MAKING THE CITIES VISIBLE:

CALVINO MEETS UELSMANN

David A. Weiss & Simonetta Ferrini

INTRODUCTION

“In devising a story […] the first thing that comes to my mindis an image that for some reason strikes me as charged withmeaning, even if I cannot formulate this meaning in discursiveor conceptual terms. As soon as the image has becomesufficiently clear in my mind, I set about developing it into astory; or better yet, it is the images themselves that developtheir own implicit potentialities, the story they carry withinthem.” (Italo Calvino, Six Memos For The Next Millennium)

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is one of the most intriguing andchallenging works to be discussed in a literature class. It raisesdeep questions, provokes unexpected reactions, eludes anypreconceived answer or clear-cut interpretation. I had beenusing the book in my Contemporary Italian Literature course(in which Calvino is just one of the writers covered) for a fewsemesters. Every semester the class had reacted in a differentway to the book, everytime though showing positive, if notenthusiastic, responses. I was convinced that the limited timededicated in class to the analysis and discussion of the bookdid not do it justice. Characterized by a highly intricateconnection of visual images and by a multi-layered labyrinthof possible meanings, Invisible Cities deserved more than just aliterary reading and reflection. So in the Spring 2010 I askedmy colleague David Weiss if he wanted to collaborate with oneof his photography classes to an interdisciplinary project. Mystudents would write a review about the book, to be publishedon the final issue of Blending, Palazzi’s monthly magazine, hisstudents would visually interpret the spirit of the book andtranspose it into photographic images. In that way the text byCalvino would become an excellent means to stimulate boththe imaginative, reflective and creative side of our students,something that the author, we are convinced, would have highlyenjoyed. These are the steps that we followed in our project.

Literature class (9 students):Brainstorming for a first approach to the book1. One week before the actual presentation and class discussionof the book the students were assigned a written homeworkabout Invisible Cities, in which they were asked to reflect aboutthe following points:a) the non-traditional, mathematical structure of the book b) a possible general interpretation of the book (what do thecities stand for? why are they named after women? why are theydivided into categories?)c) the characteristics of each category (which are the recurrentthemes in the stories belonging to the same category? how iseach category related to the others?)d) the dialogues between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan (whatare the two characters talking about? how do they interact? howdifferent are their perspectives?)

Presentation in class and class discussion2. The following week two students presented the book in class,to which a general discussion followed, each studentcontributing with his/her own reflections, doubts, andpreferences about the stories and categories.

Individual homework - choosing quotations and writing shortcomments3. In the following weeks the students were asked to work by

themselves at home, selecting two or three among their favourite quotations from the book and writing a briefcomment about each one of them.

Class activity - selecting quotations 4. A couple of weeks before the publication, the studentsworked in class in small groups of three, discussing andselecting the most significant among their favourite quotations.

Class activity - writing the final version of the text5. One week before the publication all students workedtogether in class on the final version of the review, editing thedifferent paragraphs obtained during the previous stage into acohesive and meaningful text.

Publication of review with photographs6. Review and photographs were published on the final issueof Blending which was entirely dedicated to the themeFrametime. We chose the title “Frame of time” because InvisibleCities is an expression of what Calvino would have called the“universal book”, a literary frame containing past, present andfuture, the story of all the possible stories ever narrated. “[…]there is another definition in which I recognize myself fully,and that is the imagination as a repertory of what is potential,what is hypothetical, of what does not exist and has neverexisted, and perhaps will never exist but might have existed”.(Italo Calvino, Six Memos For The Next Millennium)

When Professor Simonetta Ferrini stopped me in the hallwayand asked “what do you think about your intermediate digitalphotography class working with my class, who is studying ItaloCalvino’s Invisible Cities, to produce images/photographs?”I immediately thought about Jerry Uelsmann who producedblack and white images that combined the realism ofphotography and the fluidity of our collective dreams.

For those of you who are not familiar with Uelsmann’s work,he created images by assembling multiple negatives in up toseven different enlargers to expose a single print, decadesbefore photoshop would even be a notion. My challenge as aninstructor was two-fold. First, to give assignments to thestudents, to get them on the right track, and to think of thefinal body of work as an “alchemy of the photographicprocess”. Second, the students would have to shift (for amoment) their attention from photography to literature and,as a group, discuss how to turn the writings of Calvino intoimagery by breaking down a “città” into its vital components.

