The City of Falling Angels (20 page)
Read The City of Falling Angels Online
Authors: John Berendt
Tags: #History, #Social History, #Europe, #Italy
“I am a very bad soloist,” he said with a smile, “but a good director. I have an understanding with my sons. If they want their father to work with them, they have to give him one day a week at the furnace, to give him a chance to play. So five days a week, I wear a manager’s hat, and one day a week, I stand at the furnace—beside the master glassblower—and I direct.”
He walked back to his desk and stood looking out the window. Then he turned to me with what seemed to be a satisfied expression.
“I have four goals,” he said. “First, I would like people to see our glass and recognize it immediately as Venetian. Second, I would like them to say, ‘Oh, this is glass made by Seguso.’ My third goal is that they will say, ‘This is glass made by Seguso Viro.’ My fourth goal is that perhaps one day people will say, ‘This is glass made by Giampaolo Seguso.’”
I had a feeling that the fourth goal was the one he dreamed of most often.
“Is it your ambition to become a famous designer?” I asked.
“My view is that I belong to a great relay race of Murano glassmakers. In my opinion, the last runner does not exist. The only race you can run is part of a larger effort. The challenge is to be recognized as someone who has added something to the tradition along the way.”
Giampaolo sat down at his desk again. “And that,” he said, “is one of the major differences between my father and me. My father thinks of himself as the last runner in the race.”
{8}
EXPATRIATES: THE FIRST FAMILY
SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK, I had occasion to walk across the Accademia Bridge, and whenever I did, I turned and looked down the Grand Canal toward the great domes of Santa Maria della Salute, easily one of the most familiar picture-postcard images of Venice.
Late one afternoon, as I was crossing the bridge and looking in this direction, I happened to notice an elegant motor launch idling quietly in front of a Gothic palace about sixty yards away, the second palace from the bridge on the St. Mark’s side. The boat was a venerable Riva, the doge of luxury motorboats. It was about forty years old, twenty feet long, and made of a rich mahogany trimmed in chrome. A tall man with gray hair stood at the wheel, holding his hand out to a woman who was stepping from the dock into the boat. She was dressed completely in white, from headband to shoes. Even her glasses had white frames, and her hair was white as well. After the woman had taken her seat, the man eased the boat out into the Grand Canal, stern first, as casually as if he were backing a car out of a garage. Then he turned and headed in the direction of the Salute Church and St. Mark’s.
I was struck by the idea that a ride on the Grand Canal in this motorboat, which would have been a thrill for me, was most likely a daily routine for this couple. They might have been going shopping, to dinner, or to visit friends. They moved around Venice not only in style but low to the water, the way Venetians had done for centuries, much closer to water level, at any rate, than if they had been standing on the deck of a lumbering vaporetto.
A week or so later, I saw the couple in their boat again. They were returning to the palace from the direction of the Rialto. As before, the woman was dressed completely in white, but this time she had on slacks instead of a skirt and a sweater instead of a blazer.
“That had to be Patricia Curtis,” Rose Lauritzen said later on. “She always wears white.”
“Always?” I asked. “Why?”
“I really don’t know. She’s worn white as long as I’ve known her. Peter, why does Patricia wear white?”
“I haven’t any idea,” said Peter.
“White may just be her color,” said Rose. “It’s probably as simple as that.”
“But now that you mention it,” said Peter, directing his comment to me, “I must tell you that Patricia Curtis is an interesting woman for many reasons, the very least of which is that she always wears white.”
“The man you saw her with is her husband, Carlo Viganò,” said Rose. “He’s terribly nice. They both are. I mean, really . . . nice . . . people.”
“Patricia Curtis,” said Peter, “is a fourth-generation American expatriate. Her great-grandparents, Daniel Sargent Curtis and Ariana Wormeley Curtis, came to Venice from Boston in the early 1880s with their son Ralph, Patricia’s grandfather.”
“Not only nice,” said Rose, “but well liked.”
“The Curtises,” said Peter, “were rich, old-line Bostonians, whose ancestry went back to the
Mayflower.
They bought Palazzo Barbaro, and their descendants have lived there ever since.”
Mayflower.
They bought Palazzo Barbaro, and their descendants have lived there ever since.”
