Italia Romantica: English Romantics and Italian Freedom by Roderick Cavaliero

In the eyes of the English Romantics, Italy was not a nation but ""Italia,"" a place inhabited by the ancient. Theirs was a view shaped by the eighteenth century, the age of the Grand Tour, when no future nobleman's education was complete without a visit to Venice's carnival, the majestic ruins of the Forum in Rome, or the legendary Mount Vesuvius. Italia Romantica is a vivid history of the English Romantics' love affair with Italy. Through the eyes of Romantic travellers and poets such as Byron, Keats and Shelley, a fascinating picture of pre-unification Italy emerges, struggling to recover after Napoleon and edging towards the Risorgimento. Here is the Italy of idealized antiquity, magnificent but crumbling, somewhat like a gigantic and rather run-down living museum. It is full of bandits, unreformed Catholicism, vignettes of urban and pastoral life, of memorable characters and anecdote.

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