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For the author, Socrates is a constructor of the Superuomo model, and his interpretation of the philosopher is a positive one, as opposed to Nietzche’s negative view of Socrates as a destroyer of the Dionysiac element. Socrates has something to teach us but also D’Annunzio himself. He is proposed as a model contributing to the birth of the Superuomo. Reference to Greece is limited in the novel. D’Annunzio has elaborated his own idea of the place, which does not rely on genuine experience. The Greece that emerges from the notebooks is a literary Greece, which adds nothing more to what he had previously written, prior to gaining first hand experience of the country.

28 Although the process was quite slow, forms of transportation had undergone considerable change over the two preceding centuries, which had witnessed the decline of the palanquin in all but a few cities, the continued use of the saddle horse (the most common means of travel for men in the Middle Ages), and the introduction of the coach. By the midsixteenth century the coach acquires the characteristics of a status symbol, and it will not be for another three hundred years – with the advent of steamboats, trains and other “infernal” forms of modern mass transportation – that a vehicle will spark such heated arguments and strong emotions.

In the Libro segreto, the place of origin of the memoir and its re-elaboration are no longer important issues and pages of memories and reflections flow in succession in no apparent order. The year 1895 marks the close of a series of important years; the author defines, widens and transforms his aesthetic and ideological horizons, with the addition, on the Parnassian horizon, of the discovery of Nietzsche during his Neapolitan years. Notebooks, Letters, Reportage 43 D’Annunzio becomes acquainted with Wagner and his works in Naples, where the Revue Wagnerienne is in circulation.