From 1918 to 1940, the year of his death, Paolo dwelled at San Remo where in 1918 he had acquired a villa called Bel Respiro [tr: beautiful rest]. It was a large villa, in the Italian style with numerous and ample terraces that look over the sea, about a mile away as the crow flies and over the surrounding mountainous terrain scattered with vineyards, greenhouses of flowers, and palm trees.
The villa faced the Corso degli Inglesi, an asphalt street that rose from the station and the Russian Church running to a height of about a hundred meters above sea level a tract of about two to three kilometers, to descend from there again on the Aurelia in the locality of La Foce, in the area of the Cemetery of San Remo.
This tract of street was disseminated by villas, generally with properties or houses rented by the English, gated by parks and luxurious gardens.
Also Bel Respiro had a garden on the side to the west of the villa, but Paolo Primo wanted to acquire as well on the other side of the street a vast tract of terrain with numerous palms and a little pond to impede anyone from building on that property something that would block the view the villa had, the panorama of the sea.
The villa was owned by an Englishman who had lived there before the First World War 1915-1918; he was a collector of furniture and antique objects and the villa was acquired by Paolo Primo furnished and full therefore with precious objects, of beautiful bedrooms and of good paintings. Among the latter there was a complete collection of paintings by the painter [Lorenzo] Gignous, generally landscapes, hung in ornately adorned frames. The collection included about a hundred canvases large and small, all displayed in the great salon of the villa and were a precious set. The canvases nonetheless did not go with the other antique religious paintings that Paolo Primo liked and which he already had in a notable quantity, so that Paolo Primo gave away the Gignous collection a little at a time on the occasion of weddings, birthdays, etc. Currently there remains in my possession the largest canvas and two others of a slightly smaller measurement.
The villa consisted of a large and long terrace on the ground floor, which was overhead from the level of the street which the villa faced with a long balcony with little cream-colored columns. On the ground floor there was a large salon, a small room, Paolo Primo’s study, the lunch room, the entrance, the servants’ quarters and kitchen. In the middle opened a monumental marble staircase that led to the upper floors. The central ramp, very wide, bifurcated at a certain point into two narrower ramps. On the first floor there were the bedrooms, with Paolo Primo’s in the east corner, that of my mother in the middle and the guest rooms in the west. Between these three chambers, were interspersed the small room of Alessandro I, of Nora, and also the large chamber of Signorina Luisa. Serving all the chambers, two bathrooms; when Paolo Primo remodeled the villa he had running water placed in all the rooms and knocked out two other bathrooms: one connected to the guest room and one connected to his own room.
Above the first floor, there was the floor of the tower which was the polygonal room, where the males habitually slept when we came home, plus the servants’ quarters and the attics.
The whole villa was lying along the slope of the Bignone mountain, and, exiting from the house into the garden happened at a slope and not on a plain. My father after some years’ living in the villa had put up a wall that bordered the Corso degli Inglesi and had the mountain dug out, so making the garden level. Also the park in front of the Villa was adjusted and systematized; to this purposed work some Austrian ex-prisoners while they waited for their repatriation.
In the villa Paolo Primo positioned almost all the furniture in the way he had been used to in previous houses, moving it from Turin when he sold what was left over after mixing his furniture with what was already at the villa. In the entrance Paolo Primo arranged a large projectile, a Howitzer 305, Austrian, which fell without exploding on the Castle di Spessa where he had his Command and which his officers had given him after having emptied it of explosives. The villa with the beautiful furniture from our house was very important and Paolo Primo received there Royal Highnesses, political and military personalities, persons of intellect and of culture. Every 29th of June on the feast of St. Paul, he gave a large reception which he held in part in the garden. The influx of visitors was large and there was perhaps the unique occasion in which the foreign element mixed with the national.
When Paolo Primo began to inhabit San Remo, his two children Alessandro and Nora were still little and so the life of Paolo Primo had conformed to the need of a family with young children. The life of the sea during the summer and, during the winter, visits and bridge. His acquaintances were for the most part English since Paolo Primo felt it necessary to learn that language well and he placed himself in the study of it under the direction of Mr. Lysle, who from Arenzano, near Genoa, came to San Remo to teach the language to some pupils. In a few months Paolo Primo succeeded in mastering it, to speak with his foreign acquaintances and to also read novels in that language.
