Timeline / Before 1800 to After 1930 / ITALY Date Country Theme 1800 - 1814 Italy Cities And Urban Spaces In the Napoleonic age, monumental architecture is intended to celebrate the glory of the new regime. An example of that is the Foro Bonaparte, in the area around the Sforza’s Castle in Milan (a project by Giovanni Antonio Antolini). 1800s - 1850s Italy Travelling The “Grand Tour” falls out of vogue; it used to be a period of educational travel, popular among the European aristocrats in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its primary destination was Italy. In the second half of the 19th century, vanguard artists no longer looked at Roman antiquities and Renaissance for inspiration. 1807 - 1837 Italy Cities And Urban Spaces In Milan, Luigi Cagnola completes the construction of the Arch of Peace, started during the Napoleonic age and inspired by the Arc du Carrousel in Paris. The stunning architectures of the Napoleonic age use arches, obelisks and allegorical groups of Roman and French classical inspiration. 1809 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), philosopher, scholar and one of the greatest Italian poets of all times, writes his first poem. 1815 - 1816 Italy Rediscovering The Past Antonio Canova, acting on behalf of Pope Pio VII, recovers from France several pieces of art belonging to the Papal States, which had been brought to Paris by Napoleon, including the Villa Borghese’s archaeological collection. 1815 - 1860 Italy Political Context Italian “Risorgimento” (movement for national unification). 1815 Italy Political Context The Congress of Vienna decides the restoration of pre-Napoleonic monarchies: Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont, Genoa, Sardinia); Kingdom of Two Sicilies (Southern Italy and Sicily), the Papal States (part of Central Italy), Grand Duchy of Tuscany and other smaller states. Much of northern Italy (Milan, Venice, Trieste etc.) is under the Austrian empire. 1815 - 1859 Italy Economy And Trade Italy is an agricultural country. Political fragmentation is an obstacle to trade and economic development. The different states use not only different currencies, but also different systems of measurement. 1815 - 1920 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Date Country Theme Triumph of the opera (or melodrama), a form of theatre born in the 17th century, in which the characters express themselves by singing. In the 19th century, this form of art becomes very popular in Europe. In Italy, the opera becomes the most important musical genre and overshadows all other musical forms. 1816 Italy Rediscovering The Past In Naples, inauguration of the Royal Bourbon Museum, whose holdings include the rich collection of archaeological items belonged to Elisabetta Farnese and the pieces excavated in Pompei during the 18th century. All such holdings are personal properties of the king. 1816 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Gioachino Rossini (1795–1868), the young director of the San Carlo Theatre of Naples, the most important opera house at the time, puts on stage in Rome the Barber of Seville. The opera, thanks to its easy and passionate pacing, sets a new benchmark for the light operatic style, namely, the opera buffa (comic opera). 1818 - 1819 Italy Great Inventions Of The 19th Century Construction of the first steamboats. The first steamboat lines in the Mediterranean: Naples shipyards build the steamboat Ferdinando I (for the line Naples–Genoa–Marseille); Genoa shipyards build the steamboat Eridano (to be used in the Adriatic Sea). 1820 Italy Rediscovering The Past Edict by Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca (1756–1844) dictating a comprehensive set of measures for the protection of cultural heritage in the Papal States: it is the first comprehensive law on the protection of cultural heritage issued in Italy and it will become a model for the other Italian states. 1820 - 1831 Italy Political Context In 1820–21 and 1830–31, uprisings in different parts of Italy in favour of national unification and constitutional rule. They meet harsh repression. 1820s - 1850s Italy Economy And Trade Industrialisation begins at a slower pace compared with other Western European countries. It concentrates in Northern Italy (Piedmont, Lombardy) and in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Silk production is the strongest industrial sector. 1821 - 1822 Italy Cities And Urban Spaces Giuseppe Valadier’s neoclassical project for the area next to the Rome northern gate is completed: it encompasses Piazza del Popolo and a new scenographic access to the Pincio hill. 1821 - 1822 Italy Fine And Applied Arts Date Country Theme Francesco Hayez paints I Vespri Siciliani, a historical painting expressing the new revolutionary and independence ideas that are taking root in Italy. 1821 - 1859 Italy Migrations Harsh repression of pro-national unification and pro-constitution movement forces many activists – including Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi – to flee abroad. 1822 Italy Rediscovering The Past Inauguration of the Vatican Museums’ Braccio Nuovo (new wing), which completes the Chiaramonti Museum, whose construction had started in 1807, under the impulse of Pope Pius VII (Barnaba Chiaramonti). The Museum’s collection was set up by the sculptor Antonio Canova and included a large body of archaeological items. 