Julio Torres, Intern
Wayne Sandholtz is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. He’s the author of European Integration and Supranational Governance and co-edited The Institutionalization of Europe with Alec Stone Sweet and Neil Fligstein. In his most recent book Prohibiting Plunder: How Norms Change, Sandholtz chronicles the history of war plunder and how norms and regulations have changed through the ages. The book examines events from before 1800 to the recent case of the Iraqi National Museum, tracing how current anti-plundering norms came to be.
In the following excerpt, Sandholtz recounts the relevance of art plunder in Napoleonic France. Seizing the art of conquered territories for the Musée Napoléon was of great importance to Bonaparte, who even appointed art specialists to go with his army to the territories—a title that was part curator, part pillager.
Napoleon began his illustrious career in art plunder as general of the French forces in Italy. Both the general and the Directoire in Paris assigned art experts to accompany the army. Napoleon’s commission to Jacques-Pierre Tinet named him “agent attached to the army of Italy charged with gathering, in the conquered lands, paintings, masterpieces and other monuments of antiquity that will be judged worthy to be sent to Paris” (Gould 1965, 45). The art requisitions in Italy differed from those in Belgium and the Rhine Cities in that they were generally formalized in the treaties imposed on the various Italian states. Subsequently, the French could claim that the flow of masterpieces from Italy to France was proper because the Italians had assented to it in legal documents.
The haul from Italy was commensurate with the extent of the treasures to be harvested: immense. In early May, Bonaparte had requested a list of the paintings, sculptures and other collections to be found in Milan, Parma, Piacenza, Modena and Bologna. The armistice with the Duke of Parma (May 1796) required him to turn over 20 paintings, to be chosen by the French commanding general. The Duke of Modena was obligated to offer 20 paintings plus 70 manuscripts from the library. Bologna lost 31 paintings, 115 prints, 546 manuscripts and some Etruscan antiquities. The treaty with Venice (May 1797) stipulated 20 paintings and 500 manuscripts. In addition, the French carried away the four bronze horses of St. Mark’s cathedral and the lion of St. Mark’s square, though the treaty had made no mention of them. Milan, Verona, Perugia, Loreto, Pavia, Cento, Cremona, Pesaro, Fano and Massa all rendered to Napoleon his artistic tribute. By the treaty of Tolentino (February 1797), Pope Pius VI agreed to hand over 100 treasures from the Vatican, to be shipped immediately to France (Müntz 1895, 385-92; 1896, 481-502).
One of the art commissioners in Italy, Thouin, wrote a letter urging that the treasures from the peninsula not be unloaded on the quai du Louvre like so many boxes of soap and proposing a triumphal procession. The ensuing celebration in July 1798 included a parade of art treasures—including the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön, Raphael’s Transfiguration, the Saint Jerome of Correggio, and paintings by Titan and Veronese—on 29 carts, accompanied by troops, dignitaries, a military band and wagons with caged bears, lions and camels. Preceding the carts was a banner whose inscription explicitly placed France alongside the