This symposium seeks to discuss different conceptualizations, experiences and knowledge transfers concerning the concept of dictatorship during the nineteenth century. The concepts of “dictator” and “dictatorship” experienced an important increase in use during the French Revolution when they were rescued from a register of theoretical language and brought into popular, political and everyday use. The Napoleonic experience underscored this trend, but especially since the Wars of Independence in Spanish America they became something real. Starting from the assumption that dictatorship has its own history within the nineteenth century, leaving behind the ancient Roman paradigm and not reaching twentieth-century totalitarian rules, the symposium aims at establishing both a dialogue among different disciplines like history, history of art, philosophy of law and literary studies and between Latin America and Europe.