Massacres of early modernity: story, truth and distance for the intelección

Abstract

Recent historiography has shown that the narration of past events is an intellectual and rhetorical construction produced by historians. Certainly a construction, but not a fictional invention. Every object of historical analysis implies a specifical complexity: those objects we approach with highest emotional involvement burden us with deep methodological predicaments. Massacres embody the peak of such difficulties. This article studies the ways in which Early Modern massacres were understood and represented through the use of images driven from Classical Antiquity and the Christian tradition of martyrdom. We will attempt to prove that massacres can be understood by their inclusion in rhetorical and aesthetic frames that allow the conformation of a distance between object and subject. This Denkraum, in turn, is capable of unveiling something strikingly real from that factum that would otherwise be unbearable.