THE BOOK OF ITALIAN TRAVEL (1580-1900) BY H. NEVILLE MAUGHAM NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO. LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS AVM 7-22 PREFACE THE question of how best to popularise the large amount of travel-literature concerning Italy is a problem of some difficulty. The view here adopted has been to utilise it so as to give a synthesis of the art and character of the most typical Italian towns. The danger of the many specialised books that pour from the press-admirable as some of them are-is that the reader does not attain a general idea of Italy. In that country very little has altered since the northern travellers first journeyed there in the seventeenth century. The accounts of early travel are mostly as correct now as when they were written, and often they possess the picturesqueness drawn from a life more in harmony with the art of the great eras. Some sides of Italian art were totally neglected by the first travellers, and in such cases we have to go to later interpreters, seeking the aid of those most in sympathy with any particular period. It has been remarked by Ampère that as a man's temperament is, so will he show a preference for Venice, Florence, or Rome. He might have added that there is a natural predisposition towards the Classic, the Gothic, or the Renaissance periods. Every one of our travellers has his bias, but we still believe that passages chosen from authors so widely apart as Evelyn and Taine will not form an unharmonious mosaic. If there is a difference in the style of our authors, there are often far greater differences in the style of the churches or pictures contained within one town. It is only owing to the scientific habit of thought that modern men are able to con sider such varying manifestations of the æsthetic life. The present writer's numerous journeys in Italy enable him, he trusts, to mark when a writer is giving us a direct impression rather than a mere bit of fine writing. The personal descriptions of Montaigne, Evelyn, Goethe, and Beckford are retained as being of importance, but as a rule in other cases we have to ask for the objective note first of all. It would have been perfectly possible to make our book entirely personal and social, for travellers' descriptions of architecture and painting cannot always be scientifically correct. We have come to the conclusion, nevertheless, that the towns can only be differentiated by the comparison of their monuments, and having found our own Italian memories considerably simplified by the mere process of selection, we think it probable that the reader too will be assisted, though he must exercise prudence with regard to the finality of the statements our travellers have made. A travel-picture is necessarily more a sketch than a ground-plan, an impression rather than a treatise. The reader will not always find his Italy here, but from the "multitude of counsellors" he may learn some new views. With the fresh activity directed to our own towns at home, it cannot be superfluous to examine those of Italy, considering them as organisms, but always remembering that we live under different conditions of faith and civilisation. No book that we know of gives a complete picture of Italy; the subject is too vast, the historical associations too numerous. Our selection does not propose to supersede the existing guide-books,1 but rather to supplement them; it may be useful as showing modern travellers what the average opinion is concerning any town or typical monument. Taste is always changing, and it is of importance to sum up the experience of the past so as to test any fresh advance. 1 The late Mr. A. J. C. Hare's entertaining volumes occupy the via media between the guide-books and this selection, but very few of his quotations will be found in the present volume, as our title excludes poetry and romance. |