Pagan and Christian Rome by Rodolfo Lanciani

The archeologist-author of this fascinating free e-book (links below) is knowledgeable and confidently Christian in a way modern scholars try to avoid, in public at least.  Published toward the end of the 1800s, the book discusses for the amateur archeologist and for the visitor to Rome the new discoveries that were being unearthed ever year at that time.  The author unhesitatingly links the catacombs and cemeteries, temples and churches, tombs and mausoleums to Rome's history as the founding city of Catholicism.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the monuments of the city of Rome were plundered, patched up, stripped, restored, then neglected for a long time before being plundered by Italians during the Renaissance for building materials and decorations for new palaces for the rich and powerful.  The author explains much of this history without losing sight of the present-day Rome visitors would see.

Frontispiece of the book showing Constantine defeating Maximus to take control of the Roman Empire, after which he protected the Christian faith from persecution

Sadly, many of the sites the author discusses are no longer available to the tourist, but that does not detract from the interest in this heavily illustrated book.  The author writes at length about how the ancient Romans viewed the new faith, the Christian faith, the foreign superstition, the nova superstitio.  We learn about the early conversions and persecutions, about the rich converts and the poor converts, who worshiped together in humble confraternity.

Showy, proud, licentious Roman pagans saw Christians as despicably lazy, refusing to join in the licentiousness, public honors, showiness.

Christians did not approve of slavery, torture, capital punishment, prostitution, the slaughter of humans and animals for sacrifice nor for entertainment.  They shunned the sin of gluttony, too, which was shocking in a society where rich families could have a room next to their dining room called a vomitorium where people could vomit up their food so they could return to the dining table to eat more without suffering a distended stomach.  Yes, Roman society encouraged bulimia.

Old St. Peter's Basilica, built by Constantine's order, and the courtyard in front of it, under which popes were buried, the site is where the apostle Peter was crucified, and is where is remains are buried

The author describes the wholesale conversion of Roman pagan temples and shrines into Catholic churches, monasteries, convents and shrines.  These conversions began after Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.  He allowed the other faiths to practice in the Empire, but he protected Christians and gave them places to worship and to bury their dead. 

There is mention made of efforts by some Emperors before Constantine to incorporate Jesus into the Roman pantheon of gods, but the conservative Roman Senate always denied those requests.

[Tiberius] is alleged to have sent a message to the Senate requesting that Christ should be included among the gods, on the strength of the official report written by Pontius Pilatus of the passion and death of our Lord.

While pogroms against the Christians flared up periodically, for political reasons, the author stresses that the growth of Christianity was gradual and inevitable, and it was not seen as being in conflict with military service or public service roles, much like today, in most places.  Pagan symbols and festivals were incorporated into the new faith.  Roman pantheistic traditions often blended with Christian/Jewish traditions, much as the temples blended into churches.

The New St. Peter's Basilica, built to replace the old basilica which was collapsing

At a certain point in Rome's turbulent history, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the popes fought with the aristocratic families and their thugs for control of the city.  Christian pilgrims became the city's only source of income, so churches and shrines were constructed over tombs of saints and martyrs.  Passion plays and other religious spectacles were staged in Rome's streets. 

A large section in the book is dedicated to the construction of the first and second Basilicas of St. Peter.  First Constantine's tribute to where St. Peter was crucified is described, and then the new basilica's construction is detailed.  I found this to be the most fascinating section of the book. 

The second most interesting section is about the churches built over the homes that were used by Saints Peter and Paul when preaching to the early Christians in Rome.

The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (Fuori le mura), built by order of Constantine over the remains of the apostle Paul, and rebuilt through the ages

The author's enthusiasm for his subject is contagious.  A picture of Rome through the ages emerges from his text.  It is a living, breathing Rome, full of complex people from all around the Mediterranean Sea.  He treats us to appropriate quotes from classical writers, popes, saints and historians. 

The reader comes away with a better understanding of the ancient Romans and the early Christians, but to fully appreciate the book the reader should have a basic grounding in the history of ancient Rome and in the Catholic faith.  Only then can one really understand the links the author makes between Jerusalem and Rome, not least the recreation of the Via Dolorosa by Rome's town planners, to host the yearly Passion play.

