The
Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of
Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of
16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both
Palladianism and
Neoclassicism, were synthesized with
picturesque aesthetics. The style of architecture that was thus created, though also characterized as "
Neo-Renaissance", was essentially of its own time. "The backward look transforms its object,"
Siegfried Giedion wrote of historicist architectural styles;Siegfried Giedion,
Space, Time and Architecture 1941 etc. "every spectator at every period—at every moment, indeed—inevitably transforms the past according to his own nature."
The Italianate style was first developed in Britain about 1802 by
John Nash, with the construction of
Cronkhill in
Shropshire. This small country house is generally accepted to be the first Italianate villa in England, from which is derived the Italianate architecture of the late
Regency and early
Victorian eras. The Italianate style was further developed and popularised by the architect Sir
Charles Barry in the 1830s.Turner, Michael.
Osbourne House Page 28. English Heritage. Osbourne House. ISBN 1-85074-249-9 Barry's Italianate style (occasionally termed "Barryesque")<ref name=GuyWilson...
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