The Coppedè Bed, from the eponymous poem by Angelo Mazzei, is a bed that actually existed. It may even still be in Marina di Campo, inside the family home (Tesei) where Oreste del Buono stayed during his final visits to Elba.
Notes on “Il Letto di Coppedè”
full Italian and English lyrics follow
The Main Character: The Bed of Coppedè
The titular bed is the physical and historical anchor of the poem, connecting Elba’s industrial past, eccentric art, and modern intellectual history into a single, tangible heirloom.
The Bed Itself: Designed by the famed Italian architect Gino Coppedè, known for his highly ornate, eclectic, and heavy style. The bed is an extravagantly carved wooden piece covered in puttini and puttoni (little and large cherubs).
Pilade del Buono (“Pilade della Piaggia”): The original owner of the bed was l’Onorevole (Member of Parliament) Pilade del Buono, a powerful political and industrial patriarch on the island. “La Piaggia” is the historical, local name for Rio Marina, the Elban town famous for its iron mines.
Oreste del Buono: Pilade’s grandson and a famous Italian writer and editor. As the poem details, Oreste was conceived in this very bed in the Elban hill town of Poggio during the 1922 March on Rome. Decades later, he returned to lie on it in a house in Campo (Marina di Campo) inherited from his uncle Teseo.
Gaspare Barbiellini-Amidei: A prominent Italian journalist and intellectual with deep ties to Elba, who is also woven into the bed’s legendary history as one of the notable figures who slept in it.
The Literary Framework
Jorge Luis Borges: The poem is a brilliant, highly localized pastiche of Borges’s famous work, “Another Poem of the Gifts” (Otro poema de los dones). The author retains Borges’s rhythmic anaphora (“For…”) and universal philosophical themes, but replaces others with specific cultural, historical, and geographical references tied to Elba.
The Ending Tribute: The closing lines directly honor Borges, who went blind (the “tenuous darkness”) and was famously, punitively assigned to be a poultry inspector by the Perón regime in Argentina.
Geography and History of the Locations
Pianosa and the “Merletti”: Pianosa is a small, flat island near Elba. The “merletti” (lace) does not refer to the natural coastline, but rather to the ornate, lace-like architectural crenellations and battlements on the tops of the palaces and historic buildings in the island’s tiny village.
Elba Island (“Quest’isola”): The primary setting, holding a rich history from ancient iron mining (“the iron, that shines in these verses”) to modern literary retreats.
Etruria & The Rinaldoni: The Rinaldone were an ancient Eneolithic (Copper Age) culture in central Italy. Etruria was the ancient land of the Etruscans, who aggressively mined Elba’s iron centuries ago.
Portoferraio: The main port town of Elba, famous for its massive, high walls built by the Medici family.
Maciarello & Sansone: Picturesque coastal spots on Elba. Sansone is particularly famous for its striking white pebble beach and pristine morning waters.
Maremma: The rugged coastal region on the nearby Tuscan mainland, known for its wild landscape and the butteri (traditional Italian cowboys).
Historical & Intellectual Figures
Socrates, Spinoza, Angelus Silesius, Swedenborg: Classic philosophers and mystics originally cited by Borges to represent humanity’s attempt to decipher the universe.
Ovid and Lucan: Roman poets from Cordoba, nodding to the Latin roots of Italian literature.
Kuhn, Derrida, and De Mandelbrot: Modern intellectuals. Thomas Kuhn (paradigm shifts), Jacques Derrida (deconstruction), and Benoit Mandelbrot (fractal geometry—the “infinite length of a coastline”).
Beethoven & Melesigenes: Beethoven represents the “hum of a deafness that reveals new melodies,” while Melesigenes is an ancient epithet for Homer, the blind Greek poet of the Iliad and Odyssey (hence the “biography told in Ithaca”).
Pietro Gori (1865–1911): An Italian anarchist lawyer, journalist, and poet who was historically confined to Elba.
Elban Cultural Figures and Local Artists
Brignetti (Raffaello) and Sestini: Prominent Italian writers and poets deeply associated with Elba and its maritime culture.
Giuseppe Pietri (1886–1946) & Giuseppe Cacciò: Pietri was an Elban composer famous for his popular operetta L’Acqua Cheta (The Quieted Water). Cacciò was a local entrepreneur who commercialized Elba’s natural spring water (Fonte Napoleone), effectively “enhancing its value.”
