ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the relations between Britain and Italy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and is dedicated to Peter Brand and covers politics, the fine arts, literature and the emergence of Italian as an academic discipline. It concentrates on two major interdisciplinary figures, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Ruskin, whose contributions both to the visual arts and to literature were powerfully shaped by their encounter with Italian culture. The chapter describes the profound influence wielded by Italian art and literature, particularly the works of Dante, on the intellectual formation of major figures such as Rossetti and Ruskin. It deals with the legacy of Dante, and in the figures of Barlow and Kirkup offers a fascinating contrast within the reception of Italian culture in the central years of the century.
