Monuments, Martyrdom, and the Politics of Religion in the French Third Republic

The years around 1900 witnessed violent religious controversy in France, aggravated by political upheavals such as the Dreyfus Affair. This climate fostered a series of public monuments to historical figures identified as victims of confessional conflict in the past. Centering on three monuments to the sixteenth-century Spanish doctor and theologian Michael Servetus, by Jean Baffier, Joseph Bernard, and Clotilde Roch, this study examines the complex appropriation of former victims of religious intolerance by contending factions in the ideological battlefield of the Belle Epoque, and explores the broader connotations of the commemorative process during the Third Republic.

Duke Scholars

Author Neil McWilliam Art, Art History & Visual Studies