He Also Explains With Superfluous Caution
That The Duomo Of Pisa Is Not Entirely Gothic.
Once arrived in
the capital of Tuscany, after admitting that Florence is a noble
city, our traveller is anxious
To avoid the hackneyed ecstasies
and threadbare commonplaces, derived in those days from Vasari
through Keysler and other German commentators, whose genius
Smollett is inclined to discover rather "in the back than in the
brain."
The two pass-words for a would-be connoisseur, according to
Goldsmith, were to praise Perugino, and to say that such and such
a work would have been much better had the painter devoted more
time and study to it. With these alternatives at hand one might
pass with credit through any famous continental collection.
Smollett aspired to more independence of thought and opinion,
though we perceive at every turn how completely the Protestant
prejudice of his "moment" and "milieu" had obtained dominion over
him. To his perception monks do not chant or intone, they bawl
and bellow their litanies. Flagellants are hired peasants who pad
themselves to repletion with women's bodices. The image of the
Virgin Mary is bejewelled, hooped, painted, patched, curled, and
frizzled in the very extremity of the fashion. No particular
attention is paid by the mob to the Crucified One, but as soon as
his lady-mother appeared on the shoulders of four lusty friars
the whole populace fall upon their knees in the dirt. We have
some characteristic criticism and observation of the Florentine
nobles, the opera, the improvisatori, [For details as to the
eighteenth-century improvisatore and commedia delle arte the
reader is referred to Symonds's Carlo Gozzi.
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