1958.
Gianna began building a team of Italians who could take over the organisation. Once she was confident that they could run things properly and Sorino and Ida were taken care of, she would resign. All this she later explained in a letter to Ann dated 17th December 1958. How far it would ever have been possible for Gianna to relinquish the reins is a moot point but this was her intention. Since the summer of 1957 she had employed 2 young female assistants, Gisella and Vianella. They had good English language skills and, as well as fulfilling important office duties, threw themselves into the physical aspects of the work, painting, decorating and sorting clothing etc. Gisella Grifoni was thought to be the more intelligent of the two and was given greater responsibilities, meeting visitors and escorting them around projects in the villages. In March she deputised for Gianna by speaking about ‘The Work’ on a radio broadcast from Rome.
In a letter to Ann of 19th April, Gianna mentions another new member of the team, Professor di Iacovo, although he must have joined earlier in the year or at the end of 1957. There is still much to discover about this interesting and significant figure. He was the 34 year old son of an Abruzzo landowner with property near Lanciano and had been seconded from Florence University. However, the Vassar archive contains no information about how he was recruited, when he actually joined the organisation, what his speciality subject was, the terms of his contract, nor who paid him. Gianna was grooming di Iacovo to succeed her. On the 14th August she wrote:
My admiration for the Prof. as a Community Developer grows daily. I don’t know how he does it. He stops the car, fumbles for a match (which he pretends not to have) asks a peasant for the way (which he knows very well) and in no time the peasant is telling him everything about the village, asking him in for a drink and so on. He is not so good on the administrative side (oh my) but I have never met anyone who could keep peasants and children going for hours as he does.
Gianna was not the easiest person to work for. Initially she was complimentary about Gisella’s work but their relationship became strained.
Gisella is going through a painful stage…….she wants to leave because she says that “we do not love her enough and she must be loved where she works!” Oh dear why must people be so difficult. I have hardly the time left to eat drink or sleep, how can I worry about giving Gisella sufficient affection. It is always the same, they all need to be carried along.
1958 should have been a good year for Gianna. The 10th Anniversary celebration had been a great success. New projects were developing well. Thanks to Mazzarone’s support construction was about to begin on the new nursery in Tricarico. A new parish priest, Father di Regis, was getting things moving in Civitaluparella and a laundry facility was planned for the village using SCF funding. In Ortona she had recruited two people who, with training and encouragement, would be able to take over the day to day running of the Fund leaving Gianna free to develop her innovative ideas and perhaps expand her work elsewhere. Glen Leet remained a staunch supporter and might have been able to recommend her to posts with broader horizons, the UN perhaps. In London, she was awarded the MBE for services to the community and invested by the Queen. But despite all these successes she became increasingly obsessed with petty squabbles and resentments. Long standing frustrations were growing at a time when she should have been enjoying her triumphs. She became anxious, insecure and in need of the anchor that Ernest and, until recently, Ann had provided.
She constantly complained to Ann of tiredness due to overwork; the inadequacy of the London bureaucrats; and the grind of having to escort and entertain guests.
London are muddling everything as usual and are being as inefficient and ineffectual as it is possible to be……..I really cannot go on like this…..I really feel like dropping dead…..It is never ending (20/3).
Mrs Knox comes on July 5th, the committee asks for me to go to London in May, in May there are elections and my Materani (people of Matera) cannot stir, Miss Skillicorn and Dr Serjeant come to Italy for Easter, they do not want to trouble me but could I meet them somewhere, suggest hotels near Naples and so on, Saunders comes at the end of July and stays on through August to the middle of the month and Lady A who does not want to put me out suggests changing Mrs Knox’s dates, joining up with Saunders provided that he will see Fund as well as Federation work or postpone everything until September. And so we go on (26/3).
