Here is one more reason to dedicate mid-August to reading the classics or historical novels, some of which are now forgotten or out of fashion, such as those shown on the back cover of the volume La Cabala (ed.1932), where we find under the title “WRITERS OF ALL THE WORLD” authors and titles such as: Alfred Neuman - The devil; lion feuchtwanger - Suss, the Jew; Claude Mickay - Back to Harlem; Sinclair Lewis (Nobel prize) - babbit; Thomass Mann (Nobel prize) - The Enchanted Mountain (2 volumes); Alfred Neuman - The Patriot and King Hber; and many others.
"There was. No Italian opera of the classical period could leave the country without a huge export tax. How, then, did Mantegna's Madonna between St. George and St. Helena manage to get to Vassar College's Alumnae Hall without stumbling into the law?
It had last been seen three years before in the collection of the poor Princess; and in the register of the Minister of Fine Arts she remained so, even in the following years, despite the uproar made by the Museums of Brooklyn, Cleveland and Detroit.
It changed hands six times, but the merchants, sages and experts were so taken by the problem of whether it was true that the left foot of Saint Helena had been retouched by Bellini (as Vasari affirms) that it never occurred to them to ask if it had been registered at the border.
Finally it was bought by an old and noble Boston widow, in a lavender wig, who, biting, left her (together with three false Botticellis) at that boarding school, having taken which her bad spelling, should have been enough to remove her from the association, except as a benefactress.
The Minister of Fine Arts in Rome had only learned of the donation and was desperate. Had it been published, her position and his reputation would have been lost. All his work for his country (exemplar gratia: for twenty years he had opposed the excavation work at Herculaneum; he had ruined the facades of twenty sumptuous baroque churches in the hope of finding fourteenth-century windows, etc. etc.) would have been of no use to him in the face of the tempest of Roman journalism. All loyal Italians suffer at the sight of their art treasures being brought to America and are only waiting for a pretext to liquidate an official and thus pacify their honour. The Embassy was already eager to reconcile. It was not to be expected that Vassar would return the painting or pay the customs duty. The next day the editorials would have described a barbarous America stealing the sons of Italy, and references would have been made to Cato, Aeneas, Michelangelo, Cavour and St. Francis.
The Roman Senate would have meditated on every delicate matter that America tried to recommend to Italian compliance”.
(text taken entirely from the novel "La Cabala" by Thornon Wilder - translation by Laura Babini Alvaro for Edizioni Corbaccio (Milan) Edition 1932 (price TEN LIRE).
