Italian Backgrounds E-Book

Edith Wharton

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Italian Backgrounds written by American novelist, short story writer, and designerEdith Wharton. Published in 1905. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

Italian Backgrounds

By

Edith Wharton

Illustrator: Ernest Clifford Peixotto

Table of Contents

AN ALPINE POSTING-INN

A MIDSUMMER WEEK’S DREAM AUGUST IN ITALY

IIIIIIIVV

THE SANCTUARIES OF THE PENNINE ALPS

WHAT THE HERMITS SAW

A TUSCAN SHRINE

SUB UMBRA LILIORUM AN IMPRESSION OF PARMA

MARCH IN ITALY

IIIIIIIVV

PICTURESQUE MILAN

IIIIIIIVV

ITALIAN BACKGROUNDS

IIIIIIIVVVIVIIVIIIIX

Group from the Crucifixion San Vivaldo

AN ALPINE POSTING-INN

To the mind curious in contrasts—surely one of the chief pleasures of travel—there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upper Swiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque—the country contrived, it would seem, for the delectation of the cœur à poésie facile—to that sophisticated landscape where the face of nature seems moulded by the passions and imaginings of man, is one of the most suggestive transitions in the rapidly diminishing range of such experiences.

Nowhere is this contrast more acutely felt than in one of the upper Grisons villages. The anecdotic Switzerland of the lakes is too remote from Italy, geographically and morally, to evoke a comparison. The toy chalet, with its air of self-conscious neatness, making one feel that if one lifted the roof it would disclose a row of tapes and scissors, or the shining cylinders of a musical box, suggests cabinet-work rather than architecture; the swept and garnished streets, the precise gardens, the subjugated vines, present the image of an old maid’s paradise that would be thrown into hopeless disarray by the introduction of anything so irregular as a work of art. In the Grisons, however, where only a bald grey pass divides one from Italy, its influence is felt, in a negative sense, in the very untidiness of the streets, the rank growth of weeds along the base of rough glaring walls, the drone of flies about candidly-exposed manure-heaps. More agreeably, the same influence shows itself in the rude old centaur-like houses, with their wrought-iron window-grilles and stone escutcheons surmounting the odorous darkness of a stable. These are the houses of people conscious of Italy, who have transplanted to their bleak heights, either from poverty of invention, or an impulse as sentimental as our modern habit of “collecting,” the thick walls, the small windows, the jutting eaves of dwellings designed under a sultry sky. So vivid is the reminiscence that one almost expects to see a cypress leaning against the bruised-peach-coloured walls of the village