Italia Romantica: English Romantics and Italian Freedom

by Roderick Cavaliero

Overview

What had seemed to Grand Tourists a museum of idealized antiquity and Renaissance art became—in the eyes of Byron, Keats, Shelley and a host of other visitors—a nation struggling to assert itself but not quite able to do so. Italia Romantica is a vivid history of the English Romantics' love affair with Italy and of the changing attitudes in pre-unification Italy. Roderick Cavaliero's compelling story is full of bandits, unreformed Catholicism, poets, and improvvisatori, shot through with vignettes of timeless urban and pastoral life, remarkable characters, and anecdotes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845114565
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	01/15/2008
Series:	Tauris Parke Paperbacks Series
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.54(w) x 7.33(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Roderick Cavaliero is a writer and historian, author of Admiral Satan: The Life and Campaigns of the Bailli de Suffren, Independence of Brazil and Strangers in the Land: The Rise and Decline of the British Indian Empire (all I.B.Tauris) as well as Last of the Crusaders: The Knights of St John and Malta in the Eighteenth Century.

Table of Contents

the eyes of the English Romantics, Italy was not a nation but Italia, a place inhabited by the ancients. Theirs was a view shaped by the eighteenth century, the age of the Grand Tour. The people of Italy, divided by language, region, and culture, did not share these artistic and historical ideals of Italia. After the Napoleonic wars, however, all this was to change. Nationalism began to replace local loyalties and the land 'where the lemon trees blow' now attracted tourists, not just Grand Tourists.
What had seemed to Grand Tourists a museum of idealised antiquity and Renaissance art became in the eyes of Byron, Keats and Shelley and a host of other visitors a nation struggling to assert itself but not quite able to do so. Italia Romantica is a vivid history of the English Romantics' love affair with Italy and of the changing attitudes in pre-unification Italy. Roderick Cavaliero's compelling story is full of bandits, unreformed Catholicism, poets and improvvisatori, shot through with vignettes of timeless urban and pastoral life, remarkable characters and anecdote.

Editorial Reviews

'Cavaliero has written a highly entertaining account of English views of Italy in the era just as the British were launching themselves on the path to imperial greatness and the Italians had become the sorry remnants of a once-great race.' — The Economist, Books of the Year
'…a lively informative survey of the visitors who traipsed among the lemon trees…Cavaliero brings the era to life. He gives us the frisson of the foreign, encountered in many forms: from the pleasures of dolce far niente and Canova to the terrors of banditti and Vesuvius.' — Esther Schor, Times Literary Supplement
'A fascinating book. Each chapter is a delightful cornucopia of absorbing details and intriguing, sometimes surprising connections, and despite having to cover a huge amount of ground Cavaliero nevertheless manages to sustain a pacey, entertaining narrative," — Stephen Hebron, Keats-Shelley Review
'The English aristocracy have embraced the peerless cultural pleasures of Italia. This book, peopled with villains, priests and heroes, is a history of that phenomenon.'
Paul Lay, BBC History magazine
'This splendid, erudite and evocative book is the fruit of the author's long love affair with Italy, its art, its literature, its history, its opera and its people.'
Anne Fleming, The Byron Journal
'The book is a storehouse of learned detail.'
Peter Cochrane, The Byron Journal

From the Publisher