The Books that shaped Art History? No Italians, please
Gerardo de Simone, Emanuele Pellegrini
A few years ago «The Burlington Magazine», the worlds’most renowned and influential journal of fine arts, dedicated a series of essays to «The Books that shaped Art History» in the XX century. Surprisingly, among the sixteen titles selected, not even one Italian monograph was considered. The scarcity of translations of Italian scholarship into English, and the inability of Italian culture, with few exceptions, to reach a level of international appeal, can partially explain, but not at all justify such a complete exclusion. Italian contribution to art history in the past century is unquestionably outstanding and deserves to be peremptorily claimed.