27 May

NEW - Giovanni Battista Beccaria - physicist and mathematician

Monk who explained how lightning conductors work

The physicist, mathematician and Piarist monk Giovanni Battista Beccaria, whose work with electricity confirmed and expanded upon the discoveries of the American polymath and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, died in Turin on this day in 1781.  At the age of 64 he had been ill and in pain for some years but was working right up to his death on a treatise on meteors.  For much of his life, Beccaria had been occupied in the study of electricity with particular focus on the discoveries made by Franklin, with whom he corresponded regularly.  He successfully explained such things as the workings of the Leyden Jar and the Franklin square, two devices in which static electricity could be captured and stored, and why pointed objects could discharge electrified objects at a distance.  He was also able to explain why lightning rods, or lightning conductors, protect a building by providing a path along which electricity generated in the air in the form of lightning can be directed safely to earth.  Beccaria wrote and published a complete treatise on Franklin’s electrical theory, called Dell’ Elettricismo naturale ed artificiale (On Natural and Artificial Electricity) in 1753.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Tornatore - writer and director

Oscar winner for Cinema Paradiso

The screenwriter and director Giuseppe Tornatore, the creator of the Oscar-winning classic movie Cinema Paradiso, was born on this day in 1956 in Bagheria, a small town a few kilometres along the coast from the Sicilian capital Palermo.  Known as Nuovo Cinema Paradiso in Italy, Tornatore’s best-known work won the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards following its release in 1988.  The movie, written by Tornatore, tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director based in Rome who returns to his native Sicily after hearing of the death of the man who kindled his love of the cinema, the projectionist at the picture house in his local village, who became a father figure to him after his own father was killed on wartime national service.  Much of the film consists of flashbacks to Salvatore’s life as a child in the immediate post-war years and there is a memorable performance by Salvatore Cascio as the director’s six-year-old self, when he was known as Totò, as he develops an unlikely yet enduring friendship with Alfredo, the projectionist, played by the French actor Philippe Noiret.  Read more…

Lucrezia Crivelli – lady in waiting

Mystery of the beautiful woman in painting by Leonardo

Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, who was for a long time believed to be the subject of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, died on this day in 1508 in Canneto sull’Oglio in Lombardy.  Crivelli served as a lady in waiting to Ludovico Sforza’s wife, Beatrice d’Este, from 1475 until Beatrice’s death in 1497.  She also became the Duke’s mistress and gave birth to his son, Giovanni Paolo, who went on to become the first Marquess of Caravaggio and a celebrated condottiero.  Crivelli lived for many years in the Castello of Canneto near Mantua under the protection of Isabella d’Este, the elder sister of Beatrice, until her death in 1508.  Coincidentally, her former lover, Ludovico Sforza, is believed to have died on the same day in 1508 while being kept prisoner in the dungeons of the castle of Loches en Touraine in France, having been captured by the French during the Italian Wars.  It was never proved, but it was assumed for many years that Crivelli may have been the subject of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting La belle Ferronnière, which is displayed in the Louvre in Paris.  Read more…

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Bruno Vespa – television journalist

TV host opened the door to late night political debate

Bruno Vespa, the founding host of the television programme Porta a Porta, was born on this day in 1944 in L’Aquila in Abruzzo.  Vespa has fronted the late night television talk show, which literally means ‘Door to Door’ in English, since Italy's state broadcaster Rai launched the programme in 1996.  Vespa became a radio announcer with Rai when he was 18 and began hosting the news programme Telegiornale RAI a few years later.  He had begun his career in journalism by writing sports features for the L’Aquila edition of the newspaper, Il Tempo, when he was just 16 years old.  On television, he became well known for interviewing influential world figures just before they became famous, an example being his programme featuring Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the year before he was elected as Pope John Paul II.  In June 1984, Vespa was the official commentator for the live televised broadcast of the state funeral for Enrico Berlinguer, the former leader of the Italian Communist party.  Vespa has won awards for his journalism and television programmes and has also written many books.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Playing with Fire: Histories of the Lightning Rod, edited by David J Rhees, Oliver Hochadel and Peter Heering

Playing with Fire is a collection of historical and scientific studies that show the impressive significance of the invention, development, and use of the lightning rod in the past 250 years. The rod was a device long taken to be a symbol of enlightenment and utility, judged by some people the very first practical application of the experimental physical sciences to truly practical ends; opposition to its introduction was similarly taken to be a sign of superstition. These essays move beyond the lightning rods' storied revolutionary symbolism to explore the range of techniques and experiments that fashioned conductors and their varied meanings. An intriguing and entertaining history of one of modernity's most cherished technoscientific objects.

David Rhees is Executive Director of the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Oliver Hochadel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Peter Heering is Professor of Physics and Physics Didactics at the University of Flensburg in Germany.

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