In the fifties she began to "contaminate" psychoanalysis with theosophical and esoteric veins, then she turned into one of the most important scholars of graphology in Europe. Visconti and Fellini were her friends and Mastroianni called her "the seer of the actors".
From fifties she began to appear as an extra or side actress even in the cinema. In the 1977 her last book was published and then all the news about her are lost. She passed away many years later at ninety years old.
- Height: 1,73 m.[2−4]
- Music conservatory (piano).[2−4]
- Languages: Italian, French, German, English.[2−4]
- Abodes: Rome, via Giuseppe Vasi, 32 (1961−'63); Rome, via Ripetta, 151 (1968).[2−4]
Marianna Leibl was one of the most independent and original voices of twentieth-century Italian and European graphology. Rigorous in her investigations and in her graphological research, she arrived at a unique characterology of her kind, in which she was able to convey the Jungian typology, the psychosynthesis of Roberto Assagioli and the endocrinology of Nicola Pende. She was an eclectic woman, the uniqueness of her knowing how to contain, with elegance and sobriety, fame and the visibility of the sweet Roman life, her love for astrology, her skill in painting and the passion for esotericism.
The interdisciplinary approach to the study of writing had in Marianna Leibl one of the first and most significant exponents: in the period in which analytical psychology, psychiatry and endocrinology were establishing themselves, she was able to make them dialogue with graphology, obtaining a synthesis modern and innovative characterology for the Italian graphological panorama of the mid-twentieth century.
A pupil of Jung, Leibl particularly appreciated Pulver and Klages when their works were far from publication in the Italian language; she experienced significant research in foreign graphology and was the first to propose a comparative paradigm between graphology, Jungian typology, Assagioli's psychos intesi and Pende's biotypology; she conducted systematic research on writing in psychiatric pathologies. A serious, methodical and committed scholar, Leibl knew how to bring together the scientific rigor acquired in the first years of her life and her Central European education, with the apparently lighter climate of the Roman "Dolce vita", who accompanied her in her mature age and who mostly remember her as an astrologer, "magician" and actress.
The fascinating combination of science, esotericism and jet set, which distinguished the figure of Leibl was, in my opinion, made possible, if not even favored, by a specific cultural environment, the one located between the first and second post-war Roman times in which she lived and worked and which was marked by the presence of the Jungian psychoanalyst Ernst Bernhard.
Daughter of Marie and Franz Leibl, Maria Anna Cazilia (Cecilia) was born on April 24th 1898 in Maia Bassa, a district of the city of Merano which at the time belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and which became Italian territory in 1919. She lived with her family at the residential complex consisting of the Maur Castle, an ancient seventeenth-century residence, and the annexed Palace Hotel, built by Franz Leibl in 1906 and used by the European aristocracy as a holiday residence.
She had two brothers, Hans and Franz: the latter died of disease aged seventeen in March of 1921; in August of the same year he registers even the death of his father. In 1917 he graduated with honors from the Reform Real gymnasium (female scientific high school) of Linz; she studied piano at the Conservatory of Monaco and from a very young age she was skilled and esteemed pianist: remain numerous testimonies of some of her youth concerts in the newspapers of the time, which register the presence of Leibl teenager in the concerts organized during the Settimana della Croce Rossa (Red Cross Week) for soldiers wounded and convalescents of the First World War.
Fellini's biographer, who in a famous essay in La dolce vita, dedicates a short chapter to her, confirms that Leibl «in her youth was one good pianist» (Kezich, 2009b, p. 126); that passion for music not left her not even in adulthood she is witnessed by his friend Enrico Castelli, who, in his valuables diaries, on August 1, 1948 he writes that she played for him Liebesbotschaft and the Die Winterreise by Schubert (cf. Castelli, vol. II, p. 626).
