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PRINCES OF THE RENAISSANCE by Orville Prescott. 397 pages. Random House...
...capacity of women to love scoundrels," writes Orville Prescott, "is one of the abiding marvels of the world." Prescott may be right. In this compendium of scoundrels, he offers much evidence to prove his point. Galeazzo Sforza, for instance, was so cruel that he once had a courtier, fallen from favor, nailed up in a chest. Then, the story goes, he gleefully listened to the dying man's moans. Still, when assassins cut Sforza down at the door of a church, his wife, the Duchess Bona of Milan, mournfully wrote to Pope Sixtus IV, declaring that "after...
...first, U.S. publishers were afraid to touch it. Vera was afraid Nabokov might lose his job at Cornell if they did. When it finally came out, reviewers, not yet used to such material in "serious literature," flew into rages of indignation and feigned boredom. New York Times Critic Orville Prescott, in particular, earned a gargoyle's niche in literary history by exclaiming, "Dull, dull, dull." But Lolita in due course was recognized as the masterpiece it is, and it made Nabokov rich, setting him free for the first time in his life, at 59, to write full time...
...charged with the job pushing Prescott's students to their physical limits is Roy Smith, 28, a robust English-born mountaineer, who has led students on skindiving trips to the Gulf of California, and on explorations of caves in the Grand Canyon, and organized a student mountain-rescue team. This spring he plans a kayak trip down the Colorado River and eventually hopes to lead an archaeological expedition to Peru and an 1,800-mile journey over Canada's Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean. So far the students have taken enthusiastically to the challenge...
With its low fees (total yearly cost: $2,600) and liberal rules (complete honor system, no dorm curfews for students entertaining dates), Prescott expects little difficulty in filling its classes. A chance to teach in small, informal seminars and high salaries ($14, average) have helped attract a strong and adventurous faculty. Support from Arizona citizens has been building as well; last year, Barry Goldwater donated his personal library to the college At Prescott, says President Nairn, who served as a New Zealand fighter pilot during World War II and holds a Ph. D. from Yale, "we are taking our past...