The Italian late symbolist painter can only be understood by acknowledging his connections to Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and a Christian form of esotericism.
by Massimo Introvigne
The leading Italian daily, “Corriere della Sera,” said it all: “A small town, a great exhibition.” Collesalvetti, in Tuscany, is indeed a small town, but curator Francesca Cagianelli put it on the national map of art exhibitions with a series of proposals at the local art museum Pinacoteca Comunale Carlo Servolini focusing on the spiritual and esoteric circles of nearby Livorno. Several of the artists Cagianelli presented in Collesalvetti were close to Theosophy. The Italian Theosophical Society is the media partner of the new exhibition that opened on November 14, consecrated to Raoul Dal Molin Ferenzona (1879–1946), which she curated with Emanuele Bardazzi, a leading expert of the artist.
Bardazzi and Cagianelli also wrote the two dense articles of the catalog, The fact that it was published by Silvana Editoriale, a publisher well known for its catalogs of Italy’s greatest exhibitions, further underlines Collesalvetti’s entry into a national circuit.
Ferenzona was born in Florence in 1879, but his family was from Livorno. It was also in Livorno that his father was murdered for political reasons. He was a monarchist and a vitriolic critic of the partisans of Mazzini and Garibaldi. In a time of heated political passions, this costed him his life. Orphaned at age one, the young Ferenzona moved to Florence with his mother, who eventually persuaded him to enroll in the Military Academy. However, soon he realized that rather than the army it was the art that called him. He also heard the call of Livorno, both as a family connection and as a center of spiritualist art.
Collesalvetti’s Pinacoteca systematically explores the artists’ connections with the local territory. The exhibition emphasizes the importance of Ferenzona’s early exhibitions in Livorno and his connection with the historical gallery Bottega d’Arte.
Other cities were important for Ferenzona, too. The exhibition notes his connections with Rome, his deep friendship with Roman poet Sergio Corazzini (1886–1907), who died of tuberculosis at age 21, and his explorations into the capital’s occult milieu. He met esoteric luminaries such as Julius Evola (1898–1974) and probably the secretive Giuliano Kremmerz (1861–1930) or at least the circle of his Roman followers. He became part of a group of artists fascinated by Theosophy and exhibited in 1917 in the headquarters of a splinter group of the Theosophical Society, the Theosophical League led by Decio Calvari (1863–1937).
In the same year 1917, another painter who exhibited at the Theosophical League was Charles Doudelet (1861–1938), a Belgian artist with multiple esoteric interests who lived in Livorno between 1908 and 1923. His career in Italy was explored in another exhibition curated by Francesca Cagianelli in Collesalvetti in 2021. Although there is no clear evidence that Ferenzona met Doudelet, the contrary would be strange as they evolved for several years in the same circles.
The painters who were fascinated by Theosophy and were friends of Calvari had very different artistic styles. Later in life Ferenzona remembered his discussions and disagreements with Giacomo Balla (1871–1958), whose Futurist and abstract explorations were distant from the Tuscan artist. He called himself , perhaps incorrectly, a “Pre-Raphaelite” to underline its preference for dreams, symbolism, and reminiscences of the Middle Ages over abstract art, utopias of the future, and Balla’s fascination for speed and airplanes. However, Balla, Evola (who became critical of Theosophy in later years), and Ferenzona all shared Theosophical interests and a connection with Calvari.
Indeed, Bardazzi believes that the 1930 portrait of an Indian master with a turban and a small statue of the Tantric bodhisattva Trailokyavijaya may represent Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986). Bardazzi speculates that Ferenzona perhaps met Krishnamurti when the latter visited Italy in 1929 and might have been inspired by the portrait of the Indian master (who left the Theosophical Society in the same year 1929 to pursue an independent spiritual path) by the Spanish-Costa Rican painter Tomás Povedano de Arcos (1847–1943).
Having been among the few scholars of esotericism who have studied the Theosophical activities of Povedano, I read with some emotion Bardazzi’s reference in the catalog to his portrait of Krishnamurti (which I published thanks to the courtesy of Costa Rica’s Theosophical Society), the only one where the Indian philosopher wears a turban. I was not aware that it was reproduced in Italy in “Repertorio Americano” in 1929, where Ferenzona might have seen it.
The exhibition shows how Ferenzona’s horizon went beyond Italy. He was influenced by the Rosicrucian movement of Joséphin Péladan (1858–1918) and some of the artists who exhibited at the Salons de la Rose-Croix, including Jan Toorop (1858–1928) and Fernand Khnopff (1858–1921). The Rosicrucian reference remained constant in Ferenzona’s career, as evidenced by the title of his 1923 book with twelve engravings and twelve poems, “AôB – Enchiridion Notturno. Dodici miraggi nomadi, dodici punte di diamante originali. Misteri rosacrociani n. 2 (AôB – Nocturnal Enchiridion: Twelve Nomadic Mirages, Twelve Original Engravings. Rosicrucian Mysteries, no. 2). The title also alludes to the music of Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849), and “Enchiridion Notturno” is the subtitle of Collesalvetti’s exhibition.
Like other Italian artists, Ferenzona found some commonality between the special atmospheres of Bruges described in the novel by Georges Rodenbach (1855–1898) “Bruges-la-Morte” (1892) and the Italian city of Orvieto. Ferenzona also traveled in Central Europe and was influenced by Josef Váchal (1884–1969), of whom the Collesalvetti exhibition presents the significant xylography “William Blake.”
Mentioning Váchal immediately raises the question of Ferenzona’s fascination for both angels and demons, as both appear in the production of the Czech artist and Theosophist. Ferenzona was a kindred spirit. Some of his women are not only sorceresses and “belles dames sans merci,” but exhibit the features of she-demons.
On the other hand, Ferenzona’s is also an art of angels and ultimately a Christian esotericism. Perhaps the visitor may leave the exhibition by meditating on one particular illustration Ferenzona realized for “L’Amour et le Bonheur” by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896).
Italian scholar Michele Olzi, in the only significant essay on Ferenzona published in English (in the section of arts, of which I am the editor, of the “World Religions and Spirituality Project”) regards this image of a transfigured and alchemical man as a “possible self-portrait.” It is the portrait of a Christian alchemist, and at the same time of a man embracing all the complexities of Western and Eastern esoteric traditions.
