12 October

NEW - Bernardo Pisano – musician and priest

First composer to have collection of his music printed

Bernardo Pisano, who is believed to have been the first composer of the Italian madrigal, was born on this day in 1490 in Florence.  Pisano - sometimes known as Pagoli - was so important in musical circles during his lifetime that he is also thought to have been the first composer anywhere in the world to have a printed collection of secular music devoted entirely to himself.  Although he was born in Florence, it is supposed that, because he used the name Pisano, he must have also spent some time living in Pisa. As a young man, he sang and studied music at the Church of the Annunziata in Florence. In 1512, he became maestro di cappella there in addition to supervising the choristers and singing in the chapels himself. As a favourite of the Medici family, he was appointed to sing in the papal chapel in Rome in 1514 after Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope Leo X. Read more… 

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Ascanio Sobrero - chemist

Professor who discovered nitroglycerine

The chemist Ascanio Sobrero, who discovered the volatile compound that became known as nitroglycerine, was born on this day in 1812 in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont.  Nitroglycerine has a pharmaceutical use as a vasodilator, improving blood flow in the treatment of angina, but it is more widely known as the key ingredient in explosives such as dynamite and gelignite.  Its commercial potential was exploited not by Sobrero but by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish businessman and philanthropist who gave his name to the annually awarded Nobel Prizes.  Sobrero, aware of how much damage it could cause, had actually warned against nitroglycerine being used outside the laboratory.  Little is known about Sobrero’s early life, apart from his being born in Casale Monferrato, a town about 60km (37 miles) east of Turin.  Read more…

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Piero della Francesca - Renaissance painter

Mathematician famous for exploring perspective

Piero della Francesca, recognised as one of the greatest painters of the early Renaissance, died on this day in 1492 in what was then Borgo Santo Sepolcro, near Arezzo.  He was thought to have been around 77 years old and it has been popularly theorised that he was blind in the later years of his life, although evidence to support the claim is sketchy.  Della Francesca’s work was characterised by his exploration of perspective and geometric form, which was hardly surprising since in his own time he was as famous among his peers as a mathematician and geometer as well as an artist.  He came to be recognised in the 20th century as having made a major contribution to the Renaissance.  His fresco cycle The History – or Legend – of the True Cross in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo, painted between 1452 and 1466, is among his best-known works. Read more…

Gillo Pontecorvo - film director

Most famous film was banned in France

The film director Gillo Pontecorvo, whose best known film, La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 and was nominated for three Academy Awards, died on this day in 2006 in Rome, aged 86.  A former journalist who had been an Italian Resistance volunteer and a member of the Italian Communist Party, Pontecorvo had been in declining health for some years, although he continued to make documentary films and commercials until shortly before his death.  Although it was made a decade or so after the peak years of the movement, La battaglia di Algeri is in the tradition of Italian neorealism, with newsreel style footage and mainly non-professional actors.  Pontecorvo also won acclaim for his 1960 film Kapò, set in a Second World War concentration camp. Read more… 

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Luciano Pavarotti - tenor

Singer who became known as ‘King of the High Cs’

Luciano Pavarotti, one of the greatest operatic tenors of all time, was born on this day in 1935 in Modena in Emilia-Romagna.  Pavarotti made many stage appearances and recordings of arias from opera throughout his career. He also crossed over into popular music, gaining fame for the superb quality of his voice.  Towards the end of his career, as one of the legendary Three Tenors, he became  known to an even wider audience because of his concerts and television appearances.  Pavarotti began his professional career on stage in Italy in 1961 and gave his final performance, singing the Puccini aria, Nessun Dorma, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. He died the following year as a result of pancreatic cancer, aged 71.  The young Pavarotti had dreamt of becoming a goalkeeper for a football team.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Oxford Book of Italian Madrigals (Vocal score), by Alec Harman

The Italian madrigal flourished during the Renaissance, emerging in the 1520s as a secular vocal form blending poetic expression with intricate polyphony. Initially influenced by the frottola and Franco-Flemish styles, it evolved under composers such as Philippe Verdelot and Jacques Arcadelt. By the late 16th century, madrigals grew more expressive and dramatic, exemplified by Luca Marenzio and Carlo Gesualdo’s chromatic innovations. Claudio Monteverdi later transformed the genre, bridging Renaissance and Baroque aesthetics. Madrigals were typically sung a cappella by small ensembles, setting Italian poetry - often Petrarchan - to music. Their emotional depth and artistic refinement made them a cornerstone of early modern European music.  The Oxford Book of Italian Madrigals contains 55 examples, for mixed voices covering the whole range of types, and the whole period. All have been chosen for their musical value - they are small masterpieces.

Alec Harman was an American musicologist and professor of music, specialising in medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music.

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