Pagan and Christian Rome is free to download in various e-book formats, including Kindle mobi, from Project Gutenberg, the Internet's grand-daddy of free e-book sites.  You can also read the book on-line with the HTML format.

Direct link to the free e-book download page for P&C Rome

Victorian pilgrims to the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, one of the 60 underground cemeteries of ancient Rome

If you wish, you can download the free Kindle (mobi) edition directly from Amazon.com.

Direct link to the Amazon e-book page for free download of Pagan and Christian Rome

A depiction of early Christians attending a mass in the Catacombs of St. Calixtus

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The New Deal in Old Rome by H. J. Haskell

The subtitle of this book is How Government in the Ancient World Tried to Deal with Modern Problems.  Actually, "Modern Problems" would have been better as "Timeless Problems", since the book demonstrates that poverty, unemployment, wealth concentration into too few hands, and controversial programs for wealth redistribution are, indeed, timeless and inevitable problems of commercial societies.

This slim volume (136 pages) was written when The New Deal in the United States was implemented.  For those who do not know about The New Deal, implemented under President Franklin Roosevelt, a minimal social net was created, and greater regulation of financial institutions was instituted to recover from the Greta Depression and to prevent another economic crisis from happening.  Another part of The New Deal was a price protection program linked with subsidies to protect farmers from price shocks.

President Franklin Roosevelt Signs the Social Security Bill, part of the New Deal for Americans

A fascination developed among the well-educated about "instances of government intervention in the ancient world" and this book was written to address that fascination.  The author was a journalist and editor with the Kansas City Star newspaper, and he was an amateur historian with a broad classical education.  He was also a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for editorials he wrote for the paper. 

The author provides maps that show the expansion of Rome over 1000 years from city-state to Empire, from roughly 800 B.C. to 200 A.D.  These are the chapter headings:

1. Beginning an Adventure
2. When Rome Went Modern
3. A Tour of Orientation
4. Early new Deal Experiments
5. The Get Rich Quick Era
6. The Farm Problem Emerges
7. Big Business in Politics
8. The Republic Couldn't Stan Prosperity
9. Drift to Dictatorship
10. Boom and Depression
11. Prelude to Crisis
12. Warning Signals

Depending on one's views on The New Deal and on social nets, one will take the author's research and twist it one way, or twist it another way.  The author himself seems to be of the "twist it positively" persuasion.

The failure of the roman system to furnish decent minimal standards for the mass of people was a fundamental cause of instability, both political and economic.

He is also in favor of taxes to support the social net, meaning relatively high taxes to support the social net.  But that is the rub.  He admits that the tax base of ancient Rome became debased by plagues and by the newly transplanted tribesmens' reluctance to pay their taxes, so the Empire could no longer support the social systems and the vast administration that went with it and that went with the tax collection. 
 

Workmen on the Giant Turbine in the Powerhouse of the Bonneville Dam, Ca. 1937, part of the infrastructure programs that were part of The New Deal

As anyone who studies Roman history knows, you can always find something to support any argument you choose to make about the Romans.  Mussolini used Roman history to justify his Empire building, massacres of natives in Africa, the establishment of a police state in Italy, the withdrawal of rights from women and minorities in Italy, the repression of his detractors, vast governmental subsidies, and monumental building programs.

The author visited Rome during this Fascist era, and he marveled in Mussolini's archeological program in Rome, which dressed up the newly exposed Roman ruins in the center of Rome, and built special museums to exhibit the finds and displays to convey ancient Rome's (ancient Italians') greatness, all under the guise of celebrating the 1000 year anniversary of the birth of the first roman Emperor, Augustus (Octavian), who Mussolini felt he was emulating.

Italic Forum (Originally Mussolini Forum), 1928 - 1938, 20th Century, one of Mussolini's public works projects emulating Augustus

Why was the Roman Empire so wealthy and successful?  They created a large free-trade area that covered all the areas Rome conquered.  They guaranteed the freedom of movement around the Empire, enforced strict property laws, protected trade routes, built and maintained necessary infrastructure, established fast communication routes and systems, developed a sophisticated and stable financial system, established the rule of law backed up by a strong civil service, and maintained strong government spending programs.

