This catalogue went to print a few days after the untimely death of Fulvia Ferragamo Visconti, the daughter of Salvatore Ferragamo. It is to her, a lover of art and of culture in all its expressions, that we dedicate this exhibition, inspired by the years her father spent in California, where he outlined the values of commitment and creativity on which the brand’s success is founded. The family has rigorously upheld these principles through the years and Fulvia applied them to her work in the world of silk, with passion and extraordinary flair. EDITED BY STEFANIA RICCI Italy Curated by after World War I Catalogue edited by Printed and bound in Italy. Livorno Italian American Museum of Los Mauro Macario, Antonella Giuliana Muscio The Hollywood Boot Shop Stefania Ricci First edition Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania Angeles, Johns Hopkins University, Maggiorelli, Andrea Maglio, Fabio in Hollywood Stefania Ricci Concept by Luca Attilii, Fabio Museo Internazionale Enrico Los Angeles Public Library, Mangone, Andrea Marchi, Ivan Iaquone, and Stefania Ricci; Catalogue coordination ISBN: 978-88-572-3887-6 Caruso, Comune di Lastra a Signa Metropolitan Opera, Museo Italo Marin, Maria Giovanna Marletti, Museo Salvatore Ferragamo Scientific Committee art direction and production by Eugenia Panettieri (FI) Americano of San Francisco, Eliana Marsico, Roberto Mascagni, Palazzo Spini Feroni Luca Scarlini Iaquone e Attilii Studio, Rome; Maria Rosa Ventimiglia Distributed in USA, Canada, Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Museo Teatrale alla Scala, Giuliana Matassi, Piero Matteini, 25 May 2018 Rosa Sessa multimedia service AVUELLE s.r.l. Central & South America Turin Occidental College of Los Angeles, Giuliano Matteucci, Germana 10 March 2019 Carlo Sisi Graphic design by ARTBOOK | D.A.P. 75, Broad Natural History Museum of Los San Francisco Public Library, Mentil, Valerio Massimo Miletti, Maddalena Tirabassi Videos RovaiWeber design Street Suite 630, New York, Angeles, Los Angeles Santa Barbara Historical Society Simone Monticelli, Tiziano Mugnai, Under the Patronage of Daniele Tommaso All videos have been edited NY 10004, USA. The Metropolitan Opera, New York Museum, Santa Barbara Public Luca Mugnaini, Giuliana Muscio, Ministero dei Beni Elvira Valleri by Daniele Tommaso Photography Distributed elsewhere in the world Library, The John D. Calandra Chiara Onniboni, Nicoletta e delle Attività Culturali and Arrigo Coppitz, Enrico Fiorese, by Thames and Hudson Ltd., Archivio Fornasetti, Milan Italian American Institute, Pacini, David Packard, Liliana e del Turismo Cinemazero, Pordenone Coordination of Daniel Watson 181A High Holborn, London Archivio Galleria Campari, Sesto Università degli Studi di Firenze. Palmieri, Piero Pananti, Silvia Regione Toscana La Cineteca del Friuli, Gemona organizational staff WC1V 7QX, United Kingdom. San Giovanni (Milan) Silvia Alessandri, Giuseppe Parretti, Marco Pesciullesi, Sandra Comune di Firenze Paola Gusella Editorial coordination Roberto Devalle Collection, Turin Anichini, Francesco Arianese, Pietrini, Gianni Piolanti, Giuseppe Research Emma Cavazzini Dolfi Collection, Florence Martino Arianese, Michaela Poeta, Elena Pontiggia, Giuliana Exhibition promoted Simona Carlesi Organizational staff Acknowledgements Fondazione Cardinale Giacomo Asanger, Ross Auerbach, Puppin, Federica Rabai, Michael and organized by Catherine Angela Dewar Ludovica Barabino Copy editor Lercaro, Bologna Angela Bagni, Chiara Baroni, Redmon, Alice Rispoli, David Museo Salvatore Ferragamo Chiara Fucci Emanuela Di Lallo This exhibition could never Fondazione Tirelli Trappetti, Rome Roberta Basano, Francesco Robinson, Luciano Rosi Belliere, in collaboration with Scenography Gregorio Gabellieri have taken place without Private collection, Heirs Bianca Belaise, Elena Beltrami, Duccio Simona Rossi, Maria Antonia Fondazione Ferragamo Maurizio Balò Eugenia Panettieri Translations the wholehearted support Capoquadri Tommasi Benedetti, Alessandro Bernardi, Salom De Tord, Stefano Salvatici, in collaboration with Maria Rosa Ventimiglia Patricia Garvin of the Ferragamo family. Bryan Johns Collection, Pasadena Silvio Bernardi, Sara Berto, Massimo Sanzani, Lapo Sergi, Andrea De Micheli Sylvia Adrian Notini The Collection of Motion Picture Filippo Bigi, Enea Brigatti, Kevin Molly Sjoberg, Antonella Soldaini, Mannequin dressing Mark Eaton, Sergio Knipe, The curators of the exhibition Costume Design: Larry McQueen, Brownlow, Andrea Brugnoni, Marco Andrea Tessitore, Matthew Testa, Project CIVITA Group. Opera Laboratori Karen Tomatis, Susan Ann and catalogue editors wish Los Angeles Brusamolin, Laura Buonocore, Lucia Tito Zavagli Ricciardelli, TWO YOUNG ITALIANS Fiorentini S.p.a., Florence White for Scriptum, Rome to thank: Ministero dei Beni e