Book excerpt: This book offers an account of neo-Renaissance taste and style in Italy during the second half of the nineteenth century. By the time Italy had developed its obsession with the neo-Renaissance in the 1870s, collectors and scholars in the rest of Europe had been excited by Renaissance taste and style for several decades. In Italy the Renaissance was promptly reconceptualised, 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. 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. It traces its diffusion and development from the institutions which instructed its chief exponents, to architecture and exhibitions and the publications which disseminated neo-Renaissance designs so effectively.