1In 1859, the intelligentsia of Rome gathered to examine a collection of plaster sculptures newly arrived in the city and installed in the Sala del Concilio of the Lateran Palace, near the Papal throne of Pope Pius IX (Fig. 1).
Figure. 1. View of the Sala del Concilio of the Lateran Palace as it appeared in 2022.
Photo by the author.
- 1 The author owes numerous debts of gratitude in the process of completing this work. Much of the res (...)
2This room is now best remembered as the space where Pope Pius XI met with the government of Benito Mussolini in 1929 to complete the Lateran Accords, finally ending the impasse between the Roman Catholic Church and the young nation of Italy. This political stalemate began in the 1860s under Pope Pius IX, as he sought to preserve the temporal power of the papacy and prevent the annexation of the Papal States into the unifying Italian state. In 1859, prior to the unification of Italy, the Sala del Concilio served as the throne room for the governmental work of the Papal States, making it the real and symbolic heart of the Pope’s temporal power. Pope Pius IX, at the advice of his Secretary of State Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, had taken particular notice of the collection and would ultimately offer substantial reward to its sculptor, Ferdinand Pettrich (1798-1872), remunerating him for the statues with a lifetime pension.1 Although not sufficient to keep the sculptor out of poverty, this annuity was an exceptional endorsement of the sculptor’s work, pointing to the value of the new collection for the papal court.
- 2 Throughout this chapter, I refer to Pettrich’s collection as the Indian Museum, because this was th (...)
- 3 Since 1848, Pope Pius IX had been engaged in an assertive campaign to oppose the forces that sought (...)
- 4 Not included with the gift (or the exhibition in Rome) were associated finished marbles, including (...)
3By the time it arrived in Rome, Pettrich’s Indian Museum had occupied the sculptor off-and-on for over twenty years.2 Begun in North America, completed in South America, and then transported for exhibition in two capital cities of Europe (first London, then Rome), the ambition of the collection went well beyond the sum of its parts. The Indian Museum became the sculptor’s lifework, representing for Pettrich the legacy that he hoped to solidify in marble. But, as I consider in this article, it was also a collection that could readily serve the nationalist or imperialist gaze of viewers on either side of the Atlantic, with or without Pettrich’s ideological alignment with their interests. Pettrich had conceived of the project as a sculpture gallery, meant to have its home in the brash, purpose-designed capital city of the young United States. But, when that plan failed, the sculptor was pragmatic. Now exhibited in Rome, and displayed in the Papal throne room at the heart of the temporal (i.e., earthly, political) rule of the Pope, the collection could be repurposed for supporting the civiltà cattolica (“Catholic civilization”) of the Pope’s earthly empire.3 Consisting of thirty-three works, the collection includes four life-size (or nearly so) full length figures in plaster, sixteen busts, nine bozzetti (small-scale studies), and four large bas-reliefs (also in painted plaster).4 The full-length statues and busts are all plaster, painted a terracotta hue. The bas reliefs are also plaster, with figures in a tinted terracotta color and slate blue background. I consider here how Pettrich’s series of portraits of sovereign Indigenous leaders were positioned by the government of Pope Pius IX both as “evidence” of the prehistoric origins of the peoples of North America and as visual justification for the continued endurance of a temporal “Catholic civilization” administered from the Sala del Concilio. I argue that Pettrich’s sculptural collection, though launched in the 1830s with aspirations to serve a nationalist agenda for the young United States, was later repurposed by the administration of Pope Pius IX as an anti-Risorgimento project, ultimately serving both the sculptor’s own loyalties to the Roman Catholic Church and contributing to the ongoing struggles over government and identity on the Italian peninsula.
- 5 The lecture was also immediately summarized in the Giornale di Roma. Quite some time later (and aft (...)
- 6 Bresciani was a vocal conservative, whose anti-Risorgimento views were closely aligned with Pope Pi (...)
4On February 21, 1859, shortly after Pettrich’s works were installed in the Lateran, Antonio Bresciani (1798-1862), a prominent Jesuit, delivered a lecture at the Pontifical Archaeological Academy, entitled “Galleria di statue, busti e basirelievi che rappresentano i ritratti dei Capi di varie tribù dell’America settentrionale. Opera del cavaliere Ferdinando Pettrich scultore, esposta nella gran sala del Concilio nel palazzo ponteficio del Laterano.”5 This lecture was subsequently published in the journal La Civiltà Cattolica, of which Bresciani was an editor, and later aggregated in a volume of Bresciani’s writings.6
- 7 The term “supranational” is typically used to refer to legislation or governmental regulations that (...)
5Pettrich’s collection represents known Indigenous leaders, most of whom had their likenesses captured while traveling to Washington as emissaries for their people. Yet, while acknowledging and naming the contemporary figures represented, Bresciani repositions them as evidence of a prehistoric past and in service of Pope Pius IX’s aspirations for what I will refer to as a contemporary supranational Catholic empire.7 Seen, yet unseen, in Bresciani’s essay, the Indigenous leaders are positioned by Bresciani as rebuking the ideology of modern nation states and, improbably, burnishing the legacy of Catholic civilization in the Americas and beyond. Bresciani invites the audience in Rome to study Pettrich’s figures sympathetically. Like the Catholics of the Papal States, these leaders face the loss of sovereignty and of their ancestral homelands. Both, he believes, share a common, if far distant, Caucasian ancestry. Yet this sympathy is a projection and linked directly to dreams of supremacy. Bresciani invites viewers to imagine a different, now impossible, future for these leaders. Instead of struggling against the cold, secular nation of the United States, they could have been converted to Catholicism and become part of the supranational reign of the Pope. In such a mentality, the cruel policies of the United States toward these sovereign Indigenous nations, are an example of the mistaken and barbaric policies of modern, liberal governments, to which Pope Pius IX was vociferously opposed.
- 8 Pettrich’s Indian Museum will be treated more fully in my larger book project, currently in prepara (...)
6Bresciani’s essay offers a window into the Papal decision to acquire this sculpture collection. Arranged in the Papal throne room, these figures are activated in support of the Pope’s continued combination of temporal and religious powers. My analysis in this article focuses on Bresciani’s argument and on how he positions an understanding of Pettrich’s sculptures in the specific cultural context of Papal Rome on the eve of Italian unification. Pettrich was a devout and lifelong Roman Catholic, who was likely supportive of Bresciani’s interpretation of the sculptures in 1859. Still, the history and meaning of Pettrich’s Indian Museum is not limited to the context of the Papal court in 1859, and the sculptor’s previous initial aspirations and intentions for the project cannot be fully parsed here, but certainly did not align in their entirety with the ideas articulated by Bresciani.8
- 9 To date, the most substantial analysis of Pettrich’s Indian Museum are: Bell; Bott; Bucceroni-Telle (...)
- 10 Newspaper accounts remarked on the activities of the Indigenous leaders throughout their time in Wa (...)
- 11 The Sac and Fox are now the united Sac and Fox Nation, with tribal lands in Oklahoma. In the distre (...)
