Books by Han Lamers
This essay deals with the early history of the notion of an ‘afterlife of antiquity’ as a metapho... more This essay deals with the early history of the notion of an ‘afterlife of antiquity’ as a metaphor for thinking about antiquity’s continued presence in later periods. Nachleben der Antike is often associated with Aby Warburg and Renaissance art but was first applied to the classical tradition of the Middle Ages by the Czech-German historian Anton Heinrich Springer (1825–1891). His provocative essay on the subject, first published in 1862, is a very early attempt to emancipate the classical tradition from strait-laced classicism and to see it as a historical problem. Springer’s approach anticipated some important later trends in understanding antiquity’s continued presence and significance. Afterlife of Antiquity returns something of the original resonance to Springer’s idea and sheds light on its significance in the history of scholarship. Recognizing some of the theoretical tensions inherent in Springer’s discussion, the current work examines how the notion of an afterlife of antiquity was embedded in the author’s wider interest in artistic tradition and how he used it as a polemical concept targeting both anti-classicizing Romanticist and traditional humanist views of medieval culture. This issue of Studies in Iconology also includes the first English translation of Springer’s Das Nachleben der Antike im Mittelalter, a largely forgotten classic of humanities scholarship, read and admired by Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky.
This book discusses the transformation of Byzantine Hellenism as the cultural elite of Byzantium,... more This book discusses the transformation of Byzantine Hellenism as the cultural elite of Byzantium, displaced to Italy, constructed it. It explores why and how Byzantine migrants such as Cardinal Bessarion, Ianus Lascaris, and Giovanni Gemisto adopted Greek personas to replace traditional Byzantine claims to the heirship of ancient Rome. In 'Greece Reinvented', Han Lamers shows that being Greek in the diaspora was both blessing and burden, and explores how these migrants’ newfound ‘Greekness’ enabled them to create distinctive positions for themselves while promoting group cohesion. These Greek personas reflected Latin understandings of who the Greeks ‘really’ were but sometimes also undermined Western paradigms. 'Greece Reinvented' reveals some of the cultural tensions that bubble under the surface of the much-studied transmission of Greek learning from Byzantium to Italy.
This is the first Dutch translation (with notes) of Manuel Chrysoloras' "Comparison between Old a... more This is the first Dutch translation (with notes) of Manuel Chrysoloras' "Comparison between Old and New Rome" (with an epilogue on Chrysoloras' life, work, and significance).
Edited volumes by Han Lamers
Studia in honorem Vibeke Roggen, 2022
This book pays homage to Vibeke Roggen, Associate Professor of Latin at the University of Oslo, w... more This book pays homage to Vibeke Roggen, Associate Professor of Latin at the University of Oslo, who has been a driving force and guiding spirit of classical culture in Norway. On the occasion of her retirement in 2022, national and international colleagues as well as former students have joined forces to acknowledge her commitment to Classics by contributing to this Festschrift. It is dedicated to Vibeke Roggen in gratitude and admiration for the inexhaustible energy, enthusiasm and generosity with which she has promoted the study of Latin and classical culture over the last few decades.
This book deals with the use of Latin as a literary and epigraphic language under Italian Fascism... more This book deals with the use of Latin as a literary and epigraphic language under Italian Fascism (1922–1943). The myth of Rome lay at the heart of Italian Fascist ideology, and the ancient language of Rome, too, played an important role in the regime’s cultural politics. This collection deepens our understanding of ‘Fascist Latinity’, presents a range of previously little-known material, and opens up a number of new avenues of research. The chapters explore the pivotal role of Latin in constructing a link between ancient Rome and Fascist Italy; the different social and cultural contexts in which Latin texts functioned in the ventennio fascista; and the way in which ‘Fascist Latinity’ relied on, and manipulated, the ‘myth of Rome’ of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italy.
Contributors: William Barton (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Xavier van Binnebeke (KU Leuven), Paolo Fedeli (Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro), Han Lamers (University of Oslo), Johanna Luggin (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Antonino Nastasi (Rome), Bettina Reitz-Joosse (University of Groningen), Dirk Sacré (KU Leuven), Valerio Sanzotta (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Wolfgang Strobl (Toblach).
This volume, edited by Natasha Constantinidou and Han Lamers, investigates modes of receiving and... more This volume, edited by Natasha Constantinidou and Han Lamers, investigates modes of receiving and responding to Greeks, Greece, and Greek in early modern Europe (15th-17th centuries). The book's seventeen detailed studies illuminate the reception of Greek culture (the classical, Byzantine, and even post-Byzantine traditions), the Greek language (ancient, vernacular, and 'humanist'), as well as the people claiming, or being assigned, Greek identities during this period in different geographical and cultural contexts.
