Abstract
In 1884, Dario Papa and Ferdinando Fontana, both well known in the milieu of Scapigliatura, published a reportage that is a kind of written photograph of New York at the time. Papa had travelled to America with Fontana to discover the secrets of modern journalism. Another well-known writer of the Scapigliatura, Giuseppe Giacosa, friend of Arrigo Boito and Emilio Praga, travelled to the USA a few years later. Giacosa also wrote a series of interesting travel notes later collected in Impressioni d’America, but here are especially mentioned some articles dedicated to him in the local press and preserved at the New York Public Library.
If we were seized by a strongly regressive involuntary memory, or if we began the game of associations between flavours, anecdotes, common sayings and idioms; between songs, poems, pages of literature and melodrama, Milanese genius loci and specialized critics, Scapigliatura would taste of mundeghili, oss buss, scighera and navili (Milanese dialect: meatballs, braised veal shank, fog and Navigli).
Without venturing as far as the hallucinations induced by absinthe spiked with laudanum, let all of it be showered with barbera wine – not coincidentally reprised, many years later, by a vintage Giorgio Gaber – or any ‘acqua tengiuda’ (Cherubini, 1839: 6) heavily adulterated, as was then typical for fourth-rate wines sold for small change at the shoddy market of the ‘fôffa’ (Arrighi, 1977: 59).
The iconoclasm of novels, short stories and poems is perfectly able to utter ‘il canto anatemico e macabro’ (Boito, 1877: 74) of the Milanese ‘serbatoio del disordine’ (Arrighi, 1862: 6), and accompanies such a meagre banquet, which is for example well depicted by the prose of Paolo Valera, but also by the poetry of Praga, as he wrote: ‘un niente/frammisto di cipolle e di patate’ (Praga, 1862: 265). All of this, of course, is for use and consumption of the shallowest imagination still gravitating around Scapigliatura.
On the contrary, being able to imagine a cosmopolitan artistic movement is a sign of a richer literary competence. A movement that was the root of literary modernity and that, while not forgetting a local palette of form and content – when, so to speak, it was wearing slippers in the domestic dinette – was at ease putting on polished shoes and fine gaiters to go outside. A movement that was willing to open itself, metaphors aside, to European and overseas literary novelties, getting ready to see for itself what was happening beyond the boundaries of a regional and national domestic dimension of a still-young Italian nation.
Of course, when they became tourists in the homeland of their beloved Baudelaire, France (as happened to Arrigo Boito and Praga in their youth), or travellers in the USA, the country of the equally beloved Poe (this is the case of the lesser-known Dario Papa and Ferdinando Fontana but also of Giuseppe Giacosa), the Scapigliati lost some of their subversive coat. The levity of a puff, or the stream of a stronger wind, depends then on the specific weight of the different authors. All of them, anyway, belong to the ‘pandemonio del secolo’ (Arrighi, 1862: 6), although wearing different tabs and chevrons. The Scapigliati looked beyond the borders and had mostly supranational models, and this is a well-established fact. A case in point: Igino Ugo Tarchetti. The writer was a scrupulous devotee of English literary production. Laurence Sterne's influence echoes in his work; and his appreciation for Tom Jones by Henry Fielding belongs to his critical essay ‘Idee minime sul romanzo’. This is the same Tarchetti who even plagiarizes The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley in his L’elixir dell’immortalità, and is plagiarized, 20 years after his death, by a mysterious and unidentified A Bedford, signing in 1896 a story titled Fosca – heavily indebted to the original, shall we say – for a pulp magazine named ‘The Argosy’, established in New York in 1882 by Frank Munsey (Del Principe, 2007: 147–159). Tarchetti's attention is of course also drawn to Poe's fiction; a sulphurous Boito, not yet Verdi's librettist, although already a romantic scapigliato, refers to him as ‘in anger at the regular laws of Beauty’ (Boito, 1865: 11).
It is one thing to read, quite another to go and see for oneself, venturing into the streets of the new American world with enthusiasm. And, perhaps, being preceded by a sort of anticipated celebrity – this is the case of a close friend of Boito. Broadly speaking, and referring to more specific studies still in progress, we could start from Giacosa (back then, friend of Boito but also of Marco Praga, the son of Emilio, and of Giovanni Verga, who just then was taking his first steps in the environment of the Lombardy publishing industry).
