Book excerpt: "This volume examines the Italian Renaissance revival as a Pan-European phenonmenon of a critique, commentary and re-shaping of a ninteenth-century present perceived as deeply problematic. Sweeping the humanistic disciplines--history, literature, music, art, architecture, collecting--this phenomenon located between historical nostaglia and critique of the contemporary world marked the oeuvre of as diverse group of figures as...Through a series of essay by a group of international scholars the volume recovers some of the multi-dimensionality of the reaction to, transformation of and commentary on the Italian Renaissance and its ties to nineteenth-century modernity, as seen both from within (by Italians) and from without (by foreigners, expatriates, travelers, scholars, etc.). The essays seek out the connections between the Italian Renaissance and the nineteenth-century present, comparing different visions and interpretations and bringing out the characteristic features of the phenomenon..."--Page 4 de la couverture.