This proved to be challenging because the Cities were left upto interpretation. Some were easier to visualize and thereforeeasier to create, while others would have entailed months ofplanning. I had only a short amount of time to teach specializeddigital darkroom techniques, lighting skills, photographic visualrules and tricks and to push the students past their limits andexpectations. I have to say the final outcome was spectacular and a pleasantsurprise.

I have gradually confused photography and life and a result of this I believeI am able to work out of myself at an almost precognitive level.Jerry Uelsmann

CITIES & DESIRE 4 - FEDORA

“Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the city could have taken if,

for one reason or another, it had not become what we see today. In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a

way of making it the ideal city, but while he constructed his miniature model, Fedora was already no longer the same as before,

and what had been until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass globe.”

“Guardando dentro ogni sfera si vede una città azzurra che è il modello d’un’altra Fedora. Sono le forme che la città avrebbe

potuto prendere se non fosse, per una ragione o per l’altra, diventata come oggi la vediamo. In ogni epoca qualcuno, guardando

Fedora qual era, aveva immaginato il modo di farne la città ideale, ma mentre costruiva il suo modello in miniatura già Fedora

non era più la stessa di prima, e quello che fino a ieri era stato un suo possibile futuro ormai era solo un giocattolo in una sfera

di vetro.”

CITIES & EyES 5 - MORIANA

“When you have forded the river, when you have crossed the mountain pass, you suddenly find before you the city of Moriana,

its alabaster gates transparent in the sunlight, its coral columns supporting pediments encrusted with serpentine, its villas all of

glass like aquariums where the shadows of dancing girls with silvery scales swim beneath the medusa-shaped chandeliers. [...]

From one part to the other, the city seems to continue, in perspective, multiplying its repertory of images: but instead it has no

thickness, it consists only of a face and an obverse, like a sheet of paper, with a figure on either side, which can neither be

separated nor look at each other.”

“Guadato il fiume, valicato il passo, l’uomo si trova di fronte tutt’a un tratto la città di Moriana, con le porte d’alabastro trasparenti

alla luce del sole, le colonne di corallo che sostengono i frontoni incrostati di serpentina, le ville tutte di vetro come acquari dove

nuotano le ombre delle danzatrici dalle squame argentate sotto i lampadari a forma di medusa. [...]

Da una parte all’altra la città sembra continui in prospettiva moltiplicando il suo repertorio d’immagini: invece non ha spessore,

consiste solo in un diritto e in un rovescio, come un foglio di carta, con una figura di qua e una di là, che non possono staccarsi

né guardarsi.”

CITIES & THE DEAD 2 - ADELMA

“I thought: ‘You reach a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind

refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds

the most suitable mask’.”

“Pensai: ‘Si arriva a un momento nella vita in cui tra la gente che si è conosciuta i morti sono più dei vivi. E la mente si rifiuta

d’accettare altre fisionomie, altre espressioni: su tutte le facce nuove che incontra, imprime i vecchi calchi, per ognuna trova la

maschera che s’adatta di più’.”

CITIES & MEMORy 5 - MAURILIA

“In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old postcards that show it as it used

to be …. It is pointless to ask whether the new [gods that inhabit the city] are better or worse than the old, since there is no

connection between them, just as the old postcards do not depict Maurilia as it was, but a different city which, by chance, was

called Maurilia, like this one.”

“A Maurilia, il viaggiatore è invitato a visitare la città e nello stesso tempo a osservare certe vecchie cartoline illustrate che la

rappresentano com’era prima…. E’ vano chiedersi se [i nuovi dei che abitano nella città] sono migliori o peggiori degli antichi,

dato che non esiste tra loro alcun rapporto, così come le vecchie cartoline non rappresentano Maurilia com’era, ma un’altra città

che per caso si chiamava Maurilia come questa.”’.”

CITIES & DESIRE 5 - ZOBEIDE

“From there, after six days and seven nights, you arrive at Zobeide, the white city, well exposed to the

moon, with streets wound about themselves as in a skein. They tell this tale of its foundation: men of

various nations had an identical dream. They saw a woman running at night through an unknown city,

she was seen from behind, with long hair, and she was naked. They dreamed of pursuing her. As they

twisted and turned, each of them lost her. After the dream they set out in search of that city; they

never found it, but they found one another; they decided to build a city like the one in the dream.”