- 12 According to Hagan, the instigator for this particular treaty negotiation was the American Fur Comp (...)
7Before analyzing Bresciani’s argument, it is first necessary to offer a brief history of the origins and development of Pettrich’s Indian Museum.9 The roots of the project can be dated to fall 1837, when Pettrich joined an audience numbering in the hundreds crammed into a church in Washington, D.C.10 Over several days the crowds assembled, mesmerized by the spectacle of ceremonies between the Yankton Sioux (Ihanktonwan Nation) and the united Sauk (alternative spelling Sac) and Fox (the Meskwaki peoples or Meshkwakihug).11 Leaders from these sovereign Indigenous nations had made the trip from the Mississippi valley to Washington, D.C. under pressure from the United States government, which demanded their attendance, and not because of any particular interest within tribal leadership in resolving ongoing intertribal conflicts. Land grabs by the United States, forced relocation, and pressures on both agricultural and hunting lands had exacerbated long-standing conflicts between these nations. Since the continued fighting between the Fox-Sauks and the Sioux was inconvenient for the settlement efforts of the United States government, the peace talks served as a mechanism through which tribal leaders could perhaps be forced to engage in some type of compromise that would enable white settlement efforts to proceed with a greater perception of peace and safety (Hagan 215).12
- 13 For a discussion of the form and rituals of treaty negotiations, see Cleland, especially 12-18.
8From a diplomatic standpoint, these forced intertribal peace talks were a failure. Even government officials admitted that no substantial and binding progress was made at resolving the enmities between the tribal nations, though the U.S. government did exploit the opportunity to obtain further land cessions favoring white settlers (Hagan 215). In the long history of diplomacy between Indigenous nations and the United States government, these talks were not the most impactful interaction, but they contained all the ceremonies that had come to be part of the ritual process of tribal nations interacting with U. S. government officials.13 The Indigenous visitors to Washington, D.C. were guests of the Federal Government in the city for an extended period. They paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue—some in traditional attire (the Fox and Sauks), others wearing military outfits gifted them by the United States (the Sioux) (Figs. 2-3).
Fig. 2. Ferdinand Pettrich, Two Sacs and Foxes, accompanied by Maj. Hook, riding through Pennsilvania [sic] Avenue, Washington City, collection dated August 10, 1842.
Ink and wash on tinted paper. Ferdinand Pettrich Sketchbook, Image labelled Sheet 29, Edward E. Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. Courtesy of the Newberry Library.
Fig. 3. Ferdinand Pettrich, A Band of Sioux Musicians in the Captain’s Uniforms Presented by the U.S. Government, Marching [to, crossed out] through the Pennsylvania Avenue at Washington City, collection dated August 10, 1842
Ink and wash on tinted paper. Ferdinand Pettrich Sketchbook, Image labelled Sheet 25, Edward E. Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. Courtesy of the Newberry Library.
They performed ceremonial dances for a large public audience (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4. Ferdinand Pettrich, War Dance, Sheet marked 1B of a three-sheet drawing, collection dated August 10, 1842.
Ink and wash on tinted paper. Ferdinand Pettrich Sketchbook, Edward E. Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. Courtesy of the Newberry Library. This sketch features figures labelled as Sioux and Creek by Pettrich, and includes one marked as Ha-Sa-Za “Chief of the Sioux.”
- 14 Pettrich had arrived in the United States in late 1835. He was a native speaker of German, who like (...)
- 15 These surviving drawings were not the original studies, but are works prepared by 1842, for the pub (...)
9During the talks, officials smoked the calumet (the peace pipe) and tribal leaders engaged in lengthy oratory that was translated, perhaps only somewhat accurately, by intermediaries who were paid for their services in this capacity. With his own limited mastery of English, even if Pettrich was able to hear the translations, he probably would not have been able to follow the contours of the negotiations at this early moment in his residence in the United States.14 But, as a highly-trained artist, he viewed and recorded the proceedings in a body of drawings and sketches partially preserved in a collection of drawings now in the Newberry Library of Chicago (Figs. 2-4) (Pettrich Sketchbook).15
- 16 When Makataimeshekikiak was freed from imprisonment, Keokuk vouchsafed that the elder chief would n (...)
- 17 Lappas and Edmunds are thoughtful sources for evaluating Keokuk’s legacy.
- 18 The “Black Hawk War” should more fairly be assessed as another incident of aggression and genocide (...)
- 19 For Keokuk’s speech see McKenney and Hall 32-35. Pettrich’s circle of friends and acquaintances in (...)
10Members of the public were freely able to observe any aspect of these ceremonies. Indeed, for residents of Washington, D.C., this was just one of a large number of such gatherings that occurred in the city between 1836 and 1838. However, the celebrity status of some of the participants meant these talks may have gained more attention than others. Sitting on the sidelines and no longer able to speak for his people, was the renowned leader Makataimeshekiakiak (more commonly known to Anglophones as Black Hawk). This was the second visit of Makataimeshekiakiak to Washington. A few years before, he and his closest associates had been forced to visit Washington and other cities on the east coast, as prisoners. They toured while weighed down by heavy balls and chains. On this return to the city, Makataimeshekiakiak was no longer a prisoner, but his free speech was curtailed.16 Representing the Fox and Sauks, instead, was a leader of almost equal renown in the 1830s: Keokuk. Known as an excellent orator, a flamboyant dresser, and a passionate horseman, Keokuk was a celebrity visitor in his own right.17 Keokuk had also visited Washington on other occasions, but had not been among the imprisoned visitors following the termination of the so-called “Black Hawk War.”18 Despite Pettrich’s probably-limited comprehension during the ceremonies, in his finished bas relief representing the negotiations between the Sioux and the Sauks and Foxes, the sculptor represented the Sauk chief Keokuk delivering a speech, a selection that reflects Pettrich’s awareness of the drama of the moment and its significance as the apex of the interactions at the negotiations.19
- 20 For a clear and concise overview of his career see Astrid Nielson, “The Artist Ferdinand Pettrich” (...)
11At the time that he observed these ceremonies, as well as the visit of the Winnebago that occurred slightly later in the fall of 1837, Pettrich was a new arrival in Washington, D.C., having emigrated from Rome, Italy in 1835.20 Originally from Dresden, Pettrich had lived in Rome since 1819 while completing his many years of training with Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1884), and remained there while completing his first professional commissions. As Pettrich struggled to find his professional footing, it seems that Thorvaldsen may have encouraged Pettrich to travel to Washington, where he could pursue his aspirations to be the resident sculptor of the young federal government and also have the opportunity to sculpt the Indigenous peoples of North America—a task that Thorvaldsen intimated was an urgent one, invoking the frequent notion that these populations would soon either die out or assimilate (Edenheiser 207). Though he failed in his attempt to secure a Federal commission soon after his arrival in Washington, the sculptor’s arrival was well timed to gain the opportunity for first-hand observation of these tribal leaders without travel to the distant interior of North America. Whatever his motivations at the time, Pettrich attended the ceremonies, probably over several days, and captured many likenesses of both named and unnamed Indigenous participants. Though these likely do not survive, the first versions of his first portraits were presumably sketches on paper, and quite distinct stylistically from those preserved in the “Ferdinand Pettrich Sketchbook” at the Newberry Library.
