Supermodel to Maxist Professor, Benedetta Barzini -A Film Directed by Her Son
(Barrese and his mother Benedetta Barzini)
Discovering Benedetta Barzini in “the disappearance of my mother”
Gerard Malanga 
In December 1966, Barzini was named one of the “100 Great Beauties of the World” by the American fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar. She began training at the Actors Studio around that time,[4] and in the process became romantically involved with, and later engaged to, New York poet and media artist Gerard Malanga, an early collaborator of Andy Warhol.[5] He would dedicate various works to her, such as his Poems for Benedetta Barzini and The Last Benedetta Poems.[4] Additionally, Malanga’s 1967 black-and-white film In Search of the Miraculous is an emotional, vivid poem of adoration for Barzini.
Benedetta Barzini in a dress by Norell. Photo by Irving Penn. Vogue, April 1, 1965.
Barzini was discovered at age 20 on the streets of Rome[3] by Consuelo Crespi in 1963; Diana Vreeland soon thereafter received photographs of Barzini and sent a telegram asking if she could come to Manhattan to shoot for American Vogue[3] with Irving Penn
(Benedetta Barzini and Marcel Duchamp – from “The Dissapearance of My Mother’)