace from the Santacroce family in 1505. It faced onto the palace of Cardinal Carafa and can be identifed with the current Palazzo Bonadies Lancellotti on the via di San Pantaleo, Christian Forthcoming. 13. Cafà 2010; this aspect of the possesso is emphasised in Ingersoll 1993. 14. Plutarch, Aem. 32; Halliday 1994, 340–343. For other ancient sources on statue display in the triumph, see Stewart 2003, 151. 15. Gombrich 1970, 123. 16. The upheaval brought about by rituals of transition in Rome is discussed in Nussdorfer 1987; Ginzburg 1991; Hunt 2016. The classic study of the carnivalesque is Bakhtin 1968. 17. E.g. Miglio 1983; Esposito 1994; Christian 2002. 18. Burckhardt 1987, 268–269.

168 Kathleen W. Christian 19. Vagantur et simulati gigantes et fauni per urbem, atque centauri. . . . Fauni quoque villosi caprinisque pedibus, ac centauri dimidia parte equi apparent. Verum quidquam in his animata caret efgie, charta picta suppletur. Images of giants, fauns and centaurs wandered through the city . . . the hairy fauns had goats’ feet, and centaurs seemed to be half horse. Anything lacking in these animated images was created in painted paper. (Letter from Pietro Cennini to Pirrino Amerino describing the Festa di San Giovanni in Florence, 12 September 1475, cit. Mancini 1909, 224; Ventrone 1990, 349) 20. Stinger 1981, 193; see also Pinelli 1985; Fagiolo and Madonna 1997a; Stinger 1981, 193. 21. Biondo 1482 (frst published 1472), book 10: s. p.,

22.

The whole of the triumphal route, not only in the triumph of Paulus Aemilius, but in all the others as well, was decorated all over with draperies and laurel. . . . I have sometimes wondered how it happened that just as the ancient triumphal procession departed from the Vatican and the temple of Apollo that used to be there, then proceeded to the city; still today the processions of the Christians—the most solemn that are celebrated in Rome—also leave from the Vatican and from the church of St. Peters, which was founded on a part of the temple of Apollo. (Rafarin 2017) Nam gigantum primo personatus ordinatissime incedebant; tum aligeri faretratique Cupidinis, dehinc Dianae equestris, magna Nympharum caterva illam stipante; tum candidatorum iuvenum centum sexaginta, et eo amplius, [. . .] dein regum, aliorumque ducum a Romanis olim devictorum, tum ambitiosae Cleopatrae ab Augusto Caesare superatae, demum Martis, Faunorum, Bachi et nonnullorum etiam falso deorum a priscis creditorum turba ingens sequebatur. (Zippel 1904, 135; Cruciani 1983, 127–128)

23. BAV, Barb. Lat. 1991, fols 22r–v, discussed in Cruciani 1983, 126–131; Helas 1999, 105–109; Modigliani 2003, 143; D’Elia 2011, 24–26. 24. Aurelio Lippi Brandolini devoted a poem to Sixtus’s restoration of the Via Papalis, praising the pope for having cleaned the street, widened it and made it worthy of its name, De via quam Papalem vocant in Müntz 1878–1882, Vol. 3, 191. Albertini also noted improvements to the street by several popes: ‘Via Pontifcum notissima, per quam Pontifex ad Lateran. incedit a Syxto IIII. ampliata, deinde ab Innocentio VIII. Postremo a tua Beatitudine [Julius II] multis in locis ampliata’ (‘the famous Via Papalis, on which the pope processes to the Lateran, was widened by Sixtus IV and then by Innocent VIII. Afterwards your Holiness [Pope Julius II] widened it in many places’), Albertini 1510, book 3, ‘De viis & plateis’: s. p. 25. Perugino and Antoniazzo Romano were involved both in Innocent VIII’s and Alexander VI’s possessi, the architect Lorenzo Pietrasanta in Alexander VI’s and Bramante and Peruzzi in Leo X’s, Farinella 1992, 61–79; Quattrocchi 2001. Farinella discusses the possibility of Ripanda’s involvement in décor for possessi. 26. For the possessi of Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII, see Cancellieri 1802, 45–51; Cruciani 1983, 146–150 and 194–203. 27. Fagiolo and Madonna 1997a, 35; Ingersoll 1985, 197. 28. For descriptions of Alexander VI’s triumph, see Cancellieri 1802, 51–53; Cruciani 1983, 247–252; Quattrocchi 2001. 29. See below for a discussion of Carafa’s palace. 30. Helas 1999, 110–111. 31. See above, note 8, this chapter. 32. Agosti and Isella 2004; Tura 2015. 33. Ibid.; Spagnolo 2019, 70–72. 34. Fantozzi 1994.

When Venus Mocked the Pope 169 35. ‘Ecci un mastro Pasquille im Parione / dal sasso spinse el so’ nimico in ario: / questo è collui che extinse Gerione’ (And there is a Maestro Pasquino in Parione in stone, he who thrusted his enemy [Anteaus] into the air: this is the one who defeated Geryon’), Agosti and Isella 2004, 25–26 and 118–120. For a discussion of this passage and past misreadings of it, see Spagnolo 2019, 73. 36. Ad angulum domus Cardinalis Neapolitani statue & quidem insignis, olim est Herculis, ut quidam congnectant, quae trunca inutilave [read: mutilave] cruribus brachiis ac naso in loco non multos pedes ab eo in quo cardinalis inpensa nunc erecta conspicitur distante, abiecta iacuit ac sordibus obducta annos complures. Contra illam literator seu magister ludi cui Pasquino Pasquillove erat nomen habitabat, unde postea statuae nomen inditum est. At the corner of the house of the Cardinal of Naples [Cardinal Carafa] is a rather large statue, with mutilated trunk, legs, arms and nose, which once was a Hercules. For many years it lay cast aside in the dirt not many feet away from that place where the Cardinal has now conspicuously put it on display. A literatus or master of [literary] contests named Pasquino or Pasquillo lived across from it and therefore this was the name given to it. (Anonymous 1509: unpaginated preface, Reynolds 1985, 186)

37.

The Pasquino’s base was inscribed with a dedication by Carafa and dated 1501, ‘Ad Pasquilum. Oliverii Carafae benefcio hic sum. Anno salutis M.D.I.’, as noted in Schrader 1592: fol. 218v 13 dicti mensis augusti, in mane, afxa fuit cedula statue magistri Pasquino nuncupate, site in angulo domus Rmi D. cardinalis Neapolitani, de obitu Pape, si recedat ab Urbe; quod sine mora per totam Urbem divulgatum est . . . Predixi tibi Papa bos quod esses; / Predico, Moriere si hinc abibis; / Succedet Rota consequens Bubulcum. On the 13th of said month of August, in the morning, this was attached to the announcement board at the statue of so-called Maestro Pasquino and quickly spread throughout the city: . . . ‘I predicted, Ox, that you would be pope; I predict that if you leave here you will die, and then the Wheel will follow the Ox’. (Burchard 1883–1885, Vol. 3, 157; also reported in a letter from Agostino Vespucci to Niccolò Machiavelli, 25 August 1501)

As Vespucci explained, the ‘Rota’ refers to the wheel in the stemma of Cardinal Costa (Spagnolo 2019, 24). 38. Reynolds 1985, 207. 39. Spagnolo 2019, with previous literature. The frst edition of poems composed for the Feast was published in 1509 (Anonymous 1509). 40. Seguitando al Palazo di Napoli, si gli era unaltro [arco] mirabile diverso da li altri primi lavorato con herbe, et avante larcho tanti capitelli, feste antique, penture et altre cose che la sua belleza difcile sarebbe a discriverla. Continuing to the Palace of [the Cardinal of] Naples, there was another marvelous arch adorned with greenery diferent from the previous ones, and before the arch there were many capitals, ancient festoons [feste, perhaps a misprint of teste, in reference to ancient ‘heads’?], paintings and other things whose beauty would be difcult to describe. (Corio 1503, anno 1492: s. p.) 41. Spagnolo 2019, 83 and 96–100. 42. Spagnolo 2019, 39. 43. On the occasion of Leo X’s possesso, Ferdinando Ponzetti put up a triumphal arch in the Piazza di Parione featuring images of Perseus and Apollo (see discussion below, pp. 161, this volume) 44. Hunt 2019. 45. Cancellieri 1802, 55–60; Cruciani 1983, 312–319.

170 Kathleen W. Christian 46. Stefano’s house is described after his death in an inventory made for his brother Gabriele de’ Rossi, Archivio Boccapaduli, Armario III. Mazzo I. n. 21, 13 September 1517, fols 6v-7. The house, called the palazzo de doj torri, was in the Rione Pigna near Santa Andrea de apothecis obscuris. 47. Equitavit Papa non per papalem sive parionem de Campo Flore ad domum de Maximis, inde solita via que fuit in pluribus locis cooperta et arcus ante domum Stephani Rossi equitavimus. The pope rode not on the Via Papalis but the via di Parione from Campo de’ Fiori to the house of the Massimi, then on the usual street which was covered in many places, and we rode past the arch in front of the house of Stefano de’ Rossi. (Burchard 1883–1885, Vol. 3, 313–314) For the de’ Rossi and their antiquities collection, see Esposito 2000; Christian 2002. 48. Albertini 1510: s.p., Domus reve. Iuliani de Caesarinis Diaconi Car. cum speciosa porta exornata, quam Iulianus eiusdem domus Diac. Card. patruus fundavit, in qua sunt statuae Ro. super portam vero visuntur insignia rverea [sic] cum his carminibus litteris aureis: ‘Iulius auratas revirenti in robore glandes \ Pollicitus pacem iuraque remque dabit’. The house of the Reverend Giuliano Cesarini Cardinal deacon, its door adorned with precious things, was founded by Cardinal Giuliano, his uncle. There are Roman statues in it, and above the door are the della Rovere arms and these verses in golden letters: ‘having ofered golden acorns on the newly fowering oak, Julius will give peace, laws, and service’. 49. Penni 1513, printed in Cruciani 1983, 390–405. On the possesso of Leo X see Cruciani 1983; Fagiolo and Madonna 1997b; Visceglia 2002, 69–71; Fosi 2002; Nuti 2015 (with an appendix of payments by the Camera Apostolica for the ceremony); Lucioli 2016. 50. See Penni’s account of this incident in Cruciani 1983, 395; on the ritual, see Linder 2009; Di Castro 2010. 51. Giovio 1551, 66, ‘ridebant ianuae civium festa fronde & foribus, fenestrae stratae tapetibus ornabantur, in omnibus biviis triumphales arcus occurrebant, ad veteris Romanae magnitudinis exemplum picturis & statuis mirum in modum exornati’. 52. For the custom of hanging carpets from windows, see Mack 2002: 77–78. Examples from the sphere of Venetian painting include Gentile Bellini’s famous Procession in Piazza San Marco 1496, or Vittore Carpaccio’s Daughter of Emperor Gordian Exorcised by St Tryphon, 1507, Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. 53. According to Penni, the inscription read ‘OLIM HABUIT CYPRIS SUA TEMPORA, TEMPORA MAVORS OLIM HABUIT SUA NUNC TEMPORA PALLAS HABET’ (‘Once Cyprus [Venus] had her era, once Mars had his era and now Pallas [Minerva] has her era’), Cruciani 1983, 396. 54. Meserve and Simonetta 2003, 200–201. 55. According to Penni, passato il prenarrato arco, sopra della bottega di maestro Antonio da San Marino, orefce, stava una statua di Venere marmorea, la quale haveva un verso di sotto a lettere de oro scripte, il quale illudea alquanto quelli de misser Augustino Chisi: cioè quelli che dicea, OLIM HABUIT CYPRIS. Quello che sotto della dicta Venere stava in tal modo risonava: MARS FUIT, EST PALLAS, CYPRIA SEMPER ERO. E di continuo la dicta statua acqua clarissima spargeva. After passing the aforementioned arch [of Agostino Chigi], above the shop of the goldsmith Maestro Antonio da San Marino Penni was a marble statue of Venus, which had verses underneath written in gold letters alluding somewhat to those of Agostino Chigi, that is, to those reading ‘Once Cyprus had her time’. Those underneath the aforementioned Venus read in this manner: ‘There was Mars, now there is Pallas [Minerva], but I will always be Venus’. And clearest water spouted continuously from this statue. (Penni in Cruciani 1983, 397)

When Venus Mocked the Pope 171 56. Procedendo deinde verso la Cecha, a sinistra de la via in una fenestra è una statua de una donna marmorea, de la cui natura uscia aqua nampha che bagnava qualunque passava, etiam il Papa, soto la quale era questo monostico: ‘Mars fuit, est Pallas, Cypria semper ero’. Then proceeding towards the Zecca, on the left side of the street in a window is a marble statue of a woman, from whose natura spouted perfumed water which drenched everyone passing by, even the pope. Underneath it was this epigram: There was Mars, now there is Pallas [Minerva], but I will always be Venus. (Letter of 12 April 1513 from Giovanni Paolo de Calzonibus of Brescia describing Leo X’s possesso, in Sanuto 1879–1903, Vol. 16: col. 686) According to the Vocabolario della Crusca, ‘Per onestà, si dice natura a quella parte del corpo della femmina, onde riceve il seme, e la quale partorisce’ (‘for modesty’s sake, one refers to the natura as that part of the female body which receives semen and which gives birth’), Accademia della Crusca 1732, Vol. 3, 323, ‘Natura’. 57. For Bramante’s involvement, see Antonucci 2004, 215–216. 58. For this numerological symbolism, see Cox-Rearick 1984, 51–52. 59. Penni, in Cruciani 1983, 400. 60. Pervenuto appresso alla piazza de Parione, davanti la casa di Messer Ferrando Ponzetta, della Apostolica Camera Clerico, era un degno arco di tal struttura . . . da una parte stava un Perseo de relievo con lo scudo in braccio: et in la man dextra teneva una corona de ulivo; sopra de l’altra era uno Apollo che teneva in una mano una corona di lauro nell’altra una lira. Near Piazza di Parione, in front of the house of Ferdinando Ponzetti, cleric of the Camera Apostolica, was an impressive arch composed thus. . . . On one side was a relief of Perseus with a shield on his arm, holding an olive crown in his right hand; on the other side was an Apollo holding a laurel crown in one hand and a lyre in the other. (Penni in Cruciani 1983, 400; Cantatore 2016)

61.

Cantatore publishes a document showing that Ponzetti paid Giovanni da Pisa and Simone di Domenico of Florence the considerable sum of 250 ducats for the arch. E se n’andò a Roma [Niccolò Soggi], dove avendo visitato il detto messer Antonio di Monte, che allora era cardinale, fu non solamente veduto volentieri, ma sùbito messo in opera a fare in quel principio del pontifcato di Leone, nella facciata del palazzo, dove è la statua di maestro Pasquino, una grand’arme in fresco di papa Leone, in mezzo a quella del Popolo romano e quella del detto cardinale. And he [Niccolò Soggi] went to Rome, where having gone to visit Antonio di Monte, who was then a Cardinal, was not only seen willingly but immediately put to work: he was asked at the beginning of Leo’s pontifcate to fresco a large coat of arms of Pope Leo between the arms of the Roman people and those of the Cardinal on the facade of the palace where the statue of Maestro Pasquino is. (Giorgio Vasari, Life of the painter Niccolò Soggi (1568), noted in Spagnolo 2014, 278)

62. Cancellieri 1802, 138 and 247; Spagnolo 2014, 277. 63. Poi a canto San Marco, denanti la casa de certi nominati de Roscia, era a l’una banda et l’altra de la strada poste molte statue antique marmoree bellissime sopra certi gradi alti. Then near San Marco, in front of the house of a certain de’ Rossi, on both sides of the street many very beautiful, marble antique statues were displayed on certain high platforms. (Sanuto 1879–1903, Vol. 16, 687; Christian 2002) 64. On the Pans, discovered sometime before 1481, see Christian 2010, 384–387, with previous bibliography.

172 Kathleen W. Christian 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72. 73.

Ceen 1977; Tafuri 1984; Fagiolo 1980; Ingersoll 1985. Ceen 1977, 143–145. Ceen 1977, 148–149; Tafuri 1992, 110–112; Antonucci 2004, 234–236. For the overlap between the theme of the triumphal entry and Renaissance collecting, see Falguières Guidiceli 1988; Guest 2016, 371–373. Cancellieri, for example, noted the suppression of potentially disruptive elements by the time of the possesso of Sixtus V in 1585; Cancellieri 1802, 120, n. 3; Fosi 2002, 46. Fosi makes the point that the ever more orderly cavalcade addressed the city and its ofcials and citizenry less and less, and foreign powers more and more. As it did so, it took on a universalistic triumphalism, as beftted the reafrmation of Catholic supremacy after the Reformation; Fosi 2002, 34. Christian 2008. Christian 2002. Christian 2010, 204–205. See discussion in Stewart 2003, 140–148, 151, 224–231.

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When Venus Mocked the Pope 173 Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts Symposium Papers, edited by Nicholas Penny and Eike D. Schmidt, 33–65. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art. Christian, Kathleen W. 2010. Empire Without End: Antiquities Collections in Renaissance Rome, c. 1350–1527. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Christian, Kathleen W. Forthcoming. Michelangelo’s Bacchus, Cardinal Rafaele Riario, and Jacopo Galli in Renaissance Rome. Leiden: Brill. Cofn, David R. 1982. “The ‘Lex Hortorum’ and Access to Gardens of Latium During the Renaissance.” Journal of Garden History 2: 201–232. Corio, Bernardino. 1503. Dello eccellentissimo oratore Messer Bernardino Corio Milanese: Historia [. . .] da lorigine di Milano. Milan: apud Alexandrum Minutianum. Cox-Rearick, Janet. 1984. Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X and the Two Cosimos. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cruciani, Fabrizio. 1983. Teatro nel Rinascimento: Roma 1450–1550. Rome: Bulzoni. D’Elia, Anthony F. 2011. A Sudden Terror: The Plot to Murder the Pope in Renaissance Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Di Castro, Daniela. 2010. Et Ecce Gaudium: The Roman Jews and the Investiture of the Popes (exh. cat., Jewish Museum of Rome). Rome: Araldo De Luca. Esposito, Anna. 1994. “Li nobili huomini di Roma: Strategie familiari tra città, curia, e municipio.” In Roma Capitale (1447–1527), edited by Sergio Gensini, 373–388. Pisa: Pacini Editore. Esposito, Anna. 2000. “Un’inedita orazione quattrocentesca per l’inaugurazione dell’anno accademico nello ‘Studium Urbis’.” In Studi sul Medioevo per Girolamo Arnaldi, edited by Giulia Barone, Lidia Capo, and Stefano Gasparri, 205–235. Rome: Viella. Fagiolo, Marcello. 1980. La città efmera e l’universo artifciale del giardino. Rome: Ofcina. Fagiolo, Marcello, and Maria L. Madonna. 1997a. “Il revival del trionfo classico, da Alessandro VI alla sflata dei Rioni.” In La Festa a Roma dal Rinascimento al 1870, Vol. 1, edited by Marcello Fagiolo, 34–41. Rome and Turin: Umberto Allemandi for J. Sands. Fagiolo, Marcello, and Maria L. Madonna. 1997b. “Il Possesso di Leone X: Il trionfo delle prospettive.” In La Festa a Roma dal Rinascimento al 1870, Vol. 1, edited by Marcello Fagiolo, 42–49. Rome and Turin: Umberto Allemandi for J. Sands. Falguières Guidiceli, Patricia. 1988. “La cité fctive: Les collections de cardinaux, à Rome, au XVIe siècle.” In Les Carrache et les décors profanes: Collection de l’École française de Rome 106, edited by André Chastel, 215–333. Rome: École française de Rome. Fantozzi, Agnese, ed. 1994. Nota d’Anticaglie et spoglie et cose maravigliose et grande sono nella cipta de Roma da vederle volentieri (B.I.A.S.A. Ms. 51A). Rome: Alma Roma. Farinella, Vincenzo. 1992. Archeologia e pittura a Roma tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento: Il caso di Jacopo Ripanda. Turin: Einaudi. Fosi, Irene. 1997. “‘Parcere subiectis, debellare superbos’: L’immagine della giustizia nelle cerimonie di possesso a Roma e nelle legazioni dello Stato pontifcio nel Cinquecento.” In Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (XVIe-XIXe siècle), edited by Maria A. Visceglia and Catherine Brice, 89–115. Rome: École française de Rome. Fosi, Irene. 2002. “Court and City in the Ceremony of the ‘Possesso’ in the Sixteenth Century.” In Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–1700, edited by Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria A. Visceglia, 31–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ginzburg, Carlo. 1991. “Ritual Pillages: A Preface to Research in Progress.” In Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe: Selections from Quaderni Storici, edited by Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero, 20–41. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Giovio, Paolo. 1551. De vita Leonis decimi Pont: Max. libri quatuor. Florence: ex ofcina Laurentii Torrentini. Gombrich, Ernst H. 1970. Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography. London: The Warburg Institute. Guest, Clare L. 2016. The Understanding of Ornament in the Italian Renaissance. Leiden: Brill.

174 Kathleen W. Christian Halliday, Anthony. 1994. “The Literary Sources of Mantegna’s ‘Triumphs of Caesar’.” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Classe di Lettere e Filosofa, Serie III 24, no. 1: 337–396. Helas, Philine. 1999. Lebende Bilder in der italienischen Festkultur des 15. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Hunt, John M. 2016. The Vacant See in Early Modern Rome: A Social History of the Papal Interregnum. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hunt, John M. 2019. “Ritual Time and Popular Expectations of Papal Rule in Early Modern Rome.” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 45: 29–49. Ingersoll, Richard J. 1985. The Ritual Use of Public Space in Renaissance Rome. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California. Ingersoll, Richard J. 1993. “The ‘Possesso’, the Via Papale, and the Stigma of Pope Joan.” In Urban Rituals in Italy and the Netherlands, edited by Heidi de Mare and Anna Vos, 39–50. Assen: Van Gorcum. Linder, Amnon. 2009. “‘The Jews Too Were Not Absent . . . Carrying Moses’s Law on Their Shoulders’: The Ritual Encounter of Pope and Jews from the Middle Ages to Modern Times.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 99, no. 3: 323–395. Lucioli, F. 2016. “Di alcune cronache della cerimonia del possesso leonino.” In Leone X: Finanza, mecanatismo, cultura, Vol. 1, edited by Flavia Cantatore, C. Casetti Brach, Anna Esposito, et al., 193–216. Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento. Mack, Rosamond E. 2002. Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London: University of California Press. Mancini, Girolamo. 1909. “Il bel S. Giovanni e le feste patronali di Firenze descritte nel 1475 da Piero Cennini.” Rivista d’arte 6: 185–227. Meserve, Margaret, and Marcello Simonetta, eds. 2003. Pius II: Commentaries: 1983, Vol. 1, Books I-II. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Miglio, Massimo. 1983. “L’immagine dell’onore antico: Individualità e tradizione della Roma municipale.” Studi romani 31: 252–264. Modigliani, Anna. 2003. “Paolo II e il sogno abbandonato di una piazza imperiale.” In Antiquaria a Roma: Intorno a Pomponio Leto e Paolo II, 125–161. Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento. Müntz, Eugène. 1878–1882. Les arts à la cour des papes pendant le XVe et le XVIe siècle. Paris: E. Thorin. Nussdorfer, Laurie. 1987. “The Vacant See: Ritual and Protest in Early Modern Rome.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 18, no. 2: 173–189. Nuti, Lucia. 2015. “Re-moulding the City: The Roman ‘possessi’ in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century; Appendix: Leonardo di Zanobi Bartolini, Register of Expenses for the Coronation of Leo X, 1513.” In Ceremonial Entries in Early Modern Europe: The Iconography of Power, edited by James R. Mulryne, Maria I. Aliverti, and Anna M. Testaverde, 113–134. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Paravicini Bagliani, Agostino. 2000. The Pope’s Body. Translated by D. S. Peterson. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Penni, Giovanni G. 1513. Cronicha delle magnifche & honorate pompe fatte in Roma per la Creatione & Incoronatione di Papa Leone X Pont: Max. Rome: Marcello Silber. Pinelli, Antonio. 1985. “Feste e trionf: continuità e matamorfosi di un tema.” In Memoria dell’antico nell’arte italiana, Vol. 2, edited by Salvatore Settis, 279–350. Turin: Einaudi. Quattrocchi, Angela. 2001. “Alessandro VI: il cerimoniale del possesso tratto dai modelli dell’antico trionfo.” In Roma di fronte all’Europa al tempo di Alessandro VI, Vol. 2, edited by Maria Chiabò, Silvia Maddalo, Massimo Miglio, and Anna M. Oliva, 593–639. Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento. Rafarin, Anne. 2017. “La célébration des triomphes de Rome par Flavio Biondo dans la ‘Roma instaurata’ et la ‘Roma triumphans’.” In The Invention of Rome: Biondo Flavio’s Roma

When Venus Mocked the Pope 175 Triumphans and Its Worlds, edited by Frances Muecke and Maurizio Campanelli, 19–31. Geneva: Droz. Reynolds, Anne. 1985. “Cardinal Oliviero Carafa and the Early Cinquecento Tradition of the Feast of Pasquino.” Humanistica Lovaniensia 34A: 178–208. Sanuto, Marino. 1879–1903. I Diarii di Marino Sanuto. Bologna: Forni Editore. Schofeld, Richard. 1980. “Giovanni da Tolentino Goes to Rome: A Description of the Antiquities of Rome in 1490.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 43: 246–256. Schrader, Lorenz. 1592. Monumentorum italiae, quae hoc nostro saeculo & à Christianis posita sunt, libri quatuor. Helmaestadii: Typis Iacobi Lucii Transylvani. Spagnolo, Maddalena. 2014. “‘Pasquino’ al bivio: la statua, la piazza e il suo pubblico nel Cinquecento.” In Skulptur und Platz: Raumbesetzung-Raumüberwindung-Interaktion, edited by Alessandro Nova and Stephanie Hanke, 253–281. Berlin and Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag. Spagnolo, Maddalena. 2019. Pasquino in piazza: Una statua a Roma tra arte e vituperio. Rome: Campisano. Stenhouse, William. 2005. “Visitors, Display, and Reception in the Antiquity Collections of Late-Renaissance Rome.” Renaissance Quarterly 58, no. 2: 397–434. Stewart, Peter. 2003. Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stinger, Charles L. 1981. “‘Roma triumphans’: Triumphs in the Thought and Ceremonies of Renaissance Rome.” Medievalia et Humanistica 10: 189–201. Tafuri, Manfredo. 1984. “‘Roma instaurata’: Strategie urbane e politiche pontifcie nella Roma del primo ’500.” In Rafaello architetto, edited by Christoph L. Frommel, Stefano Ray, and Manfredo Tafuri, 59–106. Milan: Electa. Tafuri, Manfredo. 1992. Ricerca del Rinascimento: principi, città, architetti. Turin: Einaudi. Tura, Adolfo. 2015. “Antiquarie prospetiche romane.” In Bramante a Milano: Le arti in Lombardia 1477–1999, edited by Matteo Ceriana, Emanuela Dafra, Mauro Natale, and Cristina Quattrini, 198–200. Milan: Skira. Valtieri, Simonetta. 2018. Percorrendo la via Papale da Ponte Sant’Angelo a Piazza di Pasquino: Storia, società e architetture di Roma rinascimentale nei Rioni di Ponte e Parione. Rome: Ginevra Bentivoglio Editoria. Ventrone, Paola. 1990. “Note sul carnevale forentino di età laurenziana.” In Il Carnevale: dalla tradizione arcaica alla traduzione colta del Rinascimento, edited by Maria Chiabò and Federico Doglio, 321–366. Rome: Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali. Visceglia, Maria A. 2002. La città rituale: Roma e le sue cerimonie in età moderna. Rome: Viella. Zippel, Giuseppe. 1904. Le vite di Paolo II di Gaspare da Verona e Michele Canensi. Città di Castello: S. Lapi.

8

Monumentalising Burghers of the Low Countries Living Statues in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Joyous Entries Stijn P.M. Bussels

Introduction Already in the ffteenth century, public statues brought local heroes into memory in Italian cities; especially Donatello and Verrocchio excelled in emulating GraecoRoman models with their equestrian statues of condottieri, respectively Gattamelata (1453) and Colleoni (1488).1 Together with individual heroicness, these grand statues expressed civic self-awareness and pride.2 Whereas in the cities of the Low Countries a similar civic self-awareness and pride was fowering in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period,3 we have to wait for a hundred years to fnd a comparable tribute to a local hero monumentalised in public space. In 1549, Prince Philip of Habsburg, the future King Philip II, was ceremonially welcomed in the most important cities of the Low Countries, in so-called joyous entries.4 For this special occasion, the burghers of Rotterdam wanted to show of with their most celebrated son, the humanist scholar Erasmus, and constructed a hollow statue in wood in which a boy was hidden to recite a welcoming poem to the prince. This statue was only intended for temporary display, but the burghers appreciated it so much that a decade later, more precisely in 1557, they erected a stone version.5 Finally, in 1622 Rotterdam commissioned the famous architect and sculptor Hendrick de Keyzer to make a bronze statue of the humanist scholar.6 Thus, Erasmus of Rotterdam served as the subject for the frst stone as well as the frst bronze public statue in the Low Countries. That does not mean that before the mid-sixteenth century, Netherlandish people entirely lacked public statues. Quite to the contrary, hundreds, even thousands of statues were staged from the ffteenth until the seventeenth century most prominently in public space, but in contrast with the statue of Erasmus, temporarily. Here, the word ‘staging’ should be taken literally, as the statues were not made out of stone or bronze: the burghers themselves performed as statues by keeping quiet and standing in frozen poses for large audiences. These living statues often posed against a painted backdrop and could be accompanied by mannequins in papier-mâché or cloth. Moreover, several descriptions and depictions of these performances clarify that Graeco-Roman statues were emulated, especially in the poses, the clothing with rich draperies, or real or suggested nudity. We now call these performances tableaux vivants, but actually, due to their threedimensionality and their indebtedness to antique sculpture, statues vivantes is a name at least as appropriate. Modern historians have never used the term, but early modern accounts of the joyous entries did refer to sculpture to name the civic performances.7 They describe how burghers enacted statues on wagons and stages in processions

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and theatre performances. A  famous example is the Antwerp theatre competition, the Landjuweel, where amateur players grouped in so-called Chambers of Rhetoric performed theatre plays but started the competition by performing as public statues on stages in streets and squares.9 The word ‘public’ is appropriate here, as there were more than 4,000 actors performing for an audience multiple times larger, which consisted not only of Antwerp burghers but also of Brabantines and even viewers from much further, such as the English merchant Richard Clough, who wrote in his diary that he was totally thrilled by the performances.10 This chapter, however, will focus on another kind of festivities enjoyed by similar multitudes, the joyous entries. There, the public statues were performed on dozens of stages alongside the route throughout the cities in which the entering ruler paraded. Thus, we explore the ceremonial context from which the very frst permanent statues originate, a context where civic self-awareness and pride was so clearly expressed that we could speak of an eminent tradition of ‘monumentalising’ burghers. In the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, joyous entries were the most important public expression of political power relations. Almost everywhere in Europe it was a fxed and imperative diplomatic custom to welcome new rulers in the most important cities of their territories by presenting them with abundant decorations and celebrations.11 The new ruler entered the city with his/her own noble retinue and was for the occasion accompanied by the most important representatives of the city. The event gathered crowds that marvelled at the magnifcently dressed noblemen and burghers, as well as at the many festivities and festive constructions that the welcoming cities had organized especially for the occasion. Moreover, tournaments were fought and frework displays were ignited. But primarily, thousands of eyes focused on the platforms, triumphal arches, and pageant wagons on which burghers posed. Many of the burghers performing and witnessing must have felt pride that their city could accomplish such marvels. Certainly in the Low Countries, joyous entries were of the highest political importance.12 The Low Countries belonged to the Burgundian and Habsburg territories which were scattered, and certainly under Philip’s father, Emperor Charles V, became almost inconceivably vast. The connection between a new ruler and the Netherlandish cities had to be strengthened by all means, especially in periods of turbulence such as the Dutch Revolt, starting in 1568. Moreover, the powerful cities in the Low Countries had a strong feeling of independence and self-esteem and time and again expressed that in the joyous entries. Even more than anywhere else in Europe, in the Low Countries, the ceremonial welcoming of a new ruler was the mass medium par excellence to present that ruler straightforwardly to the burghers, as well as to give central stage to these burghers. All possible visual and textual laudations alongside the entry route had to becharm the new ruler. Similarly, in these laudations the burghers could publicly present their list of wishes to the new ruler. The burghers addressed the new ruler with a diplomatic monologue, as it were, expressed by inscriptions and paintings on a rich diversity of ephemeral constructions, but even more prominently with motionless and silent burghers on stages. That civic monologue did certainly not call into question that the new ruler would be the most ideal ruler. The precise defnition of the ideal ruler, however, was strongly defned by what the burghers thought to be the best for their city. The cities in the Low Countries spared no trouble or expense for the organization. For example, Antwerp spent for Philip’s entry of 1549 about twice as much money as 8

178 Stijn P.M. Bussels they would spend to build their new town hall some 15 years later.13 The municipalities entrusted the public performance of the civic diplomatic monologue to the most prominent artists and scholars. In turn, the latter relied on centuries-old traditions in which the active role of the burghers was essential. The moment of culmination in the joyous entries consisted of the burghers exclaiming loudly their oaths of loyalty to the new ruler on the central square of the city (Figure 8.1). Previous to this, their representatives already had literally aligned themselves with the ruler by joining him or her in the parade that crossed the city. Moreover, the burghers had to present the new ruler with their civic ideals by standing motionless and silent on a series of stages that were erected along the entry route. In this chapter, I will focus on the question why the municipalities and the organisers chose again and again to place their burghers on platforms, triumphal arches and pageant wagons to let them become public statues. Why did burghers enact personifcations and mythological and biblical fgures with no or with only sparse movement and words on such crucial political occasions? Since the joyous entries are well-studied, it is surprising that this question has never been put before. Political historians concentrated in the frst instance at the precise message that the living statues expressed. They linked an iconographical analysis with concrete political afairs, rarely taking the specifc medium into consideration.14 If they concentrated on the fact that these were men and women staging the message, this was contrasted with the paintings on the

Figure 8.1 Abraham de Bruyn, `Swearing of the Oaths at the Grand Place’. Engraving in La joyeuse & magnifque entrée de Monseigneur François, plate 21. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1582. University Library Ghent, Res. 1373.

