The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts - UCLA Department ...

DAPA\Winter 1987
From the outset, D'Annunzio thought of Il Vittoriale not only as the theater of
his own memory but as a votive offering to Italy, for whose beauty he had lived
his adventure as a poet-soldier. The paths on the grounds of Il Vittoriale, with
their complex mnemonic system of monuments, votive columns, temples,
bronzes, tabernacles, and small squares arranged on various levels ofterraces'
and integrated with the perspectives of the sk1' and the lake offered by the rows
of rypresses and laurels, represent privileged paths for the collective memory
after the triumphs and the humiliations of World\Var I and the "mutilatedvictory."
Il Vittoriale as a whole aims to be a kind of avenue of triumph, i.e., a
means to stimulate the desire in the collective imagination for rebirth and return
to the glories of the past. In the document donating Il Vittoriale to the
Italian people in1923,D'Annunzio wrote: "Every.thing
here is created and transfigured
by me. Eveq,thing here displays the mark of my style, in the sense that
I want to give to style. My love for Italy, my cult of memories, my aspiration to
heroism, my presentiment of the future Nation are visible here in every line
and in every agreement or disagreement of colors." The most eloquent sign of
this political use of esthetic space is perhaps the great bronze lVingedVictory,
by the sculptor Arrigo Minerbi, given to D'Annunzio by the city of Milan in 1,935
(flg. 8). TheWingedvictory rises on a stone column in the middle of the road
leading to the Priory a road surrounded by stone arches topped by passageways
and railings which suggest the idea of a fortress to keep watch over and to
defend the Nation. \fith its bound feet, the r{ingedVictory is a monument to
the resistance put up by the Italian soldiers for twelve months on the Piave
front during \rorld Sflar I. It is represented as if it were about to take flight,
breaking free of the bonds that hold it back. Like Minerbi'stMingedVictory,
many of the sculptures and relics in Il Vittoriale were donated to D'Annunzio,
and testifi'to the collective investment in the "Santa Fabbrica." (Minerbi also
made the plaster bust of Eleonora Duse in the poet's study, and D'Annunzio's
death mask, which is now in the D'Annunzio museum set up byMinerbi himself
and b1'Emilio Mariano in the Schifamondo).
At first all work was limited to the Priory which can be considered as a theaterwithin-the-theater.
The Priory contains all the emblems and images that belong
to the decadent, intimate, and "nocturnal" D'Annunzio; in it can be found all
the signs that remind us of the most transgressive and Byzantine aspects of his
life and his work. This "theater" is in turn contained in the larger public theater
of the surrounding estate, which itself contains both the relics of the First World
\Var and those of Fiume. The facade of the Priory was redecorated (fig. 2) with a
series of architectural motifs, among which are a small porch with a balcony
and railing above it, a series of cornices and, arcanged in a decorative bricolage
typical of D'Annunzio's own poetry alarge number of reliefs, bas-reliefs, and
heraldic shields of cities and noble families. D'Annunzio wished to generate a
visual effect similar to that of the fourteenth-century facade of the hlazzo
Pretorio in Arezzo,which is studded with the insignia of a number of podestd.
Above the arch of the porch, sustained by two small marble columns, there are
two statues ofVictory attributed to the school of Sansovino. On both the architrave
of the door and on the arch itself are inscribed mottos and augural
phrases. The decorative use of mottos, enigmatic phrases, and inscriptions in a
cryptic and allusive language is widespread throughout Il Vittoriale (fig. 12).
D'Annunzio took them from his own works, or from the classical, Medieval,
and Renaissance traditions, contaminating and often changing the originals in
the process. His passion for mottos and for every kind of verbal rebus, for
heraldic shields, for coats of arms and emblems and the hierogllphic or allegorical
representation of concepts and thoughts, is typical of the Renaissance