ABSTRACT
Around 1800 the concepts of ‘dictator’ and ‘dictatorship’, like many others, changed drastically in meaning and connotation. From an extraordinary, exceptional and provisional magistracy appointed in times of severe crises, as transmitted from the ancient Roman tradition, the dictator, now, came to stay and to provide a new constitutional order. Hence, the sovereign dictator, in terms of Carl Schmitt, as opposed to the commissarial one, became the dominant paradigm. The present essay claims that such a fatidic transition could not be ignored by iconography. Hence, it seeks to enlighten the conceptual change by means of a focus on the pictorial representation of dictatorship by means of different canvases. In a first step, the persistence of a Rome-inspired iconography will be highlighted with a focus on particular symbols and allegories. Then, a further step across the Atlantic and into the iconography of everydayness in the River Plate will show the pervasiveness and powerfulness of the personal cult of Juan Manuel de Rosas, Argentine dictator and governor of Buenos Aires with the sum of public power.
