ABSTRACT
In the mid-thirteenth century, some written works were in circulation promoting an eschatological narrative centered around the fall of the papacy, the division of its vast property amongst the poor and the establishment of God's true kingdom on earth. Friedrich Nietzsche's essay 'Untimely Meditations: On the Use and Abuse of History for Life' is a detailed anatomy of the way in which the present is constructed from the dead moments of the past through repetition, identification and re-enactment. What is more surprising is that Nietzsche does not spend more time dealing with the myth of his first European, Friedrich the Second, and the way in which this myth created ripples in time and was repeated and re-enacted many times over the centuries following the emperor's death. Art in its modern phase is defined as a revolutionary democratic force, and its explicit mission is to overcome the schism between the inherently privileged and undemocratic art institution and the everyday.
