Giuseppe Costanza III

This is Giuseppe Costanza III, in Florence sitting and sketching the Duomo. His grandfather, Giuseppe I, came back in 1961 from Russia, where he was held as a war prisoner. He had great knowledge of Russian language and literature, a missing left leg, and an old icon, about 60 by 80 cm showing an old frowny Saint with a white beard. The missing leg made the Italian government give Giuseppe I a decoration, a pension and a license to sell tobacco, it also allowed Giuseppe I imaginative sexual positions. The icon went on the wall behind the counter of the new Tabacheria on via dei Fatebenefratelli, Milan. Giuseppe I, who prospered also due to the sale of smuggled cigarettes, had a son, Giuseppe II who, in time, took over the store. A guy who worked around the corner on via Brera and bought his Chesterfields at Giuseppe's several times a week, asked one day, about four and a half years ago, if he could take a picture of the icon on the wall, next to the Tabacco License and the first 100 Lire note that Giuseppe I earned. Next day the guy came back and asked Giuseppe II if he knew Andrei Rublev. Giuseppe II said that his dad may have known him in Russia all those years back. There was laughter, the guy said that the Rublev he is talking about died almost six hundred years ago. There was even more laughter when the old frowny Saint with the white beard went into Sotheby's fall catalog and, later, sold at double the estimate (four and a half Million Euro). Giuseppe III, who doesn't want anything to do with selling cigarettes, has now the money to travel around Italy and sketch churches. Giuseppe III makes horrible sketches.