The Villa Diana. By Alan Moorehead. Illus- trated by Osbert
Lancaster. (Hamish llamil-
ton. tos. 6d.)
EXCEPT for a long last chapter, this is a collection of articles, mainly from the New Yorker and in more or less the usual vein of that publication. Several chapters, being about Venice, Siena, Portofino and the Sicilian bandit, Giuliano, have nothing whatever to do with the Villa Diana at Fiesole. Roughly speaking Mr. Moorehead concerns himself with the impact of modern America upon the natural ebullience of Italy and with the weaker counter-current which flows from the East. He gives a charming though not remarkable account of the effects of recent political and other collisions. Living in Tuscany, which seems the very home of prosperity to those who return from Southern Italy, he is neverthe- less constantly reminded of the poverty of the Italian many and of the wealth of the few. As he rightly observes, " In a country So poor as this everyone is constantly wanting something urgently. . . . The man who makes a request in a calm, dispas- sionate voice is simply a man who doesn't care. • . ." The last chapter is in a way much more interesting, for it is about Polaiano and thus about Lorenzo the
Magnificent and his Florence. Perhaps the most splendid thing in the book is the reproduction of Ghirlandaio's portrait of Poliziano with one of Lorenzo's sons: this tends to make Mr. Osbert Lancaster's drawings—it is no fault of his—look rather
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