Gaspara is a capacious tote, with leather handles and golden metal details. Its particularity is the velvet that covers it, the precious Coccodrillo soprarizzo, handmade with our 18th century looms. A decorative pattern that takes up the animalier theme and interprets it in an elegant way, thanks to the soprarizzo silk velvet whose texture creates light-dark effects showing a thousand shades of its warm brown and beige tones. This bag can be carried by hand, with the practical handles, or on the shoulder, thanks to the long shoulder strap it comes with, and can be made even more capacious thanks to the side zips. A versatile tote that combines practicality with a gritty style: its exotic motif and its shape are perfect for those who want to stand out with style.
The poetess Gaspara Stampa
Style and personality were also distinguishing traits of Gaspara Stampa, the woman to whom this bag is inspired. Gaspara, of Milanese origins but born in Padua in 1523, moved to Venice with her wealthy family when she was a child. There, she grew up surrounded by the refined and frivolous Venetian society and received a wide education in several disciplines: she used to play the lute beautifully, to sing with a melodious voice, to speak Greek and Latin, and to write poems. She attended the literary circles, which abounded in Venice, and her own family used to host writers and artists of the time who, enthusiastic and delighted, were spending hours listening to the poems that Gaspara was singing accompanied by the sound of the lute.
She was a beautiful girl, curvy, with delicate face traits, and bright and lively eyes. Her long black hair framed her face and descended on her sensual shoulders. It’s not surprising, therefore, that she had plenty of admirers.
But Gaspara, although she was a girl full of passion and fervor, had only one great love. In fact, she fell in love with the Lord of Treviso, Count Collaltino di Collalto, who didn’t correspond her ardor and transport, living her devastated. In her poem, Le Rime, Gaspara celebrates the virtues, true or imagined of her beloved in a sort of diary of her love which was sincere, passionate, strong, and impulsive. Indeed, to seal her belonging to the Count of Collalto, she created for herself the nickname of Anassilla, which she derived from the Latin name of the river Piave, which flowed near the castle of her beloved.
Gaspara, who died young in 1554, was compared to the Greek poetess Sappho, for the intensity and freedom she lived her short life with. One of her verses became famous because much loved by D’Annunzio who chose it as a personal motto and that very well describes the essence of Gaspara: “Living ardently and not feeling any pain”.
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