Kate Simon > Quotes

“Remember that a little learning can be a pleasant thing. Italy gives much, in beauty, gaiety, diversity of arts and landscapes, good humor and energy—willingly, without having to be coaxed or courted. Paradoxically, she requires (as do other countries, probably more so) and deserves some preparation as background to enhance her pleasures. It is almost impossible to read a total history of Italy; there was no united country until a hundred years ago, no single line of power, no concerted developments. It is useful, however, to know something about what made Siena run and stop, to become acquainted with the Estes and the Gonzagas, the Medicis and the Borgias, the names that were the local history. It helps to know something about the conflicts of the medieval church with the Holy Roman Empire, of the French, Spanish and early German kings who marked out large chunks of Italy for themselves or were invited to invade by a nervous Italian power. Above all, it helps to turn the pages of a few art and architecture books to become reacquainted with names other those of the luminous giants.

The informed visitors will not allow himself to be cowed by the deluge of art. See what interests or attracts you; there is no Italian Secret Service that reports on whether you have seen everything. If you try to see it all except as a possible professional task, you may come to resist it all. Relax, know what you like and don’t like—not the worst of measures—and let the rest go.”
― Kate Simon, Italy: The Places in Between

“Not the most beautiful, or artistic, or intellectual of cities in Italy, Ascoli Piceno is certainly one of the most easy going and affable, good to look at without being awesome. It is energetic and worldly, and it eats well.”
― Kate Simon, Italy: The Places in Between

“The volatile politics of Italy acquired additional complications at the end of the fifteenth century. Charles VIII had died in the spring of 1498, leaving as his successor Louis XII, formerly the duke of Valois and Orleans and, through his descent from Valentino Visconti, a claimant to the duchy of Milan. Old treaties were exhumed and new theatres penned, their ultimate effect being to cut Italy to bits.”
― Kate Simon, A Renaissance Tapestry: The Gonzaga of Mantua

“Among the freest women were the singers and actresses of travelling companies, the most capable groups attached for long periods to one court or another, as in Mantua and Ferrara.”
― Kate Simon, A Renaissance Tapestry: The Gonzaga of Mantua

“Ravenna produced an engraving of a monster early in the sixteenth century that had the sad head of the baby Christ who sensed his tragic destiny, a rhinoceros born in the middle of his head, wings instead of arms, and the genitalia of both sexes, reflecting early alchemy’s androgynyous ideal. The monster’s torso ends in feathers, a large eye in the knee and one huge claw in the place of feet. It was claimed to be a prophecy of the destruction of Italy by the French; yet the letter Y and the cross inscribed on the body promised ultimate peace and harmony. This sad-faced monster and others like it were used as anti-papal caricatures by Protestants, the repellant features, emblematic of the decadence of the Church. The distorted, incomprehensible bodies were also sources of steadier study and led to tentative investigations of primitive genetics, early questionings of gynecology and obsetrics.”
― Kate Simon, A Renaissance Tapestry: The Gonzaga of Mantua

“A final reminder. Wherever you are in Paris at twilight in the early summer, return to the Seine and watch the evening sky close slowly on a last strand of daylight fading quietly, like a sigh.”
― Kate Simon, Paris

“Gonzaga were aware of, though seemingly undisturbed by, the rise of a strong merchant class financially outreaching the aristocracy, the hordes of Protestants in the north; and the renewed ambition and drive of the king of France.”
― Kate Simon, A Renaissance Tapestry: The Gonzaga of Mantua