. Old picture books; with other essays on bookish subjects. are : witness our cut on p. 29, inwhich the bartering at the pawnshop, and the indignitiesoffered to the sacred wafer, tell the story of the play bymeans of its two most prominent scenes. Of the literary value of the Rappresentazioni it is notpossible to speak with much enthusiasm. From a literarystandpoint, indeed, the lives of the Saints, with whichmost of them have to do, are a difficult and not verypromising subject. Most stories of heroism are best toldin ten lines at longest; and to attempt to spin them outinto several hundred,
. Old picture books; with other essays on bookish subjects. are : witness our cut on p. 29, inwhich the bartering at the pawnshop, and the indignitiesoffered to the sacred wafer, tell the story of the play bymeans of its two most prominent scenes. Of the literary value of the Rappresentazioni it is notpossible to speak with much enthusiasm. From a literarystandpoint, indeed, the lives of the Saints, with whichmost of them have to do, are a difficult and not verypromising subject. Most stories of heroism are best toldin ten lines at longest; and to attempt to spin them outinto several hundred, without any considerable materialin the way of authentic detail, leads inevitably to Aveak-ness and exaggeration. In this respect the * Rappresen-tazioni are neither much worse nor much better than theaverage Legenda vSanctorum in verse or prose. They FLORENTINE RAPPRESENTAZIONI 25 follow these, in fact, with remarkable fidelity, and as theyare written for the most part in the familiar octava rima,it is only by the speeches being made in the first person,. FROM ANTONIA PULClS RAPPRESENTAZIONE DI S. FRANCESCO, instead of in historical narration, that they differ verygreatly from them. Thus, to take the plays from whichwe have chosen our illustrations, that of S. Francis ofAssisi, by Antonia Pulci, faithfully records all the main 26 OLD PICTURE BOOKS incidents as told in the legends—the colloquy with thebeggar during which he was stricken with compunction,the theft from his father of money to repair a church, thefounding of his Order, the conference with the Pope, and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbibliog, bookyear1902
