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___1 Persian Carpet, 17Th Century. Florence, Museo Bardini, Inv

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___1 Persian Carpet, 17Th Century. Florence, Museo Bardini, Inv ____ 1 Persian carpet, 17th century. Florence, Museo Bardini, inv. 555 ‘HiTler’s CarpeT’ A TALE OF ONE CITY Costanza Caraffa - Avinoam Shalem In an article titled “Louvre’s Dragonfly-Wing-Like museums today is quite evident. Museums in today’s Islamic Art Building Is Ready to Fly” and published so-called modern secular society are a major focus of in the Los Angeles Times on 1 September 2012, Mario public interest. They are the magnets of our mobile Bellini, the Italian architect in charge of construction travelling society and the agoras where a sophisticated of the new wing in the Louvre’s 19th-century Visconti discourse on social and political issues as well as eth- Courtyard explains the specific aesthetic of the ‘drag- ical values unfolds. The objects that are on permanent onfly’ wing as follows: “If you look up, you understand or temporary display in them invite visitors to engage you’re in a courtyard, […] but on the other hand, you in an aesthetic or, more precisely, visual interaction feel you are in a special world, and this magic filter – we with history that is seemingly unaffected by a religious can say a flying carpet – it transports your fantasy and gaze. Moreover, artefacts and masterpieces on display your attention elsewhere, while you can still glimpse tend to be transformed from objects of cult to ob- out and position yourself. That peculiar aspect of be- jects of culture in a usually rigid manner, whereby their ing there and not being there is what I think makes our function is obscured or, indeed, replaced by aesthetics proposal a success.”1 – they are a visual pleasure to the eye. The universal, The engagement of modern architects and design- broad-based values associated with the aesthetic merits ers in projects involving the erection and re-building of of artefacts sometimes cause us to forget that, despite 1 Devorah Lauter, “Louvre’s Dragonfly-Wing-Like Islamic Art Build- islam-20120902,0,6657050.story (accessed on 16 Sept. 2012). Cf. Rudy ing Is Ready to Fly”, in: Los Angeles Times, 1 September 2012, URL: Ricciotti/Mario Bellini/Renaud Piérard, “A New Space for the Islamic Arts”, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-ca-louvre- in: Islamic Art at the Musée du Louvre, ed. by Sophie Makariou, Paris 2012, pp. 20–25. | 119 this aesthetic gaze – a way of approaching the object the scope of this study. It is likely that the richness that purports to be on equal terms and impartial –, of its colours, its usual pattern of flowers and scrolls, there is still a particular narrative that is being told. often referred to as arabesques, as well as its common Artefacts are not merely visual illustrations of writ- spatial organisation, which tends to reject any sense ten sources and oral traditions. They are independent, of depth, turned the carpet into the Islamic art object self-sufficient sources for telling stories and histories par excellence, which epitomises Western stereotypi- that can actually contradict and challenge literary cal views of Islamic art. Moreover, these stereotypical sources. It would be interesting to contemplate on views focusing on iconoclasm in Islamic art or, more Bellini’s description of the ceiling of the Louvre’s new precisely, its rejection of imitation of nature, likewise wing for Islamic art as a “flying carpet”. His sugges- appear to be confirmed by the carpet’s decoration. It tion that visitors when confronted with the sculptured seems then that the carpet could be regarded as the ceiling will experience spiritual transport, while the grand Other of Western art, especially as compared display of Islamic objects in the space will cause their to, say, Renaissance painting in Florence with its one- thoughts and fancy to take flight, is very intriguing. In point perspective. It is this antithesis that obviously fact, the newly designed space clearly interacts with the prompted Oscar Wilde to say that “the whole history glass pyramid designed by I. M. Pei that was erected of [the] arts in Europe is the record of the struggle at the entrance courtyard to the Louvre in 1989. But between Orientalism, with its frank rejection of imita- whereas Pei’s pyramid is an unmistakably steady and tion […], and our own imitative spirit”.3 solid structure fixed at one particular spot, the idea of Of course, there were several other reasons in- the flying carpet suggests transition and change.A nd volved in reinforcing the carpet’s central role as an yet, the flying carpet allegory as related to the world of envoy of Islamic art in the West, first among them its Islam is perhaps one of the most obvious clichés – a perceived status as a luxury object, a fact that contrib- thousand-and-one-nights marvel – that has consider- uted, in the High