delle The Jimmy Raye Collection, Antonio Burello, Claudia Calò, Andrea Terradura, Tommaso IN HOLLYWOOD (Simona Fulceri) Attività Culturali e del Turismo Salem (MA) Leonilde Callocchia, Letizia Tombelli, Veronica Tonini, Neri Yuri Ancarani First published in Italy in 2018 Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Campana, Simona Carlesi, Angela Torrigiani, Laura Trambusti, Lia Manfredi Gioacchini Restoration by Skira editore S.p.A. Arti e Paesaggio per le Province The private collectors Carraro, Emma Cavazzini, Michele Trovelli, Roberto Troubetzkoy curated by Silvia Lucchesi for CIENNE S.N.C. di Gangemi Palazzo Casati Stampa di Firenze, Pistoia e Prato who preferred to remain Cecchini, Giovanni Cerini, Elena Hahn, Marco Vianello, Giuseppe Lo Schermo dell’Arte Film Festival A.&C., Turin via Torino 61 Regione Toscana anonymous. Chiti, Giulia Ciappi, Alessandro Viesti, Mara Vitali, Jay Weissberg, DAMBRA laboratorio di restauro 20123 Milano Comune di Firenze Cinelli, Massimo and Sonia Cirulli, Beth Werling, Todd Wiener, The texts of the explanatory di Forcucci Gabriella, Florence Italy We especially wish to thank: Anne Coco, Diane Connors, Claude Zachary, Alessandro Zuri. educational panels in the Lucchini e Sanna Restauri www.skira.net Exhibition promoted and Academy of Motion Picture Arts Riccardo Costantini, Ilaria Cozzuti, exhibition are the work of S.N.C., Turin organized by Museo Salvatore and Sciences – Margaret Herrick Vittoria Crespi Morbio, Luciano Special thanks to Piera Detassis Alessandro Alberti, Costanza © 2018 Museo Salvatore Ferragamo with the collaboration Library, American Academy in Curreri, Stella Dagna, Ilaria Dalla and Daniela Fonti for their Giovacchini, Marco Magini, Multimedia technology Ferragamo of Fondazione Ferragamo and the Rome, Archivio Famiglia Matassi, Monica, Emanuela Di Lallo, Marzio availability to help. and Clara Pescatori, students AVUELLE s.r.l. © 2018 Skira editore, Milano following museums, institutions, Archivio Piacentini, Archivio Di Pace, Elisabeth Dowling, Viola of the Liceo Classico © Giacomo Balla, Edward Weston and private collectors: Storico Fratelli Alinari, Biblioteca Fantoni, Sonia Farsetti, Virginia Michelangiolo (IV A) in Florence, Lighting by SIAE 2018 Nazionale Braidense, Biblioteca Ferragamo Schilling, Stefano supervised by professor Maria Watt Studio s.r.l. 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No part of this book Galleria d’Arte Moderna Paolo University, California State Library, Frosecchi, Marianna Gatto, Elisa in agreement with Fondazione Reinsurance Broker, Florence may be reproduced or utilized e Adele Giannoni, Novara California State University, Centro Ghelardi, Claudia Giannetto, Sofia Ferragamo in any form or by any means, Galleria d’Arte Moderna Altreitalie, Cineteca di Bologna, Gnoli, Massimo Gravagno, Marco Shipping electronic or mechanical, Ricci Oddi, Piacenza Fashion Institute of Design & Graziano, Mina Gregori, Francesca Video installations Apice Firenze S.r.l. including photocopying, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Merchandising of Los Angeles, Guerrini, Jan-Christopher Horak, The Italian Citadel at the recording, or any information Moderna di Ca’ Pesaro, Venice History San José Archives, Mario Ianeri, Aldo Innocenti, Panama-Pacific International Technical sponsors storage and retrieval system, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria d’Arte Istituto Centrale Catalogo e Stefania Ippoliti, Livio Jacob, Exposition in San Francisco, 1915 AON S.p.a. 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66 Italian 328 Artists at the American Eyes: Panama-Pacific Italy before International and after 40 Exposition in 252 8 World War I San Francisco Electric John Paul Russo Italian Stefania Ricci Italy in Architectural Renaissance: Hollywood 304 Influences in The Memory Stefania Ricci California, 1900–1930 of Art at the The Age of Jazz: Italianate Style, Cinema, from The Italian Mediterranean Style Europe to 280 Sound in and Piacentini’s Hollywood America after Italian Citadel and Back Romola. World War I in San Francisco Luca Scarlini A Set for Maddalena 22 the Image Rosa Sessa 80 Tirabassi of Florence Ernesto Nathan Italian Carlo Sisi and the 1915 Know-how San Francisco in Hollywood International Roberta Ferrazza Exposition Fulvio Conti 338 210 The “Autobiographical 410 Lina Cavalieri Pact” of Salvatore on the Silver Ferragamo Hollywood Screen 466 Elvira Valleri Begins Elena Mosconi 1908–1929: exhibition 116 Clothes, checklist 230 Costume Italians 182 & Couture in Hollywood “Where shall we Rudolph Valentino: Deborah Giuliana find the elephants, An Italian Star Nadoolman Muscio Landis 436 Mister Griffith?” in Hollywood Cabiria, Intolerance The Myth, Two Young and the Italian the IMmigrant, 380 Italians in Historical Epic the