Italian Rococo interior design
Italian Rococo interior design refers to interior decoration (i.e. furniture, frescoing etc.) in Italy during the Rococo period, which went from the early 18th century to around the 1760s.
By the early 18th century, Italian states were in a state of trouble. Few had not been conquered by France, Spain or Austria, and only the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, Lucca and a few other states were still independent. This significant loss of power also resulted in Italy ceding artistic and social authority to France, which in the 18th century took Italy's position as the European cultural leader. Even though Italy still exerted some influence, it was not as much as in the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, and France by then was the cultural leader, from literature, the arts, high culture, architecture and fashion, to science, philosophy, cuisine, music and education. By the early 18th century, the old-fashioned and heavy Baroque style went out of fashion in France, and a new, more feminine and lighter style called the Rococo emerged. Rococo was more delicate and romantic than the heavy and masculine Baroque, and often included features such as coquilles, or shells, and more curved edges. Italy was not immediately influenced by the Rococo, since by the early 18th century rich Italian landowners were still constructing their palaces in the conservative Baroque style, but by the 1710s and 1720s, Italian architecture and interior design became more feminine and lighter.
Despite Rococo influences in the early 18th century, true Italian Rococo interiors began to be made in the late 1720s and early 1730s. The grace and charm of Rococo furnishing succeeded the heavy and imposing Baroque style. Italian Rococo interior design was in essence copied from that of the Régence and Louis XV styles. However, some elements were changed, and cities such as Sicily and Venice produced especially unusual Rococo furniture. Italian Rococo furniture was usually upholstered with rich and colourful fabrics, such as velvet and silk, and furniture was usually lacquered. Furniture from Piedmont was typically very French in style, Lombardy produced more sober and wooden furnishings, Genoa was known for its rich fabrics and colourful styles, and Venice for its extravagant and luxurious interiors. Italian chairs and sofas were also greatly inspired by the French fauteils, but Italian seats and settees' backs were usually longer and more fan-shaped, rather than the French ones which were more oblong. As in the Baroque style, furniture for the wealthy was usually gilded with silver, gold or bronze. Middle-class families and Lombard workshops left furniture unpainted, and was often made with fruitwoods or walnut. Armchairs and couches had several cartouches and cabriole legs as in French designs, but usually looked more like joined-together seats in the English fashion. Italian settees tended to be low, and were usually placed in the borders of ballrooms and entrance halls for decoration or for seating at parties and balls.
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