As soon as he settled in Taormina (Sicily, Italy) Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden engaged the services of a local fourteen-year-old boy, the handsome Pancrazio Buciunì (1879 - 1963). A darkskinned lad with large eyes, Wilhelm gave Pancrazio the nickname "Il Moro" (The Moor) because of the Arabic strains in his blood. Il Moro, after being one of his first models, became his lover, assistant and pupil.

Wilhelm's affection for il Moro grew rapidly and was returned. The youth tended to Wilhelm's illness: administering medications, bargaining with the townspeople for special restorative foods, preparing the warm salt water baths prescribed by the doctors, and arranging for many local youths to participate in the midnight revels that Wilhelm offered his house guests.

Il Moro was not just a servant but a much-loved friend, lover, and ally. He would stay on as Wilhelm's personal assistant for the rest of Wilhelm's life, and became the heir of his photographic legacy. Von Glœden and Buciunì were, in a sense, monogamous lovers, for il Moro was still with the Baron when the latter died in 1931.

Gloeden had to leave his beloved town in 1915 when Italy entered the First World War against Germany. Therefore the home and studio were left in the care of his model, lover and friend il Moro until his return in 1918. Il Moro, for his part, was always up to any task required of him, even in the most complicated of circumstances.

Il Moro was conscripted into the Italian Army. It was by sheer good fortune that he, who was at the oldest end of the conscription range, was sent not to fight but was posted on the slopes of his home town, Taormina, with a coastal artillery unit. He was able to keep an eye on the villa, maintain the photo studio, and even see to it that the many pets were fed by the local boys too young to be sent off to war.

Wilhelm and Il Moro were able to communicate, although dangerously, with the aid of a Swiss friend who was forced to return home. Since letters to an enemy state were not allowed, Wilhelm mailed letters to Switzerland, a neutral country. These letters were then re-addressed and mailed to Il Moro.

The system worked well for most of the war, and news of mutual friends, expressions of affection, and Wilhelm's longing and homesickness passed back and forth. The letters were devoid of any political or military information, but when some were opened in a routine postal check, officials were alarmed. Il Moro wrote about his house and the animals and the letters were full of strange details about the conduct of "the crow", of "the dove" and of "the may-bug", all the models were referred to only by first names... thus, as one can well imagine, embroidered on it: naturally it was a case of an espionage network.

They arrested Il Moro on charges of treason, with the firing squad a real possibility. The young man was imprisioned for three months and was subjected to brutal interrogations, during which time the wretched fellow was continually threatened with shooting if he did not reveal the true identity of these "cover names", faced court-martial as a spy, charged with consorting with the enemy. But a silver-tongue - which would come in handy years later - convinced his superiors that Buciunì was a loyal Sicilian.

Wilhelm was uncertain of his fate the whole time. Il Moro steadfastly maintained his innocence, and eventually proved it to the satisfaction of the miltary officials. He was eventually formally exonerated of all charges, returned to duty with his artillery company and, amazingly, was allowed to resume his correspondence with Wilhelm. After a three-month gap, the correspondence between the lifelong partners resumed till the end of the war. Von Glœden and Sofia returned to Taormina after the Peace Treaty of 1919 without delay.

Il Moro and everything ready - flowers, fruit and wine on the tables, and the studio ready for work. Through tears of joy, Wilhelm saw the faces of the boys he loved. But he also saw that some were missing. Later that first day, Wilhelm retired alone to the locked studio to pore over his many photographs of the youths he would never see again. Throughout the night, some residents of the village reported hearing erratic sobs coming from the locked studio. Wilhelm later told and English friend that the joy and pain he experienced on that first day of his return had been almost beyond bearing. The years after the war were prosperous and comfortable.

