british historiography

Of the different Canova's lives written in Italy and Europe before and after his death, John Smythe Memes's "Memoirs of Antonio Canova" has always been the least considered by scholars, though not really unknown. FIrst foreign biography ever edited as a book, it represents a highly interesting evidence of Canova's fortune and reception in Great Britain, the land of his most numerous and munificent patrons. But the analysis of its contents and particularly of the first two chapters, dedicated to outline a short history of sculpture from Middle-Ages to his times, offers also an occasion to evaluate two other specific topics: the importance of Gibbon's historiographical model for the new born modern art history in Europe and the reception's of Cicognara's "Storia della scultura" out of Italy.

O artigo de Dave Renton faz uma apresentação do trabalho de Dona Torr,histórica militante comunista britânica e mentora intelectual do Grupo de História do Partido Comunista da Grã-Bretanha.
Renton apresenta as contribuições de Torr (sua tia-avó).