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Villa Malaparte
 Placed on all the
little plateau of the ‘Punta Masullo’ it is “Villa Malaparte”, the house
which the writer and journalist
Curzio Suckert, known as ‘Malaparte’, called ‘house like me’ in 1938.
The house, nearly always closed, is managed by Ronchi Institution, dedicated to
Giorgio Ronchi, the son of Malaparte’s sister, Edda Suckert, who died in 1944
hit by the splinter of a bomb. The house was planned by the architect Adalberto
Libera and was carried out by the master builder Adolfo Amitrano by Capri. In a
second time, some changes were made by the same Malaparte in the insides and in
their furniture. Numerous were the debates by the contemporary critics regarding
how the construction become part of the insular architecture and of the natural
landscape and, then, various and emblematic meanings have been ascribed to it.
For example, Malaparte defined it ‘ a sad, hard, severe house’ ‘it is what
I love in the world’. The people of Capri considered it ‘ an iron’; the
architect Manfredo Tafuri maintened that it hinted at ‘an archaic barge
grounded between the rocks and remained there since the archaic times because of
a waters’ lowering. The outside is characterized by a private landing-place
and by a stairway which lead to the flat roof, protected by the white ‘sail’
of wall, where Malaparte bicycled. As regards the inside, on the upper flat
there is a large hall overhanging the guest-chambers and those of service, the
dining-room and the kitchen and leading
to the
patronal bedroom and to the “mistress’ ”. In the drawing-room suggestive
is the passant fireplace, with his bottom of polish of crystal through which the
light, the sea, the rock of
‘Monacone’ and the ‘Faraglioni’ can be seen beyond the fire. On
Malaparte’s death, happened in 1957, the house was bequeathed to the
Association of the Chinese writers for the writer’s will, as a demonstration
of gratitude for the treatements received in China during his illness.
Afterwards, it was given the relatives back.
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