I signori del "Rinascimento" e i loro palazzi: l'immagine italiana di New York

The search for an architectural style appropriate for the identity of the grand tycoons and American high society, not only for their luxurious residences but also for the urban buildings that they financed and constructed, rose alongside a diffused aspiration shared by the powers that be and the leading architects of the time to create and image for the United States capable of representing its faith in progress and the new economic forces. But why did they choose the Italian Renaissance? What differentiated the recovery of the “Belle Arte” of the Gilded Age, as defined by Mark Twain, from the reclamation of the Renaissance taste that had been asserted throughout the Old Continent? This article seeks to respond to such questions, analysing the phenomenon of the “American Renaissance”, the works of theAmerican architects and the role of the clients active in NewYork from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries.