Page 443 - Beholding Liberty!

HALL OF TROPHIES
EPILOGUE 2
His Majesty the King of Bavaria Ludwig I
Poems about Greece
Translated by Alexandros Rizos Rangavis
Nafplio: By the Royal Printing House, directed by G. Apostolides Kosmitis. 1833 Library of the Hellenic Parliament
LUDWIG I KING OF BAVARIA was an ardent philhellene, both before and after the 1821 Revolution. Ludwig (1786-1868) studied at the universities of Landshut and Göttingen, where he was introduced to liberal ideals. His philhellenism stemmed from his fervent antiquarianism, which led him in 1813 to acquire sculptures from the temple of Aphaea on Aegina (today in Munich’s Glyptothek). He supported the Greek cause not only in theory but also in practice, by providing financial support. On the south side of the König- splatz, Munich’s Royal Square, he had built the Panhellenion, a boarding school for 30 orphaned Greek children.
In the same square, he had also had the Propylaea built, funded by his personal fortune; the largest monument to the Greek Revolution, designed by Leo von Klenze and featuring sculptures by Lud- wig Michael von Schwanthaler, it was inaugurat- ed in 1862, a year before Otto’s eviction from Greece.
An avid supporter of the Greek Revolution, Ludwig composed poems in support of the Greek cause, with characteristic titles, including “To Greece”, “To Greeks”, “In the Wake of the Fall of Psara”, “Missolonghi”, “Consolation to Greeks”, “Mourning for Greeks”. They were first published in 1829 in Munich (Gedichte des Königs Ludwig von Bayern). In 1830 an adaptation to 5th-century classical Greek (Carmina ad Graecos in linguam Graecam / Ελεγεία τε και μέλη εις Έλληνας), was published in Stuttgart by Johannes Franz, later Otto’s transla- tor in Greece.
This edition, in Greek, translated by the poet, ar- chaeologist and politician Alexandros Rizos Ran- gavis (1809-1892), was published in 1833 to coin- cide with the arrival of Ludwig’s son, Otto, in Naf- plio [cat. no. II.6.7] to ascend to the Greek throne. Ludwig’s fervent philhellenism demonstrates the historical relations of Athens with Munich, also known as Athens on the Izar. The poetic value of Ludwig’s Greek poems is debatable; their sym- bolism, however, makes them textual evidence of Bavarian Philhellenism.
EPILOGUE Farewell to arms 443