[In the following essay, Giobbi finds parallels between Death in Venice and Gabriele D'Annunzio's Il Fuoco.]

The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust.¹

Because of its unique nature and atmosphere, Venice has traditionally been a favourite setting in the fiction and poetry of European authors. The architecture of Venetian buildings attracted the attention of Art critics like John Ruskin, and the wealth of masterpieces contained in Venice's churches and museums were required study for scholars as well as the object of admiration for foreign tourists. But Venice was not only a city of Art; it was also a city of sickness, decay, death.² For its very frailty, for the muddy waters of its canals and the endangered situation of many of its houses and monuments, Venice has always appeared a sad, a dying city.

I want to use the three topoi of Venice, Art and Death—with many correlated leitmotifs—to highlight the relationship between two apparently unrelated works: D'Annunzio's Il Fuoco (1900, The Flame) and Thomas Mann's Der Tod in Venedig (1912, Death in Venice). Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938), the leading figure of Italian fin du siècle literature, had already written some poems and novels³, and was trying his hand at drama while sentimentally involved with the great actress Eleonora Duse.

He had been thinking about a Venetian novel for some time before beginning Il Fuoco in June 1896. Two years earlier, he had stayed in this ‘magic’ city and had met for the first time Eleonora Duse—the ‘Foscarina’ of the novel. These two facts set in motion his imagination, and he often went back to Venice to ‘capture’ new motives and images for his ‘frame’. The theme of the novel is the ardent desire for glory and for aesthetic and sensual pleasure with which the central character, Stelio Effrèna—alter ego but also Nietzschean Obermensch—is virtually obsessed. Foscarina shares his dreams, reflexions and self-eulogy. The unique Venetian landscape, the canals, the old palazzi and the little islands in the lagoon are an integral part of the novel, whose ‘plot’ is practically nonexistent.

‘Conoscete voi, Perdita’, domandò Stelio d'improvviso, ‘conoscete voi qualche altro luogo del mondo che abbia, come Venezia, la virtù di stimolare la potenza della vita umana in certe ore eccitando tutti i desideri sino alla febbre? Conoscete voi una tentatrice più tremenda?’⁴

[‘Do you know, Perdita’—Stelio asked suddenly—‘do you know any other place in the world, which could, as Venice does, stimulate the power of human life in certain hours and excite desires to a fever pitch? Do you know a more terrible temptress?’]

In the case of Thomas Mann (1875-1955), too, there are autobiographical elements in the ‘background’ of Der Tod in Venedig, which follows some ‘major’ productions such as Buddenbrooks (1900) and other short stories (Tristan, 1902; “Tonio Kröger,” 1903). Thomas Mann had spent his holidays in Venice in June 1901 and May 1907.⁵ From the 26 May to the 2 June 1911, he stayed at the Lido in the Hotel des Bains, with his wife Katja and his brother Heinrich—after a short stay in the Adriatic isle of Brioni⁶—and went through much the same experiences which his character Gustav von Aschenbach undergoes in Der Tod in Venedig. The novella tells the story of a mature German writer, who suddenly feels the need to interrupt his work and take a holiday in some southern, ‘exotic’ place: he travels from Munich to Venice, and finds himself staying at the Hotel des Bains in the Lido, where he meets—and falls in love with—a Polish boy of incredible beauty. Despite the spread of cholera in Venice, Aschenbach stays on at the hotel, his mind filled with adoration for the Apollonean Tadzio. He finally dies on the beach as he experiences an ‘epiphanic’ vision of the young man. As Mann himself wrote in the autobiographical ‘piece’, “Lebensabriss,”⁷:

Nothing is invented in Death in Venice (…); all that and anything else you like, they were all there. I had only to arrange them when they showed at once and in the oddest way their capacity as elements of composition. Perhaps it had to do with this: that as I worked on the story—as always it was a long-drawn-out job—I had at moments, the clearest feelings of transcendence, a sovereign sense of being borne up such as I had never before experienced.

Other elements Mann would need for his tale also came to hand with almost uncanny convenience, like the death of the composer Gustav Mahler, whom Mann personally knew and admired.

