Italian Journeys From Venice to Naples and Beyond

by Howells, William Dean; Stevenson, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9781848855496
• ISBN10: 1848855494
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-10-25
• Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks

Summary

When Abraham Lincoln appointed William Dean Howells Consul to Venice, the young writer embarked on a journey that would leave an indelible impression on his life and work. Howells lived in Italy for four years, from 1861, during the pivotal and tumultuous period of Italian reunification. Italian Journeys, Howell's engrossing memoir of this time, describes his adventures across the country - from Genoa, a hotbed of nationalistic fervour and the city from which Garibaldi had led the Expedition of the Thousand only a year before; to the cultural and political powerhouse of Naples, which had only just become part of the Kingdom of Italy and from there to Rome, focus for the hopes of a fractured country. Travelling by land and sea, Howells was inspired at every turn - as much by the fevered events of the time as by the cultural and historical wealth of the country - and his beautifully-rendered portrait has become a classic of travel literature, essential for all those who, like him, have loved Italy.

Author Biography

William Dean Howells (1837-1920), writer, critic and pioneer of the American realist school, was one of the most influential writers of American fiction during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. A lifelong friend of Mark Twain and a contemporary of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson, Howell's own literary career took off with his novel, A Modern Instance but The Rise of Silas Lapham is his best known

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. vii
The Road to Rome from Venice	p. 1
Leaving Venice	p. 1
From Padua to Ferrara	p. 1
The Picturesque, the Improbable, and the Pathetic in Ferrara	p. 4
Through Bologna to Genoa	p. 23
Up and Down Genoa	p. 28
By Sea from Genoa to Naples	p. 37
Certain Things in Naples	p. 43
A Day in Pompeii	p. 52
A Half-hour at Herculaneum	p. 63
Capri and Capriotes	p. 70
The Protestant Ragged Schools at Naples	p. 83
Between Rome and Naples	p. 89
Roman Pearls	p. 92
Forza Maggiore	p. 111
At Padua	p. 124
A Pilgrimage to Petrarch's House at Arqua	p. 137
A Visit to the Cimbri	p. 151
Minor Travels	p. 163
Pisa	p. 163
The Ferrara Road	p. 168
Trieste	p. 171
Bassano	p. 177
Possagno, Canova's Birthplace	p. 180
Como	p. 184
Stopping at Vicenza, Verona, and Parma	p. 189
Ducal Mantua	p. 208
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