The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers : an Annotated AnthologyManfred Pfister Rodopi, 1996 - 554 pages This is the first anthology of British travel writing on Italy which traces the development of the genre and the history of the British perception of Italy from the Renaissance to the present. As an anthologie raissonn eit presents the texts in thematic clusters and chronological order, providing commentary and annotations for each of them and their nearly hundred authors (some of them, like Smollett, Byron, Dickens or Huxley, well-known, others virtually unknown, amongst them many unduly neglected women writers). Further features are a substantial introduction to the travelogue and the writing of Italy, more than thirty illustrations visualizing the British experience of Italy, and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources. |
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Page xiii
... Seen from Above 337 5.1.2 John Evelyn : ' The Strange Variety of the Several Nations ' . 338 5.1.3 Richard Lassels : The Doge Marrying the Sea 339 5.1.4 Richard Lassels : A Mistress rather than a Wife 340 5.1.5 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ...
... Seen from Above 337 5.1.2 John Evelyn : ' The Strange Variety of the Several Nations ' . 338 5.1.3 Richard Lassels : The Doge Marrying the Sea 339 5.1.4 Richard Lassels : A Mistress rather than a Wife 340 5.1.5 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ...
Page 8
... seen what is expected a man should see . The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean . " ( Boswell's Life of Johnson , April 11th , 1776 ) Of course , Dr. Johnson , who himself never made it to Italy , spoke ...
... seen what is expected a man should see . The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean . " ( Boswell's Life of Johnson , April 11th , 1776 ) Of course , Dr. Johnson , who himself never made it to Italy , spoke ...
Page 9
... seen by a voyager circumnavigating its coasts . Our periplous begins in the sixteenth century . This is not an arbitrary limit : be- fore , British travelling in Italy and its documentation in travelogues was too intermit- tent to form ...
... seen by a voyager circumnavigating its coasts . Our periplous begins in the sixteenth century . This is not an arbitrary limit : be- fore , British travelling in Italy and its documentation in travelogues was too intermit- tent to form ...
Page 59
... seen from the Boboli gardens . The book of drawings in his hand symbolizes the gen- tleman's aesthetic pleasure in Italy . 16. John ' Warwick ' Smith ( 1749-1831 ) : The Cascata delle Marmore ( cf. 4.7.6 , 9 and 27 ) . - From : John ...
... seen from the Boboli gardens . The book of drawings in his hand symbolizes the gen- tleman's aesthetic pleasure in Italy . 16. John ' Warwick ' Smith ( 1749-1831 ) : The Cascata delle Marmore ( cf. 4.7.6 , 9 and 27 ) . - From : John ...
Page 63
... seen them . The way from Vienna to Padua is plain , yet lying between high mountains , and fetching many compasses , so as it is fit for horse - men , but I passed that way in the company of a coach , which went slowly in the stony ways ...
... seen them . The way from Vienna to Padua is plain , yet lying between high mountains , and fetching many compasses , so as it is fit for horse - men , but I passed that way in the company of a coach , which went slowly in the stony ways ...
Contents
| 3 | |
| 15 | |
| 58 | |
Multiple Civilizations | 104 |
The Hazards of Travelling | 118 |
The Perception of Otherness | 142 |
and an English Esthete | 151 |
as Cavaliere Servente | 269 |
Domestic Economy | 291 |
Off the Beaten Tracks and the Mezzogiorno | 395 |
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Common terms and phrases
Addison Alps ancient Anna Brownell Jameson anthology Apennines beauty British travellers Byron called Catholic century church classical colour culture D.H. Lawrence Diary England English Etruscan Evelyn eyes Florence France and Italy Frances Trollope French Fynes Moryson George Giro d'Italia gondola Grand Tour Grand Tourists Hester Lynch Piozzi hills Horace imagination Italian John John Addington Symonds Joseph Joseph Addison journey kind Lady land Letters from Italy live London look Lord manner miles modern mountains Naples nature never night once painted palace passed picture picturesque poet political Pope REFERENCES Richard Lassels road Roman Rome round Ruskin Samuel scene seemed seen Shelley Sicily Smollett stone streets TEXT things Thomas Thomas Coryate thought Tobias Smollett told town travelogues Tuscany Venetian Venice walls William Hazlitt woman women writing young
Popular passages
Page 71 - This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
Page 223 - On foreign mountains may the sun refine The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine, With citron groves adorn a distant soil, And the fat olive swell with floods of oil: We envy not the warmer clime, that lies In ten degrees of more indulgent skies, Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine, Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine: Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.
Page 290 - God ! that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress...
Page 76 - When I was preparing to pass over into Sicily and Greece, the melancholy intelligence which I received of the civil commotions in England made me alter my purpose ; for I thought it base to be travelling for amusement abroad, while my fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home.
Page 75 - If some yet do not well understand what is an Englishman Italianated, I will plainly tell him. He that by living, and travelling in Italy, bringeth home into England out of Italy the religion, the learning, the policy, the experience, the manners of Italy. That is to say, for religion, Papistry or worse. For learning, less commonly than they carried out with them ; for policy, a factious heart, a discoursing head, a mind to meddle in all men's matters ; for experience, plenty of new mischiefs never...
Page 378 - ... ie a sort of religious opera) they make fire-works almost every week out of devotion ; the streets are often hung with arras, out of devotion , and (what is still more strange) the ladies invite gentlemen to their houses, and treat them with music and sweetmeats, out of devotion : in a word, were it not for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples would have little else to recommend it beside the air and situation.
Page 373 - This Poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades, and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the air.
Page 8 - A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean.
Page 378 - The fields in the northern side are divided by hedge-rows of myrtle. Several fountains and rivulets add to the beauty of this landscape, which is likewise set off by the variety of some barren spots and naked rocks.
Page 80 - After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum ; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye ; and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation.