The Marble Faun; Or, the Romance of Monte Beni - Volume 1
1860
The Marble Faun; Or, the Romance of Monte Beni - Volume 1
1860
Four American artists wander the ancient galleries of Rome, their pursuit of beauty interrupted by a startling discovery: Donatello, their young Italian companion, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Marble Faun of Praxiteles. There is something primitive and innocent in his face, a likeness that both charms and unsettles. But as Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon trace sculptures through sunlit courtyards and shadowed catacombs, the pastoral idyll fractures. Miriam carries a secret, a figure from her past who has followed her across the ocean. When tragedy erupts in the Roman darkness, the four friends discover that innocence, once lost, cannot be recovered. Hawthorne weaves a haunting parable about art and guilt, the corruption that lurks beneath marble beauty, and the terrible weight of choice. The Old World of Rome, with its pagan statues and crumbling churches, becomes a mirror for the Fall itself. For Victorian readers, it was a guidebook to Rome. For us, it remains a dark fairy tale about what we sacrifice when we taste forbidden fruit.
