Expanding the canon of art: developing new definitions in legislation for heritage protection, administration and trading in nineteenth-century Rome and Athens

Abstract

The so-called Edict Chiaramonti and Edict Pacca, issued in the Papal States in 1802 and 1820 respectively, and the Gesetz, issued in Greece in 1834, are the first widely inclusive legislation conceived for the management and the preservation of the artworks in places that had been the most plundered in Europe for centuries. These regulations not only aimed to protect monuments, paintings and antiquities from the risks of damage and deterioration, but also established a legal framework against their illegal exportation and smuggling, intending essentially to administer heritage in its original context of production. The analysis of these laws, considered against the earlier edicts published on the protection of the arts in Europe between the fifth and the eighteenth centuries, sheds light on the origins of concepts related to the protection of cultural heritage that have become fundamental in contemporary attitudes to the tutelage of the arts. The principal aim of this research is to examine the reciprocal influence of legislation and scholarship, in order to uncover the gradual development of innovative definitions of “arts” and “artwork” through the edicts issued on the safeguarding of the arts, considering in particular the elaboration of the concepts of “minor” and “local” heritage at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Analysis of the consequences of these edicts will consider how they were administered and the implications of the new concepts and bureaucratic procedures for both the art market and the illegal trafficking of artworks in Rome and Athens. Through the assessment of the exports which were effectively approved by the relevant administrators, this thesis demonstrates the essential attributes of these legal systems and their application: the consequences of loopholes and gaps within legislation itself, the exports consented for diplomatic and political reasons, and the sales of “worthless” objects which were de facto excluded from protection, because they were not yet considered to be “artwork” in the nineteenth century. Investigation of unpublished documents in the archives of Rome and Athens has also provided evidence of aspects related to the establishment of local administration for the fine arts in the provinces of the Papal States, and the first museums and collections in the villages of Greece, following the prescriptions of the relevant laws. This thesis examines the organisational issues related to the institution of these early local bodies in relation to the debates of European scholars on the definition of “context” and “preservation in situ”, contending that the gradual broadening of the concept of heritage was profoundly related to the definition of new instruments for its conservation and management. Discussing the archival data, I argue that the essential awareness of the small communities on the importance of protecting their local heritage played a fundamental role in bringing the “minor arts” and “local artists” to the attention of central administrations, succeeding not only in effecting their final inclusion into the legal systems of safeguarding, but also in widening the definition of “art”, and hence the scope of art history and archaeology.