9 October

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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Agostina Segatori – artist’s model and restaurateur

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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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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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…

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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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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Book of the Day: Fra Filippo Lippi & Filippino Lippi: (Grove Art Essentials), by Eliot W Rowlands and Marilyn Bradshaw

Fra Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite monk who was one of the leading painters in Renaissance Florence, was patronized by the powerful Medici family. His large-scale altarpieces and fresco cycles had a decisive impact on the painting styles of the 16th century and he produced some of the earliest autonomous portrait paintings of the Renaissance. His son, Filippino Lippi, became in turn one of the leading Florentine painters of the late 15th century, winning important civic and private commissions, including the decoration of the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Fully illustrated, Fra Filippo Lippi & Filippino Lippi (Grove Art Essentials) delves into the life and work of these two great artists, including an analysis of their working methods, techniques, and workshops. With the addition of an extensive bibliography, discover the art of these two masters of the Italian Renaissance with Grove Art Essentials.

Eliot W Rowlands is an art historian and specialist in early Renaissance Italian paintings. He served as the senior researcher for art dealers Wildenstein & Co for more than 25 years. Marilyn Bradshaw is professor of art history at the University of Ohio.

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8 October

NEW - Giulio Monteverde - sculptor 

Artist who changed the face of monumental and funerary art

Giulio Monteverde, whose works were famous for breaking with neo-classical traditions to introduce realism, romanticism and the celebration of achievement into the art of sculpture, was born on this day in 1837 in Bistagno, a village about 35km (22 miles) southwest of Alessandria, in the Piemonte region.  Monteverde, who spent much of his working life in Rome, is best known for his sculptures commemorating the achievements of Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin and Edward Jenner, the enigmatic beauty of his Angel of the Resurrection funerary monument, the 10-metre bronze sculpture Il pensiero at the Altare della Patria in Rome, and statues of national figures such as Risorgimento leader Giuseppe Mazzini and the opera composer Vincenzo Bellini.  He was for many years a professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. Read more… 

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Antonio Cabrini - World Cup winner

Star of 1982 part of formidable Juventus team

World Cup winner and former Juventus defender Antonio Cabrini was born on this day in 1957 in Cremona.  Cabrini, who was coach of the Italy women’s football team for five years until 2017, took his first steps in professional football with his local team, Cremonese, and moved from there to Atalanta of Bergamo, but it was with the Turin club Juventus that he made his mark, forming part of a formidable defence that included goalkeeper Dino Zoff plus the centre-back Claudio Gentile and the sweeper Gaetano Scirea.  During Cabrini's 13 seasons in Turin, the Bianconeri won the Serie A title six times, as well as the 1985 European Cup, plus the Coppa Italia twice, the UEFA Cup and the European Super Cup, and the Intercontinental Cup.  Milan's Paolo Maldini tends to be recognised as the greatest defensive player produced by Italy but Cabrini's abilities put him only just behind.  Read more…

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Vincenzo Peruggia – art thief

Gallery worker who stole the Mona Lisa

Vincenzo Peruggia, a handyman who earned notoriety when he pulled off the most famous art theft in history, was born on this day in 1881 in Dumenza in Lombardy, a village on the Swiss border.  Peruggia stole Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre in Paris and evaded detection for more than two years, even though he was questioned by police over the painting’s disappearance.  It was only when he attempted to sell the iconic painting - thought to be of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a cloth and silk merchant - to an art dealer in Florence that he was arrested.  Experts accept that, although the Mona Lisa - sometimes known in Italy as La Gioconda - was a notable work, it is open to debate whether it was the best of all the magnificent pieces created by the Tuscan Renaissance genius, whose other masterpieces included The Last Supper. Read more…

Luigi Rizzo - naval commander

Sicilian honoured multiple times for World War One daring

Luigi Rizzo, one of Italy’s most celebrated naval commanders who was particularly renowned for his daring exploits during World War One, was born on this day in 1887 in Milazzo, a seaside town almost at the northeast tip of the island of Sicily, about 35km (22km) west of the city of Messina.  Rizzo, who was awarded the title Count of Grado and Premuda in recognition of two of his most celebrated successes, rose to the rank of Commander in the Royal Italian Navy, later upgraded to honorary Admiral, and won numerous decorations for bravery, including two Gold Medals and four Silver Medals for Military Valour.  Rizzo was born into a family of merchant ship captains and his maritime career began in the merchant navy. His transition to military service came in 1912 when he was appointed second lieutenant in the Naval Reserve. Read more…