Actor Hollywood in Hollywood Giulia Carluccio Days in Silvia Lucchesi Silvio Alovisio Hollywood Salvatore Ferragamo 8 The Italy in Hollywood exhibition project Italy in 1915, just as the country was entering World STEFANIA RICCI was conceived a year ago, in April 2017, during War I; the voyage in third class aboard the Stampalia preparations for the 1927 The Return to Italy to join his older brothers, who had left a few years exhibition, which was dedicated to the period in earlier for North America, the preferred destination of which Salvatore Ferragamo, after twelve years spent immigrants from southern Italy; his transfer to Santa in the United States, decided to return to his native Barbara, California where he decided to join three of country and settle in Florence, closing the American his brothers, Girolamo, Alfonso, and Secondino and chapter and opening the way to other challenges, with them open a shoe repair and custom-made other opportunities, and other enterprises. shoe shop. Ferragamo’s cooperation with the world The examination of a number of photographs and of cinema began in this very shop, and in particular documents that Ferragamo brought with him to Italy with some of the most famous directors of the time: as a reminder of his impressive American interlude David W. Griffith, James Cruze, Raoul Walsh, and led to a reflection on the years he lived in California Cecil B. DeMille. He made the shoes for the main (1916–27), an intense period of experimentation characters and extras in their films, which earned him and relationships, but still enveloped in the mists of the respect of Californian society. Within a few years time. This prompted an investigation in America— the young Italian had become both a shoemaker and conducted by scholar Catherine Angela Dewar under a “shoe designer,” as the American press referred to the guidance of historian Elvira Valleri—that focused him, soon achieving fame and acclaim. When the film attention on important aspects of Ferragamo’s industry moved to Hollywood, Ferragamo followed, Californian experience and confirmed not only his opening a new store on Hollywood Boulevard, called undoubted entrepreneurial ability, but also the the Hollywood Boot Shop, patronized by the best- determination and commitment of a man who tried known stars of the day: Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, to interpret change by shaping it to his own vision of Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Lillian Gish, as well the world. as Rudolph Valentino, with whom Ferragamo not only Moreover, this historical reconstruction has greatly established a professional relationship but also a benefited from a further valuable resource: the regular day-to-day friendship. recovered and restored audio tape that Salvatore Many insights have therefore contributed to give Ferragamo recorded as an outline for the subsequent shape to the exhibition, providing an opportunity to editing and printing of his autobiography, published examine the phenomenon of Italian emigration to in English in 1957. It is a flow of words from which the California during the first decades of the twentieth sense of a life emerges, the dedication and love for century, which in the process has become the main a craft that he carefully modeled like a work of art focus of the project. This important yet little-known during the course of his intense life. historical period has given us an awareness and A number of fundamental stages define appreciation of the various and interesting activities Ferragamo’s Californian story: his departure from of Italians in California, as well as a chance to ITALy in HOLLyWOOD consider how their presence was perceived Raffaello Gambogi, on the West Coast, and how Italian culture Emigranti [Emigrants], 1894 influenced that part of North America as Oil on canvas, 146 x 196 cm regards architecture, art, craftsmanship, Livorno, Museo Civico and the world of entertainment and cinema Giovanni Fattori, inv. 1109 (the young Ferragamo’s areas of interest), without ignoring the WASP society’s opinion of Italians, which is also expressed in the pages of American literature from that period. A large, late nineteenth-century painting by Raffaello Gambogi, on loan from the Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori in Livorno, makes a good introduction to the topic. It portrays an Italian family on the quay of a port, waiting to board one of the ships bound the Union Pacific, which transports all kinds of for the Americas, where they hope to find a agricultural products.”1 better future. A video-installation comprised Ischian fishermen introduced sardine fishing of excerpts from L’emigrante (1915) directed to San Pedro using traditional scorticaria by Febo Mari, Good Morning Babilonia (1987) nets, while other Italians