Ligabue met Cesarina Aprici towards the end of 1959 when - after making friends with Ivo, her brother, who occasionally helped him sell the paintings - he decided to take a room at the Croce Bianca inn in Guastalla, managed by Cesarina.
Cesarina was neither married nor engaged, she lived at the Croce Bianca and the Croce Bianca was her life. She was a well built woman, with strong hips and strong arms to carry all the work to be done at the inn.
Cesarina was attentive and kind to Ligabue, she often warned him against anyone who wanted to take advantage of his naive kindness. She was attentive to all Antonio's needs; she knew, for example, that when she tidied his room she shouldn't touch brushes and colors.
Castle (1954) by Antonio LigabueFondazione & Archivio Antonio Ligabue di Parma
Ligabue became so attached to that innkeeper to the point of falling in love with her like no other before. His desire was to marry her and take her to live in a castle, perhaps just one of those he saw during his motorcycle rides through the Emilian countryside.
He used to say:
"A villa with towers
guarded by four hounds
I will live there with my wife".
Ligabue's love for Cesarina was even told in a scene from Raffaele Andreassi's documentary "The mirror, the tiger and the plain" (1962) with Ligabue as the protagonist and interpreter of himself, while for the role of Cesarina she was chosen an actress.
Ligabue e CesarinaFondazione & Archivio Antonio Ligabue di Parma
But although Ligabue had by now become an established painter, Cesarina's mother, Rosina, proved impatient with those constant marriage proposals and above all she did not tolerate that every time Antonio approached her daughter asking her for a kiss
"Dam un bes".
Ligabue and Cesarina, the woman he lovedFondazione & Archivio Antonio Ligabue di Parma
Antonio not only failed to fulfill his dream of a fairytale wedding with Cesarina but it was she who was the first to rescue him on the night of November 18, 1962 when he was struck by paresis for which he was later hospitalized at the Carri Hospital where he died three years later .
