Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
Leggi, bandi, provvedimenti dei beni artistici e culturali
negli antichi Stati italiani 1571-1860
[Laws, Decrees, Decisions on the Artistic and Cultural Heritage in the Ancient Italian States (1571-1860)]
New edition
Florence, Edizioni Polistampa, 2015
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| Apollo del Belvedere, (stolen by the French Army in 1797, returned in 1815) Vatican Museum, Vatican City Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Three editions for a book that made history
I have the
highest regard for Andrea Emiliani and the publisher Polistampa (who also sent
me this book for free). Nevertheless, I believe that a reviewer has first of
all the intellectual duty to be accountable to the public on what he read. For
this reason, I believe that this third edition of the work - a work that made
history - does not honour the scholar nor the publisher nor, finally, the
Association of Italian Antiquarians which promoted it.
Below, I
will explain why. First, I must give account of the historical importance of
this Laws, Decrees, Decisions on the
Artistic and Cultural Heritage in the Ancient Italian States (1571-1860),
whose first edition was published in 1978 (by the Bologna-based Alfa Publishers).
Although without any philological purpose, Emiliani had the great merit of
recovering the texts of the legal provisions issued by the old regime Italian States to protect their artistic heritage. The
author drew the texts from two collections [1]: the "Laws, decrees, orders and general provisions issued by the ceased Governments
of Italy for the conservation of monuments and the export of works of art"
(Rome, 1881) and "Measures of the ceased
governments on antiquities and arts", included in Filippo Mariotti’s volume
entitled "The Legislation of Fine
Arts" (Rome, 1892) [2].
The two
collections had a very specific purpose: to stimulate the reflection on the
discipline of heritage protection, when, after the unification of Italy, the new
Kingdom had merely confirmed the provisional validity of the legislation valid
in the Papal States before the fall of the same. The reality is that the
Kingdom of Italy remained without "its own" law of heritage protection
until 1902, and this fact, coupled with the use of papal legislation, made the
situation - especially after the military conquest of Rome - particularly embarassing.
It is easy to imagine that those who were opposed to the highly restrictive normative
framework (resulting from the combination of the chirografo, i.e. handwritten decision, by Pope VII Chiaromonti 1802
and Cardinal Pacca’s edict 1820) attacked it, saying that they were papal and
therefore backward laws. However, in fact, they survived for decades and served
as reference for the legislation, in 1902 first and 1909 later on, because they
were good regulations.
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| Laocoon (stolen by the French Army in 1797, returned in 1815) Vatican Museums, Vatican City Source: Wikimedia Commons |
In turn, the fact that Emiliani, after almost a century, published again the regulations on heritage protection of the ancient regimes was not accidental. During 1978 – year of the first edition – there was great interest for the new Italian law on heritage protection, which was about to be enacted in 1979 to replace the one in effect at the time, dating back to 1939. In a similar way to what was said just now for the papal legislation, there were those who railed against the 1939 law because it was issued during fascism. Certainly, compared to the state of affairs at the time of the so-called "Bottai Law" of 1939, things had changed: in 1970 the Regions had begun to be operational in Italy and in 1975 the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage had been set-up. The new law, therefore, had to take account of the new realities (and, in particular, to operationalise a decentralization of powers in which Emiliani, at that date, had great hope), while remaining faithful to a notion of heritage that stemmed from a centuries-old tradition.
Emiliani’s volume, therefore, had a dual nature: on the one hand, it was a study book, in that it allowed scholars to read texts which, in fact, were impossible to find at the time; on the other hand, however, it was definitely a "militant" book, in which the author strongly took sides in favour of a model of conservation and artistic heritage protection which had to be rigorous and contain a set of coercive rules, but at the same time also overcome pure prohibitions and promote instead a "diffuse" conscience of heritage, above all by decentralizing powers.
