1017 Oiso, Giappone My dear B.B., Coming back from a trip, I found the parcel on my desk, which contained 14 photos of you & of I Tatti, and BB’s short biography & also BB’s principal publications, all of which are very necessary for me in order to write an article on BB’s Italian studies as a sort of preface to the Japanese Edition of “Italian Painters”. Some of the photographs were so good that they brought tears to my eyes. What I like best of all BB’s pictures is that one in which BB reclines on a sofa at his ease in front of Domenico Veneziano. Thank you very much for sending all those materials immediately. Now I can begin to write the Preface. The translation work is going on very well by my best pupils. To-day is April 11th. Japan is in her best glory in spring. Italy must be so too! How I want to call on you again in I Tatti, where, besides the joy of saluting my old teacher again, I can indulge in my own recollection of young days. I think I told you that since I came back from U.S. just about a year ago, I began to suffer from “high blood pressure” which is preventing me from moving about very much. By this time I ought to be in Paris and in Holland to attend meetings of Unesco, but my bad health prevented me from going. I am just being invited by Tucci to come over to Venice to give some lectures at the time of Marco Polo’s festival. This time perhaps I may go, but I have not decided yet. If I go at all, of course I will come to I Tatti to greet my old teacher again. Please remember me to Nicky. Yours ever, Yukio Yashiro |