What were some of the problems with the Roman Empire?  First and foremost is the trade in human beings, slavery, which debased people's morality as well as undercutting employment for the low skilled.  Other problems included corruption and racketeering, a large and underused labor class, a very small middle class made up of traders who serviced mainly the upper class, and a very small upper class who locked up the ownership of much land and thus most of the wealth of the land-based economy.

Striking Employees of NYC Woolworth's Demand a 40 Hour Work Week, 1937, worker protection laws were part of The New Deal

If you wish to begin a study of Roman history, I would recommend this little book!  The author provides a wonderful summary of Roman society and history.  Here is his excellent timeline:

• 1000 B.C. Shepherds' settlement on the Tiber
• 753 B.C. Traditional date of the founding of Rome
• 509 B.C. Republic established with overthrow of monarchy
• 509-265 B.C. Unification of Italy
• 264-133 B.C. Period of rapid territorial expansion
• 133-31 B.C. Revolutionary era, culminating in civil war, ending in battle of Actium and disappearance of the Republic
• 31 B.C. - 235 A.D. Empire established, with Roman peace; Golden Age
• 235-284 Military anarchy
• 284-476 Totalitarian state and end of Western Empire

Clearly The New Deal did not tackle sexual inequality

The timeline is followed by a so-called "Tour of Orientation", which is a brief summary of Roman history, hitting all the right points.

Roughly, the history of Rome which we are to survey covers a period of a thousand years, divided sharply in the middle shortly before the birth of Christ.  For the first five hundred years the city-state thought of itself as a republic governed by a council of elder Statesmen, the Senate, in conjunction with assemblies of all citizens and with elective magistrates.  For the last five hundred the government hardened into an autocracy, "despotism tempered by assassination".  The Republic finally disappeared shortly after the murder of Julius Caesar; the Empire began with the accession of Augustus.

The New Deal's WPA goal was to find/create quality jobs for people

Political economics teaches us that the natural give and take of a capitalist system leads for the accumulation of great wealth in few hands.  Laws and law-enforcement are necessary to prevent the establishment of monopolies and consortia who seek to rig markets.  The redistribution of wealth through taxes and subsidies are a necessary element in capitalism if it is to be made a viable system to last over time. 

However, as the author points out, great wealth and luxury in a society can bring about a culture of avarice and self-indulgence, which can destroy necessary characteristics such as self-discipline, reasonableness, and a readiness to compromise.  When the wealthy refuse to submit to the rule of law which limits their power and accumulation of wealth, and they refuse to pay the taxes required to maintain a healthy capitalistic economy, the system suffers shocks such as booms and busts.  Wise moderation goes out the window.

United States' First Foreign Trade Zone in 1937 to stimulate trade and the economy

So what sort of programs did Ancient Rome use to keep the economy of the Empire healthy?  These will sound very familiar to anyone who keeps up with modern economics.

• Monetary manipulation
• Employment rules to widen the labour base
• Low interest rates to provide money for investment (when the rates were kept too low for too long, a boom grew that would always end in a bust)
• Protection from usury rates of interest
• New markets were opened up for trade (but they sometimes had a negative effect on employment and incomes)
• Agricultural planning support and crop support with price stabilization schemes, and cheap, subsidized farm loans
• Trust busting programs
• Liberal bankruptcy laws
• Large infrastructure projects and the maintenance afterward
• Programs to spread the ownership of land
• Relief programs for the needy in the rough and tumble economy, including food gifts and money gifts and unemployment payments
• Debt relief programs and debt holidays
• Government backed property loans to support property ownership and property prices
• Child allowances to encourage reproduction and the healthy upbringing of children
• Price, wage and capital controls

WPA poster highlighting their projects to support farmers, like irrigation and dams, and electricity generation and distribution to better the life of rural families

The author also discusses what the Romans should have done, but didn't do, to stabilize their economic system and avoid collapse.

