Associated Products
Blow it up: cultural heritage and film (Article)Title: Blow it up: cultural heritage and film
Author: A.O. Scott
Abstract: Prompted by the 2018 film Mission: Impossible–Fallout in which the Vatican, Jerusalem, and Mecca are shown being destroyed,
such spectacles can effectively serve as an allegory of—and a warning against—the endangerment of our common cultural heritage. Just as films help to make sites like the Louvre,
the White House and the Great Wall of China familiar to viewers who may never see them in real life, so can movies raise awareness of the fragility and value of such places, and invite
viewers to think about the actual environmental, political, and social dangers they face.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/cultural-heritage-film/Primary URL Description: Links to essay in the ARCHES platform on Smarthistory
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Periodical Title: ARCHES
Publisher: Smarthistory
Repatriating artworks (Article)Title: Repatriating artworks
Author: Senta German, Ph.D.
Abstract: Repatriation is the return of stolen or looted cultural materials to their countries of origin. Although a belief that looting cultural heritage is wrong and stolen objects should be returned to their rightful owner dates to the Roman Republic (see Cicero’s Verrines) it was not until the 1950s, when the stark truths of colonization and war crimes against humanity began to be exposed, that a broad desire for restitution emerged and laws and treaties to facilitate this increased in number.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/repatriating-artworks/Primary URL Description: links to the essay on the ARCHES platform on Smarthistory.org
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
The many meanings of the Sarpedon Krater (Article)Title: The many meanings of the Sarpedon Krater
Author: Senta German, Ph.D.
Abstract: The Sarpedon Krater, frequently described as the finest ancient
Greek pot to survive from antiquity, was returned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to Italy in 2008 and is currently in the collection of the National Museum in Cerveteri, Italy. While in New York, the pot was viewed by an enormous number of visitors from around the world. In its new home, about an hour’s drive from Rome, visitors are scarce. Is the importance, intellectual power, and fame of an object diminished when it is moved from a cultural capital to a remote regional collection? Does it make sense to return an object to the local collection closest to its findspot (as is the case with the Sarpedon Krater)? What gets lost when the viewership of an important object is reduced? How does the institutional context of an object affect its place in the history of art, and what compromises does repatriation present?
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/sarpedon-euphronios-repatriation/Primary URL Description: link to the essay on the ARCHES platform on Smarthistory.org
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Napoleon’s appropriation of Italian cultural treasures (Article)Title: Napoleon’s appropriation of Italian cultural treasures
Author: Cynthia Prieur
Abstract: The fascinating historical events that gave birth to the Louvre Museum’s collection began when the French Revolutionary government nationalized the collections of the church, émigrés (who had fled the country), and the monarchy. The French government was then free to decide whether these collections would be sold, destroyed, or kept. A system was developed to select and preserve works of art and other cultural objects from those collections that were considered to be of artistic and cultural significance.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/napoleon-italy-culture-looting/Primary URL Description: link to the essay on the ARCHES platform on Smarthistory.org
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Napoleon’s booty—Perugino’s Decemviri Altarpiece (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Napoleon’s booty—Perugino’s Decemviri Altarpiece
Writer: Beth Harris and. Steven Zucker
Director: Steven Zucker
Producer: Beth Harris
Abstract: Perugino’s Decemviri Altarpiece, painted for a frescoed chapel within what is now the National Museum of Umbra was disassembled and taken to Paris by Napoleonic forces leaving behind only the frame. The main panel was eventually returned to Italy but was sent not to Perugia but to the Vatican where it has remained until the personal friendship of two curators, one at the Vatican, and one in Umbria prompted the reuniting of these works in their original location—though only for a few months.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/napoleons-booty-peruginos-gorgeous-decemviri-altarpiece/Primary URL Description: link to video on ARCHES platform on Smarthistory.org
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Destruction, Memory, and Monuments: The Many Lives of the Parthenon (Article)Title: Destruction, Memory, and Monuments: The Many Lives of the Parthenon
Author: Rachel Kousser, Ph.D.
Abstract: The Parthenon, as it appears today on the summit of the Acropolis, seems like a timeless monument—one that has been seamlessly transmitted from its moment of creation, some two and a half millennia ago, to the present. But this is not the case. In reality, the Parthenon has had instead a rich and complex series of lives that have significantly affected both what is left, and how we understand what remains.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/destruction-memory-and-monuments-the-many-lives-of-the-parthenon/Primary URL Description: link to essay on ARCHES platform
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Views of past and present: the Forum Romanum and archaeological context (Article)Title: Views of past and present: the Forum Romanum and archaeological context
Author: Jeffrey Becker, Ph.D.
