This time next week I'll be in bella Napoli. I'll be away for three weeks conducting archival research, funded by a British Academy grant I was awarded. More on that later, but for now, I'll leave you with a quote from Goethe, written in March 1787:
Of the situation of the city, and of its glories, which have been so often described and commended, not a word from me. "Vedi Napoli e poi muori," is the cry here. "See Naples, and die."
That no Neapolitian will allow the merits of his city to be questioned, that their poets should sing in extravagant hyperbole of the blessings of its site, are not matters to quarrel about... Here one almost casts aside all remembrances, even of Rome. As compared with this free, open situation, the capital of the world, in the basin of the Tiber, looks like a cloister built on a bad site.
-Naples, March 2, 1787.
Stay tuned for the adventures!
x
L
No comments:
Post a Comment