Timeless Renaissance features 74 recently rediscovered drawings from the 16th through the early 18th centuries. The book offers a fascinating glimpse of Count Allessandro Maggiori (1764-1834) as an art collector and reveals the cultural and historical importance of the collection he assembled in his villa near Monte San Giusto.

All of the works were clearly influenced by Raphael's 16th-century Renaissance ideals of beauty, which were further developed throughout the 17th century by Bolognese masters such as Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, and Domenichino. The Maggiori collection embraces this Neo-Renaissance, or "Timeless Renaissance."

Mostly gathered in the years of the ... Read moreNapoleonic dominion over the Italian peninsula, the drawings selected by Maggiori subtly reveal the emergence of Italian collective identity and a new civic awareness before Italy became an autonomous state. Deeply indebted to the seats of Catholicism in Rome and Bologna, the works represent a tradition opposed to the ideals of post-revolutionary France. They are distinctly Italian.