Abstract: Views of Rome have long fired human imagination, eliciting reactions that lead to contemplation and argue for conservation. The city’s monuments (and their ruins) are cues for memory, discourse, and discovery. Their rediscovery and subsequent interpretation in modern times play a key role in our understanding of the past and influence the role that the past plays in the present. For these reasons, among others, it is crucial that we think critically about fragmented past landscapes and that any reading of fragments is contextualized, nuanced, and transparent in its motives.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/forum-romanum-archaeological-context/Primary URL Description: link to essay on ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
The Roman Forum: Part 1, Ruins in modern imagination (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: The Roman Forum: Part 1, Ruins in modern imagination
Writer: Beth Harris and Steven Zucker
Director: Beth Harris, Ph.D.
Producer: Steven Zucker, Ph.D.
Abstract: A critical look at the Roman Forum, perhaps the most visited archaeological site in the world, not as a static trace of the antique but as an evolving space that has been transformed for thousands of years to meet our changing needs.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/roman-forum-ruins/Primary URL Description: link to video on ARCHES platform
Format: Web
The Roman Forum: Part 2, Ruins in modern imagination (The Renaissance and after) (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: The Roman Forum: Part 2, Ruins in modern imagination (The Renaissance and after)
Writer: Beth Harris, Ph.D. and Steven Zucker, Ph.D.
Director: Steven Zucker
Producer: Beth Harris
Abstract: A critical look at the Roman Forum, perhaps the most visited archaeological site in the world, not as a static trace of the antique but as an evolving space that has been transformed for thousands of years to meet our changing needs.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/roman-forum-ruins-renaissance/Primary URL Description: link to video on ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Ruins in Modern Imagination: The Roman Forum (part 3, Enlightenment to World War II) (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Ruins in Modern Imagination: The Roman Forum (part 3, Enlightenment to World War II)
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Beth Harris, Ph.D.
Producer: Steven Zucker, Ph.D.
Abstract: A critical look at the Roman Forum, perhaps the most visited archaeological site in the world, not as a static trace of the antique but as an evolving space that has been transformed for thousands of years to meet our changing needs.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/roman-forum-3/Primary URL Description: link to video on ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Rome’s layered history — the Castel Sant’Angelo (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Rome’s layered history — the Castel Sant’Angelo
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr.. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: An analysis of the Castel Sant’Angelo (originally the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian) and its historical trajectory from pagan tomb, to Christian fortification and the site of a plague-ending miracle, to papal palace, and finally to museum. The site is an amalgam that lacks the pure expression of one era and has been largely ignored art historians but is also the ideal structure to rethink the discipline's biases and to look for meaning in transformation itself.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/arches-castel-santangelo/Primary URL Description: link to video on ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Looted and revered: The Rosetta Stone (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Looted and revered: The Rosetta Stone
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: How a looted stele fragment wrested from the French by the British unlocked a sacred language and three thousand years of Egyptian history.
Year: 2019
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/looted-and-revered-the-rosetta-stone/Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Ruin as abattoir, the Colosseum (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Ruin as abattoir, the Colosseum
Writer: Dr. Bernard Frischer and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: A critical examination of the Amphitheatrum Flavium from its construction over the garden lake that once adorned the Golden House of Nero to its uses and violent abuses under the Flavians and the structure's symbolic meanings in the medieval and modern eras.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/ruin-abattoir-the-colosseum/Primary URL Description: link to the video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Before the fire: Notre Dame, Paris (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Before the fire: Notre Dame, Paris
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: A close look and the architectural history of the Cathedral before the fire and the controversies that have engulfed the rebuilding project.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/before-the-fire-notre-dame-paris/Primary URL Description: link to video on ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Before the fire: Notre Dame, Paris (Article)Title: Before the fire: Notre Dame, Paris
Author: Dr. Lindsay Cook
Abstract: The blaze that engulfed the Cathedral Notre Dame on the small Island known as the Île de la Cité in Paris in April 2019 was a terrible tragedy. Though it may not give us much comfort to learn that the total or partial destruction of churches by fire was a fairly common occurrence in medieval Europe, it does provide historical perspective.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/before-the-fire-notre-dame-paris/Primary URL Description: link to essay on ARCHES platform
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Conservation as memorial — Mantegna’s St. James Led to his Execution (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Conservation as memorial — Mantegna’s St. James Led to his Execution
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: The Ovetari Chapel in Padua contains the little that remains of Mantegna’s great fresco cycle on the life of Saint James. These frescoes—Renaissance masterpieces—were blasted into countless fragments when American bombs hit the church during World War II in a raid that also narrowly missed Giotto’s frescoes in the Arena Chapel. For years, computer scientists and conservators worked to piece together the thousands of fresco shards that survive, and today, in the chapel, we see on the walls a combination of black and white photographs taken before the war, the fresco fragments, and in-painting by conservators. What does it mean to look at the fragmented work now? This great but ruined cycle has become a memorial to what has been lost to war. Museums and other cultural sites are filled with works of art that have been pawns in violent battles. How can we ensure these important stories are remembered, and prioritize the protection of our shared cultural heritage?
