"Old Italian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa piu, meno sa—'Who knows ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... enjoy it in connection with Venice, the mixture having a special roundness of tone or flavour. Similarly, I once heard Bach's Magnificat, with St. Mark's of Venice as a background in my imagination. Again, certain moonlight songs of Schumann have blended wonderfully with remembrances of old Italian villas. King Solomon, in all his ships, could not have carried the things which I can draw, in less than a second, from one tiny convolution of my brain, from one corner of my mind. No wizard that ever lived had spells which could evoke such kingdoms and worlds ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... snake in her open hand. This was the first time she had ever seen it. A fine example of old Italian workmanship, it was made flexible, with its flat head covered with diamonds, and two bright emeralds for the eyes. The mouth could be opened, and within was a small cavity where a photo or any tiny object could be concealed. Where her mother had picked it up she could not tell. But Lady Heyburn ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... in Rome, Charles Walter Stetson, whose work recalls the glory of the old Italian masters, is especially distinguished for his genius as a colorist. No visitor in Rome can afford to miss the studio of one of the most imaginative of modern artists. A wonderful picture still in process is a genre work with several figures, called "Music." ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... his men in the champaign country of Picenum, where the Numidian horses, we are told, were groomed with old Italian wine, Hannibal marched through Apulia and ravaged Campania, dogged by the dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus, whom he vainly endeavored to entice into an engagement. He wintered at Gerontium, and in the spring ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... except the trout it is not interesting. A great deal of carp is eaten, cooked with vinegar to turn it blue, and served with horseradish or wine sauce. At a dinner party I have seen tench given, and they were extremely pretty, like fish in old Italian pictures, but they were not worth eating. At least a pound of fresh butter was put on each dish of them, handed round, and you took some of it as well as a sort of mustard sauce. Perch, pike, and eel are all eaten where ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... surrounding mountains; and, for a few minutes, the smile went round from one to the other, and the great centurions of the hills looked happy and almost human in the gleam. Then shade's turn came in the play, and it played its part as perfectly as light. It put in the touch of the old Italian masters, giving an everchanging background to all the sublime pictures of ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... struck!" It sounded ominous, and, thereupon, the Vaudeville flocked to the dressing-room door to see—what? Merely a child in a tantrum, a heap of rags on the floor, a little girl in white petticoats stamping, dancing, pulling away from an old Italian woman who was trying to robe her and exhorting, imploring, threatening the child in almost one ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... But this confusion of methods is only on the surface. All teachers draw the materials of their methods from the same sources. An outline of the history of Voice Culture, including the rise of the old Italian school and the development of Vocal Science, will render the present situation in the ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... might probably be able to fit him with a wife who would bring her money onto his birth. His reading was a matter in which she could in no way assist him; whether his taste might lead him to prefer books or pictures, or dogs and horses, or turnips in drills, or old Italian plates and dishes, was a matter which did not much signify; with which it was not at all necessary that his noble ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... et maint chasteaux" This is a constantly recurring phrase, and I have generally translated it as here, believing chasteaux (castelli) to be used in the frequent old Italian sense of a walled village or small walled town, or like the Eastern Kala' applied in Khorasan "to everything—town, village, or private residence— surrounded by a wall of earth." (Ferrier, p. 292; see also A. Conolly, I. p. 211.) Martini, in his Atlas Sinensis, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... passage in the old Italian of the MS. may interest some readers: "E complice queste parole lo zovene respoxe, dignando, Io son l'angelo de Dio, lo quale si te aparse l'altra fiada, in segno, e aparse a toa mulier Anna che sempre sta ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this book-binder's fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so intended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... although numerically weak, proved themselves worthy of their ancient fame.—The four Waldstaette were thrown into one canton, Waldstaetten; Glarus and Toggenburg into another, Linth; Appenzell and St. Gall into that of Saentis. The old Italian prefectures, with the exception of the Valtelline, were formed into two cantons, Lugano and Bellinzona (afterward the canton of Tessin). The canton of Vaud also finally acceded to this arrangement, but was shortly afterward, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the old man began bowing himself out, when the Professor, winking mysteriously at Mrs. Frey and gesticulating animatedly, pointed first to the old Italian and then to Madame Coraline's vacant chair. Everybody understood, and smiling faces had already shown approval when Mrs. Frey said, quietly, "Let's put it to vote. ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... a most valuable old Italian Bible,' she said. 