Antica Barbieria Colla has always been a place where politics, culture, current affairs were debated; this is also thanks to the fact that among its customers there were various intellectuals such as Enzo Bettiza, a journalist and writer who died in 2017 whom Franco Bompieri considered a reincarnation of a Russian prince, not only because of his Eastern European origins; he describes him like this:
Text taken from Presi per i capelli by Franco Bompieri (Mondadori 2000)
« I remember Enzo Bettiza from the time when I worked in the barbershop at the Continental Hotel, in via Manzoni.
Tall, handsome, raven-haired, indifferent to the cost of things, he was already considered an eminent journalist, specializing in the politics of Eastern countries, which in my opinion he didn’t love, as one often doesn’t love his beloved homeland.
“Look” they told me “he was born in Split. It is true that he speaks Russian, but he also speaks German as if he were from Vienna, and French and English “.
“Exactly” I replied “like all Russian princes: he is a polyglot who reserves Russian for courting beautiful women and to give orders to the servants.”
When Enzo Bettiza is not around the world, he comes to his barber with a spare shirt.
After the service, which he wants accurate but unperceivable, he retires to the private dressing room and changes his shirt. Sometimes the change takes more than half an hour, so meticulous he is in tying the tie.
This is enough for me to say that in Enzo Bettiza there is the soul in exile of a prince, who survived the hated great October Revolution. »