ELÉMIRE ZOLLA

The apartment where Elémire Zolla lived between 1991 and 2002 is housed in a 17th century building in the historic centre of Montepulciano (near Siena). Its two rooms are adorned with frescoes by Piero Castagnoli di Prato, dating from the end of the 18th century. The living room might be described as a wunder kammer for the richness of its furniture and objects collected during several travels made through Asia by the writer and his wife, Grazia Marchianò. The frescoes in this room reflect the traditional symbolism of Greek mythology: four winds shooting arrows in four different directions and the kidnapping of the nymph Orizia by Borea, the wind. A large bookcase, with books of philosophy, literature, anthropology and orientalist texts, can be found in the house, beyond the ten thousand books’ library placed in another apartment in the historical centre. Here, are kept also the writer’s archive, the printed works and the translations by Zolla and Marchianò. In the room, are accommodated late 18th century furniture of Piedmont and a precious Japanese piece of furniture in baroque style, as far as a semi-abstract sculpture by Massimo Lippi from Siena, inspired by the vescica piscis; a precious Greek icon representing Virgin Stella Maris and a small collection of icons gathered by Zolla during his travels. The other rooms of the apartment are full with paintings by the artist Giuseppe Marchianò (1911-1988), the father of Grazia Marchianò, and some portraits of Elémire Zolla by his father Venanzio, a renowned Anglo-Piedmontese painter (1880-1961).