Gaetano Cellini

LA GALLERYA, LLC PRESENTS

"EMILIA" GAETANO CELLINI



WORK IN PURE SCULPTURAL CARRARA MARBLE

DEPICTING THE NOBLEWOMAN "EMILIA SINOSSI," COUNTESS OF MILAN

PROTAGONIST OF THE COLLECTION OF LETTERS "LE PAROLE NASCOSTE"

H 60CM X W 50 CM X D 30CM



Synopsis

Milan, 1872. Emilia is a noblewoman living in Brera with her five children and her hostile husband, whom she nicknames “The Bear.” Federico A. is an officer in the Bersaglieri, stationed in the South to combat banditry. Federico lives in Milan for a short time and courts Emilia, watching her from the window. She resists, briefly, then gives in and begins an intense love correspondence that accompanies a consuming passion, made up of clandestine meetings, words of love written on every side of the stationery to form embroidery, stays in low-class hotels across Italy to hide from prying eyes, heart-wrenching separations caused by the late delivery of a letter, and complete reunions as soon as the possibility of meeting again is glimpsed.

Emilia, frail in health but feisty in spirit, lives off this secret light beneath the marital roof and does not lose heart, until, exasperated by her husband—who subjugates her and with whom she has never been in love—she manages to request and obtain a legal separation. After the separation, Emilia and Federico continue to live out their passion from a distance, a passion that consumes them until the final twist: Emilia, following her husband’s illness and death, decides to end their relationship, and Federico, humiliated and mad with love, takes his own life.



Emilia’s letters won the PIEVE SAVERIO TUTINO AWARD in 1986 and were published by Rosellina Archinto in 1987 in a volume titled “Le parole nascoste.”