Marianna studied graphology in Prague and Cologne, then psychology and psychiatry, first at the Sorbonne, with Georges Dumas, then in Vienna and finally at the Zurich Polytechnic, where she remained for seven years and where she met Jung, of whom she became her pupil. Already in 1933 Leibl is professionally identified as a graphologist (see Publishing House Poetzelberger, 1933, p. 163). She lived in Rome from the early 1930s but officially resided in Merano until November 24, 1938, the date on which its registered the date of the formal transfer to the capital with her mother and her brother Hans. Despite the change of residence, Leibl's relations with her hometown did not stop, at least until the early 1940s: this is still confirmed by a memory by Enrico Castelli who, on another page of his diaries, writes that he had met in Merano with Marianna Leibl on August 27, 1941, to have had breakfast at the Venezia restaurant and, the following day, that he had dined «with the Leibl family to the castle annexed to the Palazzo hotel» (Castelli, vol. I, p. 319). The castle a to which Castelli refers is the Maur while the Palazzo annexed to it is the Italianization of the Palace Hotel which, at least until 1933, was owned by Maria Leibl and directed by Giovanni Leibl (see Poetzelberger Publishing House, 1929; 1933, p. 163).
The circumstances of Hans's death are still not entirely clear, however precisely his bond with his brother allows us to shed light on the "esoteric" side of Marianna's life. Thanks to Castelli's memoirs, it turns out, in fact, that the Leibl, in January 1945, therefore at the height of the war conflict, was looking for news of Hans through séances. On January 28, 1945 the philosopher notes: «3.00 pm. Session [spiritual] in the house of Frattarelli Manfredi. Medium G. Smiles. M. Leibl is also present. The medium falls into a trance and she reports to Leibl on the locality where her brother is" (Castelli, vol. I, p. 579).
Of this particular "receptivity" we have other interesting news in the article of a Portuguese magazine to which Leibl gave an interview: here there is talk of a private Roman club to which they accessed, more or less "confidential" (clandestine), actors, politicians, writers and artists of the time, from Helenio Herrera to Princess Soraya, from director Franco Indovina to Maria Quasimodo, poet's wife. It was a club where lo was practiced spiritism: the rooms of the club are described with «black walls, red lights and very uncomfortable chairs» (llustracao Portugueza, 1971). Among the mediums they practiced there was also Marianna Leibl who, we read, she has a perfected sensitivity to feel the presence of the deceased. For some reason she spent her childhood in a medieval castle! In the period in which Luchino Visconti was making Senso Marianna was a guest at his home on Ischia and was in awe to see an "entity" sit down at the table alongside Visconti. He didn't seem concerned about it strange "presence" but Marianne felt frozen. One day she asked him "who is the 'person' sitting next to you?" "It must be my grandfather," replied the director annoyed. "You should take care of him." "I don't have time," was the reply. “Then, if allow me, I'll take care of him». "As you like," she said. And the medium she began to take care of [Visconti's] grandfather to whom she brought flowers and she lit candles (ibidem). In the same article Leibl, confirming, however, the discussed and controversial Fellini's relationship with esotericism, she stated: the time when Fellini and his wife were experiencing spiritualism in their house, I was always invited [...] but I preferred go to another room with a bottle of champagne. Not I can lend my body for these games: being medium is very tiring (ibidem).
The years of her studies and intense attendance at university environments coincided with the period of her two graphological publications:Grafologia psicologica (Psychological Graphology, 1935) and Caratterologia grafologica (Graphological Characterology, 1942). Since 1942 until the end of the 1940s, probably due to the war conflict and the disappearance of her brother Hans, her graphological research suffered a setback and the publications were limited to new editions of the two treatises precedents and articles published in journals. Without leaving the passion for graphology and psychology, since the years Fifty Leibl seems to give her life a substantial turning point to undertake a new phase: that of astrologer, medium and actress, with one gaze constantly turned to the female.
The 1950 was the year of his prime movie, Donne senza nome. Le indesiderabili, by Hungarian director Geza Von Radvany, a neorealist film about the life of some women locked up in the Alberobello concentration camp. In the same year, Leibl published the treatise Psicologia della donna (the psychology of women) also translated into Spanish e in German. After the first film experience and the new publication, which had a significant resonance in academic circles, the name of Leibl also began to be known to the general public, thanks also to her astrological rubric in the Settimana lncom.