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triumphal arches, which became increasingly important in the sixteenth century and displaced the staging of burghers in the seventeenth century. An explanation for this was given by relying on the growing pursuit of central power by the Habsburgs.15 The burghers, as it were, were literally pushed from the stage to give the full attention to the ruler. In their turn, art and architectural historians have merely concentrated on the frames of the stages, such as George Kernodle looking at ffteenth- and sixteenthcentury examples. He saw these frames as the missing link between sculpted Gothic and Renaissance tombs and early modern theatre scenes, such as the one in Shakespeare’s Globe.16 Kernodle presented the ephemeral decorations of the entries as the gateway of the sculptors and architects to the theatre makers.17

Markers of Liminality Due to their focus on the rise and fall of the living statues, historians of politics, art and architecture have never questioned why, for centuries, the cities of the Low Countries chose time and again to stage motionless and silent burghers on platforms, triumphal arches and pageant wagons for crucial public events of civic diplomacy. In order to start answering this question, we can rely on anthropology, as it is essential to see the joyous entries as rites de passage. Thanks to the anthropologists Arnold van Gennep and later Edith and Victor Turner, we can see the entering ruler in a joyous entry as a novice who has to go through a so-called liminal phase to be recognized in his or her new position. Edith and Victor Turner defne liminality as follows: ‘In liminality the novice enters a ritual time and space that are betwixt and between those ordered by the categories of past and future mundane existence’.18 The passage from the one situation to the other of an individual or group, to summarise the theory in a nutshell, can be generally accepted thanks to a ritual in which for a certain amount of time a distance is taken from the way people deal with each other in common life. The public acceptance of the social change stands or falls by the success in framing the change in words and/or actions that do not achieve a direct and concrete goal and therefore appear useless in the eyes of outsiders. However, these words and/or actions are essential to clearly mark the passage of the individual or group to all participants and thus to perform that passage. Therefore, the words and/or actions in a rite of passage often rely on tradition and address cultural memory. Historians such as Edward Muir use this anthropological theory that sees (what I would like to call) ‘traditional extraordinariness’ as the essence of the proper functioning of rites of passage to explain how in many rituals of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period exceptional moments and places had to be created.19 For Muir, this applies to a range of rituals, from religious initiations, to rituals that took place on joining a guild, to our central subject, the joyous entries. Historians such as Jesse Hurlbut further focused on the latter. More precisely, they have looked at the structure that was followed time and again to gradually accept the new ruler.20 They studied how the liminal phase was prepared, performed and brought to a fruitful ending with the help of fxed and preconceived patterns that enabled the step from everyday life to ritual time and place and eventually the step back to everyday life, albeit in a (slightly) changed society. Following these anthropologists and historians, we can see the burghers’ enactment of statues in the joyous entries as crucial elements in the passage of the central person to becoming the new ruler. More precisely, we can say that the living statues are

180 Stijn P.M. Bussels ‘markers of liminality’. The motionless and silent burghers behave extra-ordinarily, in the literal sense of the word as ‘beyond the normal’. However, precisely because they do so, they visualize and accentuate for all parties involved—the entering ruler and his/her retinue, the municipality and the burghers in the parade, the thousands of bystanders, and even for themselves—the crucial step in a diplomatic event, important for the city as well as the ruler. The organising municipalities attached great importance to the fact that the living statues were all burghers. The days and weeks before the actual performances, they used public ordinances to remind everyone that it was crucial that every actor would show up on time. To strengthen this demand, the municipalities threatened with heavy fnes.21 Of course, this can partly be related to practical matters, as it was and is problematic if an actor is missing on stage. On the other hand, however, it will also have been a factor that the burghers had to be closely involved in the support and even the creation of the passage of the ruler. The fact that burghers were performing on the stages did not go unnoticed. In their accounts, noblemen accompanying the ruler praised the elegance of the actresses and the manly poses of the actors.22 One of the clearest examples is the performance of the City Maiden, a recurring fgure in the entries whom the noble reporters describe in the kindest words. In the descriptions, a dozen of which have survived, we see how the beauty of the civic girl and the beauty of her city become closely intermixed.23 In his report of Philip’s entry into Antwerp in 1549, Juan Cristobal Calvete de Estrella, a Spanish nobleman who accompanied the prince during his entries in the Habsburg territories, describes the performance of Antverpia as follows: A young girl kneeling saluted the Prince very respectfully and with a modest expression on her face. Over a long dress in crimson satin, she wore a short robe in white satin, and on her hair, instead of a garland, she had a beautiful two-foot high tower like that of the church of Our Lady: this insignia, together with the red and white colours of her dress, made her recognisable as the opulent city of Antwerp.24 In the statue vivante of a girl elaborately dressed, everyone could literally and fguratively stand still for a certain amount of time and refect on the grandeur of the city. So besides the new identity of the central person, namely the new ruler, civic identity was also reconfrmed by this public statue in the rite of passage. In many cities of the Low Countries, the City Maiden welcomed the new ruler on a platform, triumphal arch or pageant wagon right at one of the city gates, so directly at the moment when the ruler entered the city.25 Thanks to this specifc location, we could say that the City Maiden ushered in the liminal phase. The start of the liminal phase of the joyous entries often relied strongly on tradition. For example, in Antwerp practically nothing changed in the performance of Antwerp’s City Maiden Antverpia on her magnifcent pageant wagon for more than half a century, that is, from the entry of François d’Anjou in 1582 till the entry of Don Ferdinand in 1635.26 Time and again the audience saw a richly dressed girl sitting silent and frozen on an impressive throne. Since the living statue of Antverpia appeared in precisely the same way in the yearly Whitsun procession, her performance was strongly embedded in the ritual customs of the city.27 Moreover, the Whitsun procession was not only of religious importance, it was also the traditional way to publicly present new members of the municipality,

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Figure 8.2 Pieter van der Borcht, ‘Antverpia Welcomes Albert and Isabella’. Engraving in Johannes Bochius, Historica narratio profectionis et inaugurationis Serenissimorum Belgii Principum Alberti et Isabellae  . . ., 186–87. Antwerp: Ofcina Plantiniana, 1602. University Library Ghent, Acc. 1858.

thus having to fnd public acceptance.28 So the ‘traditional extraordinariness’ of the performance of the City Maiden was at least yearly used to introduce and to receive approval for political change (Figure 8.2). The history of Antwerp between 1582 and 1635 was turbulent. The entry of the French Duke François d’Anjou in 1582 was a direct act of hostility towards the Habsburgs. Anjou’s appointment as the new Duke of Brabant meant that the Spanish King Philip II was no longer recognized as sovereign, and this began an open revolt against him.29 This atmosphere of defance prompted an assertive performance of Antwerp’s self-confdence. Subsequent entries into Antwerp were performed after the Habsburg reconquest of the southern territories by Ernest of Austria in 1594,30 by Albert and Isabella in 1599,31 and by Don Ferdinand in 1653.32 These entries served to enforce the power of the Spanish crown, so from the outset, the performed submission of Antverpia was once again crucial. Strikingly, it was Antverpia’s pageant of 1582 that was reused. Calvinist strategy was thus appropriated to honor the Habsburgs—the sworn enemy.33 Thus, tradition was a crucial building stone in the functioning of the statues vivantes as public markers of liminality. Tradition surpassed in terms of importance the concrete political situation, even in one of the most turbulent periods in the history of the Low Countries. Next to tradition, however, other factors of the living statues

182 Stijn P.M. Bussels strengthened the ‘traditional extraordinariness’, since the performance of public statues referred to painting, tapestry and sculpture in a most remarkable way.

Painting and Tapestry Let us frst look at the ‘picturesque’ in the literal sense of the word as ‘resembling a painting’.34 The fact that the link with painting was close is famously exemplifed in Philip the Good’s entry into Ghent in 1458. There, only two decades after its completion, burghers meticulously staged the famous altarpiece of the brothers Van Eyck. Just like in the real polyptych, the stage was separated into diferent levels. On one level, the audience could admire a living statue of God sitting enthroned and being accompanied by Mary, John the Baptist and angels singing and making music. On another level, the Lamb of God held the central position; whether that was an actual lamb or a model is not documented. It was approached from all directions by worshippers.35 By choosing to stage the altarpiece, the organisers used this festive occasion to lay the accent on one of the city’s most precious possessions, but at the same time on its humility. The organizers urged Philip the Good to forgive the burghers of Ghent, as they had tried to revolt against him, just as the Lamb bears the sins of the world.36 However, in contrast with modern historians discussing the political message, we must not forget that instead of straightforwardly using Van Eyck’s altarpiece itself to publicly proclaim this message, burghers enacted it. The suggestion of three-dimensionality that Jan Van Eyck had developed to unprecedented highlights in his use of perspective and in his paragone with sculpture (most eminent in the grisailles of the Ghent altarpiece) was in 1458 emulated by publicly staging living statues. The living statues of the joyous entries often showed a close interaction with painting. For the frst frozen and silent performance in the Bruges entry of Prince Charles, the future Emperor Charles V, in 1515, a forest was painted on the backdrop of the stage. It is reproduced in the frst book with prints devoted to a joyous entry, Remy Dupuys’ La tryumphante et solemnelle entrée (Figure  8.3). With the arrival of the prince, a wild man opened one of the doors, revealing a scene of richly attired actors re-enacting Bruges’ origin: the waldgrave Liederic divided territories, giving the city of Bruges to his son Ganymede, who became the frst lord of Bruges. The second door was then opened by a wild woman, treating the audience to a scene of the biblical fgure of Joshua. In this way, the Old Testament was linked with the founding story of Bruges. The comparison supplied the local history with an illustrious example. Moreover, Ganymede could be associated with the entering prince, who was seen as the successor of the legendary hero. In January of that year, the young prince was ofcially declared of age. From that moment on, he could fulfl his role as ruler over the Burgundian territories. Throughout the entry in 1515, the burghers of Bruges expressed their confdence that Charles would accomplish this task with great dignity, just as the young Ganymede had done before.37 It is striking to see how, in the frst of Bruges’s performances, the painted landscape was very dominant. Although the account mentions a painted forest, the woodcut shows a mountainous background that could have met with surprise, since it does not immediately recall the plain Bruges of Liederic or the dry Canaan landscape of Joshua. The mountainous countryside does have strong similarities, however, with the renewal of landscape painting at that time. One of the most prominent fgures here was Joachim Patinir who, till 1515, lived

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Figure 8.3 Remy Dupuys, ‘First tableau vivant of the joyous entry of prince Charles in Brugge, 18 April 1515’. In La tryumphante entrée de Charles prince des Espagnes en Bruges 1515, Facsimile. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1973.

184 Stijn P.M. Bussels in Bruges. In this city, he had begun to create groundbreaking landscape paintings, which presented a story, often biblical, in the foreground, much like the woodcut from Dupuys’s account. The living statues had close afliations with other visual arts as well, enforcing them as markers of liminality. Juan Cristobal Calvete de Estrella repeatedly expresses his admiration for the living statues. A passage from his account of Philip’s entry into Louvain in 1549 is exemplary. Louvain was traditionally the frst city into which the Burgundians and Habsburgs made their entries. About the very frst performance there, Calvete de Estrella writes: All the characters played their roles with so much majesty and truthfulness in their poses, that one could recognize at frst glance which hero each represented: the bearing, the attitude, the position of the feet, the hands, the heads, the complete immobility of their eyes and their bodies, the expressions of the actors, both women and men, ofered a marvellous spectacle: one could call it a living tapestry (tapiz de fguras vivas).38 By speaking of a ‘tapiz de fguras vivas’, Calvete de Estrella referred to the extremely expensive tapestries from the Low Countries that for centuries and centuries had been highly thought of in the whole of Europe in order to emphasize for his Spanish readers the most remarkable attractions of the entries in the Low Countries. Thus, the Spaniard acknowledges the extraordinary character of the stages with motionless actors and makes this understandable by linking it to a prestigious medium far more familiar to his Spanish readers. Moreover, Calvete de Estrella presents several parameters to explain the success of the tapiz de fguras vivas. There is the recognisability of the representation. The viewer could see immediately which character an actor enacted. Calvete de Estrella highly esteemed the clarity with which the diplomatic message was communicated. Besides, he describes the performances as magestad (majesty) and maravillosa (marvelous). Consequently, the tapiz de fguras vivas had to raise great admiration and wonder. Finally, the Spanish nobleman sees the extraordinariness of the stage, its immobility, as a basic condition for their success. As this parameter is explicitly addressed by foreign viewers only, local viewers must have taken it for granted. Nevertheless, the way the actors succeeded in being totally frozen must have been an important factor in the excitement raised by the performance, for foreign and local viewers alike. Statues Vivantes Even more than to painting and tapestry, however, the sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury reporters make references to sculpture. For example, when for William of Orange’s entry into Brussels in 1578 an actress enacted the Greek mythological fgure of Andromeda in chains, the reporter writes that her appearance ‘could have been taken for a marble statue’.39 The practice of referencing Graeco-Roman sculpture as a means to strengthen the extraordinary character of the stages was already a century old. Even if in that period that was not explicitly indicated in the reports, clear references can be found in the visual representations of the stages, indicating that the performing burghers were ‘monumentalised’ into antique statues. We can fnd a telling example in a stage of the 1496 entry of Joanna of Castile, the spouse of Philip the Fair, into Brussels, where living statues publicly represented the

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Judgment of Paris. A clear diplomatic message was given. The three goddesses judged by Paris hold three gifts: the power of Juno, the wisdom of Pallas, and the grace of Venus. The French art historian Anne-Marie Legaré writes: ‘Reuniting in herself the gifts that the three imperfect goddesses only own separately, Joanna of Castile appears as the ideal and universal princess’.40 What interests us here, however, is how this diplomatic message was staged. The drawing of the performance leads us to suppose that naked women performed in Joanna’s entry (Figure 8.4). If we consider the

Figure 8.4 ‘Paris’ judgement in the joyous entry of Joanna of Castile in Brussels, 9 December 1496’. Manuscript 78D5, fol. 57, Kupferstichkabinetts SMB, Bildarchiv preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, inv.no. 00049763. Source: © bpk/ Kupferstichkabinett, photo: Jörg P. Anders.

186 Stijn P.M. Bussels history of late mediaeval nudity on stage, however, there are diverse possibilities. The actresses could have been naked indeed, but they could also have worn closely ftting skin-coloured suits and even could have been mannequins.41 Due to a lack of concrete sources, it is hard to tell which option was chosen in the Brussels performance. Nevertheless, in late medieval and early modern cities, moral restrictions concerning the public display of the naked body were moderated during festive occasions, so actual nudity might not be ruled out completely.42 Historians have never put the focus on the fact that the postures of the female nudes clearly refer to antique sculptures. The fgure in the middle of the drawing recalls the most famous female nude statue of Antiquity, Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Cnidus, which was preserved in countless Roman copies and textual descriptions.43 With one hand, she holds a veil and protects her private parts. Holding the other hand before the left breast, this fgure resembles a specifc variant of Praxiteles’ original, of which nowadays the Aphrodite of Syracuse, the Capitoline Venus and the Medici Venus are the most famous. Interestingly, despite these connections with this Aphrodite type, following the inscription on the drawing the fgure in the middle was not the lovely Venus but the powerful Juno. With regard to Venus, the draughtsman chooses to represent the moment when she turns away from the viewer. Thus, the body of the goddess of love is the most obscured of the three. All the more since her back is covered by her long hair. She has put one of her hands on her buttocks rather explicitly, thus emphasising she is making a pose. Besides the fact that the Graeco-Roman statues were used as a means to evoke ancient goddesses, the specifc setting heightened the statue-like character of the three goddesses. Placed in front of a sort of Swiss weather house avant la lettre, the elegant performers were moved on a rotating plate from one door to the other. Thus, their well-considered poses could be totally fxed and were even more emphasised. Graeco-Roman sculpture continued to infuence the stages of the joyous entries in the Low Countries and the monumentalising of the performing burghers. We already saw that the reporter of the entry of William of Orange into Brussels explicitly referred to ancient sculpture. In the very same year, in 1578, Archduke Matthias had already made his joyous entry into the city. The fact that two entries were organized so close after each other illustrates the turbulent times. Matthias came at the request of the country’s States General, which no longer recognized Governor Don Juan in this position, but Philip II still supported the latter.44 However, we have to be careful not to let this political context entirely dominate our analysis of the entry, since these festivities, as we have already seen, were certainly not disconnected from the rich tradition of previous entries. A series of 24 statues vivantes ofered the Archduke various symbols of power. The woodcuts from the ofcial account by Jean Baptiste Houwaert show that each living statue was performed on a simple stage, most frequently with a single actor or actress. On one of these stages, we see Temperance ofering a costly robe to the Archduke (Figure 8.5). This cardinal virtue is represented in a traditional manner, as a woman who pours water into a bowl of wine. An inscription points to the allegorical meaning of this scene: ‘Temperance decorates any person far more than only with rich dresses. She ofers his highness (of noble character) the robe of honour, splendid and delightful’.45 The robe, therefore, does not primarily stand for an outer sign of richness but instead was meant to encourage Matthias to use temperance. By dressing the entering ruler in symbolic articles of clothing in this series of stages, the Brussels municipality treated him as a novice who entered, to repeat Edith and Victor Turner, ‘a ritual time

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and space that are betwixt and between those ordered by the categories of past and future mundane existence’.46 The discourse ofered by the living statues was coherent and clearly communicated by a fxed format; a personifcation gave the Archduke a present that could be related to Matthias’ ideal government. Most often, that personifcation made a gesture that referred to ancient sculpture. Temperance provides us with a clear example. Thanks to her gesture, but also her chiton-like garment and a

Figure 8.5 Jean Baptiste Houwaert, ‘Tableau vivant of the joyous entry of archduke Matthias in Brussels, 18 January˛1578’. In Sommare beschrijvinghe vande triumphelijcke Incomst .  .  .  , plate XVII. Antwerp, 1579, 51. University Library Ghent, MEUL. 000334.

188 Stijn P.M. Bussels single revealed breast, the fgure of Temperance was very similar to the ancient statue type that has become known as the Venus Genetrix. As with Praxiteles’ statue of the goddess of love, this representation of Venus was very popular in the early modern period and was known through many copies from the Roman period, as well as through representations on coins and descriptions, such as in Pliny’s most infuential Naturalis Historia (35.156).

Theatricality Thanks to their immobility and silence, as well as their speaking resemblances to painting, tapestry and especially sculpture, the living statues were traditional in their extraordinariness and therefore fgured as essential markers of liminality in the joyous entries which we have seen as civic rites of passage for a new ruler. The ‘traditional extraordinariness’ was essentially defned by making explicit references to the representative status of the stages, thus clarifying that regular communication of everyday life was exceeded. A last element which gave the living statues ‘traditional extraordinariness’ was theatricality, again in the strict sense of the word as ‘resembling the theatre’. For this, we need to go back to the amateur players of the Chambers of Rhetoric mentioned in the introduction of this chapter. Their rise and decline run parallel with the history of the living statues in the joyous entries, increasingly developing their role in the Low Countries throughout the ffteenth century and diminishing in importance throughout the seventeenth century.47 In order to emphasise mutual infuencing, the theatre historian Wim Hummelen has clarifed how much the living statues of the joyous entries resembled the living statues in the theatre performances of their time, all the more since often the Chambers of Rhetoric were responsible for both. At a decisive moment in the plot of the plays, the Chambers of Rhetoric staged a group of living statues to specify and strengthen the conclusion of the play.48 Here, we can once again speak of ‘traditional extraordinariness’, and this to let the central message penetrate as strongly as possible. More precisely, these living statues served as representations within the representation. In other words, at the moment when the drama was coming to its end, the action was stopped, and a stage behind the stage was revealed by raising the curtains. On this stage, another time and place than the time and place of the theatre play was evoked. Often, the plays of the Chambers of Rhetoric were strongly defned by allegories. Therefore, they were situated in a time and place that were related to the theatregoers but which were also relying on metaphorical meaning. Issues and occurrences of the theatregoers’ time and place were represented in such a way that they eventually pointed at a deeper, often moral meaning. For example, the personage of the priest was staged in such a way that he was clearly recognizable for the audience, but this personage was not just an everyday priest but a personifcation (we can even speak of an animation) of the abstract notion of good faith. By contrast, the living statues that were performed at the play’s conclusion did not work with ‘allegorical presence’ but evoked a time and place which was not shared with the speaking and moving characters on the front stage and which these characters could only observe, just as the theatregoers. Generally, the living statues’ time and space is biblical or heavenly, such as the staging of the crucifxion of Christ or God sitting enthroned. Whereas the speaking and moving characters of the front stage do not share time and place with the statue vivante, they do comment on what they see in the stage behind them, thus making the moral of their story clear.

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Thanks to the Chambers of Rhetoric, the burghers from the Low Countries were used to complex communication with the help of motionless and silent actors staged at a very specifc moment in the plays that were performed regularly on the streets and squares of cities, towns and even villages. Thanks to the parallels in the staging of the living statues in the plays of the Chambers of Rhetoric, the living statues in the joyous entries, which were less frequently staged, similarly urged the viewers to thoughtfully consider what was shown on the stages and not to take these stages at face value but to read a deeper meaning. A time and place were evoked that had to be related to their own time and place, although there was certainly not always a direct connection. The appearance of statues vivantes in the late medieval and early modern entries in the Low Countries was closely linked to many media, as they shared the same rhetorical strategies. This transmediality can be related to the creation of ‘traditional extraordinariness’ that made the living statues successful markers of liminality. We have seen how the picturesque aspect of the living statues from the 1458 entry into Ghent, namely the duplication of the Ghent Altarpiece, was used to the fullest extent but also linked to the theatrical power of the performance of this famous polyptych by locals standing motionless and silent. The picturesque and the theatrical aspects of this group of living statues enforced each other. Similarly, the impact of the explicit statuesque postures on the scenes of the Archduke Matthias’ entry in 1578 strengthened the impact of the performance of the actresses. In this case, the combined forces of sculpture and theatre ensured that the audience saw that there was more going on than the Archduke only getting new clothing. The series of living statues performed to welcome the Archduke was a powerful, transmedial marker of liminality and had to make generally known that a new and ideal ruler was in the making. Thanks to the fact that burghers were giving form to the public statues, the civic pride could be expressed fully in this ritual. As actors given central attentions, burghers had an important part in the political act. Even more, since they stood motionless and silent and often resembled sculpture, we can speak of the Netherlandish cities monumentalising their burghers.

Acknowledgement I would like to thank the editor of this volume, Christopher P. Dickenson, for his excellent suggestions and remarks on a draft of this chapter.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Bergstein 2002; Covi 2005; Erben 1996. Starn 1986. See the contributions and bibliography of Blondé, Boone, and Van Bruaene 2018. See Bussels 2012. Heesakkers 1994. Becker 1993; Scholten 2001. In the time of the entries they were named in the Low Countries as toog (the act of showing) or vertoog (the act of viewing). Thus, the visual aspect of the performances was given central attention. Moreover, the perspective of the maker as well as the audience were given attention in those names. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal 1993: entries ‘toog’ and ‘vertoog’. 8. Hummelen 1992. 9. Vandommele 2012.

190 Stijn P.M. Bussels 10. Burgon 1839, 388–389. 11. See, among other publications, two large research projects published as Mulryne and Watanabe-O’Kelly 2004; and Wisch and Munshower 1990. 12. Soly 1984. 13. Soly 1984, 352. 14. An early exception is Roeder-Baumbach and Evers 1943. 15. Soly 1984. 16. Kernodle 1943. 17. Moreover, the conviction that the ephemeral design followed the stone architecture was a clear sign, following theatre historian Wim Hummelen, of Kernodle’s lack of knowledge of the theatre history of the Low Countries. Hummelen contradicted Kernodle’s statement and discussed a rich series of theatre performances that had to prove that the living statues of the entries originated from the theatre. Hummelen 1970. 18. Turner and Turner 1982, 202. 19. Muir 1997. 20. Hurlbut 2001. Cf. Lecuppre-Desjardin 2004, 135–158. 21. E.g. Bussels 2012, 35. 22. Bussels 2007. 23. Bussels and Van Oostveldt 2017. 24. una donzella puesta de rodillas de rostro modesto, la qual con gran acatamiento saludaua al Principe. . . . Traya sobre una saya larga de raso carmesi una ropa corta de raso blanco, y en lugar de guirnalda sobre sus cabellos una hermosa torre de dos pies de alto a semejança dela que està enla yglesia mayor de nuestra Señora, por la qual y por las colores de blanco y Colorado mostraua, que era la riquissima villa de Anvers. (Calvete de Estrella, El felicissimo viaje: IV, 225 recto. Translation into English is by Gijs Versteegen. I would like to thank him for his help) 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

Bussels and Van Oostveldt 2017. Bussels and Van Oostveldt 2017. Thofner 2007, 47. Thofner 2007, 47. Van Gelderen 1992, 54–55; Van Bruaene 2007. Facsimile with introduction: Mielke 1970. See also Vandenbroeck 1981, 38–44. Geudens 1911. Knaap and Putnam 2013 is recently published and will hopefully put this joyous entry back on the scholarly agenda. However, as I  have explained elsewhere, the personifcations accompanying the Maiden were adapted to the new political situation. Bussels and Van Oostveldt 2017. Bussels 2010; Bussels 2014. Martens 2002; Hindriks 2019, 122–127. Bergmans 1907. Anglo 1973. Juan C. Calvete de Estrella, El felicissimo viaje del muy Alto y muy Poderoso Principe Don Phelippe, Hijo del Emperador Don Carlos Quinto Maximo, desde España a sus tierras de la baxa Alemaña: con la descripcion de todos los Estados de Brabante y Flandes, Anvers: Martin Nucio, 1552, III, 82. Briefy discussed and translated in Karimi 1977, 104–105. Karimi 1977, 110. ‘Réunissant à elle seule des dons que les trois déesses imparfaites ne possèdent que séparément, Jeanne de Castille apparaît comme la princesse idéale et universelle’ (my translation). Legaré 2010, esp. p. 53. Bussels 2007. Duerr 1993. Pasquier and Martinez 2007. Soly 1984, 355. ‘Temperantia die den persoon verciert/ Boven cieraet van cleeren hoe costelijck,/ Schenckt sijn hoogheyt (edel ghemaniert)/ T’habijt van eeren, schoon en kostelijck’. Jean B. Houwaert,

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Sommare beschrijvinghe vande triumphelijcke Incomst vanden doorluchtigen ende hooghgheboren Aerts-hertoge Matthias binnen de Princelijcke stadt van Brussele in t’iaer ons Heeren MDLXXVIII, Antwerp: Plantijn, 1579, 51. 46. Turner and Turner1982, 202. 47. Strietman 1991. 48. Hummelen 1970; Hummelen 1992.

References Anglo, Sidney. 1973. “Introduction.” In La tryumphante entrée de Charles prince des Espagnes en Bruges 1515, edited by Remy Dupuys, 4–34. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Becker, Johan. 1993. Hendrick de Keyser: Standbeeld van Desiderius Erasmus in Rotterdam. Bloemendaal: H.J.W. Becht. Bergmans, Paul. 1907. “Note sur la représentation du retable de l’agneau mystique des Van Eyck en tableau vivant, à Gand en 1458.” Annales de la Fédération archéologique et historique de Belgique 20: 530–537. Bergstein, Mary. 2002. “Donatello’s Gattamelata and Its Humanist Audience.” Renaissance Quarterly 55, no. 3: 833–868. Blondé, Bruno, Marc Boone, and Anne-Laure Van Bruaene, eds. 2018. City and Society in the Low Countries, 1100–1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burgon, John W. 1839. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham. London: Jennings. Bussels, Stijn P. M. 2007. “Between Decency and Desire: Verbal and Visual Discourses on Dress and Nudity in the Antwerp Entry of 1549.” Queeste: Journal of Medieval Literature in the Low Countries 14: 62–80. Bussels, Stijn P. M. 2010. “Making the Most of Theatre and Painting: The Power of ‘Tableaux Vivants’ in Joyous Entries from the Southern Netherlands.” Art History 33: 236–247. Bussels, Stijn P. M. 2012. The Antwerp Entry of Prince Philip in 1549: Rhetoric, Performance and Power. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Bussels, Stijn P. M. 2014. “Powerful Performances: Tableaux Vivants in Early Modern Joyous Entries of the Netherlands.” In Les tableaux vivants ou l’image performée, edited by Julie Ramos and Léonard Pouy, 71–94. Paris: Mare & Martin. Bussels, Stijn P. M., and Bram Van Oostveldt. 2017. “‘Restored Behavior’ and the Performance of the City Maiden in Joyous Entries into Antwerp.” In Netherlandish Culture of the Sixteenth Century, edited by Anne-Laure Van Bruaene and Matt Kavaler, 147–166. Turnhout: Brepols. Calvete de Estrella, Juan C. 1552. El felicissimo viaje del muy Alto y muy Poderoso Principe Don Phelippe, Hijo del Emperador Don Carlos Quinto Maximo, desde España a sus tierras de la baxa Alemaña: con la descripcion de todos los Estados de Brabante y Flandes. Anvers: Martin Nucio. Covi, Dario C. 2005. Andrea del Verrocchio: Life and Work. Florence: Olschki. Duerr, Hans P. 1993. Der Mythos vom Zivilisationsprozes: Obszönität und Gewalt. Berlin: Surhkamp. Erben, Dietrich. 1996. Bartolomeo Colleoni: Die künstlerische Repräsentation eines Condottiere im Quattrocento. Signmaringen: Thorbecke. Geudens, Edmond. 1911. “Blijde inkomst der Aartshertogen Albertus en Isabella te Antwerpen in 1599.” Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis, inzonderheid van het oud hertogdom Brabant 10: 120–140. Heesakkers, C. L. 1994. “Die einzige Abbildung der ältesten Erasmus-Statue in Rotterdam in einem Solothurner Stammbuch.” Jahrbuch für solothurnische Geschichte 67: 127–136 (original version in Dutch: Heesakkers, C. L. 1993. “Een afbeelding van Erasmus’ oudste Rotterdamse standbeeld.” Rotterdams Jaarboekje 10, no. 1: 198–206). Hindriks, Sandra. 2019. Jan van Eycks früher Ruhm und die niederländische “Renaissance”. Petersberg: Imhof Verlag.