- 21 Based on my study of the Ferdinand Pettrich Sketchbook in the Ayer Collection of the Newberry Libra (...)
- 22 The artist’s son, Adolfo Pettrich, left several copies of a document “Some Records of Ferdinand Pet (...)
- 23 The extant body of work represents only a fraction of what Pettrich produced. Accounts record that (...)
- 24 Regarding this context of portrait-making of contemporary Indigenous leaders, see Edenheiser, Horan (...)
- 25 Fábio D’Almeida offered a rich analysis of the political origin story of Dying Tecumseh in his lect (...)
- 26 The stabbing of Pettrich was a high-profile unsolved crime, though the sculptor and his family blam (...)
12It is unknown whether Pettrich obtained any closer audience with the tribal members than the public assembly.21 In writings that eventually accompanied his completed statues, the sculptor and his descendants claimed that the works were drawn from “nature”, but without elaboration on the context (Adolfo Pettrich).22 Another undated archival document, which may have been written by Pettrich shortly after the sculptures came into the Vatican collections, specifically mentions that the likenesses were taken during the government proceedings (Ferdinand Pettrich, “Descrizione di Statue”). Certainly, the final sculptures that resulted from these studies were completed many years after Pettrich observed the events in question, so their accuracy as portraits should not be considered reliable. For the next twenty years, the sculptor labored over completing these works, developed from the studies that he first captured during these, and a few other, contemporary diplomatic gatherings. For five years—from 1837 to 1842—he began his work on these sculptures in his studio, which was located a few blocks from the Treasury Building and the White House (then known as the President’s House).23 Some sources at the time mentioned that the walls of his studio were covered in the sculptor’s drawings of Indigenous figures (“Indian Portraits”). If he did obtain sittings from life with any of these tribal representatives, it is possible that Pettrich was able to join in on sittings with other artists whose services were secured by the Indian Bureau of the federal government. Though not an officially-sanctioned government project, Thomas Loraine McKenney, who served for sixteen years as Superintendent of the Indian Bureau, commissioned and exhibited a large gallery of “Indian” portraits in the federal offices.24 Within the body of work that Pettrich began in Washington, and ultimately included in his Indian Museum was The Dying Tecumseh, a historical sculpture representing the death of the renowned Indigenous leader in the style of the ancient prototype Dying Gaul. Tecumseh had died in 1813 (long before Pettrich’s arrival in the United States) and The Dying Tecumseh, therefore, has a separate origin point from the portraits of leaders who Pettrich observed in Washington.25 Indeed, this work was first completed in clay and exhibited in Washington, D.C. in 1840 (“Ferdinand Pettrich”). Similarly, Pettrich’s bust of Roley McIntosh, which exists in both plaster and marble, likewise has a different history and context within Pettrich’s collection. After a violent attempt on the sculptor’s life forced Pettrich to flee the United States in 1842, he continued to work on the statues while serving as official sculptor to Emperor Dom Pedro II in Rio de Janeiro.26 Ultimately, he completed the plaster works now in the Vatican collection, which he hoped would be so compelling that a patron would finance marble versions.
13The artist departed Brazil in 1857 spurred by another crisis—Pettrich believed he had been poisoned (Almeida; Adolfo Pettrich; Geller). First, he exhibited the works in London, where he stayed for about six months in 1857-1858. The Indian Museum was displayed alongside other allegorical, religious, and portrait works by the artist (“Chevalier Pettrich’s Sculptures”). In 1858, Pettrich returned with them to Rome. Synchronously, his marble The Dying Tecumseh was exhibited with acclaim at the Cooper Hewitt gallery in New York City in 1859, subsequently installed at the United States Capitol for a number of years in the 1860s and eventually relocated from there into the Smithsonian Institution, where it remains (“Correspondence of the Mercury”; “In General”).
14Throughout his career, Pettrich had maintained a close association with the Roman Catholic Church. Even before returning to Rome, he lobbied for a permanent home for his Indian Museum there (Dalla Torre). Doubtless, he had first hoped to sell the works to a private or public collector in the United States. Next, both the Brazilian and the British publics had disappointed him. In Rome, though, Pettrich met with success. In a highly-unique arrangement, probably brokered by Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, Pope Pius IX accepted the Indian Museum into the Vatican collection. Very shortly after Pettrich’s return to Rome, his works were installed in the Sala del Concilio.
- 27 To date, I have sought, but not identified, other sources that would offer corollary evidence to Br (...)
15With this background context in place, it is now possible to turn a critical eye to Bresciani’s interpretation of the collection and to probe the larger historical questions swirling around their installation in the Sala del Concilio. Why did Pope Pius IX and his court choose to gather more than thirty life-size busts of contemporary Indigenous leaders in this significant space? How would these tinted plaster figures have been perceived by visitors to the court, especially in the context of the ornately-decorated Baroque space?27 What purpose might these works, representing members of sovereign Indigenous nations who came to Washington, D.C. to negotiate with the federal government of the United States, have served for a Papal regime that was locked in a deep conflict with forces seeking to create a unified civic state on the Italian peninsula and thereby to erase the temporal rule of the Pope?
- 28 Throughout this article, I draw on the published version of this lecture, though I will sometimes r (...)
16In “Galleria di statue, busti e bassirilievi” Bresciani devotes most of his lecture, subsequently published as an essay, to discussing contemporary theories about the prehistoric movements of peoples.28 These movements, he argues, resulted in the Indigenous populations of the Americas. Keokuk and the other numerous, named contemporary Indigenous leaders mentioned by Bresciani are not discussed as active, contemporary leaders. Instead, these individuals, as represented by Pettrich, serve as specimens of physiognomy for Bresciani’s pseudo-scientific consideration of the ancient history of human migration. Their physical features are the “evidence” for the routes of prehistoric populations across oceans and continents. Bresciani, though referring to the names of individual Indigenous subjects in order to identify the works under consideration, nevertheless sets aside their biographical facts and known personal or political perspectives. Instead, he uses them to reveal truths of a deep time before documented history. Of course, Bresciani’s conclusions are false, pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical points that were, nonetheless, engaged with current thinking in nineteenth century scholarship. Still, attending to Bresciani’s points helps shed light on the value of Pettrich’s collection to Pope Pius IX and his court. Through analysis of Bresciani’s essay, and a supporting letter from the artists Peter von Cornelius and Johann Friedrich Overbeck, I seek in the remainder of this article to answer portions of the bigger questions posed in the previous paragraph: How can Bresciani’s essay be understood within the tensions of the Italian peninsula in the 1850s? What can its repositioning of history, and the prehistorical, contribute to our understanding of the counter-Risorgimento as it played out in Rome in this decade? What window does Bresciani’s essay provide into the hoped-for results of Pettrich’s Indian Museum on those viewers granted access to the Sala del Concilio under Pius IX?