I am so tired that I could die and don’t know where to start. I have one day between tomorrow and June to get work done or maybe a few days at the end of May. (20/4)
If Saunders had actually come I would have had 132 working days taken up by visitors and conferences out of 182 working days in a period of seven months. I followed up my wire this morning by a letter asking just exactly what my work as SCF representative was to be because I am getting rather bewildered. No educational work, no office work, no follow up work. Just to attend Beirut, Athens, London foolishness and, as a light relief, take around some silly fools who kill with their stupidity and understand nothing. Honestly, I am getting tired. (14/8)
In many ways Gianna was the victim of her own success and the publicity she attracted. The more supporters and donors knew of her work the more they wanted to come to Italy to see for themselves how the inspirational Mrs Thompson went about saving the poor and starving children. International travel was now easier than it had ever been since she started work in 1947 and visitors were coming from not only Europe but from as far afield as Canada and Australia. They all wanted to tour the South and few had any idea of the distances involved or the customs and culture of the people they were visiting. For Gianna the tours were monotonous, exhausting and, most importantly, diverted her efforts from ‘The Work’ itself. Thoughts of resignation were never far from her mind.
Despite her complaints and frustrations there were many positives in her working life and her letters to Ann could suddenly change tone from abject despair to enthusiastic descriptions of new discoveries and projects. On the 8th July she wrote with great excitement about meeting an enlightened teacher in a remote village (Ezzito) and eagerly anticipates working with him in the future. A month later, on 14th August, she is even more excited:
I have had the most wonderful three days of my SCF experience.
She had been shooting a film in the mountains. A friend of Di Iacovo was a professional cameraman and filming began at dawn in Civitaluparella:
You cannot imagine how fascinating the life of the village is at that time. Little Gino (the goat boy) blows into a shell through the village and gradually all the goats in ones and twos come out of the stables and assemble by the Casa Popolari just outside the village. We worked like dogs at getting the movement of children and old people leading, pushing, cajoling their goats to the meeting place while Gino was sitting on top of the hill and waiting for all the goats to be assembled. Civitaluparella is unconsciously a photographer’s paradise.
Unfortunately this film was never completed although the sequences with Gino and the goats were incorporated in ‘Above the Sangro’ a 1960 film made from another script.
Gianna was thrilled to spend time with the mountain people. The previous night they recorded local songs in the bar in another village, Guardabruna, and these recordings are included on the soundtrack of ‘Above the Sangro’. The following night they ended up in another wine shop with a gang of itinerant harvesters who knew Di Iacovo’s family. He encouraged them to talk of ‘the old times’. Gianna’s love and passion for Abruzzo are apparent in her letter to Ann:
The stories give you a better picture of the real Abruzzo and the real South than any book which I have ever read. Finally the Prof tentatively brought out the idea that he should record some of the old songs to take back ‘to his old father’. They agreed, reluctantly at first and then got carried away with enthusiasm and began to sing. Again, it was an unforgettable experience. The old words were precious social documents. The inn keeper got to singing too and I found myself serving cool beer straight from the cellar into the tankards of the choir. The scene was unforgettable. The Prof’s friend (the cameraman) thought at first that we were more than a little mad but when he saw and heard the results he was stunned. I have never been a barmaid before but everything was for a good cause. The most wonderful thing however was the sweet courtesy which these very rough, sweaty, barefooted men used towards me even when I began to circulate with tankards of beer. I might have been the hostess at a fashionable tea party. I kept thinking of you and what you would have given to be present. (14/8)
Meanwhile in the USA, unbeknown to Gianna, Ann and Charlie’s marriage was under strain. For the second time Ann had made a disastrous marriage and this one was also to be short lived. She and Charlie parted company in August. Gianna was not informed until November when Ann also announced her intention of returning to Italy. Unfortunately the letter containing Gianna’s initial response has not survived but her next letter did:
The steam is still coming out of the envelope of your last letter. Ouch! My dear girl (don’t dear girl me , I hear you say) my dear girl, if I do not know what it is that you are escaping by now then I know nothing of human beings. I lived with you for three years don’t forget and I should know. I have never said that you were a viper. The first thing I have said to you and the last one is that personally I do not know anyone with whom I can spend more happy times than with you and that is the truth. That you are constantly running away from something is another truth. I only run away from one thing and that is my home life and my mother’s domination. (11/11)
Lilian Guzzeloni was a domineering mother: Gianna felt suffocated in her presence and was far from being a kind and loving daughter. Lilian wrote to Ann’s mother on the 21st saying that she was happy that Ann was returning to Italy and understood the importance to Gianna of their relationship. She wrote of her sadness at being separated from her only child, the only thing left in one’s life and the hurt caused by the infrequency of Gianna’s visits.
