Annotation. Sixteen essays examine aspects of American art that owe a debt to Italy and Italian artists. A central theme is the tension between perceptions of Italy as a mythic presence, the visual incarnation of spirit, and a contrasting ambivalence felt by many Americans about the cultural ties binding them to Europe despite their political independence. With some 200 illustrations, 36 in color. Not indexed. Pre-publication price, $49.95, until 12-31-90. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The Italian Presence in American Art, 1760-1860, based on papers presented at a joint Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana/Fordham U. symposium held in 1987, was published in 1989. The present volume comprises 17 papers presented at the second joint symposium, dealing with American art from 1860 to 1920. It is also Volume II of what is now projected as a three-volume study of the Italian presence in American art, to be completed with a volume based on the third symposium (1991) covering the period 1920-1990. The production is lovely throughout, and the essays are illustrated with 16 color plates and 149 bandw figures. Co-published with the Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1999. The many available scholarly works on Italian-Americans are perhaps of little practical help to the undergraduate or high school student who needs background information when reading contemporary fiction with Italian characters, watching films that require a familiarity with Italian Americans, or looking at works of art that can be fully appreciated only if one understands Italian culture. This basic reference work for non-specialists and students offers quick insights and essential, easy-to-grasp information on Italian-American contributions to American art, music, literature, motion pictures and cultural life. This rich legacy is examined in a collection of original essays that include portrayals of Italian characters in the films of Francis Coppola, Italian American poetry, the art of Frank Stella, the music of Frank Zappa, a survey of Italian folk customs and an analysis of the evolution of Italian-American biography. Comprising 22 lengthy essays written specifically for this volume, the book identifies what is uniquely Italian in American life and examines how Italian customs, traditions, social mores and cultural antecedents have wrought their influence on the American character. Filled with insights, observations and ethnic facts and fictions, this volume should prove to be a valuable source of information for scholars, researchers and students interested in pinpointing and examining the cultural, intellectual and social influence of Italian immigrants and their successors.

Republics and empires provides transnational perspectives on the significance of Italy to American art and visual culture and the impact of the United States on Italian art and popular culture. Covering the period from the Risorgimento to the Cold War, it reveals the complexity of the visual discourses that bound two relatively new nations together. It also gives substantial attention to literary and critical texts that addressed the evolving cultural relationship between Italy and the United States. While American art history has tended to privilege French, British and German ties, these chapters highlight a rich body of contemporary research by Italian and American scholars that moves beyond a discussion of influence as a one-way directive towards a deeper understanding of cultural transactions that profoundly affected the artistic expression of both nations.

Picture of the prospects and constraints faced by women sculptors in the United States from the late eighteenth century throught the 1930s and the emerging of a professional identity for women artists. Thanks to their success as neoclassicists, women sculptors were able to cross over into nationalistic and political subjects that were unavailable to women painters.

The historiography of the Italian Renaissance has been much studied, but generally in the context of a few key figures. Much less appreciated is the extent of the enthusiasm for the subject in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the subject was 'discovered' by travellers and men and women of letters, historians, artists, architects and photographers, and by collectors on both sides of the Atlantic. The essays in Victorian and Edwardian Responses to the Italian Renaissance explore the breadth of the responses stimulated by the encounter between the British, the Americans and the Italians of the Renaissance. The volume approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective. While recognising the abiding importance of the familiar 'great names', it seeks to draw attention to a wider cast of people, many of whom led colourful, energetic lives, knew Italy well, and wrote eloquently about the country and its Renaissance. Several essays show that 'Renaissance studies' became a field in which female historians could explore areas of relevance to the 'New Woman'. Other chapters examine the aims and politics of collecting and the place of the collector in literature and in the rediscovery of Renaissance artists. The contribution of teachers and other less formal champions of the Italian Renaissance is explored, as is the role of photographers who re-framed and re-viewed Florence - the Renaissance city - for Victorian and later eyes.