Curzio Malaparte

(1898 - 1957)

Born Kurt Eric Suckert in Tuscany to a German father and an Italian aristocratic mother, Curzio Malaparte chose as his nom de plume a mischievous inversion of Bonaparte. Starting in 1939, he designed and built Casa Malaparte on the isle of Capri; his house figured prominently in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 film Contempt, starring Brigitte Bardot.