A Picture Of Italy

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30610, 28 November 1964, Page 4

A Picture Of Italy

Italy. A Personal Anthology. By Bernard Wall. Newnes: London. 191 pp.

Bernard Wail, the author of several other books on Italy, calls upon many sources for the information which goes to make up this delightful picture of Italian life. There are contributions from Matthew Arnold, H. V. Morton, Edward Gibbon, Byron, Saint Augustine, Wordsworth, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Vasari, Benvenuto Cellini, Nicolo Machiavelli and many others. Included are writers from many nations; poets, news reporters, gourmets, Popes and economists, all of whom produce their own particular facets of Italian life, true to form. There is even a quotation from the “Financial Times” which deals with Italy’s remarkable economic, recovery after the last war.

The book opens with impressions on arrival in Italy and then moves to Milan and Lombardy. Here we find short articles on art an dhistory which include a description by Vasari of how Leonado came to paint his. Last Supper, “a most beautiful and admirable work.” Lake Como and the lake-land region receive some attention and there is a sudden contrast provided by an account of Mussolini’s assassination by ' “Colonel Valerio.”

The next region to be covered is that of Venice, and there are entertaining poems and writings by such well known names as Wordsworth, Henry James and Byron. This aptly captures the unique nature of Venice and those readers who have walked St. Mark’s Suare, who have gazed at the Doge’s Palace and at the stamping bronze chariothorses, are likely to find this collection of writings to be most nostalgic. Following this there is a section which covers some aspects of Italian life from Brigands in the Apenines Partisan warfare, to village life and sport. Florence and Tuscany, the birthplace of such famous names as: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Giotto. Leonardo da Vinci, and Michaelangelo, is well treated. There are good descriptions of the landscape and mentions of such famous places as the Uffizi, Pitti Palace and Santa Maria del Fiore, and a brief article on Assisi by Gertrude Stein serves as a stepping

stone to the section on Italian religion. This is perhaps more widely treated than other sections, and provides much amusing and interesting reading. We meet Friar Giles, reading. We meet Friar Giles venuto Cellini made a golden eye from a French crown and offered it on the Feast of St Lucy in return for recovering from an eye injury. There is a delightful section entitled “Italians in Love” the best story being that on Neapolitan love. This tells of the “awentura” of the young lovers of Naples, the passionate courting which concludes with the broken heart displayed before an appreciative audience. “He is distracted, he listens with tears in his eyes when orchestras play, he forswears coffee in case it should excite him to do something desperate. His companions, his family and his neighbours watch with appreciation. They are perfectly well aware that he has probably lost the woman’s address, forgotten what she looks like and is calling her, mentally, by the name of some other woman.” A wide selection of writings, dating from as far back as 1873, do justice to Rome and we read of the practice of strolling, the baths of Caracalla, dishonest students and Roman restaurants. There is also an amusing little note on the difficulties of telephoning in Rome. The section on the Vatican deals with its artistic wonders, councils, arguments and concludes with the moving lines of Pope John’s will. The text moves southwards to Naples and concludes in Sicily. Throughout the book are placed thirty-two excellent plates, mostly by leading Italian photographers, which ideally capture the theme of old and new Italy. There are modern skyscrapers of Milan and peasants working their fields in the age-old way, and all capture the spirit of Italy. This is an ideal book for those who know Italy, and for those who would like to know her.