Paris, a New Rome

Paris, a New Rome
Author: Michèle Lowrie
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2024-05-06
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111334775

However shared the Roman inheritance may be, it hardly unifies. Which Rome is the model, the Republic or the Empire? The Rome of imperial conquest or of civil war? By whom is it ruled? By the glorious conqueror who extended universal peace, the rule of law, and infrastructure – roads and aqueducts – or by the detested tyrant who imposed domination? Or worse, the corruptor of republican liberty and source of putrefying decadence? Rome always returns, but which Rome? France presents itself as a privileged locus for Rome’s return since the beginnings of its history. The perennial recourse to ancient Rome – as model or anti-model – binds together a cohesive tradition. The logic of this gesture asserts a unity beyond modern identity politics, which depend on defining a “them” against “us,” to resist nativist assumptions about national character, French, German, Italian, American, etc. All share the same polysemous inheritance, for good or ill. All are Roman and all resist Rome without needing to agree on what exactly is shared. The unity underlying the discourse, however, no longer depends on defining Rome as an origin. Instead, Rome’s figuration persists discursively, as a translation: to be translated time and time again.

Paris: The 'New Rome' of Napoleon I

Paris: The 'New Rome' of Napoleon I
Author: Diana Rowell
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2012-08-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1441126031

Napoleon I employed a myriad of media through which to promote his propaganda and his universal hegemony. Classical Rome - home to the great Caesars - was central to his ambitious visions for the transformation of Paris into an imperial metropolis of unprecedented magnitude. Exploring the interrelationship between antiquity, the display of power and the reinvention of Paris, this volume evaluates how the Roman world and post-antique exploitations of Rome influenced Napoleonic Paris, and how Napoleon promoted his authority by appropriating Rome's triumphal architecture and its associated symbolism to relocate 'Rome' in his own times. The volume shows how consideration of Louis XIV's legacy is crucial to understanding the evolution of Napoleon's fascination with imperial Rome. It also charts Napoleon's manipulation of the populist rhetoric of Republican France (and Rome) as he moved from being a general fighting for the Revolutionary cause to become the 'absolute' ruler of a new empire.

The Caesar of Paris

The Caesar of Paris
Author: Susan Jaques
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781681778693

A monumental cultural history of Napoleon Bonaparte’s fascination with antiquity and how it shaped Paris’ artistic landscape. Napoleon is one of history’s most fascinating figures. But his complex relationship with Rome—both with antiquity and his contemporary conflicts with the Pope and Holy See—have undergone little examination. In The Caesar of Paris, Susan Jaques reveals how Napoleon’s dueling fascination and rivalry informed his effort to turn Paris into “the new Rome”— Europe’s cultural capital—through architectural and artistic commissions around the city. His initiatives and his aggressive pursuit of antiquities and classical treasures from Italy gave Paris much of the classical beauty we know and adore today. Napoleon had a tradition of appropriating from past military greats to legitimize his regime—Alexander the Great during his invasion of Egypt, Charlemagne during his coronation as emperor, even Frederick the Great when he occupied Berlin. But it was ancient Rome and the Caesars that held the most artistic and political influence and would remain his lodestars. Whether it was the Arc de Triopmhe, the Venus de Medici in the Louvre, or the gorgeous works of Antonio Canova, Susan Jaques brings Napoleon to life as never before.

Between Constantinople and Rome

Between Constantinople and Rome
Author: Kathleen Maxwell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1351955845

This is a study of the artistic and political context that led to the production of a truly exceptional Byzantine illustrated manuscript. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, codex grec 54 is one of the most ambitious and complex manuscripts produced during the Byzantine era. This thirteenth-century Greek and Latin Gospel book features full-page evangelist portraits, an extensive narrative cycle, and unique polychromatic texts. However, it has never been the subject of a comprehensive study and the circumstances of its commission are unknown. In this book Kathleen Maxwell addresses the following questions: what circumstances led to the creation of Paris 54? Who commissioned it and for what purpose? How was a deluxe manuscript such as this produced? Why was it left unfinished? How does it relate to other Byzantine illustrated Gospel books? Paris 54's innovations are a testament to the extraordinary circumstances of its commission. Maxwell's multi-disciplinary approach includes codicological and paleographical evidence together with New Testament textual criticism, artistic and historical analysis. She concludes that Paris 54 was never intended to copy any other manuscript. Rather, it was designed to eclipse its contemporaries and to physically embody a new relationship between Constantinople and the Latin West, as envisioned by its patron. Analysis of Paris 54's texts and miniature cycle indicates that it was created at the behest of a Byzantine emperor as a gift to a pope, in conjunction with imperial efforts to unify the Latin and Orthodox churches. As such, Paris 54 is a unique witness to early Palaeologan attempts to achieve church union with Rome.

