SOURCE: Gunther, Ralph. “If a Traveler Comes to Florence—” In Giants in Their Field: An Introduction to the Nobel Prizes in Literature, pp. 1-25. Potomac, Md.: Scripta Humanistica, 1993.

In the following excerpt, Gunther presents a biographical survey of some of the Nobel Prize in Literature winners, focusing on their diversity.

If a traveler comes to Florence, to the graceful city in the hills of Tuscany where the poet Giosuè Carducci first went to school, he may simply stroll along a riverside street and wind up in a café, unaware of the artistic treasures around him. Or he may visit a priceless collection of paintings by Titian, Raphael, Tintoretto and Veronese, or go to the Galleria dell 'Accademia and gaze at the magnificent ‘david’ by Michelangelo—and suddenly fall under the spell of the birthplace of the Renaissance! Of course, a traveler may never reach Florence. In fact, hundreds...