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| Raphael, The Madonna of the Chair (stolen by the French Army in 1799, returned in 1815) Palazzo Pitti, Florence Source: Wikimedia Commons |
More or
less twenty years later, when the second edition was published (New Alfa Publishers,
1996), Emiliani - who had since been Superintendent of the Artistic Heritage of
Bologna, Ferrara, Forlì and Ravenna, director of the National Gallery of
Bologna, President of the Institute for cultural heritage of Emilia-Romagna and
many other things – spoke to the reader as a disillusioned man. Administrative
decentralization - in his eyes – had not delivered what promised. "The local museums, almost all libraries and
the municipal archives must institutionally refer to regions, according to the famous
‘local interest’ principle. This is however true only to a certain point: they
do not find any counterpart, the structures are rundown, unprepared, untrained
and providing a cultural service is considered discretionary. Therefore, the
very few professional conservators of municipal museums end up referring to the
Superintendent. To whom should they talk, after all? The new electoral law for
the lord mayor election led to the appointment of seamless amateurs. The eradication
of traditional parties [editor's note: we are already in the so-called Second
Republic] has killed the last semblance
of a discussion on possible cultural politics" (p. XXXVIII). The author
outlined therefore that, in reality, the decentralization to local authorities had
actually increased (when things went well) the role of the regional office of
the Ministry, or the Superintendent, who replaced and delivered the tasks of
inadequate local government structures. Without no doubt, the author was wainting with some interest for the so-called Bassanini reform (set-up in 1997), being however well aware of
all problems still to be solved in the light of past experience. That reform promised
to implement further decentralization measures, to provide a ‘left political
response’ to the autonomist demands mainly triggered by the Northern League
(Silvio Berlusconi took power in 1994, but fell the following year and after
the parenthesis of a caretaker government, new elections were won by Romano
Prodi’s Olive Tree (Ulivo) party, also
due to the failure of the coalition between Forza
Italia and the Northern League).
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| Raphael, Transfiguration (stolen by the French Army in 1797, returned in 1815) Vatican Museums, Vatican City Source: Wikimedia Commons |
The Papal States
All laws of
old regime Italian States, to a greater or lesser extent, and more or less
prematurely, were characterised by similar purposes: to ensure the permanence
of the respective States’ artistic heritage within their own borders and to regulate
the excavation and discovery of archaeological finds in their territories. It is
just obvious that, from this point of view, the experience of the Papal States was
the most important one: Rome was literally packed with archaeological testimonies
and the more or less illegal trafficking, through which (often false) statues
and artefacts were sold to foreigners, was extraordinary intense. The
prohibitions, bans and edicts, by which the illegal export was forbidden, were
countless: the first reported in the anthology of Emiliani dated back to 1624.
It is very interesting to note that, while the decisions were taken with a time
distance of decades away from each other, they were often very similar, in a
sort of "copy and paste". The only differences were the lists of the
objects that were subject to the specific prohibitions: in two centuries, the
list of such objects was stretched out of any proportion. Fortunately for us, this
happened according to a legislative technique which did not aim at the abstract
definition of categories against which individual cases had to be categorised,
but always moved from the identification of individual cases, which were added
to each other, in order to form a complete taxonomy of objects. It seems clear,
therefore, that the papal laws always tracked (and never managed to anticipate)
developments, and in particular followed failures to comply with previous
legislation, since those failures were often explained by their incompleteness.
Some examples make it clearer: in 1624, the export ban (technically it would be
more correct to speak of prohibition of extra-regnazione,
i.e. ‘bringing goods outside the kingdom’) concerned "figures, statues, antiquities, friezes, or both ancient and modern
works in marble, metal, or other gemstones." Sixty years later, in
1686, the legislation quoted "statues,
figures, bas-reliefs, columns, vases, alabaster, agate, jasper, amethyst, and other precious marbles, joys and processed as well not processed stones,
torsos, heads, fragments, piers, pedestals, inscriptions, or other ornaments,
decorations, medals, cameos, or indentations of any stone, like metal, gold,
silver, of any old or modern material, including figures, pictures and antique
paintings [note of the editor: it is the first time that pictures are included],
or other works carved in anything, painted, carved, committed, processed, or otherwise
done, whether they have been re-discovered in mines, or are existing in Rome or
in its outskirts"(p. 42).