In 1891, 10 years after the publication of Verga's masterpiece and together with the gradual fading of the Scapigliatura movement, Giacosa landed in New York. In 1898, he published his Impressioni d’America, a reportage consisting mostly of loose notes, especially in the first pages, where he detailed, in a fragmentary style, episodes that occurred during the ocean crossing aboard the ship Bretagne. His description restores details that conjure the atmosphere and setting of an ocean liner of the time, to the benefit of today's readers. In the early pages, the author is just at the beginning of his journey. The ‘3200 miglia’ might seem ‘un’inezia’ (Giacosa, 1898: 8), only to reveal, later, the vastness of the space contained in written form, and the perception of time lying and expanding as days pass, seemingly increasing rather than diminishing.
Giacosa, in America, is however a famous writer. The rough antics of Scapigliatura date back 30 years earlier, when he went through the vie bohème without dying of it, just like Boito, Carlo Dossi and Luigi Gualdo, and unlike Praga, Tarchetti, Giulio Pinchetti and other more unfortunate protagonists of the first Italian proto-avantgarde. The first works of this youth are far away, and the librettist writes for Giacomo Puccini (often in collaboration with Luigi Illica), just as Boito did for Verdi, increasing his fame and becoming a fully recognized protagonist of the Italian cultural milieu.
Setting off for America with Giacosa would be too easy, however. Quoting Eugenio Montale, one prefers to follow ‘le strade/ che riescono agli erbosi fossi’, as Montale wrote, that is the paths drifting away from what is already known and, while crossing routes already beaten, perhaps lead to outcomes that are not immediately taken for granted, casting light on the attention paid by the Italians to the USA, from the point of view of a booming publishing industry. In 1877, Milan ‘primeggia […] con 137 periodici di vario genere, ma Roma la segue da presso con 109 testate che, solo sette anni più tardi, Dario Papa conteggerà a 200, contro le 150 di Milano’ (Farinelli et al., 1997: 171; see also Corradi and Valisa, 2021).
The primary role of newspapers, gazettes, information sheets, daily bulletins and periodicals in the literary development of modernity is highlighted especially by the extensive studies of Farinelli, who focused on the very close relationship between literature and journalism in the Scapigliatura movement. These media became not only a vehicle of fundamental critical proposals and interpretation, such as those signed by Cameroni and Capuana regarding French Naturalism; they also were a true narrative stage, igniting a primordial relationship between literature and media, hosting novels, even in instalments, that would later be collected into volumes. Many writers who, at night or whenever they could, would devote their time to their creative vein and art were forced by day just to make ends meet, to attend the asphyxiating rooms of more or less improvised editorial offices or, for the most fortunate, the elitist and demanding circles of the early national Italian journalistic publishing industry. Nor is it a matter of being published in leading newspapers, such as the Corriere della Sera, born in Milan in 1876, perhaps through the publication of a feuilleton or some novella; it is rather a full and active participation in literary journalism and an early militant critique, up to the composition of articles retelling lore and even plain chronicle. In other words, the writer becomes a journalist and vice versa: the influences, the mixing of styles and languages, the interweaving of different registers reach their maximum and seem to mix up the card deck in a game of exchange between expressive and informational languages. However, some authors of that time would not have liked to be compared to some ‘sparuta anguilla’, in compliance with Montale again. Therefore, refraining from further bothering Montale, it should be noted that Ermanno Paccagnini, choosing a fortunate critical expression, wrote about the Voci sommerse della Scapigliatura; he dated back to the brim of post-unitarian years the fundamental role played by newspapers in building a completely modern literary environment.
Leaping forward in time about one century, thus landing in 1983, Italo Calvino, referring to ‘un’esposizione’ in Paris ‘dedicata ai fatti di cronaca’, dwelt on the fact that ‘i casi eccezionali’, those arousing ‘l’emozione delle folle’, could be read not only ‘dal punto di vista della storia del giornalismo’ but also as ‘metafora moderna di folklore’ (Calvino, 1995: 455). And folklore is often manipulated in fully literary terms. The new folklore is also the very modern and scientific language of the dawning criminology, of the early Italian chronicle journalism and, concerning creativity, of a burgeoning marginal literature. The latter, adopting the blueprint of the French feuilleton, soon grew also in Italy, branching out into a plethora of genres, including judicial, investigative and detective stories. How much do these genres owe to journalism? Quite a lot, starting with Matilde Serao, one of the godmothers of Italian detective novels and the national ‘proto-thriller’. However, it was Carolina Invernizio, a lesser-known author, who opened the doors of her own writing workshop to the reader, highlighting the importance of popularization: ‘la trama la scoprivo leggendo le cronache giudiziarie e anche quelle più comuni dei delitti e dei fatterelli vari. Da un nonnulla tiravo fuori gli elementi della narrazione’ (Zanzi, 2013: 105). It is thus clear how much some admittedly very meagre news about crime and criminal events could already represent sources of inspiration for a pioneer of Noir.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in 1883, Joseph Pulitzer picked up a newspaper in dire financial condition, New York's World, and in a few months turned it into the most sensationalist periodical of the time. The journalist had the idea of enriching the newspaper contents with news reports devoted to the most heinous crimes, offering readers descriptions and head shots of suspects and perpetrators. The mugshots by Lewis W Heine, drawing from the tradition of grand-guignolesque 18th-century canards, enriched both the American news reports and the archives of the New York Police Department, in addition to many criminological museums in the USA and beyond.
