Gabriele d'Annunzio: the Vate between Decadentism, Modernity, and Collecting at Il Vittoriale

Describing Gabriele d'Annunzio – or rather, the many d'Annunzios that manifested throughout his life – is a complex undertaking. An article would not suffice, nor would a classic biography, easily accessible elsewhere.

D'Annunzio was a new-old man: the last exponent of Decadentism, but also a harbinger of the future. He lived in an era marked by cultural and technological revolutions and knew how to ride them with audacity. He experienced flight, exalted speed and machinery, played with language creating words, slogans, and brands still in use today.

His figure embodies the tensions of an Italy suspended between past and future: rearguard of the Risorgimento (famous for his flight over Vienna in 1918, when he dropped propaganda leaflets on the Austrians) and, at the same time, avant-garde of an era of dictatorships that would dramatically mark our history. It's no coincidence that some imagined him destined to become Duce instead of Mussolini, had he not been held back by a domestic accident that prevented him from delivering a decisive speech to the Arditi d'Italia.

Behind the excesses, pomp, and tinsel, a deep common thread emerges: the will for inner transformation. D'Annunzio always sought evolution, both human and artistic. His aestheticism was never sterile self-indulgence, but a continuous excavation within himself, in the most secret areas of his being.

His journey was made of apparent contrasts: sensuality and mysticism, pathos and detachment, spontaneity and artifice, patriotism and cosmopolitanism. Contradictions only on the surface, because in reality d'Annunzio embodied the eternal condition of Man: that restlessness that oscillates between black and white, until finding a superior balance in their fusion.

This tension towards improvement and perfection – intensely captured in Il Piacere – is the key to understanding the Vate's legacy: not just a poet or a hero, but a man who made life itself a laboratory of metamorphosis, in the name of Man and his superiority.

Alongside writing and public endeavors, d'Annunzio cultivated another decisive dimension: collecting. At Il Vittoriale, he surrounded himself with works of art, symbolic objects, statues, and ancient artifacts, but also with reproductions and facsimiles of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. He couldn't always have the originals, but he didn't give up: the copy, far from being a surrogate for him, became an evocative medium, a bridge with classicism and beauty that he intended to incorporate into his own existence.

This choice once again reveals his desire to experience art as a total experience: the work – original or reproduced – was not an object to be passively contemplated, but a piece of an autobiographical mosaic. Every book, every statue, every cast became a tessera of that great story that was his life, in a continuous process of aesthetic identification.

The literary and artistic reproductions preserved at Il Vittoriale thus testify not only to a refined taste, but also to the conviction that beauty could be reproduced, handed down, and made eternal, just like the myth of the Vate himself.

Il Vittoriale: a total work

Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, its full name, was Gabriele d'Annunzio's last earthly abode. It is not a simple house museum, but a monumental complex that the Vate wanted to donate to the Italians: a place conceived as a metaphysical pyramid, capable of transmitting his work and vital energy to future generations.

It is no coincidence that his body rests here, alongside the legionaries of Fiume and other prominent figures, arranged like canopic jars around a pharaoh's sarcophagus. The architect Giancarlo Maroni was responsible for translating his visions into stone, and he lived at Il Vittoriale even after the poet's death, almost as if he were the faithful scribe charged with guarding and passing on his legacy.

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that a connection between d'Annunzio and the Egyptian Rite Freemasonry has been hypothesized, where he would have assumed the initiatory name of Ariel: a detail that lends further aura of mystery to this extraordinary place.
The poet took possession of Il Vittoriale in 1921, upon returning from the Fiume enterprise, and transformed it in his own image and likeness.

He made it a magical place where aesthetics, culture, and art merge in a prodigious manner, giving life to a total work.

The complex presents itself as a universe unto itself: scenic gardens, fountains, theaters, archives, libraries, mausoleums, and even a warship embedded in the hill, the famous Puglia, which remains to this day a symbol of his heroic and visionary spirit.

La Prioria, d'Annunzio's private residence, is a labyrinth of rooms laden with symbols, relics, works of art, precious furnishings, and exotic artifacts. Every environment is a fragment of autobiography: nothing is casual, every object dialogues with the restless soul of its owner and reflects his multiple identities.

Il Vittoriale today houses about 200,000 objects: a vast collection of books, manuscripts, works of art, statues, casts, flags, weapons, and war memorabilia, as well as a library heritage of more than 33,000 volumes.

This is not a chaotic accumulation, but a mosaic of memory, where even reproductions and facsimiles of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts have a place of honor.

For d'Annunzio, in fact, beauty knew no hierarchies between original and copy: both were instruments of evocation and eternity.

It is interesting to know that, despite the apparent chaos in the arrangement of objects, every piece of Il Vittoriale is still today in the exact position desired by d'Annunzio. The poet, in fact, had an almost sacred relationship with his objects: if the service staff moved them even by a few centimeters for cleaning, he would immediately notice. This secret order, invisible to most, reveals how much the Vate considered Il Vittoriale not a simple dwelling, but a perfectly orchestrated microcosm, in which every detail contributed to composing his total work.

