Mornings in Florence

Mornings in Florence, Being Simple Studies of Christian Art for English Travellers by John Ruskin, 115 pages

Mornings in Florence takes the form of a guidebook, wherein the reader is instructed how to profitably spend six successive mornings in Florence examining the art and architecture of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.  It is a book written in open contempt for the guidebooks of Ruskin's day, and it is undoubted that he would have been no more impressed by Mr Steves in our day than he was by Mr Murray in his own.  Moving back and forth between Santa Maria Novella, Santa Croce, and the Duomo, the purpose here is less to tell the reader what he should see as how he should see.  And this is a gift that extends to much more than the appreciation of Cimabue and Giotto and Botticelli, great as they are: "Easy or not, it is all the sight required of you in this world - to see things, and men, and yourself - as they are."

Ruskin is able to see things as they are, not because of his excellent education or refined sensibility or even because he was an incredible snob, but because he was not a materialist, not even unconsciously.  Whatever the truths or errors of his personal metaphysics, Ruskin was able to hear that "higher wisdom, governing by her presence, all earthly conduct, and by her teaching, all earthly art, Florence tells you, she obtained only by prayer."

Stoner

Stoner by John Williams, 278 pages

When William Stoner left his parents' small farm to attend the University of Missouri, he never expected that he would be spending the rest of his life there.  By chance he discovers in Archer Sloane's English course a love of literature and poetry he had never known he possessed.  It is a love that remains with him all his life, through disappointments in his career, his romances, his marriage, and his fatherhood.  It is, in the end, the pattern of all his loves, and the one love to which he remains most true.

John Williams, who taught at the same university for a time, is clearly at ease describing familiar places and personalities.  This gives his writing a powerful realism, so that the novel is genuinely moving without being sentimental.  The flap of the first edition describes Stoner as "a man who is clearly out of keeping with his times," and if the lackluster sales of the book upon its publication bear this out, its subsequent rediscovery suggests that Stoner, like Sloane before him, is of a type that exists in all times.

Notes on the Lord's Prayer

Notes on the Lord's Prayer by Raissa Maritain, 122 pages

Assembled posthumously from notes left by the author for a work that was never completed, Notes on the Lord's Prayer is a commentary on the seven petitions of the Paternoster as recorded by St Matthew: Hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, Give us this day our daily bread, Forgive us our trespasses, Lead us not into temptation, and Deliver us from evil.

In his foreword, Thomas Merton laments the modern division between "spirituality" and "theology", recommending this book as a corrective.  This should provide a suggestion of the depth of thought as well as feeling, of sense as well as sensibility, present in this meditation, designed not only as a pious exercise but also as an exploration of the divine mysteries.

Cardinal Manning

Cardinal Manning: A Biography by Robert Gray, 327 pages

Henry Manning did not set out to become a clergyman.  Financial pressures forced him away from a promising future in law and politics into a clerical career in the Church of England.  He did not set out to become a Catholic.  A long process led him from his upbringing in the heart of Evangelical piety into a more grounded, apostolic faith, and only a genuine crisis of conscience drove him out of Anglicanism.  Having become Catholic, however, and a Catholic priest, he did set out to take a leading position in the Catholic Church in England.  Conscious of his own considerable gifts, he was not reluctant to use them to guide the Church and society in the direction he thought best.

In his own time, Manning was highly esteemed.  Although his conversion cost him many of those dazzling friendships he had made in his youth, his tireless efforts for the working classes of England won for him an admiration far broader and no less genuine.  This was enhanced by his emaciated appearance, which seemed to be a visible record of long decades of prayer and fasting - Chesterton recalled seeing him in his cardinalatial robes looking like "a ghost clad in flames."  Subsequent generations were not so kind.  Comfortable secular scoffers had Lytton Strachey's infamous hackiograpy, which depicted Manning as an ambitious hypocrite.  Among Catholics, Manning's troubled relationship with St John Henry Newman caused his reputation to decline even as that of Newman grew.

Robert Gray's biography, then, is an important recovery.  For Gray's even-handed account of Manning's life, thought, and work reveals a man who was, indeed, ambitious and driven, yet fully aware of these tendencies in himself and determined to fight against them and, where possible, bend them towards good.  In the end, the reader is likely to echo the sentiment of the author, "if Henry Manning is not saved seventy times seven times, God help the rest of us."

Field of Cloth of Gold

The Field of Cloth of Gold: Men and Manners in 1520 by Joycelyne Gledhill Russell, 190 pages

In 1520, the King of England, Henry VIII, met with the King of France, Francis I, upon a field in northern France not far from Calais.  On one level, the meeting was part of Cardinal Wolsey's triangulation strategy, positioning England as the difference maker in the struggle between France and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain.  On another, it was an opportunity for displays of royal magnificence by both princes, and feats of courage and skill during the days of tournaments that amused the two courts.  In the end, little of lasting value was accomplished, and the event serves in many ways as a brilliant coda to medieval Christendom before the horrors of the Reformation.

Russell's book is an exhaustive academic study of this legendary gathering.  As such, the casual reader is likely to find it exhausting.  Still, there is much of value and interest here, not only to the antiquarian, but also to those attempting to better understand a moment and period out of which the modern world was birthed.