headed to the Sierra by the Taviani brothers, and Nuovomondo Nevada to work in the mines, or were employed (2006) by Emanuele Crialese portrays the in constructing the railways or in the flourishing often painful experience of Italian emigration. timber industry. Some moved to the big cities Between 1880 and the first two decades of where they found employment as road sweepers the twentieth century, millions of people from and barbers, or they took up small commercial or every region of Italy left their country, but artisanal work. not always with the desire to escape difficult The Italians in California also distinguished socio-economic conditions. For many of them, themselves in the publishing field, founding two emigration to another continent meant new newspapers in San Francisco: La Voce del Popolo opportunities to develop their professions. and L’Italia, later followed by Il Corriere del Popolo Such was the case with Salvatore Ferragamo, and the anarchist La protesta umana. They also who decided to leave his homeland in established themselves in the financial world, order to broaden his knowledge of the art setting up four of San Francisco’s major banks: the of shoemaking and, in particular, try out Columbus Savings Bank, Amadeo Peter Giannini’s new methods of measuring feet, since he Bank of Italy (later the Bank of America), the was intrigued by the achievements of the Italian American Bank, and the Fugazi Bank. American footwear industry. The awareness and influence of Italian culture California, where Ferragamo arrived in also involved architecture, inspiring design 1916, was home to the best Italian colony on various scales: from urban buildings and in the United States—or so many have homes to furnishing to garden design for the described this settlement of Italians in those villas of important cultural figures of the period, lands. Photographs and films document businessmen, politicians, and movie stars. It was this phenomenon, showing Italians working not only Renaissance principles that guided in many agriculture-related activities: vine the hands of the California architects but also growing, winemaking and horticulture, more modest examples, such as the vernacular taking advantage of the presence of the architecture of smaller Italian towns, farmhouses, railway. Recalling his four years in Hollywood, and the fishermen’s cottages along the Italian actor Alberto Rabagliati wrote: “About fifty coasts. miles north of Hollywood in San Bernardino, A fundamental occasion that reaffirmed California, lies a huge estate belonging in America the artistic values ​​of ancient and to Guasti, an Italian who owns the largest modern Italy, bringing legitimate pride to Italian vineyard in the world. Every God-given immigrants throughout North America, was the abundance grows in the enormous garden, Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San ninety miles long and even crossed by Francisco, organized in 1915 to celebrate the imminent opening of the Panama Canal. Italy took part in the event, entrusting the design and construction of its pavilion to architect Marcello Piacentini, who won first prize among the 110 competing buildings. The Italian Citadel, as the complex was called, was a compendium of Italian architecture appreciated by Americans, convincing and captivating in its intention to recreate overseas not merely a fascination with the film Cabiria, one of the most Frames from the movie building but the very atmosphere celebrated epic movies in the entire history of cinema, Good Morning Babilonia, of an Italian town. directed by Giovanni Pastrone in 1914 and produced directed by Paolo and Many Italian artists, painters, in Turin by Itala Film, with intertitles by Gabriele Vittorio Taviani in 1987 and sculptors also took part in an d’Annunzio. Griffith’s screenwriter Anita Loos later used exhibition organized in the Expo’s them as an example. Palace of Fine Arts, which hosted Until that moment, Italian and French silent films paintings, drawings, and other had dominated the international scene. The typical artworks from all over the world. Italian movie was a feature-length film with a large The public greatly appreciated the number of extras, suggestive landscapes, references Italian section, which won prizes and to real monuments, and a production style that honors, thus reinforcing the American showed the influence of theater and opera. In this fascination with Italian art. A special context Cabiria was the Italian historical film that section, set up in a building annexed received the broadest consensus in the United States. to the main venue, was reserved It was promoted as the most mature artistic product for avant-garde art and hosted a of a genre that would disappear only ten years selection of works by the Futurist later, leaving