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Eleonora Duse (1858 - 1924) was one of the most remarkable actors of her time. Her chequered affair with Italian poet and patriot Gabriele d’Annunzio is well known; less known is that one night, following a violent nocturnal fight with him at his residence at Palazzo Zuccari in Via Gregoriana, just above the Spanish Steps, a shaken and disheveled Duse fled to 26, Piazza di Spagna to seek help from celebrated Swedish doctor and writer Axel Munthe (1857 - 1949), who, at the turn of the century, lived in the same bedroom where John Keats had died eight decades before. The letter on display was written to Angelo Signorelli (1876 - 1952), a noted physician and discerning art collector, and his common-law wife Olga Resnevič (1883 - 1973), a Russian writer and translator who eventually became Duse’s biographer. The letter is intimate and affectionate: in its pages Duse keeps making references to her own ‘restless soul’, hoping it will find some peace in the end.

Duse, Eleonora, 1858-1924 (sender)
Signorelli, Angelo (recipient)

Milano

1923 September 5

4 sheets

manuscript

paper

eng

autographs (manuscripts)
letters (correspondence)

1923

Gift of Vera Cacciatore.

KSH

Archive

DAA-9.18