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| Raphael, Portrait of Pope Leo X between the Cardinals Giulio de' Medici and Luigi de' Rossi (stolen by the French Army in 1799, returned in 1815), Uffizi Gallery, Florence Source: Wikimedia Commons |
To speak of
a fully-fledged awareness of heritage (and especially of its public use) is
perhaps premature. The Pope who had banned exports of statues and relics in
1624 was the same Urban VIII for which the saying was coined "What barbarians did not destroyed, was destroyed
by the Barberinis". For instance, he removed the bronze framework from
the Pantheon to construct St. Peter's Baldachin and the guns of Castel
Sant'Angelo. Judging from the structuring of the provisions, it seems in fact
that the ban mainly aimed at preventing the evasion of duty fees at the customs.
The ban was in fact calibrated more to hit small merchants and intriguers than
the Roman nobility and clergy. And yet one cannot be as drastic as such: it is
essential to recall the precedent case (often recalled throughout the
anthology) of the appointment as conservator for the marbles and stones bearing
inscriptions, which was conferred by Pope Leo X to Raphael (1515). From this
point of view, the Letter to Leo X, co-written by Raphael and Baldassar Castiglione, is a demonstration of an extraordinary and precocious sensitivity
to antiquarian matters.
Although Emiliani
does not refer to it - not for reticence, but because it was beyond the scope
of his book - it is nonetheless clear that especially the attention for statues
grew throughout the seventeenth century, with the proclamation of the theory of
ideal beauty (codified in the writings of Bellori). That theory precisely
identified beauty as the depiction of nature, corrected however according to
the patterns provided by statues. In this century, France entered the European
cultural scene as a possible competitor to Italy and gave life to the Academy
of Painting and Sculpture (we were in 1648); and more generally, Rome’s economy
became poorer. After all, it seems natural that in times of decadence people
turn to their identity. Symptoms of this phenomenon were clearly noticeable in
various decrees. In 1704 appeared the first clear statement of the rationale of
the prohibitions, which were reiterated by "supremely pressing [...] that the old memories, and ornaments of this noble
City of Rome are preserved [...], which so much contribute to promote the assessment
of its magnificence, and splendour in foreign nations; as well as they admirably
permit to confirm and explain the purpose of holy as well as profane history" (p.
47). For the first time, the figure of the Commissioner of Antiquities (ideal
heir of the role of Raphael in the sixteenth century) was mentioned; moreover, ancient
scriptures and modern books and manuscripts were included in the system of
protection. In 1733 were cited for the first time the "Museums in Rome".
In the meantime, the list of goods subjected to restrictive regime was extended
dramatically. In 1750 it was stated that "if the materials [editor's note: seized in case of infringement of the
export prohibitions] are sculptures, marble
statues, and bronzes, pictures, paintings, carvings, and other similar matters
[...] we order that, as far as statues, marbles and bronzes are concerned, they
shall be seized and included in the Capitol Gallery for Statues [note of the
editor: the gallery was opened to the public in 1734]; and about the pictures, and other paintings, they should be included in
the other Gallery recently erected in the same Capitol [note of the editor:
the Pinacoteca, inaugurated by Benedict XIV]" (p. 62). To be sure: sales
and transportation of statues abroad continued nevertheless to be frequent:
just remember the most striking case, that of the Farnese collection
sculptures, transferred to Naples in 1787.
