sibelius
golfo del tigullio
festival
e riviera
august 2018
sibelius around us
villa molfino
by federico ermirio
“My family lives here at Pension Suisse, but I rented a studio in a hillside villa, surrounded by a very interesting garden; roses in bloom, camellias, almond trees, cactus, agaves, currants, magnolias, cypresses, vineyards, palms and flowers in quantity”.
(letter to Axel Carpelan, March 6 1901)
Jean took up residence in Rapallo in February. An infamous weather time; cold, rain ... and without stoves, as he described shocked and almost angry.
He found accomodation with his wife Aino and their daughters Eva and Ruth at the Pension Suisse, a building located on the seafront featuring the characteristic Ligurian dark and white horizontal stripes, still visible today.
On the right side of the building was placed in 1965, on the centenary of the birth of the composer, a commemorative plaque, by the will of Pietro Berri, a doctor and passionate musicologist, and of the Tigullio Cultural Art Club. On the opposite side another plaque recalls Friedrich Nietsche who at the end of the nineteenth century stayed in various villages of the gulf, completing the first part of “Thus spoke Zarathustra”. He wrote to have met him along the paths of Monte di Portofino.
The building, called Casa Garibalda and now a national monument, is located on the Vittorio Veneto promenade. At the beginning of the twentieth century the beach arrived to the base of the buildings facing the sea. Sibelius, a little impatient and eager for more silence, urged to find a more quiet room-study, decided to rent a room/studio in the hinterland, on the “Cerisola hill” in “Fossato di Monti” at ‘Villa Molfino’, reachable on foot – for a good walker like Sibelius – in just over half an hour from the Pension. They were not daily movements only; he often remained in the villa for consecutive days.
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Rapallo, beginning XX century - on the left the "pension suisse"
For over a century this place has remained a question mark for Sibelius's biographers and scholars. Erik W. Tavaststjerna, author of the first monumental biography, mentions the villa Molfino, generically placing it on the hills of Rapallo, evidence that Sibelius did not intend to provide details to the illustrious interlocutor, who however was a great friend and discreetly confidant. A halo of mystery or better of discretion towards a corner of nature and beauty that the musician continued to keep intimately, intent on not divulging the exact locality or to mention the owners who he probably met. Vittoria Molfino in those years was used to frequent the villa with a certain regularity. In a photograph dating back to the early twentieth century, the period of Sibelius's stay, one can see, among others, Vittoria, the consort Antonio De Ferrari and two of their sons. The photo was probably taken by the third son Mario, grandfather of Mrs. Paola De Ferrari, whom I thank for providing the image of the family.
Lacking the contribution from Tawaststjena, the search for details on the room rented by the composer in the Rapallo area did not lead to significant results in subsequent investigations. Karl Ekman, Ferruccio Tammaro, Glenda Down Goss, Andrew Barnett, to cite the most authoritative scholars, probably gave up the matter - and rightly too, being at the bottom a minutia - merely citing the villa Molfino or at most Cerisola locality.
I myself have been induced by mere curiosity, aided by the fact of living in Rapallo and fostering since youngest student a strong interest in the music of Sibelius, of Scandinavian and Northern Europe area in general.
Molfino is a widespread surname in the Riviera di Levante; we find it also in the western Liguria and in the south of Piedmont Region. Limiting to the Gulf of Tigullio, there are more then numerous villas, houses, country houses and properties that bear this surname. Similarly "Cerisola" connotes an area that is not only hilly; it also gives its name to a climb, to a street and finally to one of the largest of the six “sestieri” (ancient word indicating the towndistricts) of Rapallo.
I must honestly say that attempts have not been few, many the failures, numerous wrong paths, in a territorial context naturally modified since 1901 and largely overturned by post-war building industry. So, long story short, the very few clues, a little luck, an indispensable flair swayed by reasoned deductions and some confirmations... allowed me to locate what seemed elusive. And that has always been there! A site certainly corroded by time and decades of carelessness, dismissed by the neglect for the wide surrounding area where brambles, stone walls of collapsing terraced land - the tipic Ligurian “fascia” -, stacks of illegally thrown garbage (the inevitable carcasses of washing machines and other...) are testimony to an almost null interest in public and private management, when unfortunately parceled out.