- 29 “Under the auspices of the most Eminent Sig. Cardinal Antonelli, the Secretary of State, and himsel (...)
17Although the title of Bresciani’s lecture honors Pettrich’s sculptures as the subject of his commentary, Bresciani does not mention the sculptures again until approximately halfway through his dense text. When he does reintroduce Pettrich’s Indian Museum, he immediately affirms the role that the highest echelons of the Papal administration played in obtaining the prominent placement of Pettrich’s works in the Sala del Concilio. He writes that Pettrich “sotto l’alta protezione dell’Eminentissimo signor Cardinale Antonelli, secretario di Stato, generoso e nobile mecenate delle arti, ottenne dalla benignità e munificenza del santissimo Padre Pio IX, gloriosamente regnante, di esporre nella gran sala del Concilio, nel palazzo laterano, i ritratti...” (Bresciani 341).29 The honor paid to Pettrich through this Papal promotion of his Indian Museum was exceptional—as was the ultimate decision to accession the works into the Papal collection and offer an annuity to the artist. Certainly, Pettrich had been loyal to the church and his Roman Catholic network had enabled the exhibition and acquisition of the works. But, Pettrich was not so well connected and influential that he could be seen as capable of swaying the Papal court were it not for another underlying value proposition inherent in this particular collection. While other sculptures by the artist would eventually also be purchased by Pius IX, this was by no means a wholesale and lifelong endorsement of Pettrich’s career, even as the sculptor transitioned almost completely to the production of religious works in the final phase of his career.
- 30 For the shifting governing philosophy of Pope Pius IX, see D’Agostino. For the role of Antonelli in (...)
18It seems the Papal court may have had a special interest in the Indian Museum as an artistic prop amid the diplomatic complexities of its conservative political platform and its sweeping opposition to the mounting Risorgimento. Initially, Pope Pius IX had been praised as a liberal pope, who offered constitutional reforms and other concessions to the administration of the Papal States. But, following the uprisings of 1848, during which Pope Pius IX fled to the walled city of Gaeta and sought military protection from the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, his administrative policies became more regressive. When the Roman Republic, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, fell and Pope Pius IX returned to Rome under the protection of the French military, he had become a vocal and retrenched force of opposition to any unified government of the Italian peninsula that was not under Papal administration.30 Pettrich’s works were installed in the Lateran throne room only a few months before the Second Italian War of Independence, which would set in motion the unification of a single Kingdom in Italy over the next two years. Rome itself would continue as the final remnant of the Papal States until 1870, when it joined the united Italy and Pius IX retreated into the Vatican as a “prisoner,” with the unresolved “Roman Question” of Papal state independence from the Italian nation looming large until the 1929 Lateran Accords (Agostino 9-12).
19With all the other events that would occur in coming months and years, it is perhaps no surprise that the installation of Pettrich’s sculptures, and their ideological significance to the court of Pius IX, received little notice from contemporaries and later historians. Bresciani’s discussion, however, clarifies that the presence of the Indian Museum in the Sala del Concilio was deliberate and its message apparent to at least those contemporary viewers who, like Bresciani, had access to Antonelli and other Papal advisors. The Indian Museum, Bresciani clarifies, was there to argue for the supremacy of a civilità cattolica, a supranational force that bound together Roman Catholics across the globe, while Pius IX and his court believed was also best served by the continued pairing of religious and temporal powers under the authority of the Pope.
- 31 “We invite anyone who enjoys ethnography to examine the splendid Lateran Gallery, and we trust that (...)
20In the first section of his essay, Bresciani does not seem to be making a case for much of anything with current political resonance on the Italian peninsula. Instead, his lecture begins by laying out a convoluted discussion of then-accepted arguments over the origins of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, only eventually turning to Pettrich’s sculptures as evidence for his (surprising) assertion that many of the peoples of North America were of Caucasian origin: “invitiamo ad esaminare la splendida galleria lateranese tutti quelli che si dilettanto degli studii etnografici, e confidiamo che alla vista di quei sembianti, ritratti sì al naturale, vedranno in tutto le fattezze, che gli etnografi chiamano caucasee o delle stirpi asiatiche, del Caucaso al mare Mediterraneo” (Bresciani 341).31 Bresciani carves out certain limitations on this argument—stating that he is only making this claim for the peoples of Mexico and north into the central part of North America, and then only as far north as Lake Erie. He explicitly mentions that he does not contest the “Bering Strait theory,” with its connection to the prehistoric migration of “polar” peoples and “Mongolian” peoples, for inhabitants of the Pacific coast of the Americas (esp. Bresciani 341).
- 32 For example, following another author, he dates the foundation of the Quichés civilization with ref (...)
21Bresciani offers some deeper explanation of the “Caucasian” ancestry that he associates with these populations. He argues that their ancestors were migrants from an area he refers to as “Asia Anteriore” (the “front” of Asia), presumably encompassing parts of Eastern Europe and the modern Middle East, including Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. Importantly for a Catholic thinker like Bresciani, these regions included the Holy Land. Relatedly, much of the prehistorical timeline into which Bresciani delves is cross-referenced with Biblical time, and the Jesuit thinker seeks to reconcile his arguments about the movement of peoples with the Biblical narrative.32 Here, the concept of the history (or prehistory) of civilizations becomes heavily weighed down with Eurocentrism—displaying a mentality in which history only exists for the European peoples who claim and dictate its contours while Indigenous oral tradition is myth or prehistory that can be used in a chronologically-facile way to refer to a time before colonialism. Mesoamerican manuscripts and the Bible are both cited in Bresciani’s essay, but the two are not given equal weight and the Bible is, of course, the reference point that Bresciani shares with his listeners/readers and the common cultural index against which his ethnographic theories are tested.
- 33 Two of De Bourbourg’s publications may have been of particular interest to Bresciani: Traditions pr (...)
- 34 “The invasion of the Canaanites, carried out by the Hebrew people after the escape from Egypt.”
