George Perkins Marsh
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 244
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He applied science to life, not with the disinterested precision of a scientist, but with the aims and methods of a humanist. After 1861 he represented the United States at the Court of Savoy, in the critical years in which Italy was built, and the United States reshaped along modern lines. From his perspective, he described prominent Italian contemporaries and their relations with the United States and his opinion could not be ignored by the Department of State. The hero of the Marsh reports was Giuseppe Garibaldi; the "devil", Napoleon III. His luminous exposition, with a clear and fresh language, revealed many aspects of his historical times and of the images of Italy, which were frequently corroborated by the diaries of American tourists and writers doing their "Grand Tour": far from being a modern country, Italy appeared a wonderful destination for traveling, the land of Dante, Machiavelli, Petrarca.