Use and Misuse of “Reuse”. An Introduction

This paper briefly traces the history of the concept of spolium and reuse in archaeological and art historical studies since its appearance in the sixteenth century. In the twentieth century, the term, which had previously been used in a rather negative sense, underwent a reappraisal following the flourishing of Late Antique studies. H. P. L’Orange (1939) and F. Deichmann (1940) provided the parameters of interpretation of the phenomenon that were accepted in the following decades. More recently, a critical revision of these ideas has been proposed, extending the concept beyond Late antique architectural reuse and considering its development up to modern times. Using the tools of linguistics and semiotics, it is necessary to formulate a more rigorous theoretical framework of the phenomenon, taking into account the different historical and cultural situations from ancient to modern times, in order to avoid the pitfalls of an overly ideological and subjective interpretation.