• Curtail the autocratic society which had a stifling effect upon the human spirit
• Encourage industry and innovation to grow the economy and diversify it
• End slavery and promote the use of labor saving devices to improve labor conditions
• Create a widespread and inclusive educational system to develop labor potential
• Smooth out the sharp social divisions which created tension in society and led to revolts
• Promote decent jobs with living wages, and public participation in governance
• Check the short-sighted self-interests of the super-rich who blocked social progress in an attempt to entrench their own power and wealth

This is a fascinating little book that I highly recommend so that the reader can understand the background and substance of discussions that fill today's economic news.  There is nothing new under the sun, so why not learn from what has come before us?  It might help us to avoid those mistakes that can prove so costly.

The Roman aristocrats were the only ones who lived decent lives

This book was originally published in 1939, and updated in 1947, by Alfred A. Knopf.  It has been reissued by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

The Mises Institute is the world’s largest, oldest, and most influential educational institution devoted to promoting Austrian economics, freedom, and peace in the tradition of classical liberalism.

Austrian economics is a method of economic analysis, and is non-ideological. Nonetheless, the Austrian School has long been associated with libertarian and classical-liberal thought—promoting private property and freedom, while opposing war and aggression of all kinds.

Direct link to the book at LvM

Direct link to the free PDF ebook at LvM 

(opens in your browser, and you can then save it to your computer)

First Food Stamp Program Operated from May 16 1939 Through Spring of 1943, to stop starvation in The United States of America

From the book's description:

What a fantastic way to learn ancient history: via the parallels with modern times.

H.J. Haskell was a journalist with a huge background in ancient history, and here he does what everyone has wanted done. He details the amazing catalog of government interventions in old Rome that eventually brought the empire down. He shows the spending, the inflating, the attempt to fix prices and raise wages, the infrastructure boondoggles, the gross displays of public entertainment, the welfare scams, and much more.

At every step he draws a parallel with modern times. Modern governments also destroy the money to fund the state, extend vast military empires that are unmanageable, try to control the market order, and attempt to rig political decision making in order to buy off the population.
The comparisons between then and now generate ominous lessons for our times.

This book was a smash hit when it first came out in 1939, and yet it went out of print, and hasn't been in print in half a century.

The writing is clear, the research impeccable, and it teaches modern and ancient history in one entertaining yet scholarly package.

What a triumph of research and writing this book is!

Bread Line Beside the Brooklyn Bridge Approach. New York City Ca, 1930-35

Here is a direct link to another reprint of the book that is available at Amazon.com:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects by Giorgio Vasari

The ten volumes of this book were written in roughly the year 1568, during the Italian Renaissance, by an Italian artist about Italian artists.  The books contain biographies and descriptions of the artists' major works, ordered by style, which is not exactly chronological.  The biographies are written in a gossipy, first-hand style, that revels in namedropping, making the books a Who's Who of the Italian Renaissance (the Name Indices at the back of each book are an amazing collection of Renaissance artists!).

...writing down the lives, the works, the manners, and the circumstances of all those who, finding the arts already dead, first revived them, then step by step nourished and adorned them, and finally brought them to that height of beauty and majesty whereon they stand at the present day.

 An original frontispiece to the first two-volume edition

Look closely at the beginning of the books and you will see the Papal permission (Pius V) for publication that was required for all books a the time, and were issued by the Offiicii sanctissimae Inquisitionis Florentinae, the same office of the inquisition who refused publication rights to Galileo's writings and had him jailed.

The books are all AVAILABLE FOR FREE download as e-books, in various formats, from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-book sites on the Internet.  The edition at Project Gutenberg is the 1912-1914 edition published by MacMillan and Co. Ltd. Together with The Medici Society, and it is a translation from the Tuscan to English by Gaston Du C. De Vere.  Hundreds of photographs accompany the text.

Project Gutenberg was the first group to put public domain texts online for free download.  Others have taken their free texts and packaged them as to-purchase books.  Don't be fooled!  They are all free via Project Gutenberg in various e-book formats, and many are available for free via Amazon.com as Kindle e-books.

