Most people have heard of The Viper of Milan, and many have read the novel that bears that name. Perhaps some of you have seen armor depicting a huge serpent standing on its tail, with a small man in a huge mouth. A monster eating a child. The Visconti emblem was so unsightly. There is a story that a member of this family killed a Saracen during a crusade and appropriated his emblem for himself. It must be said that it came at just the right time: the family had a serpentine disposition and was ready to devour anyone who stood in its way.
Among the noble families of medieval Milan, the Visconti were the most capable and cunning. They seized power and did not let go of it for more than a hundred years. In the modern city there is little that now reminds us of them, with the exception of the cathedral, the construction of which, as I already said, was conceived by Visconti. Having degenerated, they managed to be reborn in the Sforza family, which took the baton from them. The last of the family, the illegitimate daughter endowed the Sforza house with all the Visconti qualities - good and bad, and the second family became a reflection of the first, even perpetuating the name Visconti - Galeazzo Maria. You will never see such an extraordinary name in Italy again. It was given, according to rumors, to the son of Matteo il Grande, because he was born on a January night in 1277 to the crowing of roosters - ad cantu galli - and the name Maria Visconti was given to all boys since GaleazzoIII's prayer to the Virgin Mary for an heir was heard .
The Visconti were also associated with the Plantagenets. When I wander through Milan, it seems unreal to me that Chaucer could walk these streets, or that Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the tallest and handsomest of the sons of Edward III, married Violanta, daughter of Galeazzo III, and that Bolingbroke long before he became king Henry IV, visited the court of Milan and became friends with Galeazzo III. Henry even turned the head of the young Visconti heiress, but she could not get him, otherwise she would have been queen of England.
What were the Plantagenets thinking when they went to Lombardy for Lionel's wedding in 1368? A cavalcade of five hundred aristocrats and more than a thousand horses was moving there. They were heading to a country of wealthy people, the richest among whom were the Visconti. These people are self-made. They were not aristocrats by birth - in the feudal sense of the word; They did not have a king, but they were somewhat dependent on the absent emperor. The travelers prepared the British for the fact that they would see a strange land where the elite lived not in castles, but within city walls, like some merchants. However, many of them were merchants. This country could hardly surprise the English aristocrats with anything. Everything turned out differently. When they saw this land with their own eyes, their amazement knew no end: the rulers here hired an army, but did not go to war themselves, they sat like merchants and led the battle at the table, and not from the saddle, as kings should have done.
The Renaissance era was beginning, and the cunning prince came to power long before anyone had heard of Machiavelli. The riches of Milan continued to amaze medieval travelers for more than a hundred years. Cobbled streets, stone palaces, shops filled with goods, factories - all this amazed foreigners in the same way that visitors to the United States of America were amazed at the beginning of the 20th century. Everything that was produced in Milan was done at the highest level. The best military horses were nursed here and the best weapons were made. War horses grazed on beautiful water meadows. It is said that during public holidays the warriors of Milan stood on both sides of the street with their weapons raised aloft, encased in sheaths of inlaid steel. Milanese silk was famous throughout Europe, as was the wool of English and French sheep spun and dyed in Milan.
During the wedding celebrations of the Plantagenets - the Visconti in Milan, there were two villains: Galeazzo II and his brother Bernabo - they ruled the country on equal terms. It is difficult to find two people so different from each other. Bernabo, a rough old soldier, married Beatrice della Scala from Verona, whose name is still on the lips of music lovers. Bernabo's family was large, and, despite the fact that he had thirty-six illegitimate children, his wife, according to rumors, loved him dearly. Bernabo was also a passionate dog lover; the unfortunate peasants had to serve five thousand hunting dogs. Bernabo did not have a sense of humor; there was no subtlety in him, only rudeness and cruelty. One day he somehow didn’t like the pope’s letter, he stuffed it into the throats of the envoys, two Benedictine abbots, and forced them to chew it along with the seal and silk ribbons. Chaucer must have taken an interest in him because he met him when he traveled to Milan on business. Another brother, Galeazzo II, was distinguished by a more peaceful disposition, and his family was not so large: two children - daughter Violanta and son, the future Galeazzo III, who later became the most powerful and sinister Visconti. But in 1368, when the British arrived at the city gates, that time was still ten years away.
The English were greeted by the entire courtyard. Galeazzo II's blond hair was decorated with a wreath of roses. The wedding ceremony was held in front of the doors of the Church of St. Mary of Lago Maggiore, and at the feast even the meat was gilded. The trumpets welcomed the appearance of a new dish - there were sixteen of them in total, and each time the guests received gifts. Some were given military armor or dogs in golden collars; some received bolts of silk and brocade or falcons attached by a gold chain to a perch covered with velvet and gold lace. They say that among the guests invited to the wedding was Petrarch, and therefore a new era was emerging. The French poet Froissart was also present. Perhaps he was sitting next to Petrarch - the old romantic and chivalric age side by side with the new world of Plato's academy. Froissart received as a gift a tunic of expensive material that fitted him like a glove. Unfortunately, the alliance between the Plantagenets and the Visconti was short-lived: Lionel, Duke of Clarens, died five months later. Perhaps the hospitality extended to him in the hot climate did not do him any good. He was buried in Pavia, and his remains were later transported to England and buried in Clare, Suffolk.
Why Chaucer went to Milan ten years later is unknown. The mission was diplomatic and was headed by Sir Edward Berkeley. Since they met with Bernabo Visconti, perhaps the matter concerned the war with France, or perhaps the conversation was about the marriage of Bernabo’s daughter Catherine and eleven-year-old Richard II. In May, the poet left London for Lombardy. All we know about his journey is the expense report: he was given 13 shillings a day. This was not the first time Chaucer went to Italy: in 1372 he had already visited Genoa and Florence, and still he was amazed at Milan, built of stone. What a contrast with the unpaved London from which he had just left! “The gutters are new, the streets are paved with stone, and there seem to be no thieves at all,” writes Marchet Chute in Geoffrey Chaucer of England. “Each inn is responsible for registering guests and recording their names in special magazine. Visconti had his own mail, which he sometimes allowed others to use. At the post office, the letters were stamped and not opened, unless Bernabo had reason to suspect some kind of sedition.”
