Abstract

The article studies the editorial series called “Historia Imperii Mediterranei” (HIM) that was directed by Lauro Mainardi, an official of the National Fascist Party, in cooperation with the Armenian Committee of Italy. Between 1939 and 1941, the HIM published a series of booklets entitled Armenia that contained not only articles on Armenia but also “essays on Oriental culture”. According to Mainardi, the HIM had a wide cultural interest in art and architecture but also in literature, poetry, philosophy, and politics. The series published two significant essays: the article by Josef Strzygowski, where he innovatively affirmed the role of the East in Christian art and where he employed “Aryan” racial theory; and Giuseppe Frasson’s article, which shows that Strzygowski was recognised as an innovator but, at the same time, that Byzantine studies in Italy were confined to the nationalistic purpose of affirming ‘Italian’ elements in Roman art. In conclusion, the HIM illustrates the political and cultural strategy of the Fascist party with respect to the Caucasian question in addition to its support of the strategy of the Armenian Committee of Italy for protecting Armenians in Italy before the Second World War.

Highlights

  • The article studies the editorial series called “Historia Imperii Mediterranei” (HIM) that was directed by Lauro Mainardi, an official of the National Fascist Party, in cooperation with the Armenian Committee of Italy

  • Beginning in 1939, the HIM published a series of booklets entitled Armenia

  • If we examine Frasson’s article in the context of Italian nationalist art historians and consider Strzygowski as an anti-Italian, it is easier to understand the criticisms of his theory

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Summary

The Article of Josef Strzygowski

Strzygowski, according to his Orient oder Rome (1901), researched the prototype of the monument that could explain all further developments of Western medieval art in the East. The article published in the HIM begins with a brief explanation of the Indo-European language, conceived as ‘simple linguistic family’ and as a ‘blood unit’, as the author stated in Die Baukunst In his The Origin of Christian Church Art (1924), he suggested that the domed church migrated from Armenia to the West. This is why “in the Caucasian territory and in Ararat ‘churches’ [...] the basilica disappears completely except for few exceptions and later we found a compromise solution, which retains the dome in the middle, despite the elongated shape, the so-called domeshaped nave”.10. The purpose of the German Society and of the Italian Comitato was the same, that is, to stress Armenia’s Aryan descent and to strengthen its relationship with Germany and Italy

Aryan Architecture and Italian Nationalism
The Sixth Volume
Conclusion

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