Customer Reviews

Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World

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Sprezzatura is a remarkable achievement. D'Epiro's and Pinkowish's tour of two thousand years of Italian history demonstrates the same "effortless mastery" they chronicle in the fascinating men and women who people their book.

The 50 essays are well chosen and cover the whole gamut of Italian genius - in art, in music, in science, in politics, in fashion...you name it. It's an excellent overview of Italy's contributions to world civilization that touches all the main bases. At the same time, it's a collection of self-contained essays, each a pleasure to read and each chock full of unexpected facts and anecdotes - the texture of history, or what I believe Ezra Pound called the "luminous detail."

Bottom line: Sprezzatura is learned and well-written - never dull or pedantic. Sure, the essays aren't all of the same quality. Some are merely very good, while most are superb. For anyone who knows Italy - its people and its history - Sprezzatura is a must. I've lived there, I've studied there, and I love this book. For anyone who doesn't know Italy but wants to, Sprezzatura is a must too. I can think of no better introduction.

Exactly the type of book I was looking for: 50 short articles on interesting italians down through history. Each article is 6-7 pages, just enough depth to be interesting without so much detail as to become boring. Lots of different topics like art, architecture, politics, science, and religion. Plus a very fast, light, easy to read writing style. Just the right length to read one article on my lunch break. If I could make one change, I would have paid extra for the addition of some photos and illustrations. Lots of the people covered in the book were painters, sculptors, builders, etc. and as they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Bottom-line: definitely worth the money and the time spent reading.

Right away with this book, in chapter one, you know that you are in for a treat. Regarding the Roman calendar, the authors write: "In those days, (circa 700 B.C.) January and February didn't yet exist- at least in the calendar- since Roman farmers didn't have much fieldwork to do in that dead part of the year after the last crops had been harvested and stored. After a two month hiatus, the new year began in March with preparation of the ground for the next season's crop."Did you already know that? Then try this one from the chapter on Julius Caesar: "When he saw Brutus draw his dagger, Caesar covered his head with his purple toga and fell to the floor. 'Kai su teknon,' he said in Greek ('You, too, my child- and not Shakespeare's Latin 'Et tu, Brute?') before being stabbed in the groin by the man whose mother, Servilia, had been his favorite mistress. The dictator died at the base of Pompey's statue, bleeding from twenty-three wounds. Cicero wrote that he had 'feasted his eyes on the just death of a tyrant.'""Kai su teknon".....now that is something I never knew!!I think the above excerpts give you a pretty accurate feel for how the book is written. It is broken up into 50 chapters, each approximately 7 pages or so. You may not be interested in every single chapter, but I only found my mind wandering in 1 or 2. If you're a fairly well-read person you may already be familiar with some of the material, but I guarantee you'll still learn a lot from this book. The authors have done a great job of bringing together a lot of material on very different subjects and turning it into something coherent. And in just 7 pages per topic they have managed to present the essence of something without "dumbing it down". Not an easy thing to do!Let me finish this review by giving you, fittingly, the final paragraph from the wonderful chapter on Michelangelo: "In one of his poems he describes himself as broken in body from his labors and cooped up in his tiny dark house with its thousand spiders and cobwebs and human excrement just outside the entrance. He wonders just what good it has done him to have created so many 'puppets' with his art, which has now left him 'so poor and old, a slave to others' whims,/ that if I die not soon I am undone.'"

This book is indeed densely packed with details large and small about most of the major and some of the minor characters in the vast tapestry of Italian civilization. But surely not one of them can be irrelevant when the purpose of the volume is considered. We are promised an overview of the facility with which notable Italians, from Caesar to Lampedusa, have left their mark on the wider world of western culture, and that is exactly what the authors have provided. The facility of their prose nicely reflects the sprezzatura of their title. It conveys the numerous nuggets of information, all of which are needed to fill in the historical/biographical panorama, without strain and with clarity and precision. To have provided such an embarrassment of riches about so many diverse individuals, represents a very impressive work of sedulous research. The inclusion of some less celebrated characters, such as Malatesta and Aretino, D'Annunzio and Beccaria, as well as the giants we would expect to find, makes the work rather more interesting than otherwise. The reference to John Adams quoting Beccaria on the law during the Boston Massacre trial, is the kind of detail that one comes upon unexpectedly and relishes. The brief chapter on Italian makers of the violin and piano, and that on pioneer anatomists, are small but precious gems. If one comes to this well-researched and well-written book, looking for accurate detailed cameos of representative Italian genius, one will not be disappointed. It is a collection, not an exegesis, but no less valuable and enjoyable for that. In being such the book follows a noble if eccentric tradition that itself represents one of the accomplishments of the Italian scholar: the compilation of authorities on different topics, that was perhaps the most important vehicle for preserving what was known in academic and legal cirlces throughout the middle ages, and that made possible what we now call the Renaissance.

You'll want to go to Italy after reading this book. D'Epiro and Pinkowish love this land of innovators, genius, and beauty - and it shows in these meticulously wrought portraits of 50 of its greatest artists, poets, scientists, warriors and saints, described in honest, loving detail.

