Letter from CHARLES ELIOT NORTON to GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, dated February 6, 1870.

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Publication InformationVilla d'Elci.Feb. 6, 1870



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My dear Mr. Marsh

I was very sorry to lose the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Marsh and yourself yesterday,--and I regretted my loss the more because there were one or two matters on which I particularly wished to speak with you. I shall hope to see you soon at the Villa Forini.


In a letter which I received a few days since from Dr. Theodor Paur, of Görlitz he asks me to obtain for him information,--"ob die Herren Maggi und Ancona ihr beabsichtigtes Unternehmen, (wovon Herr Seymour Kirkup an Witte schrieb)

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meine Abhandlung (über Dante's Porträt) für die Italiener zu übersetzen, wirklich ausgeführt haben; ist nichts davon bekannt geworden."


If you know either of these gentlemen referred to by Dr. Paur, will you have the kindness to ask them on his behalf whether they propose to go on with the work of translating & publishing his essay? It certainly deserves translation, but it requires emendation in one or two passages,--and should the translation be made it would certainly be well to submit to the author for revision before publication.



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My sister tells me of Mrs.

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Marsh's & your kind offer to introduce us to some of your Italian friends. I thank you sincerely for it. In three or four weeks I hope that Mrs. Norton will be able to go out again. It would then give us real pleasure to meet some few Italians who might enable us to form an idea of the most marked characteristics of the better Florentine society.


With my best regards to Mrs. Marsh, I am


Faithfully YoursC. E. Norton.

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Over



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Can you tell me if Sir James Lacaita has been here or is likely to be here this winter?


References in this letter:

Dr. Theodor Paur (1815-1892) asks Norton "whether Messrs. Maggi and Ancona have carried out their proposed undertaking (about which Seymour Kirkup wrote to Witte) to translate my essay on Dante's portrait into Italian; I have learned nothing about it." The essay, "Dante's Portrat," appeared in the Jahrbuch der deutschen Dante-Gesellschaft for 1869. Alessandro d'Ancona (1835-1914) was an Italian critic, journalist, and scholar; Seymour Kirkup (1788-1880), a British artist, was the leader of a literary circle in Florence; Karl Witte (1800-1883), a German jurist and Dante scholar, published a critical edition of Dante's Divine Commedy in 1862. Which of several Maggis Paur refers to has not been determined.


Sir James Lacaita (1813-1895), educated as a lawyer at Naples, emigrated to England in 1852 but returned to become a member of the first Italian legislature 1861-65.


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