Chaucer must have settled in the old Visconti castle, which still stands in the same place and where Bernabo lived with his numerous legitimate and illegitimate offspring. The English ambassadors discussed matters, it seems to me, in a large hall that has long disappeared, which is a pity - after all, Giotto himself painted the frescoes for it. I can imagine Chaucer, lying in a huge Italian bed in a room lined with stone and hung with tapestries, listening to the sounds of the Milanese morning reaching him and thinking about the little room above Aldgate, the east window of which looked out over the fields of poor Whitechapel, where his books are kept. I have no doubt that Chaucer also sat in the library that Bernabo collected in the castle. Perhaps the poet, like any other tourist, visited the house near the Basilica of St. Ambrose, the same one in which Petrarch lived for several years. “For Chaucer, Italy was both what Europe is to the modern American and what America is to the modern European,” wrote Dr. Coulton. - In Lombardy and Tuscany he saw much more than in Bruges - new methods of trade and industry, more spacious business buildings than even in his native London. Moreover, in Italy he found what Ruskin so admired on his first visit to Calais: here “the connections between the past and the present are inextricable...”.” If Chaucer ever met Petrarch or Boccaccio, then this should have happened during his first visit to Florence - in 1372, because on his next visit both were no longer in the world.
It is interesting to imagine Chaucer walking the streets of Florence seventy years before Lorenzo de' Medici and Botticelli. He must have talked with the elderly Florentines who had seen Giotto at work on the bell tower. “Most of what pleases the traveler in modern Italy already existed under Chaucer,” wrote Dr. Coulton, “and he also saw a lot of things that we will never see... The pale shadows of the frescoes, which we look at with a bitter feeling, were then in all its beauty and freshness, while thousands of others have long since disappeared.” When he walked along the streets of Florence, sung by Boccaccio, he saw the very trees on the slopes of Fiesole, under which the lovers of the Decameron told their stories. Chaucer was there at the age of thirty, and he had not yet written a line of The Canterbury Tales. And when he wrote, in “The Monk’s Tale” he mentioned the death of Bernabo Visconti, which occurred in 1385, seven years after the poet visited Milan. “This,” says Mr. Coghill in The Canterbury Tales, “is the very last historical event published in a poem.” And here are Chaucer’s lines about the death of Bernabo - according to Mr. Coghill:
Barnabas Visconti, glorious ruler of Milan,
Barnabas Visconti, god of revelry without obstacles
And the scourge of the country! Bloody death
Your run to the pinnacle of power is over.
A double relative (he's yours, after all)
Was both nephew and son-in-law together)
You were secretly killed in prison,
How and why, I honestly don’t know.
This describes the most insidious and dramatic event in the history of medieval Milan, and many Englishmen met direct participants in this story. Among them was Gian Galeazzo, the only son of Galeazzo II. He was fifteen years old when his sister married Lionel of Clarence. The teenager appeared at the wedding feast in a magnificent dress. Under the command of Gian Galeazzo was a group of young men dressed in military armor made by the best armorers in Milan. Galeazzo was a studious and shy young man. He gave the impression of a bookworm for whom the library is the best place in the world. When his father died in 1378, and he became Galeazzo III, he was twenty-five years old. His old uncle, Bernabo, with whom he shared government, believed that his nephew’s character was not strong enough. For seven years Galeazzo was an exemplary prince. His kindness and humanity attracted countless friends to him in Pavia. The prince had his residence in this city, while Bernabo lived in Milan. As he grew older, my uncle became even more irritable and domineering. One day Galeazzo decided to visit the tomb of the Virgin Mary in Varese. They say that on the way he wanted to stop in Milan to hug his beloved uncle. Bernabo rode out to meet his nephew and smiled: “Poor fellow, what a coward he is: having gone on a short journey, he took with him a guard of four hundred soldiers.” Galeazzo whispered something, the guards closed around Bernabo Visconti and escorted him to Milan as a prisoner. The palace was sacked and members of the large Bernabo family were killed. Galeazzo was proclaimed the sole ruler. Seven months later, old Bernabo died in prison. It was suggested that he was poisoned.
The Serpent of Milan ruled for seventeen years. Although he himself never appeared on the battlefield, his army won victories everywhere. He was successful in everything except fatherhood. As I said, the huge cathedral in Milan is a colossal monument that reflected his desire to have an heir. This was the same Visconti, the greatest ruler of his time. He became friends with Bolingbroke many years before he became Henry IV, King of England.
Although Henry was a rather weak monarch, during his time as prince he traveled a lot and loved adventure. By nature, he was something of a knight errant, traveling around England and Europe, attending tournaments and jousting matches. In 1393, when he was twenty-six years old, he spent two hunting seasons with the Teutonic Knights, hunting unfortunate Lithuanians who turned out to be Christians. When the “crusade” was over, Henry Bolingbroke, whose title at that time was Earl of Derby, accompanied by friends and servants, headed home through Vienna and Venice. The Doge accepted him, and the Senate gave permission to hire a galley to sail to the Holy Land. Returning to Venice, he and his companions dressed themselves in new silk and velvet clothes and went to choose housing. Two heralds announced Henry's arrival in advance. They rode ahead to select houses and stables and nail heraldic shields to them.
Arriving in Milan, Henry learned that Galeazzo was ready to admit his relationship with him, remembering the ill-fated union of Lionel and Violanta, concluded thirty years ago. Although Bolingbroke was a little over twenty, and Galeazzo almost fifty, they became friends. Once again the opportunity arose for a marriage between an English prince and a girl of the Visconti family. The girl was fifteen-year-old Lucia. She said she fell in love with Bolingbroke and wouldn't marry anyone else! More needs to be said about this one-sided love. Lucia never married her hero, but fate destined her to live and die in England. Fourteen years later, when Bolingbroke became King Henry IV, he remembered his “virtuous relative” and found an English husband for her, the handsome and gallant young Edmund Holland, Earl of Kent. The Englishman's marriage with Visconti was again unlucky: less than a year had passed since Lucia was widowed. Her husband was killed in Brittany during the siege of a fortress. She, however, did not return to Milan, remained in England and outlived both the king, whom she loved, and his son, Henry V. Lucia died in 1427 on a land she would never have seen if the prince had not visited Milan.
When the time came for Bolingbroke to fight Mowbray in a tournament - readers of Shakespeare will remember that such fights were prohibited by Richard II - he chose a Milanese weapon. Galeazzo really wanted his friend to be well protected, and he sent several of his skilled armorers to England to see that everything was done as it should be.
