Baroquemania explores the intersections of art, architecture and criticism to show how reimagining the Baroque helped craft a distinctively Italian approach to modern art. Offering a bold reassessment of post-unification visual culture, the book examines a wide variety of media and ideologically charged discourses on the Baroque, both inside and outside the academy. Key episodes in the modern afterlife of the Baroque are addressed, notably the Decadentist interpretation of Gianlorenzo Bernini, the 1911 universal fairs in Turin and Rome, Roberto Longhi's historically grounded view of Futurism, architectural projects in Fascist Rome and the interwar reception of Adolfo Wildt and Lucio Fontana's sculpture. Featuring a wealth of visual materials, Baroquemania offers a fresh look at a central aspect of Italy's modern art.

Reviews

'This is a very well-written and extremely well-researched book on a fascinating topic. It is certainly essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary Italian art.'
Francesca Billiani, Professor of Italian at the University of Manchester.

Introduction
1 Decadent Seicento: the emergence of the Baroque in the Italian fin de siècle
2 The Baroque's revenge: the 1911 jubilee exhibitions and the search for an Italian style
3 Baroque Futurism: Roberto Longhi, seventeenth-century art and the Italian avant-garde
4 Classical Baroque: the Seicento and the return-to-order
5 Baroque memories in the architecture of interwar Rome
6 Form and formlessness: the reimagination of Baroque sculpture during Fascism
Conclusions
Index