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/mantegnas-st-james-execution-arches/Primary URL Description: link to video on ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Venice’s San Marco, a mosaic of spiritual treasure (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Venice’s San Marco, a mosaic of spiritual treasure
Writer: Dr. Elizabeth Rodini and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: The 13th century mosaic of the translation of the body of Saint Mark to Venice depicted above the Porta Sant’Alipio of the Basilica San Marco in Venice is the only extant semi dome mosaic of 5 that once adorned the façade. Using Gentile Bellini's 15th century canvas, Procession in the Piazza San Marco, this video explores the meanings of sacred theft and the accumulation of dislocated cultural heritage in this once powerful island nation.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/venice-san-marco-mosaic/Primary URL Description: link to the video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
The Renaissance Synagogues of Venice (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: The Renaissance Synagogues of Venice
Writer: Dr. David Landau, Dr. Marcella Ansaldi, and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: The German Synagogue (founded 1528), the Italian Synagogue (founded 1575), the Canton Synagogue (1532) are each now part of the Jewish Museum of Venice on a small island in the Venetian lagoon that gave the world the word Ghetto. These buildings are a physical testament to the history of European Jewry over the past 500 years.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/renaissance-synagogue-venice/Primary URL Description: link to the video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Bayt Farhi, a Jewish house in Damascus (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Bayt Farhi, a Jewish house in Damascus
Writer: Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: The great Ottoman courtyard house, Bayt Farhi, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Damacus is an expression of the wealth and power of the Farhis but also maps the history of the Old City from the 18th through the 21st centuries, from luxurious and exotic subject for the British painter Frederic Leighton to a refuge for squatters, to a hotel, to an uncertain fate during Syria's protracted civil war.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/bayt-farhi-a-jewish-house-in-damascus/Primary URL Description: link to video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Unearthing New York’s history of slavery (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Unearthing New York’s history of slavery
Writer: Dr. Renée Ater and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: Rodney Leon's design for the African Burial Ground National Monument was realized in 2006 on a tiny plot of land with a profound but forgotten history. For blocks in every direction, under the grand building's of Manhattan's civic center lay the bodies of thousands of enslaved Africans, and African Americans. This monument is a powerful marker but also a reminder of the failure of our nation to face its brutal past.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/african-burial-ground-national-monument/Primary URL Description: link to video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Reclaiming history, a Kwakwaka’wakw belt (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Reclaiming history, a Kwakwaka’wakw belt
Writer: Dr. Aaron Glass and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: A ceremonial belt and a doctored photograph taken at the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago launch an exploration of the efforts of the anthropologist Franz Boas to erase modernity from his representations of the Kwakwaka’wakw and their remarkable efforts to undo the damage of systemic racism and laws forbidding their most sacred traditions.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/arches-ceremonial-belt-kwakwakawakw/Primary URL Description: link to video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Erased from memory: the Severan Tondo (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Erased from memory: the Severan Tondo
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: Damnatio memoriae is a term we use to describe a Roman phenomenon in which the government condemned the memory of a person who was seen as a tyrant, traitor, or other sort of enemy to the state. The images of such condemned figures would be destroyed, their names erased from inscriptions, and if the doomed person were an emperor or other government official, even his laws could be rescinded.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/rewriting-history-damnatio-memoriae/Primary URL Description: link to video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Making and Mutilating Manuscripts of the Shahnama (Article)Title: Making and Mutilating Manuscripts of the Shahnama
Author: Dr. Sheila Blair
Abstract: Illustrated manuscripts are one of the glories of Persian art, especially those made during the heyday of production from the fourteenth century to the sixteenth century. The most popular text was the Shahnama, or Book of Kings. This 50,000-couplet poem recounts the history of Iran from the creation of the world to the coming of the Arabs in the seventh century through the reigns of fifty successive monarchs. Rulers and their courtiers often commissioned splendid copies of the Shahnama to link themselves to the heroes of the past, whether the “Alexander of the Age” or “The Lord of the World.”
