THE DEVIL’S PORTRAIT.—By Anton Giulio Barrili, from the Italian by Evelyn Wodehouse, in one vol. Paper, 40 cents. Cloth, 75 cents.
“The wide and terrible limits of Italian tragedy have seldom been filled out with a rounder measure than in this powerful but melancholy romance of the 14th century. It is a romance of art and passion; the art which made the walls of old churches glow with frescoes before which the world now stands to study and admire, and the passion which not only loves and adores, but which hates and destroys. It is a romance not only of the brush but of the dagger.
“The scene is laid in Arezzo in the Val di Chiana. The town is small, with wide, clean, small, and well-paved streets, possesses many celebrated works of art, has a bishop, two inns, and a café, and women who are passing fair. Among the women is Fiordalisa, the daughter of the painter Jacopo, a disciple of the school of Taddeo Gaddi. Ever since she had come with her father from Florence, where she was born, to live at Arezzo, she has been acknowledged as a peerless beauty. These are the warm colors, borrowed from the world about him, in which the Italian novelist paints her:
“‘Good God! how beautiful she looked there, twice... with her eyes cast down, and her head and throat jealously guarded by a veil of white silk flowing over her shoulders. Dressed simply in a robe of some half-woollen, half-silken stuff, made with loose sleeves, and large folds descending gracefully from her hips: a white kerchief just covering the nape of her neck, but no other trimming or superfluous adornment to disguise the curves of her perfect form, Madonna Fiordalisa seemed a very miracle of grace and beauty. The head crowned with chestnut tresses, and the profile of that delicately-tinted face, both displayed such purity of outline, combined with such sweetness of expression, that it seemed to Spinello that he had never before beheld anything to compare with them.’”—Literary World, Boston.
William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York.
THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT.—A Romance by Anton Giulio Barrili, from the Italian by Clara Bell, in one vol. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, 90 cts.