Gianna was excited at the prospect of Ann’s return but it presented a dilemma: Professor Di Iacovo was her chosen successor and had virtually taken Ann’s former position; she could not simply return to Ortona and pick up where she left off. Gianna suggested an alternative: could Ann write a book about Abruzzo, about the magic of the landscape, about the beauty of the people?
Ann had certainly thought of writing about her experiences in Italy before and now here was an opportunity and positive encouragement. She decided to try and write about her early experiences in Ortona and the Abruzzo villages.
Gianna met Ann on her return to Rome on the 26th. They had tea at Babington’s, dinner at a favourite restaurant and spent the night at the Dinesen. Gianna returned to Ortona the following day and Ann immediately reported to her parents:
Gianna looks quite well though thin…..all kinds of things seem to be going on and I haven’t the faintest idea whether she will quit or not. I didn’t ask her and don’t intend to because you’ll get a lot more information if you don’t push her.
She began the first draft of her book that morning. For the immediate future, the Dinesen was to be both home and office.
Gianna wrote from Ortona that afternoon reassuring Ann how happy she was that she was back in Italy. She asked Ann to reserve a room for Professor di Iacovo at a nearby hotel. He was due in Rome later in the week and this would be an opportunity for them to meet. She also included a type written sheet:
I am sending you my “pre-view” of the technique which might be used by a certain person. I have a copy too and we shall have fun comparing notes when each event takes place.
This “preview” is headed Various Stages in the Conquest of a Woman and describes six male seduction techniques in all of which the man is revealed as insincere and manipulative. The ‘certain person’ can only have been Di Iacovo and sending the note to Ann, even as a bit of fun, was an unprofessional way of treating a colleague. This ‘kittenish’ behaviour is out of character for Gianna. Perhaps Di Iacovo had made advances to her earlier in the year. She certainly wrote warmly of him describing him as kind and considerate and her reports of the time they spent filming in Civitaluparella in August suggest they shared the same enthusiasms. There is no record of anything other than a professional relationship between them but later references to his ‘jealousy’ when Gianna received the attentions of another man, suggest that there might have been a more personal attraction, at least on his part.
Ann and Di Iacovo met in Rome on about the 4th of December. There are no reports of him making any inappropriate advances but she describes him to her parents as:
……..quite interesting and amusing but I suspect very unkind basically (judging from his mouth) and more than just a bit calculating. It seems in the last six weeks Gianna has begun to have her doubts about his taking over. (6/12)
It cannot have been easy for Ann to meet her successor but her assessment of his character seems trite and unworthy. The six weeks during which Gianna had been ‘having doubts’ about the Professor correspond almost exactly with the time since Ann announced her intention of returning to Italy.
Gianna had been thrown into turmoil. She had successfully reorganised her life since Ann left and had made considerable strides in planning for the future but Ann’s unexpected return had brought emotional as well as practical pressures. It was impossible for Gianna to turn back the clock and restore Ann as her principal collaborator, even though that was clearly what Ann wanted, and the hostility between Ann and the Professor caused a tearful division of loyalties.
Writing to her parents on 9th December Ann describes a weeping Gianna coming to her room at the Dinesen late at night and confessing that Di Iacovo had urged her to re-employ Ann in Ortona but that she refused because she feared that she and Ann might be unable to resume their close personal relationship. Emotions were running high. Gianna was exhausted and Ann was suffering from the breakdown of her marriage. Probably nobody was thinking clearly but Ann then told Gianna that at their first meeting Di Iacovo had suggested that he and Ann could work together to overrule her. Gianna said she knew that was his plan and threatened to tear him into little pieces which would mean that he would quit. Ann was now convinced that the Professor was all that stood between her and her desire to return to Ortona and pick up where she had left off the previous year:
I think that if he quit for any reason there would be little question about my going back. (9/12).
There is no reason to doubt the substance of this account but unfortunately we do not have Gianna or Di Iacovo’s version. Is it possible that he was simply trying to be welcoming to Ann and offering collaboration? Could it be that in this febrile atmosphere his motives were misinterpreted?