Both in D'Annunzio's Il Fuoco and in Mann's Der Tod in Venedig, Venice acts not only as landscape, but also as a proper ‘character’ in the story. The chiaroscuro of its calli, the magic of the sea ‘inside’ the city, the melancholy atmosphere—autumnal in the case of D'Annunzio, summer in the case of Mann—play a conditioning role in the development of both works.

The speech made by Stelio at the beginning of Il Fuoco, “L'Allegoria dell'Autunno”—written by D'Annunzio on 8 November 1895 for the closing of the Art Exhibition in Venice—is an oratorical homage to Venice. The vitality and universality of the Venetian artistic tradition are emphasized in the great Venetian painters like Giorgione and Canaletto, and the harmony between art and atmosphere is symbolized by the union of Venice and Dionysus.⁸

Tutto il mistero e tutto il fascino di Venezia sono in quell'ombra palpitante e fluida, breve e pure infinita, composta di cose viventi ma inconoscibili, dotata di virtù portentose come quella degli antri favoleggianti, dove le gemme hanno uno sguardo.⁹

[The whole mystery and fascination of Venice reside in that palpitating, fluid shade, short and yet infinite, composed of living but unknowable things, endowed with wondrous virtues like that of the fabulous caves, where precious stones have eyes.]

Symbolism and Mythology, as well as the central concern with a possible balance between Art and Life, are also to be found in the complex, multi-layered structure of Mann's Tod in Venedig. More than one critic has pointed out several analogies with myths.¹⁰ The ‘keys’ offered by the patterns of Euripides's Bacchae and Plato's Phaedrus certainly provide insights into the characters and events of the novella. The influence of Nietzschean readings—especially Die Geburt der Tragödie—also helps in ‘deciphering’ symbolic presences.¹¹

But, as Vernon Venable remarks:

In the process of trying to achieve the symbolic identifications which his irony demands, he (i.e. T. Mann) has created a new technique for the exploitation of poetic meaning, a technique in which no symbol is allowed univocal connotation or independent status, but refers to all the others and is bound rigorously to them by means of a highly intricate system of subtly developed associations.¹²

This system of associations has its centre in Venice, whose alluring, exotic and dangerous nature—not to forget the cholera epidemic—mirrors the unearthly beauty of Tadzio and symbolizes the risks of an absolute love for beauty.

Nur dieser Ort verzauberte ihn, entspannte sein Wollen, machte ihn glücklich.¹³

[Only this place charmed him, extended his will, made him happy.]

Mann himself fell under the charm of Venice, but he also realized—while Aschenbach does not—the ambiguity and the possible danger of the city. In a letter addressed to his children Erika and Klaus, who were staying in Venice in May 1932, Mann explains his peculiar relationship with Venice:

… Weil mir der Ort so bedeutend ist und ich euch gern dort weiss und im Geiste mit euch das sonst nie vorkommende Leben zwischen dem warmen Meer am Morgen und der ‘zweideutigen’ Stadt am Nachmittag führe. Zweideutig ist wirklich das bescheidenste Beiwort, das man ihr geben kann … aber es passt in allen seinen Bedeutungslagen ganz wunderbar nuf sie, und bei aller Albernheit und Verderbtheit, die sich ihrer bemächtigt hat (…) bleibt dieser musikalische Zweideutigkeitszauber eben doch lebendig oder hat wenigstens Stunden, wo er obsiegt.¹⁴

[Because the city is so significant for me and I am happy to know you are there, and in spirit I lead a life—normally never so pleasant—between the warm sea in the morning and the ‘ambiguous’ city in the afternoon. Ambiguous is really the simplest term one can use to define Venice … but it suits her in all its possible meanings, notwithstanding the fatuity and corruption which dominate her, this musical enchantment is still alive—at least, at moments.]

The reference to music in the description of the Venetian atmosphere has its own weight. D'Annunzio as well as Mann admired both the aesthetics and the works of Richard Wagner. Both authors wrote critical essays on him,¹⁵ and the Wagnerian presence can be perceived—more or less explicitly—in their works of fiction. D'Annunzio's Il Fuoco ends with the tragic death of Wagner in Venice, and Stelio himself is present both to help the musician when he faints and to carry his coffin. The description of Wagner is that of a demigod, surrounded by a divine aura and by the admiration of the people.

