Dames, Drames et Demons / Suite Italienne par Juliette Benzoni

(re-issued : Suite Italienne 2005)

Foreword by Juliette BENZONI

Italy! Long before it had one of its old names, it occupied my imagination. I must have been fourteen or fifteen when the virus hit me. That year, André Chamson, then curator of the Petit Palais, had literally plundered the museums of the Peninsula, in particular the Uffizi in Florence, for a fabulous exhibition and, for months on end, Italian Art - as it was called - had Paris, France and part of Northern Europe in a frenzy. From Cimabue to Tiepolo - the announced programme - the finest works by Angelico, Uccello, Botticelli - I was particularly fond of the Madonna with a Pomegranate - Ghirlandaio, Verrocchio, Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Veronese and Piero della Francesca covered the walls of the palace in their splendour. It was a dazzling experience that I had to go and see a dozen times with my mother, my school, friends, cousins from the provinces and anyone else I could get my hands on to have a chance to go back. It was magical!

As art history was developed at an early age in the dear house responsible for adorning my mind while imbuing me with the ingredients necessary for a decent baccalaureate, I was already familiar with the main painters, but in isolation. Bringing them together was like fireworks, and as usual, I turned to History to learn a little more about the characters in this fascinating world, which was also disturbing because of its shadows and contrasts. Stendhal's chronicles for the music and a few solid historians for the lyrics, Renaissance Italy is a fantastic opera where blood and mud serve as fertiliser for the blossoming of a superhuman beauty renewed from ancient Greece and the refinements of a mosaic of principalities led by characters from fantastic tales. Because this Italy, which did not yet bear its own name, was spelt Medici, Borgia - although they were Spaniards, like the Aragons of Naples - Este, Sforza and so on. They were all colourful patrons of the arts, enamoured of a certain art de vivre, but cruel, debauched, sometimes ferocious and without the slightest regard for human life, like Cesare Borgia, revered by Machiavelli, who made him "The Prince", but whose mask of gold-embroidered velvet concealed the ravages of syphilis...

Women are the height of their excess, whether they are victims or rulers. Their beauty has stood the test of time, on its way to eternity, their excesses a little less so, but in lifting the veil of the centuries, this « Italian Suite » aims to restore them to their human reality by revealing what the glittering brocades of their dresses have concealed of pain, hatred or resignation.

Synopsis : Dames Drames et Demons 1980

Ladies Dramas and Demons

Renaissance Italy! A fabulous fresco of gold, azure, purple and flowers, composed like a work of art intended to achieve the greatest possible sum of earthly happiness. But its splendours, renewed from ancient Greece, and its almost divine art, were born of unbridled violence, princely lust and the bloody excesses of the street, a thick and fertile mire magnifying the beauty of women and the refinements of an exceptional culture and a certain art of living.

In this often diabolical plot, Princes are kidnapped in high relief, because Renaissance Italy is also written Borgia, Medici. Este, Sforza...

It's Florence, submissive as a woman in love to the powerful yet charming ugliness of Lorenzo the Magnificent. It's Rome, boiling like a witch's cauldron under its playful, artistic and bloodthirsty Popes, but trembling under the whip of Cesare Borgia, whose black mask hides the ravages of syphilis. It's Ferrara and its rebellious duchesses. It is Milan and Beatrice d'Este's last ball, whose supreme chord ends in a requiem. It is, finally, above all, the vivacious sprout of youth springing, sovereign, from the old Italian soil to go and blossom all over Europe.

A paperback volume of 266 pages, with original colour cover. Éditions Trévise

Table of contents

BORGIA (ROME) MÉDICIS (FLORENCE) ESTE (FERRARE) CAPELLO (VENICE) SFORZA (MILAN and FORLI) CARAFA (NAPLES) VENOSA (NAPLES)

Light, fickle, fleeting pleasure accompanied by a thousand torments, through the deceptive brilliance with which you dazzle us, you hide cruel evils and your rich, brilliant finery covers hideous monsters....

~ Lorenzo de' Medici ~ Portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici. Oil on canvas by Agnolo Bronzino. 1555/1565. Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze photo: Public domain

À Claude Versini À l'Àmitié incarnée... ℐℬ / To Claude Versini : To Friendship unlimited...ℐℬ

Dames, drames & démons was republished by Editions Bartillat in 2005 under the title : Suite Italienne.