Discussing subjects as diverse as, for example, Greek studies and the Reformation, artistic interchange between Greek East and Latin West, networks of communication in the Greek diaspora, and the ramifications of Greek antiquarianism, the book aims at encouraging a more concerted debate about the role of Hellenism in early modern Europe that goes beyond disciplinary boundaries, and opening ways towards a more over-arching understanding of this multifaceted cultural phenomenon.
Contributors: Aslıhan Akışık-Karakullukçu, Michele Bacci, Malika Bastin-Hammou, Peter Bell, Michail Chatzidakis, Federica Ciccolella, Calliope Dourou, Anthony Ellis, Niccolò Fattori, Maria Luisa Napolitano, Janika Päll, Luigi-Alberto Sanchi, Niketas Siniossoglou, William Stenhouse, Paola Tomè, Raf Van Rooy, and Stefan Weise.
International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 2018
The five papers collected in this special issue of the International Journal of the Classical Tra... more The five papers collected in this special issue of the International Journal of the Classical Tradition show some of the ways in which scholars in early modern Europe shaped, used and gave meaning to Greek learning.
Table of contents: Han Lamers, "Constructing Hellenism: Studies on the History of Greek Learning in Early Modern Europe" (Introduction); Filippomaria Pontani, "Hellenic Verse and Christian Humanism: From Nonnus to Musurus"; Gerald Sandy, "Guillaume Budé and the Uses of Greek"; Natasha Constantinidou, "Constructions of Hellenism Through Printing and Editorial Choices: The Case of Adrien de Turnèbe, Royal Lecturer and Printer in Greek (1512–1565)"; Bernd Roling, "Joshua Apollo: Edmund Dickinson’s Delphi phoenizantes and the Biblical Origins of Greece in Seventeenth-Century England"; Asaph Ben-Tov, "Hellenism in the Context of Oriental Studies: The Case of Johann Gottfried Lakemacher (1695–1736)".
European Review of History / Revue européenne d'histoire, 2014
Table of contents: J. Hylkema & H. Lamers, "Between Emblem and Labyrinth: The Many Images of Euro... more Table of contents: J. Hylkema & H. Lamers, "Between Emblem and Labyrinth: The Many Images of Europe in Art, Literature, and Scholarship, 1500–1800" (p. 789); J. L. Smith, "Europe's Confused Transmutation: The Realignment of Moral Cartography in Juan de la Cosa's 'Mappa Mundi' (1500)" (p. 799); E. Smith, "De-personifying Collaert's Four Continents: European Descriptions of Continental Diversity, 1585–1625" (p. 817); B. Cornea, "Princely Longing for Europe: Constantine II Brâncoveanu's Mogoşoaia Palace (1702) and the Creation of a European Identity" (p. 837); R. Chung-yam Po, "Maritime Countries in the Far West: Western Europe in Xie Qinggao's 'Records of the Sea' (c.1783–93)" (p. 857); D. Eggel, "A Civilisation at Peril: Goethe's Representation of Europe During the 'Sattelzeit'" (p. 871); T. Van Hal, "One Continent, One Language? 'Europa Celtica' and Its Language in Philippus Cluverius' 'Germania antiqua' (1616) and Beyond" (p. 889).
Articles & chapters (selection) by Han Lamers
Languages and Cross-Cultural Exchanges in Renaissance Italy, 2023
Lamers, Han. ‘Ascanio Persio and the Greekness of Italian’. In Languages and Cross-Cultural Excha... more Lamers, Han. ‘Ascanio Persio and the Greekness of Italian’. In Languages and Cross-Cultural Exchanges in Renaissance Italy, edited by Alessandra Petrocchi, and Joshua Brown, 359–87. Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30. Turnhout: Brepols, 2023.
Classical Receptions Journal, Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 435–462, 2022
The early modern Low Countries formed a multilingual region where Latin and several vernaculars l... more The early modern Low Countries formed a multilingual region where Latin and several vernaculars lived in symbiosis. It is often forgotten, however, that Ancient Greek was also cultivated among the cultural and intellectual elite, so intensely that a vast corpus of Greek texts was produced in this region. This article offers a first exploration of the reasons behind this cultural phenomenon. It starts with a general introduction, including a state of research in the field and a first survey of the source materials. The main body of the article is divided into two parts. The first situates the so-called New Ancient Greek literature of the early modern Low Countries in historical perspective by introducing first Greek studies and then Greek composition in this region. Against this background, the second part explores what motivated and inspired this Greek literary production in four sections, each discussing an important aspect of the phenomenon under study: language learning, cultural distinction, networks and communities, and aesthetic appreciation. The article thus demonstrates that writing in Greek in the early modern era had uses far beyond showing off one’s literary talent and erudition.
