In, On, and Of the Inviolable Soil: Pottery and the De-fragmentation of Italian Nationhood

• In Event: 151 - Regular Session. Nations/Nationalism

Abstract

Every nation stakes its claim for validity on a body of material objects and sites that carry historical significance. In Italy this body is vast: Italian state officials, cultural commentators, and international heritage workers estimate that Italian artworks and monuments comprise anywhere between 30 and 90% of the world’s cultural treasures. This count is part of a cultural inventory that completes Italy’s unique strategy of cultural power: a complete reckoning of objects down to the tiniest tesserae or scrap. Within this reckoning, pottery shards take on heightened political and symbolic significance. Why should broken pots measure up against marble statues and Renaissance paintings? What are the affordances of scraps in the project of building national identity, and how can the idea of aniconicity help us to understand the relationship between national identity and iconic materiality? I rely on theories from cultural sociology and archaeology to sustain the discussion.

Author

• Fiona Rose-Greenland, University of Chicago