Description
Book SynopsisThe Allure of the Ancient investigates how the ancient Middle East was imagined and appropriated for artistic, scholarly, and political purposes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bringing together scholars of the ancient and early modern worlds, the volume approaches reception history from an interdisciplinary perspective, asking how early modern artists and scholars interpreted ancient Middle Eastern civilizations—such as Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia—and how their interpretations were shaped by early modern contexts and concerns. The volume’s chapters cross disciplinary boundaries in their explorations of art, philosophy, science, and literature, as well as geographical boundaries, spanning from Europe to the Caribbean to Latin America. Contributors are: Elisa Boeri, Mark Darlow, Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby, Florian Ebeling, Margaret Geoga, Diane Greco Josefowicz, Andrea L. Middleton, Julia Prest, Felipe Rojas Silva, Maryam Sanjabi, Michael Seymour, John Steele, and Daniel Stolzenberg.
Table of ContentsEditors’ Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Notes on the Editors Notes on the Contributors 1 Introduction Margaret Geoga and John Steele 2 Images of Babylon in Early Modern Europe Michael Seymour 3 Between Babylon and Rome: The Panorama of Constantinople (1662) Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby 4 Collapsing Identities of Ptolemaic Queens in Early Modern Rome Andrea L. Middleton 5 Reading the East: From the Enlightenment to the Utopic Projects of the Revolutionary Architects Elisa Boeri 6 Freemasons and Platonism: The Allure of Egypt between Big Ideas and Small Details Florian Ebeling 7 Zoroaster’s French Moment Maryam Sanjabi 8 Ancient and Modern: Citational Practices and the Status of Ancient Egypt in Jean Terrasson’s Séthos Margaret Geoga 9 Representing Egypt in French Enlightenment Musical Theatre: From Gherardi to the Opéra national Mark Darlow 10 From Tragic Hero to Creole Businesswoman: Voltaire’s Semiramis and Her Parodies in 18th-Century France and Saint-Domingue Julia Prest 11 Babylonians in Sixteenth-Century Mexico: Comparative Antiquarianism in the Work of Sahagún Felipe Rojas Silva 12 Egypt and Babylon in Eighteenth-Century European Histories of Astronomy John Steele 13 What Was Oriental Studies in Early Modern Europe? “Oriental Languages” and the Making of a Discipline Daniel Stolzenberg 14 On Religious Systems: An Early Essay by Jean-François Champollion Diane Greco Josefowicz Index Nominum
