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

The French Revolution had a deep effect on architecture in late eighteenth-century France. (1) smooth before the Revolution, the Academie Royale d'Architecture in Paris had been a exhibition of dissent. The choice of the Grand Prix winner at the Academie d'Architecture and the bureaucracy surrounding the combination of parts to form a whole had frequently caused dissatisfaction amongst the scholars (2) In April 1790, the students' petitions for changes in the regulations were ignored, with the be the effect that many of them refused to out and out the Grand Prix and resigned. below the aegis of the painter David, the talk des Arts was created, and by the agency of August 1793, the Convention had secur the suppression of all the Academies, including the Academie de France a Rome (3) Despite these bureaucratic upheavals, architectural training in Paris remained fairly consistent, owing to the teaching presented at the school of the Academie d'Architecture race by Julien-David Leroy, who enlisted as his associate Antoine-Laurent-Thomas Vaudoyer, while Percier and Fontaine serv upon a committee judging the students' work. (4) The succes of Leroy's academy probably influenced the decision taken in October 1795 by the agency of the Convention, just before it was replaced by dint of the Directory, to set up a fresh architectural school and re-establish the Prix de Rome and the Academie de France a Rome

Perhaps the greatest in quantity important way in which the Revolution affected architecture in France, however, was from one side the decline in commissions for practising architects. The position and resources of the aristocracy and the house of worship which had provided important patronage for the artistic community, had been undermined, with the be the effect that there was little standard of value available for building projects. Many architects go throughed unemployment, while others travelled abroad for work or move rounded their hand to writing architectural treatises as an alternative source of income. (5) The Convention wanted to take back the building projects of the ancien regime, on the contrary little came of its report proposing the construction of centurys of new streets, the creation of more squares, the improvement of the of advanced age quartiers and the decoration of the city more generally. (6) notwithstanding the Revolution did provide more [i]or[/i] less new opportunities for architects to occupy their skills. Architects were exigencyed to transform buildings made redundant by the agency of the Revolution, such as churches, into buildings serving fresh public needs. (7) The conversion of Ste Genevieve into a national Pantheon below the aegis of Quatremere de Quincy is the greatest in quantity famous example. (8) In many ways, the Revolution was itself matched by the agency of a revolution in architecture in the faculty of perception that the types of building required and whole end of building after the Revolution had significantly altered. (9) Temporary forms had formerly been erected for festivals and exerciseed in theatre sets, (10) on the contrary the last decade of the eighteenth hundred witnessed the development of a radically fresh kind of temporary monument, and single which was uniquely suited to the circumstances of the Revolution. records were designed to commemorate the Revolution in Paris and quite through France. Not all of these remembrancers were constructed, but the Roman character of the manner of makings and of their iconography is apparent from their designs.

It is clear from many of the designs for remembrancers reproduced in a recent research (11) that the Revolutionaries in Paris consistently regarded themselves as ancient Romans in metes of their building plans for the city. They place up temporary monuments to commemorate their heroes, ofttimes in the form of sepulchral pyramids reminiscent of the testimonial to Gaius Cestius, which had been inspiring Academie scholars such as Nicolas-Henri Jardin since the 1740 (Fig. 1) (12) The programmes for competitions among learners at the Academie Royale d'Architecture also influenced the amphitheatres, hippodromes and circuses which were designed to accommodate enormous crowds at Revolutionary spectacles. (13) The design for the Festival of the Federation (Fig. 2) held upon the Champ de Mars upon 14 July 1790, involved the construction of an immense triumphal arch. This serv as a magnificent entrance to the area above looked by the Ecole Militaire, and at the same time as a means of guiding the procession of clan to and from the site. (14) The Revolutionaries were ardent to erect permanent structures to commemorate their achievements, and planned to regenerate the city of Paris as a whole. The rapid changes in rule however, meant that the plethora of round pillars and temples which were designed during the Revolution in greatest in quantity cases remained on the drawing board. still temporary monuments and festival mode of buildings continued to be built, and enabled the Revolutionaries, in a certain quantity of respects, to create their 'new Rome' in Paris. (15) With the erection of festival memorials such as the Egyptian fountain, triumphal arch, figures of Liberty and Hercules and the monumental round pillar constructed as five of the processional 'stations' for the Festival of Unity and Indivisibility upon 10 August 1793 (Fig. 3) the Revolutionaries appropriated important sites in the city and transformed the urban space of the city into Republican, rather than royalist space. (16)