Tutti erano fissi all'eletto della Vita e della Morte. Un infinito sorriso illuminava la faccia dell'eroe prosteso: infinito e distante come l'iride dei ghiacciai, come il bagliore dei mari, come l'alone degli astri. Gli occhi non potevano sostenerlo; ma i cuori, con una meraviglia e con uno spavento che li faceva religiosi, credettero di ricevere la rivelazione di un segreto divino.¹⁶

[Everyone had his eyes fixed on the Elect of Life and Death. An infinite smile illumined the face of the hero: infinite and distant like the shining glaciers, like the glittering waves, like the halo of the stars. Human eyes could not bear it; but the hearts, made religious by astonishment and fear, appeared to have a divine secret revealed.]

D'Annunzio found in Richard Wagner a prototype for the role of the poet-leader. The Italian author interpreted Nietzsche's various attacks on Wagner¹⁷ as directed against his own literary and political ideals, the cultivation of the individual ego, and the ‘aristocratic’ and ‘heroic’ in music. D'Annunzio's reading of Nietzsche, as well as his defence of Wagner's theory of the ‘Wort-ton-drama’—emphasized in Il Fuoco—are rather idiosyncratic, since he referred the whole question to himself. For D'Annunzio the kind of musical regeneration offered by Wagner implied an accompanying social regeneration, and such was his absorption in Wagner in the 1890s, that the Wagnerian influence became a crucial factor in his novels. As a consequence, the enormous popularity of D'Annunzio's novels may have made it easier for Wagner to be accepted in Italy.¹⁸

Riccardo Wagner, non soltanto ha raccolto nella sua opera tutta questa spiritualità e questa idealità sparse intorno a lui, ma, interpretando il nostro bisogno metafisico, ha rivelato a noi stessi la parte più occulta di nostra intima vita.¹⁹

[Richard Wagner not only has gathered in his works all the spirituality and ideality which were spread all around him, but, by interpreting our metaphysical needs, has also revealed to us the most hidden part of our own innermost life.]

The admiration Thomas Mann had for Richard Wagner was lifelong, and not limited to simple musical pleasure.²⁰ He read Nietzsche's works when he was very young, and this had a lasting effect on him. But his judgement is independent of the philosopher's positions. Most critics recognize in Mann's works the use of the Wagnerian leitmotif, alongside references to performances of Wagner and the use of Wagnerian myths. Even though the name of Wagner is suppressed in Der Tod in Venedig, the surroundings evoke in Aschenbach's mind the figure of the German musician and his fatal association with Venice.²¹ Significantly, Aschenbach's mind censors the fact of Wagner's death in Venice, leaving only the suggestion that his art flourished there.

The apt jungle metaphors—as Aschenbach is lost in the labyrinth of Venice while following the Polish family—probably relate to the “Liebestod” music and can be seen as ironic in the sense that Aschenbach also meets both love and death in this very same labyrinth.

In D'Annunzio, too, there is a long, well-known scene set in the labyrinth of a villa in Strà, during one of the lovers' walks. Here Stelio cruelly hides himself from Foscarina, who calls to him more and more anxiously. It is interesting to compare the feelings of the two characters, lost in the labyrinth and full of passion for the person they are following. Here is Mann's Aschenbach:

… Er verlor sie, suchte erhitzt und erschöpft nach ihnen über Brucken und in schmutzigen Sackgassen und erduldete Minuten tödlicher Pein, wenn er sie plötzlich in enger Passage, wo kein Ausweichen möglich war, sich entgegenkommen sah.²²

[He lost them, and, sweating and exhausted, looked for them over bridges and along dirty alleys, and bore minutes of deadly pain, as he saw them suddenly coming towards him in narrow passages, where no way out was possible.]

