We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Il pubblico dei musei di antichità nell'Europa del Settecento.
- Authors
Piva, Chiara
- Abstract
This article intends to reconsider the role of the public in the museums of antiquities in the Eighteenth century. In this perspective, the European background is analysed to understand both different chronological inferences and cross-cutting issues, interconnecting data from museum studies, cultural consumption surveys, the history of libraries and the history of gardens. Previous research on the museum public in the Eighteenth century has been strongly influenced by the sources to evaluate the museum visitors themselves. Travel literature was one of the few first-hand sources available for such analysis. In this article, on the other hand, it is argued that travel literature was rather an elitist source, as only a few selected people could afford to publish the accounts of their experience in the museum. For this reason, the author aims to compare old museum regulations and rare studies on the visitor registers, following an inclusive approach and evaluating the pivotal role of the middle class in the museums. In such a new perspective, the interest which arose within the new bourgeois by the opening of the museums in the Eighteenth century is connected to the investigations dedicated to the art collecting in the middle and low classes, which have already shed light on the existence of an art market that was alternative to the one of the great aristocratic collectors.
- Subjects
HISTORY of libraries; MUSEUM studies; ART collecting; TRAVEL literature; EIGHTEENTH century
- Publication
Il Capitale Culturale: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage, 2019, p47
- ISSN
2039-2362
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.13138/2039-2362/2210