Reviving the Renaissance

By the time Italy had developed its obsession with neo-Renaissance in the 1870s, collectors and scholars in the rest of Europe had been excited by Renaissance taste and style for several decades. The Renaissance was then promptly reconceptualized, in a forced alignment with the accepted historical version of its birth and development, and its help enlisted in the search for an Italian national identity.

Thus the italianita of the Renaissance was proclaimed. But what represented this neo-Renaissance in Italy, and what aided its diffusion? In an attempt to answer these questions this book explores the many areas marked by neo-Renaissance taste. Its diffusion and development is traced, from the institutions which instructed its chief exponents, to architecture and exhibitions and the publications which disseminated neo-Renaissance designs so effectively.