When will my paintings see a new light, now that shrouded in mystery they are slowly disappearing? Perhaps my dwelling will become a work of art, and as in a painting it will house the viewer’s gaze and unconscious. In the end, a painting always hides a lived story.
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Location
The abandoned villa is located between Bologna and Ferrara, in a remote country village.
History and Description
Not much is known about this building. What little we know goes back to the 1960s, to the last family that lived here. After having renovated the villa most of the frescoes in each room and corridor were partially erased and hidden by various colours and wall papers.
The abandonment of this villa, however, is still an unresolved question mark. Why abandon everything, and leave behind family heirlooms, furniture, paintings, prints and everything else? In fact, if you explore the building you can easily notice the hundreds of closures on the walls, and the countless dark and damp spots left on the walls. This suggests that every corner of the house was covered with a few paintings.
You can still see many reproductions of famous paintings, prints of monuments, panoramas, puzzles with some of the protagonists of comics. To this we must add a library still full of books by different authors, all in bulk. Many are the texts of psychology and D’Annunzio, and to enjoy them in peace on the shelves there are bottles and glasses of wine. To add to this there is the villa in good condition, and this could suggest a forced abandonment, or the death of someone.
Entering this villa reminds me a lot of the journey into the world of fairy tales of Alice and Nelly. Here too my heart and imagination had wings and took flight. Although our visit was a bit of a bite and run, the skimmed taste of this villa has remained with me as an aftertaste.
The climax came in what was probably used as the children’s room. Every puzzle of every cartoon character, where every desire took shape, and every inhabitant of the drawing world came to life. “Can we be friends?” the animated creatures asked. “Um, can we pretend to be friends” was our answer. A story within a story, a closet in Narnia without a door. Maybe the landlords found themselves in the wrong story and decided to start another one.
