Local Antiquities, Local Identities : Art, Literature and Antiquarianism in Europe, c. 1400-1700

This book considers a range of antiquarian practices - history-writing, archaeological investigations, works of art, architecture and literature - that emerged in early modern Europe. Challenging the idea of a single 'Renaissance', it assembles essays on local antiquities in Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. -- .

This collection investigates the wide array of local antiquarian practices that developed across Europe in the early modern era. Breaking new ground, it explores local concepts of antiquity in a period that has been defined as a uniform ''Renaissance''. Contributors take a novel approach to the revival of the antique in different parts of Italy, as well as examining other, less widely studied antiquarian traditions in France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Britain and Poland. They consider how real or fictive ruins, inscriptions and literary works were used to demonstrate a particular idea of local origins, to rewrite history or to vaunt civic pride. In doing so, they tackle such varied subjects as municipal antiquities collections in Southern Italy and France, the antiquarian response to the pagan, Christian and Islamic past on the Iberian Peninsula, and Netherlandish interest in megalithic ruins thought to be traces of a prehistoric race of Giants.