Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (19 February 1900 – 17 January 1975) was an Italian

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

Biography

Bianchi Bandinelli was born in Siena to Mario Bianchi Bandinelli (1859–1930) and Margherita Ottilie "Lily" von Korn (Bianchi Bandinelli, 1878–1905), who were descended from ancient aristocracy in

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

. His early research focused on the

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...

centers close to his family lands,

Clusium Clusium ( grc-gre, Κλύσιον, ''Klýsion'', or , ''Kloúsion''; Umbrian:''Camars'') was an ancient city in Italy, one of several found at the site. The current municipality of Chiusi (Tuscany) partly overlaps this Roman walled city. The Roman ...

(1925) and Suana (1929). Disgusted with

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

, despite being the man who showed Hitler around Rome under Mussolini, he converted to

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and became a

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

. He founded a magazine, ''

Società ''Società'' ( Italian: ''Society'') was an Italian communist cultural magazine published in Italy between 1945 and 1961. History and profile ''Società'' was founded as a quarterly magazine in Florence in 1945. The founders were Ranuccio Bianch ...

'', together with Cesare Luporini and

Romano Bilenchi Romano Bilenchi (9 November 1909 – 18 November 1989) was an Italian novelist, short story writer and essayist. He was born in Siena. He was involved with the resistance movement during the Fascist rule of Benito Mussolini. He was also active in t ...

in 1945. As an anti-fascist, he was appointed to a number of important art-historical positions immediately after the war. For example, he was director of the new government's fine arts and antiquities ministry (Antichità e Belle Arti, 1945–48). His memoir of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

was published in 1995 (''Hitler e Mussolini, 1938: il viaggio del Führer in Italia'').

Career

From his chairs at the universities of

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, Bianchi Bandinelli directed a new breed of

archaeologists sensitive to classical history based upon

dialectical materialism Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world con ...

. He also taught at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. In the 1950s and 1960s he undertook the writing of comprehensive texts on classical art intended to reach a wide and literate audience. He founded the ''Enciclopedia dell'arte antica'' in 1958, and in the same year was elected as a foreign member of the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

. In the mid-1960s, Bianchi Bandinelli was commissioned to write the two volumes on Roman art for the French

Arts of Mankind ''The Arts of Mankind'' (in French ''L’Univers des formes''), an ambitious series of art history survey books founded in 1960 for the French publisher Gallimard by André Malraux, who edited many of the volumes in collaboration with art histori ...

series. These works brought his writing to a larger audience and helped usher in social criteria for art into a larger and English-speaking audience. In 1967 he founded the ''Dialoghi di archeologia'' with his students, one of the most innovative, if controversial, periodicals on

classical archaeology Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about i ...

. He was frequently a maverick in his interpretation of art and his arguments were, if not always compelling, forcefully grounded. One such case is his interpretation of the famous

Belvedere Apollo The ''Apollo Belvedere'' (also called the ''Belvedere Apollo, Apollo of the Belvedere'', or ''Pythian Apollo'') is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. The ''Apollo'' is now thought to be an original Roman creation of Hadrianic ...

, a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

copy of a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

work now thought to date to the fourth century B.C. Although hailed by most art historians as a copy of the original work by the Greek master

Leochares Leochares () was a Greek sculptor from Athens, who lived in the 4th century BC. Works Leochares worked at the construction of the Mausoleum of Mausolos at Halicarnassus, one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World". The ''Diana of Versaille ...

, Bianchi Bandinelli characterized the piece as a frigid copy of a Hellenistic work without relation to

. One of his interests was the interrelation between

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

and

art. His students included some of the most influential Italian archaeologists of the 20th century, among whom were

Giovanni Becatti Giovanni Becatti (5 December 1912 – 10 April 1973) was an Italian Classical art historian and archaeologist. Born at Siena, Becatti was educated at the University of Rome under Giulio Giglioli. Becatti was appointed to the Superintendency of ...

, Antonio Giuliano,

Mario Torelli Mario Torelli (May 12, 1937 – September 15, 2020) was an Italian scholar of Italic archaeology and the culture of the Etruscans. He taught at the University of Perugia. Torelli was born in Rome, Italy. He was trained by the art historian Ranu ...

Andrea Carandini Andrea Carandini (born November 3, 1937) is an Italian professor of archaeology specialising in ancient Rome. Among his many excavations is the villa of Settefinestre. Biography The son of Italian diplomat Count Nicolò Carandini (1896–1972 ...

and

Filippo Coarelli Filippo Coarelli is an Italian archaeologist, Professor of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the University of Perugia. Born in Rome, Coarelli was a student of Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli. Coarelli is one of the foremost experts on Roman antiquiti ...

. Bianchi Bandinelli was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

in 1966.

Publications

#''Clusium: Ricerche archeologich e topografiche su

Chiusi Chiusi ( Etruscan: ''Clevsin''; Umbrian: ''Camars''; Ancient Greek: ''Klysion'', ''Κλύσιον''; Latin: ''Clusium'') is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Siena, Tuscany, Italy. History Clusium (''Clevsin'' in Etruscan) was one ...

il suo territorio in età etrusca'' (1925) #''La critica d'arte'' (journal publisher from 1935, editor and co-founder) #''Apollo di Belvedere'' (1935) #''Storicità dell'arte classica'' (1950) #''Nozioni di storia dell'archeologia e di storiografia dell'arte antica: lezioni introduttive del corso di archeologia'' (1952) #''Enciclopedia dell'arte antica, classica e orientale'' (1958–1966, editor) #''Arte etrusca e arte italica'' (1963, editor) #''The Buried City: Excavations at Leptis Magna'' (1966, editor) #''Roma: L'arte romana nel centro del potere'' (''Rome: The Center of Power, 500 B.C. to A.D. 200.'', 1969) #''Roma: La fine dell'arte antica'' (''Rome: The Late Empire, Roman Art A.D. 200–400'', 1970) #''L'Arte dell'antichità classica'' (1976, directed). #''Dialoghi di archeologia'' (serial, editor) #''Hitler e Mussolini, 1938: il viaggio del Führer in Italia'' (1995)

References

Sources

*Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. ''Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Information in the Humanities'', no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, pp. 137–8 *Barzanti, Roberto. ''Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli: archeologo curioso del futuro''. Siena: Protagon, 1994 *Barbanera, Marcello.
Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli e il suo mondo
', Bari
Edipuglia
/ Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", 2000. *Barbanera, Marcello. ''Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli: biografia ed epistolario di un grande archeologo''. Milan: Skira, 2003.

External links

''Dictionary of Art Historians''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bianchi Bandinelli, Ranuccio 1900 births 1975 deaths People from Siena Classical archaeologists Italian archaeologists Italian art historians Italian classical scholars Italian Marxists Italian Marxist historians University of Florence faculty University of Groningen faculty Foreign Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Etruscan scholars 20th-century Italian historians Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin 20th-century archaeologists Italian magazine founders