Giocomo Wannenes. Mobili d'Italia. L'Ottocento. Storia, Stili, Mercato.
Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1987. ISBN 8804301139.
The author compares the Italian furniture art of the 19th century with the style models from France. Each piece of furniture is analysed from a stylistic, art-historical and market-related perspective in order to provide both experts and interested laymen with a broad overview of the development from Empire to Art Nouveau. The book shows how the different styles of the 19th century - such as Empire, Restoration, Luis Philippe, Napoleone III and Art Nouveau - developed in both France and Italy.
The introductory text outlines the political and cultural circumstances that characterised Italian furniture production in the 19th century. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, a process of modernisation was also set in motion in furniture making: production increasingly changed from individual pieces characterised by craftsmanship to production based on the division of labour. The influence of France remained dominant, especially in the early 19th century, while at the same time a new middle-class demand for functional and inexpensive furniture emerged. Industrial development led to a decline in the quality of craftsmanship, but at the same time encouraged a wide variety of styles whose forms drew on many earlier eras.


