Baldassarre Negroni

Biography

Rome, 21 January 1877: the city that already breathed history delivered Baldassarre Negroni to the world. Within decades he had become the unseen puppet-master behind flickering images, guiding the early Italian camera as both director and production manager. His signature survives on the brittle nitrate of Vertigine (1919), the torrid Camille (1915), and the buoyant Due cuori felici (1932). Off-set, his leading lady was life-long co-star Hesperia, the woman who shared his surname between takes. The Tiber that had watched him arrive eventually carried him away on 18 July 1948, closing the circle in the same cobblestoned city where his story began.