18 September

NEW - Domitian – Roman emperor

Efficient tyrant rebuilt parts of Rome

The Emperor Domitian, who kept the Roman upper classes under control by subjecting them to a 15-year reign of terror, died on this day in 96 AD in Rome.  He has been described as ‘a ruthless, but efficient, autocrat,’ who clashed with the Senate and drastically reduced their powers. But he strengthened the Roman economy and started a massive building programme to restore the city of Rome, which had been damaged by successive wars and fires.  The last member of the Flavian dynasty, Domitian was the son of Vespasian, and the brother of Titus, who were his two predecessors as Emperor.  He played only a minor role during their reigns, but after the death of his brother, Titus, who had no children, Domitian was declared Emperor by the Praetorian Guard.  Domitian revalued the Roman coinage and strengthened the border defences of the Empire. He fought wars in Caledonia (Scotland) and Dacia, which roughly corresponds with present day Romania, and he became popular with both the ordinary people and the army.  But he was considered a tyrant by the Roman senate because he appointed himself as a permanent censor and he tried to control public and private morals. Read more...

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Francesca Caccini – singer and composer

Court musician composed oldest surviving opera by a woman

Prolific composer and talented singer Francesca Caccini was born on this day in 1587 in Florence.  Sometimes referred to by the nickname La Cecchina, she composed what is widely considered to be the oldest surviving opera by a woman composer, La Liberazione di Ruggiero, which was adapted from the epic poem, Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.  Caccini was the daughter of the composer and musician, Giulio Caccini, and she received her early musical training from him. Like her father, she regularly sang at the Medici court.  She was part of an ensemble of singers referred to as le donne di Giulio Romano, which included her sister, Settimia, and other unnamed pupils.  After her sister married and moved to Mantua, the ensemble broke up, but Caccini continued to serve the court as a teacher, singer and composer, where she was popular because of her musical virtuosity.  She is believed to have been a quick and prolific composer but sadly very little of her music has survived. She was considered equal at the time to Jacopo Peri and Marco da Gagliano, who were also working for the court.  Read more…

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Rossano Brazzi - Hollywood star

Actor quit as a lawyer for career on the big screen

The movie actor Rossano Brazzi, whose credits include The Barefoot Contessa, Three Coins in the Fountain and South Pacific, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.  Brazzi gave up a promising career as a lawyer in order to act and went on to appear in more than 200 films, more often than not cast as a handsome heartbreaker or romantic aristocrat.  He was at his peak in the 50s and 60s but continued to accept parts until the late 80s. His last major role was as Father DeCarlo in Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981.  Brazzi's family moved to Florence when he was aged four. His father Adelmo, a shoemaker, opened a leather factory in which Rossano, his brother Oscar and his sister, Franca, would all eventually work.  Adelmo had ambitions for Rossano, however, helping him win a place at the University of Florence, where he obtained a law degree, and then sending him to Rome to work in the legal practice of a family friend. But Rossano had become involved in a drama group at university and looked for opportunities to continue acting.  Eventually, he was approached by a film director and when he was offered a part in a film in 1939 he quit his job with the legal practice in order to devote himself to acting as a career.  Read more…

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Alberto Franchetti - opera composer

Caruso sang his arias on first commercial record in 1902

The opera composer Alberto Franchetti, some of whose works were performed by the great tenor Enrico Caruso for his first commercial recording, was born on this day in 1860 in Turin.  Caruso had been taken with Franchetti’s opera, Germania, when he sang the male lead role in the opera’s premiere at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in March 1902.  A month later, Caruso famously made his first recording on a phonograph in a Milan hotel room and chose a number of arias from Germania and critics noted that he sang the aria Ah vieni qui… No, non chiuder gli occhi vaghi with a particular sweetness of voice.  A friend and rival of Giacomo Puccini, Franchetti had a style said to have been influenced by the German composers Wagner and Meyerbeer. He was sometimes described as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."  Despite the exposure the success of Germania and the association with Caruso brought him, Franchetti’s operas slipped quite quickly into obscurity.  Blame for that can be levelled at least in part at the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938, which made life and work very difficult for Italy's Jewish population.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Twelve Caesars: Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves, edited by James Rives

The Twelve Caesars - Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian - created an empire which dominated the then-known world and influenced it for a millennium. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. As secretary of studies under Trajan and then private secretary to Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius has access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colourful biographical works in history.  His format and style set the tone for Western biography - a review of ancestry and reign, but, mostly, a mirror to reflect the most ridiculous aspects of the character, and a vehicle for gossip. Julius Caesar does cross the Rubicon and is assassinated. Beyond that, we also learn that Caesar had piercing dark eyes and an unease about his baldness. Nero, we are told, employed over five thousand robust young men to learn various kinds of applause which they were to practise whenever he performed.  This masterpiece of observation, immortalised in Robert Graves's classic translation, presents us with a gallery of vividly drawn - and all too human - individuals.

Suetonius, in full Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, was born in 69 AD and in 117 AD entered Trajan's imperial service, holding many offices until 122 AD when he was dismissed. Suetonius wrote a number of biographies. Robert Graves was born in 1895. He went from school to the First World War, where he was seriously wounded at the Battle of the Somme. He wrote his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, in 1929, and it was soon established as a modern classic. He died in 1985 in Majorca, his home since 1929.

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