Roman Mornings
ROMAN MORNINGS. By James Lees-Milne. (Allan Wingate, 17s.) WHEN I saw the title of this book, I immediately thought of Ruskin's Mornings In Florence and the pleasure I derived from it many years ago. I am equally indebted to Mr. Lees-Milne for his new book. As a lover of Rome since my childhood and former resident of that city, I revel in the understanding this
author has of the Italian, especially the Roman, outlook not only in matters of architecture, with which this book is chiefly con- cerned, but in what we call today a way of life.
He conducts us in leisurely fashion from the buildings of ancient Rome down to the Rococo ones of the eighteenth century With such stops en route as Early Christian, Romanesque, Renais- sance and Baroque. Particularly interesting to me is his chapter on Santa Maria in Cosrnedin, one of my favourite churches, and O n the skill of the Cosmati. Indeed we learn that Abbot Richard Ware of Westminster succeeded in inducing one of them to travel With him from Rome to England with slabs of the highly-prized red and green imperial porphyry, which he applied to the shrine of Edward the Confessor and the exotic tomb of Henry III in Westminster Abbey.
It is interesting to note that originally the Christians regarded the ancient monuments of Rome as symbols of their oppression. They were indeed the worst iconoclasts of all. Converts like St. Augustine positively encouraged their destruction and even Gregory the Great, later on, treated them with pious aversion. An amusing anecdote about the Emperor Honorius, typical of the tired but proud Roman patrician who could not yet bring himself to embrace the Christian religion and worship the new god of the Plebs, is too long to quote but will reward the reader of the book. Mr. Lees-Milne is particularly interesting in his Chapter on the Massimo Palace; also about the reasons during the Baroque period for making the interior of churches nnposingly splendid. An early Renaissance pope had said, 'To create solid and stable convictions in the minds of uncultured Peoples there must be something that appeals to the eye.' These tactics were first adopted by the Jesuits who contrived to make the interior of the Gestl Church resemble in its gorgeous chapels Of lapis and precious stones, its candelabra of gold, its painted ceilings and chandeliers of crystal, the heavenly mansion of the ordinary man's prayers. I must congratulate the publishers on the excellent photographs in this book and the author on his smooth and pleasing style. GERALD HAMILTON
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