Italy, the Magic Land E-Book

Lilian Whiting

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

Beschreibung

Italy, the Magic Land written by Lilian Whiting who was an American journalist, poet and story-writer. This book is one of many works by her. Published in 1907. 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

Italy, the Magic Land

By

Lilian Whiting

Table of Contents

PREFATORY NOTE

THE MAGIC LAND

I.  THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROME

II.  SOCIAL LIFE IN THE ETERNAL CITY

III.  DAY-DREAMS IN NAPLES, AMALFI, AND CAPRI

IV.  A PAGE DE CONTI FROM ISCHIA

V.  VOICES OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

VI.  THE GLORY OF A VENETIAN JUNE

VII.  THE MAGIC LAND

FOOTNOTES

Temple, Taormina

TO ELLA (Mrs. Franklin Simmons)

WHOSE EARTHLY FORM REPOSES IN THE BEAUTIFUL ROMAN CEMETERY, WHERE POETIC ASSOCIATIONS WITH KEATS AND SHELLEY HAUNT THE AIR,—UNDER THE SCULPTURED “ANGEL OF THE RESURRECTION,” WITH ITS MAJESTIC SYMBOLISM OF THE TRIUMPH OF IMMORTALITY,—BUT WHOSE RADIANT PRESENCE STILL TRANSFIGURES THE LIFE THAT HELD HER IN IMMORTAL DEVOTION,— THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED,

WITH THE UNFORGETTING LOVE OF

LILIAN WHITING.

Rome, Italy, May Days, 1907.

--------------------------

“Nor Life is ever lord of Death,And Love can never lose its own.”

PREFATORY NOTE

That Florence, the “Flower City,” receives only a passing allusion in this record of various impressions that gleam and glow through the days after several visits to the Magic Land, is due to the fact that in a previous volume by the writer—one entitled “The Florence of Landor”—the lovely Tuscan town with its art, its ineffable beauty, and its choice social life, formed the subject matter of that volume. Any attempt to portray Florence in the present book would savor only of the repetition of loves and enthusiasms already recorded in the previous work in which Walter Savage Landor formed the central figure. For that reason no mention of Florence, beyond some mere allusion, is attempted in these pages, which only aim to present certain fragmentary impressions of various sojourns in Italy, refracted through the prism of memory. Whatever inconveniences or discomfort attend the traveller swiftly fade, and leave to him only the precious heritage of resplendent sunset skies, of poetic association, of artistic beauty. In spirit he is again lingering through long afternoons in St. Peter’s till the golden light through the far windows of the tribune is merged into the dusk of twilight in which the vast monumental groups gleam wraith-like. Again he is ascending the magnificent Scala Regia, and lingering in the Raphael Stanze, or in the wonderful sculpture galleries of the Vatican, or sauntering in the sunshine on the Palatine. In memory he is again spellbound by ancient and mediæval art. In the line of modern sculpture the work of Franklin Simmons in Rome is a feature of Italy that haunts the imagination. No lover of beauty would willingly miss his great studios in the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, with their wealth of ideal creations that contribute new interest to the most divine of all the arts.

“The world of art is an ideal world,—The world I love, and that I fain would live in;So speak to me of artists and of art,Of all the painters, sculptors, and musiciansThat now illustrate Rome.”

The mystic charm of the pilgrimage to Assisi; the romance that reflects itself in the violet seas and flaming splendors of the sky on the shores of Ischia and Capri; the buried treasures of Amalfi; the magnetic impressiveness of the Eternal City,—all these enter into life as new forces to build and shape the future into undreamed-of destinies.

L. W.

The Brunswick, Boston, October Days, 1907.

“Rest we content if whispers from the starsIn wafting of the incalculable windCome blown at midnight through our prison-bars.”

THE MAGIC LAND

By woodland belt, by ocean bar,The full south breeze our forehead fanned;And, under many a yellow star,We dropped into the Magic Land.

*****

We heard, far-off, the siren’s song;We caught the gleam of sea-maids’ hair;The glimmering isles and rocks amongWe moved through sparkling purple air.

Then Morning rose, and smote from farHer elfin harps o’er land and sea;And woodland belt, and ocean barTo one sweet note sighed—“Italy!”

Owen Meredith.

I.THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROME

But ah, that spring should vanish with the Rose!That youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close?The nightingale that in the branches sang,Oh, where and whither flown again,—who knows?

Omar Khayyam.

Rome, as the picturesque city of the Popes in the middle years of the nineteenth century, was resplendent in local color. It was the Rome of sunny winters; the Rome of gay excursions over that haunted sea of the Campagna to pictorial points in the Alban and Sabine hills; the Rome of young artist life, which organized impromptu festas with Arcadian freedom, and utilized the shadow or the shelter of ruined temples or tombs in which to spread its picnic lunches and bring the glow of simple, friendly intercourse into the romantic lights of the poetic, historic, or tragic past. There were splendid Catholic processions and ceremonials that seemed organized as a part of the stage scenery that ensconced itself, also, with the nonchalance of easy possession, in the vast salons of historic palaces where tapestried walls and richly painted ceilings, arched high overhead, with statues dimly seen in niches here and there, and the bust of some crowned Antoninus, or radiant Juno, gleaming from a shadowy corner, all made up the mise-en-scène of familiar evenings. There were lingering hours in the gardens of the Villa Medici into whose shades one strolled by that beguiling path along the parapet on Monte Pincio, through the beautiful grove with its walks and fountains. The old ilex bosquet, with its tangled growth and air of complete seclusion, had its spell of fascination. Then, as now, the elevated temple, at the end of the main path, seemed the haunt of gods and muses. In all the incidental, as well as the ceremonial social meeting and mingling, art and religion were the general themes of discussion. This idyllic life—

“Comprehending, too, the soul’sAnd all the high necessities of art”—

has left its impress on the air as well as its record on many a page of the poet and the romancist. The names that made memorable those wonderful days touch chords of association that still vibrate in the life of the hour. For the most part the artists and their associates have gone their way—not into a Silent Land, a land of shadows and vague, wandering ghosts—but into that realm wherein is the “life more abundant,” of more intense energy and of nobler achievement; the realm in which every aspiration of earth enlarges its conception and every inspiration is exalted and endowed with new purpose; the realm where, as Browning says,—

“Power comes in full play.”

The poet’s vision recognizes the truth:—

“I know there shall dawn a day,—Is it here on homely earth?Is it yonder, worlds away,Where the strange and new have birth,That Power comes in full play?”

The names of sculptor, painter, and poet throng back, imaged in that retrospective mirror which reflects a vista of the past, rich in ideal creation. Beautiful forms emerge from the marble; pictorial scenes glow from the canvas; song and story and happy, historic days are in the very air. To Italy, land of romance and song, all the artists came trooping, and

“Under many a yellow Star”

they dropped into the Magic Land. If the wraiths of the centuries long since dead walked the streets, they were quite welcome to revisit the glimpses of the moon and contribute their mystery to the general artistic effectiveness of the Seven-hilled City. All this group of American idealists, from Allston and Page to Crawford, Story, Randolph Rogers, Vedder, Simmons, and to the latest comer of all, Charles Walter Stetson, recognized something of the artist’s native air in this Mecca of their pilgrimage.