Dictionary of Switzerland

Switzerland is a small country, both in geography and population size, and might almost be marginal if not for its amazing trajectory and continuing political and economic vitality, for it has brought together peoples of different races, religions, languages, and political persuasions in a voluntary union that has withstood the tests of time relatively well. …This does not necessarily make Switzerland an ideal model – there are less admirable aspects as well – but it is definitely a place one should know more about. Alas, its considerable diversity and complexity make it harder to fathom than most other places (L. Schelbert, Historical Dictionary of Switzerland,  Lanham, Maryland 2007).

Switzerland in the Making

In the course of the Late Middle Ages a new political order asserted itself in the territory of Switzerland. The new communes  constituted political bodies with their own jurisdiction. Making laws and constituting administrative and executive bodies by means of election, embodied the core of the communal constitution. Today many historians would probably endorse the statement that direct democracy grew from constitutional circumstances that originated in the communalization of political power. (Forum of Swiss History, Switzerland in the Making (Baden 2011).

The Rhone and Roman Authors

The Graian and Pennine Alps, not counting towns of lesser note, have Avenches, a city now abandoned, to be sure, but once of no slight importance, as is even yet evident from its half-ruined buildings. These are the goodly provinces and cities of Gaul. It would be unfitting and absurd to say nothing of the Rhone, a river of the greatest celebrity. Rising in the Pennine Alps from a plenteous store of springs, the Rhone flows in headlong course towards more level places. It bursts into the lagoon called Lake Leman. From there without any loss of volume it flows through Savoy and the Seine Province. (Ammianus Marcellinus, The Roman History (15.11.12-17), translation http://perseus.uchicago.edu)

Upper Burgundy

‘Upper Burgundy’ is hard to imagine without shedding the modern concepts of ‘France’, ‘Germany’ and ‘Switzerland’, One has to remind oneself constantly that the modern states of Europe had not been invented , and that the communities which preceded them were no more artificial than very many of the states of European history. As a Swiss historian has put it, ‘C’est ainsi que nacquit une improbable patrie entre un marteau et une éclume’. The clear implication is that Switzerland grew from its Burgundian roots. (Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms. The History of Half-Forgotten Europe (London 2011).

Modern art in the twelfth century

By the eleventh and twelfth centuries there had emerged in Western Europe within Church art a new sphere of artistic creation without religious content and imbued with values of spontaneity, individual fantasy, delight in color and movement, and the expression of feeling that anticipate modern art. This new art was accompanied by a conscious taste of the spectators for the beauty of workmanship, materials, and artistic devices. (M. Shapiro, Romanesque Art. Selected Papers (New york 1977).

Democracy, Arts and Europe

The nineteenth century in Europe was punctuated at its beginnings, middle, and end by revolutions and less violent struggles. For the first time in European history, painting and sculpture, as well as the new reproductive media, were available as instruments of democracy as well as of domination. (S.F. Eisenman, Nineteenth Century Art. A Critical History (London 2011).

The Roman Cohesion

Among the elite there developed a high degree of cultural consensus, such that a provincial aristocrat from one corner of the empire would have a great deal of cultural common ground with his counterpart in the furthermost reaches of Rome’s domains. Such cultural agreement was of high value in cementing the political co-operation. (M. Goodman, The Roman world 44 BC-AD 180 (London 1997).

European Unity

If one compares the political state of Western Europe at the end of the fifth century with its state at the end of the fourth century, one is struck by the substitution, for Roman unity, of a multiplicity of diverse entities, each independent of the others. F. Ganshof, The Middle Ages. A History of International Relations (New York 1970)

Roman Ruins

Roman buildings, even in ruins, helped to keep alive the concept of international dominion, a concept adopted by the Christian Church and emulated time and again by later politcal leaders (M. Stokstad, Medieval Art, Washington 1986).

Rushing about Europe

When people rush about Europe from one glittering centre of work or pleasure to another, passing, at enormous expense, through a series of mammoth hotels, and blatant carnivals, they little know what they are missing, and how cheaply priceless things can be obtained. W.S. Churchill, ‘Painting as a Pastime’, in Strand Magazine, December 1921-January 1922.