Studia in honorem Vibeke Roggen, 2022
Symbolae Osloenses 96, 2022
This article explores the role and functions of Latin in the political rhetoric of Benito Mussoli... more This article explores the role and functions of Latin in the political rhetoric of Benito Mussolini. Through an analysis of his published writings and speeches, it investigates how Mussolini’s understanding, perceptions, and uses of Latin evolved over time, from his early days as a Socialist leader to his years as head of Italian Fascism. Despite his limited knowledge of the language, Mussolini accorded Latin special symbolic significance and actively sought to cultivate an image of himself as proficient in it. The article demonstrates how Mussolini's initial association of Latin with the Roman Catholic Church and bourgeois culture gave way to a recognition of its political potential in the context of the Fascist cult of Rome. It is shown how Mussolini employed Latin words and phrases for various purposes throughout his political career. Particular emphasis is placed on the ways in which he used Latin to communicate Fascist ideas and to construct his public persona as the ‘Roman-style’ leader of Fascism.
Studies in the Latin Literature and Epigraphy of Italian Fascism, 2020
History of Humanities, 2020
This contribution serves to start a more thoroughgoing discussion about the phenomenon of scholar... more This contribution serves to start a more thoroughgoing discussion about the phenomenon of scholarly forgetting within the humanities beyond disciplinary boundaries. How can one explain the fact that knowledge, at some point circulating in the scholarship , eventually sinks into oblivion and, in some cases, even escapes the attention of the historian of scholarship? The essay argues that each instance of scholarly forgetting should be understood against the backdrop of a complex interplay between the "Vergessenspotential" of the object under consideration and the working context of the forgetting community. It examines how processes of forgetting have co-shaped both the humanities and how scholars think about its history. In conjunction with this, it discusses how we, as historians of scholarship, may deal with scholarly forgetting more self-consciously than has been attempted before.
Fascism, 2019
This article analyses Francesco Giammaria’s Capitolium Novum, a Latin poem describing a tour of t... more This article analyses Francesco Giammaria’s Capitolium Novum, a Latin poem describing a tour of the historic center of Rome in 1933, in its historical, architectural, and intellectual contexts. It offers a detailed analysis of three key sections of the poem, which deal with the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine, and the Ara dei caduti fascisti respectively. The authors show how Giammaria’s poem responds to urbanistic interventions in the city center during the ventennio, and specifically to the Fascist ‘recoding’ of the city as the ‘Third Rome’, with a narrative emphasizing the historically layered nature of Rome. Giammaria offers his own interpretation of the respective importance and interrelation of the city’s historic layers: the rhetoric of his poem is aimed at superimposing Catholic Rome over pagan Rome, and at framing all historical layers of the city, including the Fascist one, as part of its Christian mission and destiny. Thus, Capitolium novum resonates with efforts of intellectuals gathered around Carlo Galassi Paluzzi’s Istituto di Studi Romani, who aimed to promote a cultural reconciliation between Fascism and Catholicism.
Making and Rethinking the Renaissance. Between Greek and Latin in 15th-16th Century Europe, ed. by Giancarlo Abbamonte & Stephen Harrison, pp. 27-50. Walter de Gruyter: Berlin/Munich/Boston, 2019
This paper reconsiders Janus Lascaris’ Florentine Oration (1493) by analyzing its central argumen... more This paper reconsiders Janus Lascaris’ Florentine Oration (1493) by analyzing its central argument that the Latin language is Greek (Latina lingua Graeca est). It situates Lascaris’ thesis in the context of ancient ideas about the relationship between Latin and Greek (chiefly Aeolism) and their reception in later periods. Specifically, it discusses his use of etymology, indebted not only to Latin but also to Byzantine sources. Outlining a ‘reconstructive’ method based on etymology to trace Latin words to their alleged Greek roots, Lascaris’ Florentine Oration not only marks an important moment in the reception history of Aeolism, but also complicates the ways in which the story of its reception has usually been told.
