Fionnuala’s Reviews > Works: Letters From Switzerland. Travels In Italy > Status Update
Fionnuala
is 75% done
The news that an eruption of lava had just commenced tempted me to visit Vesuvius for the third time...We boldly went straight towards a dense volume of smoke...at last, under the clear heaven, we distinctly saw the lava emitted from the rolling clouds of smoke. We may hear an object spoken of a thousand times, but its peculiar features will never be caught till we see it with our own eyes..
— Oct 04, 2017 01:13AM
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Fionnuala’s Previous Updates
Fionnuala
is 95% done
The terrible calamity which visited Messina and swept away twelve thousand of its inhabitants, did not leave behind it a single dwelling for the thirty thousand who survived..The horror caused by this unparalleled event impels them with light-hearted cheerfulness to enjoy the passing moment. A dreadful expectation of a fresh calamity was excited on 21st April by an earthquake which again sensibly shook the ground...
— Oct 07, 2017 05:39AM
Fionnuala
is 70% done
Pompeii. Many a calamity has happened in the world, but never one that has caused so much entertainment to posterity as this one. I scarcely know of anything that is more interesting. The houses are small and close together, but within they are all most exquisitely painted..you have a sight of the sea and the setting sun..We took our dinner at the "Torre del' Annunziata," with our table placed close to the sea...
— Oct 02, 2017 11:38AM
Fionnuala
is 67% done
The great portrait of myself which Tischbein has taken in hand begins already to stand out from the canvass. The painter has employed a clever statue maker to make him a little model in clay, which is elegantly draperied with the mantle; with this he is working away diligently..
Maybe that's why the left leg is longer than the right.
— Sep 30, 2017 10:49AM
Maybe that's why the left leg is longer than the right.
Fionnuala
is 65% done
I attended the blessing of the tapers in the Sistine chapel. I was in anything but good humour for I thought to myself those are the very candles which for three hundred years have been dimming those noble paintings, and it is their smoke which, with priestly impudence, not merely hangs in clouds around the only sun of art, but from year to year obscures it more and more, and will at last envelop it in total darkness
— Sep 29, 2017 08:12AM
Fionnuala
is 60% done
Of the beauty of a walk through Rome by moonlight it is impossible to form a conception, without having witnessed it. All single objects are swallowed up by the great masses of light and shade, and nothing but grand and general outlines present themselves to the eye. For several days we have enjoyed to the full the brightest and most glorious of nights. Peculiarly beautiful at such a time is the Coliseum...
— Sep 27, 2017 04:27AM
Fionnuala
is 60% done
Sicily..it must not be merely a ride round it and across it, which is soon done, but from which one brings away in return for our fatigue and money nothing but a simple—I have seen it. The best way is to take up one's quarters in Palermo, and afterwards in Catania; and to make excursions, having previously, however, well studied Riedesel and others on the locality.
And The Leopard…
— Sep 25, 2017 10:16AM
And The Leopard…
Fionnuala
is 55% done
We paid a second visit to the Sistine Chapel, and had the galleries opened, in order that we might obtain a nearer view of the ceiling. As the galleries are very narrow, it is only with great difficulty that one forces one's way up them, by means of the iron balustrades...those who are liable to get dizzy had better not make the attempt.
Oh, that there were only some means of fixing such paintings in my soul!
— Sep 22, 2017 02:11AM
Oh, that there were only some means of fixing such paintings in my soul!
Fionnuala
is 51% done
There are opportunities enough here for my collecting many more specimens. In our way to the ruins of Nero's palace, we passed through some artichoke grounds newly turned up, and we could not resist the temptation to cram our pockets full of the granite, porphyry, and marble slabs which lie here by thousands, and serve as unfailing witnesses to the ancient splendour of the walls which were once covered with them.
— Sep 21, 2017 03:05PM
Fionnuala
is 40% done
I'm in Verona and so is Goethe!
Verona, Sept. 16. ,I came to a public spectacle. Four noble Veronese were playing ball against four people of Vicenza. The game is played as follows: Two boards are placed at a convenient distance from each other. He who strikes the ball stands at the higher end, his right hand is armed with a broad wooden ring, set with spikes.
Sounds as violent as opening of Romeo & Juliet
— Sep 16, 2017 01:14AM
Verona, Sept. 16. ,I came to a public spectacle. Four noble Veronese were playing ball against four people of Vicenza. The game is played as follows: Two boards are placed at a convenient distance from each other. He who strikes the ball stands at the higher end, his right hand is armed with a broad wooden ring, set with spikes.
Sounds as violent as opening of Romeo & Juliet
Fionnuala
is 40% done
we had the opera, which lasted till midnight, and I was glad to get some rest.
Tamerlane at La Scala lasted till midnight, and I also was glad to get some rest!
— Sep 15, 2017 08:49AM
Tamerlane at La Scala lasted till midnight, and I also was glad to get some rest!
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Oct 04, 2017 01:33AM
...The most glorious of sunsets, a heavenly evening, refreshed me on my return; still I felt how all great contrasts confound the mind and senses. From the terrible to the beautiful—from the beautiful to the terrible; each destroys the other, and produces a feeling of indifference. Assuredly, the Neapolitan would be quite a different creature, did he not feel himself thus hemmed in between Elysium and Tartarus.
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There is a painting of that eruption in the Staedel.
I'm strongly inclined to believe you - something tells me you're an expert on Goethe's travels in Italy in 1786/87 ;-)Is this the one you were thinking of?
Giovanni Battista Lusiere, 1787
Though this one isn't in the Staedel.
The scene is certainly impressively framed, Susana - that palm tree on the left leaning out as if to view the marvellous spectacle from the same vantage point as us viewers. But then the masts of the ships on the right lean in the opposite direction as if to stand back from such horrors! There's a hint of Goethe's paradox about being hemmed in between Elysium and Tartarus in the painting!
