>The memoirs of Italian soldier Giovanni Comisso and others reveal that the young and the free really did congregate in Rijeka in 1919. They enjoyed a degree of sexual liberation (including tolerance of homosexuality) and a freedom of lifestyle that did not exist in Italy proper. [...] the Carta del Carnaro (Kvarner Charter), the manifesto-cum-constitution published in September 1920. Devised by Italian syndicalist Alceste de Ambris, and poetically enhanced by the pen of D&rsquo;Annunzio himself, it promised a mixture of both direct democracy and corporatism (the organization of the population into groups defined by occupation); equal rights for all, regardless of sex, race, religion or class; and, in a typically Dannunzian touch, a constitutionally-enshrined role for music in all spheres of life. 