Thinking about the creation of ‘national literature’ and ‘national styles’ in art and architecture, most people will refer to the 19^th century: the period of the rise of national states and the attempt to codify specific geographically and nationally defined identities in art, architecture and literature, based on models from a glorious past. Nevertheless, five hundred years before this era, humanist scholars, artists, monarchs and other political leaders all over Europe had already charged themselves with a comparable task. In late medieval and early modern Europe, c.1400–1700, authority was formally based on lineage, and in all countries political ambitions and geographical claims were supported by true or false historical reasons. Literature, architecture and paintings were also used to express these ideas of national or local history and that history’s oldest roots in the distant past.

           Thus far, the strong and conscious interest in national and local history as expressed during this period in the arts has not yet been studied systematically in an interdisciplinary way. In art history most attention is still paid to the reception of the ‘international’ canon of Greek and Roman antiquities – like the well-known ruins in Rome and its surroundings – and of ‘classical’ Greek sculpture. And until rather recently, research on Neo-Latin literature was focussed on the reception of the classical Greek and Roman authors, whereas historical works on the ‘medieval’ or local past were neglected. The local or medieval past, however, played a pivotal role. In current mainstream interpretations of ‘Renaissance’ art as a ‘Rebirth of Antiquity’, antiquity has misleadingly acquired a standard definition based on the international canon. In this perspective, there seems to be only one ideal Antiquity and only one proper embodiment of Antiquity Reborn: the reception of Rome’s antiquities in 15^th- and 16^th-century Florence and Rome. Thus, the bias toward a ‘proper’ antiquity has created the idea of a ‘proper’ Renaissance. Consequently, most Antiquity-inspired architecture, art and literature in Northern Europe – as well as in Spain, France and the Italian periphery from Lombardy to Sicily – have been analysed and interpreted with Central Italian solutions as a single point of reference, and have not infrequently been seen as ‘provincial’, ‘hybrid’ or ‘still a little bit medieval’. As a result, the specific meaning of conscious references to local history also remained obscure. Instead of addressing incorrect or vernacular transformations of the Roman ideal, however, the research project will try to find a more positive explanation for those examples of the Antique that do not resemble the ‘standard’. Therefore, we must ask by what means – i.e. through which other models or interpretations of antiquities – artists and patrons created their reconstruction of Antiquity.

In the past few decades the concept of the Rome-centred Renaissance has been seriously challenged. Recent scholarship has stressed the important role assumed by non-Central Italian antiquities – such as those of Ancient Gaul and in the Low Countries – and by certain texts of antiquity that deal with the local past – such as Tacitus’ Germania – in the genesis of ‘Antique’ architecture that was not inspired by Central Italy. Moreover, the definition of the ‘Antique’ has turned out to be far more elastic: in fact, it encompasses more than ‘Rome’. This is true, for instance, of 15^th-century Venetian architecture, where Byzantine antiquities were used as a primary source for the revival of all’antica design.

The current research networking program wants to unite scholars from different disciplines in order to map out the various strategies used in the period c.1400–1700 to construct an appropriate past in art, architecture and literature, and to examine how this past was used in the creation of ‘national’ or local identities in Europe. The historical eras used in such constructions could be rather diverse. Sometimes passages or episodes from classical historical writings were quoted and integrated into early modern national or local history, such as the tales of the Trojans who had left their destroyed city to become the founders of various peoples, cities or noble families all over Europe. In the construction of national histories, local tribes mentioned in classical texts sometimes played a central role as true and antique ancestors, like the Batavians in the northern Low Countries, the Goths in Sweden, or the Sarmatians in Poland. Historical myths and claims from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (c.400–1100) also were used in these constructions of local history, with references, for example, to knighthood, chivalry, and the crusades. Sources were not only classical writers but also medieval chronicles (in both Latin and the vernacular languages), minstrels’ lyrics, (true and false) inscriptions and archaeological findings, and, above all, ruins and other architectural remains that the early modern intellectuals interpreted in a creative way. The project will focus on the strategies of the use of these sources for the construction of new local or ‘national’ identities.

The research project shall concentrate on the recuperation and use of both the ‘distant past’ of antiquity in all of its manifestations, and the ‘nearer past’ (‘medieval’). Humanist historiography, epics, political writings, and geographical and ethnographical treatises will constitute the central corpus of texts belonging to Neo-Latin literature. These texts are important for the visual arts and architecture as sources of inspiration. With few exceptions, humanist writings belonging to the above-mentioned categories have not yet been studied systematically. The same is largely true for most local architectonic remains that in the early modern period were ascribed to ‘Antiquity’, and for smaller archaeological objects, such as cameos or coins.

• prof.dr. Karl Enenkel (mede projectleider); Barbara Arciszewska (Warsaw University)
• Howard Burns (SNS Pisa)
• Thomas daCosta Kaufmann (Princeton)
• Krista De Jonge (KU Leuven)
• Marc Laureys (Univ. Bonn)
• Jan Papy (KU Leuven)
• Jeroen Goudeau (Radboud Universiteit)
• Hubertus Günther (Univ. Zürich)
• Frédérique Lemerle (Centre d’études supérieures de la renaissance
• Tours)
• Tobias Leuker (Univ. Münster)
• Christian Peters (Univ. Münster)
• Thomas Haye (Univ. Göttingen)
• Paul Smith (Univ. Leiden)
• Roswitha Simons (Univ. Göttingen)
• Richard Schofield (Univ. d. Venezia)
• Alicia Montoya (Radboud Universiteit)
• Christoph Pieper (Univ. Leiden)
• Bernd Roling (FU Berlin) Stephan Hoppe (Ludwig-Maximilans Univ. München)
• Wim van Anrooij (Univ. Leiden)
• Bruno Quast (Univ. Münster)
• Caroline van Eck (U. Leiden)
• Nuno Senos (Univ. Nuova d. Lisboa)
• Matt Kavaler (Univ. Toronto). Bianca de Divitiis (ERC/ Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II).

A series of six exploratory research seminars.

• prof. dr. Karl Kuegle

From the late 15th until the late 17th century, the architecture of the Low Countries has been a source of inspiration for other regions in Europe. The phenomenon encompasses different styles, ranging from the influence of the ‘flamboyant’ style in Toledo and Brou at the beginning of the period, over the influence of the ‘antiekse werken’ flourishing in Antwerp and, later, in Amsterdam, in the German realm, Scandinavia and England, until finally the growing influence of French court architecture takes the lead in the last quart of the 17th century. The basic question, however, is not one of style: these architectural influences require a systematic study as a structural phenomenon. Which are the mechanisms at work? What is the role of actors and patrons?

- How was the knowledge of Netherlandish architecture disseminated? What was the influence of architectural prints and treatises for artisans, architects and patrons? What was the role of travelling building masters? How important were (family) networks for the exchange of formal and/or technical expertise? What role did the trade in building materials play in the spread of architectural knowledge and forms?

- Who were the patrons? What was their connection with the Low Countries and why did they engage Netherlandish architects? What stimulated this demand? Who were the intermediary agents?

With these questions we want to find an answer to the more general issue: why were experts from the Low Countries called in? Was it because of their technical expertise? Or because they could provide a ‘Netherlandish’ art? Or were they appreciated as intermediates with connections to international architectural currents (such as the flamboyant late gothic from Brabant around 1500, or the ‘antique’ architecture for which Antwerp in the middle of the 16th and Amsterdam in the 17th century were leading centres)?

• Prof.dr. Krista De Jonge (KU Leuven)