D'Annunzio, Gabriele - Lettera a Pasquinelli - 1932

Original 14-page letter, on SUFFICIT ANIMUS - PRIMA SQUADRIGLIA NAVALE letterhead. Addressed to Francesco Pasquinelli. The text and signature are handwritten by the poet, dated May 27, 1932. The last pages (numbered), from the seventh to the fourteenth, show browning on the lower half of the sheet, with some of the paper being more fragile.Complete with the original envelope addressed to "CAVALIERE DEL LAVORO COMM. FRANCESCO PASQUINELLI - ALBERGO MIRAMARE - SAN REMO - (with two packages)"Part of the letter:My dear and steadfast friend, since the time when I evoked my candid Hesiod of Works and Days for the tireless producer, and since the time of your visit to the Vittoriale, marked by the shattered Dalmatian glass, I have long suffered petty ailments, heavy losses, painful studies, disappointed expectations, and immobile inertia. I greatly love and respect the sculptor Arrigo Minerbi. I saw, and desired for the entrance to the Vittoriale, a bronze Victory of his that seemed to me "the Victory of the Piave" to be placed at the top of a broken bridge, so pathetic and terrible was it. The changing fortunes willed that it should go elsewhere to find its fulcrum. Now, before the severe and powerful art of this Last Supper, I was perplexed by the desire to judge it in its relief and its material; because it is not cast in bronze but in silver, and not in a silver alloy but in the solid silver of silversmiths, minters, and goldsmiths. At first looking at the beautiful photographs, I had within me the feeling of bronze, I who gave the voice of the peerless connoisseur to Francesco Francia's words "This is a beautiful material" and who was angered by Michelangelo's unjust anger. But it is not bronze: it is silver. And, as always happens to me in the study of art, more than once I have enriched the invisible and palpable work with my imaginations. And as a secret alchemist, I have accomplished an irregular transmutation. I have transformed the silver into bronze; .... (p. 13) ... behold, the silver is already depicted. I know. My dear Francesco, it is night: it is the night of the twenty-seventh. One day, the twenty-seventh, my mother passed away; on the twenty-seventh, Nino Randaccio suffered the mortal wound, and expired with his head in my unconquered heart. I write as if in a dream at the edge of a smelting furnace. Take these pages. Remember me to Arrigo. I will see both of them again soon. Il Vittoriale: May 27, 1932 - Gabriele d'AnnunzioPlease note: In the attached photos, you may notice some digital marks, which are obviously not present in the original letter.

Original 14-page letter, on SUFFICIT ANIMUS - PRIMA SQUADRIGLIA NAVALE letterhead. Addressed to Francesco Pasquinelli. The text and signature are handwritten by the poet, dated May 27, 1932. The last pages (numbered), from the seventh to the fourteenth, show browning on the lower half of the sheet, with some of the paper being more fragile.Complete with the original envelope addressed to "CAVALIERE DEL LAVORO COMM. FRANCESCO PASQUINELLI - ALBERGO MIRAMARE - SAN REMO - (with two packages)"Part of the letter:My dear and steadfast friend, since the time when I evoked my candid Hesiod of Works and Days for the tireless producer, and since the time of your visit to the Vittoriale, marked by the shattered Dalmatian glass, I have long suffered petty ailments, heavy losses, painful studies, disappointed expectations, and immobile inertia. I greatly love and respect the sculptor Arrigo Minerbi. I saw, and desired for the entrance to the Vittoriale, a bronze Victory of his that seemed to me "the Victory of the Piave" to be placed at the top of a broken bridge, so pathetic and terrible was it. The changing fortunes willed that it should go elsewhere to find its fulcrum. Now, before the severe and powerful art of this Last Supper, I was perplexed by the desire to judge it in its relief and its material; because it is not cast in bronze but in silver, and not in a silver alloy but in the solid silver of silversmiths, minters, and goldsmiths. At first looking at the beautiful photographs, I had within me the feeling of bronze, I who gave the voice of the peerless connoisseur to Francesco Francia's words "This is a beautiful material" and who was angered by Michelangelo's unjust anger. But it is not bronze: it is silver. And, as always happens to me in the study of art, more than once I have enriched the invisible and palpable work with my imaginations. And as a secret alchemist, I have accomplished an irregular transmutation. I have transformed the silver into bronze; .... (p. 13) ... behold, the silver is already depicted. I know. My dear Francesco, it is night: it is the night of the twenty-seventh. One day, the twenty-seventh, my mother passed away; on the twenty-seventh, Nino Randaccio suffered the mortal wound, and expired with his head in my unconquered heart. I write as if in a dream at the edge of a smelting furnace. Take these pages. Remember me to Arrigo. I will see both of them again soon. Il Vittoriale: May 27, 1932 - Gabriele d'AnnunzioPlease note: In the attached photos, you may notice some digital marks, which are obviously not present in the original letter.