If you visit the Vittoriale degli Italiani in Gardone Riviera, take a moment in the room where Gabriele D’Annunzio used to write. Among the books, statues and strange objects, there is a bust of a woman with a veil over her face. D’Annunzio said he could not work while she was looking at him.
That woman was Eleonora Duse, the most famous actress of her time and, for about ten years, the great love of his life. Their story moves from the canals of Venice to the hills of Florence, and it ends in two places that are still very much alive today: the shores of Lake Garda and the quiet town of Asolo.
A Girl Born to the Stage
Eleonora Duse was born in 1858 in Vigevano, in Lombardy, into a family of travelling actors. People liked to say she was born on a train, somewhere between one town and the next. It isn’t true, but it is easy to understand why the legend stuck. Her whole life was a journey.
Her childhood was hard. The family moved from town to town with their small theatre company, often performing in cold, half-empty halls and never sure how much they would earn. Little Eleonora went on stage for the first time when she was just four. At fourteen she played Juliet in Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet itself, and something in her performance made people stop and listen.
Over the following years she worked her way up, company after company, until she became the brightest star of the Italian stage. Soon she had her own company and began to tour the world. She played in Vienna and Berlin, in London and Paris, in New York and Buenos Aires. Long before cinema, Duse became a true international celebrity.
Why the World Fell in Love with Her
To understand why she was so special, you have to imagine theatre at the end of the 1800s. It was big and dramatic. Actors wore heavy makeup, made grand gestures and spoke loudly towards the audience. The queen of this style was the French actress Sarah Bernhardt, adored in Paris and everywhere else.
Duse did the opposite. She refused to wear stage makeup and let the audience see her real face. She spoke softly, moved simply and seemed to truly feel everything her characters felt. People said she could blush or turn pale on command. Audiences who did not understand a single word of Italian still left the theatre in tears.
When the writer George Bernard Shaw saw both actresses in London in 1895, he made up his mind: Duse was the greater artist, because she was real.
She also chose roles that were new and brave. She loved the plays of the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen, full of women who wanted to break free from the rules of society, like Nora in A Doll’s House. Duse understood these women well. She had separated from her husband and was raising her daughter on her own, in a world that did not make life easy for independent women. Today many people see her as the mother of modern, natural acting.
D’Annunzio, the Poet Italians Called ‘Il Vate’
Gabriele D’Annunzio was born in Pescara in 1863, five years after Duse. He was a poet, a novelist and, later, a war hero. Italians called him “Il Vate,” the poet-prophet, the voice of the nation.
In almost every way, he was Duse’s opposite. She was quiet, private and simple. He loved luxury, attention, beautiful things and beautiful women. He was always in debt and always in the newspapers. But he also had a big dream: to create a great new Italian theatre, full of poetry and passion. And for that dream, he needed a great actress.
Their love story began in Venice in the 1890s. She was already a world star; he was a rising name with huge ambitions. Each had something the other wanted. She could carry his words to the most important stages in the world. He could write the modern Italian plays she had always hoped for.
So their relationship became both a romance and a partnership. D’Annunzio wrote plays for her, such as La Gioconda and Francesca da Rimini, and Duse brought them to life on stage. She often paid for the productions herself. Francesca da Rimini, with its rich costumes and grand sets, cost a fortune, and most of that fortune was hers.
Around 1898 the couple moved to the green hills of Settignano, just outside Florence. D’Annunzio lived in a large villa called La Capponcina, full of antiques, horses and dogs. Duse chose a smaller house nearby, which she called La Porziuncola, after the humble chapel of Saint Francis. The two homes tell the whole story: he loved excess, she looked for peace.
The Ending of a Great Love
Those years near Florence were creative, but they were also painful. D’Annunzio was often unfaithful, and he kept spending Duse’s money. Then came two betrayals she could not forget.
The first was a book. In 1900 D’Annunzio published a novel called Il Fuoco, The Flame. It tells the story of a young poet and an older, famous actress in Venice. Everyone in Europe knew exactly who they were. The novel revealed private moments of their relationship and described the actress as a woman growing old. Duse defended the book in public, but inside she was deeply hurt.
The second betrayal happened on stage. D’Annunzio had already given the premiere of one of his plays to Sarah Bernhardt, Duse’s great rival. Then, in 1904, he wrote La figlia di Iorio, perhaps his finest play. Duse had been preparing for the main role, but she fell ill, and D’Annunzio gave the part to another actress. The play was a triumph. For Duse, it was the end.
Eleonora Duse’s Last Years and Her Grave in Asolo
Duse left the stage in 1909, tired and unwell. In 1916 she made her only film, Cenere (Ashes). In the 1920s she returned to the theatre, partly because she needed the money, and set off on one more tour of the United States. She fell ill along the way and died in Pittsburgh in April 1924.
She had asked to be buried in Asolo, a small hill town in the province of Treviso, where she had found some peace in her last years. Today her grave lies in the little cemetery of Sant’Anna, looking out over the soft green hills she loved. In the town’s museum you can still see her costumes, her letters and many of her personal belongings.
By then, D’Annunzio was living at the Vittoriale on Lake Garda, the extraordinary home he had been building since 1921 and where he would stay until his death in 1938. When he heard the news, he is said to have written: “She is dead, the one I did not deserve.” Whether it was true regret or simply a poet’s beautiful words, it is the line history remembered. And perhaps it explains that veiled bust in his study.
Following Their Story Today
The best part of this story is that you can still walk inside it. At the Vittoriale in Gardone Riviera, visit D’Annunzio’s house, the Prioria, then wander through the gardens high above the lake. Book the house tour in advance, especially in summer. On summer evenings, the open-air Teatro del Vittoriale hosts the Tener-a-mente festival, with concerts by Italian and international artists and the lake shining below the stage.
From Lake Garda, Asolo is [about two hours away by car]. Known as “the city of a hundred horizons,” it is one of Italy’s most charming villages. Walk its quiet streets, visit the museum and stop at Eleonora Duse’s grave, then enjoy a glass of local Prosecco with a view of the hills.
Two places, two very different people, and one great Italian love story. And a lesson Duse taught the world: real emotion needs no makeup.
Photo credits
Eleonora Duse portrait: Aimé Dupont, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Villa La Capponcina, Settignano: photo by Sailko, licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Eleonora Duse’s grave, Sant’Anna cemetery, Asolo: photo by PhaoreX, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Gardone Riviera, Lake Garda: photo by Krisztina Papp via Pexels.
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