The “Art into the Park” Sculptors: The references to Polesi, Galli, Gobbo, Crestale, Lunisio, and Pino Fabbri are highly specific nods to contemporary local artists. Their artworks—such as the Tartaroccia, Borea, Coccosauro, and Seme (Seed)—were part of an open-air environmental art project on Elba, made of natural woodland materials designed to eventually decay back into the forest.
LYRICS Italian and English
Bisogna che ringrazi il divino Labirinto degli effetti e delle cause
Per la diversità delle creature che formano questo singolare universo,
Per la ragione, che non cesserà di sognare con una mappa del labirinto,
Per il volto di Elena e la perseveranza di Ulisse,
Per l’amore, che ci lascia vedere gli altri come li vede la divinità,
Per il duro granito e l’acqua fluida,
Per l’algebra, palazzo di cristalli precisi,
Per le mistiche monete di Angelo Silesio,
Per Spinoza, che forse decifrò l’universo,
Per il fuoco folgorante,
Che nessun essere umano può guardar senza un’antica meraviglia,
Per il castagno, il ciliegio e il rosmarino,
Per il pane e il sale,
Per il mistero della rosa, che prodiga colore ma non lo vede,
Per certe vigilie e giornate del millesettecento novantanove,
Per i duri butteri che nella Maremma accompagnano le bestie e l’alba,
Per la mattina al Maciarello,
Per l’arte dell’amicizia,
Per l’ultimo giorno di Socrate,
Per le parole che in un tramonto si dissero da una croce all’altra croce.
Per quel sogno dell’Islam che abbracciò mille notti e una notte,
Per quell’altro sogno dell’inferno,
Della torre del fuoco che purifica,
E delle sfere gloriose,
Per Svedenborg, che chiacchierava con gli angeli per le vie di Londra,
Per i corsi d’acqua segreti e immemorabili che mi scorrono dentro,
Per la lingua che, secoli or sono, parlai in Etruria,
Per la spada e l’arpa dei longobardi,
Per il mare, che è un deserto risplendente
E una serie di cose che non sappiamo,
E un epitaffio dei rinaldoni,
Per la musica verbale della Toscana,
Per la musica verbale della Corsica,
Per il ferro, che riluce in questi versi,
Per l’epico inverno,
Per il nome di un libro che non ho letto: Gesta Romanorum
Per Pietro Gori, innocente come i passerotti,
Per il prisma di cristallo e il peso d’ottone di un’antica bilancia,
Per le spine del riccio,
Per le alte mura di Portoferraio e i merletti dell’isola di Pianosa
Per il mattino a Sansone,
Per quell’elbàno di quella poesia delle Lettere Migratorie
Il cui nome, come forse avrebbe voluto, ignoriamo,
Per Ovidio e Lucano, di Cordova,
Che prima dell’italiano scrissero
Tutta la letteratura italiana,
Per i geometrici e bizzarri scacchi,
Per la Tartaroccia di Polesi e la Borea di Galli,
Per Adamo ed Eva, che rinascono dagli scalpelli di Gobbo e Crestale,
Per lo Spirito dei Boschi di Lunisio,
Per il Coccosauro, che era troppo brutto,
Per il Seme di Pino Fabbri, che è la vita che viene,
Per l’odore medicinale delle ginestre,
Per il linguaggio, che può simulare la saggezza,
Per l’oblio, che annulla o modifica il passato,
Per l’abitudine, che ci ripete e ci conferma come uno specchio,
Per la mattina, che ci regala l’illusione di un inizio
Per la notte, le sue tenebre e la sua astronomia,
Per il valore e la felicità degli altri,
Per quest’isola, sentita nel salmastro o in una vecchia zappa,
Per Brignetti e Sestini, che già scrissero la poesia,
Per il fatto che la poesia è inesauribile
E si confonde con la somma delle creature come arte in natura
E non arriverà mai all’ultimo verso
E varia a seconda degli uomini,
Per Giuseppe Pietri, che chetò l’acqua,
Per Giuseppe Cacciò, che la valorizzò,
Per Gaspare Barbiellini-Amidei e il letto di Coppedè
Per Oreste del Buono e il letto di Coppedè di suo nonno Pilade della Piaggia sul quale fu concepito a Poggio tra puttini e puttoni durante la Marcia su Roma, e sul quale tornò a sdraiarsi settant’anni dopo nella casa di Campo lasciatagli dallo zio Teseo, mentre aspettava di dimagrire abbastanza per trovare spazio nella tomba di famiglia,
Per i minuti che precedono il sonno,
Per il sonno e la morte, questi due tesori occulti,
Per gli intimi doni che non elenco,
Per la musica, misteriosa forma del temp
Per l’arte, misteriosa forma dello spazio
Mi metto in moto e vò
Con la magia della teoria della rivoluzione dei paradigmi,
L’origine frastagliata a se stessa differente,
L’infinita lunghezza di una costa a bassa risoluzione frattale,
Con Kuhn, Derrida e De Mandelbrot,
Il ronzio di una sordità che rivela nuove melodie,
La tenebra tenue di una biografia raccontata ad Itaca,
Un lavoro mai fatto come ispettore aviario o aùgure post litteram,
Con Beethoven, Melesigene e Bòrges.
