Imperial Symbolism Research Articles

Sex, Geography, and Death: Metropolis and Empire in a Fascist Writer

This paper is an historical and cultural analysis of the work of a Fascist writer, Gabriele D'Annunzio, and of how Italian concerns with empire are expressed in his geographical tropes. D'Annunzio was one of the leading intellectual practitioners of what Walter Benjamin called the aestheticisation of politics. His texts are distinctly tied to a national discourse which is both consciously and unconsciously imperial, and in his narratives the political map of the nation is overlaid with a tissue of imperial and sexual symbols. I examine how the geographic signs of empire are inscribed in his first novel Il Piacere and his screenplay Cabiria, and how the metropolitan experience is foregrounded whereas the peripheral ‘other’ is both devalued and made exotic. I also examine how D'Annunzio aestheticised the warrior ethic, whereby death itself is rendered an aesthetic experience.

Rom im hohen Mittelalter: Studien zu den Romvorstellungen und zur Rompolitik vom 10. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert ed. by Bernhard Schimmelpfennig and Ludwig Schmugge

644BOOK REVIEWS special role in liturgical commemoration underpinned their monastic activities .) Well might Henry II say: "to whom much is entrusted, from them much is demanded." In showing just how much was entrusted and demanded, Bernhardt reveals a governmental system at work: for anyone interested in medieval life and thought, his book is indispensable. Janet L. Nelson King's College London Rom im hohen Mittelalter: Studien zu den Romvorstellungen und zurRompolitik vom 10. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert (Reinhard Elze zur Vollendung seines siebzigsten Lebensjahres gewidmet). Edited by Bernhard Schimmelpfennig and Ludwig Schmugge. (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag. 1992. Pp. xiv, 186. DM 88,-.) The core of this handsome volume is a set of revised papers from a symposium which was convened in 1987 at Augsburg, on conceptions of Rome and Roman politics from the tenth to the twelfth century (augmented by four studies, by Blumenthal, Schieffer, Schmidt, and Wolfzettel, not delivered there). It was published as a Festschrift in celebration of the seventieth birthday of Reinhard Elze, formerly professor at the Free University in Berlin, and from 1972 to 1987 director of the German Historical Institute at Rome. Professor Elze is renowned for his studies on medieval papal and imperial "Herrschaftszeremoniell" and institutions, and best known for his work on the ordines for imperial coronations. Following a laudatio to the dedicatee by Arnold Esch, and an introduction by Bernhard Schimmelpfennig to the genesis of the collection, which reaches back to a colloquium in 1982 at Dumbarton Oaks on imperial symbols and symbolism of the eighth to twelfth centuries, the essays herein are grouped under four headings: "The Emperor," "The Popes," "The City," and "Rome Seen from the Outside." The essays treat a wide variety of interrelated themes—art historical, religious, political, canonical, liturgical/ceremonial, and literary—as follows. A single contribution appears under the heading "The Emperor," by Hermann Fillitz, on real and imaginary insignia as symbols of imperial Roman dominion. Four papers are grouped under "The Popes": Werner Maleczek, on control and renovation of Rome by the papacy; Uta-Renate Blumenthal, on Rome in canon law during the period ofthe Gregorian Reform; Horst Fuhrmann, on the concepts "Roman church" and "universal church"; and Bernhard Schimmelpfennig, on the significance of Rome in papal ceremony. "The City" includes articles by Ingrid Baumgärtner, on the relation between notions of Roman renewal, on the one hand, and practice, on the other, focusing on the office ofbibliotecarius (librarian) in the context ofthe twelfthcentury Roman commune; Hans Martin Schaller, on symbols of power of the Roman commune; and Peter Cornelius Claussen, on renovatio Romae in view BOOK REVIEWS645 of eleventh- and twelfth-century Roman architecture (including twenty-two black and white plates, among which are views of the central interior of the churches of SS. Quattro Coronati, S. Clemente, S. Crisogono, and S. Maria in Trastevere [according to an early-modern drawing]). The final section comprises studies by Rudolf Schieffer, on descriptions of Rome by German historians of the tenth to the twelfth centuries; Friedrich Wolfzettel, on Rome in Old French literature, with emphasis on the late twelfth-century writer Gautier of Arras; Paul Gerhard Schmidt, on Rome from the viewpoint of the thirteenth-century Parisian scholar Johannes de Garlandia; and a final paper by Ludwig Schmugge, useful but somewhat out of place under this heading, offering a summary of the proceedings of the conference at Augsburg and the printed papers, tided "Kirche—Kommune—Kaiser." An index to persons and places will help readers to see the variety of issues dealt with in this important collection, and no one concerned with papal and imperial history from Ottoman times through the twelfth century should neglect to do so. Robert Somerville Columbia University The Complete Works ofRather of Verona Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Peter L. D. Reid. [Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Volume 76.] (Binghamton, New York: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, State University of New York. 1991. Pp. xi, 625. »35.00.) This excellent, readable collection and English translation of treatises, tracts, sermons, and letters by one of the most prolific authors of the tenth century provides interesting insights into the minds and concerns of the preGregorian ecclesiastical reformers. It also furnishes glimpses into the...