192 Stijn P.M. Bussels Houwaert, Jean B. 1579. Sommare beschrijvinghe vande triumphelijcke Incomst vanden doorluchtigen ende hooghgheboren Aerts-hertoge Matthias binnen de Princelijcke stadt van Brussele in t’iaer ons Heeren MDLXXVIII. Antwerp: Plantijn. Hummelen, Wim. 1970. “Typen van toneelinrichting bij de rederijkers: De opvattingen van Endepols en Kernodle kritisch onderzocht en geconfronteerd met conclusies op grond van werken van Jacob Duym en Willem van Haecht.” Studia Neerlandica 1: 51–109. Hummelen, Wim. 1992. “Het tableau vivant, de ‘toog’, in de toneelspelen van de rederijkers.” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 108: 193–222. Hurlbut, Jesse D. 2001. “The Duke’s First Entry: Burgundian Inauguration and Gift.” In Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, edited by Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken, 155–185. Amsterdam: Atlanta. Karimi, A. M. 1977. “Tableaux Vivants: Their Structure, Themes, and Rhetorical Function.” Southern Speech Communication Journal 42: 99–113. Kernodle, George. 1943. From Art to Theatre: Form and Convention in the Renaissance. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Knaap, Anna Knaap, and M. Putnam, eds. 2013. Art, Music and Spectacle in the Age of Rubens. Turnhout: Brepols. Lecuppre-Desjardin, Elodie. 2004. La ville des cérémonies: Essai sur la communication politique dans les anciens Pays-Bas bourguignons. Leuven: Brepols. Legaré, Anne-Marie. 2010. “L’entrée de Jeanne de Castille à Bruxelles: un programme iconographique au féminin.” In Femmes à la Cour de Bourgogne: Présence et Infuence, edited by Dagmar Eichberger, Anne-Marie Legaré, and Wim Hüsken, 43–55. Turnhout: Brepols. Martens, Maximiliaan. 2002. “Art and Politics: Festive Decorations for Triumphant Entries in the Burgundian Netherlands.” In Polyptiek: Een veelluik van Groninger bijdragen aan de kunstgeschiedenis, edited by Henk van Veen, Victor Schmidt, and Joost Keizer, 27–34. Zwolle: Waanders. Mielke, Hans. 1970. The Ceremonial Entry of Ernst, Archduke of Austria, into Antwerp. New York: Bolm. Muir, Edward. 1997. Ritual in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mulryne, Ronnie, and Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, eds. 2004. Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Pasquier, Alain, and Jean-Luc Martinez, eds. 2007. Praxitèle. Paris: Musée du Louvre. Roeder-Baumbach, von Irmengard, and H. G. Evers. 1943. Versieringen bij Blijde Inkomsten gebruikt in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden gedurende de 16e en 17e eeuw. Antwerp and Utrecht: De Sikkel. Scholten, Frits. 2001. “Hendrick de Keyser’s Erasmus: A Statue for a Hero of Wisdom.” Apollo: 154–167. Soly, Hugo. 1984. “Plechtige intochten in de steden van de Zuidelijke Nederlanden tijdens de overgang van Middeleeuwen naar Nieuwe Tijd: Communicatie, propaganda, spektakel.” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 97: 341–361. Starn, Randolph. 1986. “Reinventing Heroes in Renaissance Italy.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17, no. 1: 67–84. Strietman, Elsa. 1991. “The Low Countries.” In The Theatre of Medieval Europe: New Research in Early Drama, edited by Eckehard Simon, 225–251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thofner, Margit. 2007. A Common Art: Urban Ceremonial in Antwerp and Brussels During and After the Dutch Revolt. Zwolle: Waanders. Turner, Edith, and Victor Turner. 1982. “Religious Celebrations.” In Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual, edited by Victor Turner, 201–219. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Van Bruaene, Anne-Laure. 2007. “Spectacle and Spin for a Spurned Prince: Civic Strategies in the Entry Ceremonies of the Duke of Anjou in Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent (1582).” Journal of Early Modern History 11: 263–284.

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Vandenbroeck, Paul. 1981. Rondom plechtige intredes en feestelijke stadsversieringen: Antwerpen 1594–1599–1635. Antwerp: Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Vandommele, Jeroen. 2012. Als in een spiegel: Vrede, kennis en gemeenschap op het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561. Hilversum: Verloren. van Gelderen, Martin. 1992. The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt (1555–1590). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wisch, Barbara, and Susan Scott Munshower, eds. 1990. “All the World’s a Stage”: Art and Pageantry in the Renaissance and Baroque, Part 1 of Triumphal Celebrations and the Rituals of Statecraft. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University. Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. 1993. Historisch wetenschappelijk beschrijvend woordenboek van het Nederlands van 1500–1976. ’s-Gravenhage: SDU.

9

Street Monuments and the Idea of National ‘Improvement’ Through Tolerant Coexistence in Post-Restoration Britain (1660–1770) Matthew Craske

Introduction In this chapter, I explain how, in the century or so after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, the various urban political communities of Great Britain expressed their political loyalties through street monuments. In the case of most of the examples I review, a community elected to express its political ideals through erecting a statue of a monarch who they believed had introduced a state of peace necessary to progress. I describe these monuments as the means by which abstract concepts of political theology, derived of a sense of strong connection between the afairs of church and state, were embodied in the form of the efgy of a dead king or prince.1 For most of the monuments that are discussed below, the great seventeenth-century constitutional crises took the part of the state of disorder that had, it was claimed, been bought to a close by the monarch that was celebrated. The typical British street monument of the hundred years after the Restoration (1660–1760) perpetuated the memory of a sovereign who was supposed to have ofered the fnal, constitutional, solution to those crises. These royal statues, and their inscriptions, were, ostensibly, historical statements. They were also the war monuments of their times. With most examples featuring an efgy in armour, they were one of the means by which Britons came to terms with the wars of the immediate past. However, being built to last, they had their most important purpose as statements of confdence in a peaceable future.2 One of the main reasons they deserve to be studied closely today is that they provide illuminating access to how a civilisation planned to create a prosperous future out of its conficted past. With the beneft of hindsight, we know that this particular civilisation was to emerge, by the time our period closed, as the world’s foremost commercial economy and imperial power. It is for this reason that these monuments provide a way of gaining access to the values that made this transformation possible. As David Spadafora has argued, the main indication that an Enlightenment happened in the eighteenth century is the many clear signs of widespread attachment to the idea of progress.3 These quasi-classical statues of monarchs were, upon such terms, icons of the British Enlightenment. They represented divergent, highly partisan, conceptions of what constituted a political ‘improvement’. They were tributes to rulers who, in the perception of one particular community, introduced the terms of benefcial change. When a civic body expressed its faith in a regal champion, it was,

Street Monuments 195 typically, making a controversial statement. The hero of one town or city was likely to be another’s villain. What constituted a political improvement was, as we shall see, very much a matter of opinion, to be debated in the newspapers. For all these monuments might be the product of a modern phenomenon, newspaper opinion, they were conspicuously ancient in tenor. Most of the statues that are discussed below were classical not just as a matter of style but of meaning. Those who erected them knew much about what the ancient Romans had hoped to achieve by putting up statues in public spaces. No doubt some of them were also aware of the practice of damnatio memoriae, the Roman tradition of eradicating public memory by destroying statues and inscriptions. They seem to have honoured, by emulation, the Roman tradition of statue making but not that of statue breaking. The reluctance to destroy commemorative statuary, which is charted in this essay, is likely to refect an awareness that the Romans had fallen into damnatio memoriae most forcibly at times of the decadence of empire. Considering themselves a people on the ascent, one implementing civic ‘improvements’, these Georgians avoided every appearance of intolerance. Owing to the phases of statue breaking during the Civil War, it was natural for the early Georgians to associate national degeneration with this particular form of destructive practice. Having rebuilt the nation on the basis of the Toleration Act of 1689, a culture was formed that sought to display that political will necessary to live with statues that one might fnd ofensive.

Pax Romana as a Condition of Civic Order In ways that were both implied and directly stated, the quasi-Roman statues that are reviewed below transmitted a heritage of ideas about how to improve the public realm through wise rule. A prime source of these ideas was the great Roman histories, in particular those of Tacitus and Suetonius. The idea of the Pax Romana, as imposed by an enlightened head of state who was ready to go to war to establish a proftable peace for his people, was central to the imagery of most of these monuments. Street statues that were made in the classical milieu tended to be made in anticipation of viewing from a proper vantage. Stylistically, they belonged in wide, straight, roads or squares, in environments redolent of the urban planning that, it was imagined, characterised the attainments of the ancient Romans. They were, generally, the waking dreams of men repulsed by flthy warrens of mediaeval streets and collapsed pre-Civil War infrastructure. Some of the most expensive and artistically ambitious quasi-classical street monuments were commissioned to adorn urban schemes outside London. Here, the quality of a civic improvement was often measured in terms of the capacity to improve upon the capital. Simply because the fashion for erecting quasiclassical street statuary began in the metropolis and spread to the provinces, it need not be assumed that London was considered to have set standards, either politically or aesthetically. As the nation’s political centre, the place where people of infuence gathered and competed for precedence, London was notoriously difcult place to improve. The limited success of those who attempted to implement the Wren plan to rebuild after the Great Fire of 1666 was indicative of a wider, more protracted, malaise. London was, as we shall see below, a place where private and party interests often got in the way of public-spirited improvement schemes. As a consequence, Londoners came to expect their lives to take place amidst squalor and chaos. Street monuments were a source of comedy because they came to take their part in the chaos rather

196 Matthew Craske than mark the imposition of order. Symptomatic of this was the prospect of the frst statue of this sort to be commissioned in England, the bronze equestrian monument to Charles I that now stands in Trafalgar Square. Erected in the wake of the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, though commissioned long before, this was interpreted as a symbol of that event. However, this monument was not necessarily associated with improvement. It stood in an area that, by the 1730s, became a notorious eye sore. Within a fve minute walk of Parliament, this statue was open to being seen as an emblem of how weak governance was registered in flth and disorder. William Hogarth was one of those who saw the potential of such an emblem as a critique of the era of Robert Walpole’s stint as prime minister. He employed the statue of Charles I as the focal point of a visual joke at the expense of the tenor of current afairs that

Figure 9.1 William Hogarth, Times of the Day: Night, print, 1833. Private collection of the author.

Street Monuments 197 appeared within his Times of Day series (1738). It made the ironically grandiose centrepiece for his most squalid of London’s ‘times’, ‘Night’ (Figure 9.1). Hogarth’s way of representing this statue, and the congested horror of the Charing Cross area in general, was probably infuenced by an account of London by an acquaintance, James Ralph.4 The latter wrote a once-famous pamphlet (1734) about the need to improve London’s performance in the matter of erecting statues and public buildings.5 In this Critical Review, Ralph raged against the blights upon planning that retarded patriotic projects, such as the erection of an equestrian monument to William III at Cheapside Conduit. A great admirer of the ‘vistas’ provided by straight roads and squares, Ralph deplored the inability of Londoners to set aside their diferences and private interests in order to make suitable environments for the receipt of patriotic public statues. Reading Ralph’s Critical Review helps to explain why most of the great plans for British street monuments that never came to fruition, or were hopelessly delayed or downgraded, happened in London. The administrators of smaller urban centres often found it easier to arrive at the clarity of purpose necessary to execute improvements. The decision to erect a street monument was frequently received as a fne opportunity to express publicly a provincial town’s superiority to London’s administrative failures. As we shall see in this essay, the townspeople of Dublin, Bristol or Hull believed that they could shame the Capital, set national standards of civilisation, by commissioning the most splendid of street monuments. These places were not entirely superior to the political divisions that characterised the capital. Indeed, we fnd, for instance, the great metropolitan sculptor, John Michael Rysbrack, delaying sending his monument to William III to Bristol for fear that it would be immediately destroyed in a street riot. Nonetheless, it was much easier for the administrators of such provincial cities to arrive at the decisiveness necessary to the avoidance of planning blight. Some British towns or cities acted to support one another in the matter of striving for a better future by commemorating the past. A case in point, which is discussed below, is when the merchants of Hull imitated how their peers in Bristol went about commissioning a bronze equestrian statue to William III (1732–35). However, such statues were, for the most part, the political acts of factions who conceived of their communities as in some form of hostile competition with other national centres of civilisation. In such circumstances, statements of politics and churchmanship were knowingly planned to be at odds with those of other communities. Street sculpture gave obdurate substance to important, regional diferences in historical and theological vision. These diferences had been a major factor in the English Civil War; the misery and impoverishment which attended that confict being the presiding, underlying, historical stimulus to the cult of ‘improvement’ that underscored the commission of these quasi-classical street monuments. The objective of putting up such monuments does not, however, appear to have been to infame insipient sectarian confict. On the contrary, I argue that these monuments served to express, and in the process defuse, dangerously fundamental diferences between the political values of urban communities. In Britain, as I explain below, certain dead monarchs, such as William III or Queen Anne, assumed the role of talismans of party positions. In this context, one of the functions of a royal statue was to defne, at a glance, the political identity of a given urban community as a matter of Whig or Tory afliation. The preconception was that these would function as statements of partisan loyalty that strangers of a diferent political persuasion were expected to tolerate. Such monuments, I suggest, allowed for the permanent expression of controversial values in anticipation of them being tolerated by fellow countrymen, some of

198 Matthew Craske whom could be expected to fnd them objectionable. On this account, I  describe how street monuments served as part of the cultural apparatus that allowed a nation to survive its divergent understandings of its past and endure potentially divisive visions of its future. I  suggest that they functioned as one means amongst many whereby a national society, whose recent history was civil war, avoided turning religious and political diferences into matters of confict. Through such statements, the nation could be seen as a series of political territories, clearly defned in their loyalties, which had found a means of coexistence. They played a part in a ‘respect of obvious diference’ model for confict resolution that has its heir in the Good Friday Agreement.

The Example of the Proposed Equestrian Monument to the Duke of Cumberland William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and younger son of George II, died in October 1765. He was aged just 44, and notoriously corpulent. A periodical called The Craftsman6 attempted to generate public enthusiasm for the commission of an equestrian statue. It was to be positioned ‘at Whitehall, just below the entrance to parliament’.7 The plan was for the readers to subscribe to this project. The Duke, sometimes known as ‘the Butcher of Culloden’, was a controversial character, in life and in death. Not least he had tried and failed to have himself appointed regent in the minority of his nephew, George, in preference for the latter’s mother, Augusta. Some interpreted this as a kind of attempted military coup, on account of Cumberland’s earlier attempts to increase his powers through army reforms. Cumberland’s last years were ones of protracted humiliation, as his plans to follow up his successes in the suppression of the Jacobite Rebellion by assuming control of the state were foiled. It is not surprising, therefore, that the mass of subscribers were never forthcoming that were necessary for the erection of a magnifcent monument.8 Four years later, the same newspaper announced that the monument would be made, but at the behest of a private individual, Colonel William Strode. It was erected near Strode’s house at Cavendish Square with an inscription stating that it was a gesture of gratitude for a ‘private kindness’.9 The Craftsman promised that it should be cast in bronze. However, the fnal monument, by the Cheere Company of Hyde Park Corner, was made of a cheaper material, lead, which was gilded to give the impression of greater expense.10 The whole scheme to commemorate Cumberland in London was, thereby, downgraded. Nonetheless, Strode presented his gift to the community as an event of constitutional importance. The unveiling was organised for the birthday of William III, 5 November, to give the impression that Cumberland was that king’s natural successor; his Battle of the Boyne being Culloden.11 The choice of date was signifcant, for when he died, in 1776, Strode was buried beneath a monument in Westminster Abbey that described him as ‘a strenuous asserter of Civil and Religious Liberty, as established at the Glorious Revolution of William III’.12 This was not the only occasion on which an equestrian monument to a member of the House of Hanover became an alter-ego for William III, or vice versa. In 1731, the committee that formed to commission a statue for St  Anne’s Square Bristol long debated whether the man on the horse was to be George II or King William. Famously, they opted for the latter.13 This interchangeable conception of rule was derived of the understanding, beloved of many kinds of Whigs,

Street Monuments 199 that the Hanoverian or Protestant Succession of 1714 was some sort of providential unfolding of the Glorious Revolution of 1688.14 The Cavendish Square monument was, therefore, commissioned for the consequential political purpose of preserving respect for a Protestant succession which was taken to have proceeded from William III’s march up from Brixham to claim the throne in November 1688. However, by the time the monument was erected, in 1770, the Duke’s reputation was in such a downward spiral that the very idea of him as a surrogate for the fearsome and austere King William became risible. His efgy, a faithful representation of a bloated physique masked by fashionable military attire, broke with the athletic body image expected of a classical equestrian monument, as set by the monument to Marcus Aurelius on Rome’s Capitol Hill. Shortly after the statue was erected, it was lampooned in a pamphlet by a certain J. Stuart, which set out terms for the future development of London.15 The pamphlet was written in the spirit of Ralph’s Critical Review. Stuart’s purpose, like that of Ralph, was to show that Londoners were incapable of marking the legacy of political improvements in terms of appropriately dignifed monuments. A rear view of the sculpture was employed as a spoof frontispiece. Mocked from the start, the statue never regained public favour. James Elmes described it, in 1831, as ‘much ridiculed’.16 Within 30 years of his writing, it was so decayed it was pulled down. Although the proposed statue of Cumberland at Whitehall was never commissioned, it was signifcant. Not least, it was one of the earliest instances of a subscription scheme being advanced for a street monument. The wording of the Craftsman’s proposal tells us a lot about what was expected from street sculpture in Georgian England. Such a monument was supposed to be an active infuence upon the political choices made by the people who daily saw it. To have such as statue erected would, The Craftsman argued, be in ‘the true interest of the country’. It would, it was hoped, keep the people in constant mind of ‘the virtues and services of their Great Deliverer, from Popery, slavery and arbitrary power, with the horrid consequences thereof’. The way the proposed monument was described keyed into readers expectations of progress and their tendency to look for signs of it in civic infrastructure. The intended situation, near to the Houses of Parliament, was proposed in the understanding that it was being upgraded. This spot was ‘becoming the grandest in town’. Thus, the statue was to be the centrepiece of an urban ‘improvement’. An equestrian statue was a statement of martial potency. So it was that the monument to Cumberland was expected to intimidate, though within limits set by a supposedly free society. Whitehall was selected because it was considered ‘the chief entrance to foreigners’ into London’. Should those foreigners be Catholic, the statue was to be considered a cautionary statement. The position was chosen because it was to be ‘opposite’ the equestrian monument to Charles I  at Charing Cross (cast by Hubert Le Seuer in 1633 but not erected until 1674)17 and near to bronze pedestrian statue of James II in Privy Garden (Grinling Gibbons, 1686, now in front of the National Gallery).18 The latter monument was not reviled or destroyed. On the contrary, it was fully restored in 1730, to the approval of the London press.19 In the mid-1730s, James Ralph registered his tolerance of the former by stating that, although James II was ‘unhappy’ in his politics, his statue was sufciently fne as to deserve an even more conspicuous position.20 The objective of the editors of The Craftsman was similarly tolerant. They were aiming to provide a politically superior alternative to the monuments to Stuart Kings. It was that the monument to Cumberland should ‘serve as a

200 Matthew Craske contrast’ to what was already there. This contrast was to be political, a refection upon the superiority of the Hanoverian to the Stuart line. It is an indication that any doubts about the reliability of the Stuart line by Protestants were not taken out on their street monuments that George I himself paid for the restoration of the statue to Charles I on the Mall.21 The way that those considering a monument to Cumberland, a recently deceased prince, were expected to think of the long-dead William III said much about conventional attitudes to commissioning such sculpture. In the fnal decade of the administration of Robert Walpole (1732–42), conventions of tolerance were applied, in the main, to the commemoration of long-dead monarchs. This is because the majority of important British street statues in this period were of this ‘recent history’ type. Three monarchs were so commemorated: William III, Queen Anne and Charles II. They represented the divergent interpretations of the direction of national history which were, because this society devoted itself to the principle of toleration, allowed to coexist. Their efgies not only outnumbered those of George I and II but were also more ambitious. This refected the understanding that, whilst the nation was improving itself, the current monarchy was commonly considered less important to that process than the political conditions established by their forebears. Overarching this phenomenon was a broader social development: the growing confdence of groups of merchants that they had a major part to play in civil and religious afairs not simply of their town or city but of the nation at large. Though the statues themselves refect the importance of loyalty to some manifestation of the crown within urban society, the overriding impression was of a public realm in which courtliness was of diminishing consequence.22 Equestrian monuments to British Kings began solely as gestures of gratitude from men who had been advanced at court to their cherished sovereign. This did not entirely cease, as the example of William Strode honouring the memory of Cumberland testifes. However, the most ambitious, bronze, statues to the memory of sovereigns that were commissioned in the 1730s were testimony to the combined spending power of merchants. These were gestures of civic loyalty, as distinct from courtly duty.

Monuments and the Sacred Connotations of Market Places Previous to the Reformation, urban public spaces in England had frequently centred upon a cross. Many of these crosses were destroyed by iconoclasts.23 Post-Reformation England gradually settled upon the idea that it was appropriate to place the image of a monarch at the centre of a community, although it was only after the Restoration of 1660 that the frst classical street monument was put in place. This monument, Hubert Le Sueur’s Charles I at the end of Whitehall, was erected in a place formerly occupied by an Eleanor Cross, which has subsequently given Charing Cross its name. This cross was destroyed in 1647, in line with the iconoclastic activities of the Cromwellian reformers.24 A number of the monuments discussed in this chapter were erected close to the main market place of a town or city. Some were near the demolished site of market crosses; others, such as the equestrian monument to Charles II at Edinburgh, were built near crosses that survived the Reformation, as accompaniments.25 These statues served the same sort of purpose in the trading community as a market cross: that of sanctifying the procedures of commerce and thereby granting them moral legitimacy

Street Monuments 201 within the life of the community. The swapping of crosses for fgurative icons cannot be considered one of straightforward secularisation because, in most cases, the statue was attended by an inscription that made clear that it had religious functions. The placement of portrait statues of rulers near to markets associated the exchange of goods for money with certain, personifed, quasi-sacred political values.26 It was noted, for instance, that the equestrian monument to William III in Glasgow was, in 1735, placed beneath the steeple of the Laigh Church and near the ‘tron’, an area formerly reserved for the weighing of goods at the market.27 This monument was not secular, in so far as the King was described in the inscription as a warrior for religious freedoms, who had been ‘pious, valiant, invincible’. The monument was designed to a format determined by the erection of an equestrian statue of King William at Kingston-upon-Hull in 1734 (Figure 9.2). Here, the market cross, with cupola and pillars, was removed and replaced by a massive gilt-bronze monument, which was erected by subscription at a cost of nearly 900 pounds.28 One of the consequences of this decision to replace a cross with a statue is that the latter retains the ecclesiastical context of the former. The statue became an adornment of the environs of a church known as Holy Trinity in the Market Place. Indeed, this religious function was marked in the way that annual civic jamborees were organised around it. A  few months after the statue had been set up, an ‘entertainment’ took place, 4 December 1734, to mark the ofcial unveiling. The purpose of that entertainment was to remember how Hull had been ‘rescued out of the hands of papists’.29 One way of thinking about the great British statues of William III is that they functioned like protective talismans for certain urban Protestant cults. The more expensive the cult object, and Scheemakers’ statue at Hull was conspicuously costly, the more efcacious it was deemed to be as a charm to ward of any papists who might think of making themselves at home in that place. Though appropriated by Christians, the tradition of placing monuments to leaders near markets was of Roman origin and refected the pieties operative within pagan religion in which emperors assumed deifcation in order to stand for the immortal aspirations of Rome itself, a supposedly eternal city. Witness, for instance, the way in which the Trajan’s Column in Rome, which was originally topped with a bronze statue of the emperor, was designed to look down upon Trajan’s market (built ce 98–117).30 It was from Roman history that post-Restoration Britain inherited the understanding that one of the great functions of civic monuments was to remind those involved in trade that they did so under political conditions established by rulers. The role of a portrait statue in a market place was related to that played by the head of the ruler upon coinage. By these means, the currency inherited the personal authority of the ruler and the ruler’s successors, an association with terms of fair exchange.31 The most dramatic expression of this idea was the erection in November 1734 of Henry Cheere’s fne marble statue to King William, taking the part of a Roman emperor, as the fnal embellishment of ‘the east end of the great hall’ of the recently rebuilt Bank of England.32 Superfcially, this was a reminder that the Bank had been founded in William’s reign. More profoundly, it symbolised the notion that currencies, and systems of trade and commerce, are legitimated by the icon of a respected warrior ruler. One of the causes and consequences of street monuments being erected in market places was that they were patronised by people involved in commerce. This was the case with the equestrian monument to William III in Glasgow, which was commissioned, though not paid for, by the mercantile town council. A verse was published to

202 Matthew Craske

Figure 9.2 Peter Scheemakers, statue of William III, 1734, Kingston upon Hull. Source: Courtesy Kees van Tilburg.

celebrate the erection, in 1735, of this grand piece of sculpture (Figure 9.3). This ably communicates the understanding that street monuments, when situated in commercial centres, stood for prosperous stability derived of a state of security made possible by a militarily potent monarchy. The verse expressed the supposedly shared understanding that the Hanoverian establishment owed its existence to the martial endeavours of King William: By him the mighty blessings stand secured. By him the widowed lands no more bemoan, A broken lineage and undoubtful throne, He fxt succession in our George’s line, Whereby our future peace the source we fnd.33

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Figure 9.3 John or Catherine Nost, statue of William III, 1735, Glasgow. Source: © Gordon Baird Photography Dundee.

This passage of the verse was inspired the inscription which declared that William’s revolution had been maintained and transmitted to posterity under ‘the just government of patriotic princes of the Brunswick line’. The verse reminds us that Hanoverian monarchs were considered, by some, to rule by grace of William III. This monument was a permanent reminder that the current state of peace which they enjoyed had been established by the military reassertion of the standing of the crown in the late 1680s and 90s.

Glasgow vs Edinburgh Not least, this verse, awkward as it is, reminds us that the early Hanoverians lived in the shadow of a civil war that had brought about and been sustained by a crisis of monarchy. Much as the insecurities of the previous century were associated with failures of kingship, in specifc the Stuart line, the solutions were assumed to lie at this level of the political order. The very sight of a permanent memorial to a ‘good’ and strong monarch at the heart of the community gave reassurances of future peace and prosperity. It was the association of strong kingship with the growth of commerce

204 Matthew Craske that caused merchants such as James Macrea (1677–1744), who donated the Glasgow statue, to lead the way in the patronage of important street sculpture in Hanoverian Britain. In the summer of 1733, Macrea announced his intention to present the city of Glasgow with a monument to King William. It was one of the frst things he did on return to Scotland after decades in India.34 The aim was to make an equestrian monument for Glasgow that more than competed with that to Charles I, which is now in Trafalgar Square. A newspaper puf upon John Nost,35 who made the monument, declared it was ‘better than that at Charing Cross’.36 It says much about Macrea’s reasons for commissioning this monument that he had made his fortune in service of the East India Company, as Governor of Madras. For him and thousands of Protestants involved in imperial trade, King William had, like Augustus, established foundations for imperial expansion and the pathways to global markets. It was overlooked by Macrea, but not most British merchants of a Tory persuasion, that great trading establishments such as the East India Company had their charters in the movement sponsored by Charles II to revive international trade after the Restoration. For Macrea, who named his retirement estate in Ayrshire Orangefeld,37 it was the Glorious Revolution and not the Restoration which comprised the platform for the burgeoning of international trade that occurred in the ’20s and ’30s.38 Macrea bought Orangefeld immediately after erecting the statue.39 It was part of a greater process of ceremonious homecoming. Macrea’s prime intention, after returning to Scotland from India, via London, was to establish an inheritable estate, which he, as a bachelor, was obliged to bestow upon selected heirs who hardly knew him.40 The statue, then, was the frst phase of a very wealthy elderly individual, who had left Scotland as a poor boy, buying an inheritable standing in Scottish society, frst mercantile and civic and afterward landed and dynastic.41 When Macrea commissioned the equestrian monument, it is likely that he was aware that Glasgow’s great rival, Edinburgh, had long had such a civic adornment (Figure  9.4). More pertinently, he was probably aware that Edinburgh’s equestrian monument, in memory of Charles II, had been a subtle snub to William III. Such prominent icons of loyalty served to simplify the complex political identities of the rival Scottish cities; one seeming to be a community devoted to the political importance of the Restoration of 1660 and the other the product of its alternative, the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In times when the Jacobite cause was still viable in Scotland, these were particularly signifcant territorial markers. Indeed, at the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion they turned out to have real signifcance. The Duke of Cumberland considered, amongst his punitive measures, shifting the capital of Scotland from Edinburgh to Glasgow to ensure future loyalty to the Hanoverian Succession.42 The equestrian monument at St  Giles, Edinburgh, expressed civic loyalty to the House of Stuart. This was bound, in the decades following its completion in 1689, to develop Jacobite infections. For some reason, unstated, the inscription tablet was removed in the late eighteenth century. The tenor of this inscription serves, perhaps, as an explanation in itself. It was enthusiastic in its pro-Stuart sentiments to the point of fanaticism. Charles was compared to Mars, who crushed the ‘cockatrice’ of rebellion ‘in its eggs’. It is clear from the wording of the text that what was being referred to here was not the Cromwellian rebellion but the 1676 Covenanter revolt.43 The Restoration was likened to a rising sun and declared the will of providence. Cromwell was described as a ‘usurper’. It need not surprise that one of the main points of the statue was to declare a connection between the Restoration and an Augustan pax.44 It

Street Monuments 205

Figure 9.4 Grinling Gibbons, statue of Charles II, 1685, Edinburgh. Source: Courtesy Kees van Tilburg.

was conventional to view in this way the events of 1660, in which a republic marred by internecine confict was supplanted by strong personal rule.45 According to the inscription, Charles had assumed frm control of the climate of confict, becoming ‘the arbiter of peace and war’. The monument was erected, and inscription penned, in circumstances of crisis for Edinburgh, precipitated by the accession of James II, his fight and the subsequent coronation of William of Orange. The circumstances naturally destabilised the fragile relationships between Presbyterians and the Episcopalian parties which had been granted a fresh political potency by Charles II. Such was the dependence of the latter upon the favours of the house of Stuart that they were slow to recognise the acute problem posed by James’s Catholicism and even slower to fnd anything positive in the accession of William.46 In this respect they were correct to be concerned, for the Glorious Revolution quickly turned into good news for the hitherto embattled Presbyterian cause. It was the Episcopalian parties who had the motivation to celebrate the Restoration as a Roman triumph in the period 1685–88. From the text of the inscription alone, it is clear that these parties were responsible for this equestrian monument. It was set up in line with the Marcat Cross, in relationship with which it continued to have its meaning until the removal of the latter in 1756. The implication of placing the sculpture in the symbolic heart of trade was that the Restoration had set the terms

206 Matthew Craske of a peace in which the city had thrived economically. For some Episcopalian parties within the trading community, that was a verity.47 The equestrian statue in Edinburgh was ostensibly a kind of funeral monument to Charles, who died in the year of commission, 1685. It was, however, more than this. Charles was granted an honorifc parade through the city, in direct contempt of the Commonwealth, a decade before he was crowned in Westminster in 1660.48 So it was that a grand image of Charles on horseback gave permanent expression to the cavalcade of 1650, which was remembered as an indication that the city supported the House of Stuart before all others. For some reason, either provocative or clumsy, it was decided to build the equestrian monument, which was set on piece of land that had formerly been the churchyard of St Giles, directly over the grave of John Knox.49 This was a somewhat incendiary decision, given the choice of Charles’ successor to turn to Catholicism in the middle of the process of commission, To add spice, the inscription on the plinth, penned by the advocate William Clerk,50 was put up three years later than the monument’s completion in 1686. This means that it was installed a year after the arrival in England of William III in 1688 and subsequent Siege of Derry. William III was not formally recognised as monarch in Edinburgh until March 1689, and then with a measure of reluctance in some quarters, chiefy Episcopalian. Clerk’s inscription is redolent of times when the city was coming to terms with an imported monarchy: HE RETURNED TO HIS OWN REALMS WITHOUT ANY SHEDDING OF BLOOD AND SIMPLY THROUGH RECOGNITION OF HIS LAWFUL CLAIM, WHEREUPON HE ESTABLISHED, ENLARGED, STRENGTHENED AND CONFIRMED THE CHURCH, THE STATE, PEACE AND COMMERCE. THEN, WINNING FAME BY HIS WAR WITH HOLLAND, HE STRAIGHTWAY BECAME ARBITER OF PEACE AND WAR BETWEEN EMBATTLED NEIGHBOURS.51 It is important to note here the term ‘own realms’, which mark the appreciation that Charles had a Scots heritage, as his successor, William, did not. It is reasonable to think, because these words were written after King William had begun waging war in Ireland, that these references to Charles coming to power without civil bloodshed amounted to a complaint. The inscription was a statement of support for Charles’ recreation of a Scottish episcopacy, as marked by the appointment of James Sharp as Archbishop of St Andrews. Note the assurance in this inscription that Charles’ frst priority was to re-establish the church and its relationship with the state. This must mean the restoration of an episcopal system. Yet this system was far more short-lived than its obdurate commemoration suggests. Within a year of William’s recognition in Scotland, the episcopacy, which seems to be praised here, was over. The inscription profered an extraordinarily partisan interpretation of Charles’s ‘War with Holland’. By some standards, the frst of these wars (1665–67), in which Charles had formed a secret and none too successful alliance with Louis XIV, were best forgotten rather than memorialised. The King and nation had been humiliated by the Dutch assault of the feet at Chatham dock in June 1667. The next phase of the war, subsequent to the ignominious Treaty of Breda, was aimed at restoring some pride. This ended in another treaty, signed at Westminster in 1674, which only the most zealous observer, as William Clerk proved to be, could have described as a process of

Street Monuments 207 ‘winning fame’ whereby Charles imposed the terms of peace upon the Dutch. A more accurate description of events was that the accession of William in 1688 had formed a fortuitous conclusion to a passage of history in which Dutch naval power was consistently superior to that of Britain and a threat to its plans for colonial expansion. By becoming politically united with the Dutch in the form of the coronation of the Prince of Orange, the threat was neutralised. It seems, then, that William Clerk was employed to write a version of events that fattered Charles and scrupulously avoided the impression that William was the necessary successor to a failed Stuart line. Part of the point of this was to generate the illusion that Charles had ensured that, when the alliance with Holland was made in 1688, it was upon terms set by a militarily ascendant Stuart state.