Gianna spent the following Sunday alone and depressed in Ortona, although she confessed to Ann that you have more real reasons to be feeling desperate than I am at the moment. She was crippled by indecision about whether to resign:
How can you suddenly give up 11 years, I will not say of work but life, especially when it is not a sure thing whether those 11 years might not be thrown to waste? ……At one time I was sad, lonely, alone, overworked and tired here but it was enough to look out of the window and there was something there, always sufficiently lovely or just there, to make up for everything. Now I have been made to feel that even this is false and there is nothing to fill the void……….I am thinking a lot about you this evening. All my love, my thoughts and understanding.
That night she had a visit from Di Iacovo: He started talking and talking and I thought he would never stop…… He seemed to be apologising for his behaviour without actually saying so….I could not make out what he was getting at……I thought that I was miserable but I found someone much more so than I was.
Ann felt that Gianna was making herself ill:
I can’t help but wonder if she isn’t stretching herself to the point of having real trouble… a breakdown or something (18/12).
One piece of good news was that Gianna was about to take on two new female assistants, Margherita Santucci and Giovanna Dall’ Asta. Gisella’s time with the Fund had come to an end. The two new girls were taken on an introductory visit to the mountain villages and Gianna was thrilled by their enthusiasm.
Despite this Gianna complained about other Italian members of the team:
…the project is gradually being taken on by local people. If I accept their collaboration I also have to accept their weaknesses which are of such a nature as to irritate me beyond belief at times. They all seem to have their own concerns about their health and to be, compared to myself exceptionally fragile.
The Professor was also falling short of the mark:
He really does want the best of both worlds but refusing to make an effort to build something he manages to find only ashes and despair. As you and I well know, all the little special things are fruit of careful preparation and hard work but oh, so well worth it in the end.
A gulf was building up between the Anglo Saxon and Italian members of the team. Ann’s attitude seems to confirm this. She and Di Iacovo had dinner in Rome on the 18th:
….it was a pleasant evening, but you need never worry over an Italian. There is such a thing as knowing too much about them and in this case his ego is such that he repels me. Finally I told him that I thought his impression of what he had contributed to the work of the SCF was interesting in that any success he could claim and all failures he blamed on Gianna. I added that it was awfully easy to fall in behind 11 years of hard work put in by others and say ‘Look at me, I’ve done so much,’ but that somewhere in his mind there must be that little voice saying ‘Di Iacovo, you haven’t actually done all this and you know it.’ In his own defence he spent rest of the evening running Gianna down….which is so very Italian but not apt to attract me greatly (20/12)
Di Iacovo would have been better spending the evening making small talk but he was not a very clever political operator, certainly not in contrast to Ann who immediately reported the damming details of this conversation to Gianna in Ortona. Ann must have known the response it would elicit and this duly came in a sprawling, emotional, handwritten letter dated the 21st:
If our friend George (Di Iacovo) is starting to go round making mischief among friends and collaborators, the sooner he goes the better as far as I am concerned. Why do they all turn on you like rabid dogs, especially those who have received most in understanding, unfailing kindness and patience? I can really say with the clearest of conscience that I have done nothing but try to boost him, help him, make him feel as important as possible - gave him a sort of home here in Ortona, tried to introduce him to people who might be helpful – and all those other thousands of things. I shall never understand and God knows I try hard enough not to be patronising or Lady Bountiful or anything like that.
As for the others:
Why does their insecurity turn to a desire to hurt, to wound, to belittle? They do it to animals and anyone whom they regard as too weak or too sensitive not to be hurt in this vulnerability! I am through with the blasted bunch!
The letter is riddled with paranoia and innuendo. Di Iacovo went to talk with Gianna the following morning in an attempt to find out what was going on. He chit chatted pleasantly but Gianna felt that he believed that she had ‘ruined the piazza for him with you’ and that Gianna and Ann were talking behind his back. He was certainly correct about the latter. He was not dealing with the situation well but he was caught between two emotionally fragile women who had had, and continued to have, a close relationship. As Gianna’s first assistant he was ‘out of the loop’. Games were being played behind his back and he must have felt that anything he might say or do would be misinterpreted.
Fortunately Christmas was about to provide some respite. Ann invited Gianna to spend the holiday with her and mutual friends in Rome but she declined.
She spent Christmas alone in Ortona.