Bolingbroke's intellectual pursuits deserve great interest. Should not the king be named the first Englishman interested in the new sciences, and not his son, the Right Honorable Duke Humphrey, to whom this honor has always been attributed? Bolingbroke was the first English king to collect books and passed on his love of knowledge to his sons. He was also generous to scientists and writers: the king doubled Chaucer's allowance, encouraged John Gower and invited the poetess Christina de Pisano to court. I wonder if he knew Greek? In any case, it is quite possible to assume that, while in Milan, he met with two important Greeks, one of them was Peter Filargus, Archbishop of Milan, who studied at Oxford. Six years later, Bolingbroke would become Henry IV, and Philargus would become antipope Alexander V. Another Greek, Imanuel Chrysolaras, was the first teacher of classical Greek and may well have taught at Pavia during Henry's stay there. In any case, Chrysolaras came to London when Henry had already become king, and visited the cathedral library, looking for ancient manuscripts. Duke Humphrey clearly owed a lot to his father.
No matter how much I looked at the Milan Cathedral, I always thought about the vanity of human aspirations and about parental disappointments, for Galeazzo III believed that his gift to the Virgin Mary would be quickly rewarded. When the walls had grown only a few feet, his second wife Katerina, who was also his cousin, gave birth to a son and heir, and four years later - a second. Out of joy and gratitude, Galeazzo decreed that his descendants should henceforth bear the name Maria. Fate was merciful to him: he did not know that his dynasty would end with Giovanni Maria and his brother, Philip Maria.
The second Duke, Giovanni Maria, was a sadistic young man who enjoyed watching wolfhounds tear criminals to pieces. This curious passion for large and ferocious dogs seems to have been a characteristic of the Visconti family. Just remember Bernabo Visconti and his five thousand hounds. It was said that his grandson, dissatisfied with hunting dogs, prowled the streets of Milan at night with his hunter Squarsia Giramo and a ferocious pack that rushed at everything that moved around the city. When the second Duke was twenty-four years old, three Milanese aristocrats killed him and threw his body into the cathedral, in the temple that his father had founded as a donation for the long-awaited heir.
The third and last Duke of Visconti, Filippo Maria, was of a different character. He had a brilliant, lively mind and cunning, had a good understanding of people: he hired the best generals and managed not only to restore the shaky order in his possessions, but also increased his treasury. Again the name of Visconti sounded menacingly in Florence and Venice. Like his predecessors, he knew how to keep secrets. No one could compete with his intelligence service. He himself was a pitiful creature: he was afraid of thunder, and therefore he built himself a room in the castle with soundproof walls and locked himself in it, trembling with fear, during a thunderstorm. His edicts, however, brought entire states and governments into a similar state! He married a woman twice his age, but when she fulfilled her political role, he accused her of adultery and executed her. Having reached middle age, he gained weight and was very sensitive about his own appearance, and therefore did not allow portraits of himself to be painted and did not appear in public. He surrounded himself with astrologers and sorcerers. His subjects, who sometimes saw him silently walking along the night corridors or silently, secretly gliding along the canal in a boat, felt that there was something devilish about him. Reluctantly, he married a second time, but on his first wedding night he howled like a dog. He didn’t want to have anything to do with his young wife, but put her out of sight: he locked her in the other half of the palace along with women and spies. It’s strange, however: it is known that Filippo Maria had several devoted friends and a secret long-term love for a talented woman, Agnes del Maino, although it is difficult to believe the veracity of all these rumors. The monster certainly could not win the Heart of such a good woman as Agnes del Maino. They had an only daughter, the illegitimate Bianca Maria, a very good, charming and talented girl. In her youth, she fell in love with a gray-haired general who served with her father, Francesco Sforza. They got married, and, as I already said, the Visconti family continued again...
(excerpt from G. Morton’s book “Walks in Northern Italy”) photo: wikipedia.org
Every artist has at least one creation that captures the drama of his own life. For Count Luchino Visconti Di Modrone, this is “The Leopard”: a poignant story about the decline of a noble Sicilian family. The aristocracy is leaving; its place is taken by the nouveau riche. A noble system of thoughts proves its unsuitability in the face of life's realities.
By the end of his life, Visconti hated life - only because he did not understand it. Life stubbornly refused to submit to his thought patterns, his dreams and illusions; and he took revenge on her, blaspheming her and not even feeling gratitude for the generous gifts lavished on him. And he was given everything: beauty, talent, wealth, countless friends, awards, and honors...
And so, just before the finale, the external world narrowed for him to the size of a wheelchair. A world that no longer requires any effort or action from him. Through the headphones, the Brahms symphony flowed into him by itself. Did he bother to listen? Or did the music, by putting him to sleep, only protect him from the fear of death?
But he once studied composition and played the cello quite well. At the age of thirteen he made his debut on the stage of the Milan Conservatory. It would seem like a great start to a musical career. But becoming a professional? Day after day, torment yourself and your instrument, chasing the ghost of perfect sound? Stay up at night trying to unravel the mysteries of interpretation? Why do all this if you already feel chosen.
The cello was a whim of his secular, ambitious, loving, bourgeois mother. Carla Erba was the daughter of a pharmaceutical magnate. Having married Giuseppe Visconti di Modrone, Duke of Grazzano, she wished to give her seven children a real aristocratic upbringing. In their childhood there was only music and languages, languages and music... Their mother taught them discipline, but forgot to enlighten them about the existence of real life. She considered it the greatest blessing that her children would never have to work and establish themselves in the human world. Loving passionately, she, without knowing it, brought upon them an ancient curse that had been weighing on the Visconti family since ancient times: to always want unlimited power over reality and to always suffer defeat when winning.
And it began more than a thousand years ago, when the Visconti, descended from Charlemagne, were the richest and most influential family in Republican Milan. The surname Visconti itself comes from the title: vis-conte - viscount, or count's governor. But power on earth alone was not enough for these people. Oh, with what scope, with what magnificent disregard for reality they fantasized! Their descendant-director never dreamed of this.
One of the Visconti, named Bernardo, built a luxurious palace in which 500 purebred dogs lived. The same number of their brothers were kept by the residents of Milan, who were forced to submit a detailed report every month to a special dog department. If a dog died untimely, the citizen responsible for it immediately went to the scaffold. Gianmaria Visconti, one of the last Visconti, Dukes of Milan, was also fond of dogs. According to some reports, he specifically trained them to “hunt” people.
