Minutes with…

Paolo Cappelli

FAVOURITE ARTIST/DESIGNER

It is very difficult for me to select just one favourite artist, but if I had to choose one artwork to bring with me to a desert island, it would be the “Primavera” by Sandro Botticelli (I might need some help as it is 2x3 metres!). Since living in Melbourne, every year when I return home to Florence, one of my first stops is at the Uffizi Gallery and the room dedicated to Botticelli. This masterpiece is the first important artwork I remember seeing as an awe-struck six-year-old. More than 40 years and countless visits later, I can still say that it has the same effect on me today.

FAVOURITE COCKTAIL

A Negroni, which legend has it, was created in Florence in 1919 for Count Camillo Negroni by his friend and bartender, Fosco Scarselli. A good place in Melbourne for a Negroni is The Everleigh on Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.

FAVOURITE AUCTION PURCHASE

A wonderful black and white print of Robin Williams by the celebrated film star photographer Mark Seliger, in which he has depicted the actor as Toulouse Lautrec. In this almost comic image, Seliger has managed to capture the comedy, vulnerability and drama of both Williams and Lautrec.

FAVOURITE BOOK / MOVIE

A book that I love is “Ask the Dust” by John Fante which I read for the first time in my early twenties. It is a semi-autobiographical novel and relates the struggles of the main character Arturo Bandini, an Italian-American writer, as he navigates unrequited love and poverty, subsisting on pennies and oranges in a depression-era Los Angeles.

And as for the movie, my vote goes to “Out of Africa”, directed by Sidney Pollack and starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. The screenplay, cinematography, and soundtrack by John Barry make this film a “capolavoro”.

YOUR IDEAL DAY IN MELBOURNE

As I live in Southbank, my ideal day is to escape the city with my wife and drive to the Mornington Peninsula. After lunch at the pub in Sorrento, we like to explore the coastal walks around Point Nepean National Park.