Poggio Bracciolini – scholar and humanist

Calligrapher who could read Latin changed the course of history

The linguist and scholar Poggio Bracciolini was
born in a village near Arezzo in Tuscany

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, who rediscovered many forgotten Latin manuscripts including the only surviving work by the Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius, died on this day in 1459 in Florence.

For his services to literature he was commemorated after his death with a statue by Donatello and a portrait by Antonio del Pollaiuolo.

Bracciolini was born in 1380 at Terranuova near Arezzo in Tuscany. In 1862 his home village was renamed Terranuova Bracciolini in his honour.

He studied Latin as a young boy under a friend of the poet, Petrarch, and his linguistic ability and talent for copying manuscripts neatly was soon noted by scholars in Florence.

He later studied notarial law and was received into the notaries guild in Florence at the age of 21.

After becoming secretary to the Bishop of Bari, Bracciolini was invited to join the Chancery of Apostolic Briefs in the Roman Curia of Pope Boniface IX.

Part of one of Cicero's Catiline Orations copied by Bracciolini
 in a style of writing that became the basis for Roman fonts

He was to spend the next 50 years serving seven popes, first as a writer of official documents and then working his way up to becoming a papal secretary.

Bracciolini was well thought of because of his excellent Latin, beautiful handwriting and the diplomatic work he was able to carry out with Florence.

He was never attracted to the ecclesiastical life and its potential riches and, despite his poor salary, remained a layman to the end of his life.

He invented the style of writing that, after generations of polishing by other scribes, served the new art of printing as the prototype for Roman fonts.

In 1415 while working for the Pope at a monastery in Cluny, Bracciolini brought to light two previously unknown orations of the Roman statesman Cicero.

At another monastery in 1416 he found the first complete text of Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria, three books and part of a fourth of Valerius Flaccus’s Argonautica and the commentaries of Asconius Pedianus on Cicero’s orations.

A statue said to be of Bracciolini in the Duomo
in Florence, attributed to Donatello

While visiting other monasteries in 1417 he discovered a number of Latin manuscripts, including De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius.

It is believed he subsequently discovered seven other orations of Cicero in a monastery in Cologne.

He made copies of the works he found in his elegant script, some of which have survived.

Bracciolini also collected classical inscriptions and sculptures, with which he adorned the garden of the villa he eventually bought near Florence.

At the age of 56 he left his long-term mistress and married a girl of 17, who produced five sons and a daughter for him.

He spent his last years having intellectual arguments with Lorenzo Valla, an expert at philological analysis of ancient texts, and writing a history of Florence.

Bracciolini died in 1459 before he had put the final touches to this work and was buried at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence.

The 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt, tells the story of Bracciolini’s discovery of the ancient manuscript written by Lucretius. Greenblatt analyses the poem’s subsequent influence on the Renaissance, the Reformation and modern science.

The facade of the beautiful Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence,
 where Bracciolini was buried in illustrious company

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Croce, consecrated in 1442, is the main Franciscan church in Florence and the burial place among others of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the poet Ugo Foscolo, the philosopher Giovanni Gentile and the composer Gioachino Rossini.  It houses works by some of the most illustrious names in the history of art, including Canova, Cimabue, Donatello, Giotto and Vasari.  The Basilica, with 16 chapels, many of them decorated with frescoes by Giotto and his pupils, is the largest Franciscan church in the world and the present building dates back to the 13th century.

The village of Terranuova Bracciolini, near Arezzo, where
Bracciolini was born and which was renamed in 1862

Travel tip:

Terranuova Bracciolini is a town in the province of Arezzo in Tuscany, located about 35km (22 miles) southeast of Florence and about 25m (16 miles) northwest of Arezzo.  Originally called Castel Santa Maria, the town was part of Florence’s massive 14th-century project to build new areas to populate in the countryside. It was renamed after Poggio Bracciolini in 1862.  Terranuova Bracciolini still conserves its medieval walls and some perimeter towers.

More reading:

The politically astute poet who ruled an Italian state

The death of Hadrian

The artistic brilliance of Donatello

Also on this day:

1893: The birth of bodybuilder Angelo Siciliano, also known as Charles Atlas

1896: The birth of conductor Antonio Votto


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Enrico Fermi – nuclear physicist

Scientist from Rome who created world’s first nuclear reactor

Enrico Fermi discovered how splitting uranium
atoms could generate vast amounts of energy

Enrico Fermi, who has been called the architect of the nuclear age and even the father of the atomic bomb, was born on this day in 1901 in Rome.

