Arturo Galansino is the director of Palazzo Strozzi in Florence© Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

Walter Benjamin, Voltaire and Mozart: art historian Arturo Galansino on his cultural influences

The director of Florence's Palazzo Strozzi tells us about his favourite books, artists and why he likes RAI TV

24 DECEMBER 2020

Letter from Voltaire to Madame Du Deffand

Letter from Voltaire to Madame Du Deffand, 1772

Francois Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher. He was a polarizing figure whose personal indiscretions invited societal censure while his strong political positions and support of civil liberties put him at odds with the French authorities, resulting in two periods of imprisonment  and a period of temporary exile. Voltaire tried his hand at nearly every literary form, and wrote over 20,000 letters. One of which is preserved in the Frances W. and H. Jack Lang Letter Collection.

Julian Barnes's Top Ten List

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Julian Barnes (born 1946) is a British author who has published eleven novels, including Flaubert’s Parrot (1984),England, England (1998), Love, etc (2000),Arthur and George (2009) and most recently, The Sense of an Ending (2011), which won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. He has also published three short story collections, including The Lemon Table (2004), and several works of nonfiction, including the essay collectionSomething to Declare: Essays on France and French Culture (2002) and the memoir/history, Levels of Life. For more information, visit his official website.

1. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857). Of the many nineteenth-century novels about adulteresses, only Madame Bovary features a heroine frankly detested by her author. Flaubert battled for five years to complete his meticulous portrait of extramarital romance in the French provinces, and he complained endlessly in letters about his love-starved main character — so inferior, he felt, to himself. In the end, however, he came to peace with her, famously saying, “Madame Bovary: c’est moi.” A model of gorgeous style and perfect characterization, the novel is a testament to how yearning for a higher life both elevates and destroys us.