I recently wrote a couple of posts about my mother’s encounters with famous Italians. The first was Beniamino Gigli, the operatic tenor, then was Mario Tobino, psychiatric doctor cum writer. Well, those two were just casual meetings, but there was another famous person in my mother’s life, with whom she shared a proper friendship, in fact she even helped him with his career: the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro.

Sfera con sfera by Arnaldo Pomodoro, Trinity College, Dublin. Photo CC

Here’s a brief account of this friendship in my mother’s own words:

Dopo la Guerra siamo tornati a vivere a Pesaro, poi nel 1947 io sono andata a Roma a studiare da infermiera e a Pesaro ci andavo solo per le vacanze. Quando ero a casa a Pesaro uscivo con Carmen e Lola (le sorelle minori) e i loro amici, fra cui c’erano Arnaldo e Giò Pomodoro. Carmen e Lola infatti frequentavano l’Istituto d’Arte assieme ai fratelli Pomodoro.
After the war we moved back to Pesaro, then in 1947 I went to Rome to study to become a nurse, and I only went back to Pesaro for the holidays. When I was at home in Pesaro I would go out with Carmen and Lola (her younger sisters) and their friends, amongst whom were Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro. In fact, Carmen and Lola studied at the same Art School as the Pomodoro brothers.

Arnaldo Pomodoro in 1951

Un giorno Arnaldo, Giò e il loro amico Giorgio Perfetti decisero di partecipare ad un concorso per la scenografia di un’opera lirica. Con il legno costruirono il modello in scala del teatro, e col fil di ferro fecero le sagome dei personaggi, ma poi gli serviva qualcuno che sapesse cucire per fare i vestiti dei manichini. Carmen immediatamente offrì il mio aiuto: “Mia sorella Rosanna è tanto brava con l’ago” disse lei. E fu così che io e la sorella di Giorgio Perfetti alla bene e meglio facemmo i costumi dei personaggi.
One day Arnaldo, Giò and their friend Giorgio Perfetti decided to take part in a competition to design the set for an opera. They built a scale model of the theatre with wood, and used wire to make the shapes of the characters, but at that point they needed someone who could sew to make the costumes for the mannequins. Carmen immediately volunteered my help: “My sister Rosanna is very good with the needle” she said. And so it was that me and Giorgio Perfetti’s sister, for better or worse, made the costumes for the characters.

“A Rosanna veramente, Arnaldo. Estate 1951” (To Rosanna truly, Arnaldo. Summer 1951)

Divenni particolarmente amica di Arnaldo. Delle volte il pomeriggio ci sedevamo sugli scogli in riva al mare a leggere. E’ stato Arnaldo a farmi conoscere gli scrittori americani di cui era appassionato, in particolare Hemingway e Steinbeck, che venivano pubblicati in Italia per la prima volta dopo gli anni della censura fascista.
I became good friends with Arnaldo. Sometimes in the afternoon we used to sit on the rocks on the sea shore reading. It was Arnaldo who introduced me to the American writers, in particular Hemingway and Steinbeck, of whom he was very fond, and whose work was published for the first time in Italy after the years of Fascist censorship.

After a couple of years Arnaldo moved to Milan, where the art world was more vibrant, and my mother, after having moved around Italy for her job, got married and settled down in Libya. That’s life!

Now, you may be asking yourselves how come my mother met so many famous Italian men. Simple, she was a very attractive and vivacious young lady!