Antonia Pozzi

Italiano

Antonia Pozzi[^][^] was an Italian poet, born in Milan on February 13, 1912 and died suicide at 26 years old in the same city on December 3, 1938. At Pasturo she spent summers in the eighteenth-century family villa in Via Alessandro Manzoni, 1 at the foot of Mount Grigna. She is buried in the cemetery of Pasturo.

Short biography, poems and writings

Raised in a familiar and cultured environment, Antonia manifests at a young age her predilection for classical studies, literature, knowledge, written word and poetry. The love for her Greek and Latin high school professor, Antonio Maria Cervi, opposed to her father, and the renunciation of the dreamed life, not according to the heart but in the good (1933), leaves in her sensitive mind an unmistakable void and it causes pain.[^]

The theme of her poems,[^] autobiographical, is love, fragility and search for oneself. Words are dry and minimized. Nature is example, for good and for evil, where to find the strength to start again or die. The environment is often the mountain, with streams, plants and flowers, peaks, silences, darkness and sunrise.
In her writings,[^] diaries and letters, the Villa of Pasturo and the country, are a place of refuge and regained serenity.

Pasturo

Pasturo, in 2012, devoted a poetic journey, a permanent exhibition along the country's streets in 22 stages with panels of various sizes. They include a careful selection of poetry, diary passages or exceperts of letters, matched with photographs taken by Pozzi herself or by others, that portray her in "pasturesi moments". Each reference is tangible and verifiable with the image of a specific place, a house, a front door, a fountain, a wash house or a chapel.

Villa Pozzi

Villa Pozzi in Pasturo is occasionally open to the public, in summer 2016 it has been for two months, July and August. I myself had the pleasure of visiting it
The villa has remained as it was at the time of Antonia Pozzi. The first emotion was the corridor to the poet's rooms, which is accessed by a small balcony door on the first floor. The two studios have many objects and memories of the poet. From each one, a window looks at the garden of the villa, neither large, nor small, which really transmits serenity.

I admire Villa Pozzi from the outside when I go to Grigna, in recent years I start from Barzio. It comes after Via Roma and passed the Cariola torrent, that it borders; it is large and perfectly preserved, ancient, one understands that it is an important house. Towards the mountain, there is a gate that opens onto a large courtyard; high up on the yellow façade of the villa, a plaque, which recalls Antonia (in block letters):

In questa romita dimora
si svolse per un ventennio
la pensosa adolescenza
di
Antonia Pozzi
che animò di sogni e di canti
le montagne della Valsassina
Estate 1918 Autunno 1938

In this hermit dwelling
took place for twenty years
the thoughtful adolescence
of
Antonia Pozzi
which animated with dreams and songs
the mountains of Valsassina
Summer 1918 Autumn 1938

Looking up, sideways, stands the long balcony supported by columns.
Turning the corner of Via Alessandro Manzoni, in Via Cantellone, my climb begins along the wall of the villa. Returning to Pasturo, the mule track ends right where there is a small gate at the edge of the villa's garden, from which Pozzi set off into nature.

Exhibitions

Milan, at the Oberdan Space, from October 23, 2015 to January 6, 2016, has dedicated her a beautiful exhibition, titled Sopra il nudo cuore. Fotografie e film di Antonia Pozzi, in English Over a naked heart. Pictures and movies by Antonia Pozzi,[^][^] which I visited.

References

1. "Antonia Pozzi". antoniapozzi.it (in Italian). Retrieved 14 September 2017.
2. "Antonia Pozzi". [Search in Google Italia]. Google. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
3. "Biografia". antoniapozzi.it (in Italian). Retrieved 14 September 2017.
4. "Poesie". antoniapozzi.it (in Italian). Retrieved 14 September 2017.
5. "Scritti". antoniapozzi.it (in Italian). Retrieved 14 September 2017.
6. 10 December 2015. "Sopra il nudo cuore". antoniapozzi.it (in Italian). Retrieved 14 September 2017.
7. "Exhibition: ‘Over a Naked Heart’ Pictures and Movies by Antonia Pozzi". In Events. Where Milan. Retrieved 14 September 2017.