Heroisierung als visuelle Rhetorik in Standbildern der Frühen Neuzeit in Italien und Frankreich

This art-historical monograph provides a systematic overview of the various forms of heroization in public statues from the early modern period in Italy and France. This opens up a perspective on this thematic area that has received little attention in academic research so far. Since there is no definition of the heroic that can be applied to the entirety of the early modern period, the author has chosen to consider the artistic design of the public statues as part of a communication process. Furthermore, she has developed a systematization model, which she applies to the heterogeneous artistic material. The author has divided heroization into four categories – dissimulative, imitative, individualizing, and increased – and the resultant structure of the publication encourages the reader to transfer the central questions posed here to further epochs.