Italy in the American Imagination

When, in 1815, the state of North Carolina decided that the time had come to celebrate George Washington by representing his greatness through a sculptural portrait, it decided to turn to one of the greatest artists of his time, an Italian: Antonio Canova. Basing his work on an earlier bust by another Italian sculptor, Giuseppe Ceracchi, Canova produced a magnificent life-size sculpture depicting the first president of the United States dressed as a great Roman general. This episode could be taken as a model for explaining what Ian J. Bickerton reconstructs in Italy in the American Imagination, namely how Italian culture has played a leading role in shaping various aspects of American society.More precisely, this long and detailed book explains how various aspects of American culture have been shaped by a mosaic constructed by picking up here and there characterizing elements of Italian history, from Roman classicism to the Renaissance and the long twentieth century. All this, however, as Bickerton points out in the introduction, has often been ignored in studies reconstructing the formation of modern American society, leaving Italy out of the picture. This is the first relevant aspect of this reconstruction, which tells us, perhaps for the first time, how for centuries the American upper class looked to Italy as a model for inspiration.The book presents a chronological reconstruction of the influence of Italian cultural and political history on the formation of American society, beginning with the early years of the newly formed Republic. Bickerton's primary focus is on the influence of the idealized legacy of the Italian cultural and political history on American architecture, fine arts, and music. The opulence of the palaces of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the villas of Vanvitelli, and the ancient temples foster a profound admiration for the Italian past among politicians and institutions. This is also evident in the context of iconographic identification with statues and paintings. Indeed, the image of the Roman general has served as an inspiration for US politicians and military personnel to such an extent that it has become a prominent motif in their iconography.Similarly, US elites demonstrated a real passion for music, from classical operas by composers such as Puccini and Vivaldi, to modern opera interpreters like the singers Enrico Caruso and Beniamino Gigli. This admiration also included Italian marching band musicians, recruited in the early 1800s for the Marine Corps music section. But this admiration, which constitutes the central question of the book, is the consequence of the United States’ perception of Italy, rather than an accurate reflection of the country's real history. It is, in fact, a product of the imagination.American culture, conservative and predominantly WASP, shows a tendency to admire an idealized version of the past rather than the present. Indeed, the latter is identified as the mass of immigrants who in the late nineteenth century landed in significant numbers at Ellis Island. Catholic, of questionable morality and prone to deviance, they were markedly distinct from the splendors of the Renaissance. Nevertheless, those who chose to travel to Italy, or even to settle there to fully experience the cradle of civilization, sent back accounts of a population that differed significantly from the one depicted in the iconography of the paintings belonging to the private collections or museums in America by that time.But the real Italians were those who landed in the United States, not those immortalized in paintings or opera. So, this image underlines a discrepancy between the idea of past and contemporary Italians: the former idealized, the latter condemned a priori. And then comes into play, as always, the issue of anti-Italian prejudice, which, however, Bickerton unfortunately addresses in only a few paragraphs, as if it were not part of the key points for reconstructing the story the author wants to tell us. Here we have a very long roundup of names and artistic disciplines: architecture, music, fashion, cinema, and finally food are interwoven with the stories of politicians such as Garibaldi, intellectuals such as Filippo Mazzei, and modern artists such as Roberto Rossellini and composer Ennio Morricone, a biographical list of those who had influenced American culture.Although it is an extraordinary reconstruction, rich in research suggestions, and above all a harbinger of a new reading on the processes of building the image of Italian culture in the United States and its influence, the volume has the aspect of a guide for those who want to locate US references to Italian culture or, through an Italian tour, have the curiosity to find the originals. To this it should be added that the apparatus of references to the history of Italy is in some passages quite slim, if we exclude the last part, where Bickerton deals with the post–Second World War period.One example may be the thorny relationship between fascism and the Mafia. Bickerton states in one passage that Mussolini was committed to having the Mafia eradicated from southern Italy. In fact, every historical study that has come out in Italy on this issue in the last thirty years says the opposite, pointing out how a certain stability of organized crime played into the hands of fascist interests.Even the interpretation that is given of the effects on culture and life of the Italians at the end of World War II would have benefited from a few more sources. But, as with the rest of the book, suggestions on the main theme of this Italy in the American Imagination are also excellent cues.