“Undeniably Greek”. Publishing Byzantine Art and Constructing Local Identity in Post-Unitarian Naples

Praised for its «undeniably Greek personality» throughout the Middle Ages, Naples was deemed as a «stronghold against barbarity» by Michelangelo Schipa (1895). His judgement reflects the wider opinion of the bourgeois historians of Southern Italy, at that time. Modern authors have undermined the impact of Hellenism in medieval Naples, initially Byzantine and then more and more autonomous from the early ninth century on, but the historical understanding of the Neapolitan Duchy tremendously increased thanks to those early studies. Such a «history of the Neapolitan people» then appeared as counterbalancing the former fortune of monarchic Naples, fostered by local aristocrats in times of Ancien Régime. This change of paradigm soon affected the reception of medieval artistic heritage in Naples and across Southern Italy, which until 1860 had been altogether part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Intellectuals engaged in the publication of medieval buildings and artworks, especially in books and periodicals (e.g., Benedetto Croce’s ‘Napoli Nobilissima’). This paper aims at exploring the variety of narratives concerning objects and monuments that exemplified the alleged Greek identity of medieval Naples and the material evidence of Byzantine Southern Italy. Particular attention will be given to the means of documentation and dissemination of knowledge, such as journals and booklets, but also early photographs and catalogues. The attempt will be that of answering to the questions on how did the interest for the local past interacted with the broader Byzantine question permeating the coeval reception of medieval art in Europe; how did the public value that was attached to the Byzantine legacy adapted to the various forms and juridic aspects of medieval heritage (e.g., objects in public and private collections); how people’s attention was awakened and aroused both on the visual and intellectual level to the awareness of this submerged chapter of their past.