Fundamental to art history since Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, the history of styles literally haunts discipline. It periodically returns to the heart of criticism. Interdisciplinary approaches have quickly pointed out the need to think of styles not only as classificatory categories, but also as historical concepts in their own right, ready to be used as objects of analysis. This methodological approach is at the center of the present book devoted to stylistic nomenclatures, which makes available the result of an international conference organized by the Academy of France in Rome – Villa Medici, the Istituto Svizzero and the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History. It introduces case studies questioning the various constructions that accompanied the emergence and semantic development of certain key terms in art history. It also includes examples from fields often forgotten in the literature on stylistic nomenclature, such as fashion or theater. In short, this book should be understood as a proposal and an encouragement to reflect on the disciplinary heritage left, for better or for worse, by the history of styles in all spheres of visual culture.

Prefazione, Francesca Alberti, Adrian Brändli, Tristan Weddigen - Introduzione, Valérie Kobi - L’invention du Grand Siècle, période et style. La République et l’art français sous Louis XIV (1870-1958), Gabriel Batalla-Lagleyre - “Beau comme l’Antique”, une conception du temps historique, Christian Michel - The Past as Presence: Towards a Dynamic Understanding of Past Transfer in Two Case Studies – an Architectural Restoration by Charles Garnier and the Delphos Dress by Mariano Fortuny, Maude Bass-Krueger - Dressing up the Past. Style Formation and Style Effect in Neoclassical Fashion, Bram van Oostveldt, Stijn Bussels - “Keeping Track of the Zoo”: The Style Empire, Camouflage and Zoomorphism, Caroline van Eck - Barocco Classico: Il Seicento e il ritorno all’ordine in Italia intorno al 1922, Laura Moure Cecchini - Normalising Mannerism (New York Stories), Andrew Leach - From Wittkower’s Ricetto to Rowe’s Villa Schwob. The Percept as a Methodological Tension in the Architectural History of Mannerism, Matthew Critchley