1822 Italy Travelling The Grand Duchy of Tuscany issues the first official ruling in Italy regarding “those who bathe in the sea in the open air”. Around that time, in Viareggio two wooden bathing establishments are built (one for men, the other for women). They are intended for seawater therapy. 1824 Italy Rediscovering The Past In Turin, inauguration of the Royal Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. The Museum holding includes 5,268 Egyptian items brought to Italy by Bernardino Drovetti and bought by the King of Sardinia, Charles Felix of Savoy. 1825 - 1827 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873) publishes I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), one of the most widely read Italian novels. His use of the Italian language stands out as a model. 1825 Italy Travelling More than half a million pilgrims visit Rome on the occasion of the Catholic “Holy Year”. In the Roman Catholic tradition, a Holy Year or Jubilee is a year of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation. Other Holy Years were celebrated in 1875 and in 1900. Rome always attracted Catholic pilgrims, especially during Holy Years. 1828 - 1829 Italy Rediscovering The Past The Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II and Charles X of France finance the archaeological expedition to Egypt headed by Ippolito Rossellini and Jean-Francois Champollion. 1829 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Gioachino Rossini puts on stage in Paris his last opera, Guillaume Tell, featuring the fight of the Swiss people for freedom from Habsburg domination. He wrote 39 Date Country Theme operas, characterised by a style aiming at pure musical beauty (bel canto). Great attention is paid to the sound of the voice and to technical virtuosity, with little emphasis on the different dramatic situations and to the personality of the different characters. 1831 Italy Political Context Giuseppe Mazzini founds the republican movement for national unification, Giovine Italia (Young Italy). 1831 - 1835 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Once Rossini has left the stage, his place is taken by Gaetano Donizetti (1797– 1848) and Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835). They introduce the new romantic spirit into melodrama and establish a tighter link between words and music. Their style is characterised by greater attention to the psychology of the different characters. 1835 - 1837 Italy Reforms And Social Changes For the first time, a cholera epidemic hits Italy, killing more than 140,000 (26,000 in Palermo and 19,600 in Naples). Its causes remain unknown until the 1880s. Its spread is favoured by poor sanitation in urban centres. Cholera epidemics hit poor people especially and often occasion social unrest. 1837 - 1840 Italy Great Inventions Of The 19th Century Naples and Turin are the first Italian towns to have gas street lightning. 1839 Italy Great Inventions Of The 19th Century First Italian railway line (Napoli–Portici, 8 km). In the following years, other railway lines are inaugurated in other Italian states, e.g. Milano–Monza (1840), Pisa- Livorno (1844), Padova–Venezia (1846), Torino–Moncalieri (1848). Political fragmentation is an obstacle to the construction of long railway lines. 1842 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Triumph of Nabuccodonosor by Giuseppe Verdi (1831–1901) at La Scala Theatre (Milan): it marks the appearance of a new operatic style, in which both voice and music show an entirely new heroic passion and strength. 1842 Italy Travelling A seaside hostel is opened in Viareggio (Tuscany) for the treatment of children affected by tuberculosis (the first of its kind in Italy). In Tuscany, experiments of “marine therapy” for children started in the 1820s. By 1882, 21 seaside hostels for medical purposes are active in Italy. 1843 Italy Travelling First bathing establishment created in Rimini. 1847 - 1848 Italy Great Inventions Of The 19th Century Date Country Theme First Italian telegraph line (Florence–Pisa–Livorno). 1848 - 1849 Italy Political Context Uprisings in different parts of Italy demand constitutional rule and national unification. In Rome and Venice, short-lived republics are proclaimed. King Carlo Alberto (Kingdom of Sardinia) grants a constitution and wages war against the Austrian Empire, but he is defeated. 1848 Italy Music, Literature, Dance And Fashion Donizetti dies and Verdi remains the only heir to the Italian melodrama, which is increasingly identified with the Risorgimento movement, becoming a “sound track” of the Italian fight for independence and unification. 1850 - 1855 Italy Fine And Applied Arts The painters of the School of Posillipo (Naples) develop a new style of more natural observation of landscapes and everyday life. 1850s - 1860s Italy Travelling Mountaineering on the Alps becomes a sport and tourism activity. Local people had always climbed mountains. Since the end of the 18th century, scientists had started exploring the Alps for scientific purposes (Mont Blanc was first climbed in 1786).