22Bresciani follows the writings of Abbot Carl Brasseur de Bourbourg, who had recently put forward the idea that the earliest peoples of the Americas had been emigrants from Phoenicia, and were the followers of Votan, a leader whose life Bresciani, following de Bourbourg, believed was recounted in the Codex Chimalpòpoca, an important Mesoamerican manuscript then, as now, held in a collection on the Italian peninsula.33 Bresciani asserts that there were two main waves of immigrants from the Middle East to central Mexico—the second being Votan, and the first (he claims “perhaps some six hundred and fifty years before”) being the peoples of Ixos (Bresciani 337-338). This later group, which he further recounts had been rulers of Egypt but were thrown out as foreign kings, is crucial to his narrative as those who brought hieroglyphic writing to Mesoamerica (Bresciani 338). The former, meanwhile, he believed established the ruling structure of civilization in Mesoamerica, with the founding of the city of Palenque (Bresciani 337). Votan was thought to have been Phoenician and displaced from his home due to “l’invasione della Cananitide, fatta dal popolo ebreo dopo l’uscita dell’Egitto” (Bresciani 337).34
23From the Middle East, Bresciani claims, Votan first travelled to the Canary Islands, then eventually to Cuba, and, lastly to the Yucatàn Peninsula, where he became the ancestral founder of the Quiche Maya and Chanes peoples. To Bresciani’s audience in Rome, this story of exile, displacement and the founding of a civilization in exile would surely be heavily resonant with that of the mythical Trojan Aeneas, credited by Virgil with the founding of Rome and used within the Papal tradition as a legendary ancient ancestor to the Pope’s authority and the urban heritage of these roots in Rome. Though not chronologically prehistoric, these oral traditions of ancient myth and civilization-building nevertheless exist before the written tradition—Troy and Aeneas are built into Rome’s prehistory. Bresciani fixes Votan within a similar understanding of history and prehistory. He asserts that Votan would have lived about 1000 years before Christ—securely in what today we would consider the historical period but which, to Bresciani, would be Biblical time. His historical assertions should not be read with a contemporary historical timeline in mind, but rather within a historical concept built from Creationism—in which Adam and Eve’s creation is the most distant limit of humankind, and a relatively-shallow historical distance back in time.
24Interestingly, with his eagerness to establish the prehistoric heritage of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Bresciani also turns to Indigenous manuscripts to bolster his ideas. Thus, his story of Votan—though “prehistoric” in his conception of European space and time—is also drawn from the written evidence provided by the Codex Chimalpòpoca, a significant Aztec text that Bresciani presumably knew through the work of de Bourbourg. Significantly, then, we can understand that imperialist European ideas of prehistory could make use of data and evidence drawn from Indigenous texts, while distancing themselves otherwise from the authority of the native voice. Discounting the fact that such codices were written retellings of distant history or cultural origin stories, Bresciani could sideline the historical narrative in these texts and pick and choose the elements within these works that could support his argument. Votan, a figure from Indigenous oral tradition, is conceptualized by Bresciani as a historical datapoint, but rejected in terms of the cultural and religious context with which he would have been associated in Mesoamerican tradition. Elsewhere in his essay, Bresciani draws on another text he cites as the “hieroglyphic manuscript in Bologna” (known today as the Codex Cospi), to provide evidence of the relationship between the peoples of North and Central America through migration. The significant Indigenous religious text, which he stated recorded the origins of the Toltecs in the northern city of Hue-Hue-Tlapalan, becomes merely a tool by which Bresciani can justify his ideas with migration accounts aligned with Old Testament Biblical content.
25The ideas laid out in the first half of Bresciani’s essay have all subsequently been debunked, but at the time that he delivered the lecture in Rome, his sources were recent and well regarded (Sainson). De Bourbourg had traveled extensively in Mexico and was held to be an expert in Mesoamerican manuscripts and cultural practices. In laying out his arguments for Caucasian ancestry in the Indigenous populations, Bresciani also cites recent work by Alexander von Humboldt, Lord Kingsboroug [sic], and L’Ordogúez. With respect to the study of Mesoamerican manuscripts, Bresciani cites the research of Cardinal Mezzofanti and Clavigero. The recent texts that Bresciani mentions were published in a variety of languages (French, German, Spanish, and English), many within just a few years before the delivery of his lecture, an important reminder of Rome’s status as a cosmopolitan intellectual center, where such a breadth of materials would be readily available, and of the community of scholars who might be expected to have at least some familiarity with these polyglot sources. Of course, as a Jesuit, Bresciani may have had even greater investment than an ‘average’ Roman intellectual in an international and multilingual body of research, given the intellectual tradition of the Jesuit order and their deep investment in missionary work across the globe, including a renewed presence in North America around this time (Liebersohn 78-91). Notably, though, other than pulling together a body of references to support his argument, Bresciani’s own research did not rely on observations from travels to Mexico, or close study of Mesoamerican manuscripts, or even fine reading of Biblical texts. Instead, the bulk of his intellectual contribution derives from the physiological ‘evidence’ provided by Pettrich’s Indian Museum, which he reads alongside the ideas culled from this body of ethnographic texts and, quite explicitly, in the service of advancing both the sacred and the secular agendas of the Papal administration.
26The second half of Bresciani’s article, then, focuses on introducing Pettrich’s gallery of sculptures and discussing those aspects of the collection that Bresciani can muster to advance his argument. Having introduced Pettrich’s collection as acquired through the special auspices of Antonelli, Bresciani next seeks to underline the authenticity of these statues from an ethnographic standpoint. He lists, with notable inaccuracy in the printed version, the tribal groups represented as the: Sacs and Foxes, Sioux “from the Mississippi,” Winnesagoes [sic], Creeks, and “Yacton” Sioux. He claims these works were “ritratti al vivo” (“captured from life”), and further expounds on the physical accuracy and studied authority of Pettrich’s portraits stating that the artist:
- 35 “Having lived for many years in the United States of America, he had every opportunity to examine t (...)
essendo vissuto molti anni negli Stati Uniti d’America, ebbe tutto l’agio di esaminare col suo finissimo occhio artistico le più minute fattezze dei volti, e le forme più esatte delle teste dei selvaggi delle varie tribù, che imprese a ritrarre. Egli dimorò altresì parecchi anni nel Brasile, e potè fare i confronti più singolari coi tipi dei selvaggi americani del Sud e quelli dei selvaggi dell’America centrale, e dedurne tutte le sostanziali differenze.35 (Bresciani 341)
27The rationalization employed by Bresciani is a clear stretch as he seeks to justify using Pettrich’s sculptures as pertinent evidence to his ethnographic project. Most obviously, the historiographical sources mustered thus far in his essay focused on the history and peoples of Mesoamerica (and modern Mexico), a context unrelated to the individuals represented in Pettrich’s collection of figures. Further, Bresciani’s claim of Pettrich’s active comparison across Indigenous groups bluntly ignores the fact that Pettrich does not include portraits from Brazil, or build such comparisons into his sculpture gallery in any visible fashion. Indeed, as Bresciani’s discussion of the Indian Museum proceeds, it seems clear that he is not so much attempting to convince his audience of a rational argument as instructing them on what they should believe about these works, and through them about the people that they represent, in alignment with the agenda of Pope Pius IX and his administration.
- 36 To invoke the concept of close looking, he uses a well-known phrase from Dante Alighieri, Inferno, (...)
- 37 Among the individuals represented by Pettrich, for example, it is known that Keokuk was of mixed ra (...)