Middle Ages, to its immediate ac- able bearing on the popular mind and, indeed, on the ceptance in royal and wealthy aristocratic households jargon of academic ‘Orientalism’.2 in Europe, and, in modern times, to its impact on Why the carpet came to be the unmistakable em- artists interested in the new possibilities offered by issary of Islam in the West is a topic that goes beyond abstract art.4 2 Our understanding and use of the term ‘Orientalism’ is related to the 3 Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying”, in: Complete Works, ed. by Vyvyan long Western history that narrates the image of Islam from the birth of this Holland, London/Glasgow 1967, p. 979. For Oscar Wilde’s view on the religion in the 7th century until our ‘modern’ era and draws on the influential aesthetic of the Persian carpet, see ibidem, p. 45: “I should like to write a study of Edward W. Said. See Edward W. Said, Orientalism, London 1978; novel that would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal.” For the idem, “Orientalism Reconsidered”, in: Literature, Politics and Theory: Papers from the history of the role of the Oriental carpet in the West see mainly Kurt Erd- Essex Conference 1976–1984, ed. by Francis Barker et al., London/New York mann, Europa und der Orientteppich, Berlin/Mainz 1962; John Mills, Carpets in 1986, pp. 210–229; Asaf Hussain et al., Orientalism, Islam and Islamists, Brat- Pictures: Themes and Painters in the National Gallery, London 1975; idem, Carpets tleboro, Vt., 1984; see also Armando Salvatore, “Beyond Orientalism? Max in Paintings, London ²1983; Hans-Günther Schwarz, Orient-Okzident: Der Weber and the Displacement of ‘Essentialism’ in the Study of Islam”, in: orientalische Teppich in der westlichen Literatur, Ästhetik und Kunst, Munich 1990; Arabica, 43 (1996), pp. 457–485; Orientalism: A Reader, ed. by Alexander L. Rosamund Mack, “Lotto a Carpet Connoisseur”, in: Lotto: Rediscovered Mas- Macfie, New York 2000; Touraj Atabaki, Beyond Essentialism: Who Writes Whose ter of the Renaissance, ed. by David A. Brown/Peter Humfrey/Mauro Lucco, Past in the Middle East and Central Asia, Amsterdam 2003; Birgit Schäbler, “Riding Washington 1997, pp. 59–67; Marco Spallanzani, Oriental Rugs in Renaissance the Turns: Edward Saids Buch ‘Orientalism’ als Erfolgsgeschichte”, in: Orient Florence, Florence 2007; see also Annette Beselin, “Bode auf den zweiten – Orientalistik – Orientalismus: Geschichte und Aktualität einer Debatte, ed. by Burkhard Blick”, in: Islamische Kunst in Berliner Sammlungen: 100 Jahre Museum für isla- Schnepel/Gunnar Brands/Hanne Schönig, Bielefeld 2011, pp. 279–302. mische Kunst, ed. by Jens Kröger/Désirée Heiden, Berlin 2004, pp. 66–71. 120 | COSTANZA CARAffa – AVINOAM SHALEM | Our aim in this short study is to focus on a specif- carpet in Florence in 1938. The second part of this ic aspect concerning carpets and politics. At the centre article focuses on the tradition and the Florentine ur- of this investigation is a particular Persian carpet in ban narratives associated with this carpet and aims at the Museo Bardini in Florence (Inv. 555, Fig. 1) that explaining the complex relationship between fiction came to be known in oral tradition as ‘Hitler’s carpet’; and reality in its modern biography. it was reputedly used to welcome Hitler on the plat- form of Florence’s main train station on 9 May 1938, I. where it was allegedly stepped on by Hitler and cut Before travelling back in time in order to trace by his spurs, an account that will be examined in this the long history of carpets and politics, let us first study and put into its specific historical context, thus introduce Bardini’s carpet.5 This monumental piece allowing us to speculate on the particular reasons that measuring 280 × 750 cm is one of the best-preserved contributed to its dissemination and the credence that carpets in the Museo Bardini. It is also the largest, was lent to it in Florence. though not the most significant or valuable carpet in In the first part of this article, we will introduce the collection. It was probably made in the mid-17th the carpet in the Bardini collection in Florence and century in one of the main workshops of central Iran, provide an historical overview on the political role most likely in Isfahan. The carpet is a cotton-made of carpets. In addition, we will look in detail at the piece featuring about eight different colours, includ- specific uses and rituals of audience hall carpets in ing ivory-white, Bordeaux, red, yellow, green, tur- the medieval Islamic world. This emphasis on the car- quoise, blue, and dark brown. It is densely knotted, pet’s role in the various regions of the Islamic world with some 2000 knots per dm2, and decorated with a is important mainly to establish its political function floral pattern that has commonly been referred to in in the Middle Ages and early modern era in both the the West as arabesque decor.
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