It must be said that the locality "Fossato di Monti" is also crossed by the modern road leading to the Sanctuary of “Nostra Signora di Montallegro”at over 600m above sea level, an important tourist destination in the Tigullio, also reachable by the cablecar from the centre of Rapallo.
If the territory of “Fossato di Monti” surrounding the property is substantially abandoned, on the contrary the villa with its adjoining buildings together with the vast park are slowly regaining their former luster, thanks to the current owners. From less than a decade they themselves have begune an impressive as much as delicate restoration, renovating malconceous portions and rearranging the numerous degrading strips of land where ancient and rare trees emerge.
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villa Molfino - principal building the whole property
The origins of the villa date back to the late sixteenth century. This first construction was made for Gerolamo Stronati, while the first enlargements were commissioned by a priest, Francesco Maria Stronati. He obtained permission from the Archiepiscopal Curia of Genoa to build a chapel dedicated to St Francesco Saverio. Then the property passed to the Banco di San Giorgio, whose “Protettori” (trustees) sold it at the beginning of the eighteenth century to the Assereto Family, who remained the owners for over a century, until the time of Giuseppe Assereto, a man of noble virtues and an important personality in Rapallo and in the Gulf of Tigullio. He was an ambassador of the Repubblica di Genova, and later a senator with the union of Liguria and Piedmont. He was remembered for his great humanity and commitment to charity. The Community of Rapallo named a street after him.
After the death of Giuseppe Assereto in 1830, the property was inherited by his nephew Matteo Molfino (1778–1859). He was an advocate and a patriot, a great friend of the Italian poet Ugo Foscolo, and moreover a man of vast culture, who promoted the establishment of new schools, contributed to the construction of the Rapallo Aqueduct and the Parco dell’Acquasola in Genoa. He created a rich library at the Villa, containing precious historical documents that he had been researching meticulously for decades.
Matteo Molfino collected paintings and archaeo logical artefacts. His library was enriched by rare editions of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Cultural openness, historical interest and a love for collecting also distinguished the life of his son Giorgio Ambrogio Molfino (1829–1890), a parliamentary deputy with links to the statesman Agostino Depetris.
At that time the property consisted of a main building and other smaller ones. Villa Molfino became a meeting place for artists and cultural personalities, a place for shows, performances, readings and the like, with the participation of actors, poets and writers. The surrounding land was gradually transformed into a luxuriant park, remarkable for its botanical variety, and enriched by an open amphitheatre called “Teatro di verzura”, which Ambrogio dedicated to the villa’s former owner
Giuseppe Assereto. Ambrogio married Amalia Feletti, whose first name we find inlettering made from colourful marble fragments, on the north wall of the main building. Rows of cypresses were arranged in the shape of the letter “A”, the initial of Amalia. In subsequent decades these same cypresses would inspire a poem by the Nobel Prize-winning German writer Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1946): “cypresses, cypresses inhabit / the paradise of my youth”.
Giorgio Ambrogio and Amalia reserved a small part of the park, in dim light, as a cemetery for their dogs, “friends of man”. In later years other small animals were buried there by the loving hands of those who, sometimes almost clandestinely, wished to leave the remains of their “faithful friends”. It's one of the oldest cemeteries for domestic animals in Italy, located at the beginning of a path to Gravero, a group of stone ancient houses now abandoned.
The Molfinos had no children. After the death of Giorgio Ambrogio in 1890 and, a few years later, of his beloved wife Amalia, the villa underwent various changes of ownership within the family.
