13 August

NEW - Giambologna – sculptor

Artist worked for three successive Medici Grand Dukes in Florence

Giambologna, the last in the line of significant Renaissance sculptors, died on this day in 1608 in Florence.  He was considered so important by the Medici family that once he had started working for them, they would never allow him to leave their city. They feared he would be enticed away by either the Austrian or Spanish branches of the Habsburgs to work for them.  His best known works include Abduction of a Sabine Woman - often known as Rape of the Sabine Women - in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, and his Neptune, atop the Fountain of Neptune, in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore.  Although influenced by Michelangelo, Giambologna produced many beautiful works in marble and bronze in his own late-Mannerist style, with perhaps less emphasis on emotion, and more on the elegance of the figures.  Read more…

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Domenico Dolce - fashion designer

One half of hugely successful Dolce & Gabbana company

The designer Domenico Dolce, whose partnership with Stefano Gabbana gave rise to one of the world’s most famous fashion houses, was born on this day in 1958 in Polizzi Generosa, a beautiful town set in the hills of northern Sicily, about 90km (56 miles) southeast of Palermo.  He and Gabbana, who he met in Milan, founded Dolce & Gabbana in 1985. The company took off in 1993 after the pop star Madonna chose them to design the costumes for a concert tour.  The company today generates about €1.3 billion in revenues and employs 5,500 people worldwide.  Dolce was born into the world of clothes. His father was a tailor and his mother worked in retail, at different times selling fabrics and lingerie.  He is said to have learned to sew at the age of six and made costumes for dolls.  After studying at art college in Palermo, Dolce moved to Milan. Read more…

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Aurelio Saffi – republican activist

Politician prominent in Risorgimento movement

The politician Aurelio Saffi, who was a close ally of the republican revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini during Italy’s move towards unification in the 19th century, was born on this day in 1819 in Forlì.  He was a member of the short-lived Roman Republic of 1849, which was crushed by French troops supporting the temporarily deposed Pope Pius IX, and was involved in the planning of an uprising in Milan in 1853.  Saffi was sentenced to 20 years in jail for his part in the Milan plot but by then had fled to England.  He returned to Italy in 1860 and when the Risorgimento realised its aim with unification Saffi was appointed a deputy in the first parliament of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.  At the time of Saffi’s birth, Forlì, now part of Emilia-Romagna, was part of the Papal States. He was educated in law in Ferrara, but became politically active in his native city. Read more…

Camillo Olivetti - electrical engineer

Founder of Italy’s first typewriter factory Olivetti 

The electrical engineer Camillo Olivetti, who opened Italy’s first typewriter factory and founded a company that would become a major player in electronic business technology, was born on this day in 1868 in Ivrea in Piedmont.  The Olivetti company that later produced Italy’s first electronic computer was developed by Adriano Olivetti, the oldest of Camillo's five children, but it was his father’s vision and enterprise that laid the foundations for the brand’s success and established the Olivetti name.  Camillo came from a Jewish middle-class background. His father, Salvador Benedetto, was a successful merchant. His mother, Elvira, came from a banking family in Modena but her interests were more cultural. She was fluent in four languages.  Elvira had full care of Camillo after Salvador died when the boy was only one and sent him to boarding school in Milan. Read more… 

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Salvador Luria – microbiologist

Award winning scientist who advanced medical research

Nobel prize winner Salvador Luria was born on this day as Salvatore Edoardo Luria in 1912 in Turin.  The microbiologist became famous for showing that bacterial resistance to viruses is genetically inherited and he was awarded a Nobel prize in 1969.  He studied in the medical school of the University of Turin and from 1936 to 1937 Luria served in the Italian army as a medical officer. He took classes in radiology at the University of Rome and began to formulate methods of testing genetic theory.  When Mussolini’s regime banned Jews from academic research fellowships, Luria moved to Paris but was forced to move again when the Nazis invaded France in 1940. Fearing for his life, he fled the capital on a bicycle, eventually reaching Marseille, where he received an immigration visa to the United States.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: An Art Lover's Guide to Florence, by Judith Testa

No city but Florence contains such an intense concentration of art produced in such a short span of time. The sheer number and proximity of works of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence can be so overwhelming that Florentine hospitals treat hundreds of visitors each year for symptoms brought on by trying to see them all, an illness famously identified with the French author Stendhal.  While most guidebooks offer only brief descriptions of a large number of works, with little discussion of the historical background, Judith Testa gives a fresh perspective on the rich and brilliant art of the Florentine Renaissance in An Art Lover's Guide to Florence. Concentrating on a number of the greatest works, by such masters as Botticelli and Michelangelo, Testa explains each piece in terms of what it meant to the people who produced it and for whom they made it, deftly treating the complex interplay of politics, sex, and religion that were involved in the creation of those works. 

Born in New York, Judith Testa taught history of art at Northern Illinois University. As well as books about art in Rome and Florence, she is also the author of Sal Maglie: Baseball's Demon Barber, about a New York Giants pitcher of the 1950s.

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