Luchino Visconti did not build palaces for dogs. But in his youth, he was passionate about horses. At an age when normal people are writing a master's thesis or flirting with girls, the future director spent his days training in dressage. Years will pass, and he will train actors in the same way. Alain Delon, who himself knew a lot about horse breeding, subtly noticed that Visconti treated people like horses. The director believed that anyone could be trained, including humans. And if a person resisted, so much the worse for him.
His first guinea pigs were a young married couple - Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. Both of them had already acted in films by that time, but Visconti wanted to fashion “something like that” out of them. And he invited them both to play in a play he staged based on the play by the 17th century English playwright John Ford, “It’s a Pity You’re a Whore!” It doesn’t matter that neither one nor the other has ever played in the theater and had no acting education. In addition, Schneider, being from Austria, knew almost no French at all. But Visconti was confident that he could train them. It seemed to him piquant to put real lovers on stage, as Schneider and Delon were at that time. Moreover, in such a scandalous drama, where the plot was based on incest - a love affair between a brother and sister.
In addition, almost simultaneously, Visconti involved Romy Schneider in his famous film “Boccaccio 70”. There, Schneider plays the role of a seductive and vicious aristocrat who sexually provokes her husband and then demands payment from him for sex. Unlike Beltolucci, Visconti did not film live sex. But he extracted the desired emotions from the actress, incredibly humiliating her and forcing her to experience painful shame.
In the same way, he worked with her on her role in the play. In addition to exhausting rehearsals, she attends intensive French language courses at the director’s request. She is saved from a nervous breakdown by an attack of appendicitis that happened literally on the eve of the premiere. An operation, a few days of forced rest... this is the very case when a hospital bed is only for the good. But no one canceled the premiere, and the actress was forced to play in a corset so that the seam would not come apart.
Was the trainer happy with the success of his pets? And was there success itself?
History is not exactly silent about this, but it is impossible to understand anything. According to press reports, the 1,100-seat Le theater de Paris, despite its original plebeian purpose, was chock full of aristocracy and celebrities of all stripes. There was Jean Cocteau and Anna Magnani, Ingrid Bergman and Shirley MacLaine. The very presence of these persons - in an explosive mixture with the scandalousness of the plot itself - was enough for the tabloid press to trumpet about the performance on all corners. It is difficult to say today what really happened at the performance. They say that poor Delon was petrified with fear and could not squeeze out a single word, and Romy shyly and sweetly recited the text. Was it so? No one knows anymore, or remembers, or doesn’t want to remember or know. The performance was “epochal,” as they say in cultural circles. Whether he was good or bad - essentially no one noticed. And this was the case with many, if not all, of the director’s creations.
Reality does not forgive violence against itself - this is what the Visconti could never understand, either in the fourteenth or in the twentieth century.
Visconti's ascension to the Milanese ducal throne lasted more than two centuries. Actually, they created this throne. In times of relative anarchy, they ruled the city magistrate, then became rulers and even began to transfer their power by inheritance. Finally, in 1310, the ruler of Milan, the Ghibelline Matteo Visconti, voluntarily opened the city gates to the German king Henry VII. The conqueror, who soon became Holy Roman Emperor, was crowned with the Lombard iron crown and, in gratitude, appointed Matteo Visconti as his governor and Milanese count. In Dante's Divine Comedy (Purgatory, Canto VIII), which was written at this time, the Visconti heraldic sign is mentioned: “the viper that leads Milan into battle.” Later the coat of arms was modified and began to depict a snake devouring a baby. Those who have read Jung know what this means. Oh, how cruelly the bearers of this coat of arms must have suffered!
Their rule was unprecedentedly despotic and cruel. Unlike the Medici in Florence, the Visconti did not play at either enlightenment or humanism. Bernabe Visconti was especially villainous - the same one who was subsequently captured and executed by his nephew Giangaleazzo Visconti, who in a matter of years conquered almost all of Northern and Central Italy, and in 1395, having paid the Holy Roman Emperor the fabulous sum of 100,000 florins, received from him the title of Duke of Milan, established specifically for this purpose.
But Giangaleazzo never achieved his goal - to unite all of Italy under his sovereign scepter. On September 3, 1402, he died of the plague, leaving behind two young sons. One of them subsequently poisoned his mother, the other strangled his wife. Both fought a lot and destroyed an unprecedented number of their own fellow citizens. In May 1409, war-weary Milanese gathered in the square and began shouting: “Peace! Peace! - in response to which the then ruling Gianmaria Visconti ordered the soldiers to calm the people, and they killed two hundred people. After that, by a special decree, he forbade the utterance of the words “war” and “peace”, so that even the priests during Mass, instead of “dona nobis pacem”, said “dona nobis tranquillitatem”.
Overwhelmed by cruelty and thirst for power, the Visconti Dukes forgot that this power would need to be transferred to someone. The last in the family was Bianca Maria, the natural daughter of Philip Maria Visconti. As a woman, she had no rights to the Milanese throne, and her father married her to the condottiere Francesco Sforza, a rootless but power-hungry man. He waited until his father-in-law died, provoked food riots in Milan, and was successfully drafted to the dukedom.
Thus the glorious family of the Visconti dukes of Milan died out. Apparently, the director was not their direct heir, but belonged to a certain side branch. But the idea of the extinction of the family was close to him - like those old dukes, he also did not leave an heir. Neither in life nor in art. In life - because his personal characteristics did not allow him to associate himself with a woman. In art - because of a deep, insurmountable hatred of the “young, unfamiliar tribe.” To those who were to live after his death.
Visconti reproached his young colleagues for their dependency and conformism, for the fact that “they don’t want to delve into anything.” “In general, cinema today is insignificant, deaf and blind to life... I look around and see nothing. And if I see, then there are only failures.” About Zeffirelli: “The boy showed promise, but deteriorated along the way. And now every now and then he falls into such stupid, such feminine vanity! You know, I called him, I told him: “You’re worse than Taylor!”
Visconti always had a lot of bitterness in his soul. Perhaps its reason is in that long-standing, ancestral loss, when the flesh - possession - turned to dust, and only the spirit - the title - remained. What a miserable fate! It’s the same as a singer without a voice or a beauty who has lost her former beauty.
The first in their family who managed to rise from the ruins of former greatness and build a duchy “out of this world” was Ennio Quirino Visconti, the famous archaeologist, curator of the Paris Louvre. His works were referred to by Stendhal in his Lives of Haydn, Mozart and Metastasio. His son Lodovico Tullio Giacomo Visconti designed the new buildings of the Louvre and created Napoleon's tomb in the Palais des Invalides.
