The centuries-old territorial dispute over the status of the city of Rijeka/ Fiume reached a new and dangerous climax with D’Annunzio’s “Fiume exploit” (1919–1920); the adventurous action, meant as a militant response to the so-called mutilated victory in World War One, receives its historical importance particularly in regards to two contradictory phenomena: militant nationalist extremism whose different practices were accepted by then emerging right-wing radical movements on the one hand and, on the other hand, avant-garde art projects and new, unconventional lifestyles which were promoted and executed in Rijeka by many creative followers of the ‘soldier-poet’. The collection of short stories titled Il porte dell’amore (The Port of Love, 1924), written by Giovanni Comisso (1895–1969), one of D’Annunzio’s prominent adherents, stands out among contemporary literary representations of the ‘exploit’. The work features D’Annunzian Rijeka as a city of liberty and debauchery, neglecting most of the other important aspects of this historical event or referring to them indirectly, mostly through poetic images, sometimes also through grotesque humor. Dealing with subjects such as juvenile unconventionality, bravery and ferocity, Comisso’s stories focus on excessive sensuality as well as on emphatic loyalty to D’Annunzian ‘exploit’ and hence, of course, on the Italian imperial project