Vasari's moody portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici painted long after the man had died, but which is said to be truer to life than those painted during the man's life

Giorgio Vasari was an artist, and in the Florentine tradition, also an architect, but he modestly calls himself "a painter of Arezzo".  He lived from 1511 to 1574.  Most of his commissions were for the Ducal family of Florence, the de' Medici, to whom he dedicates the biographies.  Reading the biographies, you will notice that most commissions for art and buildings came from the Catholic Church, royal families, and wealthy aristocrats.

Most tourists who have visited Florence will recognize Vasari's name as linked to the corridor that connects the old government buildings in the center of Florence, to the Pitti Palace, the last de' Medici palace on the opposite side of the Arno River.  The corridor, designed by Vasari, runs above the shops on Florence's famous Ponte Vecchio.  Actually, the corridor and bridge are the backdrop to this blog.

This view of the Ponte Vecchio gives the best view of Vasari's corridor above the shops.  Vasari describes its construction in Book 10.

Leonardo

The sections that will most interest the casual reader are those about the two most famous artists of the Italian Renaissance:  Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangnolo (that is the Florentine spelling and how the man spelled his own name) Buonarotti.

The biography of Leonardo da Vinci is in Book 4, and it is a very long section, praising the artist as a man and as a scientist and an artist.

"...in supernatural fashion, beauty, grace, and talent are united beyond measure in one single person."

"...to whatever difficulties he turned his mind, he solved them with ease."

A self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, who was known in his lifetime for his extreme beauty

Michelangelo

The biography of Michelangelo is in Book 9, and it is wonderfully gossipy, full of first-hand accounts of the man, who was a friend of Vasari's, and peppered with quotes from private letters of Michelangelo's.  What comes across strongly is the reverence that the de' Medici showed Michelangelo, a longtime friend of the family, and the artist they trusted to make the family tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence.

A portrait of Michelangelo, who hated having his portrait made, since he was known during his lifetime for his very unattractive looks

Vasari, the perfect artist toward his patron, ends the books with:

"I shall never be weary of confessing the obligation that I feel towards that lord [ed. Cosimo de' Medici] for so many marks of affection."

A portrait of the first Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo de' Medici, in his full battle armor, painted by the official de' Medici portrait artist, Bronzino, who is described in Book 10.

Book 1

From Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi, roughly 1240-1387

Includes Giotto and Pisano

Direct link to Book 1 e-books at PG

Book 2

From Berna to Michelozzi, roughly 1369-1432

Includes Aretino, Della robbia, Masaccio and Brunelleschi

Direct link to Book 2 e-books at PG

Book 3

From Filarete to Mantegna, roughly 1431-1517

Includes Piero della Francesca, Lippi, Gozzoli, Ghirlandajo, Pollaiuolo, Botticelli, and Verrocchio

Direct link to Book 3 e-books at PG

Book 4

From Filippino to Puligo, roughly 1511-1527

Includes Filippino, Perugino, da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo

Direct link to Book 4 e-books at PG

Book 5

From Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto, roughly 1522-1548

Includes Raffaello, Andrea del Sarto and Sansovino

Direct link to Book 5 e-books at PG

Book 6

From Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi, roughly 1524-1536

Includes San Gallo, del Piombo and Vasari

Direct link to Book 6 e-books at PG

Book 7

From Tibolo to Il Sodoma, roughly 1500-1554

Includes Bandinelli and Pontormo

Direct link to Book 7 e-books at PG

Book 8

From Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero, roughly 1534-1542

Includes Salviati and Rustici

Direct link to Book 8 e-books at PG

Book 9

From Michelangelo to the Flemings, roughly 1474-1564

Includes Michelangelo (Michelagnolo) and Sansovino

Direct link to Book 9 e-books at PG

Book 10

From Bronzino to Vasari

Includes the descriptions of Bronzino's portraits of the Ducal family, and of the wedding festival for Francesco, Duke Cosimo de' Medici's eldest son and heir, and projects Vasari undertook for the royal family.

