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Spraying Inclusion: Graffiti and Street Art as Urban and Digital Social Justice Practice in Contemporary Rome
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De Chirico’s Nostalgie du poète: Pittura Metafisica’s First Visual Manifesto
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History and Business Administration)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.The life and work of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) have long attracted the attention of scholars, both in Italy—such as Paolo Baldacci, Lorenzo Canova, Maurizio Fagiolo dell’ Arco, Elena Pontiggia, and Claudio Spadoni—and internationally, including Matthew Gale, Alain Jouffroy, Ara H. Merjian, Gerd Roos, and Willard Bohn. Extensive research has been conducted on de Chirico’s intellectual and cultural background, which includes the study of the philosophies of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Freud, and a significant interest for Greek mythology. Much of the scholarship has emphasized the artist’s early period in Italy, highlighting the pivotal role of Florence in 1910 in the emergence of Pittura Metafisica. This focus has often overshadowed the significance of de Chirico’s formative years in Paris (1911–1915), which this thesis seeks to re-evaluate. This study contends that it was within the vibrant artistic and intellectual milieu of Paris that de Chirico laid the foundations of his metaphysical language. Central to this development were his interactions with avant-garde circles, his profound relationship with the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and the creative dialogue with his brother, Alberto Savinio—primarily a musician and writer, though also a painter—whose role in introducing de Chirico to the Parisian art world in 1911 was crucial. In the City of Light, de Chirico undertook fruitful, and transformative, artistic production. While de Chirico’s artistic practice caught the attention of major Parisian critics of the time, such as André Salmon, Maurice Raynal, Louis Vauxcelles and most importantly, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the works de Chirico made in Paris before the war remain largely understudied. This thesis centres on La Nostalgie du poète, a painting from early 1914, proposing it as a key event in the crystallization of Pittura Metafisica, whose beginnings are traditionally dated to 1910, in Florence. Through a detailed formal and contextual analysis of the work, in dialogue iii with Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire and close readings of texts by Apollinaire and Savinio, this study reconsiders the broader cultural influences that influenced de Chirico’s evolving visual and theoretical vocabulary during his time in Paris. It identifies recurrent metaphysical motifs— including the figure of Orpheus, the shadow, the fish, the shell, and the tailoring mannequin— and argues for the painting’s status as an early, if not the first, visual manifesto of Pittura Metafisica. This thesis draws on archival material from the Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico, his Casa-Museo, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in Rome, and the Castello Sforzesco’s art libraries, and it also extensively examines de Chirico’s own writings. In doing so, it offers a nuanced reconsideration of La Nostalgie du poète, repositioning it at the very heart of Pittura Metafisica’s genesis
Viewing the Afterlife: Multicultural Intersections in the Frescoes of the Bachkovo Ossuary
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History, Minor in Art and Design)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.Bachkovo Monastery, located in present-day Bulgaria, is home to the only surviving medieval ossuary with preserved decorations in Eastern Europe. The majority of the pictorial program was commissioned by a Georgian donor, and dates to the late eleventh century when the monastery’s territories were part of the Byzantine Empire. Almost three hundred years later, under Bulgarian rule, four side arches within the narthex were enclosed, and new frescoes were added. These additions included a royal portrait of Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331–71), ruler of the Bulgarian kingdom. This thesis explores the multicultural aspects of the ossuary’s frescoes, focusing on two central themes: paradise and donorship. The paradise imagery, found in the eleventh-century frescoes, is closely tied to the ossuary’s role as a funerary monument, designed as a space for worship and reflection on the afterlife. The introduction of royal imagery in the fourteenth century raises questions about the inclusion of contemporary figures in a sacred space meant for transcendence. The thesis explores how these visual motifs reflect theological concepts of the afterlife, just as they engage with the broader political and cultural shifts of the time, between Byzantium and medieval Bulgaria. Building upon the focus of previous scholarship on the visual traditions and their liturgical function at Bachkovo, this study reveals the cross-cultural meanings coded in the ossuary’s frescoes throughout its long history as a memorial space
Igbo Identity Disrupted: The Exponential Effects of Colonialism on Igbo People in Achebe’s African Trilogy
No full textThesis (B.A. in English Literature, Minor in Creative Writing & Communications)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.This thesis looks at the intersection of narrative and archiving in Chinua Achebe’s African Trilogy. Primarily detailing how the novels are archives of colonial history in Igboland from the late 19th century to the late 1950’s. Through textual analysis, the research highlights how colonialism affects psycho-social, cultural, linguistic, and identity politics for the Igbo. Drawing from post-colonial theory, historic records of British colonialism in Igboland and Nigeria, and linguistic theory, the paper illustrates how Achebe covertly and overtly alludes to the destruction of Igbo society’s socio-cultural construction, gender relations, philosophy, theology, linguistics, and epistemology. The Trilogy will be placed in conversation with wa Thiongo’s Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Achebe’s The Education of a British-Protected Child in order to contextualise the novels as not only post-colonial literature but also quasi-theoretical in how the narrative points to an analytical study of colonialism’s impact. Thus, positing that while the novels are works of fiction, their subject matter points towards cultural studies. Therefore, making them cardinal texts both in African literature and in decolonial studies