Architectural Diplomacy

Architectural Diplomacy
Author: Gil R. Smith
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1993
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

In 1676-77 a single event revitalized the traditions of Roman design. That event, the union of the French Royal Academy and the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome, is given new significance in the present study. It has long been thought that the academies' fusion signaled the passing of artistic preeminence from Rome to France. Here, however, the author proposes a more complex interpretation. By demonstrating that Rome continued, in fact, to be the more innovative and influential of the two academies, Gil Smith is able to discern patterns of influence that cross geographical and temporal boundaries, and to portray late-Baroque architecture in international terms. For this Compelling portrait of a transitional period of European architectural trends, Professor Smith draws on the student competitions inaugurated at the Saint Luke Academy to commemorate its ties with the French academies. Far more important than mere "academic" work, these competition drawings reveal the nature of instruction in Rome, the influences of the academy's officers and patrons, and the nature of contemporary projects similar in program to the competitions. The design synthesis pursued in Rome until the end of the seventeenth century, particularly by Carlo Fontana, would become an important source of inspiration for prominent architects of the next century. Among others, the academy's design methodology influenced Fischer von Erlach, Filippo Juvarra, and Giles Oppenord in their search for a progressive Baroque language.

The Secrets of Rome

The Secrets of Rome
Author: Corrado Augias
Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780847829330

From Italy's popular author Corrado Augias comes the most intriguing exploration of Rome ever to be published. In the mold of his earlier histories of Paris, New York, and London, Augias moves perceptively through twenty-seven centuries of Roman life, shedding new light on a cast of famous, and infamous, historical figures and uncovering secrets and conspiracies that have shaped the city without our ever knowing it. From Rome's origins as Romulus's stomping ground to the dark atmosphere of the Middle Ages; from Caesar's unscrupulousness to Caravaggio's lurid genius; from the notorious Lucrezia Borgia to the seductive Anna Fallarino, the marchioness at the center of one of Rome's most heinous crimes of the post-war period, Augias creates a sweeping account of the passions that have shaped this complex city: at once both a metropolis and a village, where all human sentiment-bravery and cowardice, industriousness and sloth, enterprise and laxity-find their interpreters and stage. If the history of humankind is all passion and uproar, then, as the author notes, "for centuries Rome has been the mirror of this history, reflecting with excruciating accuracy every detail, even those that might cause you to avert your gaze."

Imperial City

Imperial City
Author: Susan Vandiver Nicassio
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2009-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226579743

In 1798, the armies of the French Revolution tried to transform Rome from the capital of the Papal States to a Jacobin Republic. For the next two decades, Rome was the subject of power struggles between the forces of the Empire and the Papacy, while Romans endured the unsuccessful efforts of Napoleon’s best and brightest to pull the ancient city into the modern world. Against this historical backdrop, Nicassio weaves together an absorbing social, cultural, and political history of Rome and its people. Based on primary sources and incorporating two centuries of Italian, French, and international research, her work reveals what life was like for Romans in the age of Napoleon. “A remarkable book that wonderfully vivifies an understudied era in the history of Rome. . . . This book will engage anyone interested in early modern cities, the relationship between religion and daily life, and the history of the city of Rome.”—Journal of Modern History “An engaging account of Tosca’s Rome. . . . Nicassio provides a fluent introduction to her subject.”—History Today “Meticulously researched, drawing on a host of original manuscripts, memoirs, personal letters, and secondary sources, enabling [Nicassio] to bring her story to life.”—History

Paris-Rome-Athens

Paris-Rome-Athens
Author: Marie-Christine Hellmann
Publisher: Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Total Pages: 446
Release: 1982
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris

Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris
Author: David H. Pinkney
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2019-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691656827

In the two decades between 1850 and 1870 Napoleon III and his Prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, created the modern city of Paris out of the congested and ill-equipped capital of the 18th century. They gave Paris many of its present major streets, its great municipal parks, the Central Markets, the Opera House and other well-known buildings, as well as a water supply system and a network of sewers that still serve the city. The various factors of the venture: the city's rapidly increasing population, the challenging engineering problems, the political complications, and the clash of personalities involved are here considered. The author presents the whole undertaking in the perspective of French political and economic history, shows its relation to the public health movement of the mid-nineteenth century, and explains its significance in the history of city planning. Originally published in 1958. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Paris, a New Rome

Paris, a New Rome
Author: Barbara Vinken
Publisher: de Gruyter
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-04-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9783111334738

However shared the Roman inheritance may be, it hardly unifies. Which Rome is the model, the Republic or the Empire? The Rome of imperial conquest or of civil war? By whom is it ruled? By the glorious conqueror who extended universal peace, the rule of law, and infrastructure - roads and aqueducts - or by the detested tyrant who imposed domination? Or worse, the corruptor of republican liberty and source of putrefying decadence? Rome always returns, but which Rome? France presents itself as a privileged locus for Rome's return since the beginnings of its history. The perennial recourse to ancient Rome - as model or anti-model - binds together a cohesive tradition. The logic of this gesture asserts a unity beyond modern identity politics, which depend on defining a "them" against "us," to resist nativist assumptions about national character, French, German, Italian, American, etc. All share the same polysemous inheritance, for good or ill. All are Roman and all resist Rome without needing to agree on what exactly is shared. The unity underlying the discourse, however, no longer depends on defining Rome as an origin. Instead, Rome's figuration persists discursively, as a translation: to be translated time and time again.