“Di là, dopo sei giorni e sette notti, l’uomo arriva a Zobeide, città bianca, ben esposta alla luna, con

vie che girano su se stesse, come in un gomitolo. Questo si racconta della sua fondazione: uomini di

nazioni diverse ebbero un sogno uguale, videro una donna correre di notte per una città sconosciuta,

da dietro, coi capelli lunghi, ed era nuda. Sognarono d’inseguirla. Gira gira ognuno la perdette. Dopo

il sogno andarono cercando quella città; non la trovarono ma si trovarono tra loro; decisero di costruire

una città come nel sogno.”

THIN CITIES 3 - ARMILLA

“Abandoned before or after it was inhabited, Armilla cannot be called deserted. At

any hour, raising your eyes among the pipes, you are likely to glimpse a young woman,

or many young women, slender, not tall of stature, luxuriating in the bathtubs or

arching their backs under the showers suspended in the void, washing or drying or

perfuming themselves, or combing their long hair at a mirror.”

“Abbandonata prima o dopo esser stata abitata, Armilla non può dirsi deserta. A

qualsiasi ora, alzando gli occhi tra le tubature, non è raro scorgere una o molte giovani

donne, snelle, non alte di statura, che si crogiolano nelle vasche da bagno, che si

inarcano sotto le docce sospese sul vuoto, che fanno abluzioni, o che s’asciugano, o

che si profumano, o che si pettinano i lunghi capelli allo specchio.”

PART 6 - OPENING DIALOGUE BETwEEN MARCO

POLO AND KUBLAI KHAN

“’Did you ever happen to see a city resembling this one?’ Kublai asked Marco Polo, extending his beringed hand from beneath

the silken canopy of the imperial barge, to point to the bridges arching over the canals, the princely palaces whose marble

doorsteps were immersed in the water, the bustle of light craft zigzagging, driven by long oars, the boats unloading baskets of

vegetables at the market squares, the balconies, platforms, domes, campaniles, island gardens glowing green in the lagoon’s

grayness.”

“’Ti è mai accaduto di vedere una città che assomigli a questa?’ chiedeva Kublai a Marco Polo sporgendo la mano inanellata fuori

dal baldacchino di seta del bucintoro imperiale, a indicare i ponti che s’incurvano sui canali, i palazzi principeschi le cui soglie di

marmo s’immergono nell’acqua, l’andirivieni di battelli leggeri che volteggiano a zigzag spinti da lunghi remi, le chiatte che

scaricano ceste di ortaggi sulle piazze dei mercati, i balconi, le altane, le cupole, i campanili, i giardini delle isole che verdeggiano

nel grigio della laguna.”

CONTINUOUS CITIES 1 - LEONIA

“The city of Leonia refashions itself every day... [...] It is not so much by the things that each day are manufactured, sold, bought

that you can measure Leonia’s opulence, but rather by the things that each day are thrown out to make room for the new. So you

begin to wonder if Leonia’s true passion is really, as they say, the enjoyment of new and different things, and not, instead, the

joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity.”

“La città di Leonia rifà se stessa tutti i giorni... [...] più che dalle cose che ogni giorno vengono fabbricate vendute comprate,

l’opulenza di Leonia si misura dalle cose che ogni giorno vengono buttate via per far posto alle nuove. Tanto che ci si chiede se

la vera passione di Leonia sia davvero come dicono il godere delle cose nuove e diverse, o non piuttosto l’espellere, l’allontanare

da sé, il mondarsi d’una ricorrente impurità.”

CITIES & THE SKy 2 - BERSABEA

“The belief is handed down in Beersheba: that, suspended in the heavens, there exists another Beersheba, where the city’s most

elevated virtues and sentiments are poised, and that if the terrestrial Beersheba will take the celestial one as its model the two

cities will become one.”

“Si tramanda a Bersabea questa credenza: che sospesa in cielo esista un’altra Bersabea, dove si librano le virtù e i sentimenti più

elevati della città, e che se la Bersabea terrena prenderà a modello quella celeste diventerà una cosa sola con essa.”