Hollywood cinema with a considerable movement, shown in the United States number of its biblical and classical film legacies. This for the first time, thus opening new is why an entire exhibition room has been reserved for avenues for American art and art Cabiria, containing scene shots, promotional material, collecting. and Leopoldo Metlicovitz’s extraordinary posters, The San Francisco exposition is all on loan from the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in at the heart of the Taviani brothers’ Turin, together with costumes made for the actors by Good Morning Babilonia and has the Devalle theatrical tailoring company in Turin. provided a precious reference for “Hollywood is the only city in the world to have the exhibition’s itinerary sequence, subverted, modified, and infected the minds of which is like the storyline of a film. most of the people who have experienced or still It has also inspired the staging by experience it. Hollywood spreads its songs and set designer Maurizio Balò, who music everywhere, the images of its beautiful women carefully examined pictorial and and its talented actors, fables, stories, comedies, photographic material documenting and the most sensational and romantic dramas the Hollywood film studios in those of life. Hollywood both moves and makes almost years. In the film, the two Bonanno all mortals laugh; it amuses them, entertains them brothers, who work as restorers on Pisa and, for an hour, makes them forget the sorrows of Cathedral, are obliged to emigrate life. Hollywood is the heavenly and hellish city, the to the United States because of a crucible of joys and sorrows, pleasures and tortures, crisis that has forced their father to desires and mortifications, orgiastic extremes close his workshop. They and other skilled Italian workers find jobs in the construction phase of the Panama- Pacific International Exposition. The Taviani brothers emphasize the culture of “well-made work” which characterized a particular, positive image of Italian immigrants like Ferragamo. Among visitors to the Expo The final frame fromNuovomondo , is film director Griffith, who invites directed by Emanuele Crialese in the two Italian craftsmen to work on 2006. The film deals with the massive the set of his new film Intolerance Italian emigration to the United (1916), which clearly reveals a total States in the nineteenth century, focusing on the immigrants’ long and distressing detention on Ellis Island. One particularly powerful scene shows the immigrants in their Frames from the movie rags immersed in a milky white L’emigrante, directed sea, symbolic of their dream by Febo Mari in 1915 of a happy country where they could live peacefully

12 13 and extremes of wretchedness, and of gold in superabundance and the most squalid poverty.” This was the description of the mecca of cinema in the 1920s by Alberto Rabagliati, an actor who, like other Italians, was invited to California.2 After earning a certain fame in Italy and beyond, Italians in Hollywood—the children of immigrants and, in some cases, immigrants themselves—seemed able to make the most appreciated Italian qualities flourish in the world of American cinema: imagination, gaiety, ease of movement and stage presence, enthusiasm, warmth and a sense of harmony, as Gianni Puccini wrote in 1937.3 Even if generally known only to specialists, the panorama of Italians working in the American silent movies was extensive and vibrant: they were the creators of a culture of entertainment rooted in the ancient and versatile traditions of Italian theater. Among them were potential stars such as Lido Manetti, whose death in a car accident was one of the unsolved mysteries of the Roaring Twenties. There were actors from the immigrant theater, such as Frank Puglia; comedians like Monty Banks, the stage name of Mario Bianchi; character actors the likes of Henry Armetta, and dramatic performers such as Cesare Gravina, whom director Erich von Stroheim used in all his films. The American cinema also included Italian- born directors who had emigrated at a tender age, among them Frank Capra and Robert Vignola, or second-generation Italian Americans like Gregory La Cava and Frank Borzage. But also extraordinary cinematographers, such as Tony Gaudio and Sol Polito, figures who excelled in their job as cultural mediators and interpreters by combining their know-how with a positive image of Italy: the cradle of art with a cult of the past. In their work, “well- made” meant continuity with an age-old craft, as is claimed by the two Bonanno artisans, the main characters in Good Morning Babilonia, who explicitly link their training in art to the great masters of the Renaissance, Leonardo and Michelangelo. Besides casting light on more or less well known names and personalities, the exhibition also aims to reveal WASP culture’s ambivalent and often contradictory assessment of Italian Americans, divided between its appreciation of Italian history and culture and its contempt for certain stereotypical characteristics attributed to the immigrants, especially those from southern Italy: impulsiveness, passion, and excessive sentimentality. In their different ways, Lina Cavalieri and Enrico Caruso, Tina Modotti and Rudolph Valentino are perfect examples of how the duality of nature and culture was forged into a harmonious balance in their art. These artists knew

