Winckelmann and the Vatican's First Profane Museum

by Ruprecht, Louis A., Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780230110694
• ISBN10: 023011069X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-10-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Using the palace records from the Vatican's Secret Archives, Ruprecht demonstrates that the Vatican museum was the brainchild of J.J. Winckelmann, the so-called father of Art History. Tracing both Winckelmann's secret involvement in the emergence of modern art museums and modern art history and their emergence from within religious institutions, the author offers a new perspective on the relationship of religion and art in the modern world.

Author Biography

Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr. is William M. Suttles Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Winckelmann’s Secret History * “Puzzling Over Periods”: On the Difficulty of Locating Winckelmann’s Art History Within the History of Ideas * “Foolish, Bold, Perhaps Even Godless and Vile”: A Brief Biographical and Bibliographic Background to Winckelmann’s Roman Career * “Fantasies of a Still-Lit Lamp”: A Brief History of Vatican-Sponsored Museums in Rome * “What Book’s In Hand?”: Zeroing in on the Vatican’s “Museo Profano” * “I Kiss Him Without Scandal, in Front of All the Saints”: How the Profane Was Sanctified, not Sexualized, as “Beauty” * “This New Kind of Gazing-House”: How the Profane Was Sanctified, as “Art” * “Gods Without Altars, Altars Without Worshipers”: How the Profane Was Sanctified, as “National Treasure” * “The Subtle Grace of Departure”: Mourning, Nostalgia and the Image in Winckelmann’s Art History * “Palimpsest”: Winckelmann, Then and Now * Appendix I: The Published Works of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) * Appendix II: An Historical Outline of the Vatican Museums * Appendix III: Excerpt From Clement XIII’s Moto Proprio (4 August 1761) * Appendix IV: A Brief Archival Summary of Vatican Palace Construction at the Northern Wing Near the “Museo Profano” (July 1761-March 1762) * Appendix V: Texts of Winckelmann’s Three Vatican Appointments (1763-1764) * Appendix VI: Translation of “Winckelmann alla Biblioteca Vaticana” by Nello Vian [1976] * Appendix VII: Original List of Artworks from the Armistice of Bologna and the Treaty of Tolentino (1796-1797) * Appendix VII: List of Statues for Apppropriation from the Treaty of Tolentino (1797)