Building the Risorgimento
 

This book project offers a critical architectural historical exploration of medievalism and its relationship to political culture in nineteenth-century Italy. At that time, while deep-seated critical views of the Middle Ages gave way to eulogistic attitudes and dramatic practices of revival, the geo-political entity ruled by the house of Savoy shifted from the brink of collapse to leading the national movement, expanding at the expense of other states, and fabricating and consolidating the Italian nation-state. Offering a counter-narrative to classicized views of Italy, Building the Risorgimento considers the roles of architecture and medievalism in shaping, materialising, staging, and ultimately enforcing conflated notions of crown and nationhood through this epochal shift.