The Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria by the English writer and painter Edward Lear, already published by Raffaele Gaetano for Laruffa in a masterly critical edition, illustrated and annotated, is here proposed in a more agile form for a wider audience of readers. From the pages, rich in careful and acute observations, emerges Lear’s passion for Calabria, which he visited on an exciting journey on foot between July and September 1847. The tour, interrupted by the liberal uprisings in Reggio, offers us a suggestive glimpse of Grecian, Calabria and partly also Tyrrhenian, with unforgettable descriptions of legendary villages and a wild nature. These travelogues, beautifully illustrated by Lear himself, today more than ever arouse in the reader a deep emotion, declining a world that has deep roots in ancient Greek culture, the noble origin of our identity.
Giovanna Romanelli