Direct link to Book 10 e-books at PG

Would you like a private tour of Vasari's corridor?  Here is one, that includes at the end a bit of the Boboli Gardens and some of Michelangelo's designs at the Church of San Lorenzo.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Daisy Miller by Henry James

This classic novella from 1879, roughly fifty pages long, is by America's foremost novelist, Henry James (b.1843-d.1916), a master of the psychological novel.  The novella is in the public domain, so it is free to download as an e-book from a source I provide below.

You may know Henry James as a writer of heavy, dense prose, but this novella is closer in style to writer Edith Wharton:  conversational, gossipy, often humorous description of relations between men and women of a certain class during the Belle Epoch, with a serious ending.

 

Illustration of a woman offering her help to Daisy, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

The novella is written in two parts.  The first part of the novella is set in Vevey, Switzerland, a favorite resort location for travelers on the Grand Tour of Europe, next to Lake Geneva, and a stopover before taking the journey through the Alpine passes into Italy.  The second part of the novel is set in Rome, Italy, which was generally the stop before Naples and Pompeii for the Grand Tour tourist.

Rome, Italy, in 1879 is unlike Rome of today.  The Roman sights were open to the public without any fee, and without any closing times.  But it was also home to malaria, in that time before D.D.T. spraying.  A visit to Rome could be deadly.

Illustration of the narrator, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below 

The narrator of the novella is Winterbourne, a spoiled, rich, indulgent, lazy young man, who spends most of him time courting older women in Switzerland.  Winterbourne tells the story of his acquaintance with Annie P. Miller (Daisy Miller), a poorly educated, spoiled, wealthy American woman with an unpolished character and a coquettish demeanor, and an Aspergers-like incomprehension of social niceties and acceptable social behavior.

Daisy is rather brainless.  To her, Europe means hotels, trains, new dresses in Paris.

...Europe was perfectly sweet.  She was not disappointed--not a bit.  She had ever so many intimate friends that had been there ever so many times.

And then she had had ever so many dresses and things from Paris.  Whenever she put on a Paris dress she felt as if she were in Europe.

Here is a clip from a 1974 film-adaptation with a truly awful performance by Cybil Shepard, but it does stick very faithfully to the book, and it was filled on location, this scene at Vevey, Switzerland.

 Illustration of an Italian fan of Daisy's, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

Winterbourne meets Daisy at Vevey and writes her off as a pretty American flirt with low morals, or at least rather dense, thick, unsophisticated in the way of the world, and the in the rules of propriety. 

...an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity...

...continued to present herself as an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence...

...naturally indelicate...

...audacity and puerility...

 Illustration of a critic of Daisy's, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

Daisy's mother and young brother are equally dense and inappropriate.  Daisy's mother is like a doormat for her strong-willed, spoiled daughter.  Daisy's beauty and wealth has insulated her from much of the criticism that her behavior causes.  But we learn that fashionable New York City society has deemed Daisy uncouth, the product of new money from the girl's businessman father.  She is the like the daughters on MTV's Sweet Sixteen show, raging idiots untamed by their cowed, new-money mothers.

Henry James's story of Daisy Miller's dangerous folly was a common theme at the time.  Other books warned new-money mothers and young women and their fathers of the dangers they ran trying to fit into high-society without understanding the rules of behavior:  The Hazards of New Wealth by W. D. Howells, The Sword of Damocles by A. K. Green, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, to name a few.

 Illustration depicting the dangers of malaria in Rome, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

Daisy Miller, as described by Henry James, is a classic Aspergers.  She has an attractive face, an expensive wardrobe, a limited range of emotions, and she is clueless about societal norms and accepted behaviors.  She cannot understand social clues or cues.  But her wealth and beauty have given her an arrogance and self-assurance that takes blows when her poor decisions have serious consequences. 

It is an interesting and even entertaining read, written in a lighter style than usual for Henry James.  The depictions of people and their psychology always rings true.  The portraits of expatriate life in Switzerland and Rome in the late 1800s are drawn by a man who knew the locales well.  If you enjoy Edith Wharton, you will enjoy Daisy Miller.

Daisy Miller,...

Buy This at Allposters.com

A still-image from a 1974 film adaptation of Daisy Miller

The novella Daisy Miller is in the public domain and available to download for free in various e-book formats from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-books on the Internet.