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Giulio Caccini - composer

16th century singer who helped create opera genre

The singer and composer Giulio Caccini, who was a key figure in the advance of Baroque style in music and wrote musical dramas that would now be recognised as opera, was born on this day in 1551.  The father of the composer Francesca Caccini and the singer Settimia Caccini, he served for some years at the court of the Medici family in Florence, by whom he was also employed, as a somewhat unusual sideline, as a spy.  Caccini wrote the music for three operas and published two collections of songs and madrigals.  His songs for solo voice accompanied by one musical instrument gained him particular fame and he is remembered now for one particular song, a madrigal entitled Amarilli, mia bella, which is often sung by voice students.  Caccini is thought to have been born in Tivoli, just outside Rome, the son of a carpenter, Michelangelo Caccini. Read more…

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Carlo Cracco - chef and TV presenter

Former MasterChef Italia judge has won six Michelin stars

The chef and television presenter Carlo Cracco, who has restaurants in Milan, the jet-set resort of Portofino, and London, was born on this day in 1965 in Creazzo, a town just outside the city of Vicenza.  During his career as a chef, which began in earnest when he began working for the renowned Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan in 1986, Cracco has been awarded a total of six Michelin stars.  He has also enjoyed a successful career in television. Between 2011 and 2017 he was a judge on MasterChef Italia and he fronted Hell’s Kitchen Italia from 2014 to 2018. Among other shows in which he participated was Cracco Confidential, a 2018 documentary about a year in his life.  The son of a railway worker, Cracco obtained a diploma in hospitality from the Pellegrino Artusi hotel institute in Recoaro Terme. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italian Memorial Sculpture: A Legacy of Love, by Sandra Berresford et al

Italian monumental sculpture of the 19th and early 20th centuries is among the most remarkable ever made, and remains surprisingly unknown. Its emotional charge is caught in this collection of specially taken photographs, while the scholarly texts analyse the iconographic, cultural and art historical background to the works. Italian Memorial Sculpture: A Legacy of Love, highly acclaimed among art histories, features dedicated essays analysing Giulio Monteverde’s immense contribution to funerary art. It focuses intensely on his famous Oneto monument at the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa - an Angel of the Resurrection that completely redefined late 19th-century sculpture and inspired copies globally from Barcelona to Buenos Aires.

Sandra Berresford was educated at the Courtauld Institute and now teaches in Italy. She specialises in 19th- and 20th-century Italian art. 

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Giulio Monteverde - sculptor

Artist who changed the face of monumental and funerary art

Giulio Monteverde's work broke new
ground in the art of sculpture

Giulio Monteverde, whose works were famous for breaking with neo-classical traditions to introduce realism, romanticism and the celebration of achievement into the art of sculpture, was born on this day in 1837 in Bistagno, a village about 35km (22 miles) southwest of Alessandria, in the Piedmont region.

Monteverde, who spent much of his working life in Rome, is best known for his sculptures commemorating the achievements of Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin and Edward Jenner, the enigmatic beauty of his Angel of the Resurrection funerary monument, the 10-metre bronze sculpture Il pensiero at the Altare della Patria in Rome, and statues of national figures such as Risorgimento leader Giuseppe Mazzini and the opera composer Vincenzo Bellini.

For many years a professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, Monteverde established that secular themes such as scientific progress and medical advancement could be represented in sculpture with the same heroic grace as mythical or religious figures. 

His Angel of the Resurrection, commissioned by the wealthy merchant Francesco Oneta in 1882 to stand guard over his family tomb at the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa, a sensual figure with an expression of inscrutable detachment, is considered by some critics to be his masterpiece, lauded as the ‘Mona Lisa of cemetery art’.

Born into a working class family, Monteverde displayed an early interest in art that prompted his father, Vittorio, a weaver, to apprentice him to a wood carver of his acquaintance in Casale Monferrato, his home town, some 70km (42 miles) from Bistagno.

From there he moved to Genoa, where he remained for four years as a student at the Ligurian Academy of Fine Arts, while supporting himself with work as a furniture maker. 

He married young. His wife, Rosa, would prove to be a steadfast supporter of his artistic ambitions, even in the toughest times. When he won a prestigious scholarship to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1865, she encouraged him to take it, even though the accompanying grant would barely cover their living costs.

Monteverde challenged convention
with his Angel of the Resurrection

In the event, they found modest accommodation in the artistic quarter between the Spanish Steps and Piazza Barberini and started a family, Rosa bearing him three daughters in Erminia, Luigia and Corinna.

His first major breakthrough came in 1867. Perhaps with his young daughters as models, he carved a sculpture entitled Bambini che giocano con il gatto (Children Playing with a Cat).

It is said that an art dealer offered him 5,000 lire for it, which was a substantial sum, but that Rosa, already displaying a sharp business brain, advised him to turn it down, reasoning that a dealer would always offer less than the actual value. They later sold the piece directly to King Charles I of Württemberg for double the amount, enough to give them financial security.

Children continued to be a theme in his work as three major pieces in the early 1870s established Monteverde’s international reputation.

