The Contribution of the Italian Art Press to the Rediscovery of Byzantium at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This essay focuses on the role of the art press in the advancement of the research on Byzantine art in Italy at the turn of the twentieth century. Byzantine civilization touched Italy deeply: historic monuments and treasuries in churches and museums are lasting evidence of this enduring contact. To Italian scholars involved in debates on the origin of their national art, the role of the “Byzantine element” has often appeared as a very contentious issue. Was Byzantium to be considered as a degenerate form of classical “Latin” culture? Was its art merely identified with the traditional Vasarian maniera greca? Since the second half of the nineteenth century, Italy's contribution to the flourishing rediscovery of Byzantine art assumed thus an atypical identity, which is still waiting to be fully investigated. By taking into account a selection of specialized Italian journals, such as Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, Archivio storico dell'arte, and L'Arte, this essay retraces the process which gradually led Italian journals to become significant contributors to the international debate on Byzantine art before World War I.