In September 2024 the art exhibition Dreamland of Gianni Menichetti’s work opened in Positano, showing many of his most important works imbued with nature and beauty.
Read more about it in the Positano News.
An Ode to Winnie
Deaths of tortoises do not always set things in motion. But obviously, Winnie, the tortoise of Vali Myers and Gianni Menichetti, had always been a little different.
Winnie was a confidant and a source of inspiration to Vali and Gianni and since Winnie had always been around, her death in February 2021 caused Gianni to realize that he was now the only living memory of Vali’s legacy. He had a sense that Winnie’s death symbolized the end of an era. In the period of reflection that followed, he wrote five poems.
Animal Loves of My Life
Animal Loves of My Life
Gianni Menichetti (2023)
In his book, VALI MYERS—A MEMOIR, Gianni writes:
The stories of this strange Valley of ‘Il Porto,’ where Vali lived and where I still live today, have been mostly preserved by oral tradition. There is nothing reliable about the stories in a true historical sense, but there are some interesting popular legends. I learned them from certain old folks I have known since my first year of living here, 1971.
Artist and poet Gianni Menichetti can be counted as one of ‘certain old folks’ himself now, one who knows and remembers so much, still living in the wild ‘Valley’ above the town of Positano with his family of animals. Over the years Gianni has preserved many beautiful animal legacies in both writings and in drawings, and this book contains some of his most treasured stories from the great vault of his memory.
Gianni Menichetti was born near Siena, Italy, in 1952. Since 1971 he has lived in the Wildlife Oasis of ‘Il Porto,’ a sanctuary of rare and savage beauty, the ‘kingdom by the sea’ of legendary Australian artist Vali Myers, whose extraordinary existence he shared for three decades. By her side, he dedicated himself to the protection of this wild place and to the care of countless animal creatures. Over the last twenty years, on his own, he has continued his promise to the Valley of Il Porto and its many animal inhabitants, and this book, edited by Romy Ashby, tells the stories of some of his favorites among them, illustrated with photographs and drawings.
“Since 1971 Gianni Menichetti has lived in the Valley by the sea in Positano, many of those years as consort to the mythic Australian artist Vali Myers, and for many years alone. First graced by Vali’s Saint Francis of Assisi gift of animal communication, Gianni has been nursemaid, midwife, caretaker, protector, and friend to hundreds of animals who have lived in peace in the beautiful wild Valley on the Amalfi Coast. In Animal Loves of My Life Gianni treats us to an intimate meeting with the unique animal friends from his and Vali’s life. This is a soothing book for harrowing times that will confer its magic on you forever.”
Penny Arcade NYC
ISBN: 9798985129311
Publisher: Golda Foundation
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
Format: Paperback
Pages: 142
Language: English
Buy Animal Loves of My Life at the special discount price offered by Golda:
Buy Animal Loves of My Life for $30. This price includes postage within the United States. Order with the Buy Now button.
For orders outside the US, please send an email to goldafoundation@gmail.com.
On the passing of Winnie
Celebrated Dutch photographer Marco Bakker traveled to the Valley of Il Porto, in Positano, Italy, to deliver to his friend, Gianni Menichetti, a first copy of An Ode to Winnie, on which they collaborated. Winnie, who lived to the age of 120, was a magnificent tortoise, beloved of Vali Myers, and of Gianni. During his visit to the Valley, Marco took some beautiful photos of Gianni, featured here, using an old Speed Graphic camera.
For more information on An Ode to Winnie visit runningbeforethewind.com
Vali Myers, A Memoir
Vali Myers, A Memoir
Gianni Menichetti (2006)
A legend in her own time, Australian artist Vali Myers was the premiere dancer with the Melbourne Modern Ballet at the age of seventeen. Leaving home in 1950, she spent years in Paris, where the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken photographed her and some of the other young people hanging out in the cafes. Those photos became the book, Love on the Left Bank. During that period she befriended George Plimpton, who published an article about her, along with some of her drawings, in The Paris Review.
In 1958, Vali and her then-husband Rudi Rappold made a home for themselves in the wild Valley of Il Porto in Positano, Italy, where she would live for the next forty years, working on her exquisite drawings and looking after a large menagerie of animals. After much effort, she succeeded in having the Valley designated a protected wildlife oasis. When she returned to Australia in 1993 for the first time since she’d left, she found herself welcomed as a national treasure. In this memoir by her long-time companion Gianni Menichetti, Vali’s life and life’s work are brought into beautiful, clear focus with wit, candor, and affection.
ISBN: 9780978560607
Publisher: Golda Foundation
Publication Date: August 2, 2006
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 244
Language: English
Buy Vali Myers, A Memoir for $34. This price includes postage within the United States. Order with the Buy Now button.
For orders outside the US, please send an email to goldafoundation@gmail.com.
Evenings with Gianni Menichetti
Gianni Menichetti
Gianni Menichetti with Bobby Yarra