In Colombo giovinetto (The Young Columbus), he imagined the future explorer as a slender, rather graceful boy, sitting on a mooring bollard looking thoughtfully out to sea. The work won a gold medal at the Italian Exhibition of 1870 in Parma.

He followed this with Il Genio di Franklin (The Genius of Franklin), which won a silver medal at the 1872 Milan Exposition. The piece depicts a young angel holding a lightning rod, commemorating Benjamin Franklin's scientific discovery in proving that lightning was electricity and inventing the lightning rod to protect buildings in storms.

The following year, he won a gold medal at the 1873 Vienna Universal Exposition with his somewhat daring sculpture Edward Jenner Vaccinating His Son Against Smallpox, showing the English doctor injecting his experimental smallpox serum into the arm of his own infant son. The piece was groundbreaking for the stark realism of the way the figures are posed and for Monteverde’s brilliance in capturing the intense concentration in Jenner’s face.

Monteverde's sculpture of Edward
Jenner was his most daring work

As the demand for copies of his work soared and commissions multiplied, and with his studio on Via Flaminia, where he had moved in 1870, no longer big enough, Monteverde achieved a level of wealth that enabled him to commission the construction of a beautiful custom property in Piazza dell'Indipendenza, in what is now the Castro Pretorio rione, then an upmarket neighbourhood that was at the heart of Rome’s post-unification expansion into a modern European capital.

The house combined a vast workspace and private gallery on the ground floor, while the upper levels housed an elegant residence, where he lived with Rosa and their daughters.

By this time a public figure, both a councillor in Rome and a member of the Senate, Monteverde’s work over the next couple of decades included monumental statues of Giuseppe Mazzini in Buenos Aires, Argentina (with a copy in Milan’s Piazza Della Repubblica), of Vittorio Emanuele II in Rovigo and Bologna, and of Vincenzo Bellini, now in Piazza Stesicoro in Catania.

Yet it was through his funerary art that Monteverde left an indelible stamp on late 19th-century sculpture by altering the visual vocabulary of monumentality and mourning.

Traditionally, funerary monuments were characterised by sorrowful figures or sometimes terrifying images of death. By contrast, his Angel of the Resurrection, also known as Monteverde’s Angel, is a soft, even seductive figure, her elegant form wrapped in flowing silk and with a face of almost Botticellian features, head tilted forwards, her expression revealing little emotion.

Colombo giovinetto - 
his first major success

He made a copy for his own funerary chapel at the Verano Cemetery in Rome, where he created the similarly mysterious Angel of the Night to decorate the tomb of Primo Zonca, a lithographer and printer.

Giulio Monteverde died at the age of almost eighty in October 1917 in Rome.  

His colossal Il pensiero - The Thought - the 10-metre-high allegorical sculpture cast in gilded bronze, positioned on the east side of the grand Vittoriano (Altare della Patria) gate in Rome, was therefore his last great work.

Commissioned as part of a monumental complex dedicated to King Victor Emmanuel II, it combines classical imagery with the patriotic and ideological ideals of post-unification Italy. It features a winged personification of Il pensiero resting a protective hand on the shoulder of La saggezza (Wisdom), who is adorned with the classical helmet and shield of Minerva. La saggezza in turn reaches out to lift Il popolo italiano (The Italian People) lying at their feet. Three other figures on the lower flanks represent a counter narrative: La discordia (Discord), La tirannia (Tyranny), and Il genio della guerra (The Genius of War). 

The Villino Monteverdi, which housed the sculptor's
extensive studio as well as his family home

Travel tip:

The Castro Pretorio rione, where Monteverde chose to build his Villino Monteverde house and studio, is home to some of Rome's grandest Imperial ruins and late 19th-century architecture. Situated on the northeast edge of the historic centre of the city, it wraps around two sides of the city’s Termini railway station. Historic sights situated with Castro Pretorio, which takes its names from the Praetorian Guard camp that existed there in ancient Rome, include the Baths of Diocletian, the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, which was built within the ruins of the Diocletian baths, Piazza della Repubblica and Porta Pia - like the basilica, designed by Michelangelo - close to where the Italian Army breached the Aurelian Walls in 1870 to capture Rome and complete the unification of Italy. In the 1870s, it became an area of massive urban expansion, the area chosen for the development of a prestigious residential area to house an influx of government workers, politicians, and wealthy elites, after Rome became Italy’s new capital. Characterised by what became known as Umbertine-style architecture - after King Umberto I - its houses had grand, classical facades, high ceilings, and symmetric windows, with the focus on elegant townhouses or small villas - villini - rather than massive apartment blocks. Piazza dell’Indipendenza was at the heart of this new development.