Direct link to the Daisy Miller e-book download page

If you wish to see the book as it was originally published, with beautiful illustrations, and download a PDF book made from the scanned paged for free, here is the link at the Internet Archive, a wonderful resource for free e-book on-line.

Direct link to the Daisy Miller viewer page and e-book download page

Henry James adapted the novella for the stage, changing the sad ending for a happy one, in an attempt to pander to theatre-goers.  If you are interested in this version, here is a direct link to the un-produced play as it was printed in a book, available for free as in various e-book formats, including a PDF of the scanned pages of the original book, at the Internet Archive.

Direct link to the play Daisy Miller viewer page and e-book download page

If you are interested, here is a link to the Wikipedia page for Daisy Miller, but I suggest you read the novella first, form your own opinion, then read the page, or other critical articles about the story.

Direct link to the Daisy Miller Page

If you wish to purchase a print version of Daisy Miller, or the 1974 film adaptation, here are direct links to the products at Amazon.com.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Florentine/Venetian Painters of the Italian Renaissance by Bernhard Berenson

These are two books of roughly 100 pages each, with half the pages being indices of the paintings with their locations around the world, in private and public collections.  The books are in the public domain, so they are free to download as e-books from an on-line source, which I provide below.

Bernhard Berenson (b.1865-d.1959) was an art historian and art authenticator specialized in Italian Renaissance art.  His books on Italian Renaissance art were a godsend for collectors and art enthusiasts alike:

• The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance with an Index to their Works (1894)
• The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance with an Index to their Works (1896)
• The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance with an Index to their Works (1897)
• The Northern Italian Painters of the Renaissance with an Index to their Works (1907)
• The Drawings of Florentine Painters (1903)

Berenson's Florentine villa, I Tatti, is an art study retreat run by Harvard University, to whom Berenson willed the estate upon his death, the estate included many artworks from the Florentine School, including this one

Today, the indices are outdated, but the essays that precede the indices are still fascinating and informative for anyone interested in Italian art and Italian artists.  Berenson's authoritative character shines through the essays, seeming to our modern sensibilities to be arrogant, but his true joy in discovering new art and artists moderates that fault of ego.

The Florentine Book

Giotto to Michelangelo; the beginning of Florentine Renaissance art to the end of it.  The Florentine school, as pointed out by Berenson, was unique in that an artist was trained to be a painter, sculptor, draftsman, architect, metalworker, poet and a man of science.  Such a school/training was bound to uncover a genius or two, a Renaissance man, great personalities, like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

The essay covers many artists, including:  Massaccio, Andra Orcagna, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Paolo Uccello, Andra del Castagno, Domenico Vaneziano, Fra Fillipo Lippi, alesio Baldovinetti, Antonio Pollaiuloo, andrea Verrochio, Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Leonardo da vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, Andra del Sarto, Pontormo, Bronzino, and Michelangelo.

Art Critic Bernard Berenson Sitting with Guests at Dinner Table at Villa I Tatti

Berenson tells us why each artist's work is important and offers comparisons and influences on the man's work.  Michelangelo, the longest-lived of all the artists, has the honor of having his death generally seen as the date the Renaissance ended for Florentine art. 

According to Berenson, Michelangelo's adoption of the Greek love of nudes provided the inspiration for the artist's greatest works, and:

...in him Florentine art had its logical culmination.

Art Critic Bernard Berenson Standing by Buffet Table

Berenson provides a strong defense of nudes in art, something at issue during his day.  He claims:

Michelangelo joined an ideal of beauty and force...[in his nudes].  Manliness, robustness, effectiveness, the fulfillment of our dream of a great soul inhabiting a beautiful body...in the figures of the Sistine Chapel.

Interestingly, Berenson states that because Michelangelo was famously not humble or patients, the artist had difficulty portraying those characteristics in his art.

 

 

Berenson at Villa I Tatti

Florentine artists managed to have:

...emancipated themselves from ecclesiastical dominion...

When they found the deep pockets of wealthy merchants, the secular patrons made the artists' work more "energetic", or more secular, less dominated by the church.

