City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library
Italian Backgrounds
Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
Italian Backgrounds
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905 (New York: De Vinne Press)
Cream, blue, tan, and gold on hunter-green cloth.
Armstrong uses a rectangular frame of colored tiles to contain a dark green rectangle. Here a pool of verdant color hints at the mystery of Italian backgrounds; behind the cover’s spatial calm an architectural and ecclesiastical world waits to be discovered. A peacock, encircled with unfurled blue feathers, perches at the four corners of the frame, symbolizing the beauty of Italy’s ancient world.