THE DEVIL'S PORTRAIT by Anton Giulio Barrili ... Translated from the Italian by Eyelyn Wodehouse. New York: William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, 11 Murray Street, 1885. Small octavo, pp. [1] 2-312 [313-320: ads], original decorated brown cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black and gold, rear panel stamped in black, brown coated endpapers. First edition in English. This translation of IL RITRATTO DEL DIAVOLO (1882) was published the same year in the UK by Remington. THE DEVIL'S PORTRAIT is a romantic melodrama based on the life and career of fifteenth-century Italian artist Spinello Spinelli. When the young Spinelli comes to Arezzo to study with Jacopa da Casentino, Spinelli's remarkable skills earn him the ire of his fellow pupils. Their jealousy increases when Mastro Jacopa offers Spinelli the hand of his beautiful daughter Fiordalisa. Spinelli is betrayed by Tuccio di Credi, another aspiring painter, who poisons Fiordalisa, putting her in a deathlike trance, that leads everyone to believe she had died. Fiordalisa is sold by di Credi to Lapo Buontalenti, a wealthy art critic, who hates Spinelli for winning Fiordalisa's love. Spinelli later discovers Fiordalisa is alive and learns of how he has been deceived only to witness her death at the hands of Buontalenti. Unable to paint a satisfactory portrait of Fiordalisa while she was alive, Spinnelli lures di Credi to a church where he's painting a fresco depicting the fall of Lucifer with the face of Fiordalisa. At the last moment, Spinelli changes the face of Lucifer to di Credi's and kills his betrayer by causing him to plummet from a scaffolding to the floor of the church. Spinelli then descends into total madness and dreams that Lucifer confronts him to ask why he has painted him so hideously. The story of the devil visiting Spinelli in a dream to take the artist to task for painting him so ugly is a great legend in the history of Italian art (reading note by LWC and JBW). Several very mild rubs to cloth, a bright, fine copy. (#166576).
Price: $100.00
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