“Carlo has a business in Malaysia,” said Rose. “Manufacturing. I forget what.”
“In terms of seniority,” said Peter, “the Curtises are way ahead of all the other English-speaking expatriates in Venice. They’re in a class by themselves.”
“Tablecloths and napkins!” said Rose. “That’s what he makes. Carlo’s company, I mean.”
“But why would a rich, socially prominent Bostonian pack up his family and leave America for good?” I asked.
“Aha!” said Peter. “That’s the curious part.”
Peter went on to explain that Daniel Curtis was riding in a commuter train from Boston to the suburbs when he got into an altercation with another man over a seat that had been saved for a third party. Words were exchanged. The other man declared that Daniel Curtis was “no gentleman,” and in reply Mr. Curtis twisted the man’s nose. The injured party turned out to be a judge, who thereupon brought suit against Daniel Curtis for assault. A trial followed, and Daniel Curtis was convicted and sentenced to two months in jail. Upon his release, according to the story, he indignantly gathered up his family, moved to Europe, and never came back.
“It is only fair to point out,” said Peter, “that in all the years he lived in Venice, Daniel Curtis behaved like a consummate gentleman. From the moment he and Ariana set foot in Palazzo Barbaro, they made it a gathering place for the best-known, most-admired artists, writers, and musicians of their day. Robert Browning read his poetry aloud to the Curtises and their guests. Henry James, a frequent houseguest, used the Barbaro as the model for the fictional Palazzo Leporelli in his masterpiece
The Wings of the Dove.
John Singer Sargent was a distant cousin, and when he was visiting the Barbaro, he painted in the top-floor studio of his cousin, Ralph Curtis, who was also an accomplished painter. Monet painted views of Santa Maria della Salute from the Barbaro’s water gate. Are you getting the picture?”
The Wings of the Dove.
John Singer Sargent was a distant cousin, and when he was visiting the Barbaro, he painted in the top-floor studio of his cousin, Ralph Curtis, who was also an accomplished painter. Monet painted views of Santa Maria della Salute from the Barbaro’s water gate. Are you getting the picture?”
“I am,” I said.
“The Curtis family occupies a permanent place in the cultural history of nineteenth-century Venice. Their salon became known as the ‘Barbaro Circle,’ and it included James McNeill Whistler, William Merritt Chase, Edith Wharton, and Bernard Berenson.”
“And that madwoman from Boston,” said Rose, “Mrs. Gardner.”
“Isabella Stewart Gardner,” said Peter, “the eccentric Boston art collector, rented the
piano nobile
from the Curtises for several summers while she was acquiring important paintings for the museum she intended to build in Boston.”
piano nobile
from the Curtises for several summers while she was acquiring important paintings for the museum she intended to build in Boston.”
“She not only rented the Barbaro,” said Rose, “she copied it!”
“True,” said Peter. “She built her Boston museum in the form of a Venetian palace, based loosely on the façade of Palazzo Barbaro. One can easily see why Mrs. Gardner was so inspired. The Barbaro is one of the most important fifteenth-century Gothic palaces in Venice. Actually, it’s two palaces. The Barbaro family bought the palace next to it in the late seventeenth century to provide themselves with a ballroom.
“One could go on and on about Palazzo Barbaro’s architectural and decorative grace notes, but my point is that Patricia Curtis is, first and foremost, the inheritor and guardian of a considerable literary, artistic, and architectural patrimony. She is also, but only very incidentally, a woman who wears white.”
ON THE TELEPHONE, Patricia Curtis was reserved but friendly. She was leaving the next day, she said, for Malaysia, where her husband was part owner of a textile mill. However, if I could wait until her return a month later, she would be happy to show me Palazzo Barbaro.
Over the next few weeks, I educated myself about the Barbaro. I found a videotape of
Brideshead Revisited
and watched the Venetian episode, in which Laurence Olivier plays the aging Lord Marchmain, living in self-imposed exile in a sumptuous Venetian palace. Palazzo Barbaro had been used for the filming of those scenes. Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews (as Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte) climb an exterior stairway to the
piano nobile,
saunter down the length of the polished terrazzo floor of the
portego,
and find Olivier standing at a window in the ballroom, looking out at the Grand Canal.
