Desiring Italy

by CAHILL, SUSAN

• ISBN13: 9780449910801
• ISBN10: 0449910806
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1997-04-15
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

Under the spell of la dolce vita . . . For centuries Italy has been many things to many people. In this brilliant anthology and traveler's companion, twenty-eight first-rate women writers reveal why the land that is the heart and soul of European civilization is so seductive to women. Kate Simon walks us through a Siena filled with surprises and luminous beauty. Elizabeth Spencer writes of first coming to Italy and finding "home." Shirley Hazzard explores the mysteries of Naples. Muriel Spark writes on Venice, Edith Wharton on Rome, George Eliot on Florence, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on San Gimignano, Patricia Hampl on Assisi. Other wonderful writers contemplate the idiosyncratic glories of Italy's architecture, cooking, art, and landscape; its culture; its places and people. As these writers tell their stories--in fiction, memoir, and essay--of coming to understand Italy, they explore the complexity of their passions for it, mingling affection and ecstasy with intellectual curiosity. Organized geographically--from northern Italy to Rome and on to the south, Desiring Italy offers an enchanting journey for readers and travelers.

Author Biography

Susan Cahill, PhD, is the editor of many highly praised anthologies, including Desiring Italy, For the Love of Ireland, Wise Women, The QPB Anthology of Writing by Women, and Women and Fiction. Author of the novel Earth Angels and co-author with Thomas Cahill of A Literary Guide to Irleand, she has taught at Queens College and Fordham University. She lives in New York City and, for part of the year, Rome.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION	xi	(6)
OVERTURES	xvii	(1)
Vita Sackville-West, Flora Lewis, Kate Simon, Erica Jong	xvii
THE NORTH	5	(179)
LOMBARDY	5	(28)
MILAN	7	(26)
Edith Wharton From Italian Backgrounds: Picturesque Milan	7	(5)
Francine Prose "Cauliflower Heads"	12	(21)
THE VENETO	33	(46)
VENICE	35	(44)
Mary Shelley
From Rambles in Germany and Italy: Letters from Venice	35	(13)
Jan Morris
From The World of Venice: On Women	48	(8)
Marcella Hazan
From The Classic Italian Cookbook: Preface, Italian Cooking: Where Does It Come From?, The Italian Art of Eating, Restaurants, The Bacaro Experience, Gelati	56	(13)
Muriel Spark
Venice in Fall and Winter	69	(10)
LIGURIA	79	(16)
GENOA	81	(7)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
From Embassy to Constantinople: To Lady Mar--	81	(7)
PORTOFINO	88	(7)
Elizabeth von Arnim
From The Enchanted April: VI, VIII	88	(7)
TUSCANY	95	(68)
LUCCA	97	(8)
Francesca Alexander
From Roadside Songs of Tuscany: The Ballad of Saint Zita, A Tuscan Lullaby	97	(8)
FLORENCE	105	(26)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
From Casa Guidi Windows: Casa Guidi Windows, Bellosguardo	105	(6)
George Eliot
From Romola: Proem	111	(9)
Mary McCarthy
From The Stones of Florence: V	120	(11)
SIENA	131	(11)
Kate Simon
From Italy: The Places in Between: Siena	131	(11)
LA FOCE AND MONTEPULCIANO	142	(21)
Iris Origo
From Images and Shadows: La Foce & from War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary 1943-1944	142	(21)
UMBRIA	163	(21)
CORTONA AND THE UMBRIAN APENNINES	165	(8)
Lisa St. Aubin de Teran
From A Valley in Italy: The Many Seasons of a Villa in Umbria: I, VI	165	(8)
ASSISI	173	(11)
Patricia Hampl
Umbrian Spring	173	(11)
ROME	184	(95)
Florence Nightingale
From Florence Nightingale in Rome: Letter VI	184	(3)
Margaret Fuller
From Dispatches from Europe to the New York Tribune, 1846-1850: Dispatch 14, Dispatch 19, Dispatch 30	187	(11)
George Eliot
From Middlemarch: The Wedding Journey	198	(26)
Edith Wharton
Roman Fever	224	(14)
Eleanor Clark
From Rome and a Villa: Fountains	238	(10)
Elizabeth Bowen
From A Time in Rome: The Smile	248	(14)
Elizabeth Spencer
From The Light in the Piazza: Introduction & "The White Azalea"	262	(17)
THE SOUTH	279	(80)
NAPLES	279	(24)
Rose Macaulay
From Pleasure of Ruins	281	(7)
Shirley Hazzard
From The Bay of Noon: I, IV, VIII	288	(15)
BASILICATA (LUCANIA)	303	(24)
Ann Cornelisen
From Torregreca: Life, Death, Miracles: The Setting, A Night at San Fortunato, The Project Realized, Epilogue	305	(22)
SICILY	327	(32)
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
From The Islands of Italy: Sicily, Palermo	329	(11)
Mary Taylor Simeti
From On Persephone's Island: A Sicilian Journal: Prologue, Winter	340	(19)
FOR FURTHER READING	359	(4)
PERMISSION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	363