In a classic piece of art criticism, the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl discusses the “memory value” of monuments. While Riegl's study compares the notion of aesthetic and epistemological approaches to art preservation, he also indicates that, beyond the age and the historical values of a monument (irrespective of claims to art), the intentional commemorative value of a monument stakes its claim on perpetual memorial value, a claim to “immortality, to an eternal present and an unceasing state of becoming” (Riegl [1928] 1982, 38).2 In his discussion on art restoration, Riegl argues that a monument with an inscription effaced by natural elements “would cease to be an intentional monument” and merits artistic and cultural assessment based solely on age value. The issue of intentional effacement can be analyzed in the case of the monument to honor Khedive Ismail (1830–1895) that the political and economic leaders of the large Italian...
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