The idea of Italy

by Maria Antonella Pelizzari

ISBN: 9780300263831

Published: 2022

"The Idea of Italy: Photography and the British Imagination, 1840-1900, examines the ways in which the new medium of photography influenced the British experience, appreciation, and perception of Italy in the mid-nineteenth century. Full-size plates-including many previously unpublished images-feature the work of both famous and little-known photographers, including Robert Macpherson, Calvert Richard Jones, George Wilson Bridges, Julia Margaret Cameron, Lady Anne Brassey, and James Craig Annan. Setting photography within a long history of image making that begins with the eighteenth-century Grand Tour, transformed by the inventions of William Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre, the sixteen essays in this volume explore photography as a vehicle for visual translation and cultural exchange. Maria Antonella Pelizzari is a professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Scott Wilcox is the former deputy...