William III, the Commemoration of a Controversial Legacy William III was buried in Westminster Abbey in March 1702. A grand monument was planned for the space above his grave in Henry VII Chapel but was never executed.52 Thereafter, there were many compensatory schemes to set up monuments to him in London. Some came to fruition, others did not. One of those which remained at planning stage was a scheme of 1718 to replace Francis Bird’s monument to Queen Anne before St  Paul’s Cathedral by one to William and Mary.53 It is not recorded who wanted this, but we can be confdent it was a person who preferred a Whig to a Tory vision of the history of the rebuilding of the Cathedral. Wren’s building was, indeed, consecrated during the reign of William, in December 1692. However, work was completed in the reign of Queen Anne, in 1711, which allowed a Tory lobby54 to make it appear to be part of her and their achievement by setting up a monument in 1712.55 The most important project to commemorate William III in London was never executed in the eighteenth century. In 1724, Samuel Travers, Auditor General to the Prince of Wales, left a remarkable will, full of proposals for public works, which was publicised in the newspapers.56 In this, he bequeathed 500 pounds for the making of a bronze monument to the long dead King William as a centrepiece for St  James’s Square.57 Travers, who came from Puritan stock with Dublin connections and was a thoroughgoing Whig, was a natural candidate for high ofce under the administration of William III. The monument was to be erected near Travers’s town house for a reason, because it comprised the paying of a personal debt. It was to be the product of a courtly system of preferment, like, for instance, the monuments set up to Charles II (Windsor Castle) and James II (Whitehall) by Tobias Rustat in gratitude for holding the lucrative ofce of Keeper to Hampton Court Palace.58 The statue at St James’s Square was intended to register Travers’s gratitude to King William, who had laid the foundations of his massive personal fortune by appointing him ‘Surveyor General’.59 In this capacity he had worked closely with Wren, Hawksmoor and Vanburgh and developed a keen appreciation of the political usefulness of public art.60 One of Travers’s great claims to fame, although he is largely forgotten now, is that he surveyed ‘East Greenwich’, negotiated the myriad private land interests and acquired it for William III.61 It was upon his terms that Greenwich Hospital was surrounded by extensive ‘royal’ parkland. Travers’s desire to commemorate William III derived, thus, from a career in which he had become accustomed to establishing physical legacies for the crown. Unfortunately, his personal property interests were overly complex, and after his death his estate soon became embroiled in legal claims.

208 Matthew Craske This meant that the many attempts to enact his testament were frustrated by the freeze placed on funds.62 In March 1739, for instance, a newspaper reported that John Cheere of Hyde Park Corner, whose business had just been established, was about to execute the monument.63 Frederick Prince of Wales was said to have made up for the inadequate funds. This, however, never happened, and the scheme withered under an extreme, to the point of bizarre, case of planning blight.64 It was eventually executed by John Bacon junior in 1808. The sculptor who made it was born 52 years after it was frst due to be commissioned.64 The only public monument to William III, before Samuel Travers made his bequest in 1724, was the equestrian statue at College Green in Dublin (Grinling Gibbons, erected 1701). Travers must have known this monument, for a branch of his family settled in Dublin. His brother was an independent Presbyterian minister there. It seems likely, then, that Travers was seeking to erect a version of this famous equestrian statue in London. In turn, the Dublin monument seems to have been an antipathetic political response to the Charles II in Edinburgh. Not only was the Dublin monument by the same sculptor as that at Edinburgh, it was also erected by a town council. The College Green monument was the frst public statue, in the Imperial Roman civic tradition, to be erected in Ireland.66 In the eighteenth century, Dublin’s monument to William III had good claim to be the most important sculpture, politically speaking, in the British dominions. It was the subject of two annual ceremonials, for the King’s birthday and the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, and formed a veritable rallying point for the Protestant presence in Ireland.67 It was the Protestant Irish, indeed, who arrived at the initial idea of using a grand war monument as means of raising the public profle of stridently ‘Orange’ and aggressive forms of British nationalism.68 The ritual processions of Orange culture that survive to this day have as their starting point the ceremonies of paying court to this particular statue.69 The magnifcence of the College Green monument was the basis of a broader understanding amongst the wealthy Protestant people of Dublin that they, having the greatest reason to fear encroachments upon their dominance, were obliged to outdo even London in the grandeur of loyalist statuary and the civic fummery that they were prepared to devote to it. This is why, for instance, the monument to George II at St Stephen’s Green, begun in 1752, was not just magnifcent but honoured by a regular itinerary of loyalist military parades in which loud hoorays were heard for ‘the Glorious Revolution’.70 The understanding that Dublin ought to lead the way in this matter of civic pomp is made clear in a London newspaper report of a sculptor making an equestrian statue of George I for Essex Bridge in Dublin (erected in 1722). He was seen, in 1719, taking measurements of Le Sueur’s famous monument to Charles I at Whitehall with a specifc aim of making something better.71 The fact that this monument was commissioned in 1717, partly to mark the defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion two years before, indicates why it was important that a Georgian monument was seen to eclipse a Stuart one. A  way of understanding this one-upmanship is that Ireland, where the threat to Protestant hegemony was most immediate, demanded an overtly martial public image of kinship, which was expressed in equestrian street monuments. This created an understanding that Ireland was the place where loyalty was most truly felt, as it was most enthusiastically celebrated. Upon these terms, it is not surprising that Dublin set terms for honouring King William that were considered worthy of emulation in London.

Street Monuments 209 In his will of 1725, Samuel Travers suggested that his statue to William III could be erected in one of two places: St James’s Square and the Great Conduit at Cheapside. As Travers must have been aware, the latter site had recently, in 1721, been intended for an equestrian monument to George I.72 However, as in Bristol a few years later, opinion shifted to having a monument of William III as a more categorical declaration of militant Protestantism. The reply of some of London’s merchants to the delay of the St James’s Square project was to establish their own, corporate, scheme upon the lines of that in Dublin. This began in 1727 and continued until 1731, in which period the consensus moved toward setting the statue up at the Great Conduit on Cheapside opposite Mercer’s Hall, the most categorically mercantile setting imaginable.73 The Great Conduit, which was originally designed as a water channel and drinking fountain, had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.74 The empty site had turned into an informal sewer, and passing carriages tossed up flth into a pile there. This had become an embarrassment, as it was traditionally an important staging post in civic pageantry.75 The intention was to crown, literally, an improvement project. This scheme was led by an old man called Samuel Burch, who made an entire late-life patriotic reputation from it.76 The reason why he became famous was that he fought against the humiliation of the bill to erect this statue that was proposed by Alderman Barnard in October  1731.77 A  rival group of Aldermen blocked the proposal, and much Whig outrage ensued. Objectors infamed the dispute by publicly claiming that they would prefer to leave the rubbish heap there than have this sculpture. Votes against were a remarkable 77 to 25.78 The dispute stirred up by this rejection was one of the great political contretemps of the decade. Many editorials were published in which recent constitutional history was vehemently debated.79 James Ralph, in his Critical Review of 1735, was obliged to think of the Cheapside Conduit as the place where one was most starkly reminded of the failure to improve London:80 In a place like London where so many decorations are wanted, so few to be found, and even so little room to increase their number, one is forced to regret that any opportunity which is neglected, or any space which is not improved as it ought. ’Tis certain that no spot is better suited to a statue, than that where the Cheapside Conduit lately stood, and no King ever deserved that honour more form his people than William III. I think all party disputes ought to have been dropt, and the whole city agree to pay a compliment to themselves in doing that justice to him. As this passage makes clear, the ofence given by the refusal of the statue was based on something more than an aggrieved sense of loyalty to the memory of a king who was perceived to have established national liberties. Those who refused the statue were considered to have turned their backs on an opportunity for urban ‘improvement’, an even more sacrosanct phenomenon. Numerous bodies came forward to oppose the actions of the objectionable 77. The merchants of Drogheda in Ireland81 voted for an equestrian statue on the River Boyne.82 Subscriptions were raised for monuments in Bristol and Hull.83 There was a scheme for a monument at Southwark,84 and the vestry of St James’s made a promise, which they did not keep, to see through Samuel Travers’s will as a corporate project. There was a proposal for an equestrian monument to King William in Lincolns Inn Fields. The Bank of England declared its plan to erect a monument, which was realised in 1734. The second Duke of Dorset hedged his political bets by commissioning, in

210 Matthew Craske 1733, Andries Carpentiere to make a pair of lead statues of William III and Queen Anne for his gardens at Knole in Kent.85 It was probably also at this stage that an elderly Whig, William Jolife, decided to put up a lead equestrian monument, upon the lines of that at Dublin’s College Green, at the ‘circus’ before his house in the town of Petersfeld in Hampshire. This statue, by John Cheere, was not erected until Jolife died in 1749. He had bequeathed the sum of £500, the same as that of Samuel Travers, in his will.86 Indeed, it is reasonable to think that the current statue at Petersfeld (Figure 9.5) is essentially that which Cheere was engaged to erect for St James’s Square in 1739 but was abandoned.87 It is, on these grounds, reasonable to date this statue to 1739, not c. 1750. The controversy which led to the commission of these William III monuments had its context in the wider debates concerning the activities of the long-lasting administration of Robert Walpole. The context was the building of political tension that erupted in the so called Excise Crisis of 1733.88 The period in which the controversy concerning the equestrian statue at Cheapside fermented was that of a highly polarised political climate, in which opposition to the Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, began to build in earnest. Walpole’s administration was sustained by the pragmatic manipulation of interest in the Commons, which was largely landed. He was able to keep a majority by taking pressure of land taxes. Satisfed by this measure, George II continued to rule through him. Conversely, this meant a greater reliance of taxes upon international trade, which was most felt in places such as Bristol.89 This, in turn,

Figure 9.5 John Cheere, statue of William III, 1739, Petersfeld. Source: Courtesy Kees van Tilburg.

Street Monuments 211 meant that there were, for instance, hosts of Bristol tobacco merchants who had good reason to regret that Georges I and II kept Walpole in ofce for so long. Their loyalty to the Hanoverians, as opposed to the wider phenomenon of Protestant succession, was dimmed by the continual, incremental rise is maritime trade taxes. There was a reason that the three grandest statues to William III were put up in port cities. These were places in which the possibility of a Britain that drew its wealth from the encouragement of international trade was most fervently pursued. People from such places had cause to regret that George II had elected to rule through Walpole, a man whose very nickname, ‘the Norfolk Squire’, was redolent of a landlocked political imagination. They were, understandably, disinclined to honour the current monarch and preferred William III as a patriotic alternative. This is why it was one of the prime opponents of the Excise Bill, Sir John Barnard, who proposed the monument to William III at Cheapside.90 It followed that the three major equestrian monuments to William III that were erected, at Bristol, Hull and Glasgow, were oppositionist statements.91 Naturally, a great deal of interest was taken in the divisive afair by the newspapers that weekly grinded out criticism of the Walpole administration, such as The Grub Street Journal, The Craftsman and Fog’s Weekly Journal, and their most vociferous opponents, such as The Free Briton and Read’s Weekly Journal. These three great equestrian monuments were physical expressions of the aspiration to build a better Britain. The historically educated were aware that, in the previous century, civic confict had been a major impediment to urban improvements. However, these had also been times of high drama and personal sacrifce, upon which was founded that current state of stability which was necessary to economic and cultural development. This difcult past needed to be set to rest ritualistically in order that urban communities could move on honourably and enjoy their prosperity in due confdence that it was gratefully received. The great preponderance of monuments to long dead monarchs that were set up during the reigns of George I and II refect some kind of indirectly stated disappointment with the House of Hanover. For many, both Whig and Tory, the Hanoverian Succession was a compromise, as opposed to a heroic constitutional event. There were consequently few street monuments to the Succession of 1714.92 The only major statue that could be interpreted as such a monument was the lead equestrian monument to George I, by John Nost, at Grosvenor Square.93 This statue, which was paid for by Sir Richard Grosvenor,94 was efectively destroyed by as early as 1727.95 When this monument decayed, another tribute to George I was put up in Leicester Square in 1748. This lead equestrian statue, which also promptly fell apart, was purchased second-hand at the sale of the efects of the Duke of Chandos96 at Canons.97 William III’s version of the Protestant Succession was, to state the obvious, followed by a military assertion of his power in Ireland in which he himself took command. This lent his military image a peculiar menace, which was refected in the bellicose character of the celebrations around the College Green monument. So it was that the equestrian image of William of Orange seems to have represented a model of kingship which, for some, ran counter to the welcome limitations placed upon the power of the crown in the eighteenth century. This underscored some of the reluctance to have a version of College Green at Cheapside. For some British Protestants, ‘King Billy’ inspired strong antipathy as a kind of military enforcer, ‘tyrant’ and foreign ‘usurper’.98 This meant that some were inclined to erect monuments to monarchs who drew their esteem from not being anything like him. Queen Anne, as a woman who was born in England,

212 Matthew Craske represented a version of sovereignty that did not come as something invited in and thereafter sustained by military muscle. For some Tories, her image, standing in full skirts, became a soft, subtle, feminine, way of expressing regret for the imposition of conveniently selected Continental princes. To admire Queen Anne was not to declare for the Pretender, but it was to infer regrets for the Hanoverian Succession. This was natural enough, because to be a Tory was, essentially, to be out of Westminster ofce or national power from 1714 until the accession of George III.99 Thomas Estcourt of Shipton Moyne (d. 1746), a strident Tory, commissioned Thomas Paty of Bristol to make a commemorative statue to Queen Anne to ornament the town of Dursley in Gloucestershire. This was set into the east face of the Market House in March 1739.100 Dursley is 25 miles from Bristol, and it is reasonable to think of this statue an alternative to that of William III by Rysbrack, which was erected there a few years before. When Estcourt did this and sent news of it to a London newspaper, he was making a political gesture which constituted a challenge to the current establishment in Westminster. It said almost everything that, with a Hanoverian King on the throne, Estcourt overlooked him in favour of the last monarch to favour Tory statesmen. By these means, the commercial activity of this particular part of Gloucestershire became a distinctly Tory phenomenon. The beautiful Dursley Market House into which the statue was inserted was itself paid for by Estcourt. It was also adorned with a set of arms that had been granted the Estcourt family in the reign of James I, when Thomas Estcourt I was knighted in 1607. Having been ennobled by a Stuart King, the Estcourt family became prominent royalists in the Civil War, from which their Toryism evolved.101 Thomas Estcourt, it seems, was employing his power over his locality, the only sphere over which a man of his politics could exert authority during the Whig supremacy, to assert the impression that things had been better until the Stuart line was efectively snufed out by the terms of the Hanoverian Succession. The choice of the Market House as the site of commemoration was reminiscent of the erection of monuments to William III, such as that at Hull, near the forum of trade.

The City of Oxford, a Dissident Interpretation of Constitutional History In the 1730s, the University of Oxford employed loyalist statuary to signal that it had its own understanding of national history. It is signifcant that the forum of civic display was on and around the Sheldonian Theatre, which was once used as a printing house and from where Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion had been disseminated. A series of three statues were erected at the Sheldonian Theatre between 1735 and 1737 in memory of Charles II, the Duke of Ormond and Bishop Sheldon.102 All were made by Henry Cheere of St Margaret’s Westminster. He had been given sole privilege in the commission of marble statuary by the university after the death of Francis Bird (1731),103 who had similar claims to monopoly. These statues that were funded by the Chancellor’s exchequer in a period when the Chancellor of the University, Charles Butler, rejoiced in a title the 1st Earl of Arran, which was bestowed upon him by ‘James III’. In 1722, when Chancellor, he had been appointed one of the nine Jacobite Lords Regent, who were supposed to care for the realm in James’s absence. He was the paternal grandson of James Butler, frst Duke of Ormond (1610–88), whose statue was at the centre of this ensemble. As Nigel Aston has shown, Arran was in contact with the Jacobite Court in Rome but not a man with trenchant loyalties. He was,

Street Monuments 213 rather, a fgure who compromised with the current monarchical establishment. These monuments, thus, ought not to be read as public statements of Jacobite allegiance. They are, none the less, memorials to a university community who found more to celebrate in the Restoration than the Glorious Revolution. The frst statue to be fnished, that to Charles II, was set above the great North Door of the Theatre in July  1735.104 In the previous decade, a grand building had been completed adjacent, funded from the proceeds of the sale of the History, in which the University Press was re-established upon grander terms. In 1721, a lead statue of Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon, made by Francis Bird was erected over the courtyard entrance, south door, of Hawksmoor’s new Clarendon Building.105 One of the purposes of the Charles II statue was, then, to complement that set up nearby to Lord Clarendon. The subsequent movement of the Clarendon statue from its original position—and the complete removal of the Charles II efgy—has reduced the chances of it being noticed that the two ceremonious founder’s doorways were once supposed to complement one another. The statue of Clarendon recalled the story of the ‘Rebellion’, as understood in the City, Oxford, which had once been the Royalist capital. He holds before him the regalia of the ofce of Lord Chancellor which he had assumed two years before the Restoration, when Charles was still in exile. The statue refers to the period, immediately after the Restoration, when Clarendon had occupied the ofce of Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the University concurrently. This was a period of history which enshrined the claims of the City of Oxford to have once been the geographical centre of the restored monarchical state. Cheere’s statue of Charles II, symbolic as it was of the Restoration, paid testimony to the happy conclusion that providence had ordained for Clarendon’s History.106 The political character of this public space, which was articulated by these two founder’s statues, could not have been more diferent from that of the monuments to William III. It is part of the context of the Charles II statue that it was erected at a time when it was fashionable to put up monuments to long-dead sovereigns.107 This was no obvious symbol of Jacobite allegiance. It might well, indeed, be interpreted as a means by which the Earl of Arran created his own monument by stressing the importance of his grandfather’s generation. Any remembrance that this occurred under the aegis of another, eclipsed, royal dynasty might well have been incidental. Nonetheless, it did signal the degree to which Oxford’s story was tied into that of its loyalty to the Stuart dynasty. It was, probably, a stimulus to the rival university city of Cambridge to commission its own royal image, which was intended to celebrate its claim to be a distinctly Whig institution. No sooner had Oxford’s Charles II statue been set up then a proposal was made by the young Lord Viscount Townshend to commission for Cambridge’s equivalent building, the Senate House, a statue of George I (Rysbrack, 1739).108 The decision to make this came within a year of the erection of the Charles II and was announced in the Whig press.109 In setting into context the reason for putting up the statue of Charles II in 1735 it is relevant to recall that, 20 years later, the university notoriously employed the erection of a monument in this area, the Radclife Camera, to stage a Jacobite protest. Conscious that Dr Radclife had Jacobite sympathies, Dr William King, formerly secretary to the Earl of Arran, delivered a dedication speech (13 April 1749) in which he called for a restoration of ‘proper’ order.110 The speech occurred in the fnal years of the Earl of Arran’s period as Chancellor (died December 1758) and was probably intended to

214 Matthew Craske please the old man.111 All listening in the Sheldonian knew what King meant and that he was lamenting what had not happened at the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745.112 Indeed, King was presented to the ‘Pretender’ in Rome a few months afterward. The area around the Bodleian Library, which was governed by the Chancellor, appears to have been a place where representatives of the university felt free to celebrate any version of loyalty to the crown that they thought ft. At times it appeared to be a piece of England in which a Stuart remained in power. The purpose of the Charles II statue was to accentuate a point that was already implied by the carving of a magnifcent set of royal arms above the north door of the Sheldonian: the whole building was supposed to be a monument to the Restoration of 1660. On account of the Theatre being proposed for construction shortly after the Restoration, the architect, Christopher Wren, had taken as his brief the formal architectonic celebration of that event. At the opening of the building in 1669, the university orator, Robert South (1634–1716), explained the purpose of the project as a reestablishment of civilisation after decades of Puritan philistinism.113 It was almost certainly Puritanism that was being described in Streater’s ceiling painting for the Theatre in which we see the defenders of the arts casting out Envy, Rapine and Brutality/Ignorance. Accordingly, the building presented itself to the street as a resplendent triumph of monarchy, and with it the reassertion of the importance of the arts and learning within the apparatus of state. In the early twentieth century, all these statues were taken down from the Sheldonian to assuage fears that they might fall on tourists. The statues of Sheldon and Ormond were removed from the outer walls of the entrance facing the Divinity School, where they had resided in two shallow niches that Wren had designed for sculptural adornments. This might give the impression that they were intended for these niches, but the circumstances seem to have been more complex. When the statues of Ormond and Sheldon were frst installed, they were placed inside the Theatre. In 1749, the antiquarian, John Pointer, described them thus in situ: Also two fne statues (carved out of two blocks of white marble by Mr Chaire of Westminster placed in the Theatre in 1737) one to the memory of Archbishop Sheldon, the Founder of the Theatre: and the other to the memory of James, Late Duke of Ormond.114 As described by Pointer, the function of these statues was to complement a series of painted portraits of Wren, Queen Anne and Sheldon that were already installed inside the Theatre. It is possible that the bust of Wren, which was donated by Christopher Wren junior in 1738, was intended to be part of this sculptural ensemble. When these statues were frst set up there were two others, to James II and Sheldon, in the niches designed by Wren to fank the doorway facing the Divinity School.115 At some time between 1749 and 56, Cheere’s interior statues were re-installed outside.116 This meant that the statue to James II, whose reign had ended in a measure of disgrace by any standards, was taken down in order to be replaced by an image of Ormond. The order of events indicates that the original intention of commissioning the statues from Cheere cannot have been to replace that of James II and its companion. This happened as an afterthought. The lost, or destroyed, statue to James II cannot have been intended for the exterior of the theatre by Wren, the building having been completed long before his coronation. It must have been erected in the short period between his

Street Monuments 215 coronation and the accession of William III. It seems likely that, for reasons of taste or political embarrassment, a decision was taken to replace it in the decade after the second Jacobite Rebellion (1745). Ironically, therefore, the Tory and infamously Jacobite city of Oxford took down a public monument to James II, whereas the one in London’s Whitehall, which had been sponsored by Tobias Rustat, was preserved. It would appear that self-censorship accounts for the only destruction of a monument to the House of Stuart in the Hanoverian era.

Conclusion Part of the function of the monuments that I have discussed in this chapter was to lend permanent substance to public opinion, otherwise the most ephemeral phenomenon. A testimony of this is the way in which the values that lay behind the erection of some of them were debated in the press. One of the distinctive properties of a British street monument, as opposed to one of another part of Europe, was that it might start life as a newspaper proposal. These expressions of public opinion were not the product of the monarchical state. They were, rather, statements of loyalty, unsolicited at court. It was for this reason that British street monuments were not typically interpreted as means of asserting a cult of necessary obedience to the crown. This diferentiated the story of the British street monuments from that of contemporary France. Here almost all Bourbon street monuments were, on account of being identifed as expressions of the autocratic imposture of the authority of a current monarch, subsequently pulled down in the Revolution. That British street monuments generally survived shifts in political climate was not just owing to there being nothing as calamitous as a revolution. Rather, we must consider the underlying reality that, despite most being triumphalist declarations of battles won, such statues were erected in a spirit of magnanimity. This was made possible by a political system in which disagreements were defused by being turned into conventional party stances. A tolerant polity, based upon a party system, presupposed that groups of citizens were free to arrive at their own, overtly partisan, ideas of how the nation had developed and ought to be improved. In such a society, street sculpture was unlikely to be received as an imposition of the values of a political elite and resented as such. British street monuments to kings have been torn down for political reasons. These were the statues that were erected in some of the main towns of colonial America which did not survive the War of Independence (1776–1783). Similarly, in the early twentieth century, Irish nationalists greeted street monuments as unwelcome testimonies of British rule and destroyed the great majority of them. However, it remains true that, as far as the towns and cities of mainland Britain are concerned, the prime reason that street monuments have not survived is the fashion for using lead as a sculptural material, which has proved so unsuited to stand the test of time. Tottering under their own weight, lead statues of kings have become a practical hazard to bystanders rather than a perceived threat to the liberties of the citizen. However, this tradition of tolerance seems to be coming to a close. This essay is based on a talk which was frst delivered in one of the colleges of the University of Oxford. It was conceived at a time when there were calls that the statue to Cecil Rhodes on the façade of Oriel College be taken down. While going through my proofs, I  hear that the college has yielded to the pressure to do this. It happens that this

216 Matthew Craske followed, by a few days, the widely endorsed pulling down of a monument, to Edward Colston at Bristol, which has direct relevance to the legacy of the period covered in this essay. In addressing this legacy, it is as important to interrogate ‘our’ values as vigorously as ‘their’ values. Thus, I will begin from an unconventional angle, that is, with a critique which draws connections between the civic ideals of those who want to pull street monuments down, or have constructed the ‘progressive’ way of engaging the past which justifes it, with those of the people who originally erected them. In stressing these connections rather than accentuating the supposed dislocation of past and present, I hope to make the case for a revival of the spirit of tolerance that is described in this essay. When we analyse the materialist legacy of William III and his ‘Glorious Revolution’, as we have done in this essay, we necessarily touch on the phenomenon of Whig history. This applies not just to its operation in the past, the way it underscored Georgian notions of ‘improvement’, but to how it has morphed into the historiography of the contemporary ‘progressive’ left. In other words, I regard this call to remove statues as the ultimate product of the tendency within Whig history to look down on supposedly defunct moral systems of the past. It has been to tease out the ethical and political problems of looking at art through a Whig historian’s eyes and making decisions about its continuing value upon those terms that I have chosen to analyse monuments that were themselves designed to represent progress. Mainstream attitudes to the material culture of this era turn on the ways that people of leftist, ‘progressive’, opinion, the dominant force in university academia, have found to own it as a positive moral legacy and decry it as something ‘problematic’. The objects and images that are now ‘owned’, that is, admired both aesthetically and ideologically, by people of such opinion are, broadly, things identifed with ‘enlightenment values’. When objects associated with the values of the merchant classes are owned in this way, it is upon terms that describe such a sector of the population as the main conveyer of ‘the Enlightenment’. Paul Langford provides a way of doing this in his account of a ‘polite and commercial people’.117 The willingness of merchant societies to live with the monuments of those with whom they disagreed proceeded, in some respects, from those ‘middling’ values of politeness that were described by Langford. Tolerance, which is the subject of this essay, was one of the founding values of politeness. The key, in dealing with the legacy of these monuments to kings, is to acknowledge how they also relate to aspects of this period—the ‘imperialism’, ‘elitism’, the ‘racism’—that are defned as ‘problematic’. In so doing, decisions need to be made on whether they are open to being owned as ‘enlightened’ or disowned as ‘problematic’, acknowledging that with the latter comes, in the current climate, a threat to their continuing existence. When considering the Georgian era, the question arises as to why we have, with the aid of leftist cultural historians, found ways of describing our ‘progressive’ values as an inheritance of their ‘Enlightenment’. Yet many of the forces that paid for this Enlightenment, such as imperial commerce and slavery, appear to be abhorrent to our ‘modern’ sensibilities. The ‘polite and commercial people’ who are fondly regarded as the makers of ‘our’ modern world had, as we have seen in this chapter, a disconcerting tendency to think in relatively brutal and authoritarian terms about how to achieve commercial prosperity through national security. Despite the recent tendency to follow Jurgen Habermas in believing that the rise of ‘bourgeois’ public opinion was a precondition of ‘our’ modern values, I have pointed out that such opinion could be a vehicle for some rather ‘ancient’, and thus ‘problematic’, conceptions of proper

Street Monuments 217 political order. In acknowledging this, I regard it as essential that we fnd ways of tolerating and valuing what remains of them, in terms of monumental art. It is taken for granted, when conserving the monuments of ancient Rome, such as the Arch of Titus,119 that they are evidences of civic values that we, today, might fnd problematically brutal but require to be preserved as a common material inheritance. Thus, the same understanding and grace ought to be accorded more recent classical monuments. Those who refuse such grace and understanding must, it follows, explain at which point the past becomes sufciently ‘ancient’ for its monuments to be acceptable, whatever their connotations. The concept of a Pax Romana underscored these street monuments, and this was imperialistic by implication, even if the works themselves do not seem overtly imperialistic. The idea of such a Pax determined that those who resisted colonisation, or were deemed beneath integration into its civilising process, were characterised as barbarous. Identifed as ‘the other’, these people were enslaved and humiliated for the public good. The tolerant commercial polity of early eighteenth-century Bristol, where Rysbrack’s monument to William III was set up, had something in common with that of Rome, insofar as it was built partly on an economy of slavery. In both cases, a culturally diverse commercial population found a way to coexist and to cooperate in the creation of a civil society that was bonded by shared value that was set on civic freedom. The buoyancy and optimism of the economy that made this sense of freedom possible was predicated on prosperity. This, in turn, was based on the labours of others who did not enjoy the liberties that the citizens of Bristol, thinking in a broadly Roman tradition, regarded as sacrosanct.120 These earliest British street statues are indicative of the tendency of civic bodies involved in imperial commerce to signal their need for security in which to make money, by expressing their willingness to be ruled over by a warrior prince. These people delighted in the idea of their hero elect strutting in perpetuity through their town in the manner of an Augustus or Marcus Aurelius. This is what once stood for an advanced, enlightened and properly democratic (by the standards of the day) vision of the future of urbanisation. Yet before we consider that we can reject the authoritarian bombast whilst preserving the lofty enlightened values such as tolerance, it is best to consider how they became entangled in the frst place. This chapter has been about that process of entanglement. It follows that, because these monuments are now threatened, I must touch upon whether that process is entirely in the past. Tolerance and liberty as experienced in the West were, and remain, a species of luxury, for all they seem to be lofty, immaterial, ideals. Like other luxuries upon which consumer societies turn, they are typically created for ‘us’ by distant and largely unseen peoples who, if acknowledged to exist at all, are valued only as much as the price we set on their work. By the measure of the increasingly cheap price of fashionable clothing on today’s high street, for instance, the value set on such work is not just very close to that of slavery but getting closer by the month. Such exploitation remains the underpinnings of any commercial culture in which the widening availability of consumer products is considered the basis of a kind of prosperity that is ennobled by equation with political and religious freedom. So, for instance, a young British woman of limited means is freer to change her image this summer than she might have been 20 years ago because her equivalents in Bangladesh have declining standards of freedom. ‘We’, of all skin colours and ethnic origins, can claim no superiority to our ‘polite and commercial’ past when we continue to base our freedom on such systems 118

218 Matthew Craske of global trade. Much as the British monuments that are described above were made to celebrate a species of gaining freedom through global commerce that Britons have not entirely outgrown, when we condemn them, we condemn ourselves. It would, perhaps, be best to retain and value these monuments in order to remind ourselves of our connectedness to ancient narratives of exploitative commerce. This is because, in the very act of destroying or hiding them, we would only be fnding ways of creating a dangerously bogus sense of our moral superiority to the people of the past. Such systematic means of building ideals of civic liberty and tolerance upon enslavement ultimately derive from a classical legacy. The citizens of the Roman Empire had, indeed, known how to use statues to signal their willingness, as traders, to attribute their prosperity not so much to their own endeavours as the policies of those who inherited rule over them. In the Roman past, civic bodies had registered their public gratitude to rulers and benefactors through the commission of public monuments.121 What these Britons did not inherit from the Romans was an understanding that the function of public monuments was to celebrate how the rewards of war were best secured by processes of robust subjugation. The story of the Roman deployment of monuments was, in large measure, one of a cycle of destructive humiliation as celebrated in magnifcent acts of creation. This might be expressed through a processes of balancing damnatio memoriae with the erection of street monuments to representatives of a new order. Alternatively, it was seen in works such as Trajan’s Column, which celebrated the enslavement of rivals as necessary to the exaltation of the emperor. Some European powers of the period considered in this chapter emulated the Romans in their liking of street monuments that delighted in the humiliation of enemies. The most famous example of this is the monument to Louis XIV in the Place des Victoires in Paris (opened 1686). This featured a gigantic statue of the monarch, crowned by Fame and set up over chained slave fgures representative of four defeated European powers. Imagery of the violent subjugation did not feature in the street sculpture of Great Britain at this time; although the occasional line in an inscription, such as that set up to honour Charles II in Edinburgh, had destructive connotations.122 This was probably one factor in allowing subsequent generations, who do not have sadistic predilections, to tolerate them. This tendency not to erect monuments that delighted in the destruction of war and not to destroy monuments that propound things in which one does not believe is, in my view, commendable and worthy of emulation. It has set a high standard of civilised behaviour for any culture trying to make sense of the efects of war upon its polity. It was a decided ‘improvement’ upon times in the national story when the will to assert new political values was expressed through inficting violence on the cultural heritage of those one elected to despise. Iconoclasm was one of the great disasters of the English Civil War, which the people who erected the monuments I have reviewed remembered well enough to want to consign to the past. The peoples I have described were the successors of statue breakers. They had learned to be wary of such violence as a fundamental threat to the stability of their polity.

