The seminar International "Baroque/Modernism in Italy in the nineteenth century"Barocco/Moderno in Italia nel Novecento" held in Madrid, at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando last January, is part of the project of research of the Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness, El speech de la Modernidad (HAR2010-16277), directed by Carlos Chocarro, professor at School of Architecture of the University of Navarra.

The seminar in Madrid analyzed the reasons that explain the preference of a large group of modern Italian architects for the art and architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the role that the Baroque and the theoretical reflections that it gave rise to, had for the construction of modernity in the Novecento.

This initiative is the second part of the seminar held at the School of doctorate of the Università di Venezia (IUAV) on December 2, 2011 under the degree scroll "Barocco e modernità: crocevia dell'arte e della storiografía.". The seminar held in Venice analyzed the transparency of the Cathedral of Toledo, the Royal Palace of Madrid, the paintings of Goya, the figure of Maravall and the cultural policy of Franco's regime between 1940 and 1960 with a approach particularly attentive to the historiographical controversy that the interpretation of these artistic and cultural landmarks have been generating. But the difficult conjugation of the terms "baroque" and "modernity" is not, of course, a specifically Spanish problem.

This discussion affects other traditions and has been particularly evident in the process of analysis and revaluation of the Italian Baroque. Thus, the seminar was intended to highlight particularly significant cases from the historiographical and artistic point of view. In Italy, from the first decades of the twentieth century onwards, a rediscovery of the Roman Baroque took place, putting an end to the stylistic prejudices that had been projected on this period since Milizia. Marcello Piacentini, Armando Brasini and the Roman Associazione Artistica fra i Cultori di Architettura played an important role in this rediscovery of the Roman Seicento that will also be reflected in the urban redefinition of modern Rome.