Italian Metaphor For... — RICHARD SCHULMAN

My friend’s brother was a priest. The priest had a position in the Vatican.

The priest’s position at the Vatican was to curate concerts for the Pope and visiting dignitaries.

The music world was his toy store. He could just ring up and have an opera, or a symphony and more at the Vatican’s doorstep.

The priests’ other important responsibility was to raise funds for the Vaticans performances, and music library collections. This responsibility dictated that the priest would entertain wealthy aristocrats. Patrons with titles: Marchioness here a Contessa there or a Duchess would do.

When the appointed occasion arose, he revved his little red convertible Alfa Romeo.He would place his pedal to the metal, and speed out of the Vatican.With one of his patrons smiling wildly in the passenger seat, the two would race past all known sites which drew attention: Castel Sant’Angelo, Colosseum, Altar of the Fatherland and more. The priest’s little convertible always seemed to accelerate at the exact moment that dozens would bellow, “There goes the crazy priest and…”.

The priest had this buoyant hysterical cackle that seemed to wink at death in the skies. Only the priest was in on the humor. He did not have a drivers license, nor did he know how to drive. His red car became so popular that tourists would wait at appointed corners to point laughing fingers towards the runaway priest until one day…

His relationships with certain companionship was a bit lurid, even by Vatican standards.Nobody is sure if the priest’ transparent nature for embracing life’s gifts was a tease towards the unsuspecting onlookers. But some suspect something darker:his entreaties faced deaf ears. So like “ET” it was time to reckon with personal issues and head home.

A particular brilliant day was at hand. He and one of his companions made their way to the Amalfi Coast for a picnic of sorts. Still a brilliant day with a beautiful companion. The afternoon still ahead, The priest once again revved up his little engine and raced down the coast. He sped past cars, espied the landscape and so it is said sped a bit faster and over the cliffs.

There is a rumor that once the car took flight all of Rome observed a silent Benediction. One person near the accident suggested that he could hear Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” as the little red Alfa Romeo took off skyward before disappearing into the Tyrrhenian Sea.

I somehow felt oddly emboldened by this example of living. A bit ambiguous but striking.

I remember needing to race one day from Orvieto to Montalcino. I raced at top speeds. I passed many towns seemingly yelling, ”which way to Montalcino, I am late??”. The Italian air was aiding my Italian language skills. But to what point? I had a very limited time. I needed to make a fabulous portrait and return in time for dinner. I failed on both fronts.

There was this constant comic bubble filled with expletives as I drove between the two destinations. My mind was jammed and blurry. The Italian miles I logged were coming at me like a thousand symmetrical patterns. Each pattern part of an amazing mosaic like toast points with something jammy on the end.

I remember lakes: Como, Maggiore and more. I remember cemeteries above ground and those communing with the River Styx. I remembered Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in Italy. I remembered Lord Byron had set out to murder Percy Shelley in Italy. But mostly I remember the footprint of a nation and historical references to leaders like Caesar, Mussolini and more.

The many Italian places/faces my camera has seen are windows into more stories: Assisi, Rome, Florence, Milan, Bari, Bologna, Padua, La Spezia, Pisa, Sottsass, Piano, Fuksas, Soleri, Burri, Aulenti, Clemente, Cucci, Chia and…

When my car and camera arrived atSandro Chia’s villa. This hulking Alpine mountaineer in Ovids’ sandals greeted me. Our eyes spanned over the miles of Brunello di Montalcino. Chia proudly said. “This is all mine”. I knew it wasn’t true. The view reminded me of the first Apollo landing: Infinite space and dreams of infinity.

We had known each other for about fifteen years. Dinner at Mikio’s West Village Omen or Tribeca’s Odeon restaurants and a few nightclubs in between, our conversations always started with what the future might be.

Sandro’s backstory was a bit maddening, but his arrival into the art market as part of the three C’s (Chia, Clemente, Cucci) was like Caesar’s triumphant defeat of the Gauls. For a short time the Italians were the darlings of the art market. This newly mellowed prince on top of the Montalcino cliff was the artist I came to make new pictures of.

This was to be my third session with the man the artist. Nothing could be better than hearing “I am glad you are still making photographs”. I asked why, and he said, “because people need to see them. We sat with his wife and kids. We had a some soup, a bite of bread and cheese.

Finally we got around to our present lives as creatives. I have seen so many miles of this Italian world, and yet two hours and change of a couple of bulls looking at art indulging in some “snaps”kicking some dirt around, was dreamy.

{ James Joyce’s Ulysses had nearly 5000 corrections in Publisher Sylvia Beach’s early editions}

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