Vittoriale degli italiani
The Vittoriale degli italiani (German roughly: "Victory Monument of the Italians") is a museum complex in Gardone Riviera on the western shore of Lake Garda in Italy. It is the former residence of the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863–1938), who had the property designed from 1921 under the overall direction of the architect Giancarlo Maroni (1893–1952).
Today the site covers nine hectares and, in addition to the buildings and the open-air theater, consists of gardens, parks, squares and watercourses. Every year around 300,000 guests visit the Vittoriale.
history
On February 1, 1921, D'Annunzio rented the former villa of the art historian Henry Thode in Cargnacco, a district of Gardone Rivieras, which had been confiscated as enemy property by the Italian government. Two months later, in April 1921, he received the Italian politician and later fascist dictator Benito Mussolini for the first time . At the end of October he bought the property and commissioned the architect Giancarlo Maroni from Riva del Garda to renovate the villa.
From the end of 1922 to the beginning of 1923, D'Annunzio expanded the furnishings to include numerous small silver and gold animal figures by Renato Brozzi (1885–1963) and a thorn-crowned goddess of victory by Napoleone Martinuzzi. He gave the villa the name Prioria and the part of the garden in which a number of memorial columns had previously been erected, he named Il Vittoriale , a name that was later used for the entire complex. On December 22nd, 1923 he bequeathed the Vittoriale to the "Italian people" in a deed of gift. At that time he was financially supported by the Italian government, from which he received 200,000 lire in June 1924 for the manuscript of the Gloria .
The larger military exhibits arrived in 1924 and 1925: the Ansaldo SVA 10 aircraft with which D'Annunzio took part in the flight over Vienna towards the end of the First World War , a torpedo boat , the forecastle of the armored cruiser Puglia and a seaplane of the type SIAI p.16 . D'Annunzio acquired the Villa Mirabella , located near the Prioria , and the former Hotel Washington . The area was expanded to include a small harbor basin with an associated tower and the Portico del Parente facility. The Prioria was also expanded: Guido Cadorin decorated the Stanza del Lebbroso , D'Annunzio completed the installation of the Stanza della Leda and commissioned the redesign of the front of the building.
In June 1926 an institute for the publication of the collected works of the poet was founded and D'Annunzio received ten million lire, with which he financed the further expansion of the Vittoriale. Work began on building the archive building, the arcades and the Schifamondo wing. In the years up to 1929 further rooms were redesigned and furnished: the study ( Officina ), the music room ( Stanza della Musica ), the dining room ( Stanza della Cheli ) and the "Reliquienzimmer" ( Stanza delle Reliquie ). In 1930 the site was expanded to its present size of nine hectares.
Until his death in 1938, D'Annunzio developed further plans together with his architect Maroni, some of which were only implemented after his death. The open-air theater was completed in 1953, the mausoleum in 1955 and the war museum in June 2000.
Museum complex
villa
The building, called La Prioria , was originally the villa of the art historian Henry Thode . D'Annunzio acquired it including its inventory - including a 6,000-volume library, pictures by Franz von Lenbach and a Steinway grand piano by Franz Liszt - and had it continuously expanded and expanded from 1921 to 1938. The Prioria was D'Annunzio's residence until his death. The character of the villa was completely changed. One of D'Annunzio's friends said that Henry Thode's old Villa Cargnacco was reminiscent of a “parsonage”. After the renovation, there is no longer any question of this “almost strict lack of decoration”.
mausoleum
In 1939, a year after D'Annunzio's death, Maroni drafted the plans for the mausoleum , which was built in 1955 on a hill of the Vittoriale. Stylistically, it is based on Etruscan - Roman tombs and, with its three concentric stone ramps, one on top of the other, takes up motifs from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy : the victory of the humble, the artists and the heroes. The late antique sarcophagi placed there contain the mortal remains of what D'Annunzio called the “Heroes of Fiume ”. These include Ernesto Cabruna, Guido Keller and Giuseppe Piffer. D'Annunzios' sarcophagus stands on four pillars in the middle of the top platform, and his remains were moved here in 1963. Inside the mausoleum there is a crypt with a bronze crucifix by Leonardo Bistolfi.
Puglia
The Puglia is an armored cruiser that D'Annunzio received as a gift from the Italian Navy in 1923. It was delivered in 20 railway wagons and erected on the slope called La Fida until 1925 under the direction of Silla G. Fortunato .
