Case di poeti

The tranquil beauty of the home of Giovanni Pascoli, immersed in the countryside of Castelvecchio di Barga. The garden of Fuente Vaqueros, with its two hundred varieties of rose, where Federico Garcia Lorca once sauntered. Gabriele d’Annunzio’s fabled Villa Vittoriale, sumptuous as a film set, erected to the greater glory of art and of its owner. The residences of the poets, be they grand or modest, tell us much about the persons who once dwelt within. This book by Anna De Simone spans time and place to take us within the walls of over sixty residences belonging to great writers of the twentieth century. Photography, poems and comments accompany us through the private interiors of such personages as Leopardi, Borges, Montale and Kavafis. An interchange occurs between geographical place and spiritual space, opening hitherto hidden vistas on situations, private events and scraps of lost narratives. Each visit ushers us into its own labyrinth of friendships, affections, desires, regrets, restlessness, anxieties, presences and absences, collateral evidence for experience both lost and found.