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Gianna began building a team of Italians who could take over the organisation. Once she was confident that they could run things properly and Sorino and Ida were taken care of, she would resign. All this she later explained in a letter to Ann dated 17th December 1958. How far it would ever have been possible for Gianna to relinquish the reins is a moot point but this was her intention. Since the summer of 1957 she had employed 2 young female assistants, Gisella and Vianella. They had good English language skills and, as well as fulfilling important office duties, threw themselves into the physical aspects of the work, painting, decorating and sorting clothing etc. Gisella Grifoni was thought to be the more intelligent of the two and was given greater responsibilities, meeting visitors and escorting them around projects in the villages. In March she deputised for Gianna by speaking about ‘The Work’ on a radio broadcast from Rome.
In a letter to Ann of 19th April, Gianna mentions another new member of the team, Professor di Iacovo, although he must have joined earlier in the year or at the end of 1957. There is still much to discover about this interesting and significant figure. He was the 34 year old son of an Abruzzo landowner with property near Lanciano and had been seconded from Florence University. However, the Vassar archive contains no information about how he was recruited, when he actually joined the organisation, what his speciality subject was, the terms of his contract, nor who paid him. Gianna was grooming di Iacovo to succeed her. On the 14th August she wrote:
My admiration for the Prof. as a Community Developer grows daily. I don’t know how he does it. He stops the car, fumbles for a match (which he pretends not to have) asks a peasant for the way (which he knows very well) and in no time the peasant is telling him everything about the village, asking him in for a drink and so on. He is not so good on the administrative side (oh my) but I have never met anyone who could keep peasants and children going for hours as he does.
Gianna was not the easiest person to work for. Initially she was complimentary about Gisella’s work but their relationship became strained.
Gisella is going through a painful stage…….she wants to leave because she says that “we do not love her enough and she must be loved where she works!” Oh dear why must people be so difficult. I have hardly the time left to eat drink or sleep, how can I worry about giving Gisella sufficient affection. It is always the same, they all need to be carried along.
1958 should have been a good year for Gianna. The 10th Anniversary celebration had been a great success. New projects were developing well. Thanks to Mazzarone’s support construction was about to begin on the new nursery in Tricarico. A new parish priest, Father di Regis, was getting things moving in Civitaluparella and a laundry facility was planned for the village using SCF funding. In Ortona she had recruited two people who, with training and encouragement, would be able to take over the day to day running of the Fund leaving Gianna free to develop her innovative ideas and perhaps expand her work elsewhere. Glen Leet remained a staunch supporter and might have been able to recommend her to posts with broader horizons, the UN perhaps. In London, she was awarded the MBE for services to the community and invested by the Queen. But despite all these successes she became increasingly obsessed with petty squabbles and resentments. Long standing frustrations were growing at a time when she should have been enjoying her triumphs. She became anxious, insecure and in need of the anchor that Ernest and, until recently, Ann had provided.
She constantly complained to Ann of tiredness due to overwork; the inadequacy of the London bureaucrats; and the grind of having to escort and entertain guests.
London are muddling everything as usual and are being as inefficient and ineffectual as it is possible to be……..I really cannot go on like this…..I really feel like dropping dead…..It is never ending (20/3).
Mrs Knox comes on July 5th, the committee asks for me to go to London in May, in May there are elections and my Materani (people of Matera) cannot stir, Miss Skillicorn and Dr Serjeant come to Italy for Easter, they do not want to trouble me but could I meet them somewhere, suggest hotels near Naples and so on, Saunders comes at the end of July and stays on through August to the middle of the month and Lady A who does not want to put me out suggests changing Mrs Knox’s dates, joining up with Saunders provided that he will see Fund as well as Federation work or postpone everything until September. And so we go on (26/3).