Another activity of Paolo Primo was to write some short stories in French; he also wrote a novel in French and some memories on Russia, in Italian. His Literary activity did not have much success and nothing was published except two or three reports on the Russian subject in the New Anthology. At home however he spoke often of these short stories, both because their subject regarded themes not always accepted by the feminine element of the family, and because it was a way, with bridge, to pass the long evenings after dinner. Normally he dined at 7:30 and after he played bridge until late since Paolo Primo never wanted to go to bed before one. The children that came to visit him normally stayed at the house to keep him company and only between 1930 to 1940, since Nora had become quite a bit bigger and it was right to take her out into society, he often went to shows at the San Remo Casino. [Author’s note: Nora married in 1945 in Rome with the subject of the US in that period Officer of the American Army Robert H. Klein. They therefore moved to Chicago and afterward to California where, in Portola Valley, they have a Villa. Nora had 5 children of which 4 are living: Paul, Sandra, Henry, Kathy. The fourth-born Roberta died at the age of 5.]
With the coming of Fascism, Paolo Primo immediately accepted the direction at base patriotic and for the prestige of Italy. We weren’t political, neither did political gossip reach us to give us some informative element. Sincerely he admired Mussolini, often he criticized the executors and the gregarious ones too often arrogant and presumptuous; always and without a moment of weakness he defended and guarded his rank, the post that he had been up for based on his grade, against those who through political opportunism or also through ignorance sought to give the first place to the man of the party, the Federal Secretary, etc.
He saw Mussolini and was by him received only one time. When Paolo Primo presented his house to him, Mussolini reproved him not to go ahead of him since: “he could not know all the Italians.” The outcome of the colloquium remained however sterile of results.
Another question with which Paolo Primo occupied himself was the his appointment to Senator. By old custom the Generals of the Armed Forces that had effectively commanded an Army Corps became appointed Senators when they retired. With the advent of Fascism, for many years there were not appointed Senators and when the appointments were taken up again these had place, through the Generals of the Armed forces, among the last who had gone into retirement. It resulted that a notable number of Generals of the Armed Forces, among the last appointed to Senator before the war and Fascism’s taking it up again, were skipped with evident injustice since among them there were some Generals who had commanded an Army Corps in way. Among these was my father.
The interests of various persons in apogee did not take effect since the appoint to Senator did not ever come especially because in the political game the persons by now of a certain age and outside of active life, are no longer interested in it.
The wheel of fortune had decidedly rotated against Paolo Primo from the March of 1918 and if his life until then had shewn multiple points of success, from what happened afterward one can say that he was unfortunate and his great merits were not crowned in his old age by the recognition he deserved.
With the passing of the years the personality of Paolo Primo became known in San Remo and he was called various times to preside over the Art and Culture shows which happened in that city under the auspices of the Casino. Particularly important were the “Monday Literati”; it was up to Paolo Primo to present to the public the conferences: poets, writers, politicians, soldiers, all personalities of great standing. It was in these circumstances that he interlaced cordial relationships which were at base intellectual exchanges with the poet Pastonchi, Angelo Silvio Novaro, Del Croix, and then Pirandello, Mascagni, Oietti, etc. He also took part in the Rotary Club of San Remo becoming then the President of it and it was under his auspices fostered cordial relationships with the analogous French organization and an exchange of visits particularly significant in that moment of unfriendly Franco-Italian politics.
Following this Paolo Primo was nominated Governor of the Italian Rotary Club and on that occasion accomplished numerous visits to the Rotary of the various cities to promote, animate, discuss ideas and problems of actuality. One of the problems, certainly the most serious, was the aversion of Fascism to the existence in Italy of an organization such as the Rotary, which made foreign beings and personalities chief. Various times the Rotary was at first going to be dissolved and always with regard to my father and for the patriotic imprint given by him to its governorship, the proposal was not put into action. The Rotary was dissolved by Fascism while the Duke Viscount of Modrone was governor of it, the successor of Paolo Primo.
As has been seen, also in retirement, Paolo Primo did not cease to seek a personal activity that could be useful to the country in that time. He dedicated the first hours after the evening meal (which as we have seen as fixed at 7:30) to his correspondence and while he worked at the great Jacob table that is still in my house, we all stayed in the study to talk or read unless it irritated him. But when he wrote important or polemical letters, his short stories or his novel, he did so at night in his chamber where he had fitted a tray which he used as a writing desk while seated on his bed. He filled many pages with many corrections because he always admired perfection and his style was the fruit of study and of an ordered and mathematical mind more than of intuition and of versatility.
