Harold Acton's Tuscan Villas, Ex Libris Gore Vidal
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$150.00
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[Ex Libris Gore Vidal with His Bookstamp] Acton, Harold. Tuscan Villas. First Edition. 1973. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. This copy is ex libris Gore Vidal with his bookstamp “From the library of Gore Vidal” on the flyleaf. Photographs by Alexander Zielcke. Association Copy.
What was the connection between Gore Vidal and Sir Harold Acton? Both were expatriates residing in Italy. Both were friendly with Princess Margaret, and she would impose royal visits on both—it was to the eventual dismay of Acton but Vidal, that insatiable collector of boldfaced names. Their social orbits sometimes intersected in other ways. However, Acton was a generation older and somewhat disapproved of Gore Vidal, his ilk, and their Roman debauchery. This coffee table profiles the great estates of Florence and its environs, many constructed during the age of the Medicis. Zielcke’s photographs are primarily of the exteriors, but Acton’s commentary delves into the personalities and histories of the houses and those who lived there. It is a subject he knew well, as his ancestral home was a Tuscan villa of like caliber.
“Italy abounds in imposing mansions, from the Palladian splendours of the Veneto to the spectral palaces of the Sicilian nobility, but few of these are as adaptable to modern conditions as the more modest houses of Tuscany.”
--Harold Acton
What was the connection between Gore Vidal and Sir Harold Acton? Both were expatriates residing in Italy. Both were friendly with Princess Margaret, and she would impose royal visits on both—it was to the eventual dismay of Acton but Vidal, that insatiable collector of boldfaced names. Their social orbits sometimes intersected in other ways. However, Acton was a generation older and somewhat disapproved of Gore Vidal, his ilk, and their Roman debauchery. This coffee table profiles the great estates of Florence and its environs, many constructed during the age of the Medicis. Zielcke’s photographs are primarily of the exteriors, but Acton’s commentary delves into the personalities and histories of the houses and those who lived there. It is a subject he knew well, as his ancestral home was a Tuscan villa of like caliber.
“Italy abounds in imposing mansions, from the Palladian splendours of the Veneto to the spectral palaces of the Sicilian nobility, but few of these are as adaptable to modern conditions as the more modest houses of Tuscany.”
--Harold Acton
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