MAS
The letter sequence " MAS ", derived from Motoscafo Anti Sommergibile ("Motorboat for submarine combat") or from Motoscafo Armato Silurante ("Motor torpedo boat"), denotes a torpedo boat that, like the Puglia , was a gift from the Italian Navy and arrived at the Vittoriale in 1923. D'Annunzio had used it on the night of February 10th to 11th 1918 in the Beffa di Buccari company . Today it is located in a hall that was designed by Maroni in 1942 and completed in 1958. The motto Memento Audere Semper (“Remember to always dare”) can be read on its outer wall .
War museum
The War Museum was opened in June 2000 and additional rooms were added in July 2001. It mainly contains items related to D'Annunzio's war experiences, such as his propaganda flight over Vienna on August 9, 1918 shortly before the end of the First World War , his missions over Julian Veneto , Istria and Dalmatia and the occupation of the Croatian Adriatic city of Fiume .
Open air theater
D'Annunzio's first ideas for building an open-air theater go back to 1927. In 1931 Maroni went on a study trip to Pompeii with Renato Brozzi and by 1938 designed the plans for D'Annunzio's so-called Parlaggio , which is based on the Roman amphitheater of Pompeii and the ancient theater of Taormina . It was completed in 1953 and can accommodate 1500 spectators. Every year numerous performances of the most varied kinds take place here, ranging from ballet and classical concerts to jazz and rock concerts.
Two automobiles are also exhibited: an Isotta Fraschini from the 1930s and a Fiat from 1908 to 1918.
meaning
D'Annunzio is hardly read in Germany. His emblematic politico-military actions (Vienna, Fiume / Rijeka) had too little practical effect to go down in international history books. In Italy these factors (D'Annunzio as a poet, D'Annunzio as a national hero) play a role in the appreciation of the Vittoriale, in Germany they are largely absent.
Apart from political-historical implications, the extensive complex is undoubtedly impressive due to its size and as a testimony to the exalted poet Gabriele D'Annunzio: “In these rooms he tells and speaks of himself: literary inspiration, eroticism, heroism and extreme, decadent aestheticism. "
The villa, crammed with countless symbolic decorative and memorabilia, still breathes the spirit of symbolism and fin-de-siècle, even if individual objects are clearly 20th-century due to their style (e.g. Art Deco ) or their military-technical character belong. It stands in the tradition of the villas of other artist princes (in Germany one thinks of Richard Wagner , Franz von Lenbach , Franz von Stuck , etc.). The question of whether this is art or just kitsch has long been answered in the sense of kitsch under the influence of artistic and architectural modernism. The art of the (late) 19th century has only been valued more in the last few decades. Now the villa is something like a (late) Neuschwanstein of Lake Garda , partly admired for its luxury furnishings, partly monstrosity from distant times.
Other parts of the building complex speak a different artistic language. In particular, the open-air theater and the mausoleum, both built later than the villa, are closer to the marble monumental buildings from the time of fascism. In the region, for example, it can be compared with the victory monument in Bozen from 1928 or the mausoleum of Cesare Battisti (1935) in Trento .
literature
- Annamaria Andreoli: The Vittoriale. Milan: Electa 1996, ISBN 88-435-5707-6
- Annamaria Andreoli (ed.): The Vittoriale degli Italiani. Skira art guide, Milan: Skira 2004, ISBN 88-8491-795-6
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ ADAC travel magazine Gardasee - “United Colors of D'Annunzio” ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved August 6, 2009.
- ↑ a b c d e f g website of the Vittoriale degli italiani . Retrieved August 7, 2009.
- ↑ Renato Brozzi: la sua Storia ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved August 6, 2009 (Italian)
- ^ Francesca Premoli-Droulers (texts), Erica Lennard (photographs): Poets and their houses . 5th edition. Munich: Knesebeck 1999, p. 39
- ^ Francesca Premoli-Droulers (texts), Erica Lennard (photographs): Poets and their houses . 5th edition. Munich: Knesebeck 1999, p. 40
- ↑ Performances in the Teatro del Vittoriale . Retrieved August 7, 2009. (Italian)
- ^ Francesca Premoli-Droulers (texts), Erica Lennard (photographs): Poets and their houses . 5th edition Munich: Knesebeck 1999, p. 42
- ↑ Significantly, the Vittoriale is not mentioned at all in an otherwise detailed and thorough art guide from 1981: Heinz Schomann: Lombardei - Art Monuments and Museums. Reclam's Art Guide Italy, Volume I, 1, Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 1981.
Coordinates: 45 ° 37 '26.3 " N , 10 ° 33' 54" E