Fermi, who won a Nobel Prize in 1938, created the world’s first nuclear reactor, the so-called Chicago Pile-1, after he had settled in the United States, and also worked on the Manhattan Project, which was the code name for the secret US research project aimed at developing nuclear weapons in the Second World War.

The third child of Alberto Fermi, an official in Italy’s Ministry of Railways, and Ida de Gattis, a school teacher, Fermi took an interest in science from an early age, inspired by a book about physics he had discovered in the local market in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, written in Latin by a Jesuit priest in about 1840.

He read avidly as he was growing up, conducting many experiments. After high school, he was granted a place at the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore, part of the University of Pisa, where it became clear the depth of knowledge he had already acquired was greater than that of many of his professors. It was not long before they began asking him to organise seminars in quantum physics. He graduated with honours in 1922.

After spending several months in Germany and Holland on scholarships, working alongside renowned professors such as  Max Born and Paul Ehrenfest, he returned to Italy to take up a lectureship at the University of Florence. In 1927 he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Rome.

Fermi (centre), with his fellow scientists at the University of
Pisa, Franco Rasetti and Emilio Segrè

In the same year, he married Laura Capon, who came from a respected Jewish family in Rome.  They would soon have two children, Giulio and Nella.

In 1934, Fermi began working with the atom, the area of physics that would define his life. He discovered that nuclear transformation could occur in nearly every element.

One of the elements whose atoms he split was uranium. This led to discovery of slow neutrons, which in turn led to nuclear fission and the production of new elements.

When, in 1938, Fermi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work with artificial radioactivity produced by neutrons, and for nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons”, it could not have come at a more timely moment.

Benito Mussolini, whose Fascist party Fermi had joined when he was made a member of the Royal Academy of Italy in 1929, had introduced tough new race laws in his support for the German leader Adolf Hitler. The anti-Jewish element of these laws threatened Fermi’s family and he became desperate to leave Italy.

The eerie mushroom cloud formed by the
first test explosion of an atomic bomb

Strict travel restrictions were being implemented, too, but Mussolini wanted Fermi to receive his Nobel award in person at the ceremony in Sweden and allowed him to travel with his family. Once in Stockholm, they made arrangements to escape to America.

Thus Fermi, his wife and their children disembarked a passenger liner in New York in January 1939.  He quickly settled into an academic career in American universities.

Fermi was appointed professor of physics at New York's Columbia University, where he discovered that if uranium neutrons were emitted into fissioning uranium, they could split other uranium atoms, setting off a chain reaction that would release enormous amounts of energy. His experiments led to the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, which he prosaically christened Chicago Pile-1, on December 2, 1942, under Chicago University's athletic stadium.

During the Second World War, Fermi was invited to join the Manhattan Project, which focused on the development of the atomic bomb. Worried that scientists in Germany were close to developing their own bomb, Fermi and other scientists encouraged the US Government to invest in the project without delay.

He witnessed the first test detonation of a nuclear weapon, codenamed Trinity, in a remote area of desert in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.  He advised the US Government on target selection, recommending the bomb be used without warning against an industrial area.

General Leslie R Groves presents Fermi with his
Medal of Merit for wartime service to the US 

After the war, Enrico Fermi was appointed to the General Advisory Committee for the Atomic Energy Commission. In October 1949, the commission met to discuss the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon 500 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which themselves killed 129,000 people.

Fermi was appalled at the prospect, however, opposing it on both technical and moral grounds.

In 1944, Fermi and his wife had become American citizens, and at the end of the war he accepted a professorship at the University of Chicago's Institute for Nuclear Studies, a position which he held until his death. There he turned his attention to high-energy physics, and led investigations into the pion-nucleon interaction.

He died in 1954 at the age of only 53 from stomach cancer. It is thought likely now that he developed the disease as a result of his exposure to radiation, possibly when he witnessed the Trinity explosion, when he reported feeling the heat from the blast, or from his work creating the Chicago reactor.

He confessed to friends during his life that he was aware that he might be at risk but considered scientific advancement more important than his own long-term health.