Within Italian borders, the situation was very different. While not yielding to the most sensationalistic chronicle description, Italian journalism looked to foreign newspapers with increasing attention; and in addition to overseas examples (such as the aforementioned World), the references were French newspapers such as the Petit Journal and English ones – overlooking the Times, preferring the more popular Observer, Punch and the Lloyd Weekly News. But there is often an exception that proves the rule: while other Italian newspapers were reluctant to publish features and information that nowadays would fall within the genre of crime news, the newspaper L’Italia was basing its main strength on crime reporting, and openly set out to emulate the New York Herald, edited by James Gordon Bennet. However, very soon ‘il modello americano abortisce’ (Farinelli et al., 1997: 199).
L’Italia, therefore, was pushing the pedal of sensationalism to the metal. Enter the Venetian Dario Papa, a name well known amongst authors of democratic journalism. Papa cut his teeth at several newspapers, including Il Pungolo, close to Scapigliatura; in the early part of the 1880s, he rose through the ranks, becoming editor in chief of Corriere della Sera. In these years, he undertook a study trip to the USA as correspondent for Corriere, aiming to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of American journalism to bring back home. In his words, in Italy, ‘pochi sono i giornali […] che passino in numero considerevole i confini della loro provincia’ (Papa, 1880: 265). His companion was Ferdinando Fontana, another well-known author from Scapigliatura. Born in 1850 into an extremely poor family, Fontana nonetheless devoted himself with uncommon vitality to journalistic writing, going so far as collaborating with the best-known newspaper of Scapigliatura counter-culture but also with Corriere della Sera, L’Italia del Popolo and L’Illustrazione Italiana. Meanwhile, he did not give up publishing verses perfectly in line with the themes of the Milanese bohème, such as those dedicated to the patients of the Milanese asylum Senavra, and opera librettos. Fontana, returning in 1884 from the USA, on the verge of signing together with Papa their reportage, was a well-known representative of the waning Scapigliatura for these reasons. The same goes for Papa, who attempted to apply what he had learned in the USA in terms of journalistic entrepreneurship, trying to revive the almost lifeless body of L’Italia. The newspaper had been founded in 1882, and shortly after its first issues its editor Carlo Borghi had died. Papa tried every means to redefine the fortunes and topics of the newspaper, just like Pulitzer did with World, but with catastrophic results. Back from his trip to the USA, he set himself up as a courageous standard-bearer of a failed real revolution in the Italian journalistic landscape. His American experiences and what he had learned in New York in terms of journalism can be clearly traced in his reportage, published in 1884, where the author writes: gli uffici dei giornali americani non sono come i nostri, infestati da una quantità di uomini di lettere, che non si sentono nati a fare i piccoli servizi del pubblico, che hanno sempre delle grandi idee da espettorare, ma rifuggono dalla fatica di fare del giornale un veicolo di notizie, anziché un’accademia. (Papa and Fontana, 1884: 471)
Papa himself declared that ‘Il pubblicista, come il pubblico abbia una giusta, una elevata idea dell’impersonalità, del giornalismo. In Inghilterra e in Germania il giornalismo politico essendo affatto impersonale, porta maggiori frutti di bene che altrove’ (Papa, 1880: 337). Papa and Fontana's reportage is a curious and ponderous work; at times it is cumbersome but it is undeniably interesting. It is divided into two parts, the first edited by Fontana and the second by Papa. It is up to Fontana to describe as objectively as possible, with some literary licence, the urbanistic outline of the city. Fontana describes Broadway, Downtown and Brooklyn. But in the last pages of his own section he leaves aside the descriptive style embracing the more anthropological register of a cultural essay, portraying the lives of the Italian immigrants who, due to insomnia or fate, failed to dream the ‘American dream’: Pur troppo alla grossa falange dei lustrascarpe che fa parte della nostra colonia a New York, bisogna aggiungere l’altra grossissima degli spazzaturai. Se si prova una stretta al cuore vedendo le centinaja di italiani curvi ai piedi del proprio prossimo, si ha una sensazione di vero dolore vedendo le migliaja piegar la schiena dinanzi ai mucchi delle immondizie per frugarvi dentro a guisa di cani famelici. (Papa and Fontana, 1884: 181) Molti amici m’hanno usato la gentilezza di dirmi o di scrivermi che aspettano con desiderio il mio libro sull’America e molti credono che appunto il ‘libro sull’America’ sia questo che or pubblico con l’amico Fontana. Ma non è così. Questo […] è un libro sulla città di New York, non sul paese degli Stati Uniti, che ho percorso tutto quanto dagli Stati dell’Est a quelli del Far West, attraverso il nuovo granaio del mondo, il paese dei Mormoni, il cosiddetto deserto americano e la California fino a San Francisco. Dei miei viaggi nell’interno del continente […] parlerò in un’altra pubblicazione. (Papa and Fontana, 1884: 212)
