The globetrotting photographer who captures the essence of the finest architecture

Thanks to all this, Massimo has a marvellous house in the centre of Florence, spanning 900 metres across several floors, housing his precious (and unique) art collection, and featuring a 400-metre garden that borders that of the house once owned by the pianist sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque, where he has often met Sting, Daniel Day-Lewis and Madonna. Shortly before coming to the Trattoria del Carmine, in his house-museum, Massimo showed me a first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s *For Whom the Bell Tolls*, with a dedication from the writer and his third wife, Martha, to their Cuban doctor, Carlos M. Kohly, nicknamed Cuco: “To Cuco, our true and loyal friend and good companion. Ernesto and Marti”.

The waiter brings a chicken salad to the table as a starter: absolutely delicious. ‘I was right to recommend it to you. I always order it. I often come here with my better half, Olga,’ says Massimo with a smile. Listri is the son of Pier Francesco Listri, a special correspondent and columnist for the third page of *La Nazione* in Florence, a friend of Indro Montanelli and Giovanni Spadolini, of Amintore Fanfani and Giorgio La Pira, the very best of Tuscany (and of ‘Tuscan-ness’) in Italia during the economic boom: ‘One day I went to Rome to say hello to Giampaolo Cresci, Fanfani’s all-powerful spokesperson. At the end of the meeting, before I could rein in his enthusiasm and commanding manner, he phoned ANSA and ordered them to take me on. I had to explain, somewhat sheepishly, to the ANSA executives that no, I wasn’t interested in a permanent position at the press agency. I wanted to be an architectural photographer and, if anything, produce photo-essays for international newspapers.” His mother Maria, who worked at the Vallecchi publishing house, died of bone cancer at the age of 34, when he was a child. Massimo attended the Piarist scientific secondary school. Even at school, he showed an early talent for photography: ‘My father gave me a Canon and then a Nikon, one after the other. At the age of seventeen, in 1970, I made my debut in the first issue of the magazine *Bolaffi Arte*, founded and edited by the late Umberto Allemandi. My photographs accompanied an article by the art historian Giorgio Mascherpa on the risks of restoration. Three years later, I proposed to Allemandi a photo feature on poets who painted. I met and photographed Alfonso Gatto and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cesare Zavattini and Leonardo Sinisgalli.”

The innkeeper brings out some fried porcini mushrooms. And he almost takes offence when I ask him whether they’re Italian or from the Balkans: ‘Italian, Italian. Otherwise I wouldn’t serve them,’ he says. The most significant encounter in Listri’s gradual and steady rise to prominence was perhaps his meeting with Franco Maria Ricci, the publisher who involved him in his books and his magazine *FMR*. At the age of thirty, Listri was introduced to an international and cosmopolitan circle which, from the very outset, appreciated his photographs. And he forged a career marked by exhibitions and commissions, magazines and books, friendships and encounters with Umberto Eco and the historian John Pope-Hennessy, the poet Jorge Luis Borges and the art critic Federico Zeri, all of whom collaborated in various capacities with Franco Maria Ricci. The publisher needed not only revered masters, but also promising young talents. And, with intuition, he formed a duo: Listri and Vittorio Sgarbi. Listri recounts: ‘For Franco Maria Ricci, Vittorio wrote the texts and I took the photographs. I often spent weekends at Ro Ferrarese, in the house dominated by the personality of his mother Rina and marked by the gentleness of his father Nino. His sister Elisabetta would come from Milan; although she was younger than us, she would sometimes look at us with irony and sometimes with haughtiness, as if we were two half-mad souls busy discussing, like children, works that were always to be discovered, often to be recounted and depicted, and in some cases to be acquired. For Vittorio and me, our passion for painting and sculpture evolved into the practice of collecting. I witnessed the rift – which was never mended – between him and a giant of the twentieth century, Federico Zeri. With Zeri, at his home in Mentana, we would talk about everything. He was a true encyclopaedic mind. A Renaissance man. We’d listen to his outrageous prank calls. We’d hear him come up with highly amusing catchphrases and jokes. In the kitchen, we’d eat well-cured salami, surrounded by his cats.’ Listri’s face darkens. Not at the thought of the row between Zeri and Sgarbi. Those things happen. But rather at the thought of the latter’s illness. The waiter bursts in carrying the porcini mushroom risotto, just to pay tribute to the woods of central Italia, which have been severely tested by the drought of recent months. Massimo pauses for a few more seconds and says: “Our bond had a very masculine, almost pre-modern character: it was deep, fun, picaresque, unrepentant. We spent nights in the Libyan desert waiting for Gaddafi to receive us in his tent, protected by a security detail made up of burly, armed women. Vittorio’s energy was, for a long time, inexhaustible. He’s not well today. But our friendship endures despite his illness and his malaise. We’ve come a long way and had a brilliant time. Our intellectual and professional partnership went hand in hand with a joy for life that found expression in romantic adventures and the pursuit of women. We were always travelling around Italia. Either to take photographs and write essays. Or to seek out unknown painters and sculptors in forgotten parish churches. Or to talk to art dealers and antique dealers. Or for the love of women. We often joked. We used to say we’d founded a party: the PSE, the ‘Erotic First Aid’ party.”

