In my literature class today, I got the chance to watch a 1999 semi-autobiographic film, Tea with Mussolini directed by Franco Zeffirelli. The Scorpioni, the group of cultured elderly English ladies who looked after Franco Zeffirelli (Luca, in the movie) as a young orphan, attracted my attention very much. One particular scene was when they risked their lives in the line of fire to protect the frescoes in San Gimignano from demolition. A few rounds of Google search has shown that there is not much historical information about the Scorpioni. Being me, I have decided to compile all the information I can get and share with you here.
The Scorpioni, to me, is the patron of the arts and cultures. It is essentially a group of five cultured expatriates who live around Florence in the 1930s and 1940s. Their biting wit and arch humor were well known to the Italians who call them the Scorpioni (Italian word for scorpions). Other than Tea with Mussolini, they were also mentioned in the memoirs of the writer Violet Trefusis. The ladies frequented Gran Café Doney, Uffizi Gallery and English Cemetery of Florence.
The Uffizi Gallery
The leader of the clique was, as Franco Zeffirelli recalled, an arrogant and bossy dowager of the community, whose name he could not remember. The fictional character, Lady Hester Random (played by Maggie Smith who eventually won a BAFTA for this character), was crafted by John Mortimer, the creator of the Rumpole of the Bailey series. Another member, Arabella, the patron of the frescoes, would climb up ladders and even risk her life to save frescoes in dishabille. The motherly Mary O’Neill (Mary Wallace, in the film) is perhaps, the most pragmatic in this elite circle despite her affection towards the romanticism of William Shakespeare. To keep up with her Florentine lifestyle, unlike her wealthy counterparts, she had to work as a translator. Rounding up the group were Georgie, a lesbian archeologist and Elsa Morganthal, the former Ziegfeld Follies dancer.
One noteworthy fact about the film is that the pivotal moment where Lady Hester Random had tea with Benito Mussolini was fictional. It was based on a historical occurrence where the English writer Violet Trefusis met with Mussolini. It was said that Violet Trefusis, one of Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury friends, often boasted of a tete-a-tete with Il Duce (Benito Mussolini). The informal adoption of Franco Zeffirelli, though, was real. The illegitimacy of his birth was real, too. (On a unrelated note, I love how Mary Wallace exclaimed “There is no illegitimate child in the world! Only illegitimate parents!)
Born in the post-WWI Florence, Zeffirelli (then, Gianfranco Corsi) was the illegitimate son of the mercer Ottorino Corsi and his mistress, Adelaide Garosi, who was later looked after by the group. Speaking from New York City, he recounted that the Scorpioni has taught him about life. He had learnt to appreciate the world, both outside and inside. If it weren’t for the Scorpioni, Franco Zeffirelli would not have known so much about his own city, culture, and upbringing. “If you were born and live in Florence, after a while you get to be fed up with it,” Zeffirelli stated, “they brought me to see things with new fresh eyes. I'll never forget how they contributed to my growth." Mary O’Neill, especially, was kind of a surrogate mother for him. She introduced him to the beauty of English literature and theatrical art, particularly the Shakespeare.
As for the part where the ladies protected San Gimignano (the medieval hill town in the province of Siena, Tuscany) from being blown up by the retreating Germans, no historical evidence is available to attribute this to the Scorpioni.(Please correct me if I am wrong) It was thanks to the local citizens who buried it in stones in 1944, to keep the Nazi Army from blowing it up as a means to stop the advancing Allies.
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