In the early modern period, the concept of national identity differed greatly from the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ideology of the nation state. The word natio defined a group of persons unified by common territorial origins and cultural markers such as language, habits, customs, traditions, and confessions. Crucial to the construction of one’s own national identity was its performance in comparison and opposition to others’. Like no other city in Europe, Rome, home of the papacy, destination of pilgrims, and metropolis of art, was a perpetual hub for foreigners and thus was an ideal laboratory for the formation of national identities and their representation on an international stage.

The aim of this panel is to locate and define emerging notions and expressions of nationhood in Rome from the 15th through the 17th centuries. We are particularly interested in the material, visual, and intellectual practices of nationhood. For example, the churches built by the nationes with their paintings and sculptures, their music and their ephemeral decorations, their feasts and processions were manifestations of the collective identities of foreign communities and were understood as such. But nationhood was also expressed through a variety of other individual or institutionalized practices, including embassy, client-patron networks, charity, trade etc.

We seek papers that analyze the meaning of the concept natio and the performance of nationhood by the communities of foreigners in pre-modern Rome. Possible subjects may include:
- visual representations of nationhood and national traditions
- institutionalization of the nationes (hospices, confraternities, churches, oratories, palaces…)
- forming national networks, allies, agents, and brokers
- rivalry and conflict among the nations
- divided loyalties: nation vs. family or other alliances
- properties, public space and publicity

This panel is organized by the Minerva Research Group “Roma communis patria. The National Churches in Rome from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era”, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome.

Please send a 200-word proposal and short CV to Susanne Kubersky-Piredda, Principal Investigator, Minerva Research Group (kubersky@biblhertz.it) by 2 June, 2014.