I am so tired that I could die and don’t know where to start. I have one day between tomorrow and June to get work done or maybe a few days at the end of May. (20/4)
If Saunders had actually come I would have had 132 working days taken up by visitors and conferences out of 182 working days in a period of seven months. I followed up my wire this morning by a letter asking just exactly what my work as SCF representative was to be because I am getting rather bewildered. No educational work, no office work, no follow up work. Just to attend Beirut, Athens, London foolishness and, as a light relief, take around some silly fools who kill with their stupidity and understand nothing. Honestly, I am getting tired. (14/8)
In many ways Gianna was the victim of her own success and the publicity she attracted. The more supporters and donors knew of her work the more they wanted to come to Italy to see for themselves how the inspirational Mrs Thompson went about saving the poor and starving children. International travel was now easier than it had ever been since she started work in 1947 and visitors were coming from not only Europe but from as far afield as Canada and Australia. They all wanted to tour the South and few had any idea of the distances involved or the customs and culture of the people they were visiting. For Gianna the tours were monotonous, exhausting and, most importantly, diverted her efforts from ‘The Work’ itself. Thoughts of resignation were never far from her mind.
Despite her complaints and frustrations there were many positives in her working life and her letters to Ann could suddenly change tone from abject despair to enthusiastic descriptions of new discoveries and projects. On the 8th July she wrote with great excitement about meeting an enlightened teacher in a remote village (Ezzito) and eagerly anticipates working with him in the future. A month later, on 14th August, she is even more excited:
I have had the most wonderful three days of my SCF experience.
She had been shooting a film in the mountains. A friend of Di Iacovo was a professional cameraman and filming began at dawn in Civitaluparella:
You cannot imagine how fascinating the life of the village is at that time. Little Gino (the goat boy) blows into a shell through the village and gradually all the goats in ones and twos come out of the stables and assemble by the Casa Popolari just outside the village. We worked like dogs at getting the movement of children and old people leading, pushing, cajoling their goats to the meeting place while Gino was sitting on top of the hill and waiting for all the goats to be assembled. Civitaluparella is unconsciously a photographer’s paradise.
Unfortunately this film was never completed although the sequences with Gino and the goats were incorporated in ‘Above the Sangro’ a 1960 film made from another script.
Gianna was thrilled to spend time with the mountain people. The previous night they recorded local songs in the bar in another village, Guardabruna, and these recordings are included on the soundtrack of ‘Above the Sangro’. The following night they ended up in another wine shop with a gang of itinerant harvesters who knew Di Iacovo’s family. He encouraged them to talk of ‘the old times’. Gianna’s love and passion for Abruzzo are apparent in her letter to Ann:
The stories give you a better picture of the real Abruzzo and the real South than any book which I have ever read. Finally the Prof tentatively brought out the idea that he should record some of the old songs to take back ‘to his old father’. They agreed, reluctantly at first and then got carried away with enthusiasm and began to sing. Again, it was an unforgettable experience. The old words were precious social documents. The inn keeper got to singing too and I found myself serving cool beer straight from the cellar into the tankards of the choir. The scene was unforgettable. The Prof’s friend (the cameraman) thought at first that we were more than a little mad but when he saw and heard the results he was stunned. I have never been a barmaid before but everything was for a good cause. The most wonderful thing however was the sweet courtesy which these very rough, sweaty, barefooted men used towards me even when I began to circulate with tankards of beer. I might have been the hostess at a fashionable tea party. I kept thinking of you and what you would have given to be present. (14/8)
Meanwhile in the USA, unbeknown to Gianna, Ann and Charlie’s marriage was under strain. For the second time Ann had made a disastrous marriage and this one was also to be short lived. She and Charlie parted company in August. Gianna was not informed until November when Ann also announced her intention of returning to Italy. Unfortunately the letter containing Gianna’s initial response has not survived but her next letter did:
The steam is still coming out of the envelope of your last letter. Ouch! My dear girl (don’t dear girl me , I hear you say) my dear girl, if I do not know what it is that you are escaping by now then I know nothing of human beings. I lived with you for three years don’t forget and I should know. I have never said that you were a viper. The first thing I have said to you and the last one is that personally I do not know anyone with whom I can spend more happy times than with you and that is the truth. That you are constantly running away from something is another truth. I only run away from one thing and that is my home life and my mother’s domination. (11/11)
Lilian Guzzeloni was a domineering mother: Gianna felt suffocated in her presence and was far from being a kind and loving daughter. Lilian wrote to Ann’s mother on the 21st saying that she was happy that Ann was returning to Italy and understood the importance to Gianna of their relationship. She wrote of her sadness at being separated from her only child, the only thing left in one’s life and the hurt caused by the infrequency of Gianna’s visits.
