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

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and art historian.

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 ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

. His early research focused on the Etruscan centers close to his family lands, Clusium (1925) and Suana (1929). Disgusted with Italian

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

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

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and became a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

. He founded a magazine, '' Società'', together with Cesare Luporini and Romano Bilenchi 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, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

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

Career

From his chairs at the universities of

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

and

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, Bianchi Bandinelli directed a new breed of Italian archaeologists sensitive to classical history based upon

dialectical materialism Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of scien ...

. He also taught at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; , 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, Netherlands. Founded in 1614, th ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. 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. In the mid-1960s, Bianchi Bandinelli was commissioned to write the two volumes on Roman art for the French Arts of Mankind 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. 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, a Roman copy of a Greek 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, Bianchi Bandinelli characterized the piece as a frigid copy of a Hellenistic work without relation to Leochares. One of his interests was the interrelation between

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

, Etruscan and Roman art. His students included some of the most influential Italian archaeologists of the 20th century, among whom were Giovanni Becatti, Antonio Giuliano, Mario Torelli, Andrea Carandini and Filippo Coarelli. Bianchi Bandinelli was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966.

Publications

#''Clusium: Ricerche archeologich e topografiche su Chiusi 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 art historians Italian classical scholars Italian Marxists Italian Marxist historians Academic staff of the University of Florence Academic staff of the University of Groningen Foreign members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Linguists of Etruscan 20th-century Italian historians Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin 20th-century Italian archaeologists Italian magazine founders