Even before the Cultural Vanguards: the Scapigliati
If in France we talk about bohemian artists, here in Italy, and particularly in Milan, we have the Scapigliati group: a true form of cultural avant-garde and nonconformist. The first to talk about it was Cletto Arrighi (pseudonym of Carlo Righetti) in theAlmanacco del Pungolo, taking up and consecrating the term brilliantly in the 1862 novel La Scapigliatura e il 6 febbraio.
Who, then, are these Scapigliati, who came to the surface in that very post-Unification Milan that was witnessing the demolition of the small Rebecchino district in Piazza Duomo and the Portico dei Figini to make way for the majestic Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II? It was the same Milan of great industrial development, which was preparing to become the economic capital of the new Kingdom of Italy, and in reaction to the conservative bourgeoisie, the scapigliati intellectuals – poets and writers, painters, sculptors and musicians – were animated by a strong spirit of protest and an acute desire for artistic renewal: they were “restless, troubled, turbulent,” and their most distinctive trait was precisely their “peculiar eccentric and disorderly way of living.”
The Scapigliati, in fact, cannot really be defined as a movement so much as a group of intellectuals who shared a sense of impatience with the culture and society of the time and who in that late 19th century Milan certainly found bread for their teeth. Constantly torn between good and evil, their attitude toward modernity moved along two tracks: on the one hand, the rejection of progress and attachment to the values of the past, and on the other, in perfect opposition, the celebration and representation of the “true.”
This is the spirit that was clearly reflected as much in writing as in artistic expressions.
Together with Cletto Arrighi, the scapigliati writers (including Emilio Praga, Iginio Ugo Tarchetti, the brothers Arrigo e Camillo Boito e Carlo Dossi) liked to create a sense of disorientation in the reader, both by using everyday language that was opposed to the lofty style typical of Romanticism, but at the same time researched, and by dealing with themes such as the irrational, humor, the fantastic, and the macabre. Among the artists, however, from Tranquillo Cremona a Daniele Ranzoni, or from Giuseppe Grandi a Luigi Conconi, all this was found in a poetic and internalized conception of reality, in its observation and immediate restitution, which found its favorite genres in portraits and landscapes.
Milan and the places of the Scapigliati
Like any self-respecting group of intellectuals and artists, the Scapigliati loved to meet and congregate in some iconic places in Milan. The neighborhood that, more than any other, was able to accommodate their cumbersome, subversive and nonconformist personalities was certainly that of today’s Porta Venezia, between Corso Monforte, Viale Majno and Corso di Porta Venezia. So many of them, in fact, had established their studios right here, in a strip of the city that, although very close, still remained alien to the chaos of the city, immersed in the Milanese countryside and for this reason, to be honest, even less expensive: even at the time it was called the “Milanese Montmartre.”
It is in this very triangle of Milan, now so distinctive for the many luxurious Art Nouveau palaces that inhabit it, stood the main haunts of the Scapigliati. First and foremost, between Via Vivaio and Via Conservatorio, the Scapigliati place par excellence was the Osteria della Polpetta, a Milanese dish very dear to these intellectuals, who had a real passion for taverns, sometimes even shabby ones: they were “the home of those who have none,” Carlo Dossi tells us. In addition to the Osteria della Polpetta, we cannot but remember the Osteria della Noce, in Piazza XXIV Maggio, and the Osteria del Lumetta, moved, however, to the Brera area, near Via Fiori Oscuri.
The other place vibrantly frequented by the Scapigliati was, however, the Ortaglia, Count Cicogna’s garden right on Corso Monforte: with the count’s approval, here too these Milanese intellectuals had set up a homely tavern, even equipped with a bocce court. It was the ideal place to discuss, write and paint.
The Scapigliati artists: where to see their works in Milan
Seeing the works of the Scapigliati artists in Milan is not particularly difficult.
Not far from the Scapigliati district, in fact, it is worth focusing on two first monuments. Overlooking Via Senato is the monument dedicated to Felice Cavallotti, Italian politician and patriot: made by Ernesto Bazzaro, the sculpture depicts Leonidas dying, the one who defended the freedom of the Greek peoples. In Piazza Beccaria, on the other hand, one has to go around the sculpture made in 1871 by Giuseppe Grandi and depicting Cesare Beccaria himself: the monument had been commissioned in 1865 on the occasion of the abolition of the death penalty, but this motivation was also added to the just-ago centenary of the publication of Dei delitti e delle pene. Currently, however, the marble original is inside the Palace of Justice, placed here in 1913 to protect it from deterioration.
The main work associated with the Scapigliati, however, is the bronze monument dedicated to the Five Days of Milan, in the square of the same name in the Porta Vittoria area and designed once again by Giuseppe Grandi. The large obelisk that dominates the square is surrounded by five young girls from working-class backgrounds, chosen by the sculptor as an allegory of the Five Days and accompanied by a lion and an eagle, symbols of pride in the people’s resistance and defense of the barricades. It is precisely to the citizens of Milan that the depiction of other episodes that occurred during the famous popular uprising is dedicated. Grandi, who took 13 years of study and work to design the monument, unfortunately did not see its unveiling, dying on November 30, 1894, just months before the event that had been set for the following March.
Finally, a necessary stop to fully immerse yourself in Scapigliatura is a visit to the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, in Palestro, which houses an entire room dedicated to Scapigliate painting and sculpture. Here, in fact, you can admire the main works of painters Tranquillo Cremona, such as Attrazione or Amor Materno, and Daniele Ranzoni, as well as some other sculptural works by Giuseppe Grandi.
