The Bonapartes and the ancient
an
impérial
language
Partners
The discovery of the Ancient:
excavations, analysis of ruins and studies of texts.
The prestige of the Roman Empire is immense, it leaves nostalgia for a perfectly structured and unified state, governing under the same political model the lives of millions of inhabitants of diverse cultures. All remains of this glorious past are exhumed and exhibited, then systematic excavations will be organized.
The valorization of Antiquity : Museums, collections and publications.
The reunion of these vestiges will be rationalized in ad hoc institutions; the Capitol Museum, in Rome, is the first d’ between them. Scholars will study the remains and compare them with texts from the Arsquo; Antiquity. The comparison of several parcel copies of d’ the same damaged work allows to better understand its meaning. From this research, Winckelmann invented l’ history of l’ art. From all this, and in s’ relying on the rivalry between Paris and Rome, Napoleon built the basis of a language intended to be spoken throughout the Empire.
Before the Empire and Neoclassicism: Renaissance theorists and interpretations of Baroque.
The spur of Neo-classicism was the discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii, then the correspondence that was established between Greek art: democratic; and Roman art: patriotic. But already, the Renaissance had sought to theorize the heritage we had received from antiquity, while the Baroque era went further by reinterpreting it.