Amico di Sandro

by Frederick Rolfe

“O that fine octagonal face of his—the great dark thoughtful eyes the straight broad nose pointed at its low tip—the wide firm mouth with its full lower lip, curbed by the very thin bow of the upper—the very square strong jaw—the expression insolent because modest, imperious because shy,—but a face which could smile. And O the robust and generous young form, noble and opulent in contour—the ardent force restrained of him. To me, from the beginning, he was something apart, an individual whom one must either abhor, or adore—nothing else—and, as I saw him close for the first time, staring at him quite unreservedly, I knew what my feelings were.”

Here, presented for the first time in paperback format, is Amico di Sandro, the unfinished novel by Frederick Rolfe, a.k.a. Baron Corvo, dealing with the rambunctious life of Sandro Botticelli.

An eccentric tale of art and Renaissance times for the connoisseur.

70 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

English writer, novelist, artist, fantasist and eccentric. Rolfe is also known as Baron Corvo. His best known work is the novel Hadrian the Seventh.

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish Corvo had finished it!

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frederick Rolfe, aka Baron Corvo, was a self-destructive writer whose willful eccentricities and fussiness are as interesting as the works themselves. Amico di Sandro—an unfinished fragment—is narrated by by a man who befriended the painter Sandro Botticelli when the narrator was 10 and Botticelli 15. (Strong undercurrents of homosexuality (love and sensibility) pervade the prose, but no explicit or metaphorical acts are hinted at.) Rolfe was decidedly not a master stylist: his diction often relied on archaic words or definitions of still-current words, and employed stilted phrasing to describe prissy manners. Yet Rolfe's knowledge of Medici-era Rome—its families, papal associations, political intrigues, customs, clothing, art, and architecture—lend his work its hard-earned authority. (His "Life of the Borgias" used to be a staple in the Modern Library's line of hardcover classics.)

Anyhow, the book: If you already familiar with Rolfe, expect more of the same. As opposed to "Hadrian VII"—which is as close to conventional novel writing as Rolfe ever came—expect (as with "Stories Toto Told Me") portraits of characters and manners, discussions of beauty and its expression, moods and reveries, rather than plot and action.