Roman Photographic School    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Photography And Garibaldi. Mr. G. A. Sala, in a recent letter in the Telegraph, has a graphic word-photograph on Garibaldi, in commenting on the sun-pictures of the Italian hero. He says: "Photography has not done him justice. The sun, like calumny and the calumniator's favourite weapon, the frying-pan, blackens all with whom his rays, through the medium of the camera, come in contact. In the cartes de visite Garibaldi looks sombre, meagre, and worn. I was surprised to see a hearty, jovial man, with a great blonde beard. But for the eyeglass he used, and the stick he carried, there were no traces visible of the waves of time which have dashed against him, or of the cruel bullet which struck him at Aspromonte. He gave me his hand, and a hearty, sailor-like grip into the bargain; and if it be snobbish to have wished to kiss that horny paw, I am glad to have been, for once in my life at all events, a snob most egregious. A thousand times must it have been remarked in print that the aspect of Garibaldi is as that of a Lion. But no other simile will serve. ' Sorriso di madre, riguardo di leone,' the Italians say of him. His port and mien are, of a truth, thoroughly leonine ; but the ' sorriso di madre,' the ' mother's smile,' comes ever him when he converses familiarly, when he calls to some member of his staff, or, best of all, when he sees the boy volunteers, the hope and promise of Italy, passing before him. And there surely was never a countenance so thoroughly translucent, and from whose eyes there beamed so strongly the light of tho soul within the soul of a just and upright man, quietly striving to do his duty."

THAT, in these days of rapid intercourse, the re-appearance of volcanic phenomena on the large scale in any part of the earth’s surface should awaken a far more than mere local interest, was well illustrated in the case of the late great outbreak of Mount Vesuvius, during the continuance of which the telegraphic bulletins received from the fiery mountain became the subject of general inquiry and discussion in all parts of the civilised world; and even now that the eruption has entirely subsided, the publication of a translation by Mr. Mallet, of the report of the well-known Italian savant, Professor Palmieri, entitled “Incendio Vesuviano del 26 Aprile, 1872,” will be welcomed as a valuable contribution to English scientific literature quite independently of its being a book likely to secure numerous readers amongst the non-scientific public also.

• Florence
   
  Karl Baedeker (firm) Italy. handbook for travellers. First part: Northern Italy (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1886), p.376.
   
  On the Cafes of Florence: Visitors to the cafe's are frequently importuned by hawkers of photographs, etc., who often sell their wares at one-third or one-half of the price at first demanded, and by the well-known Fioraje, or flower-girls.
   
  
• Venice
   
  Karl Baedeker (firm) Italy. handbook for travellers. First part: Northern Italy (Leipsic: Karl Baedeker, 1886), p.234
   
  Photographs: Naya, in the Piazza of St. Mark, views of Venice, from the smallest at about 50 c. to the large and expensive size (28 by 36 inches), copies from drawings I 1/2, from original pictures 4 fr

19thc Studio Marketing    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

Enrico  Van Lint    Title | Lightbox | Checklist

alan@luminous-lint.com