The Beauty That Outlasts Empires
WOLFE, HENRY C.
The Beauty That Outlasts Empires Pageant of Italy. By James Reynolds. Putnam. 361 pp. $7.50. It takes an artist to do justice to the beauty of Italy. Its varied landscape lies mellow under a...
...Giotto's Assisiun fresco...
...Here, as elsewhere in Italy, history has left the multi-layered imprint of successive civilizations...
...After wandering about the islands of Ischia...
...If there is a fault in Pageant oj Italy, it is that there are almost too many plums in the pudding, or rather, in this case, too many truffles in the jonduta Torino...
...rarely-seen costumes are on display...
...He can convey the atomic-age excitement of the chariot races in the Arena Foro Italico or the mys-teiiousness of the Sardinian gorges, brooding in the silence of prehistoric monuments...
...Reviewed by Henry C. U olfe Former foreign correspondent...
...Siena's Piicoloniini Library, Gorizia's Castello Montfal-cone, "a saturnine old pile with an Oriental air...
...Reynolds crosses to the silent reaches of Calabria and makes for the wide "Apulian Marches...
...But that is the wav of Italy, where even the country houses and I'alladian villas are art galleries...
...It is," he notes, "by pursuit of the arts . . . into everv <il...
...there Michelangelo wrought...
...In early spring he explores Naples, the latest excavations in Pompeii, Sorrento and sybaritic Capri...
...Companioned by the epicurean Mr...
...Name your favorite- exotic Venice...
...He imparts a sense of the spell cast by Torcello's black-robed Byzantine Madonna and evokes the nostalgic splendor of Goia's Imperial Throne, carved with the Icelandic gyrfalcons of Frederick II...
...Seen through his eyes, even the routine tourist haunts take on fresh focus and color...
...James Reynolds writes and paints with equal eloquence, and Irish eloquence at that...
...into the smallest village, that lt:il\ lias i>:iiiied iiiinmrtalitv...
...By way of Via Amalfi...
...At Forno D'Ischia, under the stars, he is served lobster thermi-dor and the blood oranges that are an historic Ischian specialty...
...author, "The Imperial Soviets" Afoot and on horseback, by boat and automobile, Mr...
...Sardinia and Sicily...
...Heading northward then, he visits cities and towns, some famous and others far off the beaten track...
...Ami lavishly, throughout the book, he sums up his impressions in dramatic black and white sketches...
...Out-of-the-way festivals and...
...He learns where to eat and drink what...
...Its varied landscape lies mellow under a patina of antiquity...
...The Italian boot and its neighboring islands are encrusted with art treasures, pagan and Christian, many of which are only now being restored to mortal gaze...
...at this spot Aeneas landed...
...Having known Italy from boyhood, he is imbued with a feeling for native line and color...
...He lingers a while in Taranto, legendary rendezvous of Caesar and Cleopatra, and embarks on a little pilgrimage around the heel of the Italian boot...
...he has Campagna melon, artichoke broiled in Parmesan cheese, a three-flavored ice and, for wine, a light red Olivano Romano...
...Here Puccini rested...
...In the Pincian Gardens, at Casino Vala-tlier...
...It is here to the life, mantled in associations from the past and astir under the long veil of its unique history...
...Moreover, he is master of that elusive regional thing called the spirit of place...
...at another Hercules strove...
...Reynolds takes the reader on a leisurely tour of the boot and the islands...
...Reynolds has given us is not only an original and entertaining guidebook hut a distillation of the spirit of a lieautv-luv ing people...
...Reynolds, the reader finds himself on a gourmet's odyssey...
...For what Mr...
...The wild Ahruzzi, Imperial Rome, the Campagna, the Umbrian hill towns, the mountain cities of Val IVAosta?these are among the delights stowlv savored...
...Nor is it only the eyes and spirit that are refreshed...
...timeless and scenically spectacular, he travels south to Positano and Ravello...
...Its picturesque shores and valleys are alive with the history of fabled races and the memories of storied men...
Vol. 38 • March 1955 • No. 13
