The division between the past of ancient civilizations and a national past
also showed some breaches that deserve exploration. The Louvre itself exem-
pliWed one of these ruptures for it housed not only ancient Roman and Greek
objects but also, from 1795, French medieval and modern sculpture which
was transferred from the Museum of French Monuments. The methodology
of studying the past of ancient Great Civilizations and the national past also
found some common ground as seen in Niebuhr’s and Mommsen’s work
(Chapter 11).
THE SEIZURE OF ROMEIn Napoleon’s opinion France performed the same role as Rome in antiquity
through devices such as the Napoleonic Code that brought peace, order and
civilization to the Western world (Esdaile 1995: 74–5). Yet, invasion and
conquest became the means by which France exported these ideas to other
countries. France invaded Italy in 1796–7, creating what were called the seven
‘sister republics’ that lasted until 1799. Rome was one of them. In Rome a
classicizing language and imagery was adopted. The ideal of the Roman
Republic was recreated in situ. Senators, tribunes and consuls were appointed
and archaeological charades were organized, many of them in the place where
the ancient main square, the forum, had lain (Springer 1987: 66). The
selection of this locus was not innocent: by stressing the importance of the
forum as the centre, a process of secularization of Rome took place in direct
opposition to its centuries-long religious association symbolized by churches
and especially by the Vatican.
France’s occupation of Rome, however, also resulted in a huge seizure of
ancient sculptures and other archaeological and artistic objects which were
sent to the Louvre together with other patrimony of later date. Italy was not
the only country to suVer the ravage of the French. They also took many art
and archaeology collections from Spain, not all of which were returned. In
Rome, almost a hundred masterpieces of antique sculpture, mainly seized from
the Roman museums—including the Capitolino and Pio-Clementine—,
found their way to the Louvre—most of them to be returned in 1815 after
the Congress of Vienna (Cronin 1971: 138; Springer 1987: ch. 3). The bust
and the head of the two major models for the French Republic, those of
Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Brutus, were among theWrst to be shipped
to Paris. The Italian antiquarian Ennio Quirino Visconti, who has been
deWned as Winckelmann’s inheritor, helped with their removal and wrote a
70 Early Archaeology of Great Civilizations