As well as his Nobel prize, Fermi won many other awards for his research, while others granted to modern scientists bear his name.  Among other things named after him are the Fermilab particle accelerator and physics lab in Batavia, Illinois and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.  Three nuclear reactor installations have been named after him: the Fermi 1 and Fermi 2 nuclear power plants in Newport, Michigan, the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Power Plant at Trino Vercellese in Italy, and the RA-1 Enrico Fermi research reactor in Argentina.

A synthetic element isolated from the debris of the 1952 Ivy Mike nuclear test was named fermium, in honour of Fermi's contributions to the scientific community.

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, known as the Temple of Italian Glories for its many graves of artists, scientists and prominent figures in Italian history, has a plaque commemorating Fermi.

Fermi's birthplace in Via Gaeta in Rome

Travel tip:

Fermi’s birthplace in Rome was in Via Gaeta, not far from the Termini railway station, and the house is marked with a plaque. The area around Via Gaeta has nothing in particular to recommend it but nearby are the ruins of the Terme di Diocleziano – the Baths of Diocletian – a Roman bathing complex that covered 13 acres and could accommodate up to 3,000 people. The complex today houses one of the four sites of the Museo Nazionale Romana, containing a fascinating collection of objects and artefacts to help visitors build a picture of Roman life in the days of the empire. Also worth visiting at the site is a large and peaceful cloister built from designs by Michelangelo.

The magnificent Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Croce, with its 16 chapels, is the largest Franciscan church in the world, and has been one of Florence’s most impressive buildings since it was completed towards the end of the 14^th century. Inside can be found work by many of the great artists of the Renaissance, including Giotto, Cimabue, Donatello, Antonio Canova and Domenico Veneziano. The Basilica is also notable as the burial place of a host of illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the poet Ugo Foscolo, the philosopher Giovanni Gentile and the composer Rossini.

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Umberto Baldini – art restorer

Saved hundreds of artworks damaged by Arno floods

Umberto Baldini

Umberto Baldini, the art historian who helped save hundreds of paintings, sculptures and manuscripts feared to have been damaged beyond repair in the catastrophic flooding in Florence in 1966, died on this day in 2006.

Baldini was working as director of the Gabinetto di Restauro, an office of the municipal authority in Florence charged with supervising restoration projects, when the River Arno broke its banks in the early hours of November 4, 1966.

With the ground already saturated, the combination of two days of torrential rain and storm force winds was too much and dams built to create reservoirs in the upper reaches of the Arno valley were threatened with collapse.

Consequently thousands of cubic metres of water had to be released, gathered pace as it raced downstream and eventually swept into the city at speeds of up to 40mph.

More than 100 people were killed and up to 20,000 in the valley left homeless. At its peak the depth of water in the Santa Croce area of Florence rose to 6.7 metres (22 feet). 

The Basilica of Santa Croce partially
submerged under flood water

Baldini was director of the conservation studios at the Uffizi, the principal art museum in Florence and one of the largest and most well known in the world, where some of the most precious and valuable treasures of the Renaissance were kept, supposedly secure and protected.

The main galleries on the second floor of the Uffizi complex, situated just off Piazza della Signoria in the heart of the city and right by the river, escaped but the water – not only muddy but full of oil after tanks in its path were ruptured – poured into storerooms, where more than 1,000 medieval and Renaissance paintings and sculptures were kept.

Once the flood subsided, it was Baldini’s task to save what he could from the mess that remained, with everything in the storerooms covered in oily mud.  Similar scenes confronted the wardens and curators of churches, libraries and museums all over Florence.

It was estimated that between three and four million books and manuscripts were damaged, as well as 14,000 works of art.

Baldini not only oversaw a painstaking restoration project at the Uffizi, he was called on to advise in similar efforts taking place across the city, with almost every church possessing priceless works by one Old Master or another.

The bespectacled academic called in experts from around the world and rapidly organised the hiring and training of hundreds of volunteers – the so-called Mud Angels – to dry, clean and restore such damaged material as could be salvaged.

Baldini examines some of the restoration work

Books were washed, disinfected and dried, pages often removed to be later rebound. Paintings were dried with the application of rice paper, with techniques employed in some cases to remove entire paint layers and reapply them to a new surface.

The work went on for decades after the streets had been cleaned up and Florentine life restored to normal but by the mid-1980s it was thought up to two-thirds of all the damaged items had been repaired, including high-profile casualties such as Cimabue’s wooden crucifix in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

Others took much longer. For instance, work on Giorgio Vasari’s huge panel painting of The Last Supper, also housed in the Santa Croce basilica and submerged for 12 hours, was not completed until 2016, half a century after the flood.

