0 Cop CAPRI 25 - Caesar Augustus

NATURA
48
una pelle di alabastro. Quando a Capri
viene introdotta una pianta esotica azzurra,
l’Echium fastuosum, (chidiceda
Compton Mackenzie, chi da lady A. Lennox),
Cerio insorge contro la rivale “da
giardino” del selvatico “Blu di Capri” e,
dove può, l’estirpa. Per lui l’unico gioiello
azzurro dal nome esotico ammissibile
era la Scilla peruviana, apparentemente
dedicata al Perù, terra
degli Inca: un altro fiore
in qualche modo collegabile
a Neruda che, nel
suo Canto general del
1950, rievocava con nostalgia
e fierezza la civiltà
incaica. Era ammissibile
perché Cerio, botanico
oltre che scrittore, sapeva
che questo fiore non ha
in realtà nulla a che vedere
con la terra degli Inca:
rarissimo ma diffuso
a Capri, spontaneo in
poche plaghe delle sponde
occidentali del Mediterraneo,
deve il nome al
fatto di essere giunto per
la prima volta a Londra
su di una nave chiamata...
Perù. Classificato
dal grande botanico Linneo,
è stato da poco ribattezzato
Oncostema peruvianum.
In tempi più recenti la campanula azzurra, la
Campanula fragilis rara altrove ma copiosa in
estate sulle rupi capresi, diventa davvero un gioiello,
ispirando una raffinata serie di creazioni “botaniche”
ad Antonella Puttini.
La “Campanula fragilis”,
raro fiore azzurro caprese,
ha ispirato una raffinata
serie di gioielli firmata
da Antonella Puttini.
The rare blue Capri flower
Campanula fragilis
provided the inspiration
for an elegant collection
of jewellery designed
by Antonella Puttini.
Arte e bellezza, uomo e natura sempre si intrecciano
sullo sfondo di Capri, come l’azzurro
del cielo sfuma nel mare in un’indistinta linea
d’orizzonte che fugge senza sosta in avanti
col progredire del cammino, a indicare mete
ancora più alte da raggiungere. ■
G. SIMEONE - SIME/SIE
her husband in
his political
struggles and
continued even after his
death, during the long,
dark years of the
Pinochet dictatorship.
The woman/island’s blue jewels
Not all the “blue” loves on
Capri have a happy ending,
however. Edvard Skag, a
Norwegian painter known for his
blue palette, no less, fell from a
dangerously steep cliff at Schiappa di
Monte Tiberio while trying to pick a “Capri
Blue” in bloom, which reminded him of the
eyes of his lover Gesine Svela. Edwin Cerio,
in his book Capri’s Private Flora, recounts
that the bushes which caused Skag to
plunge into the abyss bloom a deeper red
every year, recalling that blood shed for love.
Truth or poetic licence? In Cerio’s work, the
island participates in the affairs of men; the
spirit of the Blue Island lives as an invisible but
real female being, as a mystic “beloved” to be
defended and protected. These wild blue
flowers are her most precious adornment, the
rocks’ natural jewels, pure as a skin of
alabaster.
When the Echium fastuosum, an exotic blue
plant, was first introduced in Capri, (some say
by Compton Mackenzie, others by Lady A.
Lennox), Cerio spoke out against this
“garden” rival of the natural “Capri Blue”, and
uprooted it whenever he could. For him, the
only acceptable blue flower with an exotic
name was the Scilla peruviana, seemingly
dedicated to Peru, the land of the Incas – yet
another flower that can be related to Neruda,
who describes the Incan civilization with
nostalgia and pride in his Canto General,
published in 1950. Cerio did not object to this
flower because, being a botanist as well as a
writer, he knew that it actually had no relation
to the land of the Incas. The very rare plant
(but common on Capri), which only grows wild
in a few regions of the western coasts of the
Mediterranean, owes its name to the fact that
it reached London for the first time aboard a
ship called... Peru. Originally classified by the
great botanist Linneus, it was recently
renamed Oncostema peruvianum.
More recently, the blue bellflower,
Campanula fragilis, which is rare elsewhere
but grows abundantly on Capri’s cliffs in the
summer, has become a real treasure,
inspiring a series of elegant “botanic”
creations by Antonella Puttini.
Art and beauty, man and nature are forever
intertwined on Capri, just as the blue of the sky
merges into the sea in a hazy line on the
horizon, constantly running on ahead as one
continues along the path, endlessly indicating,
farther goals. ■