3 June

NEW - Boldrino da Panicale - condottiero

Fierce fighter murdered in act of treachery

The soldier of fortune known as Boldrino da Panicale, one of the most feared yet respected of Italy’s many condottieri in the second half of the 14th century, was killed on this day in 1391 near the town of Macerata in what is now the Marche region.  He had been lured to a banquet, thought to have been staged at the Castello della Rancia, a castle about 13km (8 miles) west of Macerata, by Andrea Tomacelli, brother of Pope Boniface IX and Rector of the Duchy of Spoleto.  During an era when towns and neighbouring land changed hands regularly as rival leaders fought for territorial gains, Boldrino had been employed by Boniface IX to retake some captured parts of the Marche for the Papal States.  He handed back some of the papal territory but decided to keep other areas for himself, using the threat of violence to extract payments from local governors and hoping that he would be allowed to rule the area and be granted a marquisate.  Boniface IX had sent Tomacelli to bring peace to the region. While there was no love lost between him and Tomacelli, Boldrino accepted the invitation to the banquet, perhaps hoping that the occasion would be some sort of investiture, giving him the title he craved.  Read more…

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Roberto Rossellini - film director

Roman movie pioneer whose 'neorealism' had lasting influence

Film director Roberto Rossellini died on this day in 1977 in Rome, the city that provided the backdrop to his greatest work and earned him the reputation as the 'father of neorealism'.  Rossellini had been associated with the Fascist regime during the early part of the Second World War, in part due to his friendship with Vittorio Mussolini, the film producer son of the dictator, Benito Mussolini.  His three wartime movies, The White Ship, A Pilot Returns and The Man with a Cross, all had elements of pro-Fascist propaganda.  But after Mussolini was dismissed and his government collapsed in 1943, Rossellini began work on the anti-Fascist film Rome, Open City, which he described as a history of Rome under Nazi occupation.  It starred the popular actor Aldo Fabrizi in the role of a priest ultimately executed by the Nazis and the actress Anna Magnani as the heroine, Pina, but also featured footage of real Roman citizens originally intended to be used in two short documentary films.  Rossellini also used non-professional actors for many scenes, feeling that they could portray the hardships and poverty of Rome under occupation more authentically.  Read more…

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Pietro Paolini – artist

Follower of Caravaggio passed on his techniques to the next generation

Pietro Paolini, a painter in the Baroque period in Italy, was born on this day in 1603 in Lucca in Tuscany.  Sometimes referred to as Il Lucchese, Paolini was a follower of the controversial Italian artist Caravaggio.  He also founded an academy in his native city and taught the next generation of painters in Lucca.  Paolini’s father, Tommaso, sent him to Rome when he was 16 to train in the workshop of Angelo Caroselli, who was a follower of Caravaggio.  Paolini had the opportunity to study various schools and techniques, which is reflected in the flexible style of his work. He was exposed to the second generation of painters in the Caravaggio tradition such as Bartolomeo Manfredi, Cecco del Caravaggio and Bartolomeo Cavarozzi.  The principal themes of Paolini’s work were the subjects popularised by Caravaggio around the turn of the 17th century involving lower class people such as hawkers, prostitutes and musicians. Some of his paintings have allegorical meanings, such as The Allegory of the Five Senses, which depicts a darkened inn with people engaged in playing music and drinking, each representing one of the five senses.  Read more…

Domenico Antonio Vaccaro - painter, sculptor and architect

Creative genius whose legacy is still visible around Naples

The painter, sculptor and architect Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, who created some notable sculptures and designed some of the finest churches and palaces around Naples in the early 18th century, was born in the great southern Italian city on this day in 1678.  Vaccaro was also an accomplished painter, but it is his architectural legacy for which he is most remembered.  Among the famous churches attributed to Vaccaro are the Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo, which overlooks Piazza Dante, and the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Concezione a Montecalvario, which can be found in the Spanish Quarter, while he completed the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Stella in the district of the same name.  His notable palaces included the Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, just off Via Toledo, and the beautiful late Baroque palace, the Palazzo dell’Immacolatella, built on the water’s edge in the 1740s and now dwarfed by the enormous ocean-going ships that dock either side of it. Vaccaro was also responsible for finishing the carved obelisk topped by a bronze statue in Piazza di San Domenico Maggiore.  He sculpted a statue of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, in the city’s cathedral.  Read more...

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The Blessed Vincent Romano

Priest who devoted himself to helping the poor

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.  The eruption of Vesuvius in June 1794 destroyed most of Torre del Greco as a lava flow swept down to the sea.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Adventures Of Roberto Rossellini: His Life And Films, by Tag Gallagher 

Roberto Rossellini, movie-maker, bon vivant, and passionate intellectual,was the key figure of Italian neorealism, the godfather of the French New Wave, and a television pioneer. The maker of such classics as Rome Open City, Paisan, Stromboli, The Flowers of St. Francis, Voyage to Italy, and The Rise of Louis XIV, he was Anna Magnani's lover, Ingrid Bergman's husband and Isabella Rossellini's father. Continually enmeshed in controversy, perhaps no other figure in the history of world cinema has been so reviled, and so revered. Tag Gallagher's masterful biography of Rossellini, the first in any language, was 25 years in the making. It is the result of assiduous research, lengthy interviews with almost everyone who knew him, and investigations into the making and reception of his films. The cast of characters includes Vittorio Mussolini - Il Duce's son and Rossellini's Fascist-era producer - Howard Hughes, who produced Stromboli and then, in a fit of jealousy over Ingrid Bergman, butchered its American release, plus many others who figured in his life. Combining a portrait of a dynamic and daring man with brilliant discussions of his work, The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini tells a story as rich and moving as his films.

Born in Philadelphia in 1943 to an Irish-American family, Tag Gallagher is a film critic and author, with specialist knowledge of the lives and works of directors such as John Ford, Roberto Rossellini, Jean Renoir and Kenji Mizoguchi.

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