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cypresses giorgio ambrogio molfino path to villa Molfino
In 1901 Sibelius spent part of the spring in Villa Molfino. The crashing waves, the jovial shouting of the fishermen, the all-Mediterranean liveliness of the inhabitants, the numerous occasions of county fairs and religious celebrations with fires and firecrackers on the beach where the Pension Suisse faced, bothered the little more than thirty-year-old Nordic artist. It took a few days to convince him to urgently seek a shelter to compose in peace, leaving his wife Aino and their two daughters at the hotel. It was probably Mr Ducci, owner of the Pension, who suggested that the composer should to rent a studio in Fossato di Monti. There Sibelius had an old spinet or fortepiano (probably bought by Matteo Molfino in the late 18th century, and subsequently stolen) at his disposal.
From the Pension it was easy to see the hill and glimpse the villa as the crow flies, reachable on foot through paths and typical steep Ligurian steps of broken stone or by carriage on dirt roads.
A fascinating itinerary for the Finnish composer, within a nature in the middle of the spring, warm and sunny, after the trail of the tedious winter days that marked the first period of his stay.
On the front facade of the “Casa Garibalda”, now in perfect condition, no longer used as a guest house but for other uses, emerges since centuries the marble coat-of-arms of Biagio Assereto, Admiral of the galleys of the Serenissima Repubblica of Genoa, died in 1456.
It's an evocative detail that would suggest a descent with Giuseppe Assereto, the ancient owner of Villa Molfino, at least according to Michele Giuseppe Canale, historian, writer and patriot who in 1856, at the death of Matteo Molfino - grandson of the Assereto - "romantically" mentioned the possible indirect link between the Molfino and the heroic Admiral of the fifteenth century.
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vittoria molfino, her husband and some relatives the name "Amalia" made with colourful marble fragments
in the garden of the villa (1900-1901)
The Molfino family was very well-known in Rapallo, not only because of the importance – already mentioned – of a personality like Giorgio Ambrogio, but also because of its well-known liking to be surrounded by painters, actors, writers, poets and musicians.
Although Sibelius was usually accurate in describing places, situations and states of mind in his very detailed correspondence and later in his diary, he never mentioned the enlightened owners of Villa Molfino, preferring instead to describe its natural beauty, scents, extra ordinary vegetation, botanical peculiarities and even the walks he took in Tigullio and its surroundings.
He wrote to Carpelan in February 1901: “Finally… I've found refuge in the Mediterranean in a garden with flowering roses, plane trees, olive trees, palms, flowering almond trees; oranges, lemons, ripe mandarins on the trees, and more besides. In other words, an earthly paradise. I could not believe that the Earth was so beautiful…” – and again, in March: “I’m sorry you cannot be here with me to enjoy all that nature has to offer. Especially the walk to Zoagli and Chiavari, one of the most beautiful places in Italy. The road runs along the sea… Currently here is the time of the violets and the woods are fragrant. Around Rapallo I’ve been to Santa Margherita, San Michele and Portofino, where the beautiful blue Mediterranean is crowned by the most luxuriant flora”.
We have recalled the silence that Sibelius demanded, he used to the fairy-like immobility of the beloved Finland, to the point that the stone wheels of three water mills under the Villa Molfino, today still visible but not active, also disturbed him. An exception was the widespread bells ringing of the many churches in the area; not a noise, evidently as much as a suggestion, an awesomeness.
Some melodic sequences are sketched on a manuscript pentagram sheet of that spring of 1901 (cataloged No. 1550). Next to these, we read in Swedish Klockorna i Rapallo (the bells of Rapallo). One fragment of just a few notes undoubtlily leads to a theme of the last movement in the Second Symphony, composed largely during the stay in the Gulf.
In the garden at Ainola, Sibelius’s home in Finland and now a museum, there is a small slope that was particularly dear to the composer – who baptized it Rapallo, as proof of his and Aino’s affection for the Gulf of Tigullio.
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manuscript n.1550
References
P. L. Benatti: Il Rapallin, 2017, VII/12
A. Ferretto: Il Mare No. 53, 26 April 1919
P. De Ferrari, P. Melli, G. Mennella: Colligite fragmenta 2, Atti del Convegno, Bordighera 2012
The Artistic Director of the "sibelius festival - golfo del tigullio e riviera" and the Association AkREibA are grateful to the current owners of Villa Molfino for permitting the use and publication of private data.
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© Federico Ermirio 2018
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