Books are fascinating, both when you search for them and when they are searching for you. Looking at my grandfathers table a book called “Tumulto e ordine” written by Antonio Foscari immediately caught my attention. This book is dedicated to the Malcontenta that was built by the Palladio for the “Foscari” and after many centuries it became their property again.
The book is a collection of testimonies of three artists, one is an aesthetic, one a French baroness and the last is a decorator. The three protagonists found the abandoned Palladio’s house on the river of Brenta and decided to settle down there. They decided to restructure it in a very singular way and they host there many cultural exponents and vanguards of the time. This certainly balanced with the “Lido” of Venice, which at the time was definitely more fashionable.
In the book there are many stories, photographs and signatures of those who went to Malcontenta. Some of these were: Picasso, Coco Chanel, Jean Cocteau, Le Corbusier, Matisse, Byron, Warhol.
All of these characters didn’t visit Malcontenta only for the supreme architecture of the Palladio, but especially to live the creative atmosphere created by the three artists that lived in the house.
All of this stimulated those people to forget about the imminent political crisis in Europe.
However, the introduction of the racial laws and the fact that England entered the war against the nazi regime, eliminated this convergence of artistic vanguards and intellectual elites. These mixed with the remaining European vanguards and with those egocentric figures forming that social context from which modern art was born.