The pages filled by hand were given to my mother who copied them by typewriter, giving them a clear look. These pages were re-corrected by Paolo Primo and then finally well-written by my mother and we, from our rooms, heard the tick of our mother’s typewriter late into the night.
As has been seen, Paolo Primo had a fertile mind, agile and awake. It was at that age that he began to re-study Dante discovering there what he had not seen in his young years. He liked to direct, to put projects into play, to modify the arrangement of the furniture in the rooms, to move the paintings; and his newest and bravest ideas came to him at night around one when after a game of bridge we believed by then to have reached the moment to go to bed. We children have always done that which Paolo Primo wanted, even if it turned out to be uncomfortable or untimely.
A little after reaching 70, he needed an operation on his prostate, which was executed at Turin and during which he suffered much since, moreover, he could not suffer physical pain. A few years before his death he developed difficulty breathing and a form of asthma due to heart failure that was accentuated. The family doctor Dr. Fava in whom Paolo Primo had great confidence, warned us that he was like a glass vase that could go to pieces at the first blow and he prescribed that he speak little (Paolo Primo was a good conversationalist and often got heated in discussion), that he very slowly climb the villa’s stars, that he have much supervision. And this, given his temperament, did not always succeed.
At the end of the June of 1940, a heart attack with related asthma manifested in a more violent manner. Paolo Primo could not rest at night unless sitting up in bed and with his arms and head leaning on a chair also placed along the bed. Dr. Fava succeeded in getting the attack under control and to place Paolo Primo definitively back on track for another time still, he prescribed an intravenous injections. I had arrived just before in San Remo on my return from England which I had left because of the declaration of war. I found my father suffering, but not beaten, rather after breakfast he was seated on the couch and wanted me to read some of his latest short stories to him. Around 4 pm the doctor arrived, whom we did not know, to give him the IV, assisted by a nurse. While Paolo Primo asked the doctor some questions about the place of his birth, he emitted a scream, became red as if he were going to burst, and then he expired. In vain they tried artificial respiration and cardiac massage. Paolo Primo had passed on to a better life, suddenly. Perhaps this was better for him that he did not suffer a long degeneration with the necessary relative inactivity. At the time of his death there were present at home my mother, Nora, I, and the Signorina Luisa. Paolino was in Berlin, Rina in Warsaw, the Rosen nephews in France called to the army for the beginning of the Second World War.
Along the Ligurian frontier there were placed some troops waiting for our entry into war. General Gambara was commanding the Army Corps with its seat in San Remo. By order of this General, Paolo Primo had a military funeral with a large participation of troops. The body, after having been displayed one day in the salon of Bel Respiro, dressed in his uniform and upon a cushion, all his decorations, was placed on a cannon carriage which, I think, had to have made Paolo Primo happy, the Artilleryman.
The family members who followed the coffin were my sister Nora, I and my son Paolo II. The funeral rite was held in the little church of the Foce where the funeral happened after having run the Corso Inglesi, the boulevard of the Russian Church and the Corso Imperatrice. Paolo Primo had bought for himself and his wife a plot at the entrance of the cemetery of San Remo, near the chancel, to the left. There he was buried; the funeral monument that he himself had prepared ahead of time, consisted of a large slab of white marble with in its center the Ruggeri-Laderchi coat of arms and, beneath, the name of Paolo Primo, with the date of birth and death.
The telegrams and the letters of sympathy and of condolence where innumerable. Here following are transcribed those main ones and the most significant.
My mother with my sister Nora, because of the war, left the Villa Bel Respiro, to stay in Rome where were found other relatives. So as not to leave the villa empty it was rented for a laughable sum to a family, the Ziglioli, who moved to San Remo from Modena. When the war was over, the villa was sold in 1948, with tenant who still lives there, the Minister of Agriculture who made of it an experimental agricultural field and destination for foreign guests. The villa is for this reason kept well today. The Howitzer 305 has been removed; in the corner of the villa on the Corso degli Inglesi exists a shrine with beneath a little fountain where one may get water. The holy image, a painting, portrays a beautiful young Madonna with eyes turned to heaven and her hands fold upon her breast. Paolo Primo received it from an officer who had found it in Gorizia in a bombarded house after our conquest. He kept it always before his bed as well because, he said, it resembled my mother when she was young. The shrine bears the following script:
“Give Peace to the hurting heart
Give Peace to the heart that forgives
And to the heart that sins and that repents
Give Peace.”
