At the end of Fiume affair (1921), D'Annunzio chose the Villa
of Cargnacco as his home and temple during his final years. First
World war mausoleum and a visible monument to his genius and his
daring, the Vittoriale is a large group of buildings immersed
in a magnificent park. Designed by the architect Gian Carlo Moroni,
the Vittoriale houses, in the gardens rich in labyrinthine avenues,
an open air theatre, constructed to a roman model. With
1500 seating capacity during the summer it offers an intense programme
of prose and ballet; then there is the Mausoleum, the tomb
of the poet and mementoes of the war. Such as the urns of his
fighting companions, gathered in a small temple, the prow of the
cruise ship Puglia, the MAS 96 motorboat from the famous Buccari
hoax and the aeroplane, hanging in the auditorium, which dropped
the subversive leaflets over Vienna on 9 August 1918. In Dalmata
square, facing each other, are the Schifamondo building and the
D'Annunzio museum. Under the portico shine the Fraschini Iseult
and the Type 4 Fiat used in 1919 for the march on Fiume. But the
ingenious eccentricity of the poet is manifest in the Prioria.
With its Art-Nouveau furnishings, the home of the aesthete houses
a lybrary of over 33.000 volumes, the luminous study of the poet
with metope casts of the Parthenon and the bust of Duse, D'Annunzio's
veiled godess. And then the dining room, in Art Deco style and
full of oriental idols, where dominating the table, as a warning
to the diners, stands a turtle, which died of greediness. The
bedroom is stupendous, so is the pompous bathroom, decorated with
chinoiserie and small ritual statues.