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| Raphael, The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia (stolen by the French Army in 1797, returned in 1815) National Gallery of Bologna Source: Wikimedia Commons |
There is no
doubt, however, that, in the history of the papal law on fine arts, the real
change of pace is represented by the so-called Chiaromonti chirografo (handwritten decision), issued by Pope Pius VII in 1802
and the edict of Cardinal Pacca, 1820. The second text is, in fact, the
implementation of the first one. One cannot understand what these two acts represented
unless we would not put them in their historical context. In 1796 Napoleon
invaded the Papal States, in February 1797 the Pope (Pius VI) was forced to
sign the Treaty of Tolentino, under which hundreds of statues and other works
of art were sold by the Papal States to France: the list of the works sent
across the Alps was very long (see Paul Wescher, Art thefts. Napoleon and the birth of the Louvre). After the brief season of the Roman Republic (1798-1799),
the new Pope (Pius VII, elected in last conclave held outside of Rome,
specifically in Venice) reached the city and found it stripped of many of its artworks,
the most famous of which were instead to be found in the Louvre. The protection
of heritage became, against the Napoleonic experience, a real priority of the
Pope's policy. In 1802, Antonio Canova, i.e. the most famous sculptor in
Europe, was appointed General Inspector of Fine Arts; the chirografo was issued immediately afterwards. While continuing to describe
analytically all individual assets qualifying for export bans and state
protection, the chirografo proved to
be an organic text, in which the principles of heritage protection were exposed
organically. In fact, we know that the French returned to Rome in 1808 for a
second time and remained there until 1814. In the same period, Pius VII lived
as a prisoner in France. At the end of the Napoleonic storm, the Papal States
had experienced a double shock that seriously jeopardized his wealth. When, in
1815, Antonio Canova managed to bring back most of the statues and paintings
looted by the French, he rose to the role of a hero. It is clear that the
narrow escape also led to an enhanced awareness of the need to put in place
tools that allowed a stricter protection of heritage. The Pacca's edict set forth
a prohibition for anyone (person or institution) to dispose of all that a
special Commission of Fine Arts had classified as having an interest for art.
The Commission was composed of various figures, including the General Inspector of Fine Arts, the Director of the Vatican Museum and Academy professors. The
determination of what falls into the category of objects to be protected depended
on the one hand on the obligation imposed on private citizens to denounce the
property of those objects on the basis of special inventories, and on the other
hand on the recognition of the members of the Commission. The notion was
clearly understood in a wide sense, as it was clarified by the explicit
inclusion in the protection regulation (for example) of the ancient Roman
roads, or even by the insertion not only of masterpieces (p. 93), but also of the
"Monuments of the decay and the
resurgence of arts. Numerous lists thereof have been already collected, for the
common benefit. Parts have already been published, some have been compiled very
carefully and it will not take long before they are released." The
reference to Leopoldo Cicognara’s History of sculpture on one side and Seroux d'Agincourt’s Histoire de l'Art par les monumens is implicit but clear. Moreover,
it is not excluded (in fact it is very likely) that what helped to give
substance to this "broad" vision of heritage were the Letters to Miranda by Quatremère de
Quincy. Canova says that he read the Letters
even to the Pope in 1802; they defined Rome as a vast open-air museum, laying
the foundations of the so-called "theory
of context". The Roman Commission was then flanked by auxiliary
committees in all provinces of the State; in the legations of Bologna and
Perugia they were enriched by local Academies and could draw composing members from
the professors of the related institutions. As for the excavations, the law
centralized permissions, but did not question the ownership of assets found (without
prejudice to the State's right of a first refusal in case the owner decided to
sell them). These were all mechanisms that would be confirmed, in principle, at
the time of the formation of the Kingdom of Italy, and were replaced only in
the 1902 and 1909 protective laws.
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| Andrea Mantegna, Madonna della Vittoria (stolen in Mantua by the French Army in 1797) Louvre Museum, Paris Source: Wikimedia Commons |
The other old
regime States
It was said
that the problem of heritage protection arose in all old regime states, albeit
in different forms and with diverse sensitivity. In the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, for example, the attention was fully concentrated on archaeological
finds (and it could not be otherwise, due to Herculaneum and Pompeii);
Tuscany's attention was focused on the excavation of the Etruscan Volterra. At
the same time, the whole of the artworks that were banned for export (unless with
Government agreement) was curiously defined by specifying a list of eighteen
(later nineteen) great artists, whose works were considered non-transferable. It
makes even smile than also the Duchy of Modena addressed the problem of
heritage protection (p. 176); there the Este family had agreed, in 1746, to the
so-called - and infamous - Dresden deal, selling their collections to Augustus of
Saxony, in order to solve their military debt problems.