The fame of this Baron from Taormina continued to attract admirers from all over the world. The villa and the studio were constantly active - Sofia was at Wilhelm's one side, and Il Moro was at his other. The secret nighttime revels were revived. Although political upheaval was in the air again, the news reports seldom affected Taormina. Mussolini rose to power in 1926, but fortunately the changing political situation never interfered with Wilhelm's final years. During 1929 a fateful alliance between the Vatican and Italy's fascist government was formed. Von Glœden never realized this "alliance" would later be responsible for the destruction and suppression of what remained of his life's work.

Then in his seventies, Wilhelm was beginning to slow down. He continued to photograph until 1930, the year before his death. Sofia died just three months before Wilhelm. They were buried side by side in the local protestant cemetery, surrounded by the land they loved. Pancrazio Buciunì (Il Moro) was named as Wilhelm's inheritor. He received all the personal possessions and some 3,000 negative glass plates, representing more than a quarter century of work.

Il Moro had no thought of exploiting the potential financial treasure. People still sought out photos, but for Il Moro, they were a personal rememberance, and he guarded their safety fiercely. They remained in trunks, chests, and cabinets of his humble lodgings - unreproduced. They were a tangible link between Wilhelm and his own life.

Buciunì, who had married and had children, inherited the estate and the vast picture collection and the surviving masters. During 1929 a fateful alliance between the Vatican and Italy's fascist government had been formed. In 1933 some 1000 glass negatives and 2000 prints were confiscated and destroyed by Italian Fascist police.

In 1936, Mussolini's fascist government, with the aid of the Catholic church, began a vice campaign. When the Fascists entered Taormina in 1936, the police raided Il Moro's home, pounding at the door in the night with no warrant or warning. He pleaded with the fascists not to damage the fragile glass plates, but over 1,000 of the irreplaceable negatives were smashed before him as he wept.

Those not destroyed outright were roughly thrown into crates and carried away as evidence. Many more were destroyed in the process. Il Moro was accused of "keeping pornography" and once again taken off to jail because of his association with Von Gloden.

Il Moro was now in his fifties, a simple man with no formal education. Yet he was intelligent and possessed considerable knowledge of the world owing to his lifelong relationship with Von Glœden and his friends.

He was capable of turning his defense against the chargest of pornography into an astonishing defense of the memory of Wilhelm Von Glœden, and of his life and his art. This simple man risked contempt of court in a potentially hostile tribunal in the midst of fascist insanity. In a passionate plea before the judges, he told the court that it was not within its competence to judge works of art of any kind. As evidence of the error of the charge of pornography, he listed countless names of collectors: museums, critics, kinds, industrialists and institutions - including the Italian Ministry of Education! Il Moro finished his impassioned statement, and then rested his otherwise undefended case.

Miraculously, the judges concurred! Had the trial occured just one year later, after a purge of liberal judges, Il Moro would likely have spent the remaining years of his life in prison, and the word would have been deprived of most of Von Glœden's photographs. The verdict could not, unfortunately, save the plates which had already been destroyed.

The remaining plates - less than half of the original number - were distributed among and safely hidden by local families, priests, and scholarly institutions until the end of World War II. In the course of these moves, many plates were lost. When the collection was finally reassembled, it was found that of the more than 3,000 plates (given to Il Moro), less than a third survived. Several hundred are still preserved by Buciunì's own heirs in Taormina today.

Under provisions in the alliance Buciunì was again accused, in 1936, of "keeping pornography" and a raid on von Glœden's archives destroyed or damaged more than half his negatives, all of those that survived were impounded by the government. A subsequent trial acquitted Buciunì and the estate of pornography charges but the glass plates were not returned until after World War II.

By then only a few hundred remained intact, the remainder were either shattered or damaged beyond use. Most of what we know of von Glœden's work has come to us from the collections of his admirers.

Other confiscations occurred between the years 1939 and 1941. In the legal action which ensued, Buciunì was charged with contributing to the dissemination of pornography, but found not guilty.

Pancrazio Buciunì passed away in 1963 but his descendants, the Malambrì family, remain in Taormina to this day. The remnants of von Glœden work, some 800 glass negatives and 200 albumen prints, were transferred to the photographic archives of Lucio Amelio in Naples.