Gianna was excited at the prospect of Ann’s return but it presented a dilemma: Professor Di Iacovo was her chosen successor and had virtually taken Ann’s former position; she could not simply return to Ortona and pick up where she left off. Gianna suggested an alternative: could Ann write a book about Abruzzo, about the magic of the landscape, about the beauty of the people?
Ann had certainly thought of writing about her experiences in Italy before and now here was an opportunity and positive encouragement. She decided to try and write about her early experiences in Ortona and the Abruzzo villages.
Gianna met Ann on her return to Rome on the 26th. They had tea at Babington’s, dinner at a favourite restaurant and spent the night at the Dinesen. Gianna returned to Ortona the following day and Ann immediately reported to her parents:
Gianna looks quite well though thin…..all kinds of things seem to be going on and I haven’t the faintest idea whether she will quit or not. I didn’t ask her and don’t intend to because you’ll get a lot more information if you don’t push her.
She began the first draft of her book that morning. For the immediate future, the Dinesen was to be both home and office.
Gianna wrote from Ortona that afternoon reassuring Ann how happy she was that she was back in Italy. She asked Ann to reserve a room for Professor di Iacovo at a nearby hotel. He was due in Rome later in the week and this would be an opportunity for them to meet. She also included a type written sheet:
I am sending you my “pre-view” of the technique which might be used by a certain person. I have a copy too and we shall have fun comparing notes when each event takes place.
This “preview” is headed Various Stages in the Conquest of a Woman and describes six male seduction techniques in all of which the man is revealed as insincere and manipulative. The ‘certain person’ can only have been Di Iacovo and sending the note to Ann, even as a bit of fun, was an unprofessional way of treating a colleague. This ‘kittenish’ behaviour is out of character for Gianna. Perhaps Di Iacovo had made advances to her earlier in the year. She certainly wrote warmly of him describing him as kind and considerate and her reports of the time they spent filming in Civitaluparella in August suggest they shared the same enthusiasms. There is no record of anything other than a professional relationship between them but later references to his ‘jealousy’ when Gianna received the attentions of another man, suggest that there might have been a more personal attraction, at least on his part.
Ann and Di Iacovo met in Rome on about the 4th of December. There are no reports of him making any inappropriate advances but she describes him to her parents as:
……..quite interesting and amusing but I suspect very unkind basically (judging from his mouth) and more than just a bit calculating. It seems in the last six weeks Gianna has begun to have her doubts about his taking over. (6/12)
It cannot have been easy for Ann to meet her successor but her assessment of his character seems trite and unworthy. The six weeks during which Gianna had been ‘having doubts’ about the Professor correspond almost exactly with the time since Ann announced her intention of returning to Italy.
Gianna had been thrown into turmoil. She had successfully reorganised her life since Ann left and had made considerable strides in planning for the future but Ann’s unexpected return had brought emotional as well as practical pressures. It was impossible for Gianna to turn back the clock and restore Ann as her principal collaborator, even though that was clearly what Ann wanted, and the hostility between Ann and the Professor caused a tearful division of loyalties.
Writing to her parents on 9th December Ann describes a weeping Gianna coming to her room at the Dinesen late at night and confessing that Di Iacovo had urged her to re-employ Ann in Ortona but that she refused because she feared that she and Ann might be unable to resume their close personal relationship. Emotions were running high. Gianna was exhausted and Ann was suffering from the breakdown of her marriage. Probably nobody was thinking clearly but Ann then told Gianna that at their first meeting Di Iacovo had suggested that he and Ann could work together to overrule her. Gianna said she knew that was his plan and threatened to tear him into little pieces which would mean that he would quit. Ann was now convinced that the Professor was all that stood between her and her desire to return to Ortona and pick up where she had left off the previous year:
I think that if he quit for any reason there would be little question about my going back. (9/12).
There is no reason to doubt the substance of this account but unfortunately we do not have Gianna or Di Iacovo’s version. Is it possible that he was simply trying to be welcoming to Ann and offering collaboration? Could it be that in this febrile atmosphere his motives were misinterpreted?
