The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Italies of British Travellers : an Annotated AnthologyManfred Pfister 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 68
... seemed never to have known danger or fatigue . Our apprehensions therefore were dissipated in some few minutes , and in little more than two hours we found ourselves on the top of the mountain . We walked over the plain , our carriages ...
... seemed never to have known danger or fatigue . Our apprehensions therefore were dissipated in some few minutes , and in little more than two hours we found ourselves on the top of the mountain . We walked over the plain , our carriages ...
Page 71
... seemed so completely undone as to leave little hopes of ever being restored to its former state , - our servants and Vetturinos mounted , brought up the rear . The ascent of the mountain is rendered as easy as the height will permit ...
... seemed so completely undone as to leave little hopes of ever being restored to its former state , - our servants and Vetturinos mounted , brought up the rear . The ascent of the mountain is rendered as easy as the height will permit ...
Page 72
... seemed to be going to ruin . Passed thro ' a gallery cut in the rock , & hung with icicles above a foot & a half in length & of great beauty . The roof of the carriage shattered several as it passed & they fell with a shrill sound ...
... seemed to be going to ruin . Passed thro ' a gallery cut in the rock , & hung with icicles above a foot & a half in length & of great beauty . The roof of the carriage shattered several as it passed & they fell with a shrill sound ...
Page 73
... seemed resolved to enter the Mountain , & to say , in the language of the Arabian Nights ' Open Sesima ' - & ever it appeared winding before us thro ' these rude regions , as if thrown by a Fairy wherever we went - like the velvet ...
... seemed resolved to enter the Mountain , & to say , in the language of the Arabian Nights ' Open Sesima ' - & ever it appeared winding before us thro ' these rude regions , as if thrown by a Fairy wherever we went - like the velvet ...
Page 85
... seemed to have poured forth on purpose to bring her national character into contempt : ignorant , petulant , rash , and profligate , without any know- ledge or experience of their own , without any director to improve their ...
... seemed to have poured forth on purpose to bring her national character into contempt : ignorant , petulant , rash , and profligate , without any know- ledge or experience of their own , without any director to improve their ...
Contents
3 | |
20 | |
58 | |
Multiple Civilizations | 104 |
The Perception of Otherness | 142 |
as Cavaliere Servente | 269 |
Domestic Economy | 291 |
Lady Hamiltons Attitudes | 383 |
Off the Beaten Tracks and the Mezzogiorno | 395 |
122 | 531 |
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Common terms and phrases
Addison ancient Anna Brownell Jameson antiquities beauty British travellers Byron called Catholic century church classical colour D.H. Lawrence d'Annunzio Diary England English Etruscan Evelyn eyes Florence France and Italy Frances Trollope French Fynes Moryson George Giro d'Italia gondola Grand Tour hand Hester Lynch Piozzi hills inhabitants Italian John John Addington Symonds Joseph Joseph Addison journey kind Lady land Letters from Italy live London look manner miles modern mountains Naples nature never night Norman Douglas 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 thing Thomas Thomas Coryate thought Tobias Smollett told tomb town travelogues Trollope 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.