Perfecting the Renaissance

Taking a break from the Middle East, I'm finishing reading a book on Fascist appropriations of the Italian Renaissance. It's a top-notch book, meticulously researched from archival sources, and comprehensive in its scope, from urban planning, to tourism promotion, to festivals.

I am mostly interested in urban renewal in Florence, but there are some other interesting places too. The story of Arezzo (which so many Anglo-American Tuscanophiles had found dull) is one particular case in point. In fact, it seems to me that Arezzo was promoted on our recent Florence trip as an unspoiled hill town, when in fact, I have now learned, it was nothing of the kind, being re-created as a sort of Renaissance stage-set in the 1920s and 1930s. Hm: you don't get THAT in the guidebooks!

Good lessons for "remaking" a place:
1. Choose a predominant time period that is associated with values that you want to promote. (In Italy, this tends to be Medieval. In the U.S., something colonial has often worked.)
2. Demolish the buildings in town that "pollute" those aesthetics and system of values.
3. Rebuild the "good" buildings by getting rid of any "polluting" additions, and adding whatever features of the "good" period you like, whether or not they are authentic to the particular structure. Characterize your work as "discovering the original building" even when you are adding features that may not have been original to the structure.
4. Assiduously promote and hype your work, both locally as a product of locally-produced values, and to a wider audience for tourism purposes.
5. Marginalize nay-sayers by questioning their commitment to the good local values you have chosen. (Or, in the case of the Fascists, I suppose you just execute the nay-sayers: no need for pesky and time-consuming arguments.)

D. Medina Lasansky, The Renaissance Perfected: Architecture, Spectacle and Tourism in Fascist Italy.