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“Old Pictures in Florence” Through Casa Guidi Windows

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Julia Markus
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Extract

In the Introduction to my recent edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Casa Guidi Windows, I present Mrs. Browning as an astute and knowledgeable witness to the early events of the Italian Risorgimento in Florence during the years 1847–1851.* In that essay I concur with the Florentine critic Giuliana Artom Treves, who wrote that “‘Casa Guidi Windows’ is the poetic cry which rises from Tuscany to the world in praise of the desire for liberty,” and that the poem in which Mrs. Browning “describes the upheaval in Tuscany deserves the perennial gratitude of Italians for the way she frankly assumes the rôle of poet of the Italian Risorgimento.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 6 , Spring 1978 , pp. 43 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

NOTES

43 1847–1851. Casa Guidi Windows (New York: Browning Institute, 1977), pp. xv–xl.Google Scholar All quotations from Casa Guidi Windows will be taken from this edition and cited in text by part number and line number. The text is Mrs. Browning's authorative second edition of 1856. The changes from the 1851 edition in the passages quoted are few and incidental. Risorgimento”: The Golden Ring: The Anglo-Florentines 1847–1862. trans. Sprigge, Sylvia (London: Longmans, Green, 1956), pp. 76, 207.Google Scholarown”: 3rded. (London: Methuen, 1938), p. 158.

45 me?: “Old Pictures in Florence,” stanza 2. All quotations from the poem will be cited in text by stanza number as they appear in the reprint of the 1855 edition of Men and Women, ed. Turner, Paul (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972).Google Scholar

47 Windows: See pp. xxxvi–xxxviii for the following discussion.

53 I!: Peterson, William S., in “The Proofs of Browning's Men and Women” Studies in Browning and His Circle, 3 (Fall, 1975), p. 35Google Scholar, quotes part of the stanza.

54 so …”: A Browning Handbook, 2nd ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955), p. 250.Google Scholar Browning's quest mirrors that of the knowledgeable English expatriates in Florence. Note “The Lions of Florence” by an artist, Tuscan Athenaeum, 24 12 1847, p. 74Google Scholar: “Amateurs of the fine arts are often misled by the idea, that the moment they enter la bella Italia, they will pick up, for trifling sums, undoubted originals of Salvator Rosa, Carlo Dolce. … Now it is a notable fact to those who have resided in Italy for several years that first rate paintings, about whose originality there can be no doubt, are as dear here as anywhere else; for of late years, every palace, and gallery, and villa, and church, has been so thoroughly ransacked by the piercing eye of the antiquary, the restorer, the picture dealer or their jackals, that sharp indeed must be he who can glean on the routes they have taken; and where have they not been? The pictures which perhaps may be purchased here to advantage, are those which have as yet escaped the endless coatings of varnish, or the touchings up of a second rate restorer; they are to be found out by enquiring and hunting for, in remote palaces, streets, and corners, where an indefatigable picture hunter (if he does not mind running up and down stair-cases, disturbing the proprietors at their meals, or even in bed, and wading through oceans of rubbish) may discover perhaps a gem, and certainly some second rate paintings of value, especially of the old Florentine school. Any person who purchases a single picture here will soon be beset by Guercinos, Andreas, and Giottos by the dozens. Now it all depends upon himself whether he or they make the best bargain. I cannot say to you, I recommend this picture dealer or that, no; your maxim ought to be: see all, and then draw your conclusion.” College: For the dating and circumstances of this letter, see Markus, Julia, “Browning's ‘Andrea’ Letter at Wellesley College: A Correction of DeVane's Handbook,” Studies in Browning and His Circle, 1 (Fall, 1973), 52–55.Google Scholar I thank Wellesley College Library for allowing me to quote additional lines from the letter in the text of this article.

55 Giotto): Peterson, , p. 30.Google Scholar

56 Eve. …: New Letters of Robert Browning, ed. DeVane, William C. and Knickerbocker, Kenneth (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1950), p. 58.Google Scholar The letter is dated Florence, , 5 03 1853.Google Scholarhim: In a letter of Mrs. Browning to her sister Arabel in the Berg Collection, dated 10 Sept. 1855, Mrs. Browning says, “As to money-matters, the idea of being in a difficulty is absolutely horrible to him.” He must have spoken to Arabel about his concerns and felt she did not believe him, because Mrs. Browning says that it is his “conviction” that you “don't believe a word he had to you” about money: “It is very painful to him naturally. So you must be as indulgent as you can. It's horribly difficult, (as I know,) for rash people like you and me to sympathize with cautious people, like him—cautious as to spending money at least—.” Of course the rash Mrs. Browning's poetry was selling very well at the time that Browning was in London with his manuscript of Men and Women. The history of those volumes is in part the history of Browning's conscious bid for popularity and financial stability. Here, as in securing a Giotto, he failed. (I quote from this letter and the one in text by permission of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.)

57 (6): As early as 4 Dec. 1847 Eugenio Latilla wrote in the Tuscan Athenaeum: “It is to be lamented that in Florence, as in all parts of Italy, little care had been taken to preserve its inestimable works of art from the destructive hand of time, or the still more destructive hands of ignorant persons, into whose charge such works have been entrusted. Thus, for the admission of more light, or some more convenient ingress into an adjoining apartment, valuable frescoes have been cut through or whitewashed.” Cimabue was one of the lions who died of an ass's kick: “Vasari remarks that great progress was made in paintings through the frescoes of Cimabue … none whatever now remain, unless concealed under the whitewash of some convent or church wall” (p. 48).