16. WRITERS AND POETS

Cortina in the mid-twentieth century was a regular meeting place for writers and artists, yet there was one spot in particular where they gathered. It was the house of Rachele Padovan (1916–1999), located here, in Salieto. For decades, it was a place where, along with Rachele’s delicious cuisine, one could encounter Ernest Hemingway, Mario Luzi, Giovanni Comisso, Andrea Zanzotto, Giuseppe Berto, Neri Pozza, Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Dacia Maraini, Indro Montanelli, and many others. Rachele’s culinary skills are on full display in her 1981 book La cucina ampezzana, which preserves all the characteristics of local cuisine—“poor, or rather, austere,” as Rachele described it. She had transformed her Ampezzo kitchen into a beloved literary circle. As Giorgio Soavi wrote, Rachele “filled the hearts of many writers” in that “large room with the stove, the table, supplies, and two large windows overlooking the valley.” Alberto Arbasino wrote: “Graham Greene knew it well: the right rendezvous can be arranged in Havana, or at best, in Cortina.” Indeed, from the post-war period onward, a significant chapter of Italian literature passed through the town. Carlo Emilio Gadda, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Pietro Citati, Curzio Malaparte, Vitaliano Brancati, Piero Chiara, Sergio Saviane, Pier Antonio Quarantotti Gambini. Also, Giovanna Zangrandi, Raffaele La Capria, Domenico Porzio, Riccardo Bacchelli, Alis Levi, Palma Bucarelli, Gianna Manzini, up to Cesare De Michelis, Giulio Nascimbeni, and Luciano De Crescenzo… Alongside them were a host of Ampezzo locals and regular visitors—Renato Balsamo, Milena Milani, Mario Caldara, Roberto Pappacena, Maria Irma Mariotti, Ennio Rossignoli, forming a vibrant tableau, where the local character and both national and international influences came together in village life. “Feisty, beloved, and very popular, Cortina survived the years of conflict,” wrote Giovanni Nuvoletti Perdomini. “Soon after, it joyfully and mischievously resumed its carousel of vanities, with a ronde du plaisir that was perhaps less cheerful but even more frenetic, destined to slowly fade with a few yawns.”