Stradella

by F. Marion Crawford

The Senator Michele Pignaver, being a childless widower of several years' standing and a personage of wealth and worth in Venice, made up his mind one day that he would marry his niece Ortensia, as soon as her education was completed. For he was a man of culture and of refined tastes, fond of music, much given to writing sonnets and to reading the works of the elegant Politian, as well as to composing sentimental airs for the voice and lute. He patronised arts and letters with vast credit and secret economy; for he never gave anything more than a supper and a recommendation to the poets, musicians, and artists who paid their court to him and dedicated to him their choicest productions. The supper was generally a frugal affair, but his reputation in æsthetic matters was so great that a word from him to a leader of fashion, or a letter of introduction to a Venetian Ambassador abroad, often proved to be worth more than the gold he abstained from giving. He spoke Latin, he could read Greek, and his taste in poetry was so highly cultivated that he called Dante's verse rough, uncouth, and vulgar—precisely as Horace Walpole, seventy or eighty years later, could not conceive how any one could prefer Shakespeare's rude lines to the elegant verses of Mr. Pope. For the Senator lived in the age when Louis XIV. was young, and Charles II. had been restored to the throne only a few years before the beginning of this story. Pignaver was about fifty years old. There is no good reason why a widower of that age, robust and temperate, and hardly grey, should not take a wife; perhaps there is really no reason, either, why he should not marry a girl of eighteen, if she will have him, and where neither usage nor ecclesiastical ordinances are opposed to it, the young lady may even be his niece. Besides, in the present case, the Senator would appear to his peers and associates to be conferring a favour on the object of his elderly affections, and to be crowning the series of favours he had already conferred. For Ortensia was the penniless child of his brother-in-law, a scapegrace who had come to a bad end in Crete. The Senator's wife had taken the child to her heart, having none of her own, and had brought her up lovingly and wisely, little dreaming that she was educating her own successor. If she had known it, she might have behaved differently, for her lord had never succeeded in winning her affections, and she regarded him to the end with mingled distrust and dislike, while he looked upon her as an affliction and a thorn in his side. Yet they were both very good people in their way. She died comparatively young, and he deemed it only just that after enduring the thorn so long, he should enjoy the rose for the rest of his life. When Ortensia was seventeen and a half her uncle announced his matrimonial intentions to her, fastened a fine string of pearls round her throat, kissed her on the forehead, and left her alone to meditate on her good fortune. Her reflections were of a mixed character, however, and not all pleasant. The idea that she could disobey or resist did not occur to her, of course, for the Senator had always appeared to her as the absolute lord of his household, against whose will it was useless to make any opposition, and she knew what an important person he was considered to be amongst his equals

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction

195 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels. He was born at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. In 1879 he went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited the Allahabad Indian Herald. Returning to America he continued to study Sanskrit at Harvard University for a year, contributed to various periodicals, and in 1882 produced his first novel, Mr Isaacs. This book had an immediate success, and its author's promise was confirmed by the publication of Doctor Claudius: A True Story (1883). After a brief residence in New York and Boston, in 1883 he returned to Italy, where he made his permanent home. He also published the historical works, Ave Roma Immortalis (1898), Rulers of the South (1900) renamed Sicily, Calabria and Malta in 1904, and Gleanings from Venetian History (1905). The Saracinesca series is perhaps known to be his best work, with the third in the series, Don Orsino, set against the background of a real estate bubble, told with effective concision. A fourth book in the series, Corleone, was the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.

Reviews

[The Idle Woman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A charming romantic novel, first published in 1909, which follows the adventures of the musician and singer Alessandro Stradella in 17th-century Venice and Rome. Employed by a Venetian patrician to tutor his niece, Stradella falls in love with the girl and they elope to Ferrara - and thence to Rome - pursued by the vengeance of the Venetian and (more pertinently) by two dangerous bravi on Stradella's tail. The book has the shortcomings of its period, in that Ortensia is a perfect heroine - beautiful, faithful, pure and innocent beyond compare - and Stradella the ideal lover - restrained, thoughtful and devoted to his young bride. Despite this, it has an unexpected liveliness, largely thanks to the two bravi, Gambardella and Trombin, who turn out to have the best lines in the book and to embody a kind of world-weary cynicism that I didn't quite expect in a book of this date. I could happily read another novel simply about them. This is perfect light reading, ideal for travels or holiday - easy to dip into, and thoroughly enjoyable, if a little over-flowery now and then for our modern age. But it's highly recommended to those who like such things. I'll be looking out for other historical Italian novels by Crawford, and as the ebook is free, there's nothing to lose and much to gain in trying this.

For a longer review and for posts on other books and films, please see my blog:
http://theidlewoman.blogspot.co.uk/20...

[Michelle Arostegui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazon review..."From some ancient Venetian chronicles Mr. Crawford gleaned material that bore upon the life of Stradella, a great musician of the seventeenth century. Out of these fragments he has constructed his story which is rich in its Italian setting. The love of Stradella for a dowerless niece of a pompous, self-sufficient Senator who intended to marry the girl himself, furnishes the key to the difficult situations that crowd one upon another along the course of their experience."

[Italo Italophiles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stradella is a love story that starts in Venice and the ends with the lovers in Rome. It is a highly romanticized account of real-life composer/musician/singer Alessandro Stradella's courtship of a Venetian senator's ward.

Please see my full and illustrated review at Italophile Book Reviews
http://italophilebookreviews.blogspot...