This is followed by short and quick-paced chapters – about 10 to 15 pages long – about ‘le razze, i bambini, gli studenti, gli uomini, le donne’; and then ‘la società, comfort, alcool, arte’, up to the chapter about the famous PT Barnum and, above all, newspapers, the purpose of the authors’ journey. Although the intent was to emulate the overseas journalistic style, the reportage also contains observations that are far from admiring: Il New York Herald è alla testa di tutti per la ricchezza, per le sette macchine ad un tempo che impiega […] Ma v’ingannereste d’assai se credeste che l’Herald sia alla testa degli altri per autorità, dottrina, patriottismo. Esso è il Secolo degli Stati Uniti, per intenderci: non ha alcun colore politico fisso: ma, a seconda dei momenti, lo prende. (Papa and Fontana, 1884: 475–476)
More than anything else, Papa is interested especially in the history of the Herald: Il passato dell’Herald ‒ scrisse un giorno il Truth, la lingua sacrilega della stampa ‒ è un passato di sporcizie, di infimi prodotti, di miserabili libelli, di indecenze, di ostracismo sociale. Uno sporco era l’uomo che lo fondò. E l’uomo che lo stampa attualmente è suo figlio; indegno figlio di un padre indegno. Il vecchio Bennet metteva in mostra, nel suo giornale, i vezzi della moglie; il figlio Bennett è un insultatore di donne, un paria sociale. Per cui il Truth giustamente soggiungeva all’indirizzo del proprietario del giornale: L’uomo che riceve la paga d’infime pubblicazioni come quelle che abbiamo citato è un marrano. Egli ricevette denaro per tali pubblicazioni durante anni e anni. Le spende […] nelle orge e nelle ubriachezze, tali che anche suo padre spesso lo rimbrottò. Il suo nome è James Gordon Bennett. (Papa and Fontana, 1884: 476–477)
When the Milanese publisher Galli issued the reportage by Papa and Fontana, the latter was on the crest of success as the author of the successful libretto Le Vili, commissioned by Puccini. This allows us to come back to the theatre, and especially to Giacosa. It is to him and to the aforementioned Illica that we owe at least three unforgettable librettos, again for Puccini: La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). Anyway, Giacosa had already established his first relationship with the USA several years earlier, starting from 1891. In these years, the author proposed a five-act drama, La Signora di Challant, at the Carignano Theatre in Turin. Set in the Middle Ages, the leading actress was the renowned Eleonora Duse. Before her we should also mention Sarah Bernhardt: the drama had been written by Giacosa at the invitation of Bernhardt, who between 1891 and 1892 would perform the pièce on tour in New York and Chicago. Giacosa did not miss the opportunity to follow the actress, and his American journey has been documented by a few journalistic accounts, including by Giacosa himself in his Impressioni d’America: Appena ebbi messo piede a New York, il direttore di teatro che mi aveva chiamato in America, mi face avvertito che la sera stessa sarebbero venuti a intervistarmi i redattori teatrali dei maggiori giornali. Già al mio passaggio in Parigi un corrispondente del N.Y. Herald, mi aveva minutamente richiesto di notizie biografiche e del mio modo di pensare intorno al teatro moderno. Richiesto sul secondo punto, non con domande categoriche, ma per via di una conversazione ch’egli dirigeva con grazia volubile ed esperta, mettendoci molto del suo e mostrandosi colto ed arguto conoscitore della letteratura drammatica d’ogni paese. Mi era rimasto di quel colloquio una impressione graditissima, quantunque mi fossi più volte accorto di non farci la prima figura, perché dell’arte, chi la pratica, non sa parlare con quella larghezza generalizzatrice che riesce tanto bene a quelli che la considerano fuori di sé e sono avvezzi a classificarne i modi e le tendenze. (Giacosa, 1898: 91)
