Cultural Encounter as a Precondition for European Identity

Even today a core stratum of European identity can only be explained as a result of the repeated diachronic encounter with the cultural heritage of classical Antiquity and especially with the heritage of ancient Rome. European culture always had the literary, linguistic, and visual models of ancient Rome as a central point of reference, appropriated by each successive generation in a form that was necessarily mediated by previous encounters with classical cultural manifestations. One encounter, however, proved more influential than preceding and following ones, namely the one referred to as the Renaissance: its conscious emulation of classical models in large areas of society, combined with beginning scientific research into the classical world, provided a mold for all subsequent revivals as well as the necessary preconditions for the Enlightenment.
In Denmark, Renaissance Humanism arrived with the Lutheran Reformation (1536): separating the North from Rome dogmatically and institutionally, the Reformation paradoxically brought it in closer contact with Italian culture. In connection with the 500 years' anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 (which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the building of the Danish Academy in Rome) this project aims at investigating the reasons why the Renaissance became so important and how and in which forms it migrated north.