"Caught between the Theatricality of the Baroque and the acute sensibility of Romanticism, art in Rome in the eighteenth century has long been a neglected area of study." "The grand scale and spectacular diversity of the period are comprehensively captured for the first time in this definitive history of the period, produced to accompany a major U.S. exhibition organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and documenting the work of over 150 artists. With over 450 illustrations, and texts by an outstanding array of experts from around the world, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century provides a massively authoritative survey of a fascinating era."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In the age of the Grand Tour, foreigners flocked to Italy to gawk at its ruins and paintings, enjoy its salons and cafés, attend the opera, and revel in their own discovery of its past. But they also marveled at the people they saw, both male and female. In an era in which castrati were "rock stars," men served women as cicisbei, and dandified Englishmen became macaroni, Italy was perceived to be a place where men became women. The great publicity surrounding female poets, journalists, artists, anatomists, and scientists, and the visible roles for such women in salons, academies, and universities in many Italian cities also made visitors wonder whether women had become men. Such images, of course, were stereotypes, but they were nonetheless grounded in a reality that was unique to the Italian peninsula. This volume illuminates the social and cultural landscape of eighteenth-century Italy by exploring how questions of gender in music, art, literature, science, and medicine shaped perceptions of Italy in the age of the Grand Tour.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 12-Aug 15, 2010.

Recent interest in the economic aspects of the history of art have taken traditional studies into new areas of enquiry. Going well beyond provenances or prices of individual objects, our understanding of the arts has been advanced by research into the demands, intermediaries and clients in the market. Eighteenth-century Rome offers a privileged view of such activities, given the continuity of remarkable investments by the local ruling class, combined with the decisive impact of external agents, largely linked to the Grand Tour. This book, the result of collaboration between international specialists, brings back into the spotlight protagonists, facts and dynamics that have remained unexplored for many years.

This catalogue looks at the Grand Tour, a vital aspect of European civilisation in the age of the Enlightenment, from the point of view of several countries and includes the work of foremost artists of the period.

"This is the third in a series of catalogues published jointly by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Pierpont Morgan Library to record exhibitions of drawings from the two institutions and from distinguished private collections. The exhibitions and the books that illustrate them will ultimately document the finest traditions of European draughtsmanship, from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century. The Eighteenth Century in Italy, which follows The Italian Renaissance and The Seventeenth Century in Italy, contains reproductions of 300 drawings, presented one to a page. The book brings together, chronologically, brilliant works by G. B. Tiepolo, Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Domenico Tiepolo—as well as drawings of fifty-one other masters of the Settecento. As in the preceding catalogues, the photographic reproductions have been made directly from the drawings themselves in order to retain, as much as possible, the original tonalities. Each of the 300 drawings has a commentary, record of provenance and exhibitions, technical description, and bibliography. And, for the first time in the series, many watermarks have been drawn and reproduced photographically"--Publisher's description.