Assyrian sacred trees in the Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum houses twelve stone slabs with carved decoration from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II. The motif of a stylized tree — the so-called Sacred Tree (see Figs. 1, 4, 6) — appears on seven of those slabs which come from rooms F, I, L, S, T of the ninth century palace at Nimrud. These tree renderings are representative of the sacred tree-type found in ten rooms of the royal residence and the west wing. Approximately 96 sacred trees, in two-register arrangement, appeared on the pictorial decorations in room I; the same motif occurred about 75 times in one-register arrangement on the reliefs of the other rooms. The abundance of the sacred tree motif on the wall decorations of the Northwest Palace attests to the significance of this plant. Its design deserves investigation; in Layard's words, “the tree, evidently a sacred symbol, is elaborately and tastefully formed.”In his study of the Ashurnasirpal II reliefs in American collections, Stearns did not attempt to list the sacred trees, because “variations in the sacred tree occur only in minor details,” and “the tree in itself is rarely useful in identifying the location of the reliefs.” These statements make clear Stearns' belief that the sacred trees were nearly alike. Other scholars, notably Weidner and Reade, have pointed out that on a number of slabs now in American and European museums are carvings of matching half trees, therefore indicating that when paired, these trees belonged to adjoining slabs originally. In trying to match half trees, one finds that individual sacred trees do differ in the rendering of specific details. Bleibtreu, in her analysis of the sacred tree-type, lists three variants of the flower found on the palmette-garland framing the individual tree on three sides. The present author, after examining the sacred trees carved on the slabs in The Brooklyn Museum, concludes that the design of the tree-type is more varied than heretofore presumed, and that its construction is more complex than indicated in previous descriptions of the subjects. An analysis of the Assyrian sacred tree-type may lead to possible conclusions regarding its intended image: a stylized palm tree, a cult object, an emblem of vegetation or “tree of life”, an imperial symbol, or a combination of those forms. In addition, one may consider to what extent the rendering of individual trees was the consequence of artistic inventiveness.

“All for Each and Each for All”: Reflections on Anglo-American and Commonwealth Scientific Cooperation, 1940–1945

Twice this century, the wartime mobilization of civilian academic science has been rightly recognized as one of the most remarkable achievements of Britain, the Commonwealth, and the United States. If the first world war demonstrated the Empire's “strength in unity,” the second placed far greater demands on Allied and imperial resources in research, development, and supply. Where the first war witnessed a limited application of scientific advice, on request, and in response to limited problems, the second saw scientists and engineers develop an enormous range of technologies, frequently ahead of military requirements. In the course of the scientific war, new principles of liaison emerged, replacing peacetime practices of professional and institutional coordination. Imperial relations fostered by peacetime bureaux devoted to natural products and industrial research were overtaken by new, larger, and more powerful ministries devoted to supply and production. In certain respects, the demands of science began to drive imperial policy, weaving a fabric of relationships that survived to influence Commonwealth and international science diplomacy well after the war had ended.At an official level, these were among the most apparent outcomes of imperial science at war. The principal technical results of Allied collaboration—in radar, jet engines, the atomic bomb, for example—are well known. However, beneath myriad homerics of technical and organizational triumphs resides an equally important legacy of imperial rhetoric, symbol, and metaphor, in which the discourses of imperial science and commonwealth became re-examined and revalorized. The respective roles of the “metropolis” and the “periphery”—the geometries of Empire—were redefined by decisions that governed the supply of raw materials, the sharing of sensitive information, and the development of weapons.