This reverent admiration for culture a hundred years later was passed on to Luchino Visconti. His films are an endlessly ongoing attempt to resurrect ancient flavors. Through the tangible density of the material world - mirrors and dishes, lace and tulle - he sought to recreate the very flesh of the 19th century. In his concern for material authenticity, he often reached the point of eccentricity and hysteria. His people swarmed to satisfy his unimaginable whims. He chased them away like dogs or even worse, flatly refusing to start filming until real diamonds from Cartier, Bohemian crystal, and bed linen from the purest Dutch linen appeared on the set. And one day he demanded to get the best French perfume for the heroine.
It would seem, why would there be a smell in the film if the viewer still won’t feel it? But besides the audience, there are also actors. And the director needed the actor, through smell, through real signs of time and place, to get used to the distant world, which was recreated with the utmost authenticity on the set. A materialist to the core, Visconti sincerely believed that only through the authenticity of things can the authenticity of feelings be achieved. Actually, both people and feelings were exactly the same things for him.
By the age of 30, having turned into a complete sybarite and playboy, he wandered around the world, not understanding it at all and not loving it. He had no education, with the exception of the cavalry school in Pinerolo, which he entered after running away from college under the influence of unhappy love. Then, almost still a boy, he fell in love with a girl for the only time in his life and tried to make a film with his own money in which she was to play the main role. But nothing came of it. The girl soon married his brother, and the offended director destroyed all the footage.
Cinema turned out to be a poor help in solving real problems. But when, by the will of fate, he found himself in Paris in 1936, it was cinema that became his salvation. He met milliner Coco Chanel, who, seeing his unenviable position, assigned “this aristocrat” (as she called him) to Jean Renoir’s film crew. He was a film director highly respected in avant-garde circles, the son of a famous artist.
Since Visconti could not do anything, he was offered the humiliating position of costume designer, which he was forced to accept. And then the entire troupe, led by Renoir, fell ill with the “infantile disease of leftism,” which at that time was extremely fashionable among the Parisian intelligentsia. It was then that Renoir proclaimed his principle of “engaged” cinema, which was supposed to deal a decisive blow to the hated “bourgeois reality.” But the film was made indecently apolitical: “A Country Walk” based on a story by Guy de Maupassant. One can imagine how the declassed count dresser with his aesthetic habits looked against this operetta “revolutionary” background.
So Visconti for the first time felt like either a black sheep or a black sheep. In order to somehow find a common language with the leftists around him, he began to read Marx, cram communist slogans, study the films “Chapaev” and “Start in Life”... He did not like Soviet cinema at all. If Renoir had found out that the new costume designer preferred Sternberg’s “The Blue Angel” with the luxurious Marlene Dietrich, he would have fired him immediately.
But Visconti liked Marxist ideology. Moreover, for all its incompatibility with the aristocratic way of life, Marxism turned out to be healing for him. He saved the future director from uncertainty and neurotic fears.
“It’s good to be a communist, because communists take the most correct position,” he said. To be the bearer of the “only true teaching”, to never doubt anything - isn’t this the cherished dream of every neurotic?
Stability, however, turned out to be illusory. A month later, it started to rain on the set, actor Georges Darnou had a toothache... Renoir announced that he was leaving everything and going to film another propaganda piece. “Country Walk” was completed in 1946 in the USA, but Visconti no longer participated in it.
After the epic with Renoir ended, Visconti again found himself out of work. But now he knew that he wanted to make films. In 1943, he directed his first film, Whiplash, based on James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. Filming took place in Mussolini's Italy. The director obediently submitted the script to the local Ministry of Culture, received permission to film and safely began work. In our area, for this, they would probably be accused of collaboration and sent to camps for many, many years. Visconti somehow presented himself as a victim of fascism and a hero of the Resistance. When the war began to come to an end, and there was a smell of frying in the air, he hastily joined the ranks of the Communist Party of Italy, immediately fell into the clutches of the Gestapo, and from there to the prison hospital, where he safely waited for the arrival of the Americans. It must have been because the Americans freed him that he hated America especially strongly.
And at the end of the war, he borrowed money from the Italian Communist Party and made his only Marxist film, The Earth Trembles (1947). The idea was extremely “cool”, even by the standards of then fashionable neorealism. Not being a professional himself, he recruited complete amateurs into the film crew. A possible reason for this was fears that professional actors, cameramen and artists would very quickly expose his unprofessionalism.
However, he always had a nose for talented people. His artist was a dropout student of architecture, Franco Zeffirelli, and his assistant director was Francesco Rosi. Both of them later became cult directors of Italian cinema. The actors in the film were residents of the village of Achi Trezze - fishermen and fishmongers. There was no script; the characters spoke in a Sicilian dialect. Visconti believed that this strange aesthetic film was destined for a great destiny. He had no doubt that, after watching it, ordinary people would rise up and overthrow the hated bourgeois system. When the party money ran out, he did not hesitate to sell the family collection of paintings and jewelry - just to finish work on the film.
Unfortunately, this sacrifice never paid off. Box office success was zero. Three decades later, American writer and member of the French Communist Party Susan Sontag included Visconti's film in her purely subjective list of "12 films most valuable and relevant in the context of modern film culture." But this, paradoxically, only emphasized the aesthetic marginality of the film and its extreme isolation from the tastes and needs of ordinary people for whom it was supposedly made.
Visconti's activities in another field were much more successful - in opera. And how could it be otherwise, if the opera - or rather, the famous Milan Opera House La Scala- was the Visconti family fiefdom! The theater itself stands on the very spot where Bernabo Visconti erected Chiesa di Santa Maria alla Scala- "St. Mary's Church by the Stairs." And perhaps for this reason, six centuries later, the Visconti became the official trustees of La Scala. During Verdi’s time, this temple of art was almost entirely supported by the money of Visconti’s grandfather. And when he died, his eldest son Guido Visconti de Modrona took over the trusteeship of the theater - as his contemporaries said, “an excellent man, but barely knowing seven notes in music.” He was the future director's uncle. The Duke became the de facto director La Scala and ruled autocratically, like all the Visconti. Their family had its own box, and musicians such as Giacomo Puccini and Arturo Toscanini visited the house.
True, if the director met Toscanini then, this fact is unlikely to be imprinted in his memory. In 1908, having fallen out with Guido Visconti, the maestro moved to America for thirteen years, where he became the absolute master Metropolitan Opera. Only in 1921, having expelled the hated Duke, did he reign again La Scala, being no longer just a chief conductor, but a director and artistic director. "No more dukes!" - he said decisively.
