One of the women of the Italian and Milanese music and cultural scenes passed away this morning, January 28, 2024. She is Anna Gastel, sister of the famous photographer Giovanni Gastel, who passed away in 2021. A profession also shared by her son Guido Taroni, brilliant art photographer, grew up right under Uncle Giovanni's cameras. She was the granddaughter of the great director Luchino Visconti. Gastel also died as a result of a number of Covid-related complications.
The expression that Anna Gastel has always liked to identify with was: experience. “Gathering experiences has always appealed to me and I therefore experience changes with interest and curiosity, also with a view to personal enrichment,” she explained. Starting from the world of cinema. Like his six brothers, including Giovanni, he was discovered by “Uncle Luchino”. And her famous uncle wanted her on set when she was in her early twenties and had her appear in “L'Innocente,” Visconti's last film.
Born in Milan in 1953, raised and educated between Cernobbio and Milan, she graduated in 1977 with 110 cum laude from the Catholic University of Milan with a degree in literature and philosophy with an artistic focus, after a thesis in the history of entertainment entitled: “Music is a constant in the life of the man and artist Luchino Visconti. Just like her brother Giovanni, in her the legacy of a refined world, but always lived and read in a contemporary key. Anna Gastel, great-granddaughter of Don Guido Visconti di Modrone, president of the Teatro alla Scala since 1898, granddaughter of Don Giuseppe, president of Inter-Ambrosiana, was the first female auctioneer at Christie's and later also became vice-president of the fai.
While Giovanni Gastel was the timeless gentleman with impenetrable charm, traits that his nephew Guido Taroni had also inherited, Anna Gastel equally represented a cultured, international, feminine Milanese. It was enough to watch her recount the events in her ancestral mansion. This Villa Erba was commissioned at the end of the 19th century by Luigi Erba and Anna Brivio and was then the summer residence of the legendary Mrs. Carla Erba, Giuseppe Visconti and their seven children (including Luchino) and then their grandchildren. Residence overlooking the shores of Lake Como and the magnificent garden. Since 1985 the residence has been owned by several public bodies. But its beauty needed to be preserved and told. Who better to do this than a woman with natural elegance and spontaneous class? Here she is the protagonist of a short documentary resulting from a project organized exclusively for Orticolario by the digital platform The Origin.
He sees her transform into an extraordinary tour guide for the audience as they prepare for the virtual visit to Villa Erba. “The idea came from Moritz Mantero,” he explained at the start of the project. A childhood friend with whom we spent our summers at the lake and who, wanting to visit the villa, thought of asking me to be his guide. Now I'm just a neighbor as my family has taken care of their part of the garden and the old Villa Erba, which, although not particularly large, comes from a 12th century monastery and then into one at the beginning of the 20th century Residence was converted 19th century.”