Much of the successful restoration was down to the work by Baldini in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, when he reorganized the Uffizi’s conservation facilities under a single institute and put in place formal training programmes for students of conservation to provide a steady supply of highly-skilled staff.

In 1983, Baldini was appointed director of the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro in Rome, Italy’s most prestigious conservation body, in which capacity he led the project to clean and restore the 15^th- century Masaccio frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church in Florence.

Completed by Fillipino Lippi, the frescoes depict scenes from the life of St. Peter and the Book of Genesis. Baldini’s team discovered a virtually unspoiled portion of the fresco hidden behind an altar.

Born in 1921 at Pitigliano, near Grosseto in Tuscany, Baldini wrote books on the Brancacci Chapel, Masaccio and the restorations of Botticelli’s Primavera and Cimabue’s crucifix.

He died at his home in Marina di Massa, a Tuscan coastal town north of Viareggio, some 125km (78 miles) west of Florence, aged 84. His funeral took place at the church of San Giuseppe Vecchio in Marina di Massa and his body was interred at the Cemetery of the Holy Gate at the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte in Florence.

The church of San Miniato al Monte and adjoining cemetery

Travel tip:

San Miniato al Monte stands at one of the highest points in Florence and has been described as one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Italy. Work on building the church began in 1013 at the sight of a chapel marking a cave supposedly occupied by Minas – later St. Miniato – an Armenian prince serving in the Roman army under Emperor Decius, who was denounced as a Christian after becoming a hermit. The Emperor ordered Minas to be thrown to the beasts in an amphitheatre outside Florence only for the animals to refuse to devour him, and instead had him beheaded, upon which he is alleged to have picked up his head, crossed the Arno and walked up the hill of Mons Fiorentinus to his hermitage.

Cimabue's partially restored crucifix in the
Basilica of Santa Croce

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Croce, consecrated in 1442, is the main Franciscan church in Florence and the burial place among others of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the poet Ugo Foscolo, the philosopher Giovanni Gentile and the composer Gioachino Rossini.  It houses works by some of the most illustrious names in the history of art, including Canova, Cimabue, Donatello, Giotto and Vasari.

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The Blessed Vincent Romano

Priest who devoted himself to helping the poor

The Blessed Vincent Romano came
from a poor family

The Blessed Vincent Romano, a priest from Torre del Greco on the Bay of Naples who became known for his tireless devotion to helping the poor, was born on this day in 1751.

Admired for his simple way of life and his efforts in particular to look after the wellbeing of orphaned children, he was nicknamed “the worker priest” by the local community. His commitment to helping poor people extended across the whole Neapolitan region.

He would demonstrate his willingness to roll up his sleeves in a different way in 1794 after his church – now the Basilica of Santa Croce – was all but destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius.

Not only did Romano devote many hours to organising the rebuilding he actually cleared a good deal of rubble with his own hands.

He was born Vincenzo Domenico Romano to poor parents in Naples. He developed a strong faith as a child and began to study for the priesthood in Naples at the age of 14.

He was ordained as a priest in 1775 and assigned to Torre del Greco, where he led a simple and austere life.

Camillo de Vito's painting shows Torre del Greco
engulfed by fire after the 1794 eruption

The eruption of Vesuvius in June 1794 destroyed most of Torre del Greco as a lava flow swept down to the sea, bringing down and the church and part of the bell tower.

Romano, then assistant pastor and treasurer of the church, promoted its reconstruction. The rebuilding began in 1795 and continued over many years, ending with the consecration of the new structure in 1827.

Miraculous events seemed to accompany the reconstruction, including the arrival of a ship from Libya loaded with timber, which was offered as a gift for the construction of roof trusses. No one could explain this act of generosity nor knew who had commissioned it.

The new church was designed by Ignazio di Nardo, who was also responsible for the urban plan for the reconstructed city.

After the death of the incumbent parish priest in 1799, Romano became the provost of the parish, part of his mission being to promote the better education of children. He welcomed all people into his church.

Pope Paul VI, who beatified Romano in 1963

Romano died in December 1831 after a long period of ill health. His remains are housed in the Basilica.

