Italy and Imagination - journeys through the literary landscape

While in Venice, the young student/artist becomes caught up in the romance of the city:

The fortnight in Venice passed quickly and sweetly - perhaps too sweetly; I was drowning in honey, stingless. On some days life kept pace with the gondola, as we nosed through the side-canals and the boatman uttered his plaintive musical bird-cry of warning; on other days with the speed-boat bouncing over the lagoon in a stream of sun-lit foam; it left a confused memory of fierce sunlight on the sands and cool marble interiors; of water everywhere, lapping on smooth stone, reflected in a dapple of light on painted ceilings; of a night at the Corombona palace such as Byron might have known, and another Byronic night fishing for scampi in the shallows of Chioggia . . . of melon and prosciutto on the balcony in the cool of the morning; of hot cheese sandwiches and champagne cocktails at Harry's bar. (118)

This trip to Venice plays a part in Charles' decision to become an artist, and ties him even more firmly to the Flyte/Marchmain family who will have such an impact on his future.

The book (and film) that cemented my youthful desire (now happily fulfilled more than once) to visit Florence was, of course, E.M. Forster's A Room with a View. Lucy Honeychurch's visit to Florence with her irritating cousin/chaperon is filled with intense beauty, frightening moments, and comic episodes. Lucy's journey towards love and self-knowledge gets under way on her first morning in the city:

It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road. (17)

Sadly, the hotel upon which this fictional version was based is now gone - demolished in the Uffizi bombing of 1993. But many budget travellers will be able to attest to the fact that there are still many old pensiones that are still

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