The fall of Gabriele d’Annunzio in 1922? A gallant accident, no plot by the Duce

The defenestration of Gabriele d’Annunzio? Perhaps it was the answer to a gesture that was a little too gallant, an advance considered annoying. And, therefore, the suggestion of a political plot against the writer and poet a few weeks before the March on Rome must be rejected. This is what Pietro Gibellini claims, former professor of Italian literature at the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice, president of the national edition of the works of d’Annunzio, councilor of the Il Vittoriale Foundation and director of “Literary Hermeneutics”, “Literature and dialetti ”and” Archivio d’Annunzio “, which has just published the book” The fallen archangel – The mysterious accident of 1922 in the words of the writer “(Edizioni Ianieri). On the evening of August 13, 1922, the poet falls from a window of the Vittoriale, causing a fracture to his skull which causes him to become unconscious from which he slowly emerges and remains ill for several weeks. A few days later he had to meet with Benito Mussolini and Francesco Saverio Nitti to try to pacify the country in turmoil: the meeting is unsuccessful, the Rijeka legionaries, left without a commander, dissolve, and the head of the fascist party has free rein for the March on Rome, put into action on 28 October a hundred years ago. The suspicions of an intentional act arise immediately, of a plot orchestrated by the future Duce to marginalize a dangerous competitor. Pietro Gibellini, on the other hand, hypothesizes “a gallant accident” and supports the thesis on the eyewitness testimony of the Vittoriale gardener who witnessed the fall as a child , Faustino Andreoli, and above all to some phrases pronounced by the poet during his convalescence.D’Annunzio, reconstructs Gibellini, astride the windowsill and a little too high, would have made heavy advances to his lover’s sister, the pianist Luisa Bàccara , and the instinctive reaction of the young Yolanda would have made him lose his balance. “A negligent act, in short, due to a gallant intemperance”, explains the scholar Pietro Gibellini to the Adnkronos. Having come out of the coma, the writer author of “Il Piacere” slowly regains knowledge. Doctors alternate at his bedside, recording his words, which oscillate between humorous tones (“Papa Sarto è nu fesso”), unexpected glimpses (“I suffer for the whole world, I suffer more than Christ”), patriotic exaltation (” We Italians are all Gods: those others of Europe are all men … we are blue spirits and stars “). The long oral text by Gabriele d’Annunzio is now edited by Gibellini in his volume” The fallen archangel “. The sick person’s diary is accompanied by other pages in which d’Annunzio spoke of that accident, suggestive writings, often neglected (such as the ‘Conento meditato’ of 1923, in which he sees in his ‘delirium’ the revelation of the mystery, and the ‘Secret Book of Gabriele d’Annunzio tempted to die’ of 1935, where he presents the ‘flight of the archangel’ as an attempted suicide). “That incident, if it did not change history, certainly changed the style of the writer – comments Gibellini – Re-reading disordered transcriptions of the words spoken in infirmity, d’Annunzio matured the almost psychoanalytic idea of ​​a very modern ‘involuntary’ writing, which later resulted in the ‘Secret Book’ “. (By Paolo Martini)