Notes 1. The tendency of historians of this era to class relationships between church and state as of central—or marginal—importance has become a political issue. This is particularly since Jonathon Clark’s provocation publication—Clark 1985. My approach here signals my inclination to take Clark’s positions seriously.

Street Monuments 219 2. When thinking of the King’s sculptural body as a symbolic vehicle for refections on the fate of the ‘body politic’, I  am working within anthropological theories, such as Ernst Kantorowicz’s ‘The King’s Two Bodies’—Kantorowicz 1957. I  make no argument as to the direct application of medieval ‘political theology’, as described by Kantorowicz. Nonetheless, I refer to a world in which theology and politics were intertwined, and the vision of the monarch refected this. That I think of the politics of this era in this way is an indication of my doubts as to the defnition of the cultural prerogatives of this era as secular and, as such, distinctly modern. 3. Spadafora 1990. 4. The particular night appears to be that of the Oak Apple Day, 29 May, when Londoners were supposed to celebrate the Restoration of 1660. It was well-known that this statue could only be erected after the Restoration and was buried to protect it during the Civil War. Most likely, Hogarth’s joke was that the Restoration had not brought with it the planned improvements to London, as seen in Wren’s scheme. One can link the image to James Ralph’s comments on the failure to erect a statue in London to William III, as quoted below. It is safe to think that both Ralph and Hogarth shared the kind of politics that encouraged them to think of the Restoration of the House of Stuart as a false dawn and the Glorious Revolution as the event that Londoners ought to be celebrating. The inference of the imagery is that Hogarth believed that had Londoners erected of monument to King William rather than to Charles I, they might not be in quite the mess that they were today. He was, most likely, aware that it was on account of the rise of a Jacobite faction in the city, unchecked by the declining Walpole administration, that no statue to William could be erected. 5. Ralph 1734. 6. This was a revived version of a famous newspaper that took a decided Tory stance. The new version had the opposite politics. 7. The Craftsman, 21 December 1765. 8. Late in life, the Duke was embroiled in scandal which suggested that he intended to generate a military coup to have himself established king instead of his nephew. He had been quietly shifted out of London to Windsor Great Park in order to neutralise the perceived threat. 9. The Craftsman, 6 May 1769. 10. It is claimed by Lawrence Weaver (2015, 152) that it is not known whether it was made of lead. However, John Cheere was a lead sculptor, and there were reports, whilst it was standing, that it was made of lead. See Allen 1837. 11. The Oxford Magazine, 1770, 195. 12. Cunningham 1862, 71. 13. As reported in The Grubstreet Journal, 23 December 1731. 14. For the formation of a Whig understanding of the relationship between the Revolution and Accession, see Wilkinson 2003, 6. 15. Stuart 1770, 18–19. 16. Elmes 1831, 110. 17. Timbs 1855, 690. 18. There is a discussion of this statue in its original position in Fraser’s Magazine, 1845, Vol. 31, 164. This fgure was paid for by Tobias Rustat. 19. Universal Spectator, 25 July 1730. I am aware this was an oppositionist paper but not a subversive Jacobite publication. 20. Ralph, The Critical Review, 46. 21. As reported in The Daily Journal of 1 July 1721. 22. For a broader argument relating to the decline of the power of the court in this period, see Brewer 1997. 23. For a story of the old market crosses, see Rimmer 1875. An account of their destruction appears in Walter 1999, 196. 24. Dugdale 1950, 192. 25. I refer here to the famous Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, which was a fourteenth-century structure that was re-erected next to St  Giles Cathedral in 1617 and pulled down in 1756.

220 Matthew Craske 26. There was a well-established tradition, documented in this chapter, of monuments to kings in British cities being set up by men involved in commerce or by the town council who controlled the terms of trade in a given city. 27. Denholm 1797, 67. 28. Wildridge 1884, 15. 29. As quoted from the Draft Bench book, 1704–1738, f. 761. Hull Record Centre. BRB/17. My thanks to Dr Daniel Reed for kindly passing on this reference. 30. Meneghini 1993. 31. Opinions vary, but the practice of putting a ruler’s head on a coin to legitimate the currency is often said to be of ancient Greek origin. See Schaps 2015. 32. The Daily Courant, 19 November 1734. 33. John M’Ure, A View of the City of Glasgow, Glasgow: Macvean, 1736, 320–322. 34. As announced in the St James’ Evening Post, 28 July 1733. 35. The Nost Company was presumably chosen because he had already made the gilt-lead equestrian monument of George I  for Grosvenor Square. The latter was listed in John Nost’s obituary as his most important work (The London Evening Post, 26 April 1729). The John Nost who died in 1729, known as ‘the second’, could not have made the monument in Glasgow because he was dead. Some press reports say it was made by John III (died 1780), who was only 20, and others Catherine, the widow of John II. 36. The London Journal, 24 November 1733. 37. Paterson 1863, Vol. I, 596–598. 38. Macrea was probably aware of the two important acts under King William, of 1698 and 1699, for promoting East India trade. Bruce, John 1810, Vol. 3, 637. It seems likely that, as Governor of Madras, Macrea had witnessed the close cooperation of the Dutch and English in that place which occurred after the Glorious Revolution. 39. It is an indication that the commission of the statue was intended to turn Macrea into a nationally acclaimed public fgure that he assured that the announcement of the work was attended by a long biographical account. This was published in The Daily Gazetteer, 9 July 1736. 40. The monument at Glasgow was very much a means of gaining personal fame for Macrea, who, having lived abroad for most of his life, wanted to be known in Britain. The London Gazetteer (9 July 1736) announced the erection of the sculpture with a long biography of Macrea, which is likely to have originated from him. 41. Aitken 1876, 120–122. 42. They were, in fact, real markers, for in the ’45 Rebellion, ‘the Pretender’ had considerable support within Edinburgh but not in Glasgow. See Gibson 1995, 57–58. 43. The phrase, ‘in its eggs’ clearly refers to a phase of rebellion after 1660, which the King was supposed to have stamped upon in its infancy. 44. For a survey of the context of the erection of this statue, see Jackson 2003, 21; and Macrea 1930, 82–90. 45. See Gregory Chaplin’s account of the ‘Augustan moment’ in Hoxby 2016, 266–268 and Jose 1984, 45. 46. I am dependent here upon the introductory chapter of Stephen 2013. 47. For an interesting, protracted discussion of the Presbyterian reception of celebrations of the Restoration, see Jardine 2009. It is reasonable to think that this statue, which was erected long after the Restoration, relates to the politics of the Covenanter movement and its opposition in the so-called ‘Killing Times’. 48. The Topographical, Statistical and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1853, Vol. 1, 475. 49. Mclean 1922, 199. 50. The date of the inscription is known from the fact, which is recorded in the minutes of the Corporation, that William Clerk was not properly paid, in his opinion, and sued. 51. This is a translation from the Latin as provided in the Appendix of The Life, Prophecies, and Times of Alexander Peden, Edinburgh, 1849. 52. See the Conclusion to Vallance 2006. 53. The scheme was discussed in The Weekly Journal, 14 June 1714. 54. This monument is sometimes said to have been commissioned by Wren himself, which accords with the choice of Bird, who was employed on the façade of the Cathedral (White

Street Monuments 221

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

1971, 18). Wren himself was an Oxford Tory, and it probably refects his politics. Oddly, for such an important landmark, there appears to have been no research into who paid for this monument. Nicola Smith (2001) documented the Whig ire that was generated by this sculpture. This is probably a factor behind the scheme to replace it with a monument to William III. For any account of his commission of the statue and other bequests, see Parker’s Penny Post, 25 September 1725. National Archive, Kew, will, PROB11/800/185. For an account of these statues, see an interesting article in Fraser’s Magazine, Vol. 31, 1845, 163. For the activities of Travers in this role (1693–1710), see the National Archive at Kew LR 17/7. Travers functioned for William III in the initial creation of Blenheim Palace and was subsequently responsible for supervising and employing the architects. British Library, Add mss 28943 f 196 & Add mss 19608–09. For Travers’s survey, see the initial manuscript map of the estate made by him at the Greenwich Maritime Museum G. 2976:20/23 and National Archive at Kew MR1/253. The eforts of Samuel Holditch to see through the instructions of his uncle’s will and erect the statue are recorded in The London Daily Post, 5 December 1736. Another attempt was made in 1741, as was reported in The London Evening Post, 7 February 1741. Reads Weekly Journal, 17 March 1739. The Survey of London, St James’, Westminster, London, 1960, 68. For an account of this debacle, see Smith 2001. For an account of this statue and the ceremonies that attended it, see Whelan 2002. An early Orangemen ceremony before this statue was described in The Englishman, 26 January 1714. One of the reasons that there was a hunger for an image of monarchy that was martial, and that was satiated by William III, is that Walpole had an enduring policy of associating prosperity with peace. The reluctance to protect trade lines with naval ships alienated some sectors of towns such as Bristol and, eventually, caused the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739), which was the efective end for Walpole. See John 1785, Vol. 5, 193–208. So it was that the eventual rise to power of sectors of the ‘patriot’ opposition, which was responsible for these monuments, led to a more martial model of state in all respects, from the ‘Blue Water’ to land war. The November ceremonies were implicated in disturbing the peace between Catholics and Protestants to the extent that, in October 1821, there were moves to curtail them. Talbot archives, Devon R.O. 152m/c1821/0136. One such parade, at the time of the American War of Independence, was recorded in a painting by Francis Wheatley. For a review of the festivals at College Green, see Dickson 2014, Chapter 4. The Weekly Journal, 2 June 1719. The Weekly Journal, 12 August 1721. It is an indication that the aim was to carry through Travers’s project that, in his will, he had stated that the Cheapside Conduit was a good place to erect the monument if the St James’ situation was not possible. For the ceremonial uses of Cheapside and its conduits in the late medieval world, see Manley 1997, Chapter 5, ‘Scripts for Pageant: the ceremonies of London’. In late medieval times there were two drinking fountains on Cheapside. Both became too polluted to use. One, on the junction of Honey Lane, was also the site of a great Eleanor Cross, which was pulled down in 1643, much to the regret of John Evelyn and other High Church fgures. The Great Conduit was at the other end of Cheapside, but it remains that an equestrian statue was replacing a cross as the main ornament of the street. In searching for the reasons to put the statue here, it is signifcant that this was traditionally an important landmark in royal processions from Westminster to Guildhall. A substantial obituary of Burch in which his role in trying to erect the statue was extolled appeared in The Daily Gazetteer, 12 June 1741. It was probably on account of his unsuccessful attempts to put up this statue that a fne monument was erected to him. The plans for this monument are discussed in Old England, 29 March 1746.

222 Matthew Craske 78. As reported in The Daily Journal, 23 October 1731. 79. This debate was very complex and might be the subject of a whole article. The main articles are: Reads Weekly Journal, 23 October 1731, Free Briton, 4 and 18 November 1731, Grub Street Journal, 11 and 28 November 1731, Echo, 10 and 24 November 1731, The Hype Doctor, no. 49, 1731, Daily Journal, 21 December 1731. 80. Ralph, The Critical Review, 13. 81. The decision to erect this statue was reviewed in The Daily Journal, 18 December 1731. 82. A monument which answers this description was erected in 1743 and reviewed in The General Evening Post, 19 November 1743. 83. The decision of the merchants of Hull to erect a statue was announced in The Daily Journal, 4 April 1732. 84. The Monthly Chronicle, November 1731. 85. These statues are recorded in the St James’ Chronicle of 8 May 1733 but have since disappeared. Two lead statues, probably by Carpentiere, of the Gladiator and Crouching Venus have survived. 86. For a discussion of this bequest, see The Whitehall Evening Post, 10 March 1750. 87. The report on the completion of the statue, as commissioned by the Prince of Wales, for St James’s Square explicitly states that it was seen standing in Cheere’s yard at Hyde Park Corner. See Reads Weekly Journal, 17 March 1739. My guess is that this was resold to Jolife’s heirs and is what we see today in Petersfeld. 88. For a broader context, see Langford 1975. 89. Morgan 1993, 179. 90. For Barnard’s role in the excise crisis, see Pearce 2008, 299. 91. For a broader context, read Chapter 20 of Richardson 2007. This chapter is suitably entitled ‘Remember the Revolution’. 92. One scheme to memorialise George I in this way, proposed by the sculptor Claude David, was proposed as a subscription scheme, but no money was raised. See The Weekly Journal, 26 December 1719. 93. When Nost died in 1729, this was considered his fnest work. His obituary appeared in The London Evening Post, 26 April 1729. 94. As announced in Parker’s Penny Post, 15 March 1727. 95. This equestrian statue by John Nost was admired but had a very short life. Paid for by Sir Richard Grosvenor (as stated in Parker’s Penny Post, 15 March 1727), the lead statue was substantially destroyed within a decade of being made. Reports as to its fate appear in The Daily Post of 13 March 1727. 96. According to The Daily Journal of September  1722, the statue was commissioned by Chandos in this year. 97. The General Evening Post, 14 April 1748. Money was raised by a subscription set up by the residents, as reported in the same paper on 19 March 1748. 98. This image of the King is very strongly expressed, for instance in an anonymous The Life of William III, Late King of England, London, 1703, 30. It was in the understanding that Tory aldermen would refuse to honour a usurper that William’s statue at Cheapside Conduit was rejected. 99. Colley 1984. 100. The erection of the monument was announced in Reads Weekly Journal, 3 March 1739. 101. For an account of this family and how its status as a baronetcy was earned and lost in the male line, see Waylen 1859, 555. 102. The monuments to Sheldon and Ormond were completed in July 1737, exactly two years after the Charles II. For dates, see The London Evening Post, 26 July 1737. 103. For the obituary of Bird, once considered the fnest English-born sculptor, see The Monthly Chronicle, February 1731. 104. The completion was announced in The General Evening Post, 24 July 1735. The erection at the Sheldonian occurred in November 1735, as reported in The General Evening Post, 25 November 1735. 105. As announced in The London Journal, 23 September 1721. 106. For the way that Clarendon perceived the Restoration as a fulflment of providential will, after a period of tribulation caused by the denial of sacred will, consult Hyde 1798, 165.

Street Monuments 223 107. In the summer of 1735, the monument to William III at Bristol was frst seen by the people of the town (London Evening Post, 26 August 1735). This was a few weeks after the announcement of the monument in Oxford. 108. For the erection of this monument, see The Daily Gazetteer of 5 October and 5 December 1739. 109. The Old Whig and Consistent Protestant, 16 December 1736. 110. It would seem that this was one factor in it being proposed that Oxford University appointments, including that of Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, should have royal approval. See Ellis 2012, 38. 111. Evelyn Lord asserts that the Earl was removed from the ofce of Chancellor and replaced by the Duke of Cumberland for his part in this speech (Lord 2014). 112. Monod 1993, 36–37. 113. Wordsworth 1874, 287. 114. Pointer 1749, 152. 115. Pointer 1749, 153. 116. Inside when Pointer described them, they were outside by the time a book named A Description of the Painting in the Theatre in Oxford was published in 1756. 117. Langford 1998. I take it that this story of the eighteenth century was developed, at least in part, to counter the Tory vision of the period developed by J.C.D. Clark. Given that Clark is routinely deplored in academic circles, I cite Langford’s account as mainstream. 118. I refer here to the fashion for following Habermas’s Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere in the writing of the art history of the Georgian era, as led by Solkin (1993). It seems to me that this has come with the understanding that the ancestry of ‘our’ liberal, secular or ‘civic humanist’ values can be traced to the rise of ‘the bourgeois public sphere’. These are held to be articulated through the interpretation of ‘important’ pictures. One of the main objections that I have for this is that it depends on the Marxist dialectic and the notion that the prerogatives of an old—feudal and ecclesiastical—order were necessarily overturned by the rise of ‘bourgeois’ or ‘middling’ opinion. This is at the very least complicated by evidence that ‘the polite and commercial people’ were activated by some very ‘ancient’ notions of ‘right’ political and social order. The public works of art discussed in this chapter seem to characterise this problematic. 119. A monument to the sacking of the Temple of Jerusalem, this ought to be included in narratives of anti-Semitism. 120. One can chart this dependence directly by analysing the names of those responsible for raising money for this monument and documenting their dependence on the slave trade. 121. For reference to this practice, see Zuiderhoek 2009, 7. 122. This does not mean that some such imagery of humiliation was taboo in all forms of monument. After the Seven Years War (1756–1763), a new vocabulary of strident triumphalism entered the vocabulary of war monuments set up in churches. An example of this is Wilton’s monument to James Wolfe in Westminster Abbey (1760–1772). In this, the near naked General dies at the same time as Fame/Victory appears before him. His foot was placed upon the feur des lis of a captured French fag. This imagery, which was found insulting by French visitors to the Abbey, owes something to that of the Place des Victoires in Paris. However, partly because the latter monument was much reviled in England, British sculptors resisted putting up anything like it on a public street. Such language of humiliation was lastingly associated with the vainglorious hubris and destructive appetite for power of the main national enemy. For a fne document of this dislike of Bourbon street monuments, it is proftable to consult Thomas Rowlandson’s famous satirical drawing of the Place des Victoires. In this, various types of Frenchmen, who are symbolic of their nation’s vainglory and ridiculous pomp, parade before the monument to the Sun King.

References Aitken, Peter. 1876. Memorials of Robert Burns and His Contemporaries. London: Sampson Low. Allen, Thomas. 1837. The History and Antiquities of London, Westminster and Southwark, Vol. V. London: Cowie and Strange.

224 Matthew Craske Brewer, John. 1997. The Pleasure of the Imagination. London: Taylor and Francis. Bruce, John. 1810. Annals of the Honourable East India Company, Vol. 3. London: Cox. Clark, Jonathan C. D. 1985. English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice During the Ancien Régime. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Colley, Linda. 1984. In Defance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party 1714–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cunningham, Peter. 1862. Westminster Abbey: Its Art, Architecture and Associations. London: John Murray. Denholm, James. 1797. An Historical Account and Historical Description of Glasgow. Glasgow: Chapman. Dickson, David. 2014. Dublin: The Making of a Capital City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dugdale, George. 1950. Whitehall Through the Centuries. London: Carveth Press. Ellis, Heather. 2012. Generational Confict and University Reform: Oxford in the Age of Revolution. Leiden: Brill. Elmes, James. 1831. A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs. London: Whittaker. Gibson, John. 1995. Edinburgh and the ’45: Bonnie Prince Charlie and Holyrood House. Edinburgh: The Saltire Society. Hoxby, Blair, ed. 2016. Milton and the Long Restoration. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hyde, Edward. 1798. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. London: John Nutt. Jackson, Clare. 2003. Restoration Scotland, 1660–1690: Royalist Politics, Religion and Ideas. Oxford: Boydell Press. Jardine, M. 2009. The United Societies: Militancy, Martyrdom, and the Presbyterian Movement in Late-Restoration Scotland, 1679 to 1688. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh. John, Campbell. 1785. Biographica Nautica, Vol. 5. Dublin: Williams. Jose, Nicholas. 1984. Ideas of Restoration in English Literature, 1660–71. London: Macmillan Press. Kantorowicz, Ernst H. 1957. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Langford, Paul. 1975. The Excise Crisis: Society and Politics in the Age of Walpole. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Langford, Paul. 1998. A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lord, Evelyn. 2014. The Stuart’s Secret Army, English Jacobites, 1689–1752. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Macrea, John. 1930. “Charles II Statue, Parliament Square.” Book of the Old Edinburgh Club 17: 82–90. Manley, Lawrence. 1997. Literature and Culture in Early Modern London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mclean, Norma. 1922. The Life of James Cameron Lees. Glasgow: Maclehose. Meneghini, Roberto, ed. 1993. The Imperial Forums and Trajan Market. Rome: Palombi. Monod, Paul. 1993. Jacobitism and the English People, 1668–1788. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, Kenneth. 1993. Bristol and Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paterson, Robert. 1863. History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton, Vol. I. Edinburgh: Stillie. Pearce, Edward. 2008. The Great Man: Sir Robert Walpole: Scoundrel, Genius and Britain’s First Prime Minster. London: Pimlico. Pointer, John. 1749. Oxoniensis Academia. Oxford: Barrett and Fletcher.

Street Monuments 225 Ralph, James. 1734. The Critical Review of the Publick Buildings, Statues and Ornaments in and About London and Westminster. London: Ackers and Wilford. Richardson, Tim. 2007. The Arcadian Friends: Inventing the English Landscape Garden. London: Bantam Press. Rimmer, Alfred. 1875. Ancient Stone Crosses of England. London: Virtue. Schaps, David. 2015. The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Smith, Nicola. 2001. Revival: The Royal Image and the English People. Basingstoke: Ashgate Publishing. Solkin, David. 1993. Painting for Money. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Spadafora, David. 1990. The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-Century Britain. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Stephen, Jefrey. 2013. Defending the Revolution: The Church of Scotland, 1689–1716. Abingdon: Routledge. Stuart, James. 1770. Critical Observations on the Building and Improvements of London. London. Timbs, John. 1855. The Curiosities of London. London: David Bogue. Vallance, Edward. 2006. The Glorious Revolution: 1688- Britain’s Fight for Liberty. London: Hachette. Walter, John. 1999. Understanding Popular Violence in the English Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waylen, James. 1859. A History, Military and Municipal of the Ancient Borough of Devizes. London: Longman and Co. Weaver, Lawrence. 2015. English Leadwork: Its Art and History. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Whelan, Yvonne. 2002. “The Construction and Destruction of Colonial Landscape: Monuments to British Monarchs in Dublin Before and After Independence.” Journal of Historical Geography 28, no. 4: 508–533. White, Paul W. 1971. On Public View: A Selection of London’s Open-Air Sculpture. London: Hutchinson. Wildridge, Thomas. 1884. Old and New Hull. Hull: Peck and Sons. Wilkinson, David. 2003. The Duke of Portland: Politics and Party in the Age of George III. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wordsworth, Christopher. 1874. Social Life at the English Universities in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Deighton. Zuiderhoek, Arjan. 2009. The Politics of Munifcence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

10 From Empires Past to Nation State Figurative Public Statues in Istanbul Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker

Introduction Statues, landmarks, and monumental architecture visibly mark and inscribe meaning into urban space. This is true everywhere, but it is particularly striking in Istanbul. When the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in the ffteenth century, they encountered a city with a rich and layered history stretching back over 2,000 years, where statues had always been important in propagating and legitimizing imperial power. Writing in the sixth century ce, Hesychius of Miletus remarked on the legendary beginnings and foundation of Byzantium, the city that was to become Constantinople, and celebrated its statues.1 Even from this early and legendary beginning, the city was believed to have been dotted with numerous statues. From the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great through to the sixth century, Byzantine emperors had turned to Roman models of urbanism to set up pagan statues and honorifc columns to commemorate victories and to showcase their imperial identity. While the capital of the Byzantine Empire had been fashioned as a ‘second Rome’, the recently Christianized empire had to contend with changing perspectives on pagan statuary.2 Thus, the fourth-century author of the Vita Constantini (Life of Constantine the Great) appears obliged to provide an explanation for the plethora of pagan sculptures in the city—they were there to be ridiculed.3 At times, statues were thought to possess demons.4 In some cases, pagan statues were also given new ‘identities’ as Christian fgures, or in other cases, alternative explanations were provided for the preservation of pagan statues in a Christian empire.5 The complicated relationship to pagan statuary in a newly Christianized empire in the Late Antique period, and indeed, during the controversies of Iconoclasm, shows the emotive power that sculptures (and images) had, whether spiritual, talismanic or magisterial. As the Byzantine Empire’s fortunes changed throughout its more than millenniumlong life—as Islam emerged in Arabia in the seventh century and quickly encroached on Byzantine territories, as Iconoclasm took its grip in the eighth through the ninth centuries, as the Macedonian dynasty came to power, as the Seljuqs expanded their territories in Asia Minor at the expense of the Byzantines, as the Crusaders took hold of Constantinople and ravaged the city, and as the Palaiologan dynasty restored Byzantine rule to Constantinople—so the cityscape changed. Particularly during the Fourth Crusade, the city was ravaged by both the Crusading armies and the Byzantines themselves. While there was much pillaging on the part of the Crusaders, the Byzantines, too, tore down an enormous bronze statue of Athena, fearing that she was the cause of the attacking armies.6 Along with the changes to the urban structure

From Empires Past to Nation State 227 and its statuary, the various popular responses to public statuary also changed. Consider, for example, Justinian’s bronze equestrian statue that survived into the ffteenth century and how, during the Palaiologan period, it ‘became a centerpiece of imperial renovation eforts’.7 As Liz James warns us, what statues meant to those who erected them may not necessarily correspond to how others perceived them. More importantly—now in the public domain—how public statuary was perceived could and did change over time as the society changed.8 The role of statuary in the urban environment and opinions of or responses to statues become even more complicated under Constantinople’s subsequent overlords, the Ottomans and eventually the successor nation-state, the Republic of Turkey. Here we focus on how fgurative public statuary evolved in Istanbul during the Ottoman and early Republican periods. We begin with the Ottoman background and then move on to Republican Istanbul and provide a detailed story of the very frst full-size fgurative public statue of Istanbul, of the Republic of Turkey and of Kemal Atatürk,9 the founding father and the frst president of the nascent Republic, erected in 1926, around 470  years after the removal of the full-size public statue of Constantine the Great. Before we delve into the detailed story of Atatürk’s frst statue, we provide the reader with some political history to understand the context, since the statue was meant to represent the birth of a nation and a nation-state from the ashes of the imperial past.

Ottoman Istanbul Despite Constantinople’s very rich history and statuary landscape, by the time Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, much of the statuary of the city had already been destroyed and looted, chiefy in the Latin sack of the city during the Fourth Crusade in the early thirteenth century; most famously, the four bronze horses that possibly marked the Hippodrome’s entrance gate were looted and taken to Venice to adorn St. Mark’s Cathedral.10 The only surviving statues, as far as we know from late Byzantine and early Ottoman sources, were the two obelisks, several honorifc columns, the Serpent Column in the Hippodrome, the bronze equestrian statue of Justinian, the reliefs at the Golden Gate and the monumental triumphal gate at the southern end of the Theodosian Walls.11 The transformation of Constantinople from the last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire into the capital of the expanding Ottoman Empire brought with it visible markers to the cityscape as Mehmed II ‘selectively used’ the city’s monuments to craft an imperial image for his Ottoman state.12 The site of the deserted Church of the Holy Apostles, which housed the sarcophagi of the Byzantine emperors, was repurposed as Mehmed II’s mosque complex. The sarcophagi of the Byzantine emperors were then taken to the sultan’s palace.13 The area in the vicinity of the former Byzantine acropolis on the tip of the peninsula became the site for Mehmed II’s new palace, the Topkapı Palace. The Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque. These were all signifcant acts by which the city’s Byzantine past was transformed and appropriated. In this act of ‘selective use’, some public statues were left standing. The bronze equestrian statue of Justinian sitting atop a column, the defnitive mark of Byzantine imperial power, was destroyed at some point, though not immediately, after the conquest of the city by the Ottomans.14 Mehmed II showed great interest in Renaissance art and architecture and even fostered contacts with Italy. It is interesting to note the

228 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker striking coincidence that the same year that Constantinople was taken by Mehmed, 1453, was also the year that Donatello’s famous equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni—the frst true public equestrian monument after a millennium-long hiatus— was set up in Padua. The monument made a signifcant visual reference to Italy’s Graeco-Roman past. That shared Graeco-Roman past was treated and employed very diferently when it came to public statuary in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman state and its ofcial religion of Islam tended towards aniconism in the public sphere. This meant that the authorities would not look kindly on maintaining fgural statues representing the rulers of a bygone empire, and it precluded preservation of Byzantine fgural statuary and the erection of further statues in the public sphere.15 However, the famous Serpent Column, as well as the obelisks and several honorifc columns, were left in place and still stand today. A story regarding Mehmed II throwing his mace at the heads of the snakes of the Serpent column and being reprimanded by the Patriarch Gennadius (d. 1473) found its way into text and image in a latesixteenth-century Ottoman manuscript, the Hünername (Book of Talents).16 As it is interpreted by the author of this manuscript, Lokman, the ruler’s reverence for the patriarch is clear, as is the power of talismans. Thought to protect the city against poisonous snakes, the three heads were intact (with some damage to the jaw of one of the heads) as late as 1699–1700.17 Several of these statues were believed to be endowed with talismanic properties, as they had been in Byzantine times,18 and are described as wonder-inducing monuments in Ottoman chronicles.19 Whatever the attitude toward fgural imagery and sculpture may be in an aniconic culture (consider both Byzantine Iconoclasm and Islam), sculptures defnitely had power in popular imagination. Statues could also convey authority and might, as the case of the sixteenth-century Grand Vizier Ibrahim Paşa (d. 1536) shows. This Grand Vizier brought several sculptures of mythological fgures from the court of the Hungarian ruler Matthias Corvinus (d. 1490) following the Ottoman victory over their Hungarian rivals in 1526 at Mohács and placed them in his palace overlooking the Hippodrome. While the statues were soon destroyed, several paintings from the 1588 Hünername depict them. Three consecutive paintings illustrating the circumcision ceremony of the princes of the reigning sultan, Süleyman I (r. 1520– 1566), which took place in 1530, include portrayals of these statues (see Figure 10.1a–b). However, as the author and painters of this work would not have seen the statues when they prepared the work in the late sixteenth century, they depicted what they imagined stood in 1530 in the palace at the Hippodrome—the main venue for the ceremonies—with a sensitivity to historical authenticity.20 Thus, the three sculptures that were brought from Buda were confated into one sculptural group representing a helmeted fgure fanked by two smaller fgures, placed atop a column.21 The statues that the Grand Vizier brought from Buda refected an act of appropriation and victory, as well as, perhaps, personal aesthetic tastes. However, this bold act was not looked upon favourably, and the statues were taken down. The exact circumstances are not clear, however, and the tearing down of statues possibly relate to the execution of the Grand Vizier in 1536, the latter due likely to the Grand Vizier’s excessive pomp and increasing power. Verses attributed to the poet Figani (d. 1532) contrast Ibrahim Paşa unfavourably with the prophet Abraham (Ibrahim).22 Abraham was famous for destroying idols, while the Grand Vizier, on the other hand, was accused of setting up idols.23 Whatever the exact reasons for the transportation and erection of statues from Buda may have been, it is clear from their subsequent destruction that they met with considerable disapproval.

