Search Results

“... three years ago, or in Oliver Taplin’s recent, rhythmic and musical translation (published by Norton). At first, the rather self-satisfied claims of these accomplished artist-translators struck me as typical of the age of the selfie and the inflated CV, even when expressed with the verve of Polizzotti and the delicacy of Briggs’s aphoristic ...”

“... They were supplied forthwith: Titian’s ‘Rape of Europa’; Rembrandt’s 1636 self-portrait; a Philip IV by Velazquez; Rubens’s Earl of Arundel – all for what seemed at the time phenomenal, that is to Say, ‘American’ prices. The proceeds from this stupendous bonanza enabled Berenson and his wife to instal themselves in I Tatti, already dreaming ...”

“... sardines – ‘For an hour [at Hackwood] Ld Londonderry, Lady Curzon, Biddy Carlisle, Jean Norton [and] the Aga Khan lay under a very hot bed’ – there was the London Season and its gruelling round of cocktail parties, dinners, suppers and balls. Channon had the arriviste’s anxiety that he might be ‘in Society but not of it’: Derby Day was ...”

“... revolutionary and poetic’. He said he devoted thousands of hours to astrology. He once cast Philip Larkin’s horoscope, probably an underappreciated service. All of which implies cultural history painted with the broadest of brushes: the villain of the piece is the Renaissance, that catastrophe of individualism, which gave birth at once to the hubris ...”