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The Gipsoteca Giulio Monteverde in Bistagno houses
 the original plaster casts for many of his great works

Travel tip:

Bistagno, Giulio Monteverde’s birthplace, sits within the province of Alessandria, nestled in the picturesque hills of the Langhe and Monferrato wine region, a short drive from the historic thermal spa town of Acqui Terme, and about 100km (60 miles) southeast of the regional capital, Turin.  A quiet village that preserves the medieval layout of its historic centre, it takes pride in its connection with Monteverde, not least through the Gipsoteca Giulio Monteverde, a dedicated gallery of plaster casts in Corso Carlo Testa.  After Monteverde died in Rome in 1917, his daughters inherited the original plaster casts, studies, and models used to carve his iconic marble masterpieces. They were eventually donated to Bistagno. The museum spans seven halls and exhibits 40 original plaster masterpieces, including the original studies for The Genius of Franklin. The Gipsoteca also has a copy of Colombo giovinetto, the original of which is in the Castello d’Albertis in Genoa, having been commissioned by the sea captain, Enrico Alberto d'Albertis in 1870.

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More reading:

How Vincenzo Gemito’s sculpture celebrated figures from Naples street life

Why sculptor Pietro Canonica’s grasp of realism won him favour with European royalty

La Pietà - Michelangelo's masterpiece

Also on this day:

1551: The birth of composer Giulio Caccini

1881: The birth of Mona Lisa thief Vincenzo Peruggia

1887: The birth of naval commander Luigi Rizzo

1957: The birth of footballer Antonio Cabrini

1965: The birth of chef and TV presenter Carlo Cracco

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7 October

Rosalba Carriera - portrait painter

Venetian artist specialised in miniatures

One of the most successful women painters in the history of art, Rosalba Carriera is thought to have been born on this day in 1675 in Venice.  A pioneer of the Rococo style, she worked in pastel colours and was best known for her portraits. Her work was so admired that at her peak she had an almost constant stream of commissions from notable visitors to Venice, and from diplomats and nobility in the courts of other countries, principally France and Austria.  Born into a middle-class background, she was able to live a relatively comfortable life, although she would outlive her family, including her two sisters, and had gone blind by the time she died, at the age of 84.  Nowadays, Carriera’s portraits are as highly sought after as they were in the 18th century, with prices in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds realised when examples come up for auction.  Read more…

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Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta - condottiero

Brutal tyrant or sensitive patron of the arts?

One of the most daring military leaders in 15th century Italy, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, died on this day in 1468 in Rimini.  He had been Lord of Rimini, Fano and Cesena since 1432 and is remembered as a generous patron of the arts during his rule.  Sigismondo commissioned the architect Leon Battista Alberti to build the most famous monument in Rimini, the Church of San Francesco, which is also known as the Tempio Malatestiano, and he welcomed artists and writers to his court.  But partly as a result of a systematic campaign of defamation by his enemy, Pope Pius II, some historians have ascribed a reputation for brutality to him.  Sigismondo was one of three illegitimate sons of Pandolfo Malatesta, who had ruled over Brescia and Bergamo between 1404 and 1421.  At the age of ten, after the death of his father, Sigismondo went to Rimini to the court of his uncle, Carlo Malatesta. Read more…

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Michelozzo - architect and sculptor

His designs became a template for Renaissance palaces 

The influential Florentine architect and sculptor Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi died on this day in 1472 in his home city. He is most famous for the palace in the centre of Florence he built on behalf of one of his principal employers, Cosimo de’ Medici, the head of the Medici banking dynasty, for which he developed original design features that became a template for architects not only of the Renaissance era but in later years too. He was similarly innovative in his work on the ruined convent of San Marco in Florence, also on behalf of Cosimo, which he completely rebuilt. Such was the influence of these two buildings on many projects that the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, as it became known to reflect its ownership by the Riccardi family after 1659, came to be called ‘the first Renaissance palace’ and San Marco ‘the first Renaissance church’. Read more…

Saint Giustina of Padua

Murdered by Romans in last major purge of Christians

On the Italian catholic calendar, today is the feast day of Santa Giustina of Padua, celebrating the memory of a young woman executed on this day in 304 in the city of Padua.  Little is known about the life of Giustina apart from her faith. Born into a noble family in Padua, she took a vow of chastity and devoted her life to God and teaching the values of Christianity.  She died as a victim of the purge of Christians undertaken by the Roman Emperor Diocletian.  Persecution of Christians by the Romans was nothing new. Christians were regarded with suspicion and seen as subversive at times. When misfortune struck the Roman Empire they were often blamed. Feeding Christians to lions was once seen as entertainment.  Even as Christianity grew and attitudes softened, there were still emperors from time to time who decided to take a hard line.  Read more…

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Gabriele Corcos - celebrity cook