Brideshead Revisited
and watched the Venetian episode, in which Laurence Olivier plays the aging Lord Marchmain, living in self-imposed exile in a sumptuous Venetian palace. Palazzo Barbaro had been used for the filming of those scenes. Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews (as Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte) climb an exterior stairway to the
piano nobile,
saunter down the length of the polished terrazzo floor of the
portego,
and find Olivier standing at a window in the ballroom, looking out at the Grand Canal.
I reread
The Wings of the Dove,
keeping in mind that Henry James had been describing these same rooms as he wrote of the angelic, dying Milly Theale ensconced in the “palatial chambers” of her “great gilded shell.”
The Wings of the Dove,
keeping in mind that Henry James had been describing these same rooms as he wrote of the angelic, dying Milly Theale ensconced in the “palatial chambers” of her “great gilded shell.”
As for Daniel Curtis’s nose-twisting attack on Judge Churchill, accounts of it had appeared in a number of books, including Cleveland Amory’s
The Proper Bostonians,
but they varied considerably. Amory’s version had Daniel Curtis twisting a man’s nose so violently he was disfigured for life. Another report said Curtis had bitten the nose of a streetcar driver; another had him knocking down a policeman who had insulted his wife; yet another claimed that the argument had been about giving a seat to a pregnant woman. The incident had taken on the character of a folk tale, changing with each telling. This may have been because Mrs. Curtis had revised the story in order to put her husband in a better light. In any case, the real story had been reported in minute detail by the Boston newspapers, which reprinted verbatim transcripts of court testimony.
The Proper Bostonians,
but they varied considerably. Amory’s version had Daniel Curtis twisting a man’s nose so violently he was disfigured for life. Another report said Curtis had bitten the nose of a streetcar driver; another had him knocking down a policeman who had insulted his wife; yet another claimed that the argument had been about giving a seat to a pregnant woman. The incident had taken on the character of a folk tale, changing with each telling. This may have been because Mrs. Curtis had revised the story in order to put her husband in a better light. In any case, the real story had been reported in minute detail by the Boston newspapers, which reprinted verbatim transcripts of court testimony.
The confrontation had started when Judge Churchill took a seat being saved for another man, but it quickly turned into an argument about the bulky luggage—a carpetbag and a toy wagon—that Churchill placed on the floor in the tight space between himself and Daniel Curtis. The objects pressed against Curtis’s legs, to his great annoyance, and Curtis brusquely told him to move them, which Churchill did. Moments later the third man arrived and claimed his seat, whereupon Churchill quickly got up and surrendered it. But before walking away, he leaned toward Daniel Curtis and said, in a low voice, “If you are a gentleman, I have never seen one before.”
Stung by the remark, Curtis jumped up, demanded to know who Churchill was, and twisted his nose (“in a moderate and quiet manner,” he later claimed). Churchill then angrily declared, “Nobody but a blackguard would begin a fight in the presence of these ladies!” upon which Daniel Curtis hit him in the face, breaking his glasses.
Curtis was hauled into court, tried for assault, convicted, and sentenced to two months in jail.
The astonishing part is what happened next: More than three hundred of the leading citizens of Massachusetts petitioned the governor to issue a pardon for Daniel Curtis. Among the signers were Harvard president Charles Eliot; future Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell; the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court; the secretary of state of Massachusetts; the president of the Union Pacific Railroad; the naturalist Louis Agassiz; Charles Eliot Norton, who was Harvard’s and America’s first professor of fine arts; the historian Francis Parkman; the painter William Morris Hunt; the architect H. H. Richardson; the husband of Isabella Stewart Gardner (John L. Gardner); and an all-star roster of Boston blue-bloods, including Lowells, Saltonstalls, Adamses, Welds, Lawrences, Otises, Endicotts, Pierces, Parkers, Cushings, Minots, Appletons, and Crowninshields, to name just a few.
The story took an even stranger turn when Daniel Curtis then repudiated their petition by refusing to sign it. He likewise rejected Judge Churchill’s offer to drop the charges in exchange for a sincere apology. Curtis said his own actions had been justified, given Churchill’s provocations, and that he would not apologize. So Daniel Sargent Curtis spent the next two months in jail.
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