Avevo un appuntamento (I had an appointment), 1994 In the book Avevo un appuntamento (I had an appointment), created by Hugo Pratt in 1994, the author describes his voyages in the Pacific, from Easter Island to Pago Pago, from Rarotonga to New Ireland; five chapters that bring to life the characters, stories and locations, that are frequently depicted in cinema and literature. For example, in the story of the legendary ship, the Bounty, or the figure of Sadie Thompson, heroine of the film Rain based on a short story by Somerset Maugham, acted on the screen first by Gloria Swanson and then by Rita Hayworth. Hugo Pratt and his alter ego Corto Maltese are unhindered as they move from one place to another, one story to another, accompanied by a vast series of images including ancient maps, nautical charts, documents, and prints from 19th century encyclopaedias. The watercolours painted by Pratt to illustrate this important travel diary are poetic and fascinating. With an apparently simple touch, they narrate complex, interwoven stories, with accompanying information that makes the book “one of the finest essays on structural anthropology that I have had the opportunity of reading in recent years,” as sociologist Omar Calabrese writes in the introduction. La casa dorata di Samarcanda (The golden house of Samarkand), 1980 In the Accademia Gallery in Venice, there is a painting by Vittore Carpaccio titled The ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat. In June 1511, Francesco Antonio Ottoboni, priest in the parish of Sant’Antonino, which is the church in Venice closest to the entrance to the Arsenal, dreamed all ten thousand of them, entering his church, crowned with thorns, each shouldering a cross, in a long and silent procession. The terrible vision of those martyrs profoundly perturbed him, and he realized that it was a sign indicating that the parish would be saved from the plague. To commemorate this protection and as a vote of thanks, the Venetian families who had seen their sons depart for the war against the Turks collected enough money to build a great altar, and they commissioned a painting from Vittore Carpaccio that would tell the story of that strange vision. The historic persecution of the Armenian people brings us back to the events narrated by Hugo Pratt in the story titled La casa dorata di Samarcanda (The golden house of Samarkand). In this remarkable adventure, written by Pratt in 1980, Corto Maltese travels to Turkmenistan in search of the fabulous treasure of Alexander the Great, but becomes caught up in a war of religion with the Turkish nationalists. The political problems between Turks and Armenians, which continue still today, have distant origins. As early as 1890, an Armenian revolutionary movement developed, fighting the Turkish Sultan, in turn provoking terrible massacres of Armenians and the populations of Anatolia struggling for their independence. It is against this complex backdrop that Pratt’s characters are developed in his story. Albanians, Turks, Macedonians, Armenians, Druze, Maronites, Persians, Russians, Afghans and Tartars are the Asiatic peoples who accompany Corto Maltese, Rasputin and Venexiana Stevenson in this great adventure. Tango, 1985 Corto Maltese does not pass judgement on the dissolute life of Buenos Aires. “I don’t have the authority to pronounce judgement. I only know that I have a deep-set distrust of censors and all those who police the world of ethics… Above all, I find saviours the most disturbing of all.” Corto Maltese returns to Buenos Aires after fifteen years of absence, and, notwithstanding billiards and dancing, he is not there for leisure. He is searching for information on the “Warsaw,” a dangerous conglomerate of rogues who do not want to be disturbed. Corto is hunting for a child, the daughter of one of his great friends, who seems to have been swallowed up by the Argentinian city, The quest to find her soon throws him into the midst of a sinister affair. Love, dissolution, games and death: this is the country of tango, where on certain evenings, the sky is lit by two moons. In this story, written and illustrated in 1985, Pratt rediscovers the atmospheres of Tango and Argentina, the country which the artist visited in 1949, remaining there for almost 13 years even though with some breaks. In Buenos Aires, Pratt began dancing the tango in the home of the Farias Gomez family: “Suddenly this music, of which I only had a vague knowledge at first, conquered me.” Tango is a sad thought that is danced: it is a feeling that has to be heard, seen, breathed and felt in the heart. “I was a habitué of the tango bars, which are like large sexual observatories, where eroticism is naturally expressed through dance.” There is no way that Corto Maltese could avoid being caught up in this atmosphere, with his lacquered hair, ready to attend the sacred ritual, strolling in the cobbled streets of San Telmo, and observing the ever-present smile of Gardel.
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