YouTube recipe blog led to TV fame in US

The TV cook and author Gabriele Corcos, whose show Extra Virgin on the Cooking Channel has given him celebrity status in the United States, was born on this day in 1972 in Fiesole, a town in the Tuscan hills just outside Florence.  He was invited to produce and host the show - the first original cookery programme to go out on the network when it launched in 2010 - after his YouTube channel, in which he prepared traditional Tuscan dishes, attracted a large following of devoted fans.  The Cooking Channel show was so successful it ran for five seasons, with 68 episodes, spawning a best-selling book of Tuscan recipes and a further show, Extra Virgin Americana, in which he starred with his wife, the actress Debi Mazar.  Corcos became a star of the kitchen without ever intending it to be his career.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Life and Work of Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757): The Queen of Pastel, by Angela Oberer

The first extensive biographical narrative in English of Rosalba Carriera, this book is also the first scholarly investigation of the external and internal factors that helped to create this female painter's unique career in eighteenth-century Europe. The Life and Work of Rosalba Carriera documents the difficulties, complications, and consequences that arose then - and can also arise today - when a woman decides to become an independent artist. This book contributes a new, in-depth analysis of the interplay between society's expectations, generally accepted codices for gendered behaviour, and one single female painter's astute strategies for achieving success, as well as autonomy in her professional life as a famed artist. Among the questions that the author raises concern how Carriera managed to build up her career; how she ran her business and organised her own workshop; what kind of artist she was and - finally - what her self-portraits reveal in terms of self-enactment and possibly autobiographical turning points.

Angela Oberer is an author, art historian and  lecturer in art history, whose  PhD from the Technische Universität Berlin specialised in Rosalba Carriera's life and art.

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6 October

NEW - Settimia Caccini – singer and songwriter

Esteemed soprano composed beautiful music

Singer and composer Settimia Caccini, who is believed to have been one of the first women in Italy to have a successful career in music, was born on this day in 1591 in Florence.  Settimia was highly regarded by those who heard her sing because of her beautiful soprano voice and she initially worked with other members of her family singing for the Medici court in Florence.  But she became famous as a solo artist in 1608 when she sang the role of Venus in Claudio Monteverdi’s opera Arianna in Mantua.  Records show that for a time she received high pay from the Gonzaga family, who employed her at their court in Mantua and clearly valued her.  Born into a family of singers and composers, Settimia learnt music from an early age. Her father was Giulio Caccini, who was a key figure in the advance of the Baroque style of music and wrote musical dramas, which would now be recognised as operas.  Read more… 

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The October Martyrs of Lanciano

Heroic group of partisans earned Gold Medal for Valour

The town of Lanciano in Abruzzo today and every October 6 remembers the 23 citizens killed by German troops on this day in 1943 after one of the most celebrated revolts of World War Two against the occupying Nazi forces.  The group became known as the Martiri ottobrini di Lanciano - the October Martyrs of Lanciano. Their deeds were recognised by the postwar Italian government with the award - to all the citizens of the town - of the Gold Medal for Military Valour, and there are a number of monuments in the town that commemorate the event and the participants.  As well as 11 partisan resistance fighters, another 12 Lancianese who fought alongside them were killed by the Germans. The leader of the partigiani group, a 28-year-old former soldier named Trentino La Barba, was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal for Valour in his own right. Read more…

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Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin – wartime nurse

Brave nun was prepared to die caring for others

Maria Bertilla Boscardin, a nun who was canonised for her devoted nursing of sick children and air raid victims in the First World War, was born on this day in 1888 in Brendola, a small town in the Veneto.  She was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1952, just 30 years after she died, and made a saint by Pope John XXIII nine years later.  It was one of the quicker canonisations of modern history. Sometimes many decades or even hundreds of years pass before a person’s life is recognised with sainthood.  Boscardin’s came so swiftly that relatives and some of the patients she cared for were present at her canonisation ceremony. Indeed, her father, Angelo, was asked to provide testimony during the beatification process.  Born into a peasant family, who knew her as Annette, her life in Brendola, which is about 15km (9 miles) southwest of Vicenza, was tough.  Read more…

Ottavio Bianchi - football coach

The northerner who steered Napoli to first scudetto

Ottavio Bianchi, the coach who guided Napoli to their first Serie A title in the Italian football championship, was born on this day in 1943 in the northern Italian city of Brescia.  Napoli, who had been runners-up four times in Italy's elite league, broke their duck by winning the scudetto in the 1986-87 season, when Bianchi built his side around the forward line consisting initially of the World Cup-winning Argentina star Diego Maradona, the Italy strikers Bruno Giordano and Andrea Carnevale.  After the arrival of the Brazilian forward Careca to partner Maradona and Giordano, the trio became collectively known as MaGiCa.  Bianchi’s team began the 1986-87 season with a 13-match unbeaten run. It came to an end with an away defeat against Fiorentina but Napoli lost only two more matches all season, winning the title by three points from Juventus. Read more…

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Giuseppe Cesare Abba – writer and soldier