The Bed of Coppedè
I must thank the divine Labyrinth of effects and causes
For the diversity of creatures that form this singular universe,
For reason, which will not cease to dream with a map of the labyrinth,
For the face of Helen and the perseverance of Ulysses,
For love, which lets us see others as the divinity sees them,
For the hard granite and the fluid water,
For algebra, a palace of precise crystals,
For the mystic coins of Angelus Silesius,
For Spinoza, who perhaps deciphered the universe,
For the dazzling fire,
Which no human being can look at without an ancient wonder,
For the chestnut, the cherry tree, and the rosemary,
For bread and salt,
For the mystery of the rose, which lavishes color but does not see it,
For certain eves and days of seventeen ninety-nine,
For the rugged butteri who in the Maremma accompany the beasts and the dawn,
For the morning at Maciarello,
For the art of friendship,
For the last day of Socrates,
For the words that in a sunset were said from one cross to the other cross.
For that dream of Islam that embraced a thousand and one nights,
For that other dream of hell,
Of the tower of fire that purifies,
And of the glorious spheres,
For Swedenborg, who chatted with angels through the streets of London,
For the secret and immemorial waterways that flow inside me,
For the language that, centuries ago, I spoke in Etruria,
For the sword and the harp of the Lombards,
For the sea, which is a resplendent desert
And a series of things we do not know,
And an epitaph of the Rinaldone people,
For the verbal music of Tuscany,
For the verbal music of Corsica,
For the iron, that shines in these verses,
For the epic winter,
For the name of a book I have not read: Gesta Romanorum
For Pietro Gori, innocent as the sparrows,
For the crystal prism and the brass weight of an ancient scale,
For the spines of the sea urchin,
For the high walls of Portoferraio and the lace of the island of Pianosa
For the morning at Sansone,
For that Elban from that poem of the Migratory Letters
Whose name, as perhaps he would have wished, we ignore,
For Ovid and Lucan, of Cordoba,
Who before Italian wrote
All of Italian literature,
For geometric and bizarre chess,
For the Tartaroccia by Polesi and the Borea by Galli,
For Adam and Eve, who are reborn from the chisels of Gobbo and Crestale,
For the Spirit of the Woods by Lunisio,
For the Coccosauro, which was too ugly,
For the Seed by Pino Fabbri, which is the life to come,
For the medicinal smell of the brooms,
For language, which can simulate wisdom,
For oblivion, which cancels or modifies the past,
For habit, which repeats and confirms us like a mirror,
For the morning, which gifts us the illusion of a beginning
For the night, its darkness and its astronomy,
For the courage and happiness of others,
For this island, felt in the salty air or in an old hoe,
For Brignetti and Sestini, who already wrote poetry,
For the fact that poetry is inexhaustible
And blends with the sum of creatures like art in nature
And will never reach the last verse
And varies according to men,
For Giuseppe Pietri, who quieted the water,
For Giuseppe Cacciò, who enhanced its value,
For Gaspare Barbiellini-Amidei and the bed of Coppedè
For Oreste del Buono and the bed of Coppedè of his grandfather Pilade della Piaggia on which he was conceived in Poggio among little cherubs and large cherubs during the March on Rome, and on which he returned to lie down seventy years later in the house in Campo left to him by his uncle Teseo, while waiting to lose enough weight to find space in the family tomb,
For the minutes that precede sleep,
For sleep and death, these two hidden treasures,
For the intimate gifts I do not list,
For music, mysterious form of time
For art, mysterious form of space
I set myself in motion and go
With the magic of the theory of paradigm revolutions,
The jagged origin different from itself,
The infinite length of a coastline at low fractal resolution,
With Kuhn, Derrida, and De Mandelbrot,
The hum of a deafness that reveals new melodies,
The tenuous darkness of a biography told in Ithaca,
A job never done as a poultry inspector or an augur post litteram,
With Beethoven, Melesigenes, and Borges.
Listen to T H E S O N G
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