A young fellow who,
in 1828, could have guessed Pratilli to have been the arch-forger he
was - such a young fellow would be a freak of learning. He says little of
the great writers of his age; that, too, is a weakness of youth whose
imagination lingers willingly in the past or future, but not in the
present. The Hohenstauffen period does not attract him. He rides close
to the magnificent Castel del Monte but fails to visit the site; he
inspects the castle of Lucera and says never a word about Frederick II
or his Saracens. At Lecce, renowned for its baroque buildings, he finds
"nothing to interest a stranger, except, perhaps, the church of Santa
Croce, which is not a bad specimen of architectural design." True, the
beauty of baroque had not been discovered in his day.
What pleases me less is that there occurs hardly any mention of wild
animals in these pages, and that he seems to enjoy natural scenery in
proportion as it reminds him of some passage in one of those poets whom
he is so fond of quoting. This love of poetic extracts and citations is
a mark of his period. It must have got the upper hand of him in course
of time, for we find, from the title-page of these "Nooks and Byways,"
that he was the author of "Beautiful Thoughts from Greek authors;
Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian authors, etc."; [29] indeed,
the publication of this particular book, as late as 1868, seems to have
been an afterthought.
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