The beatification process began under Pope Gregory XVI in 1843 when Romano given the title of Servant of God. In 1895 he was declared to be Venerable after Pope Leo XIII recognized that Romano had lived a life of heroic virtue.

He was beatified by Pope Paul VI in November 1963 after the necessary two miracles received papal approval.

The first was the healing of Maria Carmela Restucci in December 1891 from an aggressive breast tumour after she had invoked the patronage of Romano, her recovery confirmed by her doctor as something unexplained by science and medicine.

The second was the healing of Maria Carmela Cozzolino in 1940 from an ailment diagnosed by her doctor as throat cancer but which miraculously disappeared when she appeared to be nearing death after she invoked the intercession of Romano. Again, the cure could not be explained.

Travel tip:

Torre del Greco was once part of Magna Graecia – Great Greece – in the eighth and seventh centuries BC but its name is thought to originated in the 11^th century AD when a Greek hermit was said to have occupied an eight-sided costal watch tower called Turris Octava. From the 16^th century it became popular with wealthy families and even Italian nobility, who built elaborate summer palaces there. In the 19^th century and early 20^th century Torre del Greco enjoyed its peak years as a resort to which wealthy Italians flocked, both to enjoy the sea air and as a point from which to scale Vesuvius via a funicular railway. A thriving café scene developed, and the art nouveau Gran Caffè Palumbo became famous across the country.  Since the 17^th century it has been a major producer of coral jewellery.

The rebuilt Basilica of Santa Croce in Torre del Greco

Travel tip:

Built originally at the beginning of the 16^th century, the Basilica of Santa Croce is the religious heart of Torre del Greco and houses the remains of the Blessed Vincent Romano. It was rebuilt after the Vesuvius eruption in 1794 and now overlooks Piazza Santa Croce in the historic centre of the town. Other buildings of note include the 18^th century Palazzo Vallelonga and the Camaldoli alla Torre monastery.

Giovanni Gentile – philosopher

The principal intellectual spokesman for fascism

Giovanni Gentile wrote part of The Doctrine
of Fascism for Benito Mussolini

Giovanni Gentile, a major figure in Italian idealist philosophy, was born on this day in 1875 in Castelvetrano in Sicily.

Known as ‘the philosopher of Fascism’, Gentile was the ghostwriter of part of Benito Mussolini’s The Doctrine of Fascism in 1932. His own ‘actual idealism’ was strongly influenced by the German philosopher, Georg Hegel.

Gentile's rejection of individualism and acceptance of collectivism helped him justify the totalitarian element of Fascism.

After a series of university appointments, Gentile became professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Rome in 1917.

While writing The Philosophy of Marx – La filosophia di Marx – a Hegelian examination of Karl Marx’s ideas, he met writer and philosopher Benedetto Croce. The two men became friends and co-editors of the periodical La Critica until 1924, when a lasting disagreement occurred over Gentile’s embrace of Fascism.

Gentile was Minister of Education in the Fascist government of Italy from October 1922 to July 1924 carrying out wide reforms, which had a lasting impact on Italian education.

In 1925 he served as president of two commissions on constitutional reform, helping to lay the foundations of the Fascist corporate state.

Gentile is buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence

After acting as president of the Supreme Council of Public Education and as a member of the Fascist Grand Council between 1925 and 1929, he saw his political influence steadily decline.

His most important achievement was the Enciclopedia Italiana, which he began to plan in 1925 and edited until 1943 and he also wrote prolifically on the subjects of philosophy and education.

After the fall of Benito Mussolini in 1943, Gentile supported the Fascist Social Republic established by the Germans at Salò. He served as president of the Academy of Italy, Italy’s foremost intellectual institution, until his death.

In 1944 a group of anti-Fascist partisans shot Gentile dead as he returned from the prefecture in Florence. Ironically he had been there arguing for the release from prison of anti-Fascist intellectuals.

The church of Santa Maria Assunta, also known as the
Chiesa Madre - mother church - in Castelvetrano

Travel tip:

Castelvetrano, the birthplace of Giovanni Gentile, is in the province of Trapani in Sicily. It is first mentioned in historical records dating from the 12th century. The Church of St John, which is just outside the city walls, was founded in 1412. The mother church, Chiesa Madre, which dates back to the 16th century, is in the town’s main square, Piazza Tagliavia. The remains of Selinunte, an ancient Greek city, are just outside the city, on a site overlooking the sea.