And here is D'Annunzio's Foscarina:

Ella si slanciò nell'intrico per trovarlo; andò diritta verso la voce e il riso, portata dallo impeto. Ma il sentiero si torse; una muraglia di busso cieca le si parò dinanzi, l'arresiò, impenetrabile, Ella segul la tortuosità ingannevole; e una svolta succedeva all'altra, e tutte erano eguali, e il giro pareva non aver fine.²³

[She plunged into the labyrinth in order to find him; she headed straight for his voice and laughter, prey to her impulse. But the pathway suddenly turned; a wall of blind boxwood appeared in front of her, brought her to a stop, impenetrable. She followed the deceptive windings; and one turn led to another, and they were all alike, endless.]

In Mann's case the connotation of the alleys—“schmutzig”—is negative, in line with his image of Venice as a city in decay, which was to become the hotbed of a terrible epidemic. The idea of twilight and pollution indeed, permeates—with obvious variations—both D'Annunzio's and Mann's stories. D'Annunzio describes in a dreamlike tone the emptiness and desolation of the lagoon:

La laguna e la caligine inghiottivano tutte le forme e tutti i colori. Soli interrompevano la grigia eguaglianza i gruppi dei pali, simili a una processione di monaci per un cammino di ceneri. Venezia in fondo fumigava come i resti di un vasto saccheggio.²⁴

[The lagoon and the mist devoured all forms and colours. Only the groups of piers broke into the grey sameness, like a procession of monks along a pathway of ashes. Venice, in the background, lay smoking like the remains of a city laid waste.]

On the other hand, Mann's vision tends towards pathology and sickness, an imminent spectre of cholera and death:

Das war Venedig, die schmeichlerische und verdächtige Schöne—diese Stadt, halb Märchen, halb Fremdenfalle, in deren fauliger Luft die Kunst einst schwelgerisch aufwucherte und welche den Musikern Klänge eingab, die weigen und buhlerische einlullen (…) Er erinnerte sich auch, dass die Stadt krank sei.²⁵

[This was Venice, the flattering and suspect Beauty—this city, half fabulous, half foreign, in whose unhealthy air Art once flourished luxuriously, a city which gave musicians melodies which lulled sweetly (…) he also remembered that the city was sick.]

This link between art and sickness—and, indeed, between art and death—is particularly common in Thomas Mann's work. More generally it is part of the heritage of the Aesthetic period and of that feeling of end which was general at the turn of the century.

Both Il Fuoco and Der Tod in Venedig formulate, with different aims, statements about art. Stelio, in his speech about Venice, proclaims a new Art and dreams of a national theatre, thus playing the role of a D'Annunzio masked as an egocentric and ambitious Übermensch.²⁶ Mann's Aschenbach, on the other hand, gives up his discipline and is ensnared by an infatuation which excites, then enervates and finally destroys him. Venice means for Aschenbach a regression to the wild and cruel aspects of the primitive, the sensual, the irrational. If the substance of creation is chaos, then this chaos can destroy its creator.²⁷

In both ‘Venetian’ novels, Art is seen as endangered by corruption, passion, and decay. Foscarina's ageing makes her love for Stelio fragile and hopeless. Aschenbach's pitiful use of make-up cannot hide the work of time on his face. The spreading of cholera and the very filthiness and precariousness of Venice are omens of death. D'Annunzio's description of the villas on the river Brenta, a prey to wilderness and decay, as well as the story of the countess Glanegg, secluded in her palazzo once her youth has passed, correspond—in Mann's novella—to the description of Venice's calli and to sinister apparitions such as the singer and the beggar.

If some ‘redemption’ for Art is envisaged in D'Annunzio through Stelio Effrèna—the supreme ‘artifex’ who gathers together in his art the treasures of beauty and refinement of the past, though on the verge of natural and commercial destruction—Mann offers us through Aschenbach only irrationality and self-destruction. In fact, it is intriguing to see how the respective characters relate to their authors.

