Thank you to Iliane and Anthony Ogilvie Thompson, although geographically far away always present, and always generous with their minds and souls. And thank you to Michelle Clark for opening her home on many Thanksgivings.
Thank you to Charles Bischoff, Carolyn, Oliver, Max, and my goddaughter Carina, and Lady Bischoff and Sir Win; many pages of this book were written under the roofs of their nurturing homes in England and Tuscany. And of course to Kinvara Balfour, Sam Elworthy, Will Nevin, Patty Sinclair, and George and Lizzie Lewis, and a super mega thank-you to Maxine Sloss. Thank you to Abby Weisman for inspiring the friendship among our children. And to Annie Borello and her beautiful pictures.
Thank you to all the members of the Sicilian Expedition: Jim and Elise McVeigh, Alan and Jacqueline Mitchell, Ana and Peter von Schlossberg, Lauren Peters, Kat Cohen, Lorenzo Lorenzotti, Vinod Krishnan, and of course to my dear Raghu Sundaram, Pialy and Nakul Krishnaswamy, and Nikkel Krishnaswamy.
Thank you to all the wonderful amazing evenings with Chiara and Jamie Mai, Dayssi and Paul Kanavos, Catrine and Chris Salz. And a special big thank-you to Wright and Valerie Colas-Orhstrom, Clemence and William von Mueffling, and to Andrew and Barbara Gundlach, Enrica and Fabrizio Arrigo Bentivoglio, Monica Fuentes and Alberto Recchi, Imogen Lloyd Weber, and thank you to Lucy Sikes and her husband, Euan Rallie, to Ed Epstein and his summer terrace, and Meredith Ostrom, Ghislain and Elena de Noüe, and my great neighbors Olivia and Christophe Maubert, and of course to Italy’s biggest fan, Neil Sidi.
Thank you to Anthony Todd, Alvin Valley, and Nevil Dwek, and their ability to turn things into art, to Nicolò Vergani for pointing me to the moon, and Fabrizio Volterra for many good chats, and Michael and Cheyne Beys. A very special thank-you to Meg Sharpe for helping so much with my father’s art.
Thank you to Giorgio van Straten for our conversations about literature, and to Ennio Ranaboldo and his inspiring quotes, and Annie Churchill and Nick and all the good dinners, Anne Marie and Irik Sevin for the wonderful time in the Hamptons. Thank you to Lloyd Nathan and his wife, Elana, for always being good friends.
Thank you to Max Hoover and Tatiana Boncompagni and the time at the Farm, in the wonderful company of Philipp and Christa Carr swimming in creeks, thank you to Jim and Jacques-Henry Cointreau for the most powerful writing, Georgina Rylance and Peppe Ciardi and discovering Porto Ercole, and of course to Richard David Story and Jennifer, and Steve De Luca, and to John Josephson and Carolina Zapf. Thank you to Daria Colombo and Tobias for our cross-generational lifelong friendship.
Thank you to Richard Armstrong, Marco Leona, and Ian Alteveer for many conversations about the arts. And to Jacques Derrida for reciting the verses of Corneille’s Le Cid.
Thank you to Daisy Prince and her husband, Hugh Chisholm, for their Spring Fling and time in Newport, Chiara Clemente and Tyler for our creative ventures, to Charlotte Clark and Johnny and Poppy and our cross-border friendship, Veronica and Anna Bulgari and the time in Millbrook, and to Damian Fraser for being such a great friend, and of course to his mother, the exceptional writer Antonia Fraser, to Lucy and Annamaria Fato, James and Ellen Berkley, Nicholas Barclay, Ron Weinberg and his wife, Terri, when they come to New York, Sam and Danielle Lipton, to Colin Harley and our motorbike rides, and Anita Laudone and her wonderful paintings.
Thank you to all our REDS family: Sarah Mess-more, Rhea Shome, and Sharon Lickerman for being so meaningful in Maximus’ young life, and to Greg Tolaram and Molly for her patience and delicious coffee, and Raj. And to all our friends at REDS: Simon and Kara Gerson, Dennis and Roseline Neveling, and Casey and David Moore and our Greek Nights, to Theodore Harris and Deborah, Donald and Juliana Rosenfeld and our art adventures, Giacomo and Kate Picco, Jeffrey and Elizabeth Leeds, thank you to Claudia and Bartle Bull, Michael and Nina Patterson, Esmeralda Spinola and her husband, Emilio, and of course Gaya and Vinay Nair for endless adventures. And thank you to Arianna and Chris Martell for a wonderful Fourth of July.
And thank you for the time in California especially to Jim and Bill Deutch, Hanako Williams, and Matt Feinstein.
Thank you to our departed, but always present, Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina for guiding me in Rome. Thank you to Gaston Salvatore and to Joseph Brodsky for the time in Venice and for inspiring a central character of this book. Thank you to Jonathan Franzen for allowing me to share with him a restored copy of The Leopard by Luchino Visconti, and to Umberto Eco for teaching me that to become a writer in a way is like entertaining a career in the military.
And thank you to the bakery Le Pellegrine in the Italian Riviera whose extraordinary focaccia has indeed inspired much of my childhood and this book.
Something Great and Beautiful Page 18
