A group of decorations attributable to with the celebrated operatic conductor Fausto Cleva: The

A group of decorations attributable to with the celebrated operatic conductor Fausto Cleva: The Republic of Italy: Order of Merit, Grand Officer's neck badge and breast star, in fitted case together with a dress miniature badge and accompanied by the corresponding grant of dignity confirming Cleva's appointment in December 1970; the neck badge of a more junior appointment in the same order, in fitted case with lapel badge; The Kingdom of Greece (1935-73): The Order of the Phoenix, civil division, Commander's neck badge, in fitted jeweller's case with a short length of neck cravat; a gold star, the centre with applied eagle and the shield of arms of the Kingom of Italy in red stones, reverse inscribed 'Fausto Cleva il Fasciodi Fiume 16.8.1930=VIII'; a small bronze medal, head of Toscanini quartering left, unnamed; and two photographs featuring the composer on the occasion of his being invested with the Grand Officer of the Order of Merit.

Fausto Cleva was born in Trieste in 1902. His career as a conductor began in Milan, and in 1920 he emigrated to the United States of America where he joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He worked with various august institutions as a conductor and he also played the piano as an accompanist to many of the major opera singers of the period. Cleva died of a heart attack in Athens in 1971 while conducting Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, and was posthumously admitted to the Order of the Phoenix, the insignia being collected by his widow Irene, accompanied by his daughter Maria. The gold star offered here, though later dated, appears to bear some relation to the Fiume Enterprise of 1919-20, in which the city was occupied by Italian Nationalists opposed to its exclusion from Italy's borders by the Paris Peace conference of 1919.