English and Americans flocked to Florence at the close of the nineteenth century and many stayed and bought properties.

They shared a passionate interest in Italy, an interest perfectly parodied in E M Forster’s social comedy A Room with a View, written in 1908, a social comedy in which this ex-pat community is minutely examined. The fascination of this community with the Italian Renaissance was expressed through the extensive collections of Renaissance objects with which they decorated their Italian homes.

The lecture we will look inside some of their villas and gardens in Florence and the surrounding countryside to see how these Italophiles reimagined the Renaissance for a new age.