A DUKE WHO DOES NOT KNOW HIS DUCHY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue CXXIII, 10 April 1937, Page 27

A DUKE WHO DOES NOT KNOW HIS DUCHY

Sixteen or seventeen years ago the King of Italy conferred on Gabriele d'Annunzio, the Italian writer, who re; cently described himself as "an old sick man," the rank oi a duke, making him Principe del Monte Nevoso; But, strange as it may seem, the poet has never visited his duchy (says a writer in the "Sydney Morning Herald").

This strangest of duchies is situated in the Karst Mountains, at an altitude of nearly 6500 feet above sea-level. It is so small that it would disappear under his ducal rcbe should he possess, this symbol of nobility.

Although it was the King of Italy who conferred the title, the actual donor of the diminutive piece of ground was the Prince o" Schoenburg-Walden-burg, a former' German envoy to the courts of Paris and St. Petersburg, proprietor of the mountain .Nevoso. His is a large domain, including more than 575.000 acres of forests, besides great hunting grounds,1 extending into Yugoslavia. The prince made a gift of the very highest, peak of Monte Nevoso' to d'Annunzio, stipulating, however,,that it should revert to him upon the poet's death. ■:■■■■■ . '■';/■■ -

As far as the shelter-house, "Refugio Gabriele d'Annunzio," there is a good road for motor-cars. This wide road, leading from Fiume, via Abbazio, to the Karst highlands, affords the traveller a series of wonderful views. He will behold the Karawang Mountains, the Julian Alps, and the Karst, and far below, like a gigantic opal, the Adriatic. The! road descends, bordered by laurels and slender cypresses,

alternating with vineyards and little renaissance houses. And everywhere, in the background, there, loom the snow-capped mountain peaks. ■• •: .

The first stop is at Bisterza, formerly, called Feistritz, where a house built in the style of the middle of the eighteenth century contrasts strangely with the venerable campanile and the small flat-roofed houses of the peasantry. . . :

The : Monte .Nevoso .("Snow Mountain"), the ' meeting .place--of sportlovers from Fiume, Abbazio| >and neighbouring places, so far presents itself in a garment of radiant green—glades of leafy trees alternating with meadows, to which the apiarists of the surrounding districts transport their hives. , . : At an altitude of about 4000 feet stands the Refugio Gabriele d'Annunzio, Not even this has been'visited by the poet. He had announced that he would be present at the opening ceremony, travelling by. aeroplane, several years ago, , but;. ; inclement weather prevented him'from doing so. In the bright and spae:ouS;-guest-room of the hospice his portrait can be seen, as well as those of the King and Queen of Italy, the principe of Udine, and the beautiful Maria Jose of Belgium, and that of the Duce. v

In -front-of, the house stretches an emerald velvety law,n, and far away, in the forest, on a lonely mountain peak, there is a simple wooden cross, indicating d'Annunzio's domain, which he has never trod upon and never Svill.