CITIES & THE DEAD 5 - LAUDOMIA

“Like Laudomia, every city has at its side another city whose inhabitants are called by the same names: it is the Laudomia of the

dead, the cemetery. But Laudomia’s special faculty is that of being not only double, but triple; it comprehends, in short, a third

Laudomia, the city of the unborn.”

“Ogni città, come Laudomia, ha al suo fianco un’altra città i cui abitanti si chiamano con gli stessi nomi: è la Laudomia dei morti,

il cimitero. Ma la speciale dote di Laudomia è d’essere, oltre che doppia, tripla, cioè di comprendere una terza Laudomia che è

quella dei non nati.”

CITIES & THE SKy 5 - ANDRIA

“Andria was built so artfully that its every street follows a planet’s orbit, and the buildings and the places of community life

repeat the order of the constellations and the position of the most luminous stars: Antares, Alpheratz, Capricorn, the Cepheids.

The city’s calendar is so regulated that jobs and offices and ceremonies are arranged in a map corresponding to the firmament

on that date: and thus the days on earth and the nights in the sky reflect each other.”

“Con tale arte fu costruita Andria, che ogni sua via corre seguendo l’orbita d’un pianeta e gli edifici e i luoghi della vita in comune

ripetono l’ordine delle costellazioni e la posizione degli astri più luminosi: Antares, Alpheratz, Capella, le Cefeidi. Il calendario

della città è regolato in modo che lavori e uffici e cerimonie si dispongono in una mappa che corrisponde al firmamento in quella

data: così i giorni in terra e le notti in cielo si rispecchiano.”

THIN CITIES 4 - SOFRONIA

“The city of Sophronia is made up of two half-cities. [...] One of the half-cities is permanent, the other is temporary, and when

the period of its sojourn is over, they uproot it, dismantle it, and take it off, transplanting it to the vacant lots of another half-

city.”

“La città di Sofronia si compone di due mezze città. [...] Una delle mezze città è fissa, l’altra è provvisoria e quando il tempo della

sua sosta è finito la schiodano, la smontano e la portano via, per trapiantarla nei terreni vaghi d’un’altra mezza città.”

PART 3 - OPENING DIALOGUE BETwEEN MARCO

POLO AND KUBLAI KHAN

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their

perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”

“Le città come i sogni sono costruite di desideri e di paure, anche se il filo del loro discorso è segreto, le loro regole assurde e le

prospettive ingannevoli, e ogni cosa ne nasconde un’altra.”

PART 8 - FINAL DIALOGUE BETwEEN MARCO POLO

AND KUBLAI KHAN

“The quantity of things that could be read in a little piece of smooth and empty wood overwhelmed Kublai; Polo was already

talking about ebony forests, about rafts laden with logs that come down the rivers, of docks, of women at the windows...”

“Le quantità di cose che si potevano leggere in un pezzetto di legno liscio e vuoto sommergeva Kublai; già Polo era venuto a

parlare dei boschi d’ebano, delle zattere di tronchi che discendono i fiumi, degli approdi, delle donne alle finestre...”

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Introduction by Prof. Simonetta Ferrini

Italo Calvino (1923-1985), one of the most talented and original Italian writers of the 20th century published in 1972 a book entirely dedicated

to cities. “Penso d’aver scritto qualcosa come un ultimo poema d’amore alle città…” he said. (I think I wrote something like a final love poem

for cities…)

Born in Cuba to Italian parents, he then moved with his family to the region of Liguria where he spent his youth. After his active participation

in the Italian Resistance movement as a partisan, Calvino moved to Turin where he graduated and lived most of his life, at first as a journalist

and editor for the Einaudi publishing house, then as a professional writer. His writing style evolved through the years, from his first Neorealist

novel “Il sentiero dei nidi ragno” (The Path to the Nest of Spiders, 1947) to the allegorical, fable-like narrations of the 1950s, “Il barone

rampante” (The Baron in the Trees) and “Il visconte dimezzato” (The Cloven Viscount) to the completely surreal atmosphere of “Le città invisibili”

(Invisibile Cities) and “Il castello dei destini incrociati” (The Castle of Crossed Destinies) in which Calvino blends together experimental narrative

structures, mathematical theories and his interest in semiotics.