Gianna spent the following Sunday alone and depressed in Ortona, although she confessed to Ann that you have more real reasons to be feeling desperate than I am at the moment. She was crippled by indecision about whether to resign:
How can you suddenly give up 11 years, I will not say of work but life, especially when it is not a sure thing whether those 11 years might not be thrown to waste? ……At one time I was sad, lonely, alone, overworked and tired here but it was enough to look out of the window and there was something there, always sufficiently lovely or just there, to make up for everything. Now I have been made to feel that even this is false and there is nothing to fill the void……….I am thinking a lot about you this evening. All my love, my thoughts and understanding.
That night she had a visit from Di Iacovo: He started talking and talking and I thought he would never stop…… He seemed to be apologising for his behaviour without actually saying so….I could not make out what he was getting at……I thought that I was miserable but I found someone much more so than I was.
Ann felt that Gianna was making herself ill:
I can’t help but wonder if she isn’t stretching herself to the point of having real trouble… a breakdown or something (18/12).
One piece of good news was that Gianna was about to take on two new female assistants, Margherita Santucci and Giovanna Dall’ Asta. Gisella’s time with the Fund had come to an end. The two new girls were taken on an introductory visit to the mountain villages and Gianna was thrilled by their enthusiasm.
Despite this Gianna complained about other Italian members of the team:
…the project is gradually being taken on by local people. If I accept their collaboration I also have to accept their weaknesses which are of such a nature as to irritate me beyond belief at times. They all seem to have their own concerns about their health and to be, compared to myself exceptionally fragile.
The Professor was also falling short of the mark:
He really does want the best of both worlds but refusing to make an effort to build something he manages to find only ashes and despair. As you and I well know, all the little special things are fruit of careful preparation and hard work but oh, so well worth it in the end.
A gulf was building up between the Anglo Saxon and Italian members of the team. Ann’s attitude seems to confirm this. She and Di Iacovo had dinner in Rome on the 18th:
….it was a pleasant evening, but you need never worry over an Italian. There is such a thing as knowing too much about them and in this case his ego is such that he repels me. Finally I told him that I thought his impression of what he had contributed to the work of the SCF was interesting in that any success he could claim and all failures he blamed on Gianna. I added that it was awfully easy to fall in behind 11 years of hard work put in by others and say ‘Look at me, I’ve done so much,’ but that somewhere in his mind there must be that little voice saying ‘Di Iacovo, you haven’t actually done all this and you know it.’ In his own defence he spent rest of the evening running Gianna down….which is so very Italian but not apt to attract me greatly (20/12)
Di Iacovo would have been better spending the evening making small talk but he was not a very clever political operator, certainly not in contrast to Ann who immediately reported the damming details of this conversation to Gianna in Ortona. Ann must have known the response it would elicit and this duly came in a sprawling, emotional, handwritten letter dated the 21st:
If our friend George (Di Iacovo) is starting to go round making mischief among friends and collaborators, the sooner he goes the better as far as I am concerned. Why do they all turn on you like rabid dogs, especially those who have received most in understanding, unfailing kindness and patience? I can really say with the clearest of conscience that I have done nothing but try to boost him, help him, make him feel as important as possible - gave him a sort of home here in Ortona, tried to introduce him to people who might be helpful – and all those other thousands of things. I shall never understand and God knows I try hard enough not to be patronising or Lady Bountiful or anything like that.
As for the others:
Why does their insecurity turn to a desire to hurt, to wound, to belittle? They do it to animals and anyone whom they regard as too weak or too sensitive not to be hurt in this vulnerability! I am through with the blasted bunch!
The letter is riddled with paranoia and innuendo. Di Iacovo went to talk with Gianna the following morning in an attempt to find out what was going on. He chit chatted pleasantly but Gianna felt that he believed that she had ‘ruined the piazza for him with you’ and that Gianna and Ann were talking behind his back. He was certainly correct about the latter. He was not dealing with the situation well but he was caught between two emotionally fragile women who had had, and continued to have, a close relationship. As Gianna’s first assistant he was ‘out of the loop’. Games were being played behind his back and he must have felt that anything he might say or do would be misinterpreted.
Fortunately Christmas was about to provide some respite. Ann invited Gianna to spend the holiday with her and mutual friends in Rome but she declined.
She spent Christmas alone in Ortona.
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