Francesco Filelfo: Man of Letters, ed. by J. De Keyser, pp. 22-44. Brill: Leiden-Boston, 2018
Tertradio, 2017
Imagined Greekness: Identifications with the Ancient Greeks in Early Modern Europe
This article ... more Imagined Greekness: Identifications with the Ancient Greeks in Early Modern Europe
This article examines the ways in which early modern scholars sometimes identified themselves and their communities with the ancient Greeks in their quest for distinctive cultural identities. This ‘imagined Greekness’ has mostly been discussed in the context of French humanism, where it is generally referred to as "celt’-hellénisme", suggesting that it was a consistent ideology. This paper shows that, in sixteenth-century French humanism, ‘Greekness’ was not an entirely coherent set of ideas but entailed a range of different perspectives on the connections between French and Greek culture. Moreover, it shows that identifications with the ancient Greeks were not confined to France but occurred in various cultural and political contexts throughout Europe, from Southern Italy to Finland, roughly from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Whereas a full history of the phenomenon is still lacking, this article offers a first overview of the subject and indicates some avenues for further research.
Lampas. Tijdschrift voor classici, 2018
Italian Fascism anchored its revolutionary ideology in the Roman past, embedding and legitimising... more Italian Fascism anchored its revolutionary ideology in the Roman past, embedding and legitimising changes in every sphere of life through an appeal to a supposedly shared Roman heritage. In this article, we scrutinise these Fascist dynamics of anchoring through an analysis of the Mussolini obelisk in Rome and the Latin text hidden below it: Aurelio Amatucci’s Codex Fori Mussolini. We focus especially on the Fascist manipulation of the obelisk tradition, the significance of Amatucci’s choice of language, and his use of ancient authors within the Codex. We argue that the ‘ground’ in which monument and text are anchored is fundamentally unstable: the Roman past itself is a dynamic and adaptable construction. Obelisk and Codex selectively evoke and (re-)combine a multiplicity of elements – from antiquity to the twentieth century, from the Renaissance to the Risorgimento. In doing so, obelisk and text shape the very tradition in which they anchor.
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Books by Han Lamers
Edited volumes by Han Lamers
Contributors: William Barton (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Xavier van Binnebeke (KU Leuven), Paolo Fedeli (Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro), Han Lamers (University of Oslo), Johanna Luggin (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Antonino Nastasi (Rome), Bettina Reitz-Joosse (University of Groningen), Dirk Sacré (KU Leuven), Valerio Sanzotta (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Wolfgang Strobl (Toblach).
Discussing subjects as diverse as, for example, Greek studies and the Reformation, artistic interchange between Greek East and Latin West, networks of communication in the Greek diaspora, and the ramifications of Greek antiquarianism, the book aims at encouraging a more concerted debate about the role of Hellenism in early modern Europe that goes beyond disciplinary boundaries, and opening ways towards a more over-arching understanding of this multifaceted cultural phenomenon.
Contributors: Aslıhan Akışık-Karakullukçu, Michele Bacci, Malika Bastin-Hammou, Peter Bell, Michail Chatzidakis, Federica Ciccolella, Calliope Dourou, Anthony Ellis, Niccolò Fattori, Maria Luisa Napolitano, Janika Päll, Luigi-Alberto Sanchi, Niketas Siniossoglou, William Stenhouse, Paola Tomè, Raf Van Rooy, and Stefan Weise.
Table of contents: Han Lamers, "Constructing Hellenism: Studies on the History of Greek Learning in Early Modern Europe" (Introduction); Filippomaria Pontani, "Hellenic Verse and Christian Humanism: From Nonnus to Musurus"; Gerald Sandy, "Guillaume Budé and the Uses of Greek"; Natasha Constantinidou, "Constructions of Hellenism Through Printing and Editorial Choices: The Case of Adrien de Turnèbe, Royal Lecturer and Printer in Greek (1512–1565)"; Bernd Roling, "Joshua Apollo: Edmund Dickinson’s Delphi phoenizantes and the Biblical Origins of Greece in Seventeenth-Century England"; Asaph Ben-Tov, "Hellenism in the Context of Oriental Studies: The Case of Johann Gottfried Lakemacher (1695–1736)".
Articles & chapters (selection) by Han Lamers
This article examines the ways in which early modern scholars sometimes identified themselves and their communities with the ancient Greeks in their quest for distinctive cultural identities. This ‘imagined Greekness’ has mostly been discussed in the context of French humanism, where it is generally referred to as "celt’-hellénisme", suggesting that it was a consistent ideology. This paper shows that, in sixteenth-century French humanism, ‘Greekness’ was not an entirely coherent set of ideas but entailed a range of different perspectives on the connections between French and Greek culture. Moreover, it shows that identifications with the ancient Greeks were not confined to France but occurred in various cultural and political contexts throughout Europe, from Southern Italy to Finland, roughly from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Whereas a full history of the phenomenon is still lacking, this article offers a first overview of the subject and indicates some avenues for further research.
