One of the leading Italian art historians of the twentieth century, Enrico Castelnuovo, and historian Carlo Ginzburg reread the history of Italian art by questioning one of the dogmas on which it had been based for centuries, namely that only in the great Italian centers was innovative artistic creation possible, while the 'periphery' registered delays and insignificance. Against this identification between the periphery and artistic backwardness, this book (which originated for Einaudi's History of Italy 40 years ago) recounts the relationship between the 'center' and the 'periphery' in a less hierarchical manner (avoiding talk of a simple diffusion of artistic models from the former to the latter), but also less peaceful. Indeed, often, even when it seems to conform to the directions of the center, the periphery-or, rather, the peripheries-do so creatively or at least at the cost of resistance, to be known and understood.