Today some of the most important manuscripts are sadly dismembered. Reconstructing the history of two of these splendid manuscripts—from creation to mutilation—shows how they have been used (and misused) over the centuries as political propaganda, loot, and even fodder in the international art market.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/making-mutilating-shahnama/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
The Court of Gayumars (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: The Court of Gayumars
Writer: Dr. Michael Chagnon and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Steven Zucker
Producer: Dr. Beth Harris
Abstract: This sumptuous page, The Court of Gayumars comes from a now disassembled illuminated manuscript of the Shahnama (Book of Kings)—an epic poem describing the history of kingship in Persia (what is now Iran). Because of its blending of painting styles from both Tabriz and Herat, its luminous pigments, fine detail, and complex imagery, this copy of the Shahnama stands out in the history of the artistic production in Central Asia.
Year: 2019
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/arches-the-court-of-gayumars/Primary URL Description: link to video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Iconoclasm in the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century (Article)Title: Iconoclasm in the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century
Author: Dr. Saskia Beranek
Abstract: The Beeldenstorm, the iconoclasm in 1566 was not just the result of doctrinal disagreement about the nature of religious imagery and the interpretation of biblical text. It was instead a response to intertwined issues of politics, religious oppression, and economic factors. It was one spark that helped ignite the flames of the Eighty Years War, a war that ultimately resulted in the split between the northern Calvinist provinces of the Dutch Republic and the southern Catholic province that remained connected to Spain.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/iconoclasm-in-the-netherlands-in-the-sixteenth-century/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Submerged, burned, and scattered: destruction of objects in South Asia (Article)Title: Submerged, burned, and scattered: destruction of objects in South Asia
Author: Dr. Cristin McKnight Sethi
Abstract: The practice of ritually submerging, and thereby destroying, sculptural images of Ganesha during Ganesha Chaturthi represents one of several religious and cultural acts in South Asia which complicate ideas about the value and permanence of material objects. Makers involved in these practices produce objects and artistic depictions with the knowledge that the products of their creative labor are temporary and will be intentionally destroyed or deteriorate over time. These examples challenge us to push against the preciousness of objects—an approach that we encounter so often in the study of art—and to rethink the way we value the permanence / impermanence of material things.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/ritual-destruction-south-asia/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
“Creative iconoclasm”: a tale of two monasteries (Article)Title: “Creative iconoclasm”: a tale of two monasteries
Author: Christine M. Bolli
Abstract: In the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century, restoration often involved the idealized imaginings of the restorer and/or patron—something which British anthropologist Alfred Gell termed “creative iconoclasm.” Creative iconoclasm is essentially when a renovation deviates so far from the original intended form of a building that the building loses its previous meaning and takes on different meaning altogether. Hence, the use of the term iconoclasm (destruction of an image). More recently, art historian Meredith Cohen has written about the “creative interventions” done to medieval structures. They leave in their wake a whole new history, vastly different from what had been recognized for hundreds of years. Two Spanish monasteries purchased by William Randolph Hearst in the late 1920s are prime examples of these overlapping concepts.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/hearst-two-monasteries/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Erasing Art: Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning drawing (Article)Title: Erasing Art: Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning drawing
Author: Dr. Tom Folland
Abstract: The Erased de Kooning Drawing has symbolic force. Though, as one can imagine, that force was mostly viewed by critics as negative. Rauschenberg’s erasure was a destructive act, to be sure, one that seemed to harken back to a World-War-I movement called Dada in which traditional ideas of art were challenged in often absurd ways. Rauschenberg’s seeming nihilism would, in the later 1950s, be called “Neo-Dada,” and he would be linked to Marcel Duchamp whose anti-art objects had resurfaced in New York during the 1950s. But Rauschenberg saw the erased drawing in very different terms and possibly as a follow up to a series of white paintings.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/erasing-art-rauschenbergs-erased-de-kooning-drawing/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Destruction as Preservation: Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (Article)Title: Destruction as Preservation: Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
Author: Tiffany Wai-Ying Beres
