Stendhal’s “Italian ideas” on pleasure in art

Abstract

The paper summarizes the patient work made by author on the manuscript variants of Idées italiennes (kept at the Vieusseux Cabinet in Florence, the Geneva Library and the Grenoble Municipal Library), which has been the subject of adetailed study. What emerge, in particular, are: the role of a friendship between Stendhal and Constantin fostered by shared passions (for Italy, Italian painting and Raphael); the chance to carry out a project that had always been near to Stendhal’s heart, one coupling the esprit of the amateur with the technical experience of the copyist; the opportunity to return to the question of the appreciation of art from a different point of view in pursuit of a way of educating taste by educating the eye; and, finally, the personal pleasure of writing and of giving a gift.