'You are too little to be trusted with it. You must wait till you ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... old Italian repeated his assertion, adding a recommendation to seek an interview with Mr. Arbuthnot, the proprietor and manager of one of the principal theatres. Before Hyacinthe returned to the little domicile in Craven street she had been enrolled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... damp, shining strands on either side of her face, so that she looked most remarkably like one of those oval-faced, great-eyed, red-lipped women that the old Italian artists were so ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... which Quality the Greek wants: And since the Introduction of Operas into this Nation, the Ladies are so charmed with Sounds abstracted from their Ideas, that they adore and honour the Sound of Latin as it is old Italian. I am a Sollicitor for the Fair Sex, and therefore think my self in that Character more likely to be prevalent in this Request, than if I should subscribe myself by my proper ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Rossini was born at Pezarro in 1792. In the year 1774 there was war raging in Paris between the Gluckists and Piccinists. Gluck wanted to do away with the old restraint of the Italian aria, and improve opera from a dramatic point of view. Piccini remained true to the old Italian style, and Rossini helped him to carry it on still further by his operas, Tancredi, William Tell, and ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... long shuttered front of an old Italian house, that motionless mask, smooth, mute, equivocal as the face of a priest behind which buzz the secrets of the confessional? Other houses declare the activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... aright! I am not well: there is no hiding it. But tell her I would see her at her leisure— That is, at once! here in the library! The passage in that old Italian book We hunted for so long is found, say, found— And if I let it slip again... you see, ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... comrade were left to guard the prison of the old Italian woman, while the other two ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... sometimes simulated with stain. An old fifteenth century recipe says: "Take boxwood and lay in oil with sulphur for a night, then let it stew for an hour, and it will become as black as coal." An old Italian book enjoins the polishing of this imitation ebony as follows: "Is the wood to be polished with burnt pumice stone? Rub the work carefully with canvas and this powder, and then wash the piece with Dutch lime water so that ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... to open out into a long corridor, dark walled and paved with silver. There was a lake with an island and a pavilion: Iona Island—too beautiful to pass as we did pass; a bridge over a steep rocky gorge, and a river-glimpse mysterious as the backgrounds of old Italian pictures. But we turned away from it into woods—deep forests of cedars fragrant as smoking incense, and at last—rather late because of side wanderings—we came to ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... Susanna Torrebianca. Is n't that a romantic name? A lady like the heroine of some splendid old Italian story,—like Pompilia, like Francesca,—like Kate the Queen, when her maiden was binding her tresses. Young, and dark, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... back in the seventies. Old Man Bright was prospecting. He had come up from the foothills accompanied by a new but stolid Indian wife. After he had grubbed around a while on old Italian bar and had succeeded in washing out a little colour, she woke up and took a slight ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... to be gained by turning a suppressed religious house into a modern hotel, so a cunning old Italian inn-keeper once confided to us; that is, of course, provided one is not afraid of the proverbial curse that clings to the buying of any of the Church's sequestrated property. These three things are ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... class began the season yesterday afternoon with every member present and keenly attentive. After a preparatory sketch of old Italian music, Mr. Dubbe told us about the Neapolitan Sixth, which, he said had exercised so strong an influence on music that, if Naples had never done anything else, this alone would have insured to the city ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... old Italian peasant woman, bowed beneath a bundle, who was the next he would have to confront, being out of the question, he resolved to side-step destiny by slipping out of the main path and following a branch one. Doing so, he came into less frequented regions, while his steps took him up ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... standing for the moment, with their backs to the company, and were critically examining a picture on the wall—a master-piece of one of the old Italian painters. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... centipedes had bred so generously that they routed every servant from the unfortunate lawyer's house, and dwelt hideously and permanently in his kitchen. "A purchase is cheaper than a gift," says a wily old Italian proverb, steeped in the wisdom of ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... knee, and she fell herself into thought as profound as her father's, but less gloomy. From her arrival in England, Violante had been taught a grateful interest in the name of Harley L'Estrange. Her father, preserving a silence that seemed disdain of all his old Italian intimates, had been pleased to converse with open heart of the Englishman who had saved where countrymen had betrayed. He spoke of the soldier, then in the full bloom of youth, who, unconsoled by ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fear and little surprise. She wondered, placidly, fixing her eyes upon the patterned square of blue and green. And upon this background, like that of some old Italian