No.2
126 PAGES
The Summer Issue is entirely devoted to noble delights and pleasures: while not lending itself, by its intrinsic merit, to beach umbrella reading, the Summer FMR nonetheless aims to accompany the reader to the threshold of their holidays, an intellectual refreshment from the summer heat that red-hotens the mind, and as always, to make itself an occasion to travel for those who will remain at home in the summer.
Patrick Mauriès takes us on a discovery of Ferdinand Bac, the eclectic amateur artist who conceived the extravagant villa at Les Colombières on the French Riviera; this article is contrasted by one on the Etruscan salon in the Savoy palace at Racconigi, a remarkable example of antiquarian whimsy, and one on the Este palace at Sassuolo, a triumph of trompe-l’œil; also in the issue, the most intellectual of indoor pastimes finds its space, the game of chess, which presents itself through highly prized chessboards from a Portuguese collection, followed by one of the most typical Italian summer landscapes, the beaches of Versilia, narrated to us by Giovanni Mariotti through the refined paintings of Moses Levy.