What most distinguishes Italian neo-classicism is its lack of a unitary character, a result of Italy’s political fragmentation, the absence of a central state, and its domination by foreign powers. Even so, all of the European neo-classical movements drew their inspi – ration from Italy. Its many works of classical Greek and Roman art – looked upon as surviving elements from a happy bygone era in which creativity and reason were fused, an idea presented in the works of Winckelmann and Mengs – made the Italian peninsula the primary stop on the Grand Tour, the educational trip for young gentlemen that included obligatory stops at Rome and the archaeological sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Italy did not present a particularly creative panorama in terms of new ideas – indeed, French art exercised a great deal of influence there through a paradoxical kind of ‘reverse’ flow – until once again Rome and its monuments furnished the models for a new architecture. The circular temple derived from the Pantheon took on new meanings and was used in both religious and secular architecture; examples are the secular and celebrative temple by Canova at Possagno (1819-30) and the church of S Francesco di Paolo at Naples by Pietro Bianchi (1817-31). In the same way the villa was revived by way of the Palladian tradition, and the triumphal arch was rediscovered to celebrate Napoleonic pomp, such as the Arco della Pace by Luigi Cagnolo in Milan (1807-38). Thus the neo- classical involved no ’state architecture’ in Italy. From the Venice of Gian Antonio Selva to the Rome of Piranesi, Marchionni, Stern, and Valadier, from the Borgo Teresiano, the grid-pattern neo- classical district of Trieste built under Empress Maria Theresa, to Austrian Milan – with Piermarini and Pollack – and then to Napoleonic Milan – with the wonderful city- planning of Cagnolo and Canonica – Italy was home to a thousand neo-classicisms, exactly as many as were the centres of artistic creativity.