
CAPRI
It is easy to be rhetoric speaking of Capri. On the other
hand, is it really rhetorical to state that this island has not
equals around the world and that its nights and its legends have a
unique charm? We think it is not, together with the thousands of
artists, aristocratic and intellectuals who elected this beautiful
island as their home land, during the past 2000 years. So lets
discover it, guided by those people who have always loved and
lived it
Article by Rosalba Giugni,
Photographs by Luca Sonnino Sorisio

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A MYTH ON THE SEA
If I should explain Capri in two words I will choose "myrtle" and
"pine". My Capri (there are millions of different Capri, each
telling stories of charm and magic) perfumes of pine and myrtle,
ancient preellenich trees, friendly to humans, true and solid,
projected to the sky. The Capri's sky.
In the summertime, walking on the shore, I feel the pine and
myrtle flavor, stronger than the algae and cliffs one. It arrives
slowly and intermittent. But it is strong. My Capri's flavor
is strong. Those landing at Capri for the first time should arrive
by night. Arriving during the day, they will tell you stories
about the charm of this unique island (is it unique over the
entire universe?), about its woman body shape, remembering a
marine goddess laying on a cobalt blue sea: her profile marked by
the Solaro mountain, and her hairs are Tiberio point. Capri, by
day, is amazing, and superb as well. Capri, by day, will never
disappoint you. Capri is my Capri by night only.
First of all the moon. There are several moons.
There is the moon which illuminated
Babylon's gardens and Cartage's ruins, the night after its
destroy. There are the Egyptian and Pierrot moons. The Saracens
half moon and the tin foil one over cribs all around the world.
There are the poets' and lovers' moons, the Garcia Lorca moon and
the colored one with which we have all played when kids. There is
the love songs' moon. Then there is Capri's moon. Which is
like no other. It is the big moon of the sirens' island.
Capri's moon is big and close just like a middle summer moon
can be. Here the moon perfumes of myrtle and pine as well. And it
has the perfume of that fresh wind which only blows on fables. You
should, with the full moon, take a walk on the highest island
portion, climbing to the Madonna di Cetrella sanctuary, or, on the
other side, till Tiberio villa or, to the even more worrying Baron
Fersen one.
Carmelina used to dance, under Capri's full
moon, the Tarantella on the Emperor's villa ruins, just after she
had served the "furastieri" (tourists) in the restaurant which is
now managed by her grandson Augusto. The beauty of Carmelina, the
moon, the rhythm of Tarantella, the perfumes, the flavor of the
sea, the close and far voices of the inhabitants, the songs in the
night, the charm, the passion's games, the strong life feeling
just like our blood should be heavier and our bones lighter and
just like Capri's nights should not follow gravitational
rules letting us flying high in the space and backwards in time.
These are the nights in Capri, the same nights so dare to the
artist and poets who have lived here.
A sign of their charm is
left on Dieffenbach's night paintings, executed under the moon and
candles light (just like the "crazy" Van Gogh used to do, fixing
candles on his easel and on his hat, when painting in the
Provential plain constantly tormented by the Mistral wind).
Diefenbach is, in the same way, gloomy and clever, restless and
fascinating on the big cliffs, in the middle of the big sea and
under the big Capri's moon. We were used to go fishing, by
night with that moon following us; Tripolino, a consummated
fisherman memory of my childhood, excelled on this ancient art
and, in the middle of the night on the deep blue Capri's
sea, he harpooned octopuses and others fishes: just one hit, a
"toreador" thrust, a lash on the water surface, a clear sound
remembering birds flying away from a marsh. Stars were, in those
years, glittering so much and they seemed to be weaker than pearl.
Tripolino and Carmelina, together with many other heroes I knew in
Capri, are not there anymore. Capri seems to me different now.
There are no more huge multicolored sea-urchin fields. Many fish
species now have disappeared, or moved away seeking shelter from
human "civility". Capri's sea is different, that is for
sure. Sometimes it looks like my childhood's Capri sea, the one of
those years wen I first arrived at Capri, with my father and my
mother. Life was still immaculate then.
I try, once in a wile, to find again "my Capri". And sometimes I
feel it happening. Just like during an unforgettable night two
years ago; I organized, together with some friends of mine, a
suggestive dinner in the Grotta Bianca (White Cave), for the
occasion illuminated with candles and torches. We were all white
dressed, with large peplums or white "pareo" reminding sea
shells. The small lake inside the cave was covered with white
flowers. We all had dinner with local white wine; afterwards we
sang and then we stayed quiet listening to Capri's sea in a
Capri's night. It was a fascinating night. It reminds me
another charming night when, at the foot of Tiberio Villa's
precipice lighted up by the moon, I clearly heard soft whisperings
and voices coming from the sea. Were them sirens, presence or
imagination? They were true to me; it was a full-moon night, but
is it enough to feel ancient presence?
Everyone of us who know and love Capri, who think to now it well,
can tell, season by season, of new sensations or legendary
flavors unfelt from years (or from centuries),which are charming
and suddenly rediscovered in Capri. It can happen in a day like
another, in a sunny afternoon, in a windy sunset or in night of
passion. This is Capri. This and much more. I love Capri but I am
not able to write about it. I can speak about it, sometimes, with
friends of mine. Capri is only mine, it is inside my life and my
memories going back to one thousand nights and one thousand days
of sea.
There is, then, another Capri, crazy and fashionable, ephemeral
and fatal. That one does not belongs to me anyway. My Capri has
myrtle and pines and has friendly moons.
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