Patriotic revolutionary took notes during historic expedition with Garibaldi

Giuseppe Cesare Abba, an Italian writer who volunteered to fight alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi during his campaign to unify Italy, was born on this day in 1836 in Cairo Montenotte in Liguria, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.  Abba took part in most of the battles that led to the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and he made notes during the 1860 campaign.  His major work, Noterelle d’Uno dei Mille was published in 1880, thanks to a recommendation by Giosuè Carducci, the Italian writer and poet who won a Nobel prize in Literature.  While attending a college in Liguria, Abba became enthusiastic about the work of patriotic romantic poets and writers such as Ugo Foscolo, Giovanni Prati, and Aleardo Aleardi. He went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa, but left in 1859 to voluntarily enrol in a cavalry regiment in Pinerolo. Read more…

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Bruno Sammartino - wrestling champion

How a sickly kid from Abruzzo became king of the ring

Bruno Sammartino, who found fame as a professional wrestler in the United States, was born on this day in 1935 in Pizzoferrato, a village in the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region.  He died in 2018 at the age of 82, having spent the last years of his life in Ross Township in Pennsylvania, about six miles north of the city of Pittsburgh.  Sammartino held the title of world heavyweight champion under the banner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation - now known as World Wrestling Entertainment - for more than 11 years in two reigns. The first of those, spanning seven years, eight months and one day, is the longest any individual has held the title continuously since it was first contested in 1963.  At his peak in the ring, Sammartino weighed in at 265lbs (120kg), yet it was something of a miracle that he survived his childhood.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court: Music and the Circulation of Power, by Suzanne G Cusick

While focused on her older sister Francesca, this extensive scholarly work provides the most thorough examination available in English regarding the Caccini family dynamic, their musical training under their father Giulio Caccini, and Settimia's appointments at courts such as the Medici and the Gonzaga family in Mantua.  A contemporary of Shakespeare and Monteverdi, and a colleague of Galileo and Artemisia Gentileschi at the Medici court, Francesca Caccini was a dominant musical figure there for 30 years. Dazzling listeners with the transformative power of her performances and the sparkling wit of the music she composed for more than a dozen court theatricals, Caccini is best remembered today as the first woman to have composed opera. Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court reveals for the first time how this multitalented composer established a fully professional musical career at a time when virtually no other women were able to achieve comparable success.  The author argues that Caccini's career depended on the usefulness of her talents to the political agenda of Grand Duchess Christine de Lorraine, Tuscany's de facto regent from 1606 to 1636. Drawing on Classical and feminist theory, Cusick shows how the music Caccini made for the Medici court sustained the culture that enabled Christine's power, thereby also supporting the sexual and political aims of its women.  In bringing Caccini's surprising story so vividly to life, the book ultimately illuminates how music making functioned in early modern Italy as a significant medium for the circulation of power.

Suzanne G Cusick, a music historian and musicologist, is a Professor of Music at New York University, where her specialities include the music of 17th-century Italy, and feminist approaches to music history and criticism.

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Settimia Caccini – singer and songwriter

Esteemed soprano composed beautiful music

Settimia initially performed alongside her sister,
 Francesca (above), who was also a composer

Singer and composer Settimia Caccini, who is believed to have been one of the first women in Italy to have a successful career in music, was born on this day in 1591 in Florence.

Settimia was highly regarded by those who heard her sing because of her beautiful soprano voice and she initially worked with other members of her family singing for the Medici court in Florence. But she became famous as a solo artist in 1608 when she sang the role of Venus in Claudio Monteverdi’s opera Arianna in Mantua. 

Records show that for a time she received high pay from the Gonzaga family, who employed her at their court in Mantua and clearly valued her.

Born into a family of singers and composers, Settimia learnt music from an early age. Her father was Giulio Caccini, who was a key figure in the advance of the Baroque style of music and wrote musical dramas, which would now be recognised as operas. 

Her older sister was Francesca Caccini, who was also a talented singer and was the composer of what is thought to be the oldest surviving opera by a woman composer, La Liberazione di Ruggiero.

Settimia’s mother, Lucia Gagnolanti, was a talented singer, but she died when Settimia was still young. Her older brother, Pompeo Caccini, was also a singer.

Giulio Caccini was employed by the Medici family who ruled Florence at the time. While working for them he was introduced by the Medici to the ‘concerto delle donne’, a group of’ professional female singers who worked for the Este court in Ferrara. It is thought that Giulio may have persuaded these women to train his daughters to sing in the same way.

Due luci ridenti is one of just eight
surviving compositions by Settimia

Instead of singing solos, Settimia and  Francesca, were trained to sing soprano arias together and they were called Il Concerto Caccini. In 1600, they sang together in their father’s opera, Il rapimento di Cefalù, on the occasion of the wedding of Maria de’ Medici and Henry IV of France.

