and veriWable, and not contain any sort of speculation. Knowledge was,
therefore, based exclusively on observable or experiential phenomena. This
is why observation, description, organization, and taxonomy or typology
took the form of large catalogues which reported the old and newWnds
although they went much beyond their eighteenth-century precedents. Ex-
amples of this were, in Italy, the inquiries into Roman copies of Greek
sculpture, and research into the Etruscan world, where Greek inXuences in
particular were investigated (Gran-Aymerich 1998: 50; Michaelis 1908: ch. 4;
Stiebing 1993: 158). In 1862 Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) initiated and
organized theCorpus Inscriptionum Latinorum(Moradiellos 1992: 81–90), an
exhaustive catalogue of Latin epigraphical inscriptions. Throughout the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century German academics took the lead in science
as opposed to the French. Detailed study and criticism allowed archaeologists
and historians of art to break the previously believed geographical unity of
ancient Greek art (Whitley 2000). Empiricism and positivism did not mean
that politics were left aside. Mommsen was very explicit about the political
aim of his work. He argued that historians had the political and pedagogical
duty to support those they had chosen to write about, and that they had to
deWne their political stance. Historians should be voluntary combatants
Wghting for rights and for Truth and for the freedom of human spirit
(Moradiellos 1992: 87).
Informal imperialism in Europe in the last four decades
of the centuryFrom the 1860s important political developments took place in Italy. As in the
case of Greece, these would not have been possible—at least in the way events
evolved—outside the framework of nationalism. The uniWcation of Italy,
although practically concluded by 1860, was only considered to be complete
after the annexation of Rome in 1870. ItalianWeld archaeology, organized
from 1870 by a state archaeological service—the Sopraintendenza de Arche-
ologia—became even more the province of Italians. There were exceptions,
but the Italian state was not eager to accept them. This would be made clear to
those who attempted to contravene the tacit rules. This was the experience,
for example, of a member of the French School who had obtained permission
to excavate an archaic cemetery in the 1890s. Soon after theWrst discoveries
had taken place, this work was suspended, only to be resumed under the
supervision of the Italian Ministry (Gran-Aymerich 1998: 320). In some cases
disputes between Italian and other experts—such as those with German
archaeologists following the discovery of an archaic piece at the Roman
Europe and the Ottoman Empire 105