Articles

Gabriele D’Annunzio (Pescara 1863-Gardone Riviera, Brescia, 1938), a novelist, poet, drama writer and politician, took active part in the First World War. During the war, he made a long stay in Cervignano, near the headquarters of the Chief Commander of the Italian Third Army led by his friend Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, the duke of Aosta. This territory was actually the main base of D’Annunzio’s feats at war: the Battle of Timavo, the Flight over Vienna and the Endeavour of Fiume.

At Via Martiri della Libertà, along the promenade of river Ausa, stands the house GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO rented from his friend Pietro Sarcinelli during his long stay in Cervignano from 1915 to 1917. This house, which the poet renamed “L’Eremo” (the Retreat), is where he wrote his works “La Leda senza cigno” and “Tre salmi per i nostri morti”. A plate on the wall of the residence now recalls his stay. Few steps away, Piazza Marconi was the place where a mosaic floor was found by chance 1 metre below ground near a church from the Lombard age during some excavations carried out to build a shed. The site was investigated by UGO OJETTI, a writer and art critic who was in charge for the Italian Chief Commander of rescuing and protecting artefacts and monuments in the war area. About his friendship with D’Annunzio  – Ojetti was the author of the propaganda leaflets the poet launched during his flight over Vienna – he wrote the book “D'Annunzio, amico, maestro, soldato”, published after his death in 1957. Since 2017, the ground floor of the campanile of the church has housed the “Antiquarium di San Michele Arcangelo”, an exhibition of the archaeological finds from this and other excavations performed in the area, including the area of river Stella and the so-called “storage of Muscoli”, in addition to the clock of the Church of San Michele. Not far from Cervignano, Strassoldo castles and their park were recalled by GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO in his work “La Leda senza cigno” when he compared Leda’s hair to the willow trees stretching out their branches to touch the water of river Taglio.