28Having introduced the collection as a whole, Bresciani, quoting Dante, encourages the reader/listener to regard the works with close scrutiny: come il vecchio sartor fa nella cruna.36 He primes the judgments of the viewer with a ready list of stereotypes, contrasting the physical features of these subjects and the stereotypical features of the Indigenous residents of the West Coast. His goal is, again, to categorize those of the West Coast as descended from ancestors of the polar region or Mongolia, and those of the Central swaths of North America as of Caucasian descent. He references contrasting physical characteristics to organize the Indigenous peoples of North America into those two regional stereotypes. He claims, for example, that the peoples of the Pacific have noses that are “short and snub nosed” while those of the central regions of the Americas are “aquiline and sharp” (Bresciani 342). In so doing, he also completely ignores the contact and intertribal relations across the regional populations, as well as the fact that all these Indigenous peoples, including the peoples of the Mississippi valley represented by Pettrich, had been living beside colonists and traders of European descent for centuries, resulting in many individuals of mixed racial ancestry, whether they lived in Indigenous or settler society.37 And, of course, he asks the reader to believe that Pettrich’s statues are accurate in their representation of the physiognomy of these tribal leaders.
29If Bresciani invokes the concept of close visual scrutiny, he rushes the reader/listener quite quickly through the works in the collection, leaving little time for inspection of details that might undercut his assertions. He highlights the full-length portrait of Tah-Tape-Saah, noting the large stature of the figure and asserting that it conveys a sense of the “magnanimity and courage” of the figure both through the facial expression and the pose (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. Ferdinand Pettrich, Chief of the Mississippi Sioux Tah-Tape-Saa, 1837-1856.
Plaster, painted, 220 x 86 x 81 cm. Anima Mundi Museum, Vatican Museums, Inv 101578. Photograph courtesy of the Musei Vaticani.
- 38 “Whose features resemble in every respect the young Pharaoh of the people of Ixos, portrayed by Ros (...)
30Of Dying Tecumseh, Bresciani states merely a two-sentence summary of the subject’s historical role and one of the many competing versions of his death. Skipping next to a young boy hunting ducks, Bresciani states: “le cui fattezze vi ricordano in tutto il sembiante d’un giovane Faraone degl’Ixos, ritrattoci dal Rosellini nelle dipinture degl’ipogei egiziani” (Bresciani 343) (Fig. 6).38
Fig. 6. Ferdinand Pettrich, Fourteen-year-old Indian Boy Portrayed as a Hunter Shooting Ducks on the Bank of a River, 1837-1856.
Plaster, painted, 138 x 48 x 103 cm. Anima Mundi Museum, Vatican Museums Inv 101581. Photograph courtesy of the Musei Vaticani.
31Bresciani draws a comparison to a contemporary’s published drawings of original Egyptian images, inviting listeners to consider Pettrich’s three-dimensional, large scale sculptural work relative to the two-dimensional originals, though without specifying a precise drawing that inspires the comparison. Looking for opportunities to draw parallels between Pettrich’s works and his own interpretation of ancient history, Bresciani may have been attracted to both the form and subject matter of this work. In this particular sculpture, the boy is hunting. He moves forward in a crouching pose, holding a bow in his left hand and reaching behind his thigh for an arrow. The subject matter of a crouching figure grabbing an arrow, or even a hunter, could easily appear in Egyptian wall painting, even if such a work is not what Bresciani actually refers to in this passage. While three dimensional, the work can easily be viewed as a profile, from which angle the prominent aquiline nose, pointed head, and profile of the headpiece would all offer a quick comparison that could serve Bresciani’s reference to Egyptian wall painting, even if the comparison would have fallen apart with a more meticulous consideration of a specific comparison.
- 39 “Has a shape that is most characteristic for our studies.” Wabokieshiek was a prominent spiritual l (...)
32Among the bust portraits, Bresciani refers to several as having excellent profiles to help support his argument, but it is the bust that he, after Pettrich, cites as that of Wahpekecsuck (actually Wabokieshiek), that he remarks has a head shape that “ha un tipo sommamente caratteristico pei nostri studii” (Bresciani 343) (Fig. 7).39
Fig. 7. Ferdinand Pettrich, Wah-pe-kec-suck Supreme Priest, Prophet, Medicine Man, and Counselor of the Sauk-Fox Tribe, 1837-1856.
Plaster, painted, 76 x 51 x 34 cm. Anima Mundi Museum, Vatican Museums, Inv 101580. Photograph courtesy of the Vatican Museums. The name of the individual represented was actually Wabokieshiek, with the title here that was used by Pettrich.
- 40 Bresciani makes a point that is also stated in Pettrich’s own guide to the collection—that the buff (...)
33This bust is an odd choice for Bresciani to select as the best referent for his argument, since in both the bust and the bozzetto, Wabokieshiek is shown wearing a buffalo hide robe that covers his head and blocks any attempt to read the shape of his skull. Lastly, Bresciani refers his viewers to two of the four bas reliefs that Pettrich completed for the collection: Buffalo Hunt of the Sioux Indians on the Upper Missouri and War Dance of the two tribes of the Sauk-Fox and the Sioux of the Mississippi (though Bresciani vaguely mentions the later as a war dace of two tribes “copied live” in Washington) (Bresciani 343).40
- 41 “the historical comparison about the first origins of the peoples of Central America.”
34Having listed these works of particular interest, Bresciani launches into a longer list of the physical and facial characteristics that he asserts connect these Indigenous figures to the characteristics of “Asia anteriore.” He states that while Pettrich’s Indian Museum will secure the artist’s immortal fame as an artistic contribution, its greatest importance lies in “le comparazioni storiche intorno alle prime origini dei popoli dell’America centrale” (Bresciani 343).41 According to Bresciani, the facial and profile features of these listed figures, if observed “ben attentamente e spassionatamente” (“very carefully and dispassionately”) consistently reveal the “profilo egiziano degl’Ixos (ch’erano fenicii)” (“the Egyptian profile of the Ixos people (who were Phoenicians)”) (Bresciani 343). Again, he urges the viewer to make the thorough comparison between the profiles from Egyptian hypogea and “the Lateran savages,” as through these efforts they will conclude that “ritrarrà la perfetta somiglianza” (“a perfect resemblance will emerge”) (Bresciani 343).
- 42 “so many and such resonance with Egyptian hieroglyphs and with the symbols of the Phoenicians that (...)
- 43 “that the portraits of the savages in the Lateran gallery present the Caucasian form, maintained in (...)
