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David Hume, who wrote Towns of the Renaissance (See catalog page 19) and his wife Cathy have continued their adventures in Italy with several extensive circuits of the fabled three-cornered island of Sicily. Like most Americans, they were at first a bit intimidated by Sicily's reputation for lawlessness and organized crime. But they persisted and found a land that is hospitable to tourists and well set up to take care of them.
Readers of this delightfully anecdotal travelogue will learn about Sicily's enormous repository of history and encounter amazing works of medieval art, Baroque architecture and the best monuments of the civilization of classical Greece to be found standing today. Beyond that, the food is robust, delicious and inexpensive, and the Sicilians are cheerfully eager to accommodate American tourists.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Alain Fournes
reviewed About Sicily: Travellers in an Ancient Island on August 19, 2012
About Sicily
Henry Vollum Morton (how could I resist his full name?) did not cover the whole of Italy in his travels here, but rather a chunk in the middle of the country.
He writes with such knowledge I presumed he was an historian, but he was a journalist, working for The Express and The Times in London. His learning melts seamlessly into the writing - which is effortlessly peppered with history, art, architecture, anecdotes, observations and meetings with different people.
I found the book rather patchy though. I enjoyed the beginning - his explorings in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Umbria were wonderful....and the section on Venice was an absolute delight, but I found the final bit - about Tuscany - rather boring.
The book is also quite detailed in its discussions about people and events in major Italian families - and the ins and outs of these discussions were rather too complex for me to follow, even with the help of an appendix at the end of the book citing the main players & their relationships.
Most of all I enjoyed his quirky stories....
Re the Scala Opera House in Milan : "Here opera lovers would arrive with their servants and their dinners, which were heated up in a restaurant on the premises. The boxes had sitting rooms with fireplaces and card tables....and the Grand Duke's box even had a bedroom." Berlioz mentions in his Mémoires that he could not follow the opera because of the clatter of cutlery."
I would have given the book another star had his observations about Tuscany been as pleasurable as the previous chapters.
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