The Influence of Pre-Raphaelitism on Fin-de-Sicle Italy

This volume is the first comprehensive study of the influence of English Pre-
Raphaelitism on Italian art and culture in the late nineteenth century.
Analysis of the cultural relations between Italy and Britain has focused
traditionally on the special place that Italy had in the British imagination, but
the cultural and artistic exchanges between the two countries have been
much misunderstood.
This book aims to correct this imbalance by placing Pre-Raphaelitism in its
European context. It explores the nature of its influence on Italy, how it was
transmitted, and how it was manifested, by focusing on the role of Italian
Anglophiles, the English communities in Florence and Rome, the writings of
Gabriele D'Annunzio, and a number of Italian artists active in Tuscany and
Rome.
The works of Cellini, Ricci, Gioja, De Carolis, and Sartorio in particular fully
demonstrate the impact of Pre-Raphaelitism on the young Italian school of
painting which found in the English movement an ideal link with its glorious
past on which it could build a new artistic identity. These artists show that
English Pre-Raphaelitism was one of the most powerful single influences on
fin de sicle Italian culture.