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Since Pound could not participate in these national projects, he devised a cultural nationalist project of his own. Chapter Five shows Pound acting the cultural administrator, albeit on a very local, self-driven project, the revival of the music of Antonio Vivaldi. Pound saw this work as both enriching the culture of his adopted home Rapallo and offering a musical model for the mining of Italy’s rich cultural heritage in service of modern nationalist culture. Where his earlier work with cultural artifacts had remained in the realm of the aesthetic, here he adopts an explicitly political objective. His collaborative work with Olga Rudge and Gerhart Münch (and sometimes with Italian composer Alfredo Casella) toward bringing the largely forgotten music of Vivaldi to modern listeners was usually framed in a distinctly fascist cultural rhetoric. This chapter uses new archival evidence—including scores, clippings, letters, and pamphlets—to demonstrate both Pound’s use of fascist rhetoric in this endeavor and his involvement in the actual music of the revival (something previous scholars have denied).

This chapter describes Olga Rudge's family and childhood from 1895–1909. Olga's mother, Julia O'Connell, a classical singer from New York City, married John Edgar Rudge on August 16, 1893. In September 1904, when Olga was nine, Julia sent her to England to board at St. Anthony's Convent, Sherborne, Dorset. Julia later moved to London to focus her hopes and ambitions on her young daughter. She began assisting Gertrude Griswold at the Delle Sedie School of Singing, a position that came with a rent-free “villa,” to which her three children came home on weekends from their boarding schools: Olga from St. Anthony's, and her young brothers from St. Leonard-on-Sea, a Catholic preparatory school.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1972–1996. These include Ezra's death and funeral; the signing of a Family Agreement concerning Pound's estate in 1973, and creating a trust into which royalties and other earnings of the estate would be deposited; the establishment of the Center for the Study of Ezra Pound and His Contemporaries at Yale University; and Olga's transformation into an icon in her later years.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1910–1918. Julia O'Connell resigned her position at the Delle Sedie School and moved to Paris with her children in 1910, so that Olga could attend the Paris Conservatoire and perfect her technique under Maestro León Carambât, first violinist of the Opéra Comique. Olga and her mother were warmly welcomed by Parisian society; they rated high on guest lists that included barons and baronnes, comtes and comtesses, and the occasional prince or princess. However, the halcyon days were drawing to a close with the impending threat of war.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1931–1936. These include Ezra's organization of a series of concerts in the town of Rapallo; Count Guido Chigi Saracini's offer to Olga of the position of administrative secretary of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Venice; and the death of Olga's father in 1935.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1924–1926. These include Olga's complicated relationship with Ezra Pound, who was still living with his wife Dorothy; her pregnancy and the premature birth of their daughter Mary; the second marriage of her father Edgar; and the birth of Ezra and Dorothy's son Omar.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1927–1928. These include Olga's performance for Premier Benito Mussolini at his residence on the via Rasella on February 22, 1927; a performance with Gabriele Bianchi at the Sala Benedetto Marcello in Venice on July 15, 1927; a recital with Giorgio Levi at Gabriele d'Annunzio's estate, Vittoriale; and her arrival in Venice in late November 1928.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1962–1972. These include Olga's reunion with Ezra; his health problems; their celebration of his eightieth birthday in Paris; and their travels.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1950–1955. These include Olga's continued efforts to gain Ezra's release; her return to Paris and London in 1951; and her visits with Ezra at St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1929–1931. These include Olga's move into her new home in Venice in September 1929; her precarious financial situation with the onset of the worldwide economic depression in 1930; and her daily life with Ezra in Sant'Ambrogio.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1918–1922. Olga's reputation as a concert violinist was growing. A high point in her career at this time was an invitation to play Premier Prix de Rome winner Lili Boulanger's Nocturne, accompanied by Nadia, her more famous sister. Paris critics praised Olga's “virtuosity and style.” Olga was in London preparing for the premiere performance of the new Ildebrando Pizzetti sonata when her mother Julia died on May 17, 1920.

This chapter describes the researching and reconstructing of what was perhaps the most infamous modern music event of the 20th century after Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, George Antheil's “Ballet Mecanique” for player piano, eight concert grands, xylophones, drums, a fire siren, doorbells, and aeroplane propellers. It was designed to shock, but beneath its wild surface lies a story that includes the poet, Ezra Pound; artists and film makers Leger, Man Ray, and Picabia; composers W. C. handy (and his all-negro Orchestra) Colin McFee, Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson; and the violinist, Olga Rudge. It was the first work to encompass silences, some as long as twenty-four seconds, and in many minds, minimalism.

This chapter describes Olga Rudge's final years. Olga remained lively and alert at her one hundredth birthday party on April 13, 1995, celebrated with a concert of works by Vivaldi, the Red Priest, and followed by a light supper. She lived for another year and died on March 15, 1996.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1946–1949. These include Mary's decision to marry Boris Baratti; Olga's failed efforts to travel to the United States to visit Ezra; and the birth of her first grandchild.

This chapter describes the first meeting of Olga Rudge and Ezra Pound in Paris in the fall of 1922. The high-spirited Olga was an obvious choice to be the receptacle of Ezra's creativity—a striking, poised young artist with dark hair bobbed and parted in the middle in the high fashion of the Twenties. A friend describes her as having a fiercely energetic way of talking and moving that drew handsome and talented people into her circle.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1956–1962. These include Olga's continued work at Accademia Chigiana; the renewed efforts of Ezra's friends in the literary world to gain his release; and Ezra's eventual release in 1958.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life in 1945. These include the capture and interrogation of Ezra after he was deemed a traitor in contumacia (by default) by the U.S. government; the correspondence between Olga and Dorothy during Ezra's imprisonment; and his forced return to the United States in November 1945.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1936–1939. These include Olga's enrollment of twelve-year-old Mary in the Istituto della Signora Montalve at La Quiete, a convent school near Florence, in September 1937; the first concert of the newly formed Vivaldi Society on March 24, 1938; and Olga's anger over Ezra's cancellation of his regular fall visit to Venice due to the death of his mother-in-law.

This chapter describes significant events in Olga Rudge's life from 1941–1945. These include the scarcity of food with the onset of World War II; and Olga's invitation to Ezra and Dorothy to move in with her after they were evicted by the Germans in May 1944.