Abstract: How can the destruction of an artifact also be an act of preservation? Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995) by Ai Weiwei is a highly provocative work of art. This series of three black and white photographs portray the artist holding a 2,000-year-old Han dynasty urn that, frame by frame, he drops, it falls, and shatters. Ultimately the work demands a judgment: was the provocation and the global attention Ai garnered for the urn worth the destruction of the urn itself? This set of photographs encourages its viewers to question the value of antiquity in our modern world and whether it is worth preserving.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/destruction-as-preservation/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
How a famous Greek bronze ended up in the Vatican (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: How a famous Greek bronze ended up in the Vatican
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: The Apoxyomenos by Lysippos in the Vatican Museums of one of the world's most celebrated antique sculptures but it is also an object lesson in the history of plunder and displacement stretching from ancient Greece to present day Rome.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/how-a-famous-greek-bronze-ended-up-in-the-vatican/Primary URL Description: link to the video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Fact and fiction: The explosion of Reims Cathedral during World War I (Article)Title: Fact and fiction: The explosion of Reims Cathedral during World War I
Author: Dr. Chistine M. Bolli
Abstract: The city of Reims saw significant destruction, and both civilian and military casualties during WWI. But no event ignited indignation as did the bombing of the much-venerated Notre-Dame de Reims. The cathedral was first hit by shell fire on September 19th, 1914. Wooden scaffolding that was in place for ongoing repairs caught fire, and contributed to the damage, as did several smaller fires that resulted from the attack. In the end perhaps the most important take-away from the bombing of Reims Cathedral is that blame is, to a degree, irrelevant, at least after the fact. The real lesson is that we must do better at preserving our cultural heritage the world over.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/reims-cathedral-world-war/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
Provenance and the Antiquities Market (Article)Title: Provenance and the Antiquities Market
Author: Dr. Silvia Beltrametti
Abstract: Three high profile lawsuits in the early 2000s had a strong impact on how the market for antiquities has valued provenance (the record of ownership of a work of art or an antique). The first case concerned the prosecution of New York antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz, who had been trafficking antiquities out of Egypt camouflaged as cheap souvenirs. The second one concerned the prosecution by the Italian federal government of Giacomo Medici, who supplied the world’s most important museums with classical antiquities. The third one involved legal action against one of his regular clients — then J. Paul Getty museum curator Marion True — for purchasing material she knew was illegally excavated from dubious dealers (including Giacomo Medici). The combined effect of these three cases was to force collectors and sellers active in the antiquities market to reevaluate the importance of provenance.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/provenance-antiquities/Primary URL Description: link to essay on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Other
Publisher: Smarthistory
A Renaissance masterpiece nearly lost in war: Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: A Renaissance masterpiece nearly lost in war: Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: One man disobeyed order and saved one of the world's greatest paintings from destruction because he had once read Aldous Huxley. What is the responsibility of individuals during wartime and what price will we pay as fewer and fewer among us value the Humanities.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/renaissance-masterpiece-nearly-lost-in-war/Primary URL Description: link to video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Saving Torcello, an ancient church in the Venetian Lagoon (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Saving Torcello, an ancient church in the Venetian Lagoon
Writer: Melissa Conn and Dr. Beth Harris
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: The church of Santa Maria Assunta on the small island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon is the oldest church in this area and is rightfully famous for its brilliant 9th century fresco and 11th century mosaic work. But the very fabric of the church is crumbling, a result of salt deposits caused by the increasingly serious floods that plague the lagoon. We were on site as engineers raced to reverse damaged caused days earlier by the exceptionally high tides of December 2019.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/saving-torcello/Primary URL Description: link to the video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web
Saved by shipwreck, The Antikythera Youth (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)Title: Saved by shipwreck, The Antikythera Youth
Writer: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Director: Dr. Beth Harris
Producer: Dr. Steven Zucker
Abstract: This remarkable late classical sculpture is one of the few full size Greek bronzes to survive, a happy fate cause by an unhappy event, the sinking of the ship that carried it, an ancient ship that was likely carrying looted art from Greece to Rome.
Year: 2020
Primary URL:
https://smarthistory.org/antikythera-arches/Primary URL Description: link to the video on the ARCHES platform
Access Model: open access
Format: Web