Samstag, 7. Oktober 2006

Kunstspaziergänge in den Städten der Toskana (7) Im Garten des Pfanner-Palazzos in Lucca The essayist and writer Andre Suares (1868-1948)was perhaps after Stendhal the most refined interpreter of Italian artistic topography. Following his travels between 1893 and 1928 Suares wrote three volumes entitled Le voyage du condottiere (1911-32), characterised by an aristocratic conception of live and a sumptuously aesthetic taste. Below is his brilliant description of the Palazzo Controni-Pfanner, written during a long stop in the city of Lucca. «The buildings stand as ornaments in Italian cities just as castles are the exquisite pride of French provinces and countryside. Each building is a silent novel, as a book from chapter to chapter, one reads it from room to room. There the time is always present, it is as if it were still the year one thousand and we were in company of the constructors and those who dwelled there. On one side there is the courtyard of Palazzo Guinigi, that humid feudal portico, gloomy and stern, where there lies forever the shadow of the tower. On the other side we find the courtyard of Palazzo Controni that appears to have been built to stage shows, with its stairway like that of a theatre and the atrium with a vaulted roof that vanishes far away into the pleasant view of a fresh verdant garden. Is it possible to conceive of a greater variety? 1 could not say what appearance Palazzo Mansi or Palazzo Controni could take in the quarter of Saint-Germain, nor whether they would make sense in such a setting. In Lucca they are admired, entertain and live.» in A. Brilli, Viaggiatori stranieri in terra di Lucca, Lucca 1996; translated by Deirdre Bonini 7:26:32 PM    comment []