Lina Cavalieri in a Portrait of Enrico Caruso, n.d. 1890 photograph

15 to California, while the temporary failure of the Italian film production system brought American stars to Europe as testimonials for the new Hollywood-made empire of images. Italian music plays an important part in this analysis of the reciprocal influence of the two cultures, despite being little known, perhaps even less than the Italian contribution to American cinema. Whereas opera and classical music conquered American high society, recordings of how to use to the full their natural talents of voice and Romola’s screenwriters, who diligently consulted traditional and popular songs, mostly Neapolitan and Sicilian, circulated body, finally refining them through study, technique, piles of books in American libraries before traveling among Italian immigrants: they document the life of Italian immigrants and art, to become the embodiment of Italian appeal to Italy: their imagery is almost identical. The film in America, the way they faced difficulties in the New World, the and style. was shot in the V.I.S. film studios at Rifredi, in the conflicts that arose between the new and older generations of Italian Between 1919 and 1925, a period that saw the suburbs of Florence, where the city’s monuments were American families, the political problems that affected them, and the expansion and success of American cinematography reconstructed on a set worthy of the great epic films nostalgic memories of their cherished homeland. The musical tastes and culture in Europe and the world and a of the day. Costumes and settings were entrusted and style of these craftsmen-cum-musicians, such as the quartet led corresponding decline in Italian cinema, American to the historical and artistic consultancy of Guido by Rosario Catalano from Sicily, one of the most important figures in the filmmakers and actors embarked on the Grand Tour Biagi (then the director of the Laurentian Library Italian American recording scene of the 1920s, heavily influenced North of Italy, the celebrated journey traveled by European in Florence), to Gabriellino d’Annunzio, and to the American dance music of the period. aristocracy beginning in the seventeenth century Florentine aristocracy—qualified individuals who were No less important was the contribution of Italian immigrants to jazz, which included Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, and called upon to contribute in their various capacities the soundtrack of the Roaring Twenties. Very many Italian musicians sometimes Sicily, as was the case with Mary Pickford to the creation of sets that were clearly inspired by (or ones of Italian origin) played in the most important bands, either and Douglas Fairbanks on their visit in 1926, or with Italian Renaissance art or its romantic interpretation adopting new English names or Americanizing their own. Among them screenwriter Anita Loos, who, with her husband John in nineteenth-century painting. was cornetist Nick La Rocca, one of the founders of the Original Dixieland Emerson, met Mussolini in Rome in the mid-1920s. Italy was the source of many of the elements Jazz Band; Russ Columbo (Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolfo Colombo), American film directors shot a dozen films in Italy, found in Hollywood’s silent movies: the genre of a baritone, violinist and actor; and Giuseppe Venuti, aka Joe Venuti, drawn by the artistic beauty of the country, its ever- historical films (like Cabiria) was first of all an ideal who introduced the violin to jazz and appeared in the film King of Jazz changing landscape, and a population that was tool for linking cinema to art history and culture and together with Eddie Lang (born Salvatore Massaro). consistently able to stage its own life. The quality of Hollywood’s stars looked overseas to examine styles Italian musicians brought the Italian tradition of wind instruments in Italian craftsmanship, which Americans have always of portraiture, to copy and reinvent poses. Using bands into jazz orchestras, paving the way for other Italian Americans lauded and prized, is evident in the work of Italian wood and paint, craftsmen brought the Renaissance destined to become famous, such as Louis