Pictures from Italy
I've been working for some time on a graphic novel about artists who have traveled or lived in Italy over the centuries: here are some pages from my work, and an introduction for non-Italian readers
(scorri in fondo alla pagina per la versione in italiano)
It should have been a graphic novel about my journeys through Italy. And it was until I began reading journals, reports and letters written by artists who visited Italy during the centuries: here is a map with all of them (I’m sure that someone is still missing!).
Most of these artists have amazing stories. Funny stories, love stories, coming-of-age stories, stories of rebirth, stories of death. I’ve been collecting them for some time now and because of them I’ve reconsidered the whole structure of my graphic novel: when you have some of the greatest writers of all time working on the same subject as you, you don’t really have a choice but to take a step back and give them space… and so I did.
I fell in love with some artists in particular, those who had a very deep bound with Italy, those whose life changed completely because of Italy. So I decided to have Goethe, Stendhal, Mary and Percy Shelley as the main characters in my graphic novel. Some of the other artists in the map will find a place in my book too, mostly as a counterbalance to the main plot, and there are still some spots for my own journeys in Italy.
I started this newsletter - in its Italian version - some time ago as a behind the scenes/work journal, but it quickly grew into a kind of side project: during my research work I’ve discovered so many amazing stories that it would have been a pity not to write something about them. I won’t be able to do the same in this English section, which will be made mostly of drawings and pages from my work.
You will find below some pages from my work, but normally most of the posts in this section will be reserved to readers who choose a paid subscription. You can subscribe here:
If you can read Italian - or if you are trying to learn - you will find much more free content in the Italian section of this newsletter.
Goethe
In the 18th and 19th centuries the voyage to Italy was called Grand Tour: it was an important stage in the education of every wealthy young European, but for artists it was something more. Goethe’s Italian Journey is surely the most famous and influential work about the Grand Tour - later Italian travel literature became a genre in its own. Goethe visited Italy in 1786, when he was 40 years old and already a famous writer: his was indeed a flight more than a journey (he travelled under the false name of Phillip Muller!). It was also the fulfillment of a long-coveted desire, and a rebirth. I love Goethes’s curiosity about everything and I rejoiced when I discovered that he was a fellow illustrator. “If only there were some means of fixing such images firmly in one's memory!”, wrote Goethe after visiting the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Drawing was the only way to do it, at a time when photography was far from being invented.
Stendhal
The French writer first came to Italy when he was only 17 years old. He was not yet known by his nom-de-plume Stendhal but he was simply Henri Beyle, a young second lieutenant in the Napoleon’s army which crossed the Alps in 1800 to fight the Austro-Russians forces in northern Italy. But Beyle’s interest in military glory quickly faded: instead he fell in love with Italian opera, Italian women and the city of Milan. After his first visit, Stendhal ran to Milan as soon as he had the chance, even during the Austrian occupation, after the fall of Napoleon, when a Frenchman certainly was not well regarded there. Later he traveled Italy far and wide (have you ever heard about the Stendhal syndrome?) and in the 1830s he became French consul to the Papal States.
Mary and Percy Shelley
There is a nice little cemetery in Rome, under the shadow of Caio Cestio’s Pyramid: it’s called cimitero degli inglesi (English cemetery) because two of the most important English romantic poets are buried there, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Percy and his wife Mary came to Italy in 1818, along with their two little children, Clara and William. The Shelleys were not an a journey, though, it was a voluntary exile from England, where they were hated and harassed by a conformist society. Four years later, Mary was the only survivor: William and Clara had died as children used to die then, of not better identified diseases. Percy had died in a shipwreck along the coast of Tuscany. So Mary was a widow and a single mother when she left Italy in 1823, with her son Percy Florence, born in Florence in 1819. Despite all these tragedies, Mary kept always good memories of her Italian years and she visited Italy once again, in the summer 1840.
My journeys
I was born in Italy and I have always lived in Italy, but there is something in the way all these foreign artists looked at Italy that I find very familiar. Maybe it is because I don’t have roots in any specific part of Italy. I was born in Turin (northern Italy), but my parents are from Bari (southern Italy), and when I was a boy we often moved between Turin and Bologna, the city where I now live. As a result, I don’t speak any dialect and, when I’m introduced to someone new, the question “Where are you from?” is always asked. Sometimes, as a joke, I say I’m from A14, the highway connecting Turin to Bari, along the Adriatic coast. Travels from north to south and viceversa were a common experience during my childhood and teenage years. I’m putting some of my memories from these travels in my work, along with more recent journeys. I would like this part of my book to be a journey in a more hidden Italy, not usually visited or understood by foreign tourists.
Just another thing. If you want to receive only the posts of this section, and you are not interested in the Italian version, you can turn off notifications: just access to your account Settings, go to Subscriptions, select Viaggio in Italia and turn off notifications for Viaggio in Italia.
In inglese
Come avrai capito, questo post inaugura la sezione in inglese della mia newsletter. Ho dovuto inviarlo per forza a tutti gli iscritti, mi spiace. Però puoi scegliere di non ricevere i post di questa sezione: basta andare sui Settings del tuo account, andare sotto Subscriptions, selezionare Viaggio in Italia e disattivare le notifiche per la sezione Italian Journey.
Purtroppo al momento Substack non offre una soluzione più semplice, e non volevo creare due newsletter separate. E chissà, magari conosci qualcuno che non sa l’italiano ma a cui può interessare questa newsletter! Non posso scrivere in inglese i lunghi post che scrivo in italiano, quindi questa sezione sarà fatta principalmente di disegni e tavole dal libro a cui sto lavorando, e infatti la maggior parte di questi post sarà a pagamento, come già succede per la versione italiana. Se ricevi già la versione gratuita di questa newsletter e vuoi passare a quella pagamento, metto qui il bottoncino per iscriversi:
Per farmi perdonare di questo inconveniente tecnico, ecco una delle ultime tavole che ho disegnato. A proposito di inglesi, viene proprio dalla parte del mio libro dedicata alla storia di Mary e Percy Shelley. Qui siamo nel 1818, Mary ha appena viaggiato dai Bagni di Lucca a Este (Padova) per raggiungere il marito Percy, portando con sé i loro due bambini, Clara e William (pensate un po’ cosa doveva essere viaggiare in carrozza per mezza Italia con due bimbi!). La villa nella vignetta centrale, così particolare, era un ex convento dei Frati Cappuccini, e in quel momento era affittata da Lord Byron, amico degli Shelley. Oggi si chiama Villa Kunkler.
Che meraviglia i disegni! Non vedo l’ora che il libro sia finito
Bellissimo!