Her participations in far films, from marginal roles, intensified until 1971: the most famous are Senso (1954) by Luchino Visconti, "an old friend of the house Leibl [who] knew Marianna's brother well" (Kezich, 2009b, p. 125), and La dolce vita (1960) by Federico Fellini; if the rivalry between the two Italian directors is passed into history, it is curious to discover that precisely «the sorceress [Marianna Leibl] it is the only point of contact between Visconti and Fellini» (ibidem). The relationship between Leibl and Fellini deserves some considerations because it seems help us, indirectly, to frame the complex personality of Marianna: there are numerous essays on the director's life and works that confirm this how much he loved to spend time with her to discuss and share the passion for astrology and esotericism. But the relationship between the two seems to be linked above all to the fascination aroused in Fellini by Jung. Aldo Carotenuto puts in light that «in Fellini's case the relationship with Jung's thought, which marks a clear turning point in his cinema, appears to be mediated not only by a juxtaposition theoretical, but also and above all from the meetings of the director with Ernst Bernhard [...] who introduced analytical psychology in Italy [...]. Starting since November 1960 the informal meetings with Bernhard - meetings that sometimes occur in the pizzeria under the analyst's house - they punctuate the life of the director in a period in which the inner life had always taken place sharper. Without constituting a real analysis, these interviews with a man who knows how to contact the director's inner universe perhaps offer him a a means to make his ghosts speak, a means that Fellini will transfer consciously in his way of making cinema [...]. Fellini's cinema opens up to dreams, to that nocturnal world that the director is now carefully annotating in his "book of dreams'; a series of notebooks in which over the years, after the meeting with Bernhard, Fellini described and sometimes illustrated his dreams. Bernhard therefore he represents for Fellini, the father, the guide that can help him navigate the labyrinths of soul of him» (Carotenuto, 1994, pp. 120-121). Also with the astrologer Lucia Alberti and the clairvoyant Francesco Waldner from Bolzano, Leibl belonged to the group of the so-called Three Viennese, prominent figures of Roman esotericism who in the years of her sweet life aroused curiosity and helped to spread the interest in an astrology serious and rigorous. Leibl, in Rome, also frequented Julius Evola, esotericist as well as writer, artist and Roman man of letters.
In Rome, Leibl lived for a long time in a small attic in Corso d'Italia 6/III, then in via Giuseppe Vasi and then in via di Ripetta 151, where she loved to receive her parents her clients-patients, her graphology students and her friends (cf. Angelucci, 2013). In 1980 she won the Premio Simpatia (Sympathy Prize), an award that has been conferred since 1971 to those who stand out in the social sphere. She died in Rome on June 5, 1988.
- Donne senza nome .... Prisoner (uncredited)
1954 - Senso .... General Hauptmann's wife (uncredited)
1955 - Andrea Chénier .... Woman on the hunt (credited)
1956 - War and Peace .... Servant seeing to the new-born baby (uncredited)
1958 - Totò e Marcellino .... The countess (credited)
1960 - Il principe fusto .... Sora Marianna, the moneylender (credited as "Marianne Leibel")
- La dolce vita .... Emma's companion in the miracle sequence (uncredited)
1962 - La steppa .... unknown role (no credit info)
1963 - Gidget goes to Rome .... Seamstress (uncredited)
1964 - The Visit (aka La vendetta della signora) .... Villager (uncredited)
1965 - Giulietta degli spiriti .... Woman at Bhishma's sitting (uncredited)
- The Agony and the Ecstasy .... Tavern customer (uncredited)
1968 - Sigpress contro Scotland Yard .... Lady Henderson (credited as "Marianne Leible")
1969 - Contronatura (The Innaturals) .... Hertha, the medium (credited)
- Fellini Satyricon .... Woman aboard the ship (uncredited)
- Ciao, Federico! (1970) - Documentary about the shooting of Fellini Satyricon (1969). Includes footage of Marianna on the set during the making of the film.
- I misteri di Parigi (1957) [1]
- Storia di una monaca (1959)[3]
- Barabba (1961)[3]
- La notte è fatta per... rubare (1968) [1]
- Napoleon und Joghurt (TV movie, 1971)[1]
1. Salmaso C. (2017), Marianna Leibl e il ritmo del destino, in Scrittura. Rivista di problemi grafologici, Istituto Grafologico Internazionale Girolamo Moretti, Ancona/Urbino, n. 176, pp. 6-27. 2. Dante Lazzaro. Cineguida 1961. 3. Dante Lazzaro. Cineguida 1963−64. 4. Dante Lazzaro. Cineguida 1968−69. |