In 1929, Toscanini left the theater again - this time as a result of the persecution that Mussolini's people launched against him. He returned only once, in 1946, to conduct a gala concert in honor of the restoration of a building destroyed by bombing. La Scala. After the war, power in the theater was again seized by the Visconti and their henchmen. (How similar this is to the medieval wars that their ancestors, the Dukes of Milan, waged seven centuries ago!) The official chief conductor was Victor de Sabata, who had stained himself by collaborating with Mussolini. And the unofficial one is Tullio Serafin, who was once in particular favor with Guido Visconti and served as chief conductor from 1908 to 1918 - that is, precisely at the time when Toscanini was expelled from there. In addition, the poorly gifted conductor Antonino Votto occupied a prominent position in the theater, in collaboration with whom Visconti carried out his first production in La Scala- “Vestal Virgin” by Spontini. The premiere was timed to coincide with the opening of the 1954/1955 opera season and took place, according to tradition, on December 7 (the day of St. Ambrosius, the patron saint of Milan).
The main role in this performance was played by Maria Meneghini-Callas, the wife of the owner of the brick factories, Battista Meneghini. Management La Scala intensively promoted her in contrast to Renata Tebaldi, who was the favorite of the Milanese public and Arturo Toscanini himself. The warm attitude towards Ms. Meneghini-Callas was dictated not so much by her artistic merits as by the hefty sums of donations from her husband, who viewed his wife primarily as a profitable investment. The love side of marriage did not interest him at all, since he was indifferent to women. Perhaps this brought him especially close to the then leadership La Scala, and with the conductors they promoted, and with Luchino Visconti, who never hid his sexual orientation.
These people bet on Maria Callas... and they were right. Nervous, eccentric, with a strange and unusual way of singing (which could so easily be passed off as some kind of genius), a born tragic actress, she was perfectly suited for the role that was assigned to her. As Pierre Cardin, who observed the process of her promotion up close and participated in it himself, once said, “Callas became one of the first artificially produced stars. After all, next to her from the very beginning were the legendary directors Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Marco Ferreri and actor Marcel Escoffier. In modern terms, these four producers made Callas from scratch. I think that without them Maria would not have had such a stellar career. They taught her dramatic art, taught her stage presence, etiquette, and instilled a sense of taste and style in clothing. They were the ones who made her lose weight.”
Visconti staged three performances with Maria Callas in La Scala: the already mentioned Vestal Virgin, La Traviata (1955) and Anne Boleyn (1957). In total, he staged 44 dramatic performances, 20 operas, 2 ballets... and only 14 films that were more like operas. The “film director, representative of neorealism” made the only neorealist film in his life - “The Earth Trembles.” A label that has nothing to do with reality. So much the worse for reality!
On July 27, 1972, in Rome, on the terrace of the Eden Hotel, he suffered an ischemic stroke - thrombosis of cerebral vessels. It’s so strange that this happened in “Eden,” that is, in heaven! “Eden” was the name of the theater founded long ago by his father. His own theater was called by another heavenly word - “Eliseo”. The “Edenic” stroke led to paralysis of the left limbs. Visconti was flown from Rome to Zurich, to the same clinic where Thomas Mann, his favorite writer, spent his last days with the same diagnosis. The director was only 66 years old. Fate granted him almost 4 more years in the care of his sister Uberta. At times he tried to work. In the room, opposite the wheelchair, hung his favorite painting by Jean-Marie Guiney. She depicted either an archangel or a winged demon, stretched out on the ground, with a bowed head and fallen wings. On March 17, 1976, after listening to the end of Brahms’s Second Symphony, Visconti said: “Now that’s enough.” The sister asked: “Are you a little fed up with music?” “Yes,” he answered and lowered his head. A few hours later his heart stopped.
In the Luxembourg garden in Paris there is a sad sculpture of Valentina of Milan (Visconti). She lived in the Middle Ages at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries. She became famous as a patron of literature and enjoyed popular love.
The Duchess's fate is sad.
The statue of Duchess Valentina of Milan in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris caught my attention. I wanted to know who this sad lady is.
Valentina was the only daughter of the Duke Visconti of Milan; for her wedding with Duke Louis of Orleans, she received from her father as a gift a fortune worth three million florins (land, jewelry, castles). At the French court, not everyone received the Milanese lady favorably; Queen Isabella hated her new relative and accused her of witchcraft.
As the patron saint of writers, the Duchess is depicted holding a book
Valentina Milanskaya (19th century engraving)
In those years, King Charles VI the Mad was on the French throne. In fact, the state was ruled by his wife Isabella of Bavaria, a powerful and cruel lady. Isabella disliked the young duchess, for whom King Charles VI had friendly feelings and called her “beloved sister.” The king demanded that Valentina take part in state affairs.
Queen Isabella explained the influence of Valentina of Milan on the king through witchcraft, accusing the duchess of casting a spell on the king. Charles VI's attacks of madness became more frequent, which, according to the queen, was caused by the magic of her new relative.
Isabella of Bavaria, Queen of France (19th century stylization)
The heir to the throne also fell seriously ill. “Despite the prayers that were going on both in Paris and other places, this dear child, after two months of serious illness, fell into extreme exhaustion, his body was just bones covered with skin.”- wrote a contemporary.
Isabella again accused Duchess Valentina of black magic, claiming that Visconti had put death spells on the king and the prince, so that after their death the throne would pass to her husband, the Duke of Orleans, the king's brother.
No one dared to send the Duke of Milan’s beloved daughter to the stake; Valentina’s punishment was expulsion from Paris.
Nobody believed the queen's accusations. Everyone claimed that she herself wanted to kill her own son and drove her husband to madness. To avoid a riot, the queen had to take the prince out onto the balcony so that the townspeople could see that he was alive.
Duke Louis d'Orléans (19th century engraving)
The Duke of Orleans followed his wife into exile. Soon the Duke's estate in Blois became an impregnable fortress in which one could hide from enemy raids.
A few years later, Queen Isabella made peace with Orléans and enlisted his support.
Valentina Milanskaya enjoyed popularity and people's love. She patronized writers and herself read and wrote in several languages. Visconti supported Christina of Pisa, the first female writer in the Middle Ages, who said in her works that “a woman is in no way inferior to a man.”
