The Renaissance Perfected: Architecture, Spectacle, and Tourism in Fascist Italy

The reordering of Florence's historic center to better reflect the expectations of today's visitors (especially foreign visitors) when confronting the "authentic" Renaissance, has put the author in mind of earlier efforts to restructure and reappropriate the city's past. According to this line of thought, Fascism was able, where the previous parliamentary regime had not been, to impose some order on the various strains of interpretation of the Renaissance emanating from the nineteenth century. According to Lasansky, what emerged was not necessarily new, but rather was a familiar idea (more or less Burckhardtian) about the period given a heightened sense of urgency in Fascism's attempt to salvage the Risorgimento's stalled project of nation building, as well as a greater commitment to reclaim or restore the physical remains such as buildings and public spaces, of Italy's pre-modern past.