Settimia and Francesca grew up singing and performing together, but by 1608 when Settimia performed in Monteverdi’s opera in Mantua, they had gone their separate ways.

After her success in Mantua, Settimia was offered various offers of employment and marriage proposals, all of which she turned down. The following year, she married the singer and composer Alessandro Ghivizzani, who was from Lucca. After initially working for the Medici court in Florence together, the couple left the city to go to Lucca, which was Ghivizzani’s birthplace, and they then travelled throughout Italy before moving to Mantua to serve at the Gonzaga court. 

It is known that in 1622 Settimia and her husband were in the service of Odoardo Farnese in Parma and that in 1626 she was chosen to sing in two of Monteverdi’s operas. The composer himself is said to have stated that Settimia Caccini sang the arias ‘with superhuman grace and angelic voice.’

After Ghivizzani’s death in 1632, Settimia returned to Florence to work at the Medici court again, where she remained until her death, which is assumed to have been in the 1630s, but the exact date is not certain.

Settimia was mostly known for her beautiful singing but she was also an active composer. None of her work was published while she was alive and most of it is now lost. However, it was documented that in 1611 she had composed the music for a masked carnival in Venice.

Just eight of Settimia Caccini’s compositions have survived, all written for a single singer, so they were perfect for her to sing herself and she many not have expected anyone else to perform them. These include Due luci ridenti, a madrigal. Some are now performed as piano solos and one was published in a 17th century collection of music.

Ponte Vecchio in Florence, which connects the
Palazzo Pitti with the rest of the city

Travel tip:

Musicians working for the Medici family in Florence would have performed for them and their guests at Palazzo Pitti, a palace originally built for the banker Luca Pitti in 1457 in the centre of Florence, in a bid to try to outshine the Medici family. The Medici later bought it from his bankrupt heirs and made it their main residence in 1550. Today visitors can look round the richly decorated rooms and see treasures from the Medici collections. The Ponte Vecchio connects Palazzo Pitti with the rest of the city, which is on the other side of the River Arno. It was built in 1345 and is the oldest bridge remaining in Florence. The medieval workshops used to be inhabited by butchers and blacksmiths, but these were eventually given to goldsmiths and are still inhabited by jewellers today. The private corridor over the shops was designed by the architect, Vasari, to link the Palazzo Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti, via the Uffizi, allowing the Medici to move about between their residences without having to walk through the streets.

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The Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, where Settimia
is likely to have sung for the Gonzaga family

Travel tip:

Mantua, where Settimia Caccini worked for the Gonzaga family, is an atmospheric old city, to the south east of Milan, a highlight of which is the Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, which has a famous room, Camera degli Sposi, decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna. Settimia would probably have sung for the Gonzagas in what is known as the Galleria dei Fiumi, a space in the palace that has the dimensions to accommodate a stage and orchestra and where there is room for a small audience. It is not known for certain, but the premiere of the opera L’Orfeo, by the composer Claudio Monteverdi, may have taken place in the Galleria dei Fiumi. L’Orfeo, which is the earliest opera still being regularly staged, had its first performance in 1607 in Mantua. Settimia Caccini sang the role of Venus in Monteverdi’s opera Arianna in Mantua the following year. 

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More reading:

Giulio Caccini, the 16th century singer who helped create the opera genre

Francesca Caccini, the court musician who composed the oldest surviving opera by a woman

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, the 400-year-old opera still staged today

Also on this day:

1836: The birth of writer and soldier Giuseppe Cesare Abba

1888: The birth of wartime nurse Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin

1935: The birth of professional wrestler Bruno Sammartino

1943: The October Martyrs massacre

1943: The birth of football coach Ottavio Bianchi

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5 October

Mary of Modena – Queen of England

Catholic wife of James II greeted with suspicion

Maria Beatrice Anna Margherita Isabella d'Este, who would become known in England as Mary of Modena when she served as queen consort for almost four years in the 17th century, was born on this day in 1658.  The daughter of Alfonso IV, Duke of Modena, the princess, descended from the Bourbon royal family of France and the Medici family of Italy, was born in the Ducal Palace in Modena. Her mother, Laura Martinozzi, from Fano in the Marche, hailed from a noble Roman family.  Tall, elegant and highly educated – she was fluent in French as well as Italian and had a good knowledge of Latin – Maria Beatrice was sought after as a bride for James, Duke of York, heir to Charles II.  She was picked as a suitable prospective bride for his Catholic master by Lord Peterborough, one of the Duke’s closest aides. Read more…

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Andrea De Cesaris - racing driver

