presents
Tell a story,
storyteller
II’ve always loved stories.
Like drops of glowing gold, they embellish life, fill it with meaning, give light to the dark edge of the world, make it full, rich, enjoyable. There’s something magical, miraculous about stories.
This is why I look for them, write them, tell them.
Who am I?
I’ve got stories inside me, and I’ve been inside the story of Campari for over a century. It was Davide Campari himself who wanted me. An enlightened man, a pioneer of turning his spirits into art, writing, and illustrations. It was this mix of pictures and words that, in 1927, originated the project that bears my name; first a weekly column in the literary supplement of Corriere della Sera, and then five annual collections.
If I look back, I can see the thousands of words that, over the years, filled with ink, became stronger, more robust under my name. But it wasn’t me who formulated those words and who gave the sentences rhythm. I was the voice, but Renato Simone, playwright and editorial critic, would hold the pen. And the illustrations by Ugo Mochi, Sergio Tofano, Primo Sinopico and Bruno Munari did the rest.
Overall, it was a project aimed at spreading culture through the advertising channels, popularising beauty and excellence through the same careful and handcrafted work that marked the origins of the Campari brand.
Whilst advertisements meant billboards and jingles, I was the emblem of the constant revolution that Davide Campari looked for, demanded and found each day of his life, to narrate the extraordinary work that gave body and soul to his creations.
Words that teach you what to love, who to admire, what to feel, where to run and whom to fight for.
And I, as a storyteller, can brag about speaking about a lot of things, everything: value and strength, men and women, nature and life.
S’apre nel monte, e, giù, profondamente
scende, fresco e muscoloso un ampio speco.
Ivi, chi parla ad alta voce, sente
che le parole sue ripete l’eco.
(A vast cave opens up in the mountain
and down deep it goes, fresh and muscular.
Those who speak loud down there
can hear the echo repeating their words.)
But in the crevice of rhymes, first of all there was love.
There is no Storyteller that cannot sing about the ardour, the joy of the encounter, two hearts that pave their own shared path. Love breaks the individuals, introduces in their souls a foreign body, and from that moment everything sprouts and takes colour. This is what we would sing about. And these rhymed words would fill pages every week.
Every time I left a trace, a stretch of life, a piece of truth, and a whirl of ingenuity. Because whilst it’s true that between the rhymes there was a story, in the metre there was also Campari. In the last line, softly inserted between the wings of prose.
Davide Campari was a master of communication. His eyes were trained for beauty, taste, and the ability to persuade that becomes art. And he knew well that the most important part of a story is the ending.
Ma succedono in quel muscoso speco,
dei fenomeni più straordinari!
Basta gridare:
(But in that muscular cave
the most extraordinary phenomena occur!
You just need to exclaim:)
perché l’eco ci risponda
(and the echo will reply)