Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

259 Olga Triumphant
Senator Vittorio Cini, founder of the Cini Foundation, was the first to
o√er condolences. Olga asked his permission to have the funeral service in
the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, one of the most beautiful churches
in Italy; ‘‘its position on the island of the Foundation ensured order.’’
Senator Cini sent his private secretary to the abbot of the Monastery of
San Giorgio, the Reverend P. Egidio Zaramella, who promised to conduct
the service himself the next day, and to ask the pastor of the Anglican
Church, the Reverend Victor Stanley, to assist. O≈cial pallbearers were
chosen from a list of Pound’s most distinguished friends: Professor Vittorio
Branca of Padua, a Dante scholar with the Cini Foundation; Ugo
Fasolo, president of the association of writers of the Veneto; Professor
Giuseppe Santomaso of the Venetian Academy of Fine Arts; Dottore
Gianfranco Ivancich.
Ezra’s body was taken from the camera ardente to the Benedictine monastery
until the next morning, when the co≈n was placed in the central
nave of San Giorgio outside the altar rails.
Anita and the Pellegrini family, after driving all night from Sant’Ambrogio
with the two sons and grandchildren, were discovered sitting on
the steps of San Giorgio Maggiore at six o’clock. Grandson Walter and his
father, Boris de Rachewiltz, had been in the United States but arrived in
Venice in time for the service.
Father Zaramella read the brief Roman Catholic burial rites in Italian,
and Reverend Stanley blessed the co≈n in English. The Gregorian plain
chant of the Benedictine friars and music by Monteverdi wafted softly in
the background.
More than 120 friends signed the commemorative book: Silvana and
Vanni Scheiwiller and Luigi de Maino from Milan; Sir Ashley Clarke;
Wally Toscanini, the Countess Castelbarco; Christina Thoresby; the artist
Guido Cadorin; Charles Matz; Francesco Messina; Emmanuela Straram
Mangiarotti; Simonetta Lippi and her sister, Contessa Angela Piccolomini,
from Rome; Franco Montanari; professors Bernard Hickey and Alto Sergio
Perosa; Aldo Camerino, a Venetian writer, and his wife Gina Vivante;
Lotte Frumi; Janice de Luigi Lifton and Lester Littlefield; Desmond
O’Grady; Rolando Monti; Giorgio and Liselotte Manera; Rosso Mazzenghi
and family from Genoa; Professor Donald Queler of the Italian