This, and the funeral monument of the tomb of Paolo Primo, is what remains in San Remo of his earthly life.
Telegrams and lines of the letters of condolence:
My profound moved condolence to you and children bereft the valorous Command of the Great War
-Count of Turin
Having just heard of the death of the General who from Gorizia to Piave gave luminous proof of his virtues as a soldier and as a commander. Together with your children, who deservedly continue his great example, I wish to give my deep sentiments.
-Carlo Del Croix
As the interpreter of the entire citizenry I extend most vivid condolences grave loss illustrious general, compatriot of adoption that lavished treasures his heart and intelligence also our favored San Remo.
-Podestà Silvestri
Serene death among his loved ones, without suffering. Certain the pain for you and your children is great because you have lost the dearest and most courteous man in the world. But he left in full serenity of soul, as he always had lived.
…of the most noble Defunct the full commemoration of regret of a life often with much height of intelligence, much light of patriotism, much discipline of marvelous activity.
Of him it may be said that he never stopped, even when he discharged his obligations toward the Fatherland in the most brilliant way and having obtained the most coveted awards the age would give to him the right to rest in the memory and in the satisfaction of a path well traversed.
…for whom the qualification of Excellence was incomparably appropriate. He was that way through nobility of blood and of spirit, for light of sentiment and of intellect.
It seems impossible to us returning to San Remo, to never see again his handsome shape, his courteous and good smile, to not hear anymore his well known voice which gave a kind word to everyone.
The loss has been most grave, the void left unbridgeable, even if the least of his — of our — wishes had been granted, that is that he not suffer as had been feared.
He disappeared like a meteor that furrowing the sky leaves behind itself a great light.
In his physical figure, in his courtly feature, in his measured and wise speech, in the adamant clarity of his soul expressed and signified by his pupils, the noble and valorous soldier affirms himself in every circumstance and in all his actions: gentleman without stain and without fear. His memory will be a benediction in the heart of whoever knew him.
He was unique and irreplaceable, just and good, strong and sweet, very human, open to great exploits and all mercies, indefatigable in his actions, in his thought, in his purpose: full of nobility and gentleness in his apparent severity.
T
he effect and the great esteem of all the black shirts of the Imperia, of the hierarchy of the herd, for him most faithful soldier of the great Fatherland and generous and heroic Commander, has been sent to you, Countess, and to all yours in your sorrowful hour.
I believe that no one that knew him could subtract from his charm; he was a source of spiritual joys and inestimable intellectuals for whoever stayed with him even for a few hours and he will remain in the memory of everyone as one of the dear complete human beings, where the word of our Creator were verified: “I made man in my image.”
Je voudrais que le vif chagrin de tous ceux qui l’ont connu put alleger vostre chagrin a Vous, je voudrais que les très haute estimation, la chaude symnpatie dont il etait entouré fussent pour Vous un soulagement et je voudrais que le souvenir de ce qu’il a fait pendant la grande guerre reste dans la famille et dans l’histoire pareil ad un titre de fiertè et de glorie.
Votre deuil cruel est non seulement un deuil famille; la terre italienne perd en la personne du General Ruggeri Laderchi un de ces fils les plus glorieux.
Was Decorated:
- By the silver military Medal of Valor
- By the Italo-Turkish War Medal
- By the War Medal 1915, 1916, 1917
- By the Officers’ Cross of the Military Order of Savoia
- By Commendation of the Military Order of Savoia
- By the Great Cord of the Italian Crown
- By the Great Cord of Saints Maurice and Lazarus
- By the Cross of Merit of War
- By the Colonial Medal
Foreign Decorations:
- Gr. Cord of St. Stanislaw
- Gr. Cord of St. Anna (Imperial Russian decoration)
- Of Bath (KCB) English
- Legion of Honor (commendation)
- Decorations and plaques: German, Austro-Hungarian, Spanish, Belgian, Serbian, Turkish, Japanese, etc.
From 1902 to 1912 he was Honorary Aide-de-Camp of H. M. the King of Italy
Published in 1889 a book L’Europa Attuale e la Prossima Guerra [“Current Europe and the Next War], which was translated also into French.
The Ruggeri-Laderchi Family 