Strolling through the tree-lined avenues, climbing towards the Mausoleum or pausing in the open-air Amphitheater, still today a venue for concerts and performances, means entering into his vision: that of a place where art, life, and the memory of Italy intertwine.

Il Vittoriale is therefore not just a museum, but the immortal portrait of Gabriele d'Annunzio: a monument that tells of his dreams, his contradictions, his thirst for beauty and his ability to transform life itself into myth. A work that, even today, gives the visitor the unique and unrepeatable experience of entering into the soul of the Vate.

The reproductions

Within the walls of Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, we find not only original works. D'Annunzio, with his usual vision, chose to surround himself also with replicas, casts, and facsimiles: objects that were not meant to replace the original, but to evoke its symbolic power and make it an integral part of his daily life.

In La Prioria, his private residence, one encounters copies of ancient statues, casts of bas-reliefs, reproductions of paintings, and especially facsimiles of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. For him, they were much more than simple duplicates: they became instruments of contemplation and aesthetic meditation, capable of bringing within his rooms the aura of a past to be relived and reinterpreted.

The choice to value reproduction should not be seen as a lack, but as part of a coherent project: to build an autobiographical museum, where every element – original or replicated – contributes to composing the mosaic of d'Annunzio's personal myth.

In this sense, the copies kept at the Vittoriale are not "worth less": they are evidence of a modern conception of art as a widespread and reproducible experience, an idea that anticipates our time, in which the facsimile is an instrument of cultural transmission and democratization of beauty.

Thus, the Vittoriale also becomes a museum of reproductions, a place where the boundary between original and copy dissolves, giving way to what truly mattered to the Vate: evocation, suggestion, the possibility of experiencing art as an inseparable part of life.

Some examples:

Facsimile codices and manuscripts

In the Vittoriale's library, d'Annunzio possessed not only rare and ancient editions, but also faithful reproductions of medieval and Renaissance texts. When he couldn't have the original, he resorted to facsimiles, which still allowed him to immerse himself in the illuminated beauty and spirit of the classics. The private library of the Priory contains about 33,000 volumes: the online catalog is declared partial, while the complete one is available on-site on Staderini cards. For this reason, although the presence of numerous facsimiles is documented, there is no precise public list of individual titles. However, a visit to the Vittoriale is enough to spot them prominently displayed.

Artistic Reproductions

Throughout the complex, there are plaster or bronze casts and copies of ancient statues, busts, and fragments with which the poet constructed an ideal dialogue with ancient Rome, the Renaissance, and classicism. For him, the copy was not "inferior" to the original, but a means of evocation. An interesting fact: these plaster copies were polished with tea to simulate the ancient patina. Among the documented examples:

• Portrait of Augustus (1925-28, patinated plaster cast, Inventory room XXXIX, no. 57)
• Bust of Homer (1925-28, plaster cast, Inventory room XXXIX, no. 60)

Typographic and Graphic Materials

D'Annunzio was very attentive to the arts of the book. He commissioned precious editions in limited runs, often with characters, friezes, and illustrations that were modern reproductions of ancient styles, thus blending tradition and innovation.

Aesthetics and interiority

The aesthetic drive, which manifests externally in the accumulation of works, relics, and reproductions, corresponds in d'Annunzio to an equally powerful inner drive: the search for the true Self. Collecting, in his case, is not a simple exercise in taste, nor a luxury to display. It is rather an instrument of introspection, a journey into one's own identity.

Every book, every statue, every facsimile kept at the Vittoriale then becomes a mirror, a tessera reflecting a different fragment of his being. Through the multiplication of objects, d'Annunzio seems to explore the multiplication of his "selves": the poet, the soldier, the aesthete, the politician, the lover, the mystic.

In this perspective, the Vittoriale is not just the dwelling of a man, but an interior labyrinth made visible. The reproductions themselves, far from being minor copies, are tools that allow exploring new paths: they evoke a past to be relived, a myth to embody, an identity to try on oneself.

Thus, d'Annunzio's collecting becomes an act of spiritual research, a process of self-knowledge that recognizes the plurality of the human soul. Because, as the Vate reminds us, we are made of many "selves," and only in the unstable harmony of these voices is our deepest truth constructed.

Visiting the Vittoriale degli Italiani means immersing oneself in a unique universe, where every object chosen by d'Annunzio becomes a fragment of an autobiographical mosaic. It is a place that is not only visited: it is lived, because it allows one to enter the restless and visionary soul of the Vate.

At the same time, owning a manuscript in facsimile means continuing that dialogue with beauty that d'Annunzio himself cultivated. It is not just collecting: it is an act of belonging, a way to keep in one's home a fragment of history, art, and immortal spirit.

? Discover the Vittoriale. Live the experience. Take an Antiquus facsimile with you.