From Empires Past to Nation State 229

Figure 10.1a–b The princes’ circumcision ceremony, in Hünername (The Book of Talents), Topkapı Palace Museum Library H. 1524, fols 119b–120a.

While these statues were destroyed, others—although non-fgural—were allowed to stand in Ottoman Istanbul. Sources from the ffteenth through the eighteenth centuries, including European prints, woodcuts and albums, such as Christoforo Buondelmonte’s Liber Insularum Archipelagi (Book of the Islands of the Archipelago), Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles), Vavassore’s circa 1535 view of Constantinople, Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s 1553 depiction of Süleyman the Magnifcent’s procession through the Hippodrome, Melchior Lorichs’s panorama and studies of individual monuments,24 and sixteenth-century sketches of Constantinople and its monuments;25 accounts of ambassadors or travellers, such as that of Pierre Gilles and his Antiquities of Constantinople;26 and illustrated chronicles, such as Matrakçı Nasuh’s view of Constantinople, the 1587 Surname-i Humayun (The Imperial Festival Book),27 and the Surname of Vehbi chronicling the festivities surrounding the circumcision ceremony of the sons of Ahmed III; all mention and represent the statues within the city.28 In the Imperial Festival Book devoted to the 1582 circumcision festival, the fgural sculptures in Ibrahim Paşa’s palace which were present in the Hünername, showing the 1530 celebration, are missing, because by this time, the statues had long been taken down.29 It must also be noted that the venues of the 1582 and 1720 festivities were diferent, with the latter celebrations taking place mainly at Ok Meydanı. The representations of the 1582 festivity therefore place the celebrations

230 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker and processions against the backdrop of the Hippodrome, while those of the 1720 celebrations do not. In the case of the latter, however, some of the paintings represent larger than life-size efgies as part of the entertainment. These ephemeral ‘statues’ present an interesting contrast to the overall aniconic approach in and to the public spaces. In these Ottoman and European depictions, the two obelisks and columns marking the Hippodrome, as well as remnants of the grandstand or other monuments in the city, portray an interest in the antiquities of the city, show its Byzantine past and highlight the importance of these statues as markers of the now Ottomanized capital (in other cases, such as the Liber Chronicarum, the lack of Ottoman monuments may conversely also have served to undermine the Ottomanness of Constantinople).30

Moving Into Modernity Following these Early Modern representations of the city’s Late Antique past, considerable time will have to pass before we have the erection of new public statues in Constantinople. Even by the time of the reform-minded sultan Selim III (r. 1789–1807), sculpture in the round—sundry wax statues of an Italian sculptor or a fountain featuring sculpted pineapples inside Topkapı’s harem gardens—could only be viewed discreetly, within the confnes of the palace.31 However, imperial and sub-imperial patrons increased their public visibility by endowing small utilitarian structures like fountains.32 These small but conspicuous buildings with elaborately sculpted Ottoman Baroque and Rococo facades were commissioned by Istanbul’s elite (women foremost among them) to defne new urban centres within the rapidly expanding capital, while their inscriptional programs foregrounded their funders. Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) and his consort Bezm-i Alem (d. 1858) rekindled Selim III’s reformist agenda to lay the groundwork for the radical administrative overhauls of the Tanzimat period (1839–1878). In addition to commissioning schools, hospitals, barracks, bridges and dams, some of the most visible markers of their early reformist monarchism were monumental fountains along the hills and shores of Beşiktaş, near Mahmud’s neoclassical Çırağan Palace, which itself boasted sculptural motifs of a rising sun, a stand-in for the refashioned sovereign. While Mahmud allowed his miniature portraits to be worn and his portrait paintings displayed in state ofces,33 once a valide (queen mother) (1839–1858), Bezm-i Alem, marked her authorial presence through monumental civic endowments, as well as fountains around her Yıldız estate that displayed foral reliefs but also Replogle globes with emanating rays (see Figure 10.2).34 While some might contest their treatment as sculptures, Ottoman stone markers (in the form of faming torches or Baroque plaques) commemorating feats in archery and, later, rife-shooting, dotted the new neighbourhoods of Nişantaşı and Beşiktaş in the vicinity of Çırağan and Dolmabahçe, two of the preeminent shoreline palaces of the Tanzimat.35 In fact, Dolmabahçe, whose construction was inaugurated under Mahmud II’s son Abdülmecid I (r. 1839–1861), and its monumental land gate (saltanat kapısı), which is in the form of a triumphal arch, quite overtly displays ornament-mania in high-relief sculpture, bearing laurels, ribbons, baroque shells, palmettes, stars, rosettes, bulbous urns, corbels, crenellations, cornices and other architectural fragments.36 There were also unrealized sculptural projects to commemorate the momentous Gülhane Edict of 1839 (hatt-i şerif), a text that formalized the Tanzimat reforms. Gaspare Fossati, the Swiss architect who developed the civic architectural aesthetic of the early

From Empires Past to Nation State 231

Figure 10.2 Bezm-i Alem Valide Sultan’s Yıldız fountain (later removed to Topkapı) with the central globe on column motif, c. 1843. Source: Photo by the author.

Reform period, conceptualized the event as an obelisk, whose base bore the edict’s text as well as Abdülmecid’s tughra.37 Pascal Artin Bilezikçi, an Armenian sculptor, would contribute a model to the 1855 Paris World’s Fair using the typology of a war memorial, with the edict inscribed on the ephemeral structure’s hexagonal body. Sultan Abdülaziz’s (1861–76) travels in Europe and his own commission of sculptural works shed light on some changes regarding views of public statuary. In France, Sultan Abdülaziz noticed the bashfulness of his own company, compared to the

232 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker nonchalant view of the Europeans as they all looked upon the nude statues, also commenting that what is prohibited leads to further fxation.38 Having travelled to Europe and seen statues in galleries and public squares, Sultan Abdülaziz was also drawn to the idea of having his own statue.39 He commissioned the sculptor Charles Fuller (1830–75) to create a bust portrait and an equestrian statue for himself.40 After more than 400 years, an equestrian statue was once again to embellish the capital. However, this smaller than life-size equestrian statue was not placed in a public space—it has been recorded that the queen mother was vehemently opposed to the idea, going so far as to suggest it be thrown into the sea.41 The statue was, instead, placed in his palace (later making stints at Topkapı, the Alhambresque mansion belonging to Abdülaziz’s son Abdülmecid Efendi, and fnally the Beylerbeyi Palace on the Asian shore).42 While the three-dimensional likeness of the sultan (a representation that was surely implicated by the sovereign’s caliphal role) appears to have been publicly contested and was reserved only for the courtly gaze, the gardens of the Dolmabahçe, Çırağan and Beylerbeyi Palaces were dotted with sculptures of animals, mainly of lions, but also stags, swans and horses. These were mainly commissioned from sculptors, including Antoine-Louis Barey, Pierre Louis Rouillard (1820–1881), Isidor-Jules Bonheur (1827–1901), Louis Joseph Doumas (1801–87), Hippolyte Heizler (1828–1872) and Paul Édouard Delabriére (1829–1912).43 An example of these foreign imports, two life-size bronze bulls by Bonheur, were initially intended to memorialize French victory in Alsace over Germany but had complicated, itinerant afterlives that transformed

Figure 10.3 B. Kargopoulo, Parc a Yeldez, c. 1880s, Istanbul University Library, 90751–0044.

From Empires Past to Nation State 233 their meaning. They would arrive in Istanbul as gifts by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Abdulhamid II standing in for the German-Ottoman politico-economic alliance (see Figure 10.3). Mirroring the tumultuous aftermath of the war and ensuing regime change, the sculptures travelled from one imperial residence to the next, one of them attaining public visibility frst in Taksim’s Gezi Park and later demarcating one of Kadıköy’s main transportation hubs. Nineteenth-century governors and, subsequently, khedives of Egypt more readily accepted fgural sculpture, especially to assert their political legitimacy in the public arena. Khedive Ismail Paşa (d. 1895) commissioned Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier and Henri-Marie-Alfred Jacquemart to create equestrian statues of his grandfather Mehmed Ali and father Ibrahim to be placed in public squares in Alexandria and Cairo, respectively. Their visibility pronounced the khedivial family’s desire to be free of Ottoman suzerainty: for instance, Jacquemart’s statue of Ibrahim Paşa points in the direction of Konya in Central Anatolia, where Egypt’s second governor had won a momentous victory against the Ottoman army under Sultan Mahmud II in 1832.44 Egypt’s rulers considered much more monumental fgural projects to complement their dynastic ambitions. Though none came to fruition, the monuments for the Suez Canal by Faustin Glavany (a pyramid with four couchant sphinxes on its corners and a sculptural cluster at its portal echoing the allegorical fgures in Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel) and Frédéric Bartholdi (a colossal lighthouse in the form of a Egyptian fellaha which formed the foundation for the Statue of Liberty) speak both to the immediate postcolonial legacy of Napoleon’s failed conquest of Egypt in the early nineteenth century and khedivial Egypt’s mobilization of its afterefects to extricate itself from the Ottoman sphere of infuence and maintain an autonomous presence in the global/ European cultural arena.45 The Tanzimat high ofcials, whose domestic environments often mirrored and at times even determined decorative trends adopted for the imperial residences, boasted antique as well as contemporary sculptures. Though under-researched, anecdotes indicate that not only the Francophile reformist Keçecizade Fuad Paşa but also his Hungarian renegade gardener Sipos Dániel had interest in and displayed antique sculptures in their homes; Sipos would regift an ancient Egyptian statue of Osiris with inscriptions that he had once received from his Ottoman employer to the Hungarian Academy.46 Abdüllatif Subhi and Mehmed Münif Paşas, two scholar-diplomats central to the mid-century educational reforms, were also collectors of sculpture: besides a vast coin collection, Subhi’s urban mansion in Fatih exhibited bronze sculptures of Venus, Bacchus and Heracles, while Münif’s suburban residence in Erenköy was frequented by Istanbul’s inhabitants for its life-size sculpture of a girafe, a nod perhaps from the science-obsessed paşa to the British Museum’s famed taxidermy versions from the eighteenth century.47 While the public monuments mentioned above, such as fountains, tombstones, and other imperial markers abounded with non-fgural sculptural reliefs, Istanbul’s artists also received fgural commissions from European members of the court. The funerary relief portraits of Christian Sester, the head-gardener to all Tanzimat sultans, and his Armenian wife, Rosa, still rest in the catacombs of the St. Esprit Cathedral in Istanbul as illustrations of an overlooked practice.48 This sculptural ensemble was most likely created by the aforementioned Armenian-Catholic sculptor Bilezikçi. In order to consolidate his caliphal and sultanic authority, Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) instituted and maintained ambitious civic building and infrastructural

234 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker programs across the empire. Often a defnitively non-fgural monument was placed at a town’s centre to mark the completion of the project, which simultaneously acted as a symbolic marker of his rule. Not unlike the practice of installing utilitarian and visually striking kleinarchitectur of his early-Tanzimat predecessors, Abdülhamid serialized the erection of clock towers with Orientalist (Neo-Mamluk and Alhambresque) features across the provincial centres as stand-ins for his deliberately invisible but authorial presence.49 At other times, a single inscribed or embroidered slogan, ‘Long live the Sultan’ (Padişahım çok yaşa!), could become a sufcient and charged stand-in. Raimondo D’Aronco, the state’s Italian engineer and architect, designed an Art Nouveau monument composed of a column bearing the replica of the Hamidiye Mosque in Istanbul (the foremost architectural symbol of Abdülhamid’s caliphate) to celebrate the completion of the telegraph lines between Damascus and the holy sites in the Hijaz. The stylized telegraph lines on the column also evoke the sultan’s tughra. The Hamidian regime also encouraged the erection of monuments in the capital and elsewhere to afrm diplomatic alliances that sealed economic partnerships and postwar treaties. One of the best known examples of such a symbol of alliance is the German Fountain, a domed octagon with Byzantine-revivalist features gifted by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Abdülhamid II, which was installed in Istanbul’s hippodrome to memorialize the German-Ottoman economic partnership built on the construction of transnational railways across the two empires.50 The monument’s inauguration in 1902 coincided with the sultan’s 25th jubilee year, which was celebrated across the Ottoman domains with similar structures undertaken by provincial governors as ‘presents’ to the sovereign. Some of these structures of diplomacy, however, would not sustain a monument’s presumed longevity. The Russian War Memorial, a martyrium built by a sculptor called Buzarov in the form of a miniaturized Russian castle with its requisite onion dome, was funded by the Ottoman state as a reparation at the end of the 1877–78 Russo-Ottoman War and erected (after resistance and arduous negotiations) at Ayastefanos (Santo Stefano, today’s Yeşilköy) in 1898.51 Its existence was incredibly transient: in 1914, at the onset of the First World War, the Ottoman state would demolish the portentous structure that was deeply associated with a former Russian victory. Moreover, the process of its destruction was flmed by a junior ofcer named Fuad. The now-lost flm is considered among the frst Ottoman/Turkish flms.52 The dismantled monument’s now-vacant lot, once sold to Russia, was also confscated during the war, and its use occupied prolonged discussions between the ministries of war and fnance.53 In fact, there was a precedent to this transient structure: an earlier monument deliberately conceived in the form of a hefty, unblemished, natural piece of rock in Istanbul’s Beykoz district bearing short Ottoman and Russian commemorative poems was erected to mark Russian military support of the Ottoman army against military inquests into Anatolia in 1832–33 by Egyptian Governor Mehmed Ali Paşa.54 Known colloquially as the ‘Russian stone’ (‘moskof taşı’), this monument shared the same fate as the Ayastefanos monument and was also blown up in 1914.55 Public sculpture as a powerful tool of political testament pervaded late-imperial visual ideology. While the sultans grafted the symbols of their sovereignty onto the built environment, they closely surveilled those erected by their neighbours, especially in territories that had recently declared their independence from Ottoman control. State archives are replete with detailed reports outlining activities surrounding the commission, installation and inauguration of a bronze equestrian statue (heykel) of the Russian tsar Alexander II (d. 1881) in Sofa, Bulgaria.56 Meant to memorialize the tsar’s

From Empires Past to Nation State 235 support in Bulgaria’s liberation from the Ottomans in 1878, the statue was created by the Italian sculptor Arnoldo Zochi (d. 1940) after an international competition and unveiled in 1907 at its location facing the National Assembly. While Ottoman apprehension about the Russian sway over Bulgaria through visual propaganda was limited, they do seem to have prohibited the circulation of smaller busts of the tsar in the Bulgarian schools still within their domains.57 Both private encounters with fgural sculptures and public debates on monuments in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century occasionally spurred Ottoman intellectuals like the radical activist and theologian Ali Suavi (d. 1878) and nationalist poet Süleyman Nazif (d. 1927) to address the notion of Islam’s presumed aniconism.58 These inquiries followed analogous templates by frst citing examples from the Koran and hadiths for indefnite doctrinal positions and subsequently illustrating the permissibility of fgural sculpture through an early example (often the ubiquitous statue of an archer that topped the Abbasid Palace in Baghdad) to condone fgural representation that did not solicit outright idolatry. To contribute to the debates surrounding the project of a monument to commemorate the frst Ottoman martyrs of aviation, the novelist Peyami Safa would reference an article by İhsan Şerif, his journalist colleague, which listed examples from Islamic visual cultures, such as lion sculptures and bird automata from Umayyad Andalusia, Damad İbrahim Paşa’s placement of an Apollo statue in front of his residence in Sultanahmet and Kavalalı Mehmed Ali’s equestrian statue in Alexandria, which was sanctioned by the ulema of al-Azhar.59 Two austere, non-fgural monuments (abide) marked the late-Ottoman public spaces of Istanbul: the Freedom Monument (Abide-i Hürriyet) and the aforementioned Aviation Martyrs’ Monument (Tayyare Şehitleri Abidesi). In the making of both, the national identities of their makers (Muslim and Turkish) were equally as important as their evocation of martyrdom. The Young Turk-led Ottoman parliament commissioned the former, a monument in the shape of an upturned cannon, as both a memorial to those who died in 1909 defending the second constitution against religious reactionaries and also to connote liberation (from the autocratic 30-year Hamidian rule). Placed on an artifcial mound in Şişli, then an underpopulated suburb of Istanbul, the structure also boasted a mihrab, thus functioning as a spacious namazgah (an open-air prayer space) for collective public prayers in the memory of those who had given their lives for the ‘freedom’ of the nation.60 Ottoman subjects and state employees from all provinces of the state were encouraged to donate funds to its making.61 Vedat Tek, a graduate of the empire’s frst academy of fne arts (Sanayi-i Nefse Mektebi), conceived of the monument as a broken marble column, alluding to the curtailed reconnaissance mission of the pilots in Ottoman-controlled Palestine in 1914. In addition to commissioning such proto-nationalist monuments, the state contributed funds for the Florence Nightingale (d. 1910) statue in London’s Pall Mall, conceived as part of a larger Crimean War Memorial in London, because of her innovative care techniques (from setting up prefab hospitals to novel sanitation techniques) of Ottoman soldiers during the war (1853–56).62 Similar monetary dispensations were made by the state for war memorials erected on behalf of the fallen soldiers of WWI’s Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria).63 In many ways, antique sculpture defned the trajectory of Ottoman museology, archaeology, and art training in the latter half of the nineteenth century.64 Osman Hamdi Bey’s (d. 1910) discoveries of Hellenistic stone sarcophagi near Sidon, Lebanon (especially the so-called Alexander sarcophagus that illustrated Alexander the Great

236 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker in battle against the Persians in bold relief) were central to the reincarnation of the Ottoman Imperial Museum in 1891 as a new building that echoed their typology but also the chronological curation of its growing collection.65 Although the museum and the aforementioned art academy next door were conceived as a pedagogical pair—the students would receive their historical, theoretical, and practical training through the museum’s collections—the sculptural production in the early years of the academy was few and far between, often a point of lamentation for the empire’s art critics.66 It is important here to remember that these students and teachers were incredibly versatile practitioners of related skills, so a presumed underrepresentation in sculpture might have meant production in reliefs, metalwork and other three-dimensional facture. The academy’s frst instructor in sculpture was Yervant Osgan (d. 1914), who not only was an accomplished sculptor in various popular representational tropes of the period (naturalistic, ethnographic, orientalist) but was also employed in the conservation and restoration of the archaeological fnds that entered the museum.67 As state-endorsed partner institutions, the academy and museum often had to share their experts with the court’s various ateliers and projects. Both Osgan and his students, İsa Behzad and Mesrur İzzet, were employed in the imperial mint in creating templates for coins and medals (including those meant for the contributors to the making of the Freedom Monument) and also contributed their designs and practical know-how on moulds and casts to the imperial porcelain factory inside Sultan Abdülhamid II’s Yıldız Palace complex. İsa Behzad was later appointed the factory’s director under the reign of Sultan Mehmed Reşad.

Republican Istanbul: From Empires Past to a Nation State The aforementioned commemorative memorials such as the Freedom Monument and Aviation Martyrs’ Monument paved the way for the evolution of the monumental statue as fgurative art. It was not until the late 1920s, with the erection of statues and monuments of Kemal Atatürk, that statues began to dominate public spaces in Turkey. The frst major republican monument, erected in Afyon in 1924 where the Turkish army defeated the Greek troops and forced them to retreat to İzmir, immortalized ‘The Unknown Soldier’ who died in the War of Independence.68 The monument was unveiled by Kemal Atatürk himself. In his speech, he stated that it represented the real heroes of the nation, whose blood saved the country. However, it was the frst and last major monument of its kind before the appearance of the fgurative public monuments of Atatürk himself in the late 1920s. Thereafter, Atatürk memorials and statues dominated public space in Turkey.69 The frst of these statues was placed in Sarayburnu and became the frst public full-size fgurative statue in Istanbul about 470 years after Constantine’s statue was removed from its column located in today’s Sultanahmet Square, the central public place of the Byzantine and the Ottoman Empires.

Towards a Republican City Sultanahmet, Beyazıt and Taksim Squares are the three most important public places in Istanbul today. Sultanahmet was the most important of the three until the nineteenth century. It was the centre of politics and social life of the city, just as it was in the time of the Byzantine Empire. Beyazıt Meydanı was the frst renaissance-style square of the city.70 Taksim (literally ‘distribution’) was an open space and a source for

From Empires Past to Nation State 237 water distribution to the city until it became a central zone when Sultan Abdulmecit II moved the royal palace to the west of the city in 1856. Moving the royal palace to the west changed the seat of political power. The Sublime Port stayed where it was, close to Topkapı palace, until the end of the empire. To go to the new palace, the Dolmabahçe Sarayı, from the sublime port, people needed to pass through the centre of commerce, the Galata, which expanded towards Taksim at the end of the nineteenth century. This political urbanization pushed city dwellers more toward the west of the city. New settlements were opened there, and people were encouraged to move west. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, two districts, Şişli and Teşvikiye (literally ‘encouragement’), emerged as the new middle-class areas. Taksim was physically in the centre of these new neighbourhoods, Dolmabahçe (the new royal palace) and the Sublime Port. As the physical centre of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Istanbul, Taksim became the most important open space for Republican Turkey, since it was not recognized as a social and political space or a square yet, even though it was surrounded by the water reservoir, an Ottoman army base across from the reservoir, and some houses. Therefore, when the new regime decided to make itself visible in open spaces, Taksim was a more rational choice than other important places such as Beyazıt and Sultanahmet. It might have been the new regime’s goal to contrast the old and the new not only in terms of social and political issues but also through art, architecture and urbanization. In this light, Taksim was a sensible choice for the new regime as a place to represent the new and a venue to exercise its authority on new national holidays as it evolved into a coherent political body. The new regime’s strategy of stressing both the new and the old in terms of urbanization allowed Beyazıt Meydani and Sultanahmet Meydanı to survive as spatial representations of the empire, anchored in Islam, while Taksim emerged as the place of the new secular and national ofcial public culture. The new regime pursued the same strategy in most Ottoman cities, including İzmir and Samsun, two other important port cities of Anatolia, by opening new republican squares as opposed to using those inherited from the empire. This caused a duality in the image-making processes of these Ottoman-Republican cities. As a result, the Republican and Ottoman squares competed with one another for dominance as the symbol of cities in the mental maps of the populace. For the new regime, Istanbul—the capital city of empires—was the hardest location to capture in the fght for representation. This was not only because the city was the biggest city in the Republic but also because its inhabitants played a smaller role in the War of Independence than the people of Anatolia. Residents of Istanbul were suspicious of the new regime since when Kemal Atatürk and his fellows founded the Republic in 1923, they made Ankara the new capital, ostensibly ending Istanbul’s political power. However, the new regime did not end the commercial role of the city, which helped non-Muslims, who were the business class of the empire, to look for ways to show acceptance of the new regime even before the Muslim middle class of the city. The Committee of Union and Progress’s creation of economic policies to promote the Muslim Turkish bourgeoisie during World War I (called Milli İktisat, or National Economy) was a stimulus for the middle-class culture of the old capital.71 The Kemalist regime also pursued this group, of whom they were suspicious because they considered them the supporters of the C.U.P., particularly Cavit Bey, the leader of big business, and Kara Kemal, the representative of small business. In fact, the suspicion was so deep that Kemal Atatürk, as the leader of the War of Independence, did not

238 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker stop in Istanbul when he frst passed the city again in 1924, fve years after he left on 15 May 1919. It is possible that he was even afraid of an assassination attempt from the Unionist underground. Kemal Atatürk did not dare return to Istanbul until he eliminated the prominent Unionists in 1926, just after they had attempted to assassinate him in İzmir. His power to purge all his political opponents in one fell swoop made him seem invincible to the opponents of the new regime. At that point, the Muslim middle class in the old capital fnally showed signs of accepting the new regime. Once they were sure that Kemalists would retain power and that their commercial relationship with the old Unionists had ended, they started to look for ways to show their admiration and support for the new regime. The non-Muslim population of the city followed suit in Istanbul as in other cities, especially in İzmir. This group was afraid that the new regime might deport them from the country, much like they did in the population exchange of 1923. Therefore, nonMuslim merchants did not hesitate to ofer fnancial support when the new regime added a monumental propaganda program to the agenda after Kemal Atatürk delivered a speech on statuary at the Bursa Şark Sineması (Bursa Eastern Movie Theatre) in 1923.72 This was clearly the case when the new regime decided to erect a Cumhuriyet abidesi (Republican monument) in Taksim that was to represent the emergence of the new regime and its leader, Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Unsurprisingly, about 90  percent of the donations for the monument in Taksim came from the non-Muslim population of the city.73 However, even before Taksim became a Republican square featuring a monument in the centre, the Muslim population of Istanbul had already shown their loyalty to the new regime and its leader by erecting a statue of him in Sarayburnu, on 3 October 1926. This was the point of his departure when he left for Samsun, one day after the Greek occupation of İzmir on 15 May 1919. We argue that the statue in Sarayburnu was the result of negotiations between the new regime and the suspicious Muslim middle class of the old capital. The donations for the statue in Sarayburnu show that, unlike their integral role in the erection of the Taksim statue, non-Muslims were not part of the deal. Therefore, when the statue was unveiled, it symbolized the old Muslim middle class’ recognition of the new regime, which, for Kemalists, also meant the end of Unionist underground infuence in the former capital. This is why the mayors of Istanbul, who were appointed by Ankara, paid careful attention to the newly born republic, and especially to the opening ceremony of the frst monumental public statue in Istanbul.

The First Figurative Public Statue Immediately after Kemal Atatürk’s 1923 public speech in Şark Sineması, the Istanbul Municipality was the frst local government to campaign to erect a statue of him. The mayor, Emin Bey, formed a committee in 1924 that commissioned the task to the Austrian sculptor Heinrich Krippel.74 The committee met on a regular basis and updated the public about the preparation process through pieces in Şehir Emaneti Mecmusı (the monthly journal of the Istanbul municipality) and various newspapers.75 On 25 August 1925, nearly 13 months before the unveiling ceremony of the statue, the committee organized a public ceremony to mark the future location of the base pedestal of the statue in Sarayburnu. This was an Imperial tradition. Istanbul deputies

From Empires Past to Nation State 239 of the Turkish Great Assembly, generals of the army bases in Istanbul, members of the Republican People’s Party, ofcials from the Istanbul municipality and press representatives participated in the ceremony, and all signed a document confrming the greatness of the saviour and noting the ofcial opening of the construction site. The mayor himself put the document in a box and buried it in the base stone marker, and later informed Kemal Atatürk of the ceremony by sending him and the Ministry of the Interior a telegraph message.76 He replied to this message the next day, on 26 August 1925: ‘I am pleased to see that people of Istanbul have become the frst to attempt to erect my statue. I thank you for expressing your sincere feelings by putting the frst base stone in the construction site. President Ghazi Mustafa Kemal77’. Nearly six weeks after Sehir Emaneti Mecmuasi had reported the opening of the construction site, Krippel sent a long letter to the journal. He wrote about his meetings with Kemal Atatürk, his feelings about sculpting the frst statue of the Turkish republic, how a sculptor works on his/her subject and his ideas on how people perceive statues.78 Krippel’s letter was the frst from a foreign sculptor to the public. His intention in sending it was basically to please the public, since the monumental propaganda of the regime attracted the attention of many competing European sculptors even as late as 1938.79 Krippel continued to update the committee about his progress as he fnished the job, and the committee kept informing the public accordingly. On 4 March 1926, the daily newspaper Milliyet informed the public that Krippel had fnished sculpting the statue and had put it on a Viennese train bound for Istanbul along with fve busts of Mustafa Kemal. The news also stated that the opening would take place after Krippel’s arrival in Istanbul and that the statue was to be placed on the base pedestal prepared by the municipality. Nearly ten days later, Milliyet informed the public of a confict that had arisen between the committee and Krippel over the base pedestal of the statue. According to the news, Krippel had violated the contract and sculpted a statue that was too big for the base pedestal prepared by the municipality. Krippel criticized the committee, saying that he had sculpted a statue for a 1.51  m2 pedestal, which he claimed had been agreed with the committee before he started the job. The committee rejected his argument and reminded him of the fgure on the contract that he had signed, which stipulated a 94 cm2 base pedestal. According to Milliyet, Krippel did not respond to the committee’s accusation, and the committee had to inform the Egrem Hof museum where Krippel was working that the committee could only approve the job if it complied with the 94 cm2 specifcation for the base. Some of the committee members met on 14 March 1926 with a representative of the Egrem Hof museum to resolve the problem. After the meeting, Şükrü Ali Bey, the vice mayor of the city, informed the public in a press briefng that ‘the committee had decided to wait for the arrival of the statue and see if there was a big problem with the base, and if there was, then the committee would reconsider the situation and act accordingly’.80 Ten days later, on 24 March the statue arrived in Istanbul. The statue was held by customs for six days in order to complete the paperwork, since customs requested a tax exemption for the statue from the government.81 After Kemal Atatürk signed the decree, the statue was stored in a building near Sarayburnu on 30 March. The committee members arrived to see the statue on 2 April 1926. Once they saw the

240 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker statue, they realized that it was obviously too large for the pedestal prepared by the municipality. They decided to move the statue closer to the pedestal to more accurately gauge the disparity. Finally, the committee decided that the pedestal could not be modifed to ft the statue and therefore must be changed.82 While the committee was dealing with the base pedestal, discontent over the statue emerged in the national press. On 5 April, Falih Rıfkı, the editor of Hakimiyet-i Milliye, the ofcial daily of the Kemalist regime, criticized the Istanbul municipality in his article titled ‘Istanbul Heykeli’ (Istanbul statue). Rıfkı was one of the closest intellectual and political fgures to Kemal Atatürk, but he accused the municipality’s committee of spending too much money on the frst monumental statue of Turkey, especially since a foreign sculptor benefted from the job. He added that once the municipality of the biggest city in Turkey had hired this random foreign sculptor, the Konya and Ankara municipalities had followed Istanbul’s example by ordering new Ataturk statues by the same sculptor, whose previous work proved that he was not a good artist. He concluded his article by warning other municipalities not to repeat the same mistakes.83 On 7 April 1926, two days after Falih Rifki’s critical article appeared, the new mayor of Istanbul, Muhittin Bey, went to Ankara to present Kemal Atatürk with pictures of the statue in hopes that he would approve the fnal product.84 Although  the statue did not satisfy the political or intellectual elite in Ankara, the Ministry of the Interior approved the erection of the statue on 18 April 1926. After the approval, the committee fnished the new base pedestal on 28 June  1926, and scheduled the opening ceremony for 3 October 1926.

The Opening Ceremony On 29 September 1926, the Istanbul daily Yeni Ses (The New Voice) informed its readers that the municipality was planning a groundbreaking opening for the frst statue of the Republic, and that Şükrü Ali Bey, the vice mayor, was in charge of preparing a program. The municipality press published the program on 30 September and sent it to more than 500 notables, among them the deputies, members of the government and the party, municipality ofcials, members of Istanbul University, high schools, members of Türk Ocağı, Istanbul Commerce, Esnaf Komisyonu (Commission of Small Business) and the public. The program stated that the Navy Orchestra, along with a large group of military personnel and police forces, were among the participants. The mayor included representatives of both the civil society and the state institutions in the ceremony. Even though the mayor and the committee made certain to tailor the ceremony to embrace all the city’s people, the ceremony had a dress code that made it impossible to attend for those who could not aford the attire. The program stated the dress code clearly: ‘Those who are going to participate in the opening ceremony have to wear a suit or a dark dress’. The dark dress here symbolized the ofcial character of the ceremony, and the suit represented the discipline of the ofcial public culture of the Republic, in sharp and deliberate contrast to the culture of the empire. The dress code was, in fact, almost the only diference between this ceremony and imperial opening ceremonies. The ceremony was a follow-up to what the new regime called the ‘Hat Revolution’. In 1924, Kemal Atatürk publicly announced the Hat Revolution, which banned the fez, which had been a symbol of the old regime since the reign of Mahmut II. Like Mahmut II, Kemal Atatürk and his elite knew that visually shaping new human subjects was instrumental in exercising political power and generating ofcial public culture.

