Exhibiting the Past to Build a Nation: 19th-Century Identities and Museums in Spain and Italy

Abstract

This article analyses how political and cultural European elites crafted new historical narratives to construct identities during the process of defining the nation-state in the 19th century. It looks specifically at the cases of Spain and Italy, two Mediterranean countries that have common characteristics with regards to the process of crafting their national identities: the use of historical objects and events. The ruling party’s ability to control the past led to the creation of new narratives that would favour their aspirations at the time. These were transmitted through a new tool: history museums. It was not only works of art that were exhibited in these museums; what had previously been considered trivial was also put on display. The familiarity and everyday nature of such objects was used to arouse patriotic feelings in visitors. National wars of independence and their attendant disasters were central themes depicted within deliberate political discourses.

Three case studies show how museums were used to mythologise the most recent historical events at the time in order to generate nationalist sentiment. In the provincial museums of Girona and Badajoz, Spain, space was set aside in exhibitions to pay homage to local heroes of the War of Independence. In Turin, Italy, the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento dedicated a museum to the cult of King Victor Emmanuel II, the Father of the Italian Fatherland. This museum was conceived as a great temple of italianità in which to remember the suffering and wars that had made Italy a new and united country.