Italian Journeys

Chapter 10 No.10

Word Count: 622 | Released on: 30/11/2017

en the happy wayfarer journeyed by vettura through the innumerable little states of the Peninsula,-halted every other mile to show his passport, and robbe

, and full of sweet, natural knaveries, graceful falsehood, and all uncleanness. Rome really belongs to the Anglo-Saxon nations, and the Pope and the past seem to be carried on entirely for our diversion. Every thing is systematized as thoroughly as in a museum where the objects are all ticketed; and our prejudices are consulted even down to alms-giving, Honest Beppo is gone from the steps in the Piazza di Spagna, and now the beggars are labeled like policemen, with an immense plate be

ambers, bearing the traces of ancient frescos, and evidently used as chapels,-I venture to offer the information here. The reader is to keep in his mind a darkness broken by the light of wax tapers, a close smell, and crookedness and narrowness, or he cannot realize the catacombs as they are in fact. Our monkish guide, before entering the passage leading from the floor of the church to the tombs, in which there was still some "fine small dust" of the martyrs, warned us that to touch it was to incur the penalty of excommunicatio

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Italian Journeys

William Dean Howells Literature

“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.”