Prima, Frank Sinatra, and artisans employed in making the sets for Ben-Hur, the 1925 film directed by Fred Niblo, in which Tito Neri and his shipyard in Livorno played a fundamental role, constructing in record time the historical boats used Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky on the set in the production. of The Son of the Sheik, Romola, Henry King’s 1924 film based on the directed by George famous novel by George Eliot (the nom de plume Fitzmaurice in 1926. of Mary Ann Evans), is an extraordinary example The photo was chosen of how Americans’ interest in the Renaissance and as the representative image its fascinating atmosphere and events brought for the exhibition together in Florence the resources of a large film production and the rich and varied range of Tuscan craftsmanship. Not only did places such as the Bargello and the Duomo become the genuine backdrop for the narrative, but also Florentine artists and craftspeople (costume designers, sculptors, joiners, and carpenters) contributed to reconstructing Tina Modotti in a scene the fifteenth-century city as authentically as from the movie The Tiger’s possible, including its vistas, the interiors of noble Coat, directed by Roy residences, and, above all, the much admired Clements in 1920 Palazzo Davanzati. Alongside a selection of film frames, chosen as the most representative sample of “neo-Renaissance Hollywood,” this section of the exhibition presents paintings and sculptures that, in the climate of Renaissance revival stimulated by Bernard Berenson’s studies, illustrate facts and characters based on the same compositional ideas found in King’s film sequences. This produces a game of comparisons, in which a striking affinity in taste and iconographic sources emerges between Italian artists of the time favoring historical escapism and

16 American actor William Haines he left the United States in 1927, everything had changed: with Marion Davies and Charlie the studios had become more numerous and splendid, Chaplin in a scene from the movie and the number of film productions, famous actors, and Show People, directed by King film sector employees had multiplied. Vidor in 1928 Ferragamo noticed a parallel between the development of his own business and that of the film industry, observing the changes that were turning Hollywood into a place that belonged to the collective imagination. Upon arriving in the city, he chose premises on Hollywood Boulevard where shoes were already sold under the Hollywood Boot Shop label. He kept the name but completely transformed the design, installing classical columns, neo-Renaissance furniture and a large sofa to help create a less commercial, more intimate atmosphere and give the space the appearance of an Italian palazzo. The store quickly became a point of reference for the entire market that revolved around the film industry: the most famous stars, but also dancers, showgirls, directors, actors, and producers. Salvatore’s arrival in Hollywood was marked not only by his close connection to cinema’s brilliant trajectory, but also by a direct involvement in cultural activities and the promotion of the arts. Research conducted in California has highlighted various initiatives that document Ferragamo’s original advertising campaigns and his growing familiarity with the huge Hollywood Bowl amphitheater, where his friend, orchestra director Pietro Cimini, often conducted. We can therefore presume that alongside Ferragamo’s professional involvement with the film studios was his pleasure and interest in the world of music, especially opera, a style of theatrical performance much appreciated in the Italian communities, which among other things greatly helped in going beyond the notion of regionalism. Unlike his competitors, Ferragamo understood the importance to his business of music and opera as an instrument of cultural emancipation. A convinced believer in the possibility of a union between art and craftsmanship, and economics and culture, he took part repeatedly and in various ways in the groups that were set up to found an Opera Company. As with every exhibition at the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, a present-day reflection on the chosen theme was included in our study of the subject. The Two Young Italians in Hollywood project, curated by Silvia Lucchesi (director of Lo Schermo dell’Arte Film Festival), involves two young Italian artists working in both Italy and the Rudolph Valentino with his wife Natacha Dean Martin. They were also among the first to adopt United States. Manfredi Gioacchini and Yuri Ancarani Rambova at the gala dinner organized new technologies: Enrico Caruso was the precursor, were invited to create two original works—a photographic by United Artists Associates, 1924. Guests recording opera arias on disc in