The Duchess began collecting a library that would become the main library of the National Library of France.
But Valentina’s husband, Louis of Orleans, who entered into an alliance with Queen Isabella, lost respect and popularity. Especially after he and the queen got the weak-willed king to introduce a new tax.
Unflattering rumors about Orleans were spread by his political opponent John of Burgundy, nicknamed the Fearless. The Duke of Burgundy claimed that Orleans not only became the queen's lover, but also visited brothels, spending money from taxes collected on public girls.
If, at the mention of Valentina, people said “God bless the duchess,” then Louis called out the scolding “Devil, take the duke.”
John of Burgundy - opponent of the Duke of Orleans
Although extravagance was characteristic of both Queen Isabella, who sent expensive gifts to relatives in Bavaria, and Louis of Orleans.
Chroniclers noted that at the wedding of his son Charles, the Duke of Orleans appeared in an expensive suit decorated with 700 pearls. To pay for the outfit, Orléans had to melt down gold dishes and images of saints into bars; of course, such sacrilege caused outrage in medieval France.
In 1407, Duke Louis of Orléans was assassinated during his visit to Paris by order of his longtime enemy, John of Burgundy. Burgundy was wary of Orleans' claims to the throne. The assassin managed to escape punishment.
Assassination of Louis d'Orléans
Valentina Visconti begged the king to punish those responsible, but her requests were not fulfilled. Karl was seized by a new attack of madness.
Valentina Milanskaya asks the king to punish the murderers
"Valentina Milanskaya, mourning her husband."
The theme of the grieving Duchess Valentina of Milan was popular in 19th century art. This painting by Fleury-François Richard belonged to Empress Josephine Beauharnais.
Valentina Milanskaya at the grave of her murdered husband
Valentina Visconti survived her husband by only a year. Her motto was:
“Nothing exists for me anymore, I myself am nobody” (Rien ne m"est plus, / Plus ne m"est rien)
These words were carved on her tombstone.
Before her death, the Duchess asked her eldest son Charles to avenge his father's death. The wars between the noble families of France continued.
By the way, as a friend suggested to me
Visconti (Visconti, from vescomes - viscounts), a noble Italian family (known from the late 10th century), to which the tyrants (rulers) of Milan belonged in 1277-1447 (from 1395 - dukes).
With the support of Pope Urban IV, Otto Visconti (1207-1295), Archbishop of Milan, entered into confrontation with the Della Torre family, which at that time ruled Milan. In 1277, at the Battle of Desio, Della Torre's troops were defeated, and Otto began to rule alone, citing the ancient rights of the Milanese archbishops to secular power. In 1287 he transferred power to his great-nephew Matteo (1250-1332), who received the nickname The Great (Il Grande). He also fought the Della Torre, who in 1310 attempted to regain lost power, and received support from the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, whose troops were invading Italy at the time. Matteo assembled his own strong mercenary army, which by 1315 became the strongest in Northern Italy. The power of Milan extended to Pavia, Piacenza, Bergamo, Novara and other cities of the north. In 1317, Matteo quarreled with Pope John XXII, who claimed sole secular power in northern Italy. The Pope accused the ruler of Milan of witchcraft and heresy and declared an interdict, even calling for a crusade against the Visconti. In May 1322, Matteo handed over the reins of government to his son Galeazzo I (c. 1277-1328) and died soon after. Galeazzo continued his father's policies, establishing profitable connections through dynastic marriages of his family members with the ruling families of France, Germany and Savoy. After Galeazzo's death, power passed to his son Azzo (1302-39), who made peace with the pope in 1329. Azzo died without leaving direct heirs, and power passed to his uncles Lucino (1292-1349) and Giovanni (1290-1354, was Archbishop of Milan). During their reign, Bologna and Genoa submitted to the authorities of Milan, and territories lost during the conflict with the pope were returned. Giovanni was succeeded by three nephews, who divided the estates. Of these, the most famous is Galeazzo II (c. 1321-1378). His residence was in Pavia, he founded a university here and became famous as a patron of artists and poets, including Petrarch. Within their domains, the brothers pursued an independent policy, but their foreign policy was united. They opposed the papacy and fought against Florence.
After Galeazzo's death, his brother Bernabo entered into a military alliance with France and tried to oust Galeazzo II's heir, Gian Galeazzo, from power. But Gian Galeazzo won, and Bernabo died in custody with his nephew in 1385. Under Gian Galeazzo, the Visconti became Duke of Milan and Count of Pavia, the Visconti's possessions extended to almost all of northern Italy. After the death of Gian Galeazzo, his son, Giovanni Maria (1388-1412), due to his youth and inexperience, was unable to retain power and ruled only nominally. The Visconti lost a significant part of their possessions and lost Lombardy. Giovanni Maria, distinguished by his morbid, abnormal cruelty, became a victim of the conspirators. His brother Filippo Maria (1392-1447) managed to restore family power, helped by his marriage to the widow of the famous condottiere Canet. Filippo Maria reorganized the finances of the duchy and created the production of silk fabrics. In 1447, when Milan was besieged by Venetian troops, Filippo Maria turned to the husband of his only daughter, Francesco Sforza, for help. After the imminent death of Filippo Maria, Sforza inherited the duchy, defeating King Alfonso V of Aragon, in whose favor a will was drawn up.
The Milanese Visconti family is more famous. No original relationship has been found between two families with the same surname. The Sardinian clan used a rooster as an emblem, and the Milanese used a snake swallowing a baby.
Among the most famous representatives of the family are Pope Gregory X and film director Luchino Visconti (from the Dukes of Modrone, descendants of Uberto, brother of Matteo I).
Pisan Visconti
The first Visconti mentioned in Pisa was a certain patrician Alberto. His son Eldizio held the titles of patrician and consul in 1184-85, and his grandchildren Lamberto and Ubaldo I led the family to the heights of power in Pisa and Sardinia. They were both patricians and podestà.
In 1212, Pisa was in complete anarchy and various factions fought for power. In mid-January 1213, Guillermo I of Cagliar led a coalition against the Visconti, which defeated the allied forces of the city of Lucca and Ubaldo Visconti at the Battle of Massa. Pisa was then divided between four "rectors", one of whom was Visconti. The Sardinian Visconti continued to take part in the political life of Pisa until the end of the century, but after the Battle of Massa their influence was significantly reduced.