With Listri, who has a flair for storytelling, you’re not sure whether to frown or smile. Meanwhile, the landlord of the Trattoria del Carmine brings the requested fruit platter and, imperiously and without much ado, the vin santo and cantuccini, which one simply cannot (to one’s delight) resist tasting. And, truly, in gratitude for existence and in fear of its painful mystery, as I listen to the words and bid farewell to Massimo Listri – a native of Florence and a citizen of the world – Pampinea’s question from Boccaccio’s Decameron comes to mind: “What are we doing here? What are we waiting for? What are we dreaming of?”.

Massimo Listri, born in 1953, actually has very clear ideas. He has been closely involved with the Italian and international press throughout the golden age when newspapers were proper newspapers, rather than the hollow, insubstantial shells they are today. He ventured into the aesthetics of interior and architectural photography, developing a recognisable style capable of balancing conceptual aspects with emotional resonance. With his ability to combine elite, yet unsnobbish, research with popular – yet never vulgar – taste, he has founded a veritable school of architectural and interior photography which, owing to the originality of its vocation, has but a single member: himself.

We’re at the Trattoria del Carmine, in Piazza del Carmine. The heat stays outside. The landlord has managed to create a series of small draughts of fresh air by leaving the windows and doors open. It’s the height of August, yet there are no Italian or foreign tourists at the tables. Everyone here is Florentine, all from the neighbourhood. The men and women are busy tucking into course after course and drinking red wine from carafes. One of them can’t take it any longer and undoes the top five buttons of his shirt. This gesture of surrender to the heat may not be elegant, but it is human. It moves me to think that, whilst Listri and I are here together and the Florentines on their lunch break are laughing and joking noisily, in the church next door are Masaccio’s frescoes, in the silence and beauty of the centuries. The landlord brings the menus and doesn’t take it very well when we say no – it’s too hot – just mineral water, no Chianti and not even a Morellino di Scansano.

Massimo, who faced significant financial difficulties in his youth (his father, Pier Francesco, was a gentleman unaccustomed to practical matters, much like ‘Conte Max’ in Vittorio De Sica’s film, and inclined towards the pleasures of life, much like in Mario Monicelli’s *Amici Miei*), has achieved international success and a level of financial and material prosperity which, in the cultural sector, is the privilege of only a few – indeed, very few indeed. His financial prosperity is based – in particular – on the substantial revenues guaranteed by art galleries and dealers in the United States, where he sells 70 per cent of his works at significant prices and in the face of constant and robust demand. This market response complements the recognition he receives from institutions, as evidenced, for example, by the commissions entrusted to him by the Quirinale for photographs, books and exhibitions. This collaboration with institutions has not, however, rendered his style dull and staid, nor his demeanour pompous and falsely modest.

Thanks to all this, Massimo has a marvellous house in the centre of Florence, spanning 900 metres across several floors, housing his precious (and unique) art collection, and featuring a 400-metre garden adjoining that of the house once owned by the pianist sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque, where he has often met Sting, Daniel Day-Lewis and Madonna. Shortly before coming to the Trattoria del Carmine, in his house-museum, Massimo showed me a first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s *For Whom the Bell Tolls*, with a dedication from the writer and his third wife, Martha, to their Cuban doctor, Carlos M. Kohly, nicknamed Cuco: “To Cuco, our true and loyal friend and good companion. Ernesto and Marti”.

