William Henry Bartlett
The illustration on the front and back covers is from a steel engraving made from a drawing by William Henry Bartlett (1809-54). The engraving first appeared in William Beattie’s The Waldenses, or Protestant Valleys of Piedmont, Dauphiny, and the Ban de la Roche (London: G. Virtue, 1838), and in subsequent translations published in French (1838) and German (1840). Bartlett was a prominent nineteenth-century artist who collaborated with Beattie (1793-1875) on other projects including: Switzerland (1834); Scotland (1838); Caledonia (1838); The Castles and Abbeys of England (1842); The Ports, Harbours, Watering-Places, and Coast Scenery of Great Britain (1842); and The Danube (1844). Bartlett was also the author of books which contained his drawings including: Niagara Falls (1837-38); Engravings (1839); Walks around the City and Environs of Jerusalem (1844); Forty Days in the Desert (1848); Nile Boat (1849); Scripture Sites and Scenes (1850); A Pilgrimage through the Holy Land (1851); Footsteps of Lord and His Apostles (1852); The Pilgrim Fathers (1853); The History of the United States of America (1853); and Pictures from Sicily (1853). Following Bartlett’s death Beattie published his Brief Memoir of the late William Henry Bartlett (London: M.S. Rickerby, 1855). The town pictured in Bartlett’s drawing is Torre Pellice or La Tour in French – the language preferred by its inhabitants.Torre Pellice was the headquarters of the Waldensian church and the location in Piedmont which Lorenzo Snow selected in 1850 as the starting point for his Italian mission. The drawing includes the river Angrogna where initial Mormon converts were baptized in 1851. It also shows two mountains (Casteluzzo and Vandalino) which Snow climbed and renamed “The Rock of Prophecy” and “Mount Brigham” when he organized the Italian Mission. Franklin D. Richards also ascended “The Rock of Prophecy” when he visited Torre Pellice in 1855, and Ezra Taft Benson rededicated the Italian Mission in 1966 from this same location.
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