Here, for example, is Michaelangelo, the ultimate "connoisseur of human beauty":

"...ugly, with his furrowed brow, small eyes, large ears, squashed nose, thin lips, and sparse forked beard. In periods of sustained creation, he subsisted for days only on bread and wine and hardly ever removed his clothes; in old age, he wore dogskin boots for months on end, which, when finally peeled off, took a layer of skin with them. He was a sarcastic and argumentative know-it-all, scornful of inferior talents, surly even with popes. 'Michelangelo is terrible,' Leo X once said, 'one cannot deal with him.' A haunted man who lived only for his art-sometimes working at night by the light of a candle stuck into a cardboard hat--he became very wealthy but lived like a poor man."

The book ranges from the obscenity of Catullus - in idiomatic new translations - to the mystical serenity of Thomas Aquinas; the strangely neurotic da Vinci contrasts with the genial Enrico Fermi; a tour of Dante's hell vividly balances the inquring mind of Emporer Frederick II, who tested the piety of Francis of Assisi with dancing girls. From the vitality of Garibaldi to the despair of Leopardi to the elegance of Armani, something new and strange meets you at every turn. There is no better introduction to 2,500 years of Italian culture, history and civilization than these close-up portraits of Italians in the act doing magnificent, dangerous and difficult things and making it all seem natural, even graceful.

I read this book while on my first trip to Italy and was very happy with the way it introduced me to major thinkers and artists of this amazing culture. The essays are short, which is ideal when your attention span is limited due to being jostled on the train. More importantly, when on this trip I actually saw works by Michangelo, for example, I now knew something about his life and personality. The book was entertaining, and enriched my travel experience.

Exactly the type of book I was looking for: 50 short articles on interesting italians down through history. Each article is 6-7 pages, just enough depth to be interesting without so much detail as to become boring. Lots of different topics like art, architecture, politics, science, and religion. Plus a very fast, light, easy to read writing style. Just the right length to read one article on my lunch break. If I could make one change, I would have paid extra for the addition of some photos and illustrations. Lots of the people covered in the book were painters, sculptors, builders, etc. and as they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Bottom-line: definitely worth the money and the time spent reading.

A modern Italian dictionary would define "sprezzatura" as "disdain", but Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529) had something more complex in mind when he designated sprezzatura as the "the mysterious source of courtly gracefulness, the quality which makes the courtier seem a natural nobleman." That quote comes from his immensely influential book of 1528, "Il Corteggiano", a neo-platonic dialogue among a circle of aristocrats defining the 'virtues' of the proper "Courtier", that is, the insider-confidante to the Prince. "Il Corteggiano" is not a book of manners for bourgeoise parvenus; it's a book of tactics for ambitious aristocrats, and "sprezzatura" is above all an aristocratic posture, a self-conscious appearance of nonchalance. It's a pose of "being" without the necessity of "becoming". The cover of this book defines it as "*the art of effortless mastery". That, of course, is a sub-species of hypocrisy; no mastery is effortless, and Castiglione's little circle of aristocrats was well aware of that truth. Even the child Mozart had to practice his scales, and it was his ambitious father who concealed his effort. A 15th/16th C Italian aristocrat, however, was committed to feigning indifference to 'lavoro' -- effort -- of any sort. He was born superior to praise or blame. Castiglione's courtier was advised to be highly proficient at music, but a courtly lutenist would have been mortally offended at applause, since public approbation implied the right to pass judgment on his 'effort'. Why, of course, he would be a virtuoso! It was his nature to be masterful.

The term 'sprezzatura' was widely used by and about musicians in the late Renaissance and Baroque eras. It was applied to singers and players who could toss off virtuosic passages without calling attention to their difficulty. On the other hand, a composer whose works were obviously highly theoretical and 'studied' was often depreciated as "crabbed" and dry. Telemann had sprezzatura while JS Bach had none, and therein lies the tale of the reversal of their reputations in later centuries. Romantic anguish displaced aristocratic disdain shortly after the French Revolution.

Authors D'Epiro and Pinkowish are as thoroughly lacking in sprezzatura as any pen-pushers can be. To title this book "Sprezzatura" is oxymoronic. The writing is not particularly graceful or masterful; in fact, it's rather prosaic. The book is essentially 50 chapters of boasting about how the "Italian Genius Shaped the World". Boasting -- calling attention to one's accomplishments -- is the polar opposite of sprezzatura. Nevertheless, many of the 50 brief essays about Italian artists, inventors, and charismatic leaders are quite interesting if you read them selectively, one at a time. This is definitely not a book to 'enjoy' cover to cover. It's a book to keep by your exercycle or commode, or to carry on short flights, whereon you might willingly learn about Andrea Palladino on one occasion and Roberto Rossellini on another.

Sprezzatura is a good little book if you are looking for a quick overview of some of the many great Italian contributions to the world. Each topic is presented as a mini-essay (5 or so pages) and each is well written. On the downside, there are MANY topics that could have been included in the book that are missing (many of which, it could be argued, are much more important than some of the entries). Also, I gave this book to my grandfather to read and he found it to be too dense and too scholarly. I personally had no problem, but I was already familiar with most of the 50 topics going in. All in all, Sprezzatura is a good book, although it is heavy on the ancient Romans and the Renaissance (it would have been nice to see more entries on the twentieth century).

We have purchased over 50 copies ofSprezzatura over theyears and had them beautifully leather bound in Florence. They have made much appreciated presents. We highly recommend it. Peter Sutro