We focus mainly on a couple of interviews given to the Dramatic Mirror of Chicago in 1891 and on some celebratory articles about Giacosa published a few years after his death to commemorate his work and his contribution to the Realism movement. One interview refers to La Signora di Challant, mentioning that it had been written three years before the premiere and had been written for Bernhardt. Giacosa had met Bernhardt in Italy, telling her about his idea. She expressed enthusiasm for the project, encouraging Giacosa to proceed, only to fall ill or simply vanish, leaving poor Giacosa ‘almost discouraged’ and the work unfinished. Bernhardt, however, got in touch again a few years later, again asking Giacosa to complete the work. The occasion is a US tour, and Giacosa writes the two final acts in 10 days. In a press release – written in French, since Giacosa did not know a word of English – the author declares that: I think Sarah will make a success in the play. There is plenty of material in it which will afford her ample opportunity for some fine acting. Sarah is very enthusiastic about it herself and insisted on my coming over there to direct the rehearsals. I used to live in the historical house of the famous Lady of Challant and Sarah thinks I can contribute a little local color. (Anon., 1891b)
Concerning Giacosa's greater or lesser satisfaction with the premiere being held in Chicago instead of Paris, he declared: ‘I am very proud of the first production of my play being given in America. I think I am the first Continental author to have play produced here for the first time’ (Anon., 1891b).
The Italian's ‘impressions of America’ are varied, and although ‘the rudeness of Cincinnati and Chicago had shocked him beyond expression, he was greatly surprised – even charmed – by New York’. This is followed by admiring descriptions of Broadway shops and the image of Giacosa gently running his hand over Arnold and Constable's expensive silks or admiring Tiffany's jewels. ‘You Americans’, he declares to his anonymous interviewer, ‘are fond of luxury. I had no idea there was as much in the country as I have seen during my brief stay here’ (Anon., 1891a).
The interview proceeds with a few questions on the concept of realism in art: Giacosa was an ardent advocate of the spread-out genealogy of realism between the 19th and 20th centuries. These questions seem to be almost an introduction to a richer interview he gave two months later, published again by the Dramatic Mirror, adding more details about the upcoming play and above all remembering the friends ‘Verga, Praga e Rovetta’ (Anon., 1891a). When asked about Italians’ taste in regard to Realism, Giacosa, who elsewhere has been compared, even in terms of physical bulk, to Emile Zola, answers that Realism is very much appreciated in the North, where there are fewer realist writers, and less appreciated in the South, where such writers abound. Concerning Zola and Giacosa, he states: ‘Altogether his general appearance is not unlike that of Emile Zola and en passant it is a curious fact that both men are leaders of the realistic schools in their respective countries' (Anon., 1891a).
A seemingly insignificant blurb published in the Dramatic Mirror on 9 January 1892 is more striking. It is actually a firm excoriation of Signora di Challant, in which we read that not only had the Italian performance of Duse been disastrous but even Bernhardt had been unable to break through to the audience. In short, an unmitigated fiasco: When Signor Giuseppe Giacosa sailed for home a few weeks ago he felt confident that his drama, La Dame de Challant, was certain to acquire popularity. But his hopes have not been realized. Bernhardt has not been able to gain public acceptance for the play. The Italian original, with Duse in the name-part, was a failure. Giacosa rewrote one act entirely and reshaped the rest of the play during his American visit, but even with those alterations it is not palatable. (Anon., 1892) Alla prima rappresentazione, a Milano, la bufera cominciò fin dal primo atto. Il Giacosa, angosciato, passeggiava per l’atrio del teatro, assieme ad Emilio Praga. [...] tese l’orecchio: ‘Applaudono!’, disse al Praga, con il suo viso raggiante. ‘Avranno cambiato commedia, rispose imperturbabile il poeta della Tavolozza e delle Penombre. (Simoni, 1956: 4–5)
Today many titles are still renowned, along with many pages and with the poems by Boito and Camerana, representing the first babbling of truly modern Italian literature. The failure of certain artistic, literary and theatrical works of Scapigliatura bears witness to its indefatigable and courageous persistence in providing words, sounds, colours and moods to the complex cultural feelings of the twilight of 19th century. Scapigliatura becomes therefore the expression of a rebellion that is not necessarily revolutionary but is ready to pave the way for those who later knew how to give themselves an order, thus becoming a true avant-garde.