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence

Travel tip:

Gentile was living and working in Florence when he was shot dead by anti-Fascists on 15 April, 1944. He is buried in the church of Santa Croce beside the remains of Galileo and Machiavelli. The Basilica of Santa Croce is the principal Franciscan Church in Florence and is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians. It is also known to Italians as the Temple of the Italian Glories.

More reading:

Why Luigi Einaudi signed the Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals 

Benito Mussolini and the Founding of the Italian Fascists

How the Republic of Salò was Mussolini's last stand

Also on this day:

1924: The anti-Fascist speech that cost a socialist politician his life

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Count Vittorio Alfieri – playwright and poet

Romantic nobleman inspired the oppressed with his writing

A painting by Francois-Xavier Fabre of Alfieri,
property of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta

Dramatist and poet Count Vittorio Alfieri was born on this day in 1749 in Asti in Piedmont.

He earned himself the title of ‘the precursor of the Risorgimento’ because the predominant theme of his poetry was the overthrow of tyranny and with his dramas he tried to encourage a national spirit in Italy. He has also been called ‘the founder of Italian tragedy.’

Alfieri was educated at the Military Academy of Turin but disliked military life and obtained leave to travel throughout Europe.

In France he was profoundly influenced by studying the writing of Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu and in England he embarked on a doomed affair with an unsuitable woman.

When he returned to Italy in 1772 he settled in Turin and resigned his military commission.  Soon afterwards, he wrote a tragedy, Cleopatra, which was performed to great acclaim in 1775.

He decided to devote himself to literature and began a methodical study of the classics and of Italian poetry.

Since he expressed himself mainly in French, which was the language of the ruling classes in Turin, he went to Tuscany to familiarise himself with pure Italian.

Francois-Xavier Fabre also painted Alfieri with the Countess
of Albany, with whom he lived in Italy and France

Over the next few years he wrote 14 tragedies and numerous poems. He wrote five odes on American independence, an ode on the fall of the Bastille in Paris in 1789 and a political treatise on tyranny.

While in Florence, Alfieri met Princess Louise of Stolberg Gedern, also known as the Countess of Albany, who was the wife of the Stuart pretender to the English throne.

Although she was living with her husband, Charles Edward Stuart, otherwise known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, Alfieri formed a serious relationship with her. When she moved to Rome to get away from her husband, Alfieri followed her there.

She then moved to France and he went to join her there. They lived together in both Alsace and Paris, but eventually left France because of the revolution and returned to live in Florence. Alfieri remained deeply attached to her for the rest of his life.

He chose to use a dramatic style in his writing to persuade the oppressed to accept his political ideas and to inspire them to heroic deeds. Most of his tragedies represented the struggle between a champion of liberty and a tyrant.

This statue of Alfieri is a feature
of Piazza Alfieri in Asti

One of the best of his published tragedies is Filippo, in which Philip II of Spain is presented as a tyrant. Saul, which is considered to be his masterpiece, has been singled out as the most powerful drama ever presented in the Italian theatre.

Alfieri died in Florence in 1803. His autobiography, Vita di Vittorio Alfieri scritta da esso, The life of Vittorio Alfieri written by himself, was published posthumously in 1804.

Alfieri and the Countess of Albany were both buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

Travel tip:

Asti, where Alfieri was born, is a city in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, situated about 55 kilometres to the east of Turin. It is famous for its high-quality wines, Moscato d’Asti, a sparking white wine and Barbera, a prestigious red. Every year a Palio, a bare-back horse race, is held in Piazza Alfieri, the square named after the writer, on the third Sunday in September.

The tomb of Vittorio Alfieri in the Basilica of Santa
Croce in Florence was sculpted by Antonio Canova

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, where Vittorio Alfieri is buried, is the largest Franciscan church in the world and the present building dates back to the 13th century. The Basilica has 16 chapels, many of them decorated with frescoes by Giotto and his pupils. It is the burial place for many important Italians, including Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and Rossini. Alfieri's tomb was sculpted by Antonio Canova, who is considered one of Italy's greatest sculptors.

More reading:

Bonnie Prince Charlie - Italian-born heir to the throne of Great Britain

The genius of Antonio Canova

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

Also on this day:

1957: The death of conductor Arturo Toscanini

(Picture credits: Asti statue by Palladino Neil; Santa Croce tomb by jollyroger; via Wikimedia Commons)

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