IMPERIAL STYLE
**IMPERIAL STYLE** – Designation of the phase of Neoclassical style adopted and spread as the official aesthetic expression of the Napoleonic Empire; however, current usage applies the term loosely, often using it for Neoclassicism in general, a simplification justified by the fact that the Imperial style brought to a mature, often rigid formula the typical Neoclassical elements that had been spreading across Europe since the excavations at Herculaneum and other manifestations of the revival of interest in classical antiquity (Winckelmann, Mengs, Piranesi, the style of Robert Adam based on the study of Diocletian’s Palace in Spalato, the Baths, the arabesques and stuccoes of the Vatican Logge and Villa Madama, the style of Wedgwood ceramics, etc.).
The taste of the Imperial style oscillates between the Etruscan-Roman monumentalism and Greek grace, sometimes skillfully blending these styles, at other times creating grotesque hybrids. General characteristics include a certain rigidity of lines that conveys grandeur and severity, a purity—more or less academic—that later generations have perceived as coldness, and a lack of spontaneity and flexibility that engenders a certain monotony. Typical is the work of Percier and Fontaine, the supreme expression of official art: inspired not only by classical models but also by our Renaissance, they codified the Imperial decoration in the *Recueil de décorations intérieures*, which began to be published in installments in 1801 and appeared in its definitive edition in 1812. The often trite and affected ornamentation, with its elegant Alexandrinism (lyres, swans, palmettes, sphinxes, etc.), sometimes conceals what modern eyes have seen as one of the most notable contributions of the Imperial style: its functionality and rationality. In furniture and buildings, where the dominance of ancient models (the Pantheon, the triumphal arch, etc.) is evident, this rationalism is particularly clear.
---
IMPOSITION OF HANDS
*xerotaxia* (from the verb *xerotonein*), which has replaced the generic expression *entaseis ton xeron*. The original meaning of the terms *xerotonein* and *xerotaxia* is: “to elect by raising the hand”; later they were used as equivalents of “to appoint or establish someone in an office”; only subsequently, in ecclesiastical language, do they come to mean both the election of sacred ministers and the ordination through the so-called imposition of hands, or both acts together. A similar ideological evolution occurred with the other term *xerothesia* (from the verb *xerothesein*), though this rather denotes the imposition of hands distinct from that performed by the bishop in conferring Holy Orders.
**Summary:**
I. The rite and its origin
II. The imposition of hands in the Old Testament
III. The imposition of hands in the New Testament
IV. The imposition of hands in ancient liturgy
V. The imposition of hands in modern liturgy
VI. Doctrinal discussion
VII. The imposition of hands in Christian archaeology.**I. The rite and its origin.** – Although the expression “imposition of hands” suggests the application or physical contact of both hands, documentary evidence shows first of all that it was not always both hands that were imposed. Latin writers more often speak of the hand in the singular: cf. Tertullian, *De Baptismo*, 8: “Dehinc manus imponitur”; St. Stephen to St. Cyprian, *Epist.*, 74, 1: “Ut manus imponatur in poenitentiam”; while the plural is more common in New Testament texts (cf. Matt. 19:13, 15; Mark 10:16; Acts 8:17; 19:6; Heb. 6:2; 1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22; 2 Tim. 1:6) and among Greek writers. As for physical contact, it is ordinarily implied or explicitly indicated by both New Testament and patristic and liturgical texts. Thus in Luke 18:15 it is openly stated that children were brought to Jesus “ut eos tangeret”; and in the *Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua*, regarding the consecration of bishops, it is prescribed: “Manibus caput eius tangant”: PL 56, 887. There are, however, cases in which no such contact occurs, the imposition of hands being reduced to a simple extension of the hands. Such, for example, is the imposition for the dismissal of catechumens as described in the *Peregrinatio Etheriae* (ed. C. Geyer [CSEL, 39], p. 72), where the bishop performs it with a single extension of his hands over all present.
The imposition of hands is usually accompanied by a prayer. This serves to indicate the particular meaning given to the rite, the specific purpose intended to be achieved through II. This prayer is already mentioned in some New Testament texts as associated with the imposition of hands: cf. Acts 6:6; 8:15–17; 13:3. Tertullian, then, in *De Baptismo*, 8, writes: “Manus imponitur per benedictionem advocans et invitans Spiritum Sanctum”; St. Cyprian, *Epist.*, 73, 9: “Per nostram orationem ac manus impositionem”; Eusebius, *Hist. eccl.*, I, 13, 18; VII, 11, 1, speaks of *xerothesia*; and St. Augustine, *De Baptismo*, 3, 16, 21, explicitly defines the imposition of hands as: “Manus impositio... quid est aliud nisi oratio super hominem?” From this prayer, understood in its primitive sense as a formula of blessing (cf. Mark 10:16: “Imponens manus super parvulos, benedicet eos”), there arose the frequent use in early Christianity of indicating the imposition of hands by the term “benedictio” as a pars pro toto. Thus, regarding Holy Orders, St. Leo the Great, *Epist.*, 9, 1, writes: “A ieiunantibus sacra benedictio conferatur”; and the *Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua* prescribe, for the consecration of a bishop: “Uno super eum fundente benedictionem”; for the ordination of a priest: “Episcopo benedicere et manus super caput eius tenente”; for the deacon: “Episcopus qui eum benedicit”: PL 56, 887–88.
As for the origin of the rite of the imposition of hands, recent scholars of comparative religion, having noted its use in various pagan religious contexts, have sought to trace it back to Greco-Roman ceremonial; from this, the imposition of hands would have passed first to Judaism and then to Christianity (cf. F. C. Conybeare, *Myth, magic and morals. A study of christian origins*, London