To Charles Augustus Strong
Hotel Danieli
Venice, Italy. October 8, 1926
Yesterday I went sight seeing, on foot, to the Findecca and the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, crossing by the ferry, and I was surprised at the small size of the Tintorettos which I remembered as vast epical designs.
The interior of Italian churches is cold, and leaves me cold: these festive buildings are better as distant features or backgrounds in the landscape. San Giorgio as I see it at this moment from my window through a slight haze is certainly a poetical object: near to, and inside, it seems only an architect’s model in an old curiosity shop.
Mrs. Toy has sent me some newspaper cuttings about the philosophical congress at Harvard: it seems even less interesting than I should have expected.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Three, 1921-1927. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY