Bernard Berenson (1865–1959)

There are a lot of interesting tidbits here. Berenson was born in a Lithuania shtetl in the year that the American Civil War ended, and was active mentally until the end of his life. This collection of diary entries covers the years from 1947 to 1958, when he was between 81 and 92 years old. His mind was active and sensitive and curious through the entire period of this book: we should all be so lucky! And Berenson is also an effective teller of the indignities and annoyances of aging as well: the weakness, the forgetfulness, the loss of faculties. Getting old sucks - even for Bernard Berenson, living at a fabulous Tuscan villa surrounded by timeless art, waited on by faithful servants and in the company of a patient, devoted, and cherished life-partner.

This book was published only five years after "BB"s death, and I suspect that there were a lot of passages that were too indiscreet to be published at the time. Which is a shame. It's also a shame there is so much repetition in the pubished diary entries. The book would be twice as good if it were half as long. When Berenson has something interesting to say, he's very interesting: he served as a fascinating link between worlds of literature, art, and scholarship from the late 1880s to the late 1950s. Oscar Wilde was a friend of his; Berenson was taught at Harvard by Henry Adams; he became the art adviser for Joseph Duveen; he was Bertrand Russell's brother-in-law. In the 1950s, all sorts of people who were passing through Italy stopped to see him and pay him homage: the range of contacts goes from Harry Truman to Ray Bradbury to Henri Matisse to the former Queen of Romania.… (more)