In reply to UKC Articles:
Comici wrote a bit too, and everything was published after his death in a book called Alpinismo Eroico. I don't think it was ever translated into any other language. In it he expresses, well, he expresses everything that climbing is about.
If you ever saw a German documentary made by Werner Herzog called Gasherbrum with Reinhold Messner, and you remember the scene when Messner is in a hot bath and is explaining that the climber is an artist, drawing indelible lines on the mountains like a painter would draw on a canvas, you should know that this idea comes originally from Emilio Comici.
His analogy of climbing being like ballet, in which the choreography is dictated by the features of the rock, but allows the climber a margin for their own personal expression, is not only brilliant, but completely unexpected in a young man who was from a working class background in Triest and started his working life, probably at 14, as a stevedore in the ports of his home town.
He was a visionary in his thoughts, words and deeds, and by all accounts every inch the angel of the dolomites that the legend makes him out to be.
In this article we have a short introduction to Italian climbing legend Emilio Comici, written by Fabrizio Mamolo, and a fantastic video that was spotted on Youtube and sent to us by Paul Ross.
