Capri - Famous visitors

Famous visitors

Capri's fame as an exclusive destination initiates at the start of the nineteenth century when it was “discovered” by the travelers participating in the Grand Tour. It was at this time that the island’s first hotel opened: the Hotel Pagano, which still conserves the guest book with the signatures of its first clients.
Intellectuals, writers, painters, poets, artists and the wealthy unemployed all traveled to the Isola Azzurra, drawn to Capri by its exquisite beauty and seduced by the hospitable spirit of the islanders. Numerous illustrious names frequently chose the island as their retreat, others were never again to leave. Thus Capri acquired a reputation as a center of great cultural ferment, in addition to its fame for its spectacular natural landscapes.

Camille Du Locle (1832-1903)

Camille Du Locle was the famous French librettist who wrote Don Carlos, La Forza del Destino and Aida, put to music by Verdi.
Arriving on the island in 1880, he lived in incognito on Capri for a number of years, residing in the building of the modern day “La Certosella”.
The islanders called him “u’ francesiello” due to his short stature, whilst the English christened him “acid drop” for his uncompromising frankness.
He is buried in the non catholic cemetery of Capri.

Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851-1913)

In the early 1900s Karl Wilheim, the German painter whose canvases are displayed in the rooms of the charterhouse museum, established himself in Capri in the Palazzo built on the boundary with the terrace of the funicular railway on the side of Via Roma. Continually attacked by the press of his day, he sought refuge on the island together with a number of students. Here he opened his museum and painted the outside of the house with stylized dancing figures. Follower of Teosofia, he practised nudism and vegetarianism, and advocated dress reform and freedom of the body. Diefenbach used to paint on the terrace dressed in long white tunics. His paintings were of the most varied dimensions, at times even 6 meters by 3 meters. He added a number of new materials to the oil paint, such as mixed bitumen and sand. He created images which ably communicated the artist’s state of mind and his belief that “evil is the lack of light”, with flashes of light ripping through his dark paintings.

Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1854-1902)

Friedrich Alfred Krupp was a German industrialist, owner of the Krupp steel works, who had earned himself the nickname “cannon man”.
It is believed that he was, at the time, the richest man in the whole of Germany.
For a considerable period of time he resided at the Hotel Quisisana. Somewhat surprisingly, he never actually purchased a property for himself on island of Capri.
His presence on the island brought many benefits to Capri, he commissioned the building of the Via Krupp pathway and the Gardens of Augustus. He owned the Grotta di Fra' Felice.
He nurtured a great interest in marine biology and collaborated with the Zoological Department of Naples in the discovery and study of new forms of plankton.
He financed the staging of two major nature expeditions in the waters of Capri and provided two boats for the purpose: the Maya and the Puritan.
Whilst in Capri, Krupp was the protagonist of a homosexuality scandal, which had strong repercussions in Germany.

Axel Munthe (1857-1949)

Axel Munthe was a physician, philanthropist and animal lover.
In 1884, he put his recently completed studies to use, assisting the population struck by cholera.
From 1885 he became a regular visitor to the island of Capri and built his house “Villa San Michele” in Anacapri, a building “open to the sun, wind, and light of the sea”.
Meanwhile, he established himself in his profession and was named the personal doctor of Queen Victoria of Sweden.
In 1910 he retired to live in the Torre Materita, following a problem with his vision which was made worse by the exposure to light.
Here he wrote his famous book, “The History of San Michele”, translated in a number of languages in which he tells the tale of the construction of his villa and the collection of the artefacts housed there.
He died in Stockholm in 1949.

Norman Douglas (1868-1952)

Norman Douglas, writer, lived in Capri and, after his death, was buried in the Non Catholic Cemetery here. He nurtured a great interest in ecology in a period when the science was still relatively unheard of. He passed a great deal of his time replanting woodland in various zones of Capri, planting the trees himself. He arrived in Capri, the first time in 1888, with his brother, and returned as often as possible until he came to live here permanently in 1903. He wrote a number of works dedicated to Capri, analysing the peculiarities and customs of the Island. He was friend of other island visitors such as the Mackenzies. His most successful work was “South Wind”, which provided the financially ruined Mackenzie, with the means of living in a dignified manner. After a period spent in London, in 1946 the writer returned to Capri where he stayed until his death.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955)

The German author who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1929. He spent his youth in Munich where he frequented intellectual and artistic circles; in 1905 he married Katja Pringsheim with whom he had six children. Continually travelling abroad in order to participate in numerous conferences, in 1933 Thomas Mann decided not to return to Germany due to the rise to power of Hitler. He lived in Switzerland and in the United States of America, where he was awarded citizenship in 1944. Among his works one finds Buddenbrooks, Könglche Hoheit, The Magic Mountain, Death in Venice. Monica Mann, one of the writer’s children, lived in Capri for a considerable length of time in Villa Monacone, with views over the Faraglione.

Edwin Cerio (1875-1960)

Edwin Cerio, engineer and writer, was of major importance for the local press in the early 1900's.
Indeed, he made acquaintance with and regularly wrote about the visitors to Capri in that period. His works include the bitterly ironic "l'Ora Capri" and the "L'Aria di Capri".
The celebrities described by Edwin Cerio often reappear in the form of protagonist in the novels of Compton Mackenzie, Norman Douglas and the other authors who resided in Capri and who, it would seem, took inspiration from the island social life when creating their characters.
In 1920 he became the mayor of Capri and held the position until 1923, he was responsible for the building regulations which aimed to protect the "architectural style of Capri".
He designed a great number of Capri's villas and founded the Cerio Museum dedicated to his father, Ignazio, a well known island doctor.

Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972)

The Scottish writer, Compton Mackenzie, is the author of two novels set in the Capri of the 1920’s: “Extraordinary Women” and “Vestal Fire”, in which he describes the life style on the island in the period of his stay there.
Compton Mackenzie landed on Capri around 1913, with his wife Faith, and stayed there for approximately ten years.
He lived, initially, in Villa Caterola, then for a short period in Villa il Rosaio at Anacapri, and then in the Villa La Solitaria owned by Cerio.
He then purchased a small building at Cetrella.
His friendships on the island included those with Massimo Gorkji, Axel Munthe and Cerio.
Around the nineteen twenties the writer’s enthusiasm for the island began to waver somewhat and a slow process of separation led to him abandoning Capri and transferring to England.
The villa at Cetrella has been recently restored by one of the island associations.

Jacques d'Adelsward Fersen (1880-1923)

Count Fersen is thought to be the descendent of Maria Antoniette’s lover.
He lived, initially, in the villa La Certosella, now a hotel, before moving to the celebrated Villa Lysis, dedicated to “an adolescence of love”.
Poet and writer, supreme exponent of the Dandyism of Capri, always accompanied by the faithful secretary Nino, Fersen frequently organized parties in the splendid villa, to which all the intellectuals and eccentric travelers staying on the island of Capri were invited.
Fersen lived for twenty years on the island, his death here, possibly suicidal one, is thought to have been caused by an overdose of cocaine. The ashes of Count Fersen are kept in Capri’s non catholic cemetery.

Amedeo Maiuri (1886-1963)

Amedeo Maiuri, Neapolitan Archaeologist, was the superintendent of the Antiquities of the Campania region and director of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and the Sites of Herculaneum and Pompei.
He conducted the first excavations on the site of Villa Jovis at Capri following scientific criteria in 1932, and thanks to his work, which lasted three years, the areas around the ruins were cleared bringing to light large part of the remains which can be visited today.
Amedeo Maiuri dedicated his life to his studies, searching for and conserving the traces and symbols of the past.

Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957)

Kurt Erich Suchert, whose name in art was Curzio Malaparte, was born in Prato to parents of Anglo Saxon origin. He became actively involved in politics, frequenting intellectual circles and societies. In 1927 he became Editor in Chief of the “Mattino” newspaper and moved to Naples. Later he became Editor of the “Stampa” newspaper.
During the war he fought on the Italian-French front, in Russia, Poland, Germany, Croatia, Finland. Among his works: Kaputt, La Pelle, Sangue, Donna come me. As a consequence of his political ideas and for his “brutal” way of expressing them, Malaparte was arrested on more than one occasion. Curzio Malaparte arrived in Capri for the first time in 1936 to visit his friend Axel Munthe. Here he bought from an islander a piece of land right on the cliff edge at Capo Massullo where, in 1938, he built a villa which he called “A house like me”, which perches, fiery red, on the promontory. The villa now belongs to the Giorgio Ronchi Foundation, dedicated to the nephew of Malaparte, who died in 1944 during the war.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Paolo Neruda, Chilean poet, was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971. At just 19 years of age he published his first book: Crepuscolario. In 1927 he entered the diplomatic services.
He lived through the experience of the Spanish civil war of ‘36-’37 which indelibly marked the poet’s soul. Pablo Neruda came to Capri in 1952 with his lover, the Chilean singer Matilde Urrutia. On the island he lived in the beautiful “Casa di Arturo” belonging to Edwin Cerio, writer and engineer. During his period in Capri, Neruda’s collection of love poems “The Captain’s Verses” was published.

Graham Greene (1904-1991)

Born in Berkhamsted, near London. Fourth of six children, Graham Greene, began to write from an early age, publishing some of the greatest masterpieces of contemporary English literature. In 1927 he abandoned the protestant faith, converting to Catholicism, a change which was to influence all of his literary works. He travelled extensively, satisfying his taste for adventure and, at the same time, finding inspiration for his books. He lived a privileged life, with houses in London, Antibes, and Capri. Whilst on the island of Capri, in the nineteen forties, Greene lived in the Villa Il Rosario in Anacapri. Among his works “Travels with My Aunt”, “The Honorary Consul”, “Our Man In Havana”, “The Quiet American” which were often followed by films supervised by Graham Greene himself.

Giuseppe Orlandi

Giuseppe Orlandi, provincial advisor, strongly advocated the construction of the carriageway linking Marina Grande with Anacapri in 1877. The last section of the road, the part which passes through the residential center of Anacapri, was named after Giuseppe Orlandi.

Miradois

Miradois, il cui vero nome era Gustavo Giulio Ottone Dobrich, era un monaco eremita tedesco che si nutriva di erbe e di latte di capra. Arrivato dopo la prima guerra mondiale, Miradois abitò nella Grotta di Matromania e quando andò via da Capri la "donò" al Comune. Nell'inventario da lui redatto c'erano "quattro letti in pietra, otto cuscini in sabbia e calcare, quattro mura ed il sole". La figura di Miradois è stata narrata anche da Edwin Cerio in un suo racconto breve che descrive l'incontro, avvenuto presso la Grotta di Matromania, tra Filippo Tommaso Marinetti - noto poeta, scrittore e fondatore del movimento futurista - e il monaco tedesco che si rivolgeva ai suoi discepoli con fare profetico, e vedeva in Marinetti un possibile seguace delle sue dottrine.