Defining Italian Rationalism: Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio of Como
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.This thesis will examines the Casa del Fascio in Como by Giuseppe Terragni within the larger context of debates about architectural rationalism during the ventennio fascista. The regime made ample use of avant-garde strategies in adapting “classical” forms, values and references, frequently espousing forms of rationalism to accomplish this. However, what is broadly called rationalism in architecture is in fact a broad and heterogeneous phenomenon. This stylistic pluralism, and its underpinning aesthetic and political debates, has not been sufficiently problematised in the normalising accounts of Modernist Italian architecture by Italian scholars since the 1980s, or by the foreign scholars who focus on either biography and commissions, or on the Fascism’s built environments. Thus this thesis will examine Terragni’s Casa del Fascio, considered to be one of the masterpieces of modern Italian architecture, as a case-study of the debates surrounding rationalism, from the first Esposizione Italiana di Architettura Razionale of 1928 to the inauguration of Terragni’s Casa del Fascio in 1936. Indeed, while Terragni’s work became one of the most famous buildings of Italian modernism, it is architecturally quite different from most rationalist buildings of the 1930s. To dispel the idea that this is solely due to a genius architect’s singular vision, this thesis will examine the process of construction of Casa del Fascio, beginning with the commission of the building, to the proposed alterations after its completion. The building’s footprint, plans, materials and functions, both inside and out, will contribute to an analysis of how these choices were made and these solutions found, within the broader ideological context of Fascist modernism
Religious Beliefs, Magic and Gender Roles in Inca Culture
No full textThesis (B.A. in History)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.This thesis examines the disruption of Inca ritual and cosmological order following the arrival of the Spanish in the Andes. For centuries, the Inca Empire kept balance through a complex system of religious practices, sacred geography, and interdependent relationships with divine figures. However, this equilibrium began to fracture with the intrusion of a foreign power — one that neither recognized the sacred landscape nor looked to coexistence with the gods of the land. The Spanish conquistadors, driven by the pursuit of wealth and guided by the Catholic faith, rejected indigenous forms of worship and cosmological understanding. Their arrival marked not only a political conquest but also a spiritual rupture, a God they introduced displaced centuries of Andean devotion to huacas, sun deities, and ancestral wisdom. Through an analysis of ritual contrast, symbolic interpretation, and the expectations of the Spanish toward indigenous communities, this thesis explores the profound cultural imbalance that unfolded, and the ways in which the Inca worldview both resisted and conformed to these foreign impositions
“One of the Most Celebrated Pictures in Rome”: Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American Tourists and the Portrait of Beatrice Cenci
No full textMaster of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2025.A portrait long-attributed to Guido Reni and presumed to depict Beatrice Cenci soon before her execution on September 11, 1599, became a sensation among nineteenth-century tourists in Rome, especially those from Anglo-American countries. The painting inspired works by some of the most well-known writers of the time, and the image of Beatrice appears on dozens of prints and souvenir objects in museum collections today. Although the nineteenthcentury obsession with this artwork is fundamentally a touristic phenomenon, modern scholarship has not treated it as such. If approached as a tourist attraction, what can the portrait’s place in nineteenth-century Rome’s touristic code reveal about foreign visitors’ encounter with the idea and the reality of the city? This thesis considers tourist responses to the alleged portrait of Beatrice Cenci from a postcolonial perspective and applies the semiotic theories of modern tourism developed by Dean MacCannell, Jonathan Culler, John Frow, and John Urry to investigate how Anglo-American tourists engaged with the object and the image. The analysis focuses on how tourists engaged with print copies, the portrait in the context of the gallery, and the thriving souvenir market. Material from guidebooks, travelogues, letters, diaries, and magazine articles written by and for the Anglo-American tourist audience suggest that this group treated the portrait of Beatrice Cenci as one of the major signs for the Other that was Rome, while they simultaneously interpreted her image as a partial reflection of the Anglo-American Self by contrasting it with types for the authentic cultural Other represented by two portraits in the same gallery: La Fornarina by Raphael and a portrait by Scipione Pulzone believed to depict Beatrice Cenci’s stepmother
Civic associations, populism, and (un-)civic behavior: evidence from Germany
No full textCivic associations are expected to foster civic, pro-social behavior, but this optimistic view is increasingly contested. We argue that populist radical right parties can strategically target and infiltrate associations to diffuse anti-establishment rhetoric and anti-democratic attitudes. We illustrate this phenomenon by examining the relationship between civic associations and compliance with government rules during Germany's first Covid-19 lockdown with a difference-in-differences design. Results show that areas with denser sport, nature, and culture clubs recorded higher mobility under lockdown. We document the infiltration mechanism and the spreading of anti-democratic attitudes within associations, using survey and election data and qualitative evidence including interviews. In doing so, we shed light on a negative effect of social networks and an understudied strategy of challenger populist parties
Francesco Hayez’s Meditazione: Inventing Italian Identity?
