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Agostina Segatori – artist’s model and restaurateur
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Van Gogh paid Italian café owner with works of art in exchange for meals
Agostina Segatori, whose Italian looks inspired many of the top French painters in the 19th century, was born on this day in 1841 in Ancona, a seaport city in the region of Le Marche. Little is known about Agostina’s early life, but she had moved to Paris before she was 20, because she posed for Edouard Manet’s painting, L’Italienne there in 1860. Over the next three decades she was to model for Edouard Joseph Dantan, Jean-Baptiste Corot, Jean-Leon Gerome, Eugene Delacroix and Vincent van Gogh. Agostina had a relationship with Dantan that lasted 12 years. Dantan is reputed to have referred to her as Madame Segatori-Morière, which implied she was married to a Monsieur Morière. She had an illegitimate son, Jean-Pierre, with Dantan. Their relationship was stormy and ended in 1884. Read more…
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Fra’ Filippo Lippi - Renaissance painter
Mentor of Botticelli who led life of scandal
The controversial 15th century painter Fra’ Filippo Lippi, who famously eloped with a nun who had agreed to pose for him at a Dominican monastery in Prato, died on or close to this day in 1469 in Spoleto, a city in Umbria then part of the Papal States. He was aged 62 or 63. Because of the scandalous nature of his life, there was speculation after his death that he had been poisoned, possibly by relatives of Lucrezia Buti, the nun who fell for his charms and was the mother of two children by him. Aside from his colourful private life, Lippi was an important figure in the development of painting. Himself influenced by Masaccio and Fra’ Angelico, he developed a signature style of his own that was colourful and decorative and characterised by clarity of expression. His own influence was seen in the works of his pupil Sandro Botticelli and his son, Filippino Lippi. Read more…
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Vajont Dam Disaster
Catastrophic flood may have killed 2,500
Prone to earthquakes because of its geology, Italy has suffered many natural disasters over the centuries, yet the horrific catastrophe that took place on this day in 1963 in an Alpine valley about 100km north of Venice, killing perhaps as many as 2,500 people, was to a significant extent man-made. The Vajont Dam Disaster happened when a section of a mountain straddling the border of the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions in the Friulian Dolomites collapsed in a massive landslide, dumping 260 million cubic metres of forest, earth and rock into a deep, narrow reservoir created to generate hydroelectric power for Italy's industrial northern cities. The chunk of Monte Toc that came away after days of heavy rain was the size of a small town and hit the surface of the reservoir in less than a minute, at a speed estimated at 100km per hour (62mph). Read more…
Stefanina Moro – partisan
Amazing courage of a young girl who protected her compatriots
Brave teenager Stefanina Moro, who served as a partisan during World War II, died on this day in 1944 in Asti as a result of injuries inflicted upon her by Nazis, who caught her and tortured her for information. Stefanina, who was born in Genoa in 1927, is thought to have been between 16 and 17 years old when she died of her wounds in a hospital in Asti. After growing up in the Quezzi district in Genoa, Stefanina became a partisan and later served as una staffetta - a courier - responsible for maintaining communications between groups of partisans to help the Italian resistance movement during the war of Italian liberation. Sadly, in 1944, Stefanina was captured by Nazis and taken to the Casa del Fascio - the local Fascist party headquarters - in Cornigliano, about seven kilometres (4 miles) west of Genoa, to be interrogated. Read more…
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Gabriele Falloppio – anatomist and physician
Professor made key discoveries about human reproduction
Gabriele Falloppio, one of the most important physicians and anatomists of the 16th century, died on this day in 1562 in Padua. Often known by his Latin name Fallopius, he lived only 39 years yet made a series of discoveries that expanded medical knowledge significantly. He worked mainly on the anatomy of the head and the reproductive organs in both sexes and is best known for identifying the tubes that connect the ovaries to the uterus, which are known even today as Fallopian tubes. He also discovered several major nerves of the head and face, and identified many of the components of the hearing and balance systems. Falloppio described all his findings in a book published a year before he died, entitled Observationes anatomicae. Educated initially in the classics, the death of his father plunged his family into financial difficulties. Read more…
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Salimbene di Adam – historian
Friar's records provided important information on history of Italy
Salimbene di Adam, a Franciscan friar, whose yearly chronicles became a valued source for historians, was born on this day in 1221 in Parma in Emilia-Romagna. Sometimes also referred to as Salimbene di Parma, he was the son of Guido di Adam, a wealthy Parma citizen. Salimbene entered the Franciscan Order in 1238 and served his novitiate in the Monastery of Fano on the Adriatic coast. As Fra Salimbene, he led a wandering existence and never held any office in his order. He transferred from one monastery to another, meeting notable people and becoming an eyewitness to historic events. In the 1240s he travelled to Lucca, Pisa and Cremona, and also visited France. On his return to Italy in 1248 he went to Ferrara but after a number of years went on his travels again, staying in Franciscan convents in northern Italy. Read more…
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Book of the Day: Van Gogh: Masters of Art, by Anna Paola Rapelli
Anna Paola Rapelli is an art historian and journalist, who teaches art history in Milan.
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