D'Annunzio was 37 when Il Fuoco was published, and was already a well-known and experienced writer: this is why the novel may appear as a kind of confession, a form of self-veneration in his identification with Stelio.²⁸ Stelio is a D'Annunzio without the slightest fault or weakness which would be unworthy of a ‘divine’ poet: as a consequence, Stelio appears too perfect and under-characterized. We do not know his family or his home-town; his career is vague. In Venice, he lives in the Hotel Danieli or in rented palazzi, and has a group of ‘disciples’ around him. We do not even know his age, but we do know he is a writer of genius and an eloquent speaker.

La sua voce limpida e penetrante, che pareva disegnare con un contorno netto la figura musicale di ciascuna parola, dava maggior risalto a questa singolar qualità del suo dire. Talchè in quanti l'udivano per la prima volta si generava un sentimento ambiguo, misto di ammirazione e di avversione, manifestando egli sè medesimo in forme cosi fortemente definite che sembravano risultare da una volontà costante di stabilire tra sè e gli estranei una differenza profonda e insormontabile.²⁹

[His limpid, penetrating voice, which seemed to draw with a neat outline the musical picture of every word, emphasized even more this singular quality of his speech. So much so that in those who heard him for the first time, an ambiguous feeling of admiration mixed with aversion was generated, because he manifested himself in forms so strongly defined that they seemed to come from a constant wish to define a deep, insurmountable difference between himself and others.]

The characterization of Mann's Aschenbach is quite different. The reader of Der Tod in Venedig is given a good deal of information about Aschenbach's youth, his aims and motives, his private ‘existential philosophy’.³⁰ The bourgeois morality in which Aschenbach believes, with its strenuous discipline of work—his motto is “Durchhalten [‘Hold fast’]”—is superseded in Venice by his sensual passion for Tadzio, in whom Beauty—and its snares—are personified. As Hans Mayer infers³¹, Mann might have let Aschenbach die in order to free himself from the conflicts and rules of his past artistic career: in other words, in order to go on writing. This cathartic purpose is confirmed by the similar conflict between bourgeoisie and “Künstlertum” in Aschenbach and in Mann, as well as by the irony implied in Aschenbach's lack of self-knowledge and moral stamina. Mann continually points to the writer's fragile resources: as Apter remarks—“Mann shows the artist's respectable, spiritual purpose being waylaid by his own imagination; he shows how the discipline necessary to art distorts, through detachment, the artist's human impulses”, (op.cit. pp. 56-57). In his own view, Aschenbach is the distanced practitioner of noble art who—a little like D'Annunzio's Stelio—is able to transmute examples of physical beauty into the intellectual realm of formal perfection. But in fact, he succumbs to passion and renounces “Ruhm” and “Würde”—fame and dignity.³²

Er hatte dem Geiste gefrönt, mit der Erkenntnis Raubbau getrieben, Saatfrucht vermahlen, Geheimnisse preisgegeben, das Talent verdächtigt, die Kunst verraten—ja, während seine Bildwerke die gläubig Geniessenden unterhielten, erhoben, belebten, hatte er, der jugendliche Künstler, die zwanzig-jährigen durch seine Zynismen über das fragwürdige Wesen der Kunst, des Künstlertums selbst in Atem gehalten.³³

[He had enslaved the Spirit, ransacked Knowledge, espoused its fruits, revealed secrets, made his talents suspect, betrayed Art—yes, while his creations entertained, elevated, revived his faithful readers, he, the young artist, through his cynicism on the questionable essence of Art, of the artist himself, had kept the twenty-year-old in suspense.]

On Mann's own admission the work is an attempt to obtain “Erkenntnis” about himself. But—in spite of many similarities between Mann and his ‘hero’—it will not do to equate them.

The very ironic distance established by Mann—here as in the case of Serenus Zeitblom in Doktor Faustus—prevents us from attempting to do this. However, as in the relationship D'Annunzio-Effrèna, there is much of the author's own personality and ideas in the characters. But while D'Annunzio projects his ‘better’ self in the ‘Wunschbild’ Stelio, Mann depicts in Aschenbach the artist he could have become if he had followed certain rules and had lacked true ‘genius’.

