January 2011

E 'disappearance Tullia Zevi No

Corrado Cagli, The Tree of Life

Last night, 92 years, has disappeared Tullia Zevi, voice secular Judaism, cultured and refined, for sixteen years president of Jewish Communities, the wife of the architect and architectural critic Bruno Zevi.

Two days after arriving in New York, night meeting at the home of Franco Modigliani and Serena, with a dozen young people arrived in America for several months. Relazionai the Italian situation, the characters of the new anti-fascism. Among those young people, a girl. I did not know his name, not exchanged a single word, perhaps not even shook his hand. But she, in short, I recognized my wife. Without tumultuous passions, without irrational outbursts, or emotional overflowing - what then dovava repeatedly chided myself - I felt a most noble and solemn feelings of attraction, that of a common destiny. The following day, I asked to consult the tarot Cagli. I chose a card, or a symbol, for her and one for me. Sitting on the floor, metidabondo, Corrado juxtaposition figures in slow intervals. Completed, recorded with surprise that the second card was not pop, "but not the partridge appears to meet mai più, chiunque ella sia”. Partii per Cuba, al fine di ottenere il visto di residenza, intanto avvevo appreso che si trattava di Tullia Calabi, milanese, ebrea. Nell’albergo di La Habana, le scrissi una lunga lettera, rievocando l’Italia, gli amici, divagando sulla vita e i destini, senza allusioni personali dirette. Non mi rivolgevo ad una ragazza da conquistare, ma alla compagna, quasi fossimo sposati da tempo. Comprai delle piccole nacchere cubane, e gliele consegnai a New York, dopo un “seder” pasquale. Ci rivedemmo al Central Park, le detti la lettera, anzi gliela lessi, e decidemmo di fidanzarci. Ebbi l’impressione di recitare una parte estranea e scontata, gia esaurita. Volevo coninvolgera non in a romance, but the times that arise after years of marriage, studies, work, to identify the torment, the shots and depression, the self-destructiveness, the quest to be more than happy, true. Our engagement suffered two sudden interruptions, which both suffer. Tullia was adamant, trying with all means of escape from a fate that, in his opinion, does not stem from love. Trasferitomi in Cambridge, riallacciai, correspondence with considerable effort, the report said. I managed to overcome the doubts of Tullia or, rather, to grant, from afar, writing was easier than during rare trips to New York. We set to get married in the English-Portuguese synagogue December 26, 1940. The night before marriage, I told Cagli that something had not worked in those tarot cards. Replied occurred. Once again, the two symbols came together: "You will become husband and wife, but there will never meet. Greetings! "As a wedding gift, the drawing reproduced here, the tree of life. The pair played and toyed mythical age of childhood during the maturity he is too intent and puzzled to notice her, which scans at an angle, behind the tree, from the old, in the background, watching.
Bruno Zevi "Da Zevi su Zevi," Magma Editrice, Milan, 1977