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Conti/Fusco 87
D’Annunzio’s “Guitar”
Gian Carlo Fusco
I don’t remember exactly what year it was. But if it wasn’t 1925
then it was surely 1926 that the Italian Navy decided to donate to
Gabriele D’Annunzio, installing it for him among the delightful
gardens of the Vittoriale – his estate on Lake Garda – the bow of the
ship “Puglia.” A relic long-desired by the Soldier Poet, because it
was on that deck, at Split in 1920, that Captain Tommaso Gulli was
killed. The charge for the operation, from the aesthetic cut of the
bow to its placement on a specially built base, was given to the Colonel
of the Naval Engineers, Umberto Pugliese, who, when the day
came for the solemn consignment to D’Annunzio, obtained permission
from the Ministry to choose the four or five officers who would
accompany him to Gardone. Among the others, he chose my father,
who is his role as commissary captain, had dealt with the paperwork
for the “Appropriation of funds regarding donation bow ship
Puglia to G.D’Annunzio.”
My father, Carlo Fusco, born in the mountains of the Sannio
region between Naples and Benevento, had arrived in the Navy,
like a lot of young southerners of good will, by taking that often
miraculous road marked by a sign that says, “Make your way, as
soon as possible, to your first pay check.” And like so many Italians
who attend technical schools, he had the most profound contempt
for technical questions and dedicated himself, passionately, to literature.
His reading, despite all of his assiduity and attention, was
rather haphazard. Like all those of the generation who were born
under Crispi and came of age under Giolitti, his interest for art, including
poetry, was first and foremost, if not exclusively, aesthetic.
It goes without saying then that his supreme poet of all supreme
poets was Gabriele D’Annunzio.
When my father came to know officially that Colonel Pugliese
had included him in the small group of his companions, the idea
that he was about to meet, in person, “the Imaginator,” alias “Ariel
Armed” or “the Blind Seer,” launched him into an almost febrile
state. His agitation became more and more acute and vibrant until
he got the idea of taking me with him to the Vittoriale. Because (he