The ruler of Sardinia, Eldizio Visconti, was married to the daughter of Torcitorio III of Cagliara, who bore him Lamberto and Ubaldo. In 1207, Lamberto married Elena, heiress of Barisone II of Gallura, thus securing power over the northeastern part of the island (the capital Civita). In 1215 he and Ubaldo extended their hegemony over Guidicato Cagliari in the south of the island. Thanks to a successful marriage, Lamberto's son, Ubaldo II, gained power over Logudoro for some time. By the middle of the 13th century, thanks to the Visconti, the power of the Pisans over the island was undeniable, since they were in alliance with other powerful families of both Pisa (Gherardeschi and Capraia) and Sardinia (Lacon and Bas-Serra).
Visconti - rulers of Gallura
- Lamberto (1207-1225)
- Ubaldo (1225-1238)
- John (1238-1275)
- Nino (1275-1298). His wife Beatrice d'Este (d. September 15, 1334), by her second marriage, on June 24, 1300, married Galleazzo I Visconti, sovereign of Milan.,
- Joanna (1298-1308). Half-sister of Azzone Visconti, son of Galleazzo I Visconti
Milanese Visconti
The real founder of the Milanese family was Archbishop Ottone Visconti, who took control of the city from the Dela Tore family in 1277. The dynasty ruled Milan since the early Renaissance - first as simple sovereigns, then, with the arrival of the powerful Gian Galleazzo Visconti (-) (who was almost able to unite Northern Italy and Tuscany) - already as dukes. The family's dominion over the city ended with the death of Filippo Maria Visconti in 1447. Milan was inherited (after a short republic) by his daughter's husband, Francesco Sforza, who founded a new, equally famous dynasty - the House of Sforza, which included the Visconti emblem in its coat of arms.
Visconti - rulers of Milan
- Ottone Visconti, Archbishop of Milan (1277-1294)
- Matteo I Visconti (1294-1302; 1311-1322)
- Galeazzo I Visconti (1322-1327)
- Azzone Visconti (1329-1339)
- Luchino Visconti (1339-1349)
- Giovanni Visconti (1339-1354)
- Bernabo Visconti (1354-1385)
- Galeazzo II Visconti (1354-1378)
- Matteo II Visconti (1354-1355)
- Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1378-1402) (first Duke of Milan, son of Galeazzo II)
- Giovanni Maria Visconti (1402-1412)
- Filippo Maria Visconti (1412-1447)
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Literature
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
Links
- Kovaleva M. V.
An excerpt characterizing the House of Visconti
During his recovery, Pierre only gradually unaccustomed himself to the impressions of the last months that had become familiar to him and got used to the fact that no one would drive him anywhere tomorrow, that no one would take his warm bed away, and that he would probably have lunch, tea, and dinner. But in his dreams, for a long time he saw himself in the same conditions of captivity. Pierre also gradually understood the news that he learned after his release from captivity: the death of Prince Andrei, the death of his wife, the destruction of the French.A joyful feeling of freedom - that complete, inalienable, inherent freedom of man, the consciousness of which he first experienced at his first rest stop, when leaving Moscow, filled Pierre's soul during his recovery. He was surprised that this internal freedom, independent of external circumstances, now seemed to be abundantly, luxuriously furnished with external freedom. He was alone in a strange city, without acquaintances. Nobody demanded anything from him; they didn't send him anywhere. He had everything he wanted; The thought of his wife that had always tormented him before was no longer there, since she no longer existed.
- Oh, how good! How nice! - he said to himself when they brought him a cleanly set table with fragrant broth, or when he lay down on a soft, clean bed at night, or when he remembered that his wife and the French were no more. - Oh, how good, how nice! - And out of old habit, he asked himself: well, then what? What will i do? And immediately he answered himself: nothing. I will live. Oh, how nice!
The very thing that tormented him before, what he was constantly looking for, the purpose of life, now did not exist for him. It was no coincidence that this sought-after goal of life did not exist for him at the present moment, but he felt that it did not and could not exist. And it was this lack of purpose that gave him that complete, joyful consciousness of freedom, which at that time constituted his happiness.
He could not have a goal, because he now had faith - not faith in some rules, or words, or thoughts, but faith in a living, always felt God. Previously, he sought it for the purposes that he set for himself. This search for a goal was only a search for God; and suddenly he learned in his captivity, not in words, not by reasoning, but by direct feeling, what his nanny had told him long ago: that God is here, here, everywhere. In captivity, he learned that God in Karataev is greater, infinite and incomprehensible than in the Architect of the universe recognized by the Freemasons. He experienced the feeling of a man who had found what he was looking for under his feet, while he strained his eyesight, looking far away from himself. All his life he had been looking somewhere, over the heads of the people around him, but he should have not strained his eyes, but only looked in front of him.
He had not been able to see before the great, incomprehensible and infinite in anything. He just felt that it must be somewhere and looked for it. In everything close and understandable, he saw something limited, petty, everyday, meaningless. He armed himself with a mental telescope and looked into the distance, to where this small, everyday thing, hiding in the fog of the distance, seemed great and endless to him only because it was not clearly visible. This is how he imagined European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, philanthropy. But even then, in those moments that he considered his weakness, his mind penetrated into this distance, and there he saw the same petty, everyday, meaningless things. Now he had learned to see the great, the eternal and the infinite in everything, and therefore naturally, in order to see it, to enjoy its contemplation, he threw down the pipe into which he had been looking until now through the heads of people, and joyfully contemplated the ever-changing, ever-great world around him. , incomprehensible and endless life. And the closer he looked, the more calm and happy he was. Previously, the terrible question that destroyed all his mental structures was: why? did not exist for him now. Now to this question - why? a simple answer was always ready in his soul: because there is a God, that God, without whose will a hair will not fall from a man’s head.
Pierre has hardly changed in his external techniques. He looked exactly the same as he had been before. Just as before, he was distracted and seemed preoccupied not with what was in front of his eyes, but with something special of his own. The difference between his previous and present state was that before, when he forgot what was in front of him, what was said to him, he, wrinkling his forehead in pain, seemed to be trying and could not see something far away from him . Now he also forgot what was said to him and what was in front of him; but now, with a barely noticeable, seemingly mocking, smile, he peered at what was in front of him, listened to what was being said to him, although obviously he saw and heard something completely different. Before, although he seemed to be a kind person, he was unhappy; and therefore people involuntarily moved away from him. Now a smile of the joy of life constantly played around his mouth, and his eyes shone with concern for people - the question: are they as happy as he is? And people were pleased in his presence.
