Oggetti animati. Materialità, circolazione e usi della figura di Pio IX (1846-1849)

This essay analyses the political and religious twist that permeates the manufacturing and circulation of things of everyday usage linked to the image of pope Pius IX on his first three years of pontificate. Since the large amnesty he gave on July 16, 1846, Pius was the center of an extended and across-the-board mobilization. Consequently, his image was reproduces and politically exploited. The facet of the pope was immediately linked to the act of mercy of amnesty; as time goes by, different subjects exploited the manufacturing and diffusion of objects that incorporated the portrait of the pope as propaganda weapons. After the failure of 1848 revolutions, these objects apparently disappeared; truthfully they stayed but changed their meaning. The essay provides a reconstruction of this parabola and suggests a new ‘political ethnology” for the study of these objects.