Italian Architecture

Italian influences are everywhere in the United States, even in your town—the Victorian Italianate house that is now a funeral home, the Renaissance Revival post office, the Neoclassical city hall. If you’re looking for a foreign country to experience, Italy will make you feel right at home.

In ancient times, the Romans borrowed ideas from Greece and created their own architectural style. The 11th and 12th centuries brought a renewed interest in the architecture of ancient Rome. Italy’s Romanesque style with rounded arches and carved portals became the dominant fashion for churches and other important buildings throughout Europe—and then United States.

The period we know as the Italian Renaissance, or reawakening, began in the 14th century. For the next two centuries, a keen interest in ancient Rome and Greece brought a creative flourishing in art and architecture. The writings of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) revolutionized European architecture and continues to shape the way we build today. Other influential Italian Renaissance architects include Giacomo Vignola (1507-1573), Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), and Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520). The most important Italian architect of all, however, is arguably Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (c. 75-15 BC), often said to have written the world’s first architecture textbook,De Architectura.