From Empires Past to Nation State 241 It is important to stress the signifcance of the fact that this ceremony was not the opening of a new building, a bridge, a park or a street, a type of occasion familiar to the supporters of the new regime, the ofcials and the former Ottoman subjects. This was the unveiling of a statue—a work forbidden by Islam—which made it, as our discussion of the Ottoman period illustrates, something new to both the ordinary people and the ofcials of the Republic, even though the ritualistic measures taken during the construction of the statue were infuenced by Ottoman traditions. When people gathered for the opening ceremony in Sarayburnu on Sunday, 3 October  1926, they might not have been surprised that another protocol was enforced, one concerning who stands where. Along with the idea of a dress code, this spatial protocol was a familiar one from the time of the Empire. Ofcials and notables came to the park in suits and Western hats, as demanded. The commander-in-chief of the city’s military base was already there with a large group of military personnel and more than a thousand privates, all of whom were in military uniforms, alongside uniformed police. Then the military band took its reserved place. The crowd surrounded the ofcials and the notables, standing wherever they could, before the mayor, number one in protocol, showed up. According to news in Milliyet, the mayor came fve minutes late and started to deliver his talk without hesitation. He stood directly in front of the statue, which was covered with white fabric, as anticipated in the program: In order to comprehend the essence and the meaning of this event . . . it is necessary to think frst about the history embedded in this statue, then, to look at various stages of the history of the Ottomans. . . . This . . . would show us from what kind of dark age we have come and now reached happiness. . . . It would be fair to say that we are an envied generation. I consider this envy as a way to show our gratefulness to our saviour. Long live Gazi!85 The mayor’s words were not new to the audience or the press. The content was not unexpected. Calling the imperial period a ‘dark age’ and Kemal Atatürk the ‘saviour’ were common rhetorical practices in any ofcial talk since the foundation of the Republic. In fact, both the ofcials and the people considered Kemal Atatürk their saviour even before the foundation of the Republic. The wartime press almost unequivocally expressed their perceptions of Kemal Atatürk in text and image as the determined saviour of the country. Even before the beginning of the War of Independence, most of the ofcials and top generals of the army believed in his determined personality and military expertise. However, these same groups did not yet consider the Ottoman period to have been a dark age. They blamed the members of the royal family for the collapse rather than the empire as such. When the mayor fnished his speech, the military band played the Selam Havası, which was another Ottoman tradition. Muhittin Bey picked up a pair of scissors from a silver plate and cut the red ribbon surrounding the white fabric on the statue, to the audience’s applause. The statue was unveiled to even more thunderous applause. The ceremony ended immediately at this point, and the audience left the site.86 After the opening, Muhittin Bey sent the following telegraph message to Kemal Atatürk: We understand the results of your revolution. Today thousands of people who miss you cried with happiness that they were grateful to have the chance to wed

242 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker your holy representation with their tears. . . . My lord, I am happy to inform you of this.87 Kemal Atatürk never attended the opening ceremonies of his own statues. He only sent notes congratulating the artist and the residents of the city. As the frst president of the Turkish nation, he sent the following open note to the residents of Istanbul, who erected his frst statue in Sarayburnu: ‘I present my most sincere gratitude to the people of Istanbul for their high appreciation and noble sentiments, which they expressed by erecting my frst statue’.88 The opening of the frst monumental statue of Turkey made headlines in the Turkish press as well as some international newspapers and journals. The most prestigious and infuential among these was the French news weekly L’illustration, a lavishly printed periodical (published between 1843 and 1944). Both L’illustration and the national press criticized Krippel for not portraying Kemal Atatürk as brave and determined enough. In a press conference, Krippel responded to these criticisms, stating: ‘In spite of these attacks, I  still believe that I was able to give Ghazi the desired brave posture. The critics in Vienna, on the other hand, suggested that the statue embodied a modern concept of art’.89 This defence did not stop the criticism of Krippel and his monument. These criticisms had actually begun even before the opening of the monument. Falih Rıfkı, one of the closest intellectuals to Kemal Atatürk, wrote the earliest criticism of the monument in the ofcial daily Hakimiyet-i Milliye on 5 April 1926, one week after the statue arrived in Istanbul: A couple of Krippel’s busts and a statue came to Istanbul. This is the frst statue of the greatest personality of the Turkish nation! The artist was an unknown person from Vienna. Istanbul Municipality hired this person without questioning . . . since the municipality of the biggest city hired him, Konya Municipality and the statue commission in Ankara placed more expensive orders. . . . Ghazi cannot be represented in this posture and great Istanbul cannot give such a bad artifact to her saviour.90 It seems that although the new political elite welcomed and encouraged monumental propaganda, it was only after Falih Rıfkı criticized the local government of Istanbul and warned the others that it began to consider standardization of monuments and statues. Considering that Rıfkı was very close to Kemal Atatürk, one can assume that they talked about this issue before Rıfkı published his article and that Kemal Atatürk agreed with him about the problem. Thus, one might conclude that they decided to use Rıfkı’s voice to advocate standardisation to the public. This assumption is unproven, but it is an educated guess, since one of Kemal Atatürk’s key strategies for government was to communicate with the public by saying things aloud for someone to write down and by dictating ideas to journalists close to him, who then published them as their own. Since it would not have been a good strategy for him to complain about his own statue, we argue that Kemal Atatürk, perhaps in one of his well-known dinner discussions, expressed his own opinion to Rıfkı and others so that they would express it for him. The Minister of Education, who was probably at Atatürk’s table when the statue business came onto the agenda, was one of those who might have written down what he said. On 24 May, one and a half months after Rıfkı informed the public that

From Empires Past to Nation State 243 the Ministry of Education had ‘discovered the way’ to stop other cities from repeating the same mistake, the Ministry of Education issued a special ministerial decision. The decision set out objectives and explained certain measures that should be taken regarding statues to the national press and city ofcials. This decision was the main headline news of the ofcial daily Hakimiyet-i Milliye on 25 May: One statue of our saviour on horseback in military uniform, one in civilian clothes standing, and a bust will be ordered. For this our ministry is in contact with the most distinguished sculptors . . . our ministry will mediate between the cities and the artists to use the moulds for reproduction. This way a number of cities will have a chance to decorate their cities with the statues of our national hero and the country’s resources will not be wasted.91 The Ministry’s public notice includes the exact points Falih Rıfkı made in his text, which indicates that Atatürk, Rıfkı and the member(s) of the Ministry must have worked together on the subject. Obviously, the experience with the frst statue forced the new regime to introduce this standardization, not only for aesthetic purposes but also to prevent potential fnancial problems. The country’s economy was not in good shape after the War of Independence, and spending too much money for monumental propaganda would not be a rational choice in the eyes of the public or the political elite. But instead of giving up on monumental propaganda entirely, the political elite tried to use the fnancial resources in a productive way. Since aesthetic concerns were not the main issue for them in the frst place, they did not see any problems in producing moulds for every city in the nascent Republic. Also, it is likely that the regime took advantage of the situation by inviting more cities and towns to raise monumental propaganda, as one can conclude from the last statement of the ministry’s notice.92 What we do know is that even though both the public and state ofcials criticized the frst monumental statue of the republic, Krippel was hired again to erect three more statues of Kemal Atatürk. Two of these statues were erected after 1932 in cities Rıfkı does not mention in his text, which leaves us to wonder why state ofcials introduced standardisation but still let individual cities hire Krippel again. One plausible reason is again fnancial, as state ofcials might not have been able to fnd a more afordable choice than Krippel, which they would have realized after they approached some wellknown sculptors from France, Germany and Italy. However, there is no ofcial reason for this disparity between practice and stated policy. The second reason is that perhaps the political elite simply did not want to delay the monumental propaganda, which was expected to produce didactic infuence over people considered to form the desired new subjects of the emerging nation-state. This is perhaps why the political elite still allowed the Istanbul municipality to publicly erect the frst national monument of the new regime even though Krippel was criticized so brutally for his frst commission. In sum, the monument in Sarayburnu was not only the frst full-size fgurative monumental statue erected in Turkey but also the frst in a long line of monumental propaganda pieces that the political elite demanded from the notables of the new regime. After Kemal Atatürk’s Sark Sineması speech at Bursa, statuary became an instrumental political tool used by diferent interest groups in recognizing the new regime. As mentioned before, the leader and his fellows welcomed this way of reorganization and encouraged social groups and municipalities to implement it.93

244 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker

Enforcing Sovereignty of the Nation This frst representation of Kemal Atatürk in a full-size statue form in Sarayburnu commemorates the birth of a national leader and a nation-state, and thus it is one of the constitutive elements of the new regime.94 That is to say, it is not the representation of the political power per se: it is the power itself.95 One way of interpreting the statue along this line is in relation to the preceding treaties signed by the Ottomans, in which they were forced to ‘concede’ their lack of civilization. The 22nd article of the Covenant of the League of Nations states: To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the wellbeing and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this Covenant.96 These authors would argue that the correlation between the article and the statue is obvious. The stress on the words ‘sovereignty’, ‘civilization’ and ‘stand’ can be traced in the statues design. It depicts the emergence of a national leader, his back to Istanbul and Topkapı palace, facing Anatolia. His right leg is forward and his closed fst rests on his thigh while his open left hand is resting at his waist. This posture creates the impression that the statue will move at any moment to start a liberation movement (Figure  10.4). This depiction clearly lays claim to the sovereignty of the nation and represents the word ‘sovereignty’ in the article. The determined posture embodies the word ‘stand’. Finally, Kemal Atatürk is shown wearing a suit, in ‘civilian’ or ‘civilizing’ clothes, which symbolizes and visualizes a new human subject but also his response to the word ‘civilization’. The artist Samih Tiryakioglu’s comments on the monument reveal what Atatürk himself thought of it: ‘this, in Atatürk’s own words, demonstrates his determination to go to Anatolia and fght the enemy, abandoning any kind of ofcial and military position and returning to the heart of the nation’.97 As the mayor pointed out in a press conference, Sarayburnu was specifcally chosen as the place to erect the statue because there it would be seen by those entering the straits and would tell the story of the emergence of a national leader whose ambition, along with his political elites, was to turn the nascent republic into a modern secular nation state under the guidance of a new theory of action: nationalism embedded in high modernism. One can argue that the frst political condition of such a modern nation state guided by nationalism embed in high modernism was to transform an imperial city, in this chapter, İstanbul, from its imperial past to its national future. Being the frst full-size fgurative statue of the nation state and the frst of upcoming monumental propaganda initiated by the new regime, the monumental statue in Sarayburnu became a constitutive element in such a transformation. To enforce and fnalize this transformation, the new regime reutilized Taksim and turned it into the Republic’s most important square to this day. Two years after the unveiling of the monument in Sarayburnu, ‘The Taksim Republican Monument’ was erected in the newly opened republican square on 8 August 1928. A committee made up of prominent political notables, with generous donations mostly from the non-Muslim residents, sought to visualize the concept of

From Empires Past to Nation State 245

Figure 10.4 First full-size statue of Kemal Atatürk in Sarayburnu. Source: Photo by Faik Gür.

‘the newly founded Republic’ in a single monument.98 The design was prepared by Pietro Canonica in 1926 and was presented to Kemal Atatürk by this committee. Upon Atatürk’s approval of the design, Canonica was entrusted with the task of sculpting the monument (Figure 10.5a–d).99 The press briefng given by Canonica following the approval of the project provides us with information about how the sculptor came up with the design for the monument. And it also shows that Atatürk was interested in its details. It is evident that Canonica had been provided with photographs and perhaps with a short brief on the War of Independence: I was inspired by the wars fought by the Turkish nation and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha. I examined all the photographs related to this war, and also those of Ghazi and his friends. I based my design plan on the inspiration I took from

246 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker

Figure 10.5a–d Taksim Republican Monument, Istanbul (author’s collection). Figure 10.5a represents the emergence of the Republic, Figure 10.5b the War of Independence. Source: Photos by Faik Gür.

From Empires Past to Nation State 247 these photographs. One side of the monument depicts the national struggle. On the front is Ghazi, with his soldiers behind him. To the right-hand side of Ghazi, in front of his feet, is a woman half veiled. Ghazi asks this woman why she didn’t protect herself from the rain with her veil. Silently uncovering the veil, the women exposes a set of ammunition and replies that she preferred to cover the ammunition rather than herself. On the other side of the gate, the declaration of the Republic is described. Ghazi stands in front of the gate, with his closest friends gathered close behind him. On both sides of the gate are soldiers with Turkish fags.100 Taksim is important because it was one of the frst squares the new regime created but also because its monument represented a high point in the War of Independence by depicting the events that occurred between May 1919 and October 1923, all of which eventually denoted the transformation of Istanbul as the capital of empires to a city of the Republic of Turkey. Taksim Square came to represent the new and the national in İstanbul as opposed to Sultanahmet and Beyazıt, the squares of the imperial past, as the new regime evolved into a coherent political body implementing top down modernization for the sake of building a modern secular nation-state. As the centre of the city moved from the old city to Taksim, the newly born nation state and its founding father Kemal Atatürk and his determined elites almost simultaneously adapted to the new world order: moving from the age of empires to the age of extremes while spatial art forms and architecture emerged in what Clark calls ‘the sites most commonly chosen for factories of the perfect’.101 They held a dominant position in public life by introducing new patterns of urban expression, such as Atatürk statues and monuments, in the service of producing and reproducing new governmentality as both Byzantines and Ottomans have done before.

Concluding Remarks In its over two millennium-long history, the city of Istanbul/Constantinople, under two empires, a kingdom and a Republic, faced many changes. There were diferent responses by its denizens to its fgurative statuary. In Byzantine times, honorifc columns, statues and temples harked back to a glorious past as the city was fashioned as a ‘second Rome’. However, a good balance had to be found between such markers of imperial identity associated with a pagan culture and the empire’s new ofcial religion of Christianity. Furthermore, Iconoclasm provided another layer of challenge when it came to fgurative imagery and sculptures. More challenges came in the form of looting and destruction on the part of both the Crusaders and the Byzantines. Thus, when the Ottomans took over the city, there were few fgurative statues left. Responses to statues in early modernity were just as varied—while markers of a previous empire, such as the statue of Justinian, would not be tolerated, that they were not immediately destroyed is also remarkable. Indeed, some statues were believed, as they had been in the Byzantine period,102 to have talismanic powers, protecting the city. What is perhaps also remarkable is the divergence in how a shared Mediterranean, GraecoRoman past refected itself in diferent manners in the Ottoman Empire and in Europe in early modernity.

248 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker For the late-Ottoman context, it is worth probing the extent to which the Ottoman rulers and their subjects diferentiated between earlier small functional structures that also commemorated their patrons and newer monuments erected only to memorialize a person or event. What did a new abide signal to its viewer that an older fountain with inscriptions did not? Did the hypothetical fountain’s references to a particular moment or person fall victim to the vicissitudes of time while the new monument continued to retain its singular, symbolic connotation? Most likely. Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile and under-examined query from the perspectives of both the patron and spectator. Another question is whether the predominant non-fgurality in the choice of monuments (abide  over heykel) complicated their indexical, deictic functions (of connoting a specifc thing, moment or person)? Ultimately, though, one thing that can be said with relative certainty about the status of new monuments is that both their erection and destruction were momentous, memorable and deeply symbolic events. For the regime of the nascent Republic, monumental statuary along with national days of commemoration became the constitutive element of the nation-building process by making the transition of imperial public spaces and public culture into the domain of the national. As the state turned into a coherent political body in the late 1920s, it aimed, under the guidance of defensive nationalism within the scope of high modernism, to create the sense of common memory to be the foundation of national sovereignty. Republican parks, Republican squares, public memorials of Kemal Atatürk and national days of commemoration thus, as Young would put it, ‘all work[ed] to create common loci around which national identity’ was forged103 at the expense of the option of commemorating any urban identity that was not nationalist (in three-dimensional human-like structures).

Abbreviations Used in the Footnotes BCA BOA

Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı Cumhuriyet Arşivleri (Republic of Turkey Presidential State Republican Archives) Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı Osmanlı Arşivleri (Republic of Turkey Presidential State Ottoman Archives)

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Berger 2013, 9. See Chatterjee in this volume, Chapter 5. Jacobs 2010; Mango 1963. Caseau 2011. Lavan 2011, 442; Mango 1963, 64–65; Saradi-Mendelovici 1990, 50; Caseau 2011, 497–498. Talbot 1993, 244. Boeck 2014, 13–22. James 1996. Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938), the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, adopted the surname Atatürk, the Father of Turks, after the surname law passed in the assembly in June 1934, which made the registration of fxed names mandatory. Hereafter, he will generally be called Kemal Atatürk. For the surname law and the way in which it was received and mediated by ordinary citizens, see Türköz 2007. For a psychological

From Empires Past to Nation State 249

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

examination of Atatürk’s life, see Volkan and Itzkowitz 1983. For a more recent biography, see Mango 1999. On the damage to and restoration of monuments in the city, see Talbot 1993. On the Latin conquest and statuary, see Chatterjee 2011; Cutler 1968. Chatterjee 2011, 75. On the transformation of the Byzantine capital into the Ottoman capital, and for her analysis of ‘selective use’, see Kafesçioğlu 2009. The Church of the Holy Apostles briefy served as the seat of the patriarchate after the Conquest of Constantinople but was abandoned in 1456. On this, see Kafesçioğlu 2009, 66–70. Raby, on the basis of Aşıkpaşazade’s chronicle, argues that the statue was removed from the column sometime between June 1453 and the winter of 1455–6. On this statue, see also Boeck 2014; Mango 1993; Raby 1987. While Islam’s aniconism is well known, the prohibition against images was most extreme in public spaces. There are examples of statuary in private spaces as early as the Umayyads, in their desert palaces. The question of Iconoclasm and aniconism in Islam has seen lively debate. See, for example, Allen 1988; Flood 2002, 2013; Grabar 1987; Shaw 2019. Shaw 2019, 51–52 On the fate of the bronze heads of the Serpent column and various sources, see Ménage 1964. On the Serpent column, see also Stephenson 2016. Ménage 1964, 172. See Chatterjee, this volume, Chapter 5. For the supposed talismanic powers, see Yerasimos 1993, 89–97. The seventeenth-century traveler Evliya Çelebi, for example, provides a detailed account of the moments and talismans of Istanbul in his Seyahatnāme. See Dağlı and Kahraman 2000. Aslı Niyazioğlu is also currently working on the talismanic powers of the statues of Istanbul and has recently presented a paper titled ‘Urban Talismans and Early Modern Istanbul’ at the Nature and Supernatural in Ottoman Culture workshop (Istanbul, December 2019). The  Hünername, chronicling the talents and deeds of the Ottoman sultans, was begun by the şehname  writer ‘Arif, continued by Efatun Şirvani, who only wrote three parts, and was revised and fnished by Seyyid Lokman. The manuscript was conceived in four volumes. The frst volume tells of the skills and talents of the early Ottoman sultans until Selim I. The whole of the second volume is reserved for the martial and hunting skills and virtues of Süleyman II. The next two (unwritten) volumes were to be devoted to Selim II and Murad III, as evinced from the index given in the frst volume, as well as a marginal note in the second volume. The four books were to be divided each into ten thematic sections, followed by a supplement and a conclusion. The thematic division was to follow that of the second volume, enhancing the link between the three sultans through parallel accounts of the rulers’ skills and virtues. The last two volumes were, however, never completed. The frst volume was fnished in 1584 and the second in 1588. These volumes are presently in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library (H. 1523 and H. 1524). By the time of this painting, it seems like there was a confusion surrounding the identity of the fgures. For a further discussion, see Necipoğlu 1989, 419. Even though the painter has not accurately represented the three individual statues, whose identities at the time of the painting were not very clear, he was aware of their existence in 1530, and included this sculptural group in his representation of the 1530 circumcision festival. The poet was executed for his diatribe. Emecen 2000, 333–335. On Melchior Lorichs’s panorama of Constantinople, see; Westbrook et al. 2010. Hereafter, Westbrook, Constructing Melchior Lorichs’s Panorama. See, for example, the 1574 Freshfeld Album (Trinity College Library MS O. 17.2. Gilles 1988. On the accounts of seventeenth-century Habsburg travelers, see also Ebert 2003. The  Surname-i Humayun  (TPML H.1344),  dated 1587, is devoted solely to the grandiose circumcision  festival of Murad III’s son Prince Mehmed that took place just fve years earlier in 1582. This manuscript, like the  Hünername, is a collaboration between the Şehname writer Lokman and the painter Nakkaş Osman. Containing over 400 paintings that depict the many performances and processions which took place in the Hippodrome,

250 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker

28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

the compositional program of the Surname-i Humayun uses the palace of the grand vizier as a backdrop throughout the work in a manner almost like a cinematic procession. On this celebration and its visual representations, see Atıl 1993, 1999; Vehbi 2000. The style and the depiction of the circumcision festivities in the Hünername  bear afnities with the Surname-i Humayun, as well as several paintings from the second volume of the Şehinşehname (TPML B.200, also composed by Lokman for Murad III, the illustrations of which were fnished under his successor, Mehmed III). While all three manuscripts are the products of a collaboration between Lokman and the painters of the court, headed by Nakkaş Osman, the Surname-i Humayun and the Şehinşehname depict the 1582 circumcision festival, when the fgural statues that Ibrahim Paşa had brought were long taken down. They also refect changes to the grand vizier’s palace, such as the inclusion of a three-storey grandstand for the spectators. Westbrook et al. 2010, 67. Kaya 2006, 145–157, 146. On Topkapı’s eighteenth-century landscaping by a European gardener, see Türker 2016, 305–336. Hamadeh 2007. Renda 2000, 444–509; also see Bağcı et al. 2010, 288–289, 294. It must be pointed out that Mehmed II was also aware of the potential of diferent forms of media and Western forms of representation in diplomatic relations and had his portrait medallions made. The ways in which Mehmed II, Selim III, Mahmud II and other nineteenth-century Ottoman rulers used Western modes of representation must be distinguished in their own contexts and is beyond the scope of this paper. On the subtle but pertinent reform iconography of Sultan Mahmud II and globe imagery, see Akın 1992, 123–131. Acar 2008. On Dolmabahçe’s architects, see Tuğlacı 1990; and more recently, Wharton 2015. On the palace’s construction history, see Göncü 2019. See the seminal if dated survey on late-Ottoman sculpture and monuments, Kreiser 1997, 103–104. Bağcı, et al. 2010, 146–147. Bağcı, et al. 2010, 147. On the art patronage, particularly of modern visual art, of Sultan Abdülaziz see Roberts 2013, 10–30; also see Roberts 2015. The queen mother also disapproved of her son sitting for the portrait. See Kreiser 1997, 103–117. Renda 2002, 138–145; Uzun Aydın 2013, 39–40. Göker and Erdoğan 2018, 1422–1431; Seçen 2011, 19–40; Acaralp 2011, 41–49. Kreiser 1997, 107–108. On Bartholdi’s Suez canal project and its later conversion to the Statue of Liberty, see Grimaldo-Grigsby 2014. Anonymous. ‘Intézetek és egyletek’, Nefelejts, szépirodalmi hölgydivatlap, Vol. 4 (1863), 147. On Münif Paşa’s girafes, see Ekdal 2004, 299–300. On Subhi Paşa, see Türker 2021. Türker 2015, 275–276. Erkmen 2011, 76–237. On a comparative reading of the Hamidian towers as colonial markers, see Çelik 2008, 116–158. Christensen 2017, 124–131. Also note that a monument was erected in a square in Moscow in 1887 to commemorate the Russian soldiers who fought against the Ottoman army and died in the battle of Plevna. For more information on this monument, see Kapıcı 2010. Kocu 1960, 1499–1502; on the now-lost flm, see Özuyar 1999, 129. BOA, DH.İ.UM.EK 108–165. Lûtf Efendi 1999, 723; also see Ergin 1977, 537. Doğanay 1950, 245–260. For a meticulous retelling of the statue’s grand reveal with military pomp and circumstance as a report to Sultan Abdülhamid II, see BOA, Y.A.HUS 515–46 and A.MTZ (04) 160/52

From Empires Past to Nation State 251 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69.

70. 71.

72.

BOA, A.MTZ (04) 167/33 and TFR.1.UM. 25/2446. Suavi 1976, 81–86; Nazif 1976. Safa 2016, 42–43. Erkmen 2011, 238–301. For a range of contributors, see BOA, DH.MKT 2810/26 and DH.MKT 2838–2853. BOA, MV 151/70. For the one in Vienna, see BOA, İ.MBH 17/1333R-008. On collecting and the antiquities, see Uslu 2017; Çelik 2016; and Bahrani et al. 2011 Shaw 1993. Zihnioğlu, ed. 2007, 59. Uzun Aydın 2013, 81. Upon the collapse of the Ottoman empire in 1918, Allied forces—British, French, Italian and Greek—occupied diferent parts of Anatolia. Greek troops landed in İzmir on 15 May 1919, to be opposed by liberation organizations and movements which eventually transformed into a national resistance movement led by Atatürk. After the Soviet Union, France and Italy recognized Atatürk and the resistance movement in 1921, the war became restricted to a struggle between Turkey and Greece. The British supplied the Greek army, while the Soviet Union helped Atatürk and his fellows to establish a regular army. The struggle for independence lasted until Greek troops left İzmir in September 1922. In Turkish historiography, this struggle is called the War of Independence. For a brief history of the War of Independence, see Zürcher 2005, 133–165. Gür 2013. There is only one exception to this: the Kubilay Memorial erected in 1932 to commemorate an event that happened in Menemen, İzmir, on 23 December 1930, during which an under-reserve lieutenant, Mustafa Fethi Kubilay, was killed by a group of young dervishes in front of hundreds of bystanders. Two night guards who tried to stop the mob were also killed. The Kemalist regime considered this an uprising, an act of political violence and expression of religiously motivated public discontent and hatred aimed at the regime itself, and thus took stern measures. Over 20 people were executed about a year after the event. A monument dedicated to the memory of Kubilay and the two night guards was erected in 1932.There are some critical works available in Turkish on the incident, one of which is an article by Nursen Mazıcı, where she goes on to argue that the Kemalist regime reutilized the event in order to reinstate the authority of the regime in the early 1930s Mazıcı 2001, 131–146. For Beyazid Meydani, see Yeşilkaya 2003. In 1889, students of the Military Medical Academy in Istanbul founded a secret society called the Ottoman Unity Society, which eventually became the Committee of Union and Progress. The C.U.P. demanded the restoration of the constitution of 1876, which they believed would strengthen the state and thus help to prevent the collapse of the Ottoman empire. They managed to restore the constitution in 1908. The C.U.P. eventually turned into a political party and took control of the political institutions of the empire between 1913 and 1918. For economic policies of the C.U.P. and the details of Milli İktisat, see Toprak 1982. For a brief sentetic political history of the C.U.P., see Zürcher 2005. His speech on monuments at the Bursa Şark Sineması can be considered the beginning of Kemal Atatürk’s embrace of statuary, which later turned into monumental propaganda. This public speech demonstrated the importance he attached to statuary (read as Western art) in the process of modernization: When our prophet told his people the laws of God, those people had idols both in their hearts and in their brains. To draw these people to the way of God, he frst had to break those stone idols and remove them both from their hearts and their pockets.  .  .  . Thus, it dishonors Islam to assume that those enlightened people are going to believe in the idols again. Our enlightened and devout nation will improve the art of sculpting—which is one of the main motivations behind cultural progress—to its highest point; and every corner of our country will scream the reminiscences of our ancestors and descendants to the entire world through these magnifcent statues. (Atatürk 1952)

252 Faik Gür, Melis Taner and Deniz Türker

73.

74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91.

92. 93.

The speech also suggested an efort to legitimize sculpture from an Islamic point of view, which indicates Kemal Atatürk’s search for ways to proliferate and maintain the order. Lastly, the speech also recognizes this art form as an important tool in achieving the Kemalist national goal, as well as an acid test to determine those who were not in favor of the new regime and those who were eager to be part of it. For a list of donors for the erection of a monument in Taksim, see Banoğlu 1973. This book contains some of the original documents about the statue since the originals and some records regarding the fnancial issues disintegrated when the municipal library moved to a new place in the 1970s. According to ofcial documents that this author located in the Republic of Turkey Presidential State Republican Archives (hereafter BCA) in Ankara, sculptors from various European countries applied to Turkish ofcials to make statues and monuments in early republican Turkey. Heinrich Krippel and Pietro Canonica were the most successful, producing more statues and monuments than anyone else. Anton Hanak and Rudolf Belling are also worth mentioning here. Hanak produced only one monument, erected in Ankara in 1934. Belling created a monument dedicated to Ismet Inönü, Atatürk’s successor, in 1942. However, it was not seen in public until 1982 (see below). For related sample decree laws, see BCA, ‘026 62 5’, ‘11 39 3’ and ‘88 72 1’. It is important to stress that all the decree laws relating to statues erected before Atatürk died included the word ‘Ghazi’ or ‘president’ in the body of the text, and all of them were signed by Atatürk as president as well as by various ministers, including the prime minister. Toprak 1982, 9. Today, these periodicals are the only extant committee reports. As mentioned above, the originals were lost or left behind the relocation of the municipality archives in the 1970s. Gür 2006, 70–71. Reported in İstanbul Şehremâneti Mecmuası, November 1925, Year 2, 12 August 1925, p. 426. Reported in İstanbul Şehremâneti Mecmuası, November  1925, Year 2, Number 15, pp. 113–114. According to a state decree, one of these hopefuls included the French sculptor Hippolyte Louis Dutheil, who submitted his ‘voici du reste mon curriculum vitae’ to the consulate of Turkey in France on 18 March 1938. For the related decree, see BCA ‘030.10.202.377.13’. Milliyet. 16 March 1926. Milliyet. 16 March and 30 March 1926. Milliyet. 30 March and 2 April 1926. Hakimiyet-i Milliye. 5 April 1926. Milliyet. 2 April 1926. Yeni Ses. 4 October 1926. This translation might sound awkward, but that is deliberate and intended to refect the awkwardness of the original Turkish text. Yeni Ses. 4 October 1926. Yeni Ses. 4 October 1926. Elibal 1973, 194: taken from İstanbul Şehremâneti Mecmuası, October  1926, Year 3, Number 26, p. 69. ‘Interview with Heinrich Krippel’, Cumhuriyet, 7 December 1927, p. 4. Rifki’s criticism also refers to the way in which intellectuals criticized the statues of Atatürk sculpted by foreign sculptors in the sense that they did not provided aesthetic criticisms directly related to the artworks. This was the canon of such criticisms throughout the monumental propaganda of the early republic. Hakimiyet-i Milliye. 5 April 1926. The ofcial daily ended the news by informing the public that the Ministry of Education was already in contact with ‘two of the best sculptors of the world’, Wilvow from France and Klemike from Germany. The names have undoubtedly been misspelled, and it has not been possible to identify these sculptors. There is no name that resembles Klemike in Oktay Aslankaya’s book about Austrian historians and artists in Turkey—Aslankaya 1993. Hakimiyet-i Milliye. 5 April 1926. However, it is hard to say that it had all been planned from the beginning, because there is no document that proves it. Even if the new regime planned a monumental propaganda

From Empires Past to Nation State 253

94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

campaign right after Kemal Atatürk’s speech in Bursa Sark Sinemasi, they soon realized that poorly designed monuments were not expressing the greatness of the emergence of the new Turkish nation and needed to take certain measures such as introducing standards for statues. This standardization remains an unsolved issue in present-day Turkey. For the frst critical account in Turkish on the subject, which contextualises the statues in terms of Turkey’s nation building process in the early Republican period, see Gür 2001. About four months before the unveiling of the statue in Sarayburnu, a bust of Atatürk was unveiled in June 1926 in the garden of the School of Agriculture in İzmir—Resimli Gazette, October 1926, p. 8; November 1926, p. 8. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art22 [accessed 24.7.2020]. Tiryakioğlu 1971, 5. For the list of donors, see Banoglu 1973. Elibal 1973, 205–208. Demirkan 1968, 1–4. Clark 1995, 23. See Chatterjee, this volume, Chapter 5. Young 1993, 6.