No full textThesis (B.A. in Art History, Minor in Entrepreneurship: Innovation in Art and Humanities)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.Nominated Professor of Painting at the Brera Academy in 1850, Francesco Hayez (Venice, 1791 – Milan, 1882) is commemorated today as the first painter of unified Italy. Defined by contemporaries as the artist who “made Italians,” he promoted ideals of national identity in a historical period when the country was fragmented socio-politically and under foreign rule. Praised by the Italian activist Giuseppe Mazzini as the “democratic genius” and protagonist of Italian Romanticism during the Risorgimento, Hayez used history painting and portraiture to create a new imagery that filtered the glorious events of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance through modern values. Among his copious allegorical portraits, mainly produced during the 1840s and 1850s, his most famous is the second version of "Meditazione", dated to 1851. Following the first version of 1850, and closely related to his "Malinconia" (1840–41) and "Un pensiero malinconico" (1842), the second "Meditazione" portrays a seated semi-nude young woman as the allegory of Italy after the failed First War of Independence (1848–49). The new Risorgimento history movement of the 1990s and 2000s led to a revision of this complex period by numerous academics, including Alberto Mario Banti, Paul Ginsborg, John Foot, Adrian Lyttelton, Silvana Patriarca, and Lucy Riall. However, the active role that art played in shaping the history of the Risorgimento has been overlooked, and a reconsideration of the icons of the nation is yet to be treated. Hence, through a hybrid methodological approach that combines visual and contextual analyses with memory and museum studies, this thesis’ aim is to fill a gap in the study of Italian unification. In the first half of this thesis, the function of Hayez’s second "Meditazione" as an icon of pre-unified Italy is closely examined in relation to the concepts of "italianità" [Italianness] and "piccola e grande patria" [small and great fatherland]. This distinction between regional and national identity—which Mazzini’s idea of the nation-state tries to bridge—raises the 2 question of how to construct an image of Italy that is able to shape collective memory when the country is still marked by a strong political, social, economic, and cultural divide between the North and the South. Furthermore, issues including the role of patronage, political censorship, the building of foreign and regional Italian stereotypes, and religious imagery—at a time when the Catholic Church had become an obstacle to Italian unification—are closely examined. The second half of this thesis seeks to study how the Risorgimento is treated today in Italy, by analyzing the function and reception of Hayez’s work from 1938 to present, as part of the permanent collection of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna Achille Forti in Verona. By referencing his portraits for the Habsburg Empire, we raise questions regarding the treatment of Hayez’s patriotic engagement during the Risorgimento. Through these inquiries, we suggest that he was mythically elevated to painter of the national cause by Mazzini and his followers, who were trying to invent and establish the image of a unified Italy. Therefore, this research has a trifold objective: to apply the recent advancements in Risorgimento historiography to the study of "Meditazione"; to analyze how "Meditazione" functions as a "lieu de mémoire" for regional and national identity; and, ultimately, to examine how "Meditazione" is displayed and continues to serve as the most iconic image and personification of the nation. In order to do so, primary sources—including Hayez’s "Le Mie Memorie" and local periodicals—are studied in relation to secondary sources such as catalog raisonnés, recent exhibition catalogs on the Risorgimento, monographic exhibitions about Hayez, and new Risorgimento histories