The similarity between Il Fuoco and Der Tod in Venedig is striking in the description of a momentary epiphany, as well as of a sensual urge. Let us first look at the final epiphanic scene in Mann's novella:

Ihm war (…), als ob der bleiche und liebliche Psychagog dort draussen ihm lächle, ihm winke; als ob er, die Hand aus der Hüfte lösend, hinausdeute, voranschwebe ins Verheissungsvoll—Ungeheure.³⁴

[The pale, charming Psychagogue appeared to be smiling at him there in the distance, gesturing at him; as though, moving his hand from his side, he could foreshadow and float towards the Mysterious and the Prodigious.]

A similar artistic impulse comes to Stelio from the sight of Foscarina on a staircase in firelight:

L'ignota in quelle brevi ore aveva già vissuto entro di lui una vita fittiva cosi intensa che, vedendola avvicinarsi, egli provava un turbamento non dissimile a quello che avrebbe provato vedendosi d'improvviso venire incontro l'incarnazione spirante d'una delle creature ideali gènite dalla sua arte.³⁵

[The unknown woman had already lived in him—in those short hours—such an intense unreal life that, while seeing her approaching, he was troubled as if he had suddenly seen coming towards him the breathing incarnation of one of the ideal creatures born from his art.]

In both cases, the person observed by the artist is transfigured and idealized, and provokes strong emotive reactions in the observer. Two similar visions of primitive, passionate disorder can be found in both works: both pictures symbolize the character's inner feelings and chaos. Here is D'Annunzio's image:

Di lontano, di lontano gli veniva quel torbido ardore, dalle più remote origini, dalla primitive bestialità delle mescolanze subitanee, dall'antico mistero delle libidini sacre.³⁶

[From far, far away, that obscure longing came to him, from the remotest origins, from the primitive bestiality of sudden couplings, from the ancient mystery of sacred lusts.]

The same feelings, primaeval and instinctive, bestial and irrational, are present in Aschenbach's obsessions in his nightmare:

Woher kam und stammte der Hauch, der auf cinmal so sanft und bedeutend, höherer Einflüsterung gleich, Schläfe und Ohr umspielte? Weisse Feder-Wölkchen standen in verbreiteten Scharen am Himmel gleich weidenden Herden der Götter.³⁷

[Where did this breeze come from, a breeze which was at the same time so sweet and so meaningful, similar to a celestial whisper, wafting around his temples and his ears? Light white clouds stood in enlarged rows in the sky, similar to herds of the Gods, at grass.]

Both ‘heroes’, though different in age and situation, strive for Beauty and formal perfection: both have a rich imagination and transfigure places and persons around them. As a consequence, Venice and the object of love—respectively, Foscarina and Tadzio—map out a series of descriptions, thoughts, and images which finally constitute most of the stories.

There are however obvious differences between Stelio and Aschenbach: the one is young, full of dreams and ambitions for his future artistic career, the other is old and accepts an unheroic death. But the authors are different from one another as well, in age, class, and—last but not least—nationality. Thomas Mann, on the threshold of the First World War, abhorred Nationalism and the defenders of War; he defined the Italians as “die Heerscharen Gabriels [‘Gabriel's troops’]”—‘Gabriel’ being D'Annunzio—and explicitly expressed his aversion to the Italian writer's political attitude in his writings:

Aber woher nehme ich das Wort, um ein Mass von Verständnislösigkeit, Staunen, Abscheu, Verachtung zu bezeichnen, wie ich es angesichts des lateinischen Dichters Politikers und Kriegsrufers vom Typ des Gabriele D'Annunzio empfinde?³⁸

[But where shall I find the words to indicate the amount of incomprehension, amazement, horror, hate, which I feel for latin poets and politicians who call for war, such as Gabriele D'Annunzio?]

There are no signs of any kind of contact between the two contemporary authors, and we do not know whether Mann ever read D'Annunzio's works.³⁹ But, notwithstanding the political enmity, more than one parallel can be drawn between the Aesthetics of the two writers, particularly in their respective ‘Venetian’ novels. Both authors choose Venice and a central artist-character in order to create a suitable atmosphere for a series of statements about Art and Life. Both ‘heroes’ are partly autobiographical and possess definite aesthetic rules. Il Fuoco and Der Tod in Venedig have no complex plots, and consist mainly in descriptions and meditations, always in third-person narrative. The two artists portrayed in these novels have their respective ‘Muses’—Foscarina and Tadzio—who inspire in them thoughts of Beauty, Art and Myth.

