Pastore Luigi Santini: 'The [now lost] grave of a seven-month-old baby recalls the first stay in Florence of Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), the great painter from Basel, who lived for a time in the neighbourhood of the cemetery. Married to the Roman Angela Pascucci, Böcklin later adopted Florence as his second home, and died at Villa Bencistà, below Fiesole. In spite of the evidence that a famous painting of his, now in Basel, another version in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and another in Berlin, was inspired by the island of Ponza, it reminds many of the Porta a' Pinto cemetery where his child is buried, both because of its name - Island of the Dead - and the composition itself with its cypresses'. The painting is an imaginary composite, really, of several places, Florence's 'English' Cemetery, Venice's San Michele, the island of Ponza, the island of Ischia. That the artist obsessively painted it five times following the death of his seven-month-old daughter indicates the depth of his emotion concerning his loss. His massive tomb is in the Allori Cemetery. Sergei Rachmaninoff composed the Island of the Dead as a symphonic poem about the picture.
Böcklin/+/ Maria Anna/ Arnoldo/ Svizzera/ Firenze/ 20 Marzo/ 1877/ Mesi 7/ 1387.
Böcklin/+/ Maria Anna/ Arnoldo/ Svizzera/ Firenze/ 20 Marzo/ 1877/ Mesi 7/ 1387.
Pastore Luigi Santini: 'The [now lost] grave of a seven-month-old baby recalls the first stay in Florence of Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), the great painter from Basel, who lived for a time in the neighbourhood of the cemetery. Married to the Roman Angela Pascucci, Böcklin later adopted Florence as his second home, and died at Villa Bencistà, below Fiesole. In spite of the evidence that a famous painting of his, now in Basel, another version in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and another in Berlin, was inspired by the island of Ponza, it reminds many of the Porta a' Pinto cemetery where his child is buried, both because of its name - Island of the Dead - and the composition itself with its cypresses'. The painting is an imaginary composite, really, of several places, Florence's 'English' Cemetery, Venice's San Michele, the island of Ponza, the island of Ischia. That the artist obsessively painted it five times following the death of his seven-month-old daughter indicates the depth of his emotion concerning his loss. His massive tomb is in the Allori Cemetery. Sergei Rachmaninoff composed the Island of the Dead as a symphonic poem about the picture.
Böcklin/+/ Maria Anna/ Arnoldo/ Svizzera/ Firenze/ 20 Marzo/ 1877/ Mesi 7/ 1387.
Böcklin/+/ Maria Anna/ Arnoldo/ Svizzera/ Firenze/ 20 Marzo/ 1877/ Mesi 7/ 1387.
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