The waiter brings a chicken salad to the table as a starter: it’s absolutely delicious. ‘I was right to recommend it to you. I always order it. I often come here with my better half, Olga,’ says Massimo with a smile. Listri is the son of Pier Francesco Listri, a special correspondent and columnist for the third page of *La Nazione* in Florence, a friend of Indro Montanelli and Giovanni Spadolini, of Amintore Fanfani and Giorgio La Pira, the very best of Tuscany (and of ‘Tuscan-ness’) in Italia during the economic boom: ‘One day I went to Rome to say hello to Giampaolo Cresci, Fanfani’s all-powerful spokesperson. At the end of the meeting, before I could rein in his enthusiasm and commanding manner, he rang ANSA and ordered them to take me on. I had to explain, rather sheepishly, to the ANSA executives that no, I wasn’t interested in a permanent post at the press agency. I wanted to be an architectural photographer and, if anything, produce photo-essays for international newspapers.” His mother Maria, who worked at the Vallecchi publishing house, died of bone cancer at the age of 34, when he was a child. Massimo attended the Piarist scientific secondary school. Even at school, he showed an early aptitude for photography: ‘My father gave me a Canon and then a Nikon, one after the other. At the age of seventeen, in 1970, I made my debut in the first issue of the magazine *Bolaffi Arte*, founded and edited by the late Umberto Allemandi. My photographs accompanied an article by the art historian Giorgio Mascherpa on the risks of restoration. Three years later, I proposed to Allemandi a photo feature on poets who painted. I met and photographed Alfonso Gatto and Pier Paolo Pasolini, Cesare Zavattini and Leonardo Sinisgalli.”

The innkeeper brings out some fried porcini mushrooms. And he almost takes offence when I ask him whether they’re Italian or from the Balkans: ‘Italian, Italian. Otherwise I wouldn’t serve them,’ he says. The most significant encounter in Listri’s gradual and steady rise to prominence was perhaps his meeting with Franco Maria Ricci, the publisher who involved him in his books and his magazine *FMR*. At the age of thirty, Listri was introduced to an international and cosmopolitan circle which, from the very outset, appreciated his photographs. And he forged a career marked by exhibitions and commissions, magazines and books, friendships and encounters with Umberto Eco and the historian John Pope-Hennessy, the poet Jorge Luis Borges and the art critic Federico Zeri, all of whom collaborated in various capacities with Franco Maria Ricci. The publisher needed not only revered masters, but also promising young talents. And, with a keen eye, he formed a duo: Listri and Vittorio Sgarbi. Listri recalls: ‘For Franco Maria Ricci, Vittorio wrote the texts and I took the photographs. I often spent weekends at Ro Ferrarese, in the house dominated by the personality of his mother Rina and marked by the gentleness of his father Nino. His sister Elisabetta would come from Milan; although she was younger than us, she would sometimes look at us with a touch of irony and sometimes with a certain haughtiness, as if we were two half-mad lads busy discussing, like children, works yet to be discovered, often to be recounted and depicted, and in some cases to be purchased. For Vittorio and me, our passion for painting and sculpture evolved into the practice of collecting. I witnessed the rift – which was never mended – between him and a giant of the twentieth century, Federico Zeri. With Zeri, at his house in Mentana, we would talk about everything. He was a true encyclopaedic mind. A Renaissance man. We’d listen to his outrageous prank calls. We’d hear him come up with highly amusing catchphrases and jokes. In the kitchen, we’d eat well-cured salami, surrounded by his cats.’ Listri’s face darkens. Not at the thought of the row between Zeri and Sgarbi. Those things happen. But rather at the thought of the latter’s illness. The waiter bursts in carrying the porcini mushroom risotto, just to pay tribute to the woods of central Italia, which have been severely tested by the drought of recent months. Massimo pauses for a few more seconds and says: “Our bond had a very masculine, almost pre-modern character: it was deep, fun, picaresque, unrepentant. We spent nights in the Libyan desert waiting for Gaddafi to receive us in his tent, protected by a security detail made up of burly, armed women. Vittorio’s energy was, for a long time, inexhaustible. He’s not well today. But our friendship endures despite his illness and his malaise. We’ve been through a lot and had a marvellous time. Our intellectual and professional partnership went hand in hand with a joy for life that found expression in romantic adventures and the pursuit of women. We were always travelling around Italia. Either to take photographs and write essays. Or to seek out unknown painters and sculptors in forgotten parish churches. Or to talk to art dealers and antique dealers. Or for the love of women. We often joked. We used to say we’d founded a political party: the PSE, the ‘Erotic First Aid Service’.”

With Listri, who has a flair for storytelling, you’re not sure whether to frown or smile. Meanwhile, the landlord of the Trattoria del Carmine brings the requested fruit platter and, without further ado, the vin santo and cantuccini, which one simply cannot (to one’s delight) fail to try. And, truly, in gratitude for existence and in fear of its painful mystery, as I listen to the words and bid farewell to Massimo Listri – a native of Florence and a citizen of the world – Pampinea’s question from Boccaccio’s *Decameron* comes to mind: ‘What are we doing here? What are we waiting for? What are we dreaming of?”.