Milan in 1902, series and a video installation—in close continuity with the included Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford whereas La Rocca made the first recording of jazz past. One hundred years on, who are the Italians working and her husband Douglas Fairbanks, music on disc in New York in 1917. in Hollywood today? What sights catch the eye of an producer Joe Schenck, Buster Keaton, Naturally, this exhibition could not fail to reserve artist arriving from Italy? producer John W. Considine Jr., actress Manfredi Gioacchini has produced black and white Natalie Talmadge (Buster Keaton’s wife), a place for Salvatore Ferragamo, the source for portraits of a number of Italians working in the Hollywood actors William S. Hart and Allan Forrest, this project. When the Italian craftsman left Santa George MacFarlane, Elise Charlotte Pickford Barbara for Los Angeles, Hollywood was little more cinema today; they are known to a greater or lesser (Mary’s mother), actress Constance “Connie” than a village. The film studios were few, small, and extent by the general public and portrayed in their Talmadge and Lottie Pickford (Mary’s sister had meager finances. Sumptuous residences could homes or work environments. Costume designers, editors, and Allan Forrest’s wife) be counted on the fingers of one hand, among them producers, cinematographers, screenwriters, actors, those of Harold Lloyd, Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, shoemakers to the stars and special effects technicians, Charlie Chaplin, and Rudolph Valentino. By the time either young or experienced, they are individuals whose

18 old or new professions still contribute, as they did a century ago, to the life of organizing the special event that completes this the most important film factory in the world. exhibition: the screening of King Vidor’s film Show For Yuri Ancarani, whose work moves freely between contemporary art People, set in Hollywood and starring Marion Davies and cinema and is included in the major international festivals, Hollywood is and Charlie Chaplin. Made in 1928, the film is a a recent discovery and an opportunity to develop new projects using specific carefree look at Hollywood in the period when silent skills in the field of new media. For Italy in Hollywood he proposes a video movies came to an end and includes entertaining installation filmed at Zuma Beach, the famous location depicted in the final cameos by famous actors and celebrities, such as scene of the film Planet of the Apes (1968). The beach’s spectacular natural the lead actors, who play themselves. One scene setting and extraordinary colors at sunset make it a popular place for people contains an image of Salvatore Ferragamo’s store, to take selfies or be photographed. Ancarani captured these scenes with an the Hollywood Boot Shop, thus adding a valuable iPhone in an apparently amateur way and later elaborated them to construct piece of evidence to the historical reconstruction of a visual narrative made up of brief stories interwoven with surprise references the period Ferragamo spent in the United States. to Franklin J. Schaffner’s famous cult film. This charming film helps us imagine the atmosphere The exhibition has drawn on the expertise of co-curator Giuliana that reigned in those years when Los Angeles and Muscio, a leading international scholar focusing on the Italian contribution its Hollywood studios became the myth we have all to American cinema, and on a committee of experts in the various fields come to know. investigated. A number of artworks, photographs, films, costumes, and objects have been loaned by national and international museums and private collections, which have welcomed our project with enthusiasm. 1 In 1932 Rabagliati wrote an account of his Hollywood Indispensible cooperation on the subjects of Italian immigration and the years; see Alberto Rabagliati, Quattro anni fra le “Stelle”. history of Italian and American cinema has been received from specialized Aneddoti e impressioni, ed. by Denis Lotti (Cuneo: institutions, which, in addition to sharing original materials, have also Nerosubianco edizioni, 2017), 27. generously offered their knowledge and advice. Particular thanks go to the 2 Ibid., 50. Academy of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema 3 Gianni Puccini, “Italiani nel mondo del cinema,” in Cinema of Turin, the Cineteca di Bologna for their assistance with research, and to 20 (April 25, 1937): 329. Cinemazero and the Cineteca del Friuli for their constant support and for

Joan Crawford in the Hollywood Black, white, and gray two-piece Boot Shop with Salvatore snakeskin shoe created by Ferragamo, 1920s Salvatore Ferragamo for Joan Crawford in 1932 Florence, Museo Salvatore Ferragamo

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