Modigliani in Venice

Plaque on the facade of a building on Fondamenta San Basegio, where Amedeo Modigliani had his studio in Venice in 1905. The quotation is from a letter to the Livornese painter and friend Oscar Ghiglia.

“Da Venezia ho ricevuto gli insegnamenti più preziosi della vita;
da Venezia sembra di uscirmene adesso come accresciuto dopo un lavoro..”
(From Venice I received the most valuable lessons of life,
on leaving Venice I feel like I am grown after a work..)

“Modigliani moved to Venice in the spring of 1903 and enrolled in the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in May. All his life Modigliani made friends easily, and he was making contact with a distinguished group: Umberto Boccioni, the Futurist painter and sculptor, Fabio Mauroner, with whom he shared a studio in the San Barnaba quarter and whose interests would include sculpture, painting, the graphic arts, and art criticism; as well as artists Mario Crepet, Cesare Mainella, Guido Marussig, Ardengo Soffici, and Guido Cadorin. Such encounters with the cream of intellectual and artistic life in Venice suggest assiduous cultivation. Perhaps it was in Venice that Modigliani learned the pivotal rule for the up-and-coming young artist, the right cafés at the right moment. In Venice it was the Florian, which never closed. Meanwhile he occasionally went to life classes, relying on his eye and the lessons to be had by daily visits to the great museums, studying the Bellinis and Carpaccios with concentration.”

(Meryle Secrest, Modigliani: A Life, 2011)

External links: The Misunderstood Death of Modigliani (The New York Times) - Meryle Secrest (Wikipedia)
Search labels: Modigliani

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The Bakar Mockery

In the darkest hour of the World War I, after the defeat at Caporetto, Italy badly needed some good news to boost the morale of the troops and of the whole country. An attack on the Austrian ships in the harbour of Buccari (now Bakar, in Croatia) was considered almost impossible, because the port itself was deep inside an area controlled by enemy forces.

[The MAS 96 commanded by Luigi Rizzo, photo from Wikipedia]

A raid was devised with the use of three MAS, light and fast motor boats armed with torpedoes, and the mission commander was the Livornese Frigate captain Costanzo Ciano. The leading boat was commanded by Lieutenant Luigi Rizzo, who had already sunk the Austrian battleship “Wien” in Trieste and who later managed to sink the “Szent István” off Premuda. The poet Gabriele D'Annunzio was part of the same crew as a simple “seaman”.

The MAS boats were towed to the entrance of the bay by torpedo boats to save precious fuel and were able to evade all the defensive measures of the Austrian Navy. They managed to fire all their torpedoes but five were caught unexploded in the protective nets around the battleships and the last went off without much damage. During the successful escape D'Annunzio left in a buoy some wine and a derisive message for the enemy. As a poet and journalist he was then instrumental in inflating the importance of this daring but harmless raid, which became known as the “Beffa di Buccari” (Bakar mockery).

The above memorial stone was placed in front of the church of the “Santissimo Redentore” (Most Holy Redeemer) in the Giudecca island, in Venice, from where the boats sailed for their mission. The Livornese share of the raid was increased by the Frigate captain Arturo Ciano, who commanded one of the support groups, and by the fact that the three MAS boats involved were all built at the Orlando shipyard in Livorno.

External links: Bakar mockery - Luigi Rizzo - Costanzo Ciano - Gabriele D'Annunzio (Wikipedia)

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No Translation

Sorry, but I can't really translate these signs. I saw them in Venice, but they would mean something really unintended for a Livornese and probably for some other Tuscans.

“Pasticceria Bar Puppa”, Calle del Spezier, Cannaregio, Venice

“Ristorante da Mario alla Fava”, Calle dei Stagneri, San Marco, Venice

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Goodbye Rialto!

(Photo by Trillian)

We have been living for two weeks in an apartment not far from here, today we are coming back home.

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