16 September

NEW - Pietro Tacca - sculptor

Pupil of Giambologna became major figure in own right

The sculptor Pietro Tacca, who succeeded his master, Giambologna, as court sculptor to the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany, was born on this day in 1577 in Carrara.  Tacca, who initially produced work in the Mannerist style, later made a significant contribution to the advance of Baroque and helped preserve Florence’s pre-eminence in bronze casting.  As well as his work for the Medici family, Tacca achieved something never before attempted with his marble equestrian statue of King Philip IV of Spain in Madrid’s Plaza de Oriente.  The sculpture, considered to be a masterpiece, is notable for depicting the monarch on a rearing horse with its front legs off the ground and the entire weight of the statue supported by its hind legs and tail.  Tacca began attending the Florence workshop of Giambologna in 1592 at the age of 15. Giambologna was the most important sculptor of his time in Florence, not only for his relationship with the Medici but also for his bronze statue of Neptune above the Fontana di Nettuno in Bologna.  When Giambologna’s first assistant, Pietro Francavilla, left for Paris in 1601, Tacca was chosen to fill his role.  Read more…

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Sir Anthony Panizzi - revolutionary librarian

Political refugee knighted by Queen Victoria

Sir Anthony Panizzi, who as Principal Librarian at the British Museum was knighted by Queen Victoria, was a former Italian revolutionary, born Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi in Brescello in what is now Reggio Emilia, on this day in 1797.  A law graduate from the University of Parma, Panizzi began his working life as a civil servant, attaining the position of Inspector of Public Schools in his home town.   At the same time he was a member of the Carbonari, the network of secret societies set up across Italy in the early part of the 19th century, whose aim was to overthrow the repressive regimes of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sardinia, the Papal States and the Duchy of Modena and bring about the unification of Italy as a republic or a constitutional monarchy.  He was party to a number of attempted uprisings but was forced to flee the country in 1822, having been tipped off that he was to be arrested and would face trial as a subversive.  Panizzi found a haven in Switzerland, but after publishing a book that attacked the Duchy of Modena, of which Brescello was then part, he was sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Modena.  Read more…

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Terror attack on Café de Paris

Grenades thrown into iconic meeting place

The Café de Paris, a hang-out for Rome’s rich and famous during the 1950s and ‘60s and a symbol of the era encapsulated in Fellini’s classic film La dolce vita, was attacked by terrorists on this day in 1985.  Tables outside the iconic venue, on the city’s fashionable Via Veneto, were packed with tourists on a busy evening when two grenades were thrown from a passing car or motorcycle.  One of the devices, of the classic type known as pineapple grenades, failed to explode, but the other did go off, injuring up to 39 people in the vicinity.  Although 20 were taken to hospital, thankfully most were released quickly after treatment for minor wounds. There were no fatalities and only one of those hospitalised, a chef who happened to be waiting on tables at the time of the attack, suffered serious injuries.  Most of the victims were reported to be American, Argentine, West German or British tourists enjoying a late evening drink while taking in the atmosphere of Roman nightlife on a street lined with shops, cafés, airline offices and luxury hotels.  It was thought that three individuals carried out the attack but only one was apprehended and charged.  Read more…

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Sette e mezzo: The Palermo revolt of 1866

Insurgents took control of city after a major uprising 

The Sette e mezzo revolt - so named because it lasted seven and a half days - began in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, on this day in 1866.  The uprising - five years after the island became part of the new Kingdom of Italy - brought to the surface the tensions that existed in southern Italy following the Risorgimento movement and unification. It was put down harshly by the new government of Italy, who laid siege to the city of Palermo, deploying more than 40,000 soldiers under the command of General Raffaele Cadorna.  It is not known exactly how many Sicilians were killed before the revolt was subdued. Several thousand died as a result of a cholera outbreak that swept through Palermo and the surrounding area, but it is thought that more than 1,000 may have been killed as a direct consequence of the siege.  Sicily did not take well to the imposition of a national government, bringing with it plans to modernise the traditional economy and political system. New laws and taxes and the introduction of compulsory military service caused resentment. There was a feeling also that the industrialisation of Italy was too heavily concentrated in the north, with little investment being made in the south.  Read more…

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Paolo Di Lauro - Camorra boss

Capture of mobster struck at heart of Naples underworld

Italy's war against organised crime achieved one of its biggest victories on this day in 2005 when the powerful Camorra boss Paolo Di Lauro was arrested.  In a 6am raid, Carabinieri officers surrounded a building in the notorious Secondigliano district of Naples and entered the modest apartment in which Di Lauro was living with a female companion.  The 52-year-old gang boss did not resist arrest, possibly believing any charges against him would not be made to stick.  However, at a subsequent trial he was convicted and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment for drug trafficking and other crimes and remains in jail.  Di Lauro's conviction was significant because it removed the man who had been at the head of one of the most lucrative criminal networks in all of Italy for more than 20 years and yet managed to maintain such a low profile that police at times suspected he was dead.  At its peak, the Di Lauro clan presided over an organisation that imported and distributed cocaine and heroin said to be worth around €200 million per year.  The clan essentially controlled the run-down northern suburbs of Naples, making money also from real estate, counterfeit high-end fashion and prostitution.  Read more…

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Alessandro Fortis - politician

Revolutionary who became Prime Minister

Alessandro Fortis, a controversial politician who was also Italy’s first Jewish prime minister, was born on this day in 1841 in Forlì in Emilia-Romagna.  Fortis led the government from March 1905 to February 1906. A republican follower of Giuseppe Mazzini and a volunteer in the army of Giuseppe Garibaldi, he was politically of the Historical Left but in time managed to alienate both sides of the divide with his policies.  He attracted the harshest criticism for his decision to nationalise the railways, one of his personal political goals, which was naturally opposed by the conservatives on the Right but simultaneously upset his erstwhile supporters on the Left, because the move had the effect of heading off a strike by rail workers. By placing the network in state control, Fortis turned all railway employees into civil servants, who were not allowed to strike under the law.  Some politicians also felt the compensation given to the private companies who previously ran the railways was far too generous and suspected Fortis of corruption.  His foreign policies, meanwhile, upset politicians and voters on both sides.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750: Volume One, The Early Baroque, by Rudolf Wittkower. Revised by Joseph Connors and Jennifer Montagu

The first of three volumes, this classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every centre between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however, lies in the architecture and sculpture of the exhilarating years of Roman High Baroque, when Bernini, Borromini, and Cortona were all at work under a series of enlightened popes. Wittkower’s text is now accompanied by a critical introduction and substantial new bibliography and includes colour illustrations for the first time.  Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750: Volume One, The Early Baroque is part of the Yale University Press Pelican History of Art Series.

Rudolf Wittkower was Durning-Lawrence professor of the history of art at the University of London, chairman of the department of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, Kress Professor at the National Gallery, Washington, and Slade Professor at Cambridge. Jennifer Montagu was for many years the curator of the photographic collection at the Warburg Institute, University of London. Joseph Connors is professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University.

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