But what are in reality those mysterious invisibile cities that Calvino evokes with so many details in his book? What is the hidden thread that

connects them all? What is the secret meaning to be grasped that makes you want to start reading the book again once you have finished it?

To these questions we have tried to give an answer this semester and what follows are written and photographic suggestions for possible

interpretations of this enigmatic and elusive literary masterpiece.

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is structured as an imaginary dialogue between Marco Polo, the famous

Venetian explorer, and Kublai Khan, the ruler of a great empire, China. The cities described are fictional

cities, so surreal they leave the emperor Kublai Khan doubting their existence.

“With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected

dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires

and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives

deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” - Italo Calvino

Each chapter begins and ends with the dialogue of Polo and Khan. Between these conversations, Polo

tells stories of his travels, describing the cities he has encountered in his voyages through Kublai Khan’s

empire. There are eleven different types of cities (cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and signs,

thin cities, trading cities, cities and eyes, cities and names, cities and the dead, cities and the sky,

continuous cities, hidden cities), and Polo gives five examples for each category. Calvino declared that

he loved cities, thus each one of them is given a woman’s name: Anastasia, Olivia, Laudomia, Irene are

a few examples.

This style of experimental writing, using mathematical patterns and theories was first developed by

Calvino and a group of French writers called OuLiPo (Ouvroir deLittérature Potentielle) in the 1960s.

The flow of the book imitates our state of mind, ever changing. More than real cities or historical

characters, Calvino offers a way to look at the world and experience it.

The book plays on the theme of perception showing in various ways how different perspectives lead to different interpretations of the

same thing; this is the case with Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. In the beginning Marco Polo can only describe cities through hand gestures

and symbols that leave both the reader and Kublai Khan free to comprehend as they will. Kublai Khan wants concrete answers and

solutions for his crumbling empire, but Marco offers descriptions that are abstract and elusive.

THE FRAME OF TIME: ITALO CALVINO’S INVISIBLE CITIESA visual-literary collaboration of Contemporary Italian Literature and IntermediateDigital Photography students

33BLENdINg 6

Contemporary Italian Literature students (Instructor Simonetta Ferrini): Mitchell Owen, Cristina Banahan, Catherine Bodie,

Courtney Fitzpatrick, Margot Hoffar, Teela Nakashian, Melissa Brambila, Arianna Garutti, Melanie Brown

International Digital Photography Students (Instructor David Weiss): Casey Brennan, Elizabeth Groshek, Carrie Schoenborn

Turn to the last page for larger, full color renderings of the photographic responses to Calvino’s Invisibile Cities!

“’… which is the stone that supports the bridge?’ Kublai Khan asks.

‘The bridge is not supported by one stone or another’, Marco answers, ‘but by the line of the arch that they form’.

Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: ‘Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me”.

Polo answers: ‘Without stones there is no arch.’” - Italo Calvino

Marco Polo speaks of time. He speaks of the choices we make or haven't made, and how they are lost in opportunities becoming “dead

branches”. Time flows furiously, according to Marco Polo, and we are forced into making choices that decide the course of our life, but

no matter what choice you make the past and future still lie ahead of you waiting to be discovered.

“Arriving at each new city, the traveller finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreigness of what you no longer are

or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.” - Italo Calvino

“…the Laudomia of the dead and that of the unborn are like the two bulbs of an hour glass which is not turned over; each passage

between birth and death is a grain sand that passes the neck, and there will be a last inhabitant of Laudomia born, a last grain to fall,

which is now at the top of the pile, waiting.” - Italo Calvino

The book is relatable regardless of social class, nationality, or personal history because it speaks about the human experience. It speaks

to those who have been disillutioned by life, to those who remember better times, to the complexity of human relationships, and to

finding happiness in even the most dire situations.

“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day,

that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become

such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to

recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space” - Italo Calvino

The Invisible Cities could be London, Lima or New York; they could be you or me. They are all of us, and none of us. It is Calvino's way

as a global citizen to create global literature as a way to reflect about the themes of communication, time, place and history.

“Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a

shapeless dust cloud invades the continents...” - Italo Calvino

Fua Florence University of the Arts Corso Tintori 21 - 50122 Florence Italy ph.: +39 055 /0332727 info@fua.it

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