Emiliani
analyzed together Lombardy and Veneto (I believe that the same happened in the
repertoires from where he drew the texts), but one needs to make a
chronological distinction. Until the end of 1700, the former was part of the
Austrian Empire and the second was still an independent republic. Lombardo
Veneto as a single entity was created as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
after Napoleon. However, I found several similarities with the Venetian state, when
I read the edict of Maria Theresa in April 1745. More than a well-established
awareness of the need to defend the heritage, the text of the provision seems
to establish the Academy as a controlling institution for the world of fine arts,
which was very similar to that of the ancient guilds. For instance, no foreign
painter could operate in Milan without first having been "enabled" by
the Academy; none could sell paintings or other art objects without the
permission of that institution; the estimates of the assets to be sold were,
once again, reserved for the members of the Institute; each restoration was
prohibited without its permission or consent. Finally, every Master of Painting
was prohibited to have more than two students, upon formal recognition of their
skills and their earning capacity, once again by this institution. These were,
on closer inspection, the same aspirations nourished, thirty years after, by Pietro Edwards when he became President of the Collegio dei Pittori in Venice (in this regard, I
would refer to my The Fine Arts in Venice in the manuscripts of Pietro and Giovanni Edwards). This did not mean that the
issue of the export of artworks was not considered in Milan, and especially in
Venice. It is sufficient to read any Venetian report of that era to hear
endless lamentations about the purchase of the collections from private
individuals to foreign buyers. Simply, there existed a clear distinction
between public goods and assets in private hands. Only the former ones had to be
protected; therefore an inventory was completed in 1773; in the same year began
the famous endeavour of the general restoration of the paintings of the Doge's
Palace and the magistrates of Rialto. Certainly, all complained about the fact
that the collections of the Venetian nobility were eventually dissolved abroad,
but at the same time all recognized that, without that trade mechanism, they
would equally end all broke. Nor the Venetian Republic would ever be able to
exercise any right of first refusal when a sale became possible: the government
coffers were absolutely empty. The main problem, therefore, was to make sure
that the business remained in the hands of a few Intendants only, all coming
from the College of Painters and the Academy itself.
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| Paolo Veronese, The Wedding at Cana (stolen by the French Army in 1797) Louvre Museum, Paris Source: Wikimedia Commons |
The (too many) flaws of the volume
It remains
to be explained why, at the beginning, I said that the 2015 edition of the work
did not honour Emiliani nor to those who have printed the book. The
frontispiece of the book is labelled as 'New introduction of the Author".
I read it. It was written not later than 1997 (maybe just before). It does not
seem appropriate to speak of a new introduction, when it dates at least 18
years back. And I do not think it should, because the "new"
introduction is composed, almost word for word, of the pages that appear in the
first and second ones in a final paragraph called “Note". To be explicit: within the "new
introduction" one can read things which are contained in the text of the
introduction to the second edition (also presented) from page LVIII to page
LXII. I do not really understand how and why this happened; however, please
believe me, it is absolutely the case. It should also be said that the entire
volume, and in particular the infamous "new introduction", is dotted
with hundreds of so coarse typos as to be disturbing and often threatening to
make the text incomprehensible. The circumstance, albeit to a lesser extent,
also applies to the law texts. Note that these misprints did not appear in the
first edition. We can assume that the pages of the first edition were scanned in
some way and then digitized by some spell-recognition software that, like all
software programmes of this type, produced mistakes. Now, I cannot state what
really happened, and - believe me - I am really sorry to report a circumstance
like this, especially when to be involved is a first order figure of culture in
Bologna and Italy. But, when one publishes a book, the respect for the reader must
come first. And here someone forgot it.
NOTES
[1] The
texts are thus transcribed from the collections and not compared against the
originals. A critical edition of the texts is therefore missing (and
incidentally, it was not in the author's intentions).
[2] It is
not indicated which texts are taken from the first collection, and which from the
second one.
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