Roman Republicans, fasces and festivals: the French occupation of Rome, 1798-99, from the archives of the Museo Napoleonico

Apollo, Jan, 2004 by Eleanor Tollfree

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In Rome, the Revolution had a more profound effect on the teaching offered by the Academie there than on the Academie d'Architecture in Paris. At first, the fall of the Bastille had made relatively little impact on Italy and Rome. There was keen interest in what was going on in France, but the mood which prevailed was one of detachment from the events of the Revolution. It was only as rumours of French anticlericalism spread to Rome and the Revolutionaries became more radical in their protests that a sense of unease started to be felt and the students at the Academie grew restless about not being able to take part in events back home. (31) When the French Republic's new ambassador, Nicolas Hugou de Bassville, arrived in Rome he found most of the students to be fervent supporters of the Revolution, (32) and as news reached Rome of the attack on the Tuileries and the imprisonment of the royal family back in Paris, the students tore down the royal portraits in the Academie, overturned the symbolic papal throne and put in its place a cast of the head of Brutus from the Capitoline. (33) In these circumstances, the Palazzo Mancini became a focus for anti-French feeling in Rome. The Roman populace, infuriated and resentful at the French, many of whom they had seen sporting red cockades round the city, sacked and stormed the Academie, destroying many of the casts of antiquities displayed in the school which seemed to reflect the French threat to Italy and its culture. (34) The disestablishment of the Roman Catholic church, the further development of war between France and the allied powers and the Terror of 1793-94, after which a stream of refugees started to fill Rome, only worsened the situation there. Following the invasion of northern Italy by the French during the Franco-Austrian war of 1796-97, the ravaging experienced by Lombardy, Emilia, Liguria and the Veneto, and the removal of one hundred works art from collections in Rome, sanctioned by the Treaty of Tolentino of 1 February 1797, it became clear that the French had set their sights on the occupation of Rome. (35) The establishment of the Roman Republic in 1798 gave the French an unrivalled opportunity to install themselves in Rome and to become acquainted with the collections and architecture of ancient Rome. They displayed their unique interest in the culture of ancient Rome by appropriating for themselves the monuments of the ancient city, in particular, the Imperial Forum and the Capitoline. A variety of contemporary sketches and engravings in the archives of the Museo Napoleonico depict the events of the Roman Republic, in particular the temporary monuments which were erected for festivals in the city. These images vividly convey how the French chose important sites for their festivals and even employed the fabric of the ancient city to articulate their ideals. (36)