Venice plays—both for D'Annunzio and for Mann—a determining role in the structure of the story. The city of the lagoon is inevitably bound up—more or less overtly—with the memory of Richard Wagner, the idea of decay, the Italian artistic heritage, and impending death. Even though they are very different in opinions and culture, the two contemporary authors finally appear similar in their connection with this contemporary Aesthetic.

Ah, Venedig! Eine herrliche Stadt! Eine Stadt von unwiderstehlicher Anziehungskraft für den Gebildeten, ihrer Geschichte sowohl wie ihrer gegenwärtigen Reize wegen!⁴⁰

[Ah, Venice! A wonderful city! A city of irresistible attraction for cultivated people, because of its past history as much as for its present charm!]

Notes

1. John Ruskin. Selections from the Writings (London: Smith, Elder, 1861), “Scenes of Travel”, p. 31.

2. See C. A. M. Noble. Krankheit, Verbrechen und Künsterlisches Schaffen bei T. Mann (Bern: Lang, 1970), p. 119 ff.

3. Poems: Primo Vere (1879); Canto Novo (1882); Intermezzo di rime (1883); Libro delle Vergini (1884). Novels: Il Piacere (1889); L'Innocente (1892); Le Vergini delle Rocce (1896).

4. G. D'Annunzio. Il Fuoco [1900], ed. G. Ferrata (Milano: Mondadori, 1951, repr. 1982), ch. 1, p. 46.

5. See Ilsedore, B. Jonas. Th. Mann und Italien (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1969), p. 12 ff. See also Dichter über ihre Dichtungen (Passau: Heineman/S. Fischer, 1975), H. Wysling, M. Fischer eds., passim. In several of his letters to friends or editors, Mann comments upon the elements of fantasy and of autobiography present in his novella. Among various ambiguous statements, interesting is the one in a letter to Carl Maria Weber (München, 29.7.1920, op.cit., p. 417): “… ohne ein persönliches Gefühlsabenteuer wäre aus der Goethe-Novelle nicht der T in V geworden”, [“Without a personal sentimental adventure the Goethe-novella would not have become Death in Venice”]. This arouses suspicions concerning the authenticity of the homosexual passion described in the novella.

6. See Richard Winston Th. Mann. The Making of an Artist, 1875-1911 (London: Constable, 1982), ch. 17, p. 264 ff.

7. T. Mann. A Sketch of My Life [1930], transl. H. T. Lowe-Porter (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), p. 46.

8. See Maria Teresa, Marabini Moevs.G. D'Annunzio e le Estetiche della Fine del Secolo (L'Aquila: L. U. Japadre, 1976), p. 297 ff.

9. G. D'Annunzio. ibid., 1, p. 78.

10. See E. L. Marson. The Ascetic Artist “Prefigurations in T. Mann's Der Tod in Venedig” (Bern/Frankfurt a.M./Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1979); Moeller, Hans-Bernhard. “T. Manns venezianische Götterkunde, Plastik und Zeitlosigkeit” in Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Lit. und Geisteswissenschaft (40, 1966) pp. 184-203; Traschen, Isadore. “The Uses of Myth in Death in Venice” in Modern Fiction Studies, XI, 1 Spring 1965), pp. 165-179.

11. See Michael, F. Wolfgang. “Stoff und Idee in Tod in Venedig” in Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Lit. und Geisteswissenschaft (nr. 33, 1959: Stuttgart, Metzlersche), pp. 13-19.

12. Vernon Venable. “Death in Venice” (1938) in The Stature of T. Mann ed. Charles Neider (London: Peter Owen, 1951), p. 131.

13. T. Mann. Der Tod in Venedig in Gesammelte Werke (13 vols), vol. VIII, “Erzählungen” (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1960, 2 ed. rev. 1974), ch. IV, p. 487.