Synopsis: Suite Italienne 2005

This Italian suite is made up of paintings featuring the great figures of the Renaissance. Each family is associated with a city of vast influence. Rome, boiling like a witch's cauldron under its playful, artistic and bloodthirsty popes, but trembling under the whip of Caesar Borgia, whose black mask hides the ravages of syphilis. Florence, submissive as a woman in love to the powerful yet charming ugliness of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Ferrara and its rebellious duchesses, Venice and its witch, Milan and Beatrice d'Este's last ball... At the same time, the ancient land of Italy was to offer the world a civilisation that would serve as a model. With her immense talent, Juliette Benzoni recounts the fantastic chronicles of these sovereigns, whose beauty and excesses were to become eternal...

~ Cover: DV Arts Graphics - Illustration : La Bella Palme The Old ~ [ Location : Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain ]

Synopsis: Suite Italienne 2015

re-issued by Bartillat in 2015

A rediscovery of Benzoni to start the year.
News about the great families of the Renaissance in Italy: the Borgias, etc.

This Italian suite is made up of paintings featuring the great figures of the Renaissance. Each family is associated with a city of vast influence. Rome, boiling like a witch's cauldron under its playful, artistic and bloodthirsty popes, but trembling under the whip of Cesare Borgia, whose black mask hides the ravages of syphilis. Florence, submissive as a woman in love to the powerful yet charming ugliness of Lorenzo de' Medici. Ferrara and its rebellious duchesses, Venice and its witch, Milan and Beatrice d'Este's last ball... At the same time, the ancient land of Italy was to offer the world a civilisation that would serve as a model. With her immense talent, Juliette Benzoni recounts the fantastic chronicles of these sovereigns, whose beauty and excesses were to become eternal...

~ Cover : illustration : the lady with an ermine 1488 - 1490 by Leonardo da Vinci ~ [ Location : Museum Czartoryski, Cracow, Poland]

Synopsis: Suite Italienne 2005 - 06

published by Pocket 2005 & re-issued 2006

For centuries, the Italian Renaissance has been synonymous with cultural influence. A sublime era devoted to the development of the arts and sciences, these glorious years were also subject to the antics of its all-powerful rulers.

In Rome of the pleasure-seeking popes, the redoubtable Cesare Borgia gives free rein to his murderous madness. In Florence, the charismatic Lorenzo de' Medici establishes his domination through refinement, seduction and hushed cruelty. In the heart of modern Ferrara, the secrets of sensual duchesses are whispered, while Venice, Naples and Milan become the scene of conspiracies and tragic passions.

A series of chronicles dedicated to lovers of history and its sulphurous protagonists.

~ Cover : Illustration : Lady with a unicorn, Portrait of a young woman with a unicorn by Rafaello Sanzio of Urbino (Raphaël) ~ [ Location : Museum de la Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy]

Synopsis: THE BORGIA'S 2012

►This edition is an extract from Suite Italienne from which the Borgia story has been removed. We can assume that Pocket was inspired by the various television series about the Borgias...!

The Borgias. This Spanish family, which produced two popes and ruled 15th-century Rome, is best remembered for its sulphurous legend: poison, fratricide, incest and stupor under the gold of the Vatican.
The Holy See, the seat of power at the time, was in the hands of the controversial Pope Alexander VI, and was a hotbed of desire. Internal wars and secret alliances, treachery and Machiavellian plots, the black mask of Cesare Borgia, covering his syphilis-ridden face, haunts the corridors of history.

~ Cover: Illustration : Tintoretto, Portrait of Lucrezia Borgia (detail) ) ~ [ Location : Museum of the Vatican, Rome, Italy]

♣ The Novel was also translated in the Countries :

Les Éditions : République Tchèque et Croatie

Countess Caterina Sforza of Imola & Forli

Countess Caterina Sforza, a woman much admired by Juliette Benzoni ! It was thanks to the Italian Renaissance that Juliette Benzoni caught the eye of Gérald Gauthier (Press Agent Opéra Mundi) and of the esteemed historian Alain Decaux during the TV transmision 'Gros Lot in 1959'.

[ creation © Linda Compagnoni Walther]