Gabriele d’Annunzio –poet, dictator and proto-fascist – wasn’t good to his women. He was a serial seducer who wrote to one of his numerous mistresses ‘Your beauty is spiritualised by illness… when you are dead you will reach the supreme light of beauty.’ He ruined women financially. He disgraced and abandoned them and drove them mad. But he chose well. Most of his longer term relationships were with women who were variously rich, grand or brilliantly talented. Here is what four of them said to, or about, him. Read more…