Florentine artists left us with art that rendered the most tactile values, the most sensuous figures, in their paintings, sculptures and drawings, according to Berenson.

Berenson in bed at Villa I Tatti

Here is a video of the Villa I Tatti gardens by BBC presenter Monti Don

The Venetian Book

I found the Venetian book more interesting than the Florence book.  For Berenson, Venetian painting is:

...the most complete expression in art of the Italian Renaissance.  ....youth, intellectual curiosity, energy, grasping at the whole of life.

The Venetian school's greatness, founded on master colorists, lasted longer then the Florentine school of art, and it influenced visiting artistic greats from Flanders, Holland, Germany, Spain and England.

In the essay, written in the late 1800s-early 1900s, Berenson mentions the "new critical method" of art study, that relies on science to authenticate, study and deconstruct paintings.

Berenson's art library at Villa I Tatti, also left to Harvard University

Some of the artists mentioned in the essay are:  Giorgione, Titian, del Piombo, Tintoretto, Veronese, Longhi, Tiepolo, Bellini, Conegliano, Carpaccio, Vivarini, Bassano, Canaletto, Guardi.

Berenson writes that the Renaissance was like a young person's post puberty "awakening to the sense of personality" a striving for meaning, character, learning, growing, knowledge, throughout Europe, but in Italy first.  There was an admiration for human genius and achievement, a birth of the cult of individualism, away from the collectivism of the Middle Ages.  Love of glory became the new religion.

None of that would have been possible without the growth of patronage from the rich and powerful who wished to live on in posterity through the buildings, books, statues and paintings for which they paid.

Berenson in his Villa I Tatti Renaissance gardens

The Middle Ages were a time of deprivation.  After the starvation and death of that era pasted, the survivors and their descendents wanted to celebrate life through finery, glory, knowledge, celebrations, pageants and good health.  New inventions made life easier; people lived longer and healthier lives.

Venice's corporation state:

...was the only state in Italy which was enjoying, and for many generations had been enjoying, internal peace.  This gave the Venetians a love of comfort, of ease, and of splendor, a refinement of manner, and humaneness of feeling, which made them the first really modern people in Europe.

Berenson in his Villa I Tatti gardens

Painting was less dominated by the church.  Venetian paintings featured more secular subjects, even if they were nominally disguised as religious paintings to get around the Inquisition's censors who had to approve all books and works of art.

Specifically, Venetian art is known for the mass appeal of the paintings, the atmospheric skies, the strong foreground objects and people, the fading out of the objects in the distance.

The Venetian state was a prime source of commissions for paintings to decorate the state buildings, and to commemorate the state's victories and pageants.  The state's glory lead to individual Venetians wanting to commemorate their own glory, so easel paintings rather than murals took off for display in homes.  Intimate subjects like portraits or depictions of events from fables and novels, such as those painted by Giorgione, were prized by wealthy Venetians.

Berenson and his ego on display at his desk, surrounded by his books, which has been shown were co-written by his wife

The most provocative line in the book is:

...toward the middle of the sixteenth century, when elsewhere in Italy painting was trying to adapt itself to the hypocrisy of a Church whose chief reason for surviving as an institution was that it helped Spain to subject the world to tyranny...

Spain was a world power by then, made so by its pillage of the Americas and decimation of the Americans, which was infamously approved of by the Catholic Church, so it was only natural that Venetian artists were drawn to the Spanish court for work.  That is how the Venetian school of art continued on in the work of Spanish artists like Goya.

With our twenty-twenty hindsight, we can see that Berenson's last line, written circa 1910, tells of the unsuspecting minds that had to face two world wars and atrocities that modern man had thought consigned to antiquity:

We, too, believe in a great future for humanity, and nothing has yet happened to check our delight in discovery or our faith in life.

You can download various e-book editions of the two books, for free, from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-book sites on the Internet.

Direct link to Florentine Book e-book download page

Direct link to Venetian Book e-book download page

If you are interested in learning more about Bernard Berenson, here is a place to start:  

Bernard Berenson Wikipedia Page

And here is another informative link at the Dictionary of Art Historians from the perspective of Mary Berenson, Bernard's long-suffering and deluded wife.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.