Born in New York, from 1855 he takes various journeys with his family through Europe, growing a deep interest for the analysis of the American society in the old continent.

In 1873 he is in Florence. The city of art, full of the immanence of its magnificent past, and the sunny landscapes of Tuscany become part of the main characters of the dark tale told in the famous novel "Portrait of a Lady". The aesthetic atmosphere created by the paintings kept in Palazzo Pitti is the same that charms and stirs a deep loss of reckoning in the main character, Isabel Archer.

The world of art and collecting, of old stately homes and ancient families, the sense of decadence of the patrician splendours emerge subtly and penetratingly also from the pages of another of his masterpieces: "The Aspern Papers".  The novel is set in Venice, a city where James attends a exclusive club, made up of travelling aesthetes, artists and men of letters, who gathered at Mrs. Bronson’s house on the Canal Grande.

Starting in 1872 James visits other Italian cities, gathering impressions from them in a series of travel notes and observations, published in 1909 with the title "Italian Hours", accompanied by Joseph Pennel’s images.

The sense of the past that distinguishes Italy and Europe could not but fascinate a cultured man from the New Continent: art, history, but also the slightly decadent atmosphere that surrounds age-old artistic evidence that unequivocally appear through Henry James’ pages.