Meaningful Silence? Alexander W. Byvanck and his Attitude Towards the Archaeology of Fascist Rome

This paper gives a reconstruction of the views of Dutch classical archaeologist Alexander W. Byvanck (1884-1970) on the archaeology of fascist Rome. Because of Byvanck’s many visits to Italy, especially the four travels he made in the 1930s with his students, and considering his special love for the city of Rome, Italian cultural officials probably had hoped that Byvanck would become a fellow traveller of Italian Fascism; something that never happened. Thanks to the philosophical basis of his work, in which the Volksgeist was the leading category, and his humanist and liberal vision on the socio-political position of academics, Byvanck was able to consider fascist archaeology as an un-academic phenomenon which was not to be discussed publicly.