35As a concluding salvo, Bresciani seeks to tie physical evidence from Pettrich’s figures to Etruscan art, again urging careful comparison, but utilizing only generalized references. He cites Tirranean vase painting where “si vedrà lo stesso profilo di fattezze, massime delle fronti, de’nasi e degli occhi” (“the same profile of the features, especially the foreheads, noses and eyes, can be seen”) and the François Vase, where he sees “le stesse sembianze di cotesti selvaggi del Pettrich” (“the same resemblance to these savages by Pettrich”) (Bresciani 344). Likewise, he refers to the Etruscan Sarcophagos of the Spouses (now in the Villa Giulia, but referenced by Bresciani as in the Palazzo del Monte di Pietà), a recent archaeological find in which he states “si considerino bene i profili di que’volti, e si troveranno in tutto somiglianti a quelli dei selvaggi lateranesi” (“if one carefully considers those faces, he will find them altogether resembling those of the Lateran savages”) (Bresciani 344). Bresciani views the connection of Pettrich’s figures to Etruscan objects as another piece in the puzzle of the Phoenician diaspora, since, in addition to the band of Ixos that headed to the Americas, he also credits these people with populating the Italian peninsula, an assertion that creates a tie of prehistoric ancestry between the people of the Italian peninsula and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas (Bresciani 337-338). Without any deeper elaboration, Bresciani says he could make similar claims about the similarity of Pettrich’s figures to Pheonician bas reliefs in collections in Beirut. He concludes the ‘evidence’ portion of his essay by citing an illustrated buffalo hide, donated to the Vatican by Adolfo Pettrich, which Bresciani finds to have “tali e tanti riscontri coi geroglifici egiziani e coi simboli dei Fenicii, ch’ella è cosa in tutto singolare,” though he is quick to add that the Indigenous artists merely copy these forms based on tradition, with no knowledge of their original meaning (Bresciani 245).42 Lastly, Bresciani again lists his historical assertions, without further argumentation or evidence, but now fusing Pettrich’s sculptures with the historical point he most wishes to convey: “i ritratti de’selvaggi della galleria lateranese ci presentano il tipo caucaseo, mantenutesi fermo nell’America centrale dai laghi del Canadà sino al lago di Nicaragua” (Bresciani 346).43 Lacking actual evidence for his assertions, Bresciani allows contemporary art to fill in the profile of prehistory. Pettrich’s life portraits of contemporary Indigenous leaders now become visual evidence for the physical traits of ancient peoples in their travels across the globe. Many nineteenth-century theorists wrote of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas as living in an early age of humanity—one similar to that of the ancient world and, therefore, on a different chronology from their European contemporaries. Bresciani mentally took that leap, compressing time and space to imagine Pettrich’s figures as nearly-unchanged from a fictional Caucasian past from thousands of years before.
- 44 “The Lateran gallery, arranged and spread out in the sublime room of the Concilio, is truly a colle (...)
- 45 “And because the immense expanse of the ocean prevents these children of the forest from coming in (...)
36In the midst of all Bresciani’s convoluted discussion of human migration and his attempts to connect this body of scholarship to Pettrich’s sculptural bodies, one key passage remains to be considered. As he introduces Pettrich’s Indian Museum to his audience, Bresciani also pulls back the curtain on the socio-political implication of his analysis, revealing an understanding of the works that was likely in parallel with the motivations of the Papal administration and in direct engagement with the changes unfolding on the Italian peninsula. With arresting language, Bresciani writes, “La galleria lateranense, allogata e distesa in quell’aula sublime del Concilio, è invero una raccolta degna della Roma cristiana, la quale ha spinto le sue conquiste tant’oltre i confini della Roma de’Cesari, che vede a piè del trono pontificale umili e avvinti colle auree catene della carità i popoli d’un nuovo mondo” (Bresciani 342).44 Here Bresciani seeks to set the scene for his larger analysis of Pettrich’s sculptures; he is also shockingly frank in his evocation of the sculptural figures which have been arranged in deference to the Pope’s throne. His description of the Indigenous leaders who are represented as “charmed by the golden chains of charity,” offers a paternalistic, indeed an imperialist, vision of the power the Pope could be seen to wield vis-à-vis the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Bresciani then proceeds to imagine the statues as sculptural envoys for the actual peoples of the Americas, drawn to the feet of the Pope by Pettrich himself: “E perché gl’immensi spazii dell’oceano tolgono a questi figliuoli delle foreste il poter venire in persona a venerare il Vicario di Cristo, padre universal dei fedeli; il cav. Ferdinando Pettrich, con arimento eguale all’altezza dei suoi concetti, ne ritrasse con arte squisita i vivi sembianti, e sulle navi gli recò a Roma e li mise al cospetto del sommo Pontefice Pio IX” (Bresciani 342).45 The vision that Bresciani expresses here is clearly built on ideas of empire, race, and power, and centered on his ideas of the primacy of a present and future Christian civilization. Here the Papal throne, located in the heart of Rome, is also the elevated and symbolic heart of Christian—specifically Catholic—civilization. Although Pettrich’s statues in reality represented contemporary Indigenous leaders who were coerced and cajoled to come to Washington, D.C. by the United States government, Bresciani invites viewers to see the collection relative to the Papal government instead of the United States government.
- 46 “those unlucky savage tribes of North America, that the cold egotism of a Nation that calls itself (...)
- 47 “One easily recognizes in these physiognomies, full of spirit and vigor, a people gifted with great (...)
37Standing alone, Bresciani’s words in this passage are clear enough in their broad implications of race, power, and religion, but he surely hoped that listeners would read between the lines and think more ambitiously about their possible application. A similar interpretation of the statues was proffered in a letter of November 8, 1858, written in Rome by Peter von Cornelius (1783-1867) and Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869), retained by the Papal administration to provide an evaluation of Pettrich’s works in the course of the Pope acquiring the collection. Cornelius and Overbeck supported the Pope’s acquisitions of the statues and pushed him to go further, arguing that the full impact of the Indian Museum could not be reached without the works being carved in marble. They also spelled out, a bit more completely, the social lesson that they thought the works could convey. They commented that the statues offer a ready comparison between the government of the United States and the principles of a Christian government, noting that the works show “quelle infelici tribù di selvaggi dell’America settentrionale, che il freddo egoismo d’una nazione sè dicente Cristiana è oramai quasi riuscito d’estirpare dalla faccia della terra…” (Dalla Torre 87).46 This “cold egotism” of a secular nation is presented as in contrast to the benevolence of a Catholic regime. Overbeck and Cornelius continue by summoning the physiognomy present in the figures to imagine a different scenario, “Si riconosce facilmente in queste fisionomie, piene di spirito e di vigore, un popolo dotato di non comuni disposizioni di mente e di cuore, il quale, se gli fosse toccato in sorte, d’esser evangelizzato da missionari cattolici, e di sentire il benefico influsso della mano dei Som̃i Pontefici, forse a quest’ora formerebbe delle fiorenti Cristianità, capaci a consolare ogni cuore veramente cattolico delle tante perdite che la fede va facendo ogni giorno nella vecchia Europa Cristiana” (Dalla Torre 87).47 Overbeck and Cornelius praise the inborn potential of these Indigenous leaders, while criticizing their ancestral lifestyle and faith which continues because the tribal leaders had not met with the opportunity to convert. These Indigenous figures represent, then, the failure of the secular geopolitical regime to permit widespread evangelization and to recognize the superiority of the supranational Catholic civilization. The final statement that these people, if converted, would have comforted and bolstered their European counterparts who were facing many daily setbacks confronts the imagined alternative reality of a Catholic North America that would have embraced the Indigenous peoples and distanced itself from the “coldness” of the American democratic republic, presumably also supporting the Pope in his bid to defend the temporal power.
- 48 “It seems, therefore, that Divine Providence must have wished to carry them, at least in effigy, to (...)
