Konstnären i möte med statsskrivaren i 1800-talets Rom: En studie av förmedlare mellan muntligt och skriftligt utgående från två konstverk

A meeting between an artist and a public scribe in 19th century Rome. A study of a mediator between oral and literate tradition from the viewpoint of two art works. Ernst Meyer (1797–1861) was one of the many artists that traveled from the north to Italy and Rome in the early 19th century. He is known for his genre paintings from Rome, especially two of them that focus on the interaction between a young girl and a public scribe sitting in a piazza. The aim of the article is to show how the two paintings and the artist’s many sketches in the Kobbertiksamlingen in The National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, together with written narratives of the public scribes at work, can be used by a historian wanting to highlight an accessive (or mediated) mode of literacy. This mode of literacy, dependent on mediators between oral and literate and vice versa, was of crucial importance in a society becoming more dependent on the written word. Meyer and others visiting Rome from the northern part of Europe viewed the ordinary people of Rome as different and exotic but both in paintings and in written narratives they were nevertheless capable of perceiving important elements in the everyday life of contemporary Romans. A meeting between an artist and a public scribe in 19th century Rome. A study of a mediator between oral and literate tradition from the viewpoint of two art works. Ernst Meyer (1797–1861) was one of the many artists that traveled from the north to Italy and Rome in the early 19th century. He is known for his genre paintings from Rome, especially two of them that focus on the interaction between a young girl and a public scribe sitting in a piazza. The aim of the article is to show how the two paintings and the artist’s many sketches in the Kobbertiksamlingen in The National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, together with written narratives of the public scribes at work, can be used by a historian wanting to highlight an accessive (or mediated) mode of literacy. This mode of literacy, dependent on mediators between oral and literate and vice versa, was of crucial importance in a society becoming more dependent on the written word. Meyer and others visiting Rome from the northern part of Europe viewed the ordinary people of Rome as different and exotic but both in paintings and in written narratives they were nevertheless capable of perceiving important elements in the everyday life of contemporary Romans. The article is written in Swedish