Axel (University College, London, UK) Korner 
Politics of Culture in Liberal Italy [PDF ebook] 
From Unification to Fascism

With chapters on theatre and opera, architecture and urban planning, the medieval revival and the rediscovery of the Etruscan and Roman past, The Politics of Culture in Liberal Italy analyzes Italians » changing relationship to their new nation state and the monarchy, the conflicts between the peninsula »s ancient elites and the rising middle class, and the emergence of new belief systems and of scientific responses to the experience of modernity.