picture, there rose the head ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... bulky old Italian pieces of carved oak, not especially well selected, but suitable enough with one exception, a ponderous buffet, an exquisite bit of workmanship both in design and in detail but completely out of place in a room of that character. At least nine feet in length, it stood out four ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... quite spoil an otherwise perfect room. They must harmonize in period with the room, and also with its scale of furnishing. There is a wide choice in the shops, and some of the designs are very good indeed, having been carefully studied and adapted from beautiful museum specimens of old Italian, French, English, and Spanish, carvings and ornament. Some of our iron workers make very fine metal fixtures which are beautiful copies of old French and Italian work. There are graceful and sturdy designs, elaborate and simple, special period designs, and many which are appropriate ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... very earliest paintings in the exhibition are found in one of the large center rooms on the left, where a very stately Tiepolo controls the artistic atmosphere of a large gallery. This picture has all the qualities of an old Italian master of the best kind. Its composition is big and dignified and in the interest and richness of its color scheme it has here few equals. The chief characteristic of this splendid canvas is bigness of style. In ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... and especially Italian—all with a view of furthering his poetic ability: though no great reader, he has soaked himself in the atmosphere of old Italian tales, and the very spirit of mediaeval Florence breathes from the story, borrowed from Boccaccio, "an echo in the north-wind sung," which narrates how the hapless Isabelle bid away the head of ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... and Ingigerd at length found privacy in their rooms. The rooms, plainly furnished and scrupulously clean, were lighted by electricity and heated from a furnace in the cellar; and the floors were not laid with wood, but paved with red bricks. Petronilla, the old Italian housekeeper, took Ingigerd in charge, looking after the smallest of her wants with touching motherliness. The two said what was necessary to say in a mixture of Italian and English. After showing Ingigerd to her room and seeing that she was provided with everything, Petronilla stepped out into ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... forty-eight years old, which her friends said was the reason why her mansion on Fifth Avenue was furnished and lit with the delicate sombreness of an old Italian palace. There was about it none of the garishness, the almost resplendent brilliancy associated with the abodes of many of our neighbours. Although her masseuse confidently assured her that she ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... all of them how the Palazzo Vecchio is invariably distinguished, either directly or by implication, from the Palazzo Nuovo. I shall first translate the piece of the Zancarol Chronicle given by Cadorin, which has chiefly misled the Venetian antiquaries. I wish I could put the rich old Italian into old English, but must be content to lose its raciness, as it is necessary that the reader should be fully acquainted ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... was choirmaster and musical director at St. Thomas's Church, held at that time this important and ancient post which was afterwards occupied by Schicht, and before him by no less a person than Sebastian Bach. By education he belonged to the old Italian school of music, and had studied in Bologna under Pater Martini. He had made a name for himself in this art by his vocal compositions, in which his fine manner of treating the parts was much praised. He himself told me one day that ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... head; "These old Italian tales," he said, "From the much-praised Decameron down Through all the rabble of the rest, Are either trifling, dull, or lewd; The gossip of a neighborhood In some remote provincial town, A scandalous chronicle at best! ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... forms are conventions, and all conventions appear ridiculous when they are superseded by new ones. The old Italian opera form is laughed at to-day as an absurdity by Wagnerians, who see nothing absurd in a many-legged monster with a donkey's head uttering deep bass curses through a speaking-trumpet; and perhaps to-morrow the Wagnerian music-drama and the many-legged monsters will be laughed at ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... was already divested of the twilled cotton sheets and marcella quilt which were all the Hoopers ever allowed either to themselves or their guests. They had been replaced by sheets 'of the finest and smoothest linen, embroidered with a crest and monogram in the corners, and by a coverlet of old Italian lace lined with pale blue silk; while the down pillows at the head with their embroidered and lace-trimmed slips completed the transformation of what had been a bed, and was now almost a ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... more; she told me one day that one reason she liked sketching was, that looking into nature always made psalms and hymns sing in her ears, and so with her music and her beautiful copies from the old Italian devotional pictures. She says our papa taught her to look at them so as to see more than the mere art ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... the moon was in motion from the meri- dian; at which time an old Italian long ago would per- suade me that the greatest part of men died: but herein I confess I could never satisfy my curiosity; although from the time of tides in places upon or near the sea, there may be considerable deductions; and Pliny* hath an odd and remarkable ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne |
