Review: Atlante del Barocco in Italia, by Marcello Fagiolo; Firenze e il Granducato: Province di Grosseto, Livorno, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato, Siena, by Mario Bevilacqua and Giuseppina Carla Romby; Terra di Bari e Capitanata, by Vincenzo Cazzato, Marcello Fagiolo, and Mimma Pasculli Ferrara; Stato Pontificio e Granducato di Toscana (Il sistema delle residenze nobiliari), by Mario Bevilacqua and Maria Luisa Madonna;

Abstract

Marcello Fagiolo , editor Atlante del Barocco in Italia ; Rome: De Luca Editori d'Arte, 1996––, ISBN 978888016 Mario Bevilacqua and Giuseppina Carla Romby , editors Firenze e il Granducato: Province di Grosseto, Livorno, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato, Siena ; (Toscana 1), Rome: De Luca, 2007, 668 pp., 733 b/w and 17 color illus. €€ 105 (cloth), ISBN 9788880166924 Vincenzo Cazzato, Marcello Fagiolo , and Mimma Pasculli Ferrara Terra di Bari e Capitanata ; (Puglia 1), 3rd. ed., Rome: De Luca, 2009, 393 pp., 1,459 b/w and 28 color illus., €€ 80 (cloth), ISBN 9788880168850 Mario Bevilacqua and Maria Luisa Madonna Stato Pontificio e Granducato di Toscana (Il sistema delle residenze nobiliari) ; Rome: De Luca, 2003, 471 pp., 580 b/w and 23 color illus., €€ 95 (cloth), ISBN 8880165712 Marcello Fagiolo , editor Le capitali della festa ; Rome: De Luca, 2007, vol. 1: Italia settentrionale, 454 b/w and 81 color illus. €€ 70 (cloth), ISBN 9788880165720; vol. 2: Italia centrale e meridionale 464 b/w and 22 color illus. €€ 85 (cloth), ISBN 9788880168447 These volumes under review demonstrate the conviction of a majority of Italian architectural historians that among the most valuable contributions they can make to the field are studies based on their first-hand knowledge of buildings and the relevant documents in local and state archives. One might complain that this approach is not theoretical enough, yet many of the major, discipline-changing contributions to Italian Baroque architectural history in the last fifty years——such as Rudolf Wittkower's Art and Architecture in Italy 1600––1750 of 1958——have been based on the sort of archival research and close reading of buildings that are pursued in this ambitious project. These volumes continue this empirical tradition and offer a wealth of new material and interpretation. The series title, Atlante del Barocco in Italia (Atlas of the Baroque in Italy), carefully distinguishes the aim of the project: a census of architectural and urbanistic activity in the cities and territories of Italy in the period from 1600 to 1750. Clearly defined both by period and place, this methodological approach could only have been undertaken by scholars based in Italy who are able to coordinate a group of researchers working systematically across whole cities and through their archives. The region-based approach also characterizes Daniela del Pesco's L'architettura del Seicento of 1998, in the UTET series History of Art in Italy , and the volume edited by Aurora Scotti, Il Seicento , of 2006, for Electa's History of Italian Architecture (reviewed in JSAH 61, no. 1 [Mar. 2000], 112––14; JSAH 66, no. 2 [June 2007], 250––54). The Atlante has three complementary strands: one is thematic (here the volume dedicated to festivals), a second is typological and examines the system of noble residences grouped according to regions and reigns, and a third——the basis of this census——is regional (here Tuscany and Bari). Firenze e …