Emanuele Luzzati

He was born in Genoa and turned to drawing in 1938 when, as a son of a Jew (from the part of his father), his academic studies were interrupted by the introduction of the Fascist racial laws.

He designed his first production of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in 1944, a collaboration with his friends Alessandro Fersen, Aldo Trionfo and Guido Lopez.

One of Luzzati's books (based on a theatre production) was, in the English-language version, Ronald and the Wizard Calico, a fairy tale in verse (translated English).

Alas, Gano, a wicked traitor in Ronald's fort, makes his own magic, creating the illusion of another castle on a nearby hill: “At all the open windows there / Stood many lovely girls / With blue eyes and with hair which hung / In long and golden curls.

(This antepenultimate page includes a gem-like image of Wizard Calico, himself, riding on the back of his magic bluebird, brandishing a flag with the word “END” – or “FINE” in the original Italian.

The original Italian story was also in simple rhymed verse, and seems to have been about a beautiful maiden called Biancofiore – Whiteflower, or Blanche – and her brave hero, Captain Rinaldo, and Ricardo and his paladins – the term used for Christian knights engaged in Crusades against the Saracens and Moore.

Clearly the English translators, using the original illustrations, and the basic rhyme patterns, have slightly simplified the plot, and eliminated the Christians-versus-Muslim-Moors conflict, replacing it with gold versus green.