Career defined by unwanted record

The racing driver Andrea De Cesaris, who competed in 15 consecutive Formula One seasons between 1980 and 1994, died on this day in 2014 as a result of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.  De Cesaris lost control of his Suzuki motorcycle on Rome’s orbital motorway, the Grande Raccordo Anulare, and collided with a guard rail.  The Rome-born driver, the son of a tobacco merchant, retired from competition with the unwanted record of having never won a race in 208 Formula One starts, the most by any driver without a victory to his name in the sport’s history.  He needed no second invitation to hit the accelerator on the track but his daring often veered towards the wild and erratic and had a reputation for being accident prone, putting not only himself but other drivers at risk.  He also held the record for the most non-finishes in a single, 16-race season, at 14. Read more…

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Francesco Guardi - painter

Artist evoked image of republic’s final years

One of the last great artists of the Venetian school, Francesco Lazzaro Guardi, was born on this day in 1712 in Venice.  Guardi’s wonderful scenes of crowds, festivals, regattas and concerts in Venice have kept the heyday of the republic alive for future generations to enjoy in art galleries all over the world.  The artist was born into a family of nobility from Trentino, who lived in a house in the Cannaregio district of Venice.  Guardi’s father and brothers were also painters and his sister, Maria Cecilia, married the great Venetian artist, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.  Guardi’s first known works were painted in the 1730s in Vigo Anuania in Trentino, where he was working alongside his older brother, Gian Antonio.  The first work to be signed by Guardi is the picture Saint Adoring the Eucharist, which was painted in about 1739.  Read more…

Nicola Rizzoli - football referee

Third Italian to take charge of World Cup Final

The football referee Nicola Rizzoli, who in 2014 became the third Italian to take charge of a men’s World Cup Final, was born on this day in 1971 in Mirandola, a town in Emilia-Romagna about 35km (22 miles) north of Modena.  Rizzoli, who had refereed the UEFA Champions League Final in 2013, followed Sergio Gonella (1978) and Pierluigi Collina (2002) in being handed the ultimate honour for football officials.  It was his responsibility to officiate in the match between Germany and Argentina in the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro to decide the winners of the 2014 tournament, hosted by Brazil.  At the age of 42, he was the same age as Collina had been when he refereed the Brazil-Germany final in 2002, but three years younger than Gonella was when given charge of hosts Argentina against the Netherlands in 1978.  Read more…

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Alberto Sughi - painter

20th century artist who was unwitting victim of plagiarism

The artist Alberto Sughi, an acclaimed  20th century painter whose style was defined as “existential realism”, was born on this day in 1928 in Cesena in Emilia-Romagna.  Sughi was regarded as one of the greatest artists of his generation but is often remembered mainly for his unwitting part in a famous case of plagiarism.  It happened in 2006 when a Japanese painter, Yoshihiko Wada, was awarded the prestigious Art Encouragement Prize, the Japanese equivalent of the Turner Prize, for a series of paintings depicting urban life in Italy - one of Sughi’s specialities.  A month after the award was announced in March of that year, the Japan Artists Association and Agency for Cultural Affairs received an anonymous tip-off questioning the authenticity of Wada's work, which then sparked an investigation into possible plagiarism.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Mary of Modena: James II's Dazzling Queen, by Justine Brown

The 1688 “Glorious Revolution” that toppled James II and VII also veiled his consort in propaganda. Mary of Modena: James II’s Dazzling Queen reveals the extraordinary woman beneath. Lovely and spirited, Mary Beatrice Isabella d’Este is also England’s sole Italian queen. Her father came from an ancient line, while her mother was one of Cardinal Mazarin’s seven famed nieces (the “Mazarinettes”). Mary Beatrice learned the rudiments of governance at her widowed mother’s knee, and would one day act as regent of the Stuart court-in-exile—first for King James, then for their son, James Francis Edward. “The Queen over the Water” would shine as a beacon for the Jacobite cause. Once, Mary Beatrice longed to be a nun. Instead, the young woman had to accept a different mission - marriage to James, Duke of York, heir to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Although James’s conversion to Catholicism made their marriage possible, it set off a firestorm of controversy in the mysterious northern realm. The story of the British Isles was romantic, but the reality was jarring. Thrown into the frenzy of Restoration politics, Mary Beatrice met each fresh episode courageously. Charles II adored his sister-in-law, but MPs strove to annul the “Italian match” before it could be consummated. She and James fell in love, but his philandering nearly broke her. Building on Este tradition, Mary Beatrice won over the common folk, inspired poets and painters, introduced Italian opera, and drew talented ladies to court. She also attracted her flamboyant Mazarinette cousin Hortense Mancini to England, where she joined King Charles’s harem. Ultimately, James and Mary Beatrice were crowned with great ceremony, but their troubles were only just beginning…

Justine Brown has long been fascinated by 17th-century culture and history. She has an M A in literature from the University of Toronto and is the author of several books, including The Private Life of James II (Pen & Sword). She also runs a history vlog, Justine Brown's Bookshelf. She lives in London with her husband.

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