Jasmina and I now have a blog about our office
Jasmina Tesanovic and Bruce Sterling are currently writers in residence in the “Vigna di Madame Reale,” a baroque villa built in Torino during the 1650s. In this post, Jasmina and Bruce are interviewing the original patroness and the interior designer of the villa.
“Madama Cristina,” Cristina Maria di Borbone-Francia, is Duchess of Savoy, Princess of Piedmont and Queen of Cyprus (1606-1663). Her master builder, chief dramatist and long-time companion is the Count Filippo San Martino d'Aglie (1604-1667).
JT: Your Majesty, and Signor Count, thanks for letting us write our novels in your beautiful hillside villa! We’re the “Globalisti a Torino,” and we met each other in Torino, and we got married. So it’s wonderful to be here in your palace, which is the site of your famous Turinese romance.
BS: We’re also grateful that you were somehow able to return from the dead in order to talk to us.
Fd'A: That feat was not easy. I haven’t appeared as a ghost in Torino since the late 1970s.
MC: I haven’t been seen in Torino since the night that I died, and I flew across the River Po in a flaming carriage drawn by four flaming horses.
Fd'A. I saw Her Majesty performing that spectral feat, by the way. Because I was living in this villa at that time, and this is the place where she last came to me, in her flaming ghost carriage.
MC: I wanted to bid farewell to him, in the special place where we were most happy.
JT: That is so romantic! (she chokes up) That makes me want to cry!
BS: (handing her a tissue) You two hardly seem dead at all, to us two. I’m from Texas, and I can see that the two of you are living presences in this city. Especially you, Madama Cristina. The San Salvario district has a big, long street called “Madama Cristina.” An excellent street! Really nice shopping!...
