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Title: Stones Of Florence (Illustrated Ed): Illustrated Edition by Mary McCarthy ISBN: 0-15-685081-8 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 16 September, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: After an irritating start, a real pleasure
Comment: In the first chapter of THE STONES OF FLORENCE Mary McCarthy weighs in against everyone who might want to know about Florence who deeply irritates her: casual tourists, Europeans who love Florence deeply... who, you might wonder, is the book intended for? But once she gets this out of her system (though not ever entirely--as the book continues she often takes little sideswipes at everyone, even including Goethe!), the book settles down to be a very idiosyncratic and informative study of a city Mccarthy loves and knows well. Skip the intro (or at least try not to let it get under your collar) and keep plugging along: this is a highly readable and fun little book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Essential if going to Florence
Comment: McCarthy writes with wit about the history, current conditions(1964, when the book was published) and tourist attractions in Florence. Her advice is invaluable for finding little-known churches, and her descriptions of life in the city, and advice on when to go and where to stay, are vivid and helpful for any traveler in Italy.
Rating: 5
Summary: A City of Age-old Contradictions and the Great Renaissance
Comment: There are several reasons to go for Mary McCarthy's THE STONES OF FLORENCE. You are about to go to, are in or have been to Florence, Italy; you enjoy the literature of travel; you appreciate a well-written book. I fall into the latter two categories and thoroughly enjoyed this idiosyncratic work. McCarthy wrote this in the very early 1960's when the very nature of Tuscany's chief city couldn't help but attract tourists at the same time it seemingly did everything to discourage them. She swiftly dispenses with the contemporary city and spends the book peering back into its Renaissance soul, primarily the 14th through the 16th centuries when Florence was the Western center of intellectual activity. What emerges is the picture of the greats-Dante, Giotto, Brunellseschi, Donatello, Fra Angelico, della Robbia, Botticelli, Da Vinci, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Cellini, and various Medici to name a few-functioning amidst social, political and occasional natural upheaval. As she suggests about one artist, perhaps the productivity was inspired by the need to make order out of chaos. That and no doubt the fact that the Florentines used and valued art in their daily lives in ways that it is not today. That science, engineering, architecture and art were closely aligned offered cross disciplinary assistance is also key-without the mathematicians, for instance, would artists have been able to as easily co-opt perspective and volume?
THE STONES OF FLORENCE is both direct and impressionistic. McCarthy's prose moves right along, never bogged down by a "perhaps" or the need to recite contemporary opinion. Her progress from the 14th to the 16th century is zig-zaggy, so that most of the Renaissance is spoken of as if on a continuum. There is a sly wit at work (in the personality contest, the score is Leonardo 10, Michelangelo 0) and McCarthy presents a strong spine-she is unequivocal about the decline of the Renaissance in the 16th century as the major players moved away from Florence and the populace fell into a "gee-gaw" mentality.
This is a travelogue and, after a fashion, an art history catalogue, and yet there are no pictures (in this edition). That and its not too chronological organization would suggest an abstract mess but it is nothing of the kind. I became very much aware of how much of the Renaissance was covered in my early education as every reference brought up old lessons and visits to museums out of the tar pits of memory. I felt at home, not at a loss.
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Title: The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall by Christopher Hibbert ISBN: 0688053394 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 02 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King ISBN: 0142000159 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The City of Florence : Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings by R.W.B. Lewis ISBN: 0805046305 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 15 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Venice Observed by Mary McCarthy ISBN: 015693521X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 25 September, 1963 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone ISBN: 0451171357 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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