Luigi Barzini

“Behind the shoulders of the Virgin or some bearded Father of the Church, the Italian painter joyfully depicted a miniature town or a well-cultivated landscape, so small that only from a very short distance could all the details be discerned, the walls, towers, churches, streets, the artisans at work, the ships in the river, the ladies on the balcony, the children, the barking dogs, the gaily coloured clothes drying in the sun, the ploughman and the hunter. Many nordic travellers who lagged behind the times apprehensively thought they detected a slight odour of sulphur and brimstone about art and life in Italy, the ‘odour of unsanctity’. They still detect it today. The country was in fact slowly acquiring that pagan, slightly irreverent, sacrilegious reputation which it was never to lose. The reputation did not repel visitors. In fact, the danger of losing their souls attracted as many of them as the hope of gaining everlasting salvation.”
― Luigi Barzini, The Italians