Contributors: William Barton (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Xavier van Binnebeke (KU Leuven), Paolo Fedeli (Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro), Han Lamers (University of Oslo), Johanna Luggin (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Antonino Nastasi (Rome), Bettina Reitz-Joosse (University of Groningen), Dirk Sacré (KU Leuven), Valerio Sanzotta (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies), Wolfgang Strobl (Toblach).
Discussing subjects as diverse as, for example, Greek studies and the Reformation, artistic interchange between Greek East and Latin West, networks of communication in the Greek diaspora, and the ramifications of Greek antiquarianism, the book aims at encouraging a more concerted debate about the role of Hellenism in early modern Europe that goes beyond disciplinary boundaries, and opening ways towards a more over-arching understanding of this multifaceted cultural phenomenon.
Contributors: Aslıhan Akışık-Karakullukçu, Michele Bacci, Malika Bastin-Hammou, Peter Bell, Michail Chatzidakis, Federica Ciccolella, Calliope Dourou, Anthony Ellis, Niccolò Fattori, Maria Luisa Napolitano, Janika Päll, Luigi-Alberto Sanchi, Niketas Siniossoglou, William Stenhouse, Paola Tomè, Raf Van Rooy, and Stefan Weise.
Table of contents: Han Lamers, "Constructing Hellenism: Studies on the History of Greek Learning in Early Modern Europe" (Introduction); Filippomaria Pontani, "Hellenic Verse and Christian Humanism: From Nonnus to Musurus"; Gerald Sandy, "Guillaume Budé and the Uses of Greek"; Natasha Constantinidou, "Constructions of Hellenism Through Printing and Editorial Choices: The Case of Adrien de Turnèbe, Royal Lecturer and Printer in Greek (1512–1565)"; Bernd Roling, "Joshua Apollo: Edmund Dickinson’s Delphi phoenizantes and the Biblical Origins of Greece in Seventeenth-Century England"; Asaph Ben-Tov, "Hellenism in the Context of Oriental Studies: The Case of Johann Gottfried Lakemacher (1695–1736)".
This article examines the ways in which early modern scholars sometimes identified themselves and their communities with the ancient Greeks in their quest for distinctive cultural identities. This ‘imagined Greekness’ has mostly been discussed in the context of French humanism, where it is generally referred to as "celt’-hellénisme", suggesting that it was a consistent ideology. This paper shows that, in sixteenth-century French humanism, ‘Greekness’ was not an entirely coherent set of ideas but entailed a range of different perspectives on the connections between French and Greek culture. Moreover, it shows that identifications with the ancient Greeks were not confined to France but occurred in various cultural and political contexts throughout Europe, from Southern Italy to Finland, roughly from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Whereas a full history of the phenomenon is still lacking, this article offers a first overview of the subject and indicates some avenues for further research.
For the Eighteenth Congress of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies (Leuven, 1-6 August 2021), we would like to propose one or more special sessions on the uses of Latin under Italian Fascism (1922-1943).
How can one explain the fact that knowledge, at some point circulating in the scholarship, eventually sinks into oblivion and, in some cases, even escapes the attention of
the historian of scholarship? The essay argues that each instance of scholarly forgetting
should be understood against the backdrop of a complex interplay between the
Vergessenspotential of the object under consideration and the working context of the
forgetting community. It examines how processes of forgetting have coshaped both
the humanities and how scholars think about its history. In conjunction with this, it
discusses how we, as historians of scholarship, may deal with scholarly forgetting more
self-consciously than has been attempted before.
The essays collected in this volume explore how and by what means, from antiquity to the present day, the notion of ‘the right moment’ has been defined, visualized, and experienced. The authors approach the subject from a range of disciplines and often work at the intersection of several of them, including the history of art and architecture, philosophy and art theory, classics and comparative literature, the history of religion and theology, and anthropology. In addition to scholarly exposés, the book contains a number of personal musings and artistic reflections on ‘the right moment’ in various forms and kinds of imagination – visual, literary, and philosophical.
The Right Moment originates in a festive symposium held at the Francqui Foundation in Brussels on 18 and 19 October 2018 in honour of Barbara Baert, Laureate of the 2016 Francqui Prize in Human Sciences. “The statue of καιρός lives,” Barbara Baert wrote, “and it lets its powers gently glow to the surface for those who recognize him. But for those who miss him, a sharp and bitter trail remains.”