The Almanack

WHAT IS ITALIANATE?
Exploring the use of Italianate
Architecture and how it influenced the
styles in the United States.
by D. TRACY WARD
As the name implies, the stylistic roots are grounded
in the ancient history of Italy, a geographical region
central to Mediterranean and Biblical account.
During the 1500’s Italy’s architecture exhibited an
emphasis on the reemergence (aka Renaissance) of
classical antiquity from its own epicenter - the influential
city of Rome. Orderly and simple forms were
used with intentional symmetry (as well as asymmetry),
proportion, and geometry to create arrangements
of columns, pilasters, domes, niches, cupolas,
and other elements we recognize today as “Classical”.
All those architectural elements one envisions
when describing Rome, Italy or the hillside images of
Tuscany (think of those notable artists & architects
Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Palladio, or Alberti)
became the building blocks and vocabulary for the
400-year era known as the Italian Renaissance.
Those recognizable aspects of the style spread
slowly throughout Europe, reaching Britain in the
early 1800’s…eventually showing up in America
in the mid-1800’s with a more generalized name -
“Italianate”. In fact, today we academically fix the
Italianate style of the Romantic (sometimes called
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