38The ideas that Overbeck and Cornelius put forward should be read in alignment with Bresciani’s arguments of Caucasian ancestry for these same peoples, drawing prehistoric ties between the pre-Roman peoples of Italy and the earliest civilizations of the Americas. Both approaches emphasize that the Indigenous tribes of North America could have become part of the Pope’s Christian empire, but are prevented from that preferred future by the secular government of the United States. In the mindset of these writers aligned with the Papal government, these statues give visual form to ancient history—to an understanding of the birth of humankind in the so-called “cradle of civilizations” within the larger Holy Land—and the migrations and transformations of its different branches across the continents. Further, for these writers, the sculptural collection reinforces the idea of a common creation of humanity (through the Biblical Adam and Eve), the moral righteousness of Christian missionary and conversion work, and a common notion of humanity bound together within one global Christian civilization, transcending the borders of modern nation states. Overbeck and Cornelius conclude by stating that the statue collection can serve as a lasting reminder (or warning?) to the people of Rome. Indeed, they argue that the sculptures will do God’s work: “Sembra perciò, che la Divina Providenza abbia voluto portargli, almeno in effigie, ai piedi del Som̃o Pontefice, accioché [sic] rimanesse a Roma una memoria d’essi, ed un durevole monumento in attestato di ciò che gli Romani Pontefici sarebbero stati pronti a fare in loro favore, se le circostanze avessero permesso di poter esercitar il sublime Apostolico loro ministero in mezzo di essi” (Dalla Torre 87).48 The implication of this statement is clear: if the Catholics of Europe feel themselves to be under daily threat from secular governmental forces, Pettrich’s sculpture collection will offer imagery in the service of Catholicism. While the Indigenous peoples of North America were by no means traveling in great numbers to pay obeisance to Pope Pius IX, Pettrich’s statues could create the fiction that they were (or, at least, that they should have been). Overtly criticizing the genocidal “Indian removal” policies of the United States government, the sculpture collection is seen as a powerful visual for an alternate reality, in which Christian government would allow a more harmonious and humane world—albeit bound together by the “golden chains of Charity.” While Pettrich left no substantial amount of writing about the collection, he likely spoke to Overbeck and Cornelius, and their reasoning clearly influenced Bresciani’s own interpretation of the statue’s potential. Together, this group of Catholic thinkers expressed a vision of art in the service of the Pope and countering the ardent settler-colonialism of secular government. Notably, while Bresciani is concerned with the Caucasian diaspora, the missionary stance of the Catholic church would not have limited access to Catholic civilization worldwide based on race. Thinking big, these Catholic intellectuals imagine a supranational Catholic civilization across the globe, with Pettrich’s figures representing only one example of how the concept could be applied.
39Overbeck and Cornelius criticize the “cold” government of the United States, but say nothing overtly about the unifying forces currently held at bay on the Italian peninsula. Yet, the eagerness of Bresciani, Overbeck and Cornelius to speak up for the Indigenous inhabitants of North America can be seen in parallel to their ideas about the past, present, and future forms of government on the Italian peninsula. Their ideas of the superiority of Christian civilization have already been clearly traced in their discussions of Pettrich’s statues, as has Bresciani’s consideration of a common Caucasian ancestry between the Indigenous peoples of North America and the pre-Roman peoples of the Italian peninsula. Further, both the Indigenous nations of the Americas and the Christian Empire of Rome have, for Bresciani, their origins in the Holy Land. This leads to a final affinity that can be seen as binding the plight of the Native American leaders to that of the residents of Christian Rome: they are both “Indigenous” peoples occupying lands that are under attack. Even as the contemporary Indigenous peoples of North America struggled for survival and sovereignty within the violence and pressures of U.S. aggression and land-grabs, these sculpted counterparts could be employed by Bresciani to reinforce the Pope’s claims to temporal as well as religious sovereignty. Pope Pius IX and his allies defended the homeland of Christian civilization—Rome itself—and asserted their claim to rightful sovereignty of the Papal States, even as pressures mounted against the government. The fate of the Pope’s temporal rule, which was then very much under siege, is obliquely embodied here and immortalized, by the plight of Indigenous leaders facing genocide and removal. While surely a false equivalency, Pope Pius IX and his advisors clearly found sympathy to their cause in such a reading of Pettrich’s statues. Visitors to the throne room—whether from the Italian peninsula or abroad—would be forced to confront these Indigenous emissaries and to reckon with their sympathetic resonance to the Papal court.
40Clearly, the discourse surrounding Pettrich’s Indian Museum in Rome between 1858 and 1859 had little to do with the historical realities in which the history of the sculptures began in Washington, D.C. in 1837. It also had little to do with the preferences and beliefs of the subjects of Pettrich’s sculptures—for example, Keokuk, has sometimes been criticized for capitulating too greatly to the demands of the United States government, but he kept a firm stance against Christian evangelization (Lappas). Indeed, had these tribal members been curious about conversion to Catholicism, any of them could have pursued the opportunity, whether in the Midwest or during their visit to Washington—Catholic missionaries were by no means blocked by the U.S. Government from access to these tribal groups over the centuries of contact before 1837. Those historical realities are beside the point, of course, as Bresciani and his circle were not speaking to the American public.
41Scientifically and historically, Bresciani relied on fantasies about the ancient and prehistoric movements of the world’s peoples adapted to fit a version of the history of human civilization aligned with Catholic thought, ideas that have now long been debunked. Yet, despite the many challenges of these texts, and the sculptural gallery they accompany, Bresciani, Overbeck and Cornelius provide a window into the thinking of the Papal court at this key juncture in the hostilities between Pope Pius IX and the unifying forces gripping the Italian peninsula. Reflecting both a victim mentality and a sense of inevitable defeat, Bresciani’s essay and Overbeck and Cornelius’ letter defend the temporal and religious leadership of the Pope, positioning the Papal States, like the sovereign Indigenous nations of North America, as oppressed and displaced by cold, foreign forces. Facing what they saw as a cataclysmic moment—the threatened annihilation of the Pope’s temporal powers on the Italian peninsula—the Pope and his court filled the Sala del Concilio with silent figures of resistance to secular government power, albeit in the form of individuals who would have had no wish for their likenesses to be put to this service. Originally conceptualized as sovereign Indigenous leaders came to Washington, D.C. to express their opinions, to bend the ear of the United States government, and to assert their own identities, Pettrich’s statues found their permanent home as figures in the service of Christian empire, an ultimate victory for a transnational sculptor who over a lifetime living for many years in four different nations, was fully committed to the supranational authority of a Catholic empire. Perhaps Pope Pius IX and his supporters recognized the temporary relevance of the fictions they were constructing, since they never funded the carving of these statues in marble, leaving them in plaster, like stage props to accompany the court ceremonies, rather than immortalizing them as the work of divine providence (as Overbeck and Cornelius recommended). Equally likely, perhaps the Papal court realized that the Papal States themselves would not hold for long, and that this silent court of statues assembled at the feet of the throne to support the temporal power of the papacy was most appropriate to their purposes in more ephemeral form.