Sindy-S.R
Padawan Learner
Gustavo Rol - Who was he?
Gustavo Rol is considered the greatest "sensitive" of the 20th century.
He was known for his incredible paranormal abilities: clairvoyance, telepathy, remote viewing, aura sensing, precognition, bilocation, levitation, healing, body elasticity, telekinesis, materialization and dematerialization of objects, etc.
Among his friends were Federico Fellini, Franco Zeffirelli, Marcello Mastroianni, etc.
During his long life, which lasted 91 years, he came into contact with great historical figures of the 1900s: Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Charles De Gaulle, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan, Pope Pios XII, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalì, Giovanni Agnelli, Einaudi, J.F. Kennedy, Elizabeth II, etc.
There are eyewitness accounts that say he could walk through walls and also throw heavy objects from one room to another.
There's a detail about Gustavo Rol that intrigues me: he was always very interested in Napoleon Bonaparte. There are numerous accounts (books, films, and videos) documenting this fact.
It's said that as a child he began to speak very late, and the first word his mother heard him say was "Napoleon."
This is just speculation on my part.
Could it be that Gustavo Rol was the reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte, did he know this and keep it to himself?...
Gustavo Role and that special passion for Napoleone
Andrea Cionci
07 Maggio 2021
Bottone napoleonico trovato da Rol a Marengo
The child was already two years old, but had yet to utter a word. His parents were worried when one evening the little boy, pointing to a print hanging over the fireplace, finally said: "Poleone! Poleone!"
The name Bonaparte was therefore the first word of Gustavo Adolfo Rol, considered by many to be one of the greatest psychics of all time. Hundreds of testimonials about the extraordinary phenomena he was capable of producing (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, bilocation, translation, levitation, healing, body elasticity, telekinesis, materialization and dematerialization of objects, and passing through surfaces) came from intellectuals, scientists, and artists who frequented his elegant Turin apartment, filled with fine antique furniture and—not surprisingly—valuable Napoleonic relics.
Indeed, 200 years after the Emperor's death, it's worth rediscovering Rol as a great collector of Napoleon's works, given that his collection was one of the most important in Europe and certainly the one that included the most extraordinary collections.
Just think of how he came into possession of one of the most valuable artifacts.
Napoleon's carriage
In his youth, Rol was in Paris for work. One day, strolling along the boulevards, he was irresistibly drawn to an ancient building. He looked inside and asked the doorman if he could show him the cellars. The man agreed and led him into the basement. Stopping in one spot, Rol asked the doorman if he could get a spade to dig. From the earth, a splendid marble bust of Napoleon as First Consul emerged. Evidently, it had been buried there by some former owner at a time when it was prudent to hide the effigy of the sovereign.
One of Rol's most faithful friends was Dr. Pier Giorgio Manera, who very kindly shared with us some episodes related to Rol's collecting, some of which were completely unpublished: "Gustavo had one of the finest Napoleonic collections in the world: he kept Napoleon's swords as King of Italy, as well as his personal objects, furniture, antique clocks, etc. However, he himself had found some relics on the battlefield of Marengo, probably thanks to his extraordinary powers. For example, he had managed to unearth a large number of French uniform buttons from the epic battle, some still with thread and scraps of fabric attached. They were very beautiful, and every now and then he gave some to his most important friends. He had always promised me one—I was a bit like a son to him—but one day, these buttons ran out because, inadvertently, Gustavo had given them all away. He then told me that I would have one anyway, sooner or later. And so it was: through inheritance, a lady of his friend who had received one of these buttons, then left it to me, without ever knowing that Rol had promised it to me”.
Bust of Napoleon found in cellar
Perhaps still guided by his gift for "psychometry" (the ability to perceive scenes from real life from particular antique objects), Rol purchased what remained of Napoleon's carriage, despite its authenticity being questioned by some.
After all, it was difficult to discern a masterpiece of French craftsmanship, painted in pure gold, with velvet interiors and silver trim, beneath the layer of dirt and dust that covered it. The carriage was in desperate condition, having been used as a chicken coop for over a century. According to tradition, Napoleon himself abandoned the carriage at Marengo in 1805 during his journey to Milan for his coronation as King of Italy. He had stopped there to reenact his famous battle, but the rudder had broken, and the Emperor was forced to use another carriage to reach the city. Many years later, a certain Lachouque, director of the Napoleonic Museum in Nice, wanted to restore it and bring it triumphantly back to France, but apparently failed, both due to protests from the Alexandrians and because the restoration costs were too high. In 1955, the carriage was purchased by Gustavo Adolfo Rol, who, after restoring it, donated it to the City of Turin.
The response of the then Communist mayor was historic: "We don't take dictators' carriages." Rol generously donated the carriage to the Mauriziano Order, which restored it with subsequent interventions and still preserves it today in the Stupinigi Hunting Lodge.
"Gustavo was, in fact, a noble and generous soul," continues Dr. Manera, "he often repeated the saying, 'I have what I donate.'" Almost no one knows that, to save a friend from bankruptcy, he sold half of his collection. Rol left what remained to Dr. Catterina Ferrari, a friend of his later years, who, after passing away a few years ago, equally generously donated the relics to the Napoleonic Museum in Rome.
The donation, it seems, still needs to be finalized at the bureaucratic level, and so the material has remained packed away in the museum's storage rooms; moreover, it would require restoration. It includes sculptures, antique clocks, tableware, and everyday objects that belonged to the Emperor or members of his family.
Rol maintained that objects also had a "spirit" (though certainly not the intelligent one of a human being), but that they retained the memory of the people who used them. This sentiment was shared by one of the last great collectors of the 20th century, tenor Evan Gorga, the first performer of Puccini's La Bohème at the Teatro Regio in Turin and the creator of one of the largest collections of musical instruments in the world. He also often repeated: "Objects have a soul." (The 30 Gorga collections—a total of 150,000 objects—did, however, largely come to a bad end: ruined, dispersed, and poorly preserved by the state after 1949.)
For now, the Rol collection has certainly missed the Napoleonic Bicentennial. Who knows whether its relics will be displayed at the Napoleonic Museum simply because they belonged to Bonaparte or also because they passed through the tender and mysterious hands of the great Turin-born psychic.
If it's true that objects preserve their owners' souls, they should be overflowing with them.
The Unbelievable Gustavo Adolfo Rol: Rol, Franco: 9781326002145: Amazon.com: Books
The Unbelievable Gustavo Adolfo Rol [Rol, Franco] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Unbelievable Gustavo Adolfo Rol
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Unfortunately, most of Gustavo Rol's information is only available in Italian.
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