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Index

Page numbers in italic indicate a fgure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. Abdülaziz 231–232 Abdülhamid II 233, 234, 236 Abdülmecid I 230 Abdulmecid II 237 Abu Haggag, Islamic saint 36 Abu Simbel, colossi of 42–43 Adiabene 106 Aemilius Paulus 153 Afyon, Turkey, Monument to Unknown Soldier 236 Agnello, Ludovico 156 Agrippa, M. Vipsanius: monument dedicated to at Athens 60 Ahmed III 229 Akbari, Susanne Conklin 115 Alberini (elite Roman family): house of 151, 152 Albertini, Francesco 159 Alexander the Great 23, 235 Alexander II (of Russia) 234 Alexander VI (Pope) 147, 155–158, 160, 165 Alexander Sarcophagus 235 Alexandria 111–112, 233, 235 Alexiad, the 115 Alexios I Comnenos 115 Al-Nablusi 43 Amenemhat III 43 Ameneminet, Egyptian priest: tomb of 41–42 Amenhotep III 38, 41, 42–43, 48, 49 Amenhotep son of Hapu, Egyptian scribe: statue of 48, 49 America: fate of pre-War of Independence statues 215 Amun 35, 36, 46 Anderson, Benjamin 102, 105 Andromeda 184 Ankara 237, 238, 240, 242 Anna Comnena 115 Anne, Queen (of England) 2, 4–5, 197, 198, 200, 207, 210, 211–212, 214 Antioch: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Antipatros of Phlya: statue of at Athens 62

Antiquarie prospetiche romane 156 Antiquities of Constantinople 229 Antoninus Pius: bust at Athens 68 Antonio da San Marino 161 Antverpia 180–181; Antwerp 177–178, 180, 181 Aphrodite of Cnidus 186 Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius 109 Apollo 157, 158, 160, 161, 162, 165, 235; statue of at Athens 107; statue of at Constantinople 107 Apollonios of Tyana 109 Appuleius Varus, P. 62, 63 Aristogeiton see Harmodios and Aristogeiton Arnolfo di Cambio 124 Arran, Charles Butler, 1st Earl of 212, 213 Asquith, Herbert: statue of 10 Assassin’s Creed: Origins 42 Aston, Nigel 212–213 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 227, 236–247, 245, 246, 248 Athene: statue of at Constantinople 107, 226 Athens, ancient: Acropolis as setting for statues 70; agora, statues in 56–80, 59; Bouleuterion 59, 68, 70; City Eleusinion 58, 61, 69; imperial cult at 68; Library of Pantainos 56, 57, 62, 70, 71; Metroon 59, 68, 70; Odeion of Agrippa 59, 66; Panathenaic Way 59, 60–66, 68, 70, 72, 59; post-Herulian wall 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 70; Roman Agora 59, 60, 62, 65, 70, 72; Southwest Temple 66; statuary habit at 7, 23, 56–80; statues brought from to Constantinople 108; Stoa of Attalos 56, 57–60, 59, 60–66, 68, 72; Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios 59, 66, 68; Temple of Ares 59, 66, 68, 66, 68; Tholos 59, 70–71 Attaleia: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Attalos II: foundation for statue at Athens 60, 68 Attlee, Clement: statues of 6, 10

258 Index Augustus 155, 204, 217; Prima Porta statue of 10 Aurelian 81 Aurelius Appianus: statue at Athens 70, 72 Bacchus 154, 155, 162, 164, 233 Bacon, John Jr. 208 Baghdad 235 Baines, John 36, 37, 39 Bakenkhonsu, High Priest at Karnak 38 Balfour, Arthur: statue of 10 Baltes, Elizabeth 66 Bandinelli, Baccio 135, 137 Banksy 18 Barberini, Taddeo 159 Barey, Antoine-Louis 232 Barnard, John 209, 211 Bartholdi, Frédéric 233 bases see pedestals Bassett, Sarah 102, 105 Behzad, Isa 235 Bell, Lanny 36 Benjamin, Anna 63 Berger, Albrecht 102 Bezm- i Alem 230 Bilezikçi, Pascal Artin 231, 233 Biondo, Flavio 155 Bird, Francis 207, 212, 213 Black Lives Matter 14, 18, 19 Blenheim Palace 4–5 Boccaccio 139 Bonheur, Isidor-Jules 232 Book of Ceremonies 114–115 Book of the Celestial Cow 34 Boyne, Battle of the 198, 208, 209 Bramante 161 Breda, Treaty of 206 Brescia, Jacopo da: palazzo of 165 Bristol 14, 18, 24, 197, 198, 209, 210, 211, 212, 216, 217 British Museum 32, 235 Bronze Age, statues 22, 24, 32–55 Bruges 182–184, 183 Brunelleschi, Filippo 136, 137, 141 Brussels 184, 185, 186, 187 Buda 228 Bulgaria 234–235 Buondelmonte, Christoforo 229 Burch, Samuel 209 Burchard, Johannes 150, 156, 158–159 Burckhardt, Jacob 154 Bursa 238, 243 Butler, Charles see Arran, Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Butler, James see Ormond, James Butler, frst Duke of Buzarov 234

Cafà, Valeria 147, 151–152 Cafarelli (elite Roman family): house of 151, 152, 156 Cairo 233 Calvete de Estrella, Juan Cristobal 180, 184 Calzonibus, Giovanni Paolo de 161, 162 Cambridge 213 Camerino, Signore of 159 Cameron, Averil 102, 105 Canning, George: statue of 10–11, 24 Canonica, Pietro 245–246 Cape Town, University of 16 Carafa, Cardinal Oliviero 150–151, 156–157, 158 Carpentiere, Andries 210 Carr, Annemarie Weyl 114–115 Cavit Bey 237 Ceen, Allan 164 Cellini, Benvenuto 124, 133–141, 134 Cesarini (elite Roman family): house of 150, 151, 158 Cesarini, Cardinal Giulio 159 Chaldeia: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Chambers of Rhetoric, amateur players of 177, 188–189 Charles I (of England) 196, 199, 200, 204, 208 Charles II (of England) 200, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 212, 213–214, 218 Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor) 177, 182, 183 Charlottesville, Virginia 16, 19 chauve statues see Hathor Cheere Company 198 Cheere, Henry 201, 212–213 Cheere, John 208, 210 Chigi, Agostino 160, 161 Chioggia, church of San Domenico 131, 132, 133 Chios: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Christ: depictions of 6, 21, 25, 111, 113, 114, 115, 140–141, 188; see also crucifx Christensen, Charles 93 Churches: as public space 127–128; as settings for sculpture 102, 127–133 Churchill, Winston: statues of 6, 9–12, 15–16 City Maiden: performance of 180–181 Civil War, English 195, 197, 198, 203, 212, 218 Clarendon, Edward Hyde (1st Earl of) 212, 213 Clark, Katerina 247 Claudii Metelli: late antique family monument of at Athens 70 Claudius: statue at Athens 68

Index 259 Claudius Sopsis: statue at Athens 60 Clement VII (Pope) 166 Clerk, William 206–207 Clough, Richard 177 Coecke van Aelst, Pieter 229 Cole, Michael 139 Colleoni, Bartolemeo 176 colossi see statues, scale of Colston, Edward: statue of 14, 16, 18, 19, 22, 24, 216 Columbus, Christopher: statues of 14, 19 Commentaries of Pius II 161 Constantine the Great 23, 102, 105, 106, 108, 109, 226, 227, 236 Constantinople 23, 102–120; Arab siege of 109; Augoustion 106–107; Blacharnai church 114, 115; Church of the Holy Apostles 227; Forum of Arkadios 109; Forum of the Ox 109; Golden Gate 227; Hagia Sophia 102, 106, 227; Hippodrome 102, 103, 108, 109, 110, 112, 115, 227, 228–230, 234; Kynegion 107; Mese 102, 103; Obelisk of Theodosius I 102; Ottoman conquest in 1453 227, 228; Sack of in Fourth Crusade 103, 110, 115, 116, 226, 227; Serpent Column 227, 228; Sublime Port 237; Xylokerkos Gate 109–110; see also Istanbul Cordier, Charles-Henri-Joseph 233 Corio, Bernardino 155–156 Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome 150 Corvinus, Matthias 228 Craftsman, The (periodical) 198, 199, 211 Crete: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Criado Perez, Caroline 14, 19 Critical Review (pamphlet) 197, 199 Cromwell, Oliver 200, 204 crosses: as public monuments 200–203 crucifx 121–146, esp. 123 and 127–133 crucifxion: staged by living statues 188 Crusade, Fourth, assault on Constantinople 103, 110, 115, 116 Cybo, Franceschetto 156 Cyprus: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Dagron, Gilbert 102, 104–105 Damnatio memoriae see statues, damnatio memoriae Dániel, Sipos 233 Dante 125–127, 129, 131, 135 D’Aronco, Raimondo 234 David 125–126; statue by Michelangelo 123, 136, 137 Dawkins, R.M. 102, 104

Deir el-Medina 39–40 Delabriére, Paul-Édouard 232 Della Valle (elite Roman family): house of 150, 151, 156, 162, 166; statue of Pan in collection 163 Della Valle, Bartolomeo 166 Della Valle, Bishop Andrea 166 Delos 23 Demosthenes 108; statue of 57 Denon, Dominique-Vivant 43 Diana 155, 162 Dickenson, Christopher 57 Disraeli, Benjamin: statues of 6, 10–11 Divine Comedy, The 125–127 Donatello 24, 123, 135, 136, 137, 176, 228 Doumas, Louis Joseph 232 Dublin 197, 207, 208, 209, 210 Dufort, Antony 6–7, 8 Duke of Cumberland see William Augustus, Prince, Duke of Cumberland Dupuys, Remy 182, 183, 184 Dursley, Gloucestershire 212 Dutch Revolt 177 Edinburgh 200, 203–207, 205, 208, 218 Egypt ancient: statues in 22, 24, 32–55, 70 Egypt, Ottoman 233 Eleusis: Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at 58, 70 Elliot, George: statue of 16 Elmes, James 199 Emin Bey, mayor of Istanbul 238 Enlightenment, The 194, 216 Erasmus, Desiderius 176 Esna, temple in Egypt 35 Estcourt, Thomas 212 Etruscan sculpture 23 Euphranor, ancient sculptor 66 Eustathios of Thessalonike 115 Evagoras: statue of at Athens 66 Eyck, Jan van 182 Fagiolo, Marcello 155, 164 Fawcett, Milicent: statue of 7, 11, 12, 14, 19, 21, 22 Feldherr, Andrew 110 Ferdinand, Don (Cardinal-Infante), of Austria 180, 181 Ferrara, Duke of 159 Ferri, Giovanni 159, 160 Ficino, Marsilio 126 Figani (poet) 122 First World War 234, 235, 237 Florence 24, 121, 122, 123, 124, 128, 154; Baptistery 136; Duomo 137; Loggia dei Lanzi 133–134; Orsanmichele 123; 124, 135, 136, 137; Piazza della Signori 134,

260 Index 135; Porta Romana 123; Porta San Gallo 121; San Giovanni 121; Santa Maria del Fiore 123; Santa Maria Novella 140–141 Floyd, George 14, 22 Fog’s Weekly Journal 211 Fosi, Irene 166 France: Bourbon street monuments 215 François d’Anjou 180, 181 Frederick, Prince of Wales 208 Free Briton, The 211 free speech debates 2 Fuad Pasa, Keçecizade 233 Fuller, Charles 232 Galli, Jacopo 151–152 Gandhi, Mahatma: statues of 11–12, 16 Ganymede, son of Liederic the Waldgrave 182 Gattamelata: statue of 24, 176, 228 Gardner, Julian 121, 123 Geagan, Daniel 57, 59, 68 Gell, Alfred 136 Genealogy of the Pagan Gods 139 Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople 228 Gennep, Arnold van 179 George I (of England) 200, 208, 209, 211, 213 George II (of England) 198, 200, 208, 210, 211 Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople 111 Ghent 182, 189 Ghent Altarpiece 182, 189 Giacomo of Bevagna 131, 132, 140 Gibbons, Grinling 199, 205, 208 Giovanni da Tolentino 156 Giovio, Paolo 159 Gilles, Pierre 229 Glasgow 201, 203–207, 211 Glavany, Faustin 233 Globe Theatre, the 179 Glorious Revolution, the 198, 199, 204, 205, 208, 213, 216 Good Friday Agreement, the 198 grafti on statues 14, 49 Greece: ancient, statues in 22, 25, 32, 33, 35 (see also Athens, ancient); infuence of statues on later periods (see statues, Greek and Roman, later infuence of) Gregory XIV (Pope) 162 Grifn, Kenneth 36–37 Grub Street Journal, The 211 Guildhall, London 6, 7, 8, 9, 22 Habermas, Jurgen 216 Habsburg dynasty 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 184 Hadrian: statues of at Athens 66, 68

Hadrian VI (Pope) 166 Ḥairan: tomb of at Palymra 91–95, 92, 93 Hakimiyet- i Milliye (newspaper) 240, 242, 243 Haremakhet 44 Harmodios and Aristogeiton: statues of 7, 57, 66 Hathor 48 Hatshepsut 47 Haw, Brian 11–12 Hawksmoor, Nicholas 207, 213 healing statues, Egyptian 48–49 Heemskerck, Maarten van 150, 157, 164, 166, Heizler, Hippolyte 232 Hera: statue of at Constantinople 107 Herakles/Hercules 102, 157, 233 Hercules: statue by Bandinelli 137 Herrin, Judith 102, 105 Herulians, sack of Athens 57, 70; see also Athens, post-Herulian wall Hesychius of Miletus 226 Historia Ecclesiastica 111 History of the Rebellion by Clarendon 212, 213 Hodegetria, the 115 Hogarth, William 196, 197 Horus 44, 48–49 House of Commons, London 6–7, 9, 21 Houwaert, Jean Baptiste 186, 187 Hull 197, 201, 202, 209, 211, 212 Hummelen, Wim 188 Hunt, John M. 158 Hurlbut, Jesse 179 Hussein, Saddam: statue of 22 Hünername (Book of Talents) 228, 229 hyperrealism 1, 20–21, 22 Ibrahim Pasa, Grand Vizier 228, 229, 233, 235 iconoclasm: in Byzantine culture 106, 111, 113–115, 226, 228, 247; Protestant in Britain 200 idols and idolatry 21, 25, 115–116, 125; see also iconoclasm Ikonion: statues brought from to Constantinople 109 Ingersoll, Richard 155 Ingholt, Harold 91–92 Innocent VIII (Pope) 147–148, 150, 155 Innocent X (Pope) 162; on statue bases 3, 6, 16, 57, 61, 68, 70, 86, 156, 206; on statues 162; see also grafti on statues Invisible Women project 14 Ireland 206, 208, 209, 211 Isaac II, Byzantine Emperor 109 Islam, aniconism of 228, 235 Ismail Pasa, Khedive 233

Index 261 Istanbul 226–256; Aviation Martyrs’ Monument 235, 236; Beyazıt Square 236, 237, 247; Beylerbeyi Palace 232; Çıragan Palace 230, 232; Dolmabahçe Palace 230, 232, 237; Freedom Monument 235, 236; German Fountain 234; Gezi Park 233; Hamidiye Mosque 234; Obelisks 227, 228, 230; Ok Meydanı 229; Russian War Memorial 234; Sarayburnu, monument of Attaturk at 236, 238, 239, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245; St. Esprit Cathedral 233; Sultanahmet Square 235, 236, 237, 247; Taksim Square 236, 237, 238, 244, 247; Topkapı Palace 227, 230, 232, 237, 244; Yıldız Palace 236; see also Constantinople Izmir 236, 237, 238; see also Smyrna Jacobite cause and rebellions 198, 204, 208, 212–215 Jacobsen, Carl 90 Jacquemart, Henri-Marie-Alfred 233 James I (of England) 212 James II (of England) 199, 205, 207, 214–215 James, Liz 102, 105, 226 January, god: statue of at Constantinople 107 Joanna of Castile 184–186, 185 John Lydos 106–107 John the Baptist 121, 182 Jolife, William 210 Jorge da Costa, Cardinal 156 joyous entries 176–193 Judith and Holofernes, statue by Donatello 136, 137 Julius Caesar: statues at Athens 60, 65 Julius II (Pope) 147, 148, 155, 158–159, 160 Juno 185, 186 Justinian I 106, 227, 247 Justinian II 114 Kaisereia: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Kaldellis, Anthony 115 Kallinikos, Patriarch of Constantinople 114 Kara Kemal 237 Karnak 34, 37, 38, 39, 48 Karnak cachette 33n6, 36n26 Keizer, Hendrick de 176 Kernodle, George 179 King, Dr William 213 Kleopatra of Myrrhinoutte: family monument of at Athens 60 Knox, John 206 Konon, Athenian general: statue of at Athens 66 Konya 233, 240, 242

kouroi statues 22 Krippel, Heinrich 238, 239, 242, 243 Kyllos, Ti. Flavius: statue of at Athens 63 Kyzikos, statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Lakey, Christopher 124 Landjuweel (theatre competition in Antwerp) 177 Lampridio, Benedetto 161 Land of the Pharaohs (flm) 37 Langford, Paul 216 League of Nations, Covenant of 244 Lee, Robert E.: statues of 14, 15, 16, 19, 22 Legaré, Anne-Marie 185 Leo III (Byzantine Emperor) 114 Leonardo da Vinci 156 Leo X (Pope) Leo X (Pope) 148, 158, 159–163, 164, 165, 166, 167 Le Sueur, Herbert 199, 200, 208 Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles) 229, 230 Liber Insularum Archipelagi (Book of the Islands of the Archipelago) 229 Liederic the Waldgrave 182 liminality 179–182, 184, 188, 189 Lincoln, Abraham: statue of 11 Livia: statue at Athens 68 Lives of the Artists 122–123, 136 Lloyd George, David: statues of 10, 11, 12 London 195, 197, 198, 199, 204, 207, 208, 209, 212, 215; Bank of England 201, 209; Cavendish Square 198, 199; Charing Cross 197, 199, 200, 204; Great Conduit, Cheapside 197, 209; Great Fire of 195, 209; Greenwich Hospital 207; Grosvenor Square 211; Pall Mall (statue of Florence Nightingale) 235; St Jame’s Square 207, 209; St Paul’s Cathedral 207; Westminster Abbey 21, 198, 207; Whitehall 198, 199, 200, 207, 208, 215; see also Guildhall; House of Commons; Parliament Square; Trafalgar Square Lorich, Melchior 229 Louis XIV 206, 218 Louvain 184 Low Countries 176–193 Lucius Verus: possible bust in Athens 68 Lutatius, Quintus: statue at Athens 60–61 Luxor see Karnak Løytved, Julius 90 Macrea, James 204 Madame Tussauds 20 Madonna, Maria Luisa 155, 164 Magdalino, Paul 105, 111

262 Index Magnus, T. Cl. Jason: statue of at Athens 63, 64 Mahmud II 230, 233, 240 Mandela, Nelson: statue of 11–12, 15, 16 Mango, Cyril 102, 104 Mantegna, Andrea 153 Mantzikert, Battle of 115 Manuel Chrysoloras 108 Marcus Aurelius 217; equestrian statue in Rome 24, 199; possible bust in Athens 68; statue wrongly identifed as, Renaissance Rome 165 Mars 155, 160–161, 204 Marsyas 162 Massimi (elite Roman family): house of 150, 151, 152, 156 Matelli, Tony see Sleepwalker Matthias, Archduke 186, 187, 189 Maximos the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople 111 Medici, Duke Cosimo I de 134–135, 141 Medici 160, 165; Villa 166 Mehmed II 227–228, 233 Mehmed Ali, Kavalalı 235 Mehmed Ali Pasa (governor of Egypt) 233 Mehmed Münif Pasa 233 Memnon, Colossi of 42–43 Memphis 34 Mercury 161, 162 Mesopotamia: and the earliest statues 3n6, 22, 24, 36 Mesrur Izzet 235 Michelangelo 123, 135, 136, 137, 140, 152, 233 Milliyet (newspaper) 239, 241 Mimesis: Greek theory of 24; see also statues, realism of Min 35, 36 Minerbetti, Bernardetto, Bishop 138–139 Minerva 160–161, 185 Mitchell, Don 5 Mokesos: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Monte, Cardinal Antonio Maria Ciocchi del 158, 162 Moral Treatise on the Eye 124 Muhittin Bey, mayor of Istanbul 240, 241 Muir, Edward 179 museums: as settings for statues 13, 18 Naldini, Giambattista 165 Napoleon 233 Narni, Erasmio di: statue of (see Gattamelata: statue of) Nasuh, Matrakçı 229 Naturalis Historia (Natural History) 125, 188 Nazif, Süleyman 235

Nelson, Horatio: statue of 13 Neptune 162 Netherlands see Low Countries Nicetas Choniates 115, 116 Nightingale, Florence 235 Nikaia 109, 113, 114 Nost, John 203, 204, 211 Nota d’Anticaglie 156 Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen 90 Odorico, Paolo 106 Ormond, James Butler, frst Duke of 212, 214 Orsini (elite Roman family), houses of 150, 156, 162 Orsini, Clarice 159 Osgan, Yervant 235 Osiris 46, 233 Osman Hamdi Bey 235 Ottoman Empire 226–236, 237, 241, 244, 247–248; Tanzimat period 230, 233, 234 Ottoman Imperial Museum 236 Oxford 212–215; Bodleian Library 214; Oriel College 16, 215; Radclife Camera 213; Sheldonian Theatre 212–214; as evidence for statues 91–95, 156, 166, 228–230; compared to sculpture 122, 124–127; relationship to ‘living statues’ 182–184 Pallas see Minerva Palmerston, 3rd Viscount (Henry John Temple): statue of 10, 11 Palmyra 24, 81–101; column consoles for statues 86–88; types of tombs at 81–83; monumentalisation of 84–85 Palmyra Portrait Project 83 Pan 162, 163, 164 Pankhurst, Emmeline: statues of 14, 19, 22 Paolo di Giovanni 121 paragone debate, in Renaissance Italy 122, 125, 136 Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai 103, 106, 108, 110, 111, 112 Paris, judgment of 184–186 Parliament Square, London 7, 8–9, 10–12, 14, 15 Pasquino 150, 152, 156, 157–158, 160, 161, 162, 164 Patinir, Joachim 182–184 Patria 103, 106–111, 112 Paul II (Pope) 155 Paul III (Pope) 166 Pausanias 56, 57, 60, 66, 67, 68, 70 pedestals 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 22, 24, 49, 60–61, 62, 63, 68, 111, 112–113, 136–137, 139, 156, 162, 206, 239–240 Peel, Robert: statue of 10, 12

Index 263 Pehenwikai: tomb of in Egypt 44 Penni, Jacopo 159, 161, 162, 163 Perikles 70 Perseus and Medusa: statue by Cellini 124, 133–141, 134, 138 Peruzzi, Baldassare 160, 165 Peter of Limoges 124 Petrarch, Francesco 124–127, 154, 161 Petrucci, Rafaello 160 Pharaoh: depictions and statues of 35, 42–44, 47 Philae: Egyptian temple 35 Philip I (the Fair) of Castille 184 Philip II of Spain 141, 176, 177, 180, 181, 186 Philippikos, Byzantine emperor 108 Phokas 112–113 Pichi (elite Roman family): house of 151, 152 Pietà, by Michelangelo 140 Pisano, Giovanni 128–129 Plato 121 plinths see pedestals Pliny the Elder 125, 188 Plutarch 153 Pointer, John 214 possesso (Roman papal procession) 147–175 Praxiteles 186, 188 prophecy in Byzantine culture 105–106 Ptah 33, 34 public space: nature of 5–6; in ancient Egypt 32–33, 36, 49, 50; in ancient Athens 70 Quinn, Marc 18 Ralph, James 197, 199, 209 Ramesses II 42 Raphael 164, 165, 167 Ravenna, Battle of 159 Read’s Weekly Journal 211 Reid, Jen: statue of 18 relics 113, 114 Restoration, The 194, 196, 200, 204, 205–206, 213, 214 Reynolds, Anne 157 Rhodes 23; statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Rhodes, Cecil: statues of 16–17, 19, 22, 216 Rhodes, P.J. 57 #RhodesMustFall 16, 19 Riccardi, Lee Ann 63 Rıfkı, Falih 240, 242, 243 Romano, Marco 129, 130 Rome, ancient: Arch of Constantine 154, 156, 166; Arcus Novus 166; Arch of Titus 217; infuence of statues on later periods (see statues, Greek and Roman, later

infuence of); statuary practices 23, 32, 33, 85, 89, 105, 218; Trajan’s Column 201, 218; triumphs 153 Rome, Renaissance 140, 147–175; Arch of Constantine 149, 154, 156, 166; Arcus Novus 166; Cardinals’ College 152; Casa di Crescenzio 148; Castel Sant’Angelo 159, 160; Curia 152; Largo Argentina 158; Palazzo Spada-Capodiferro 166; Piazza di Parione 150, 155, 156, 158, 162; Piazza di Pasquino (see Rome, Piazza di Parione); Piazza San Marco 156; Sack of in 1527 149, 166; San Celso 156; San Giovanni 156; San Marco 150, 155, 156; St John Lateran 147, 156, 168; The Vatican 147, 156, 159, 161, 165; Via Papalis 147–167; Villa Borghese 166; Villa Medici 166; Zecca, the (Papal mint) 161, 165 Rosenmeyer, Patricia 49 de’ Rossi (elite Roman family): house of 150, 156, 158–159, 162, 167 Rotterdam 176 Rouillard, Pierre Louis 232 della Rovere (elite Roman family) 159 Rubin, Pat 123 Russo-Ottoman War 234 Rustat, Tobias 207, 215 Rysbrack, John Michael 4, 197, 213, 217 Safa, Peyami 235 Saint Mark: statue by Donatello 123 Saint Paul: statue of 121 Saint Peter: statue of 121 Sangallo, Antonio da (the Younger) 165 San Nicola (church in Pisa) 128–129 Sanuto, Marino 161 Sardis: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Sassi (elite Roman family): collection of 156 Sasso d’Amateschi: house of 150, 157, 165 Satala: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Schedel, Hartmann 229 Scheemakers, Peter 201, 202 Schmalz, Geofrey 66 Scotland 204, 206 sculptors 6, 18, 24, 66, 123, 124, 133–140, 140–155, 176, 186, 188, 199, 200, 201, 204, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212–213, 228, 230–231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 244, 245–246; in ancient Egypt 33; in Renaissance Italy 121, 123–124, 128–129 Sebasteia: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Sehir Emaneti Mecmusı (journal) 239 Sekhmet 38, 39, 40

264 Index Seleukeia: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Selim III 230 Senenmut, Egyptian ofcial: statue of 47 Sennefer, Mayor of Thebes: statue of and his wife 48 Serif, Ihsan 235 Sester, Christian and Rosa 233 Shakespeare 179 Shearman, John 137 Sheldon, Bishop Gilbert 212, 214 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, memorial to 19, 21, 24 Sicily: statues brought from to Constantinople 109 Sidon 235 Simmons, Neil 6, 7 Sixtus IV (Pope) 147, 148, 155 Sleepwalker by Tony Matelli 1–3, 2, 8, 9, 12–13, 19, 20, 21–22 Smuts, Jan: statue of 10, 11 Smyrna: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Soderini, Piero 123 Sofa, Bulgaria 234 Soggi, Nicolò 162 Sophist, The 122, 123, 131 South, Robert 214 Spadafora, David 194 Spagnola, Maddalena 158 Sphinx of Giza 43–44 spolia 148, 149, 153, 154, 166 Stalli (elite Roman family): collection of 156 Statue of Liberty 6n11, 233 statues: access to 5, 9, 10, 12, 14, 32–33, 34, 35–38, 41, 42–44, 45–49, 50, 70, 127, 230, 232; of animals 232, 233, 235; as art 1–2, 3, 6, 8, 12, 13, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 121–146, 242; bases (see pedestals); collecting of 148–154, 155, 156, 158–159, 162, 163–167; colossal statues (see statues, scale of); and damnatio memoriae 195, 218; dictionary defnition of 3; diferentiated from sculpture 2–3, 8, 123–124; dressed in clothes 157, 160, 162; in elevated position 85, 86–89, 95, 121–146; equestrian 13, 14, 24, 60, 109, 176, 195, 197, 198–200, 201, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 227, 228, 232, 233, 234, 235, 243; on facades of buildings 16, 19, 22, 166, 212–215; of gods 33–35, 37–42, 46–48, 66, 102, 107, 147, 154; Greek and Roman, later infuence of 184, 186, 195, 199, 201, 204–205, 208, 217, 228; history of 22–24; as icons 3, 19–22 (see also idols and idolatry; statues, of gods); lifelikeness of (see statues, realism of); living presence

of 24–25, 36, 44, 49–50; materials of 3, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 34, 46, 60, 62, 63, 70, 84–86, 89–91, 102, 108, 109, 110, 127–133, 135, 137, 139, 162, 163, 176, 198, 199, 201, 207, 214, 226, 227, 232, 234; as monuments 3, 4–13, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22–25; moving and talking 107–108, 111–112; painted (see statues, polychromy); pedestals of (see pedestals); polychromy 3, 21, 91, 95, 127, 135; as portraits 3, 12, 21, 23, 25, 44–49, 56–80, 81–84, 86, 95, 112, 113, 201, 232, 233; in processions 38–40, 48, 147–175; prophecy, sources of 105–106; and publicness 4–13, 22–26; realism of 20–21, 22–24, 44, 49, 50, 122; repurposing 44, 48, 147–175, 228; rituals directed towards 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 44, 46, 49, 130; scale of 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 32, 33, 35, 42–44, 48, 49, 60, 63, 102, 107, 109, 121, 122, 123, 131, 232, 239–240, 243; touching statues 13, 21, 48, 130; vandalism of 7, 11, 14, 16, 22, 46, 103 (see also grafti on statues) statue wars 13–18, 215–216 Stewart, Andrew 57 Stinger, Charles 154–155 Strode, Colonel William 198, 200 Suavi, Ali 235 Subhi, Abdüllatif 233 Suetonius 195 Suez Canal: monuments planned by Faustin Glavany 233 Sükrü Ali Bey, vice mayor of Istanbul 239 Süleyman I 228, 229 Surname- i Humayun (The Imperial Festival Book) 229 Surname of Vehbi 229 tableaux vivants 176–193 Tacitus 195 Tafuri, Manfredo 164 tapestries 182–184, 188 Tek, Vedat 235 Tell Edfu 33, 35 Temperance: image of 186, 187, 188 temples: as settings for statues 33, 34, 44, 47, 66, 68, 70 Thatcher, Margaret 6; statues of 6–8, 7, 9–10, 12; waxwork at Madame Tussauds 20 Theodosius I 102, 108 Theophanes the Confessor, Chronicle of 103, 112, 113–115 Theophylact Simocatta, History of 111–113 Thessalians, Koinon of 63 Ti: tomb chapel of at Saqqara 45 Tiberius: statue of at Athens 68

Index 265 Times of the Day: Night by William Hogarth 195–196 Timotheos: statue of at Athens 66 Tiryakioglu, Samih 244 Toleration Act of 1689 195 Tombs: as settings for statues 33, 41–42, 44–45, 81, 233 Tory Party 197, 204, 207, 211, 212, 215 Trachtenberg, Marvin 135, c Trafalgar Square, London 13, 196, 204 Trajan: column of 201, 218; in the Divine Comedy 125; market of 201; statues at Athens 68, 69 Tralles: statues brought from to Constantinople 108 Travers, Samuel 207–210 Triumph of Bacchus, painting by Maarten van Heemskerck 164 triumphal arches 147, 148, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 160, 163, 164–166, 177, 178, 179, 180, 230 Triumphs of Caesar, painting by Andrea Mantegna 153 Tucker, Barbara 11 Turing, Alan: monument to 19 Turkish War of Independence 236, 237, 241, 243, 245–246, 247 Turner, Edith 179, 186 Turner, Victor 179, 186 Tutankhamun 34 Tyana: statues brought from to Constantinople 109 tyrranicides, Athenian see Harmodios and Aristogeiton Udjahorresnet, Egyptian ofcial: statue of 46–47 Urbino, Duke of 159

Vanburgh, John 207 Varchi, Benedetto 122, 136 Vasari, Giorgio 122–123, 158, 162 Vavassore, Giovanni Andrea 229 Venus 148, 160–161, 164, 185, 186, 188, 233; Capitoline 186; Medici 186; see also Aphrodite Verrocchio 176 Virgin Mary 126, 182; statues of 121, 130, 140 Vita Constantini 226 Walpole, Robert 196, 200, 210, 211 Warburg, Aby 154 waxworks 20 Wellesley College, Massachusetts 1, 8–9, 12, 13 Whig Party 197, 198–199, 207, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 216 Wilhelm II (of Germany) 233, 234 William Augustus, Prince, Duke of Cumberland 198–200, 204 William III (of England) 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 207–212, 213, 215, 216, 217 William of Orange 184, 186 Windsor Castle 207 Winkelmann, Johann Joachim 148 Woodhead, Geofrey 57 Xenokles of Rhamnous: statue at Athens 60–61 Yeni Ses (newspaper) 240 Yofee, Norman 36, 39 Yon, Jean-Baptiste 81 Zeus: statue of at Athens 66 Zochi, Arnoldo 235