Word: prescotts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...reads the Latin inscription on the posthumous high relief of Louise Miller Rowland, a New York judge's wife who died prematurely-and the sensitively modeled face confirms the epitaph. More characteristic of Saint-Gaudens' portraiture is the low relief of the children of New York Lawyer Prescott Hall Butler. To the two sturdy boys in their Scottish kilts, the sculptor has brought the understanding of a psychologist. The youngster on the left looks ahead, stolid and unafraid, but his older brother is already touched with care, and places his arm protectively around the younger. Dr. Henry Shiff...
...historian Prescott tells it, Pizarro drew his sword and "traced a line with it on the sand from East to West. Then, turning towards the South, 'Friends and comrades!' he said, 'on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the South.'" It was an epic moment, one of the many, in fact, that The Royal Hunt...
Readers may not be quite so fond of Prescott's villains. Like the inhumanities catalogued in contemporary prison-camp memoirs, run-of-the-mill Renaissance crimes tend to numb rather than fascinate. The really memorable princes in Prescott's collection are those theatrical exceptions who distinguish themselves not by bloodiness but by generosity and whimsy. Alfonso the Magnanimous of Naples, for instance, was a king so loved that he could walk the streets of his capital without an escort -during a century when neighboring Rome reached a reported average of 14 murders a day. Gentle Guidobaldo da Montefeltro...
Fowls and Mistresses. As a historian, Prescott is something of an anomaly. In his 24 years as the respected if slightly stuffy daily book reviewer for the New York Times, he criticized many a history and learned well to separate fact from fable. This talent won him his current commission as special editor for a series of Doubleday books, Crossroads of World History. It is evident, too, in his debunking of some of the more cherished legends of the Renaissance. Unfortunately, Prescott is not quite so fastidious about his prose. His style is as crotchety as it sometimes...
Missed Drama. For the zealous reader interested in a genuine perspective, Jacob Burckhardt's masterpiece, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, published a century ago, is still unmatched for breadth and depth. Prescott's anecdotal effort does not bear comparison with it. Playing Leonard Lyons to the age, Prescott not only misses the central drama but often seems to substitute bizarre performance for more illuminating characterization. Perhaps it is simply that there are too many characters: in a book that revolves around famous families, there are no fewer than 29 d'Estes, 23 Sforzas, 23 Gonzagas...