Editing Iconoclasm (section)

===During the French Revolution===
{{Main|Iconoclasm during the French Revolution}}
Throughout the radical phase of the [[French Revolution]], iconoclasm was supported by members of the government as well as the citizenry. Numerous monuments, religious works, and other historically significant pieces were destroyed in an attempt to eradicate any memory of the [[Old Regime]]. A statue of [[King Louis XV]] in the Paris square which until then bore his name, was pulled down and destroyed. This was a prelude to the [[guillotine|guillotining]] of his successor [[Louis XVI]] in the same site, renamed "Place de la Révolution" (at present [[Place de la Concorde]]).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Idzerda|first=Stanley J.|year=1954|title=Iconoclasm during the French Revolution|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=60/1|issue=1|pages=13–26|doi=10.2307/1842743|jstor=1842743}}</ref> Later that year, the bodies of many French kings were exhumed from the [[Basilica of Saint-Denis]] and dumped in a mass grave.<ref name=lindsay>{{cite web|last1=Lindsay|first1=Suzanne Glover|title=The Revolutionary Exhumations at St-Denis, 1793|url=http://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/essays/revolutionary-exhumations-st-denis-1793|website=Center for the Study of Material & Visual Cultures of Religion|date=18 October 2014|publisher=Yale University}}</ref>

Some episodes of iconoclasm were carried out spontaneously by crowds of citizens, including the destruction of statues of kings during the [[insurrection of 10 August 1792]] in Paris.<ref name=":34">{{Cite journal|last=Thompson|first=Victoria E.|date=Fall–Winter 2012|title=The Creation, Destruction and Recreation of Henri IV: Seeing Popular Sovereignty in the Statue of a King|journal=History and Memory|volume=24|issue=2|pages=5–40|jstor=10.2979/histmemo.24.2.5|doi=10.2979/histmemo.24.2.5|s2cid=159942339}}</ref> Some were directly sanctioned by the Republican government, including the Saint-Denis exhumations.<ref name=lindsay/> Nonetheless, the Republican government also took steps to preserve historic artworks,<ref>{{Cite book |title=From Royal to National: The Louvre Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale |first=Bette Wyn |last=Oliver |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7391-1861-0 |pages=21–22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oOXAtXKvXn0C&q=the+louvre+opening+1793 |oclc=70883061}}</ref> notably by founding the [[Louvre]] museum to house and display the former royal art collection. This allowed the physical objects and national heritage to be preserved while stripping them of their association with the monarchy.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Foucault | first=Michel | translator-last=Miskowiec | translator-first=Jay | title=Of Other Spaces | journal=Diacritics | publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press  | volume=16 | issue=1 | year=1986 | issn=0300-7162 | doi=10.2307/464648 | jstor=464648 | pages=22–27 |url=https://foucault.info/documents/heterotopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en/| url-access=subscription }} Translated from {{cite journal | last=Foucault | first=Michel |author-mask=0 |date=October 1984 |title=Des Espace Autres |journal=Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité |number=5 |pages=46–49 |language=fr}} Alternate translation available in {{cite book | last=Foucault | first=Michel |author-mask=0 |chapter=Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias |chapter-url=http://www.vizkult.org/propositions/alineinnature/pdfs/Foucault-OfOtherSpaces1967.pdf |pages=330–336 |editor-last=Leach | editor-first=Neil | title=Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory | publisher=Routledge | year=1997 | isbn=978-0-415-12826-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o5Q56G7opmcC&pg=PA330}}</ref><ref>Stanley J. Idzerda, "Iconoclasm during the French Revolution." In The American Historical Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Oct., 1954), p. 25.</ref><ref>Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987): 212–213.</ref> [[Alexandre Lenoir]] saved many royal monuments by diverting them to preservation in a museum.<ref>Greene, Christopher M., "Alexandre Lenoir and the Musée des monuments français during the French Revolution," French Historical Studies 12, no. 2 (1981): pp. 200–222.</ref>

The statue of [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]] on the column at [[Place Vendôme]], Paris was also the target of iconoclasm several times: destroyed after the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]], restored by [[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis-Philippe]], destroyed during the [[Paris Commune]] and restored by [[Adolphe Thiers]].

After [[Napoleon]] conquered the Italian city of [[Pavia]], local Pavia Jacobins destroyed the [[Regisole]], a bronze classical equestrian monument dating back to Classical times. The Jacobins considered it a symbol of Royal authority, but it had been a prominent Pavia landmark for nearly a thousand years and its destruction aroused much indignation and precipitated a revolt by inhabitants of Pavia against the French, which was quelled by Napoleon after a furious urban fight.