14. T. Mann. Briefe, I (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1960 repr. 1974), pp. 317-318.

15. D'Annunzio wrote an article, “Il Caso Wagner”, in the newspaper La Tribuna (9.8.1893). Mann of course wrote several essays on Wagner: “Leiden und Grösse R. Wagners”, “R. Wagner und der Ring des Nibelungen” in Gesammelte Werken (ed. cit.), vol. III, “Schriften und Reden zum Literatur, Kunst und Philosophie”, (pp. 121-168; pp. 231-251); “Wagner und kein Ende” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, München, 6-7.4.1950 in Gesammelte Werke (ed. cit.), vol. X, pp. 25-27.

16. G. D'Annunzio. ibid., II, p. 338.

17. See F. Nietzsche. “Nietzsche contra Wagner” in Nietzsches Werke (Leipzig: C. G. Neumann, 1906) 12 vol 1., vol. VIII.

18. See articles by Ezio Raimondi, Luciano Anceschi, Ferruccio Olivi, Luigi Magnani in D'Annunzio e il Simbolismo Europro (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1976), passim.

19. G. D'Annunzio. “Il Caso Wagner” in La Tribuna [Roma, 9.8.1893], repr. in Pagine Sparse ed. A. Castelli, (Roma: Lux, 1913), pp. 586-7.

20. See T. Mann. “Leiden und Grösse R. Wagners” in op. cit., p. 128. See also James Northcote-Baden. Mythen in Frühwerk T. Manns (Bonn: Bouvier, 1975); Martin Gregor. Wagner und kein Ende: R. Wagner im Spiegel von T. Manns Werk: eine Studie (Bayreuth: Ed. Musica, 1958; Anna Jacobsen. “Das R. Wagner-Erlebnis T. Manns” in Germanic Review, 5/2 (April 1930), pp. 166-179; William Blisset. “T. Mann: the last Wagnerite” in Germanic Review, 35, I, 1960, p. 54.

21. See E. L. Marson. op. cit., p. 64 ff.

22. T. Mann. Der Tod in Venedig, ed. cit., ch. V, pp. 501-502.

23. G. D'Annunzio. Il Fuoco, ed. cit., II, p. 251.

24. G. D'Annunzio. ibid., II, p. 291.

25. T. Mann. ibid. ch. V, p. 503.

26. See Giorgio Barberi Squarotti. Invito alla Lettura di D'Annunzio (Milano: Mursia, 1982), p. 112 ff.

27. See T. E. Apter. T. Mann. The Devil's Advocate (London: Macmillan, 1978), ch. 3, p. 50 ff.

28. See Jacques Goudet. D'Annunzio Romanziere (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1976), p. 229 ff.

29. G. D'Annunzio. ibid., I, p. 51.

30. See E. L. Marson. op. cit., ch. I, “Aschenbach and Tadzio”, p. 11 ff.

31. Hans Mayer. Thomas Mann (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1980), Appendix, “Der Tod in Venedig. Ein Thema mit Variationen” (1966), p. 370 ff.

32. E. L. Marson (op. cit., III, p. 130) suggests the possibility of suicide—a private decision not to be discovered—chosen by Aschenbach in order to preserve his public image.

33. T. Mann, ibid., ch. II, p. 454.

34. Ibid., V, p. 525.

35. G. D'Annunzio. ibid, I, p. 108.

36. Ibid., I, p. 141.

37. T. Mann. ibid.: IV, p. 496.

38. “die Heerscharen Gabriels” in T. Mann. Briefe an Paul Amann, ed. Herbert Wegener, (Lübeck, 1959), p. 54; quotation from T. Mann. Gesammelte Werke, ed. cit. vol. XII, “Reden und Aufsätze”, p. 577.

39. No relevant trace of such a possibility is given in the texts I have consulted: T. Mann. Briefe, 3 vols, ed. Erika Mann (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 1961); T. Mann. Tagebücher, 5 vols, ed. Peter de Mendelsohn (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 1979).

40. T. Mann. ibid., III, p. 459.

N.B.: All the translations from T. Mann and G. D'Annunzio are mine.