28 August

NEW - Marie Mancini – Princess of Paliano 

Dark Italian beauty won the heart of King Louis XIV

Marie Mancini, an aristocratic Italian woman who once had a love affair with French King Louis XIV, was born on this day in 1639 in Rome.  Anna Maria ‘Marie’ Mancini was the third of five sisters, who were all taken to live in France. They were the nieces of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who was Chief Minister to both Louis XIII and Louis XIV.  Marie grew up in Rome until she was 11 years old, when her father, Baron Lorenzo Mancini, died. Along with her sisters, Marie was taken to Paris by her widowed mother, Geronima, in the hope that Cardinal Mazarin would use his influence to help them all marry advantageously.  Two of Marie’s cousins, who were the daughters of Mazarin’s eldest sister, were also taken to France for the same purpose, and the seven girls were all known at the French court as ‘the Mazarinettes’.  Although Marie was christened Anna Maria, she became known in France as Marie and was said to have grown up as ‘dark, vivacious and beautiful’.  Read more…

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Maurizio Costanzo - talk show host

Journalist whose show was the longest running on Italian TV

Talk show host and writer Maurizio Costanzo was born on this day in 1938 in Rome. Costanzo spent more than 40 years in television.  His eponymous programme, the Maurizio Costanzo Show, broke all records for longevity in Italian television.  Launched on September 18, 1982, the current affairs programme continued for 27 years, alternating between Rete 4 and Canale 5, two of Italy's commercial television networks, part of the Mediaset group owned by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.  Its run came to an end in 2009 but was relaunched on the satellite channel Mediaset Extra in 2014 and returned to terrestrial television in 2015, again on Rete 4.  Costanzo began his media career in print journalism with the Rome newspaper Paese Sera at just 18 years old and by the time he was 22 he was in charge of the Rome office of the mass circulation magazine Grazia. Read more…

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Ugo Mulas - photographer

Images of street life in Milan and of New York art scene won acclaim

The photographer Ugo Mulas, much admired for the way he captured the street atmosphere of post-War Milan and for his portrayals of Andy Warhol and others in the Bohemian New York art scene of the 1960s, was born on this day in 1928 in Pozzolengo, a small town near the southern tip of Lake Garda.  At one time part of Milan’s fashion community, another of Mulas’s claims to fame is having been the photographer who discovered Veruschka, a German aristocrat who became part of the supermodel generation of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton in the 60s.  Known for his meticulous approach to composition and lighting, and for the candid, spontaneous style of his work, illness denied Mulas a long life but he is widely seen as a pioneering figure in photography who had a profound impact on the art form.  Read more…

Lamberto Maggiorani - unlikely movie star

Factory worker who shot to fame in Bicycle Thieves

Lamberto Maggiorani, who found overnight fame after starring in the neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves (1948), was born on this day in 1909 in Rome.  Maggiorani was cast in the role of Antonio Ricci, a father desperate for work to support his family in post-War Rome, who is offered a job pasting posters to advertising hoardings but can take it only on condition that he has a bicycle – essential for moving around the city carrying his ladder and bucket.  He has one, but it has been pawned.  To retrieve it, his wife, Marie, strips the bed of her dowry sheets, which the pawn shop takes in exchange for the bicycle. They are happy, because Antonio has a job which will support her, their son Bruno and their new baby.  However, on his first day in the job the bicycle is stolen, snatched by a thief who waits for Antonio to climb to the top of his ladder before seizing his moment.  Read more…

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Elisabetta Sirani – artist

Sudden death of talented young woman shocked Bologna

The brilliant Baroque painter and printmaker Elisabetta Sirani died in unexplained circumstances at the age of 27 on this day in 1665 in Bologna. The body of the artist was carried to the Chapel of the Rosary in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna to be mourned, not just by her family, but by an entire community as she was loved and respected as an important female painter.  Elisabetta has been described as beautiful, focused and selfless and she became a symbol of the progressive city of Bologna, where the creativity of women was encouraged and they were able to express themselves through art and music.  Elisabetta’s father, Giovanni Andrea Sirani, was himself an artist and she was trained in his studio, although contemporary writers have recorded that he was reluctant to teach her to paint in the Bolognese style. Read more…

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Giovanni Maria Benzoni - sculptor

Roman collectors called him the ‘new Canova’

The sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni, who earned such fame in Rome in the mid-19th century that collectors and arts patrons in the city dubbed him the “new Canova” after the great Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova, was born on this day in 1809 in Songavazzo, a small mountain village in northern Lombardy.  Benzoni sculpted many allegorical and mythological scenes, but also busts and funerary monuments.  Songavazzo being just outside Clusone in the province of Bergamo, Benzoni was regarded as a bergamasco - a native of that ancient city - even though he spent much of his life in Rome.  As such he was held in similar regard to bergamaschi celebrities such as the composer Gaetano Donizetti, the philologist Cardinal Angelo Mai and the painter Francesco Coghetti, all of whom lived in Rome during Benzoni’s time there.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Memoirs, by Marie Mancini and Hortense Mancini. Translated by Sarah Nelson

The memoirs of Hortense (1646–1699) and of Marie (1639–1715) Mancini, nieces of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin and members of the court of Louis XIV, represent the earliest examples in France of memoirs published by women under their own names during their lifetimes. Both unhappily married - Marie had also fled the aftermath of her failed affair with the king - the sisters chose to leave their husbands for life on the road, a life quite rare for women of their day.  Through their writings, the Mancinis sought to rehabilitate their reputations and reclaim the right to define their public images themselves, rather than leave the stories of their lives to the intrigues of the court - and to their disgruntled ex-husbands. First translated in 1676 and 1678 and credited largely to male redactors, Memoirs is an accessible English translation that chronicles the beginnings of women’s rights to personal independence within the confines of an otherwise circumscribed early modern aristocratic society.

Sarah Nelson is associate professor of French at the University of Idaho.

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Marie Mancini – Princess of Paliano

Dark Italian beauty won the heart of King Louis XIV

A portrait of Marie Mancini by the
Flemish painter Jacob Ferdinand Voet

Marie Mancini, an aristocratic Italian woman who once had a love affair with French King Louis XIV, was born on this day in 1639 in Rome.

Anna Maria ‘Marie’ Mancini was the third of five sisters, who were all taken to live in France. They were the nieces of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who was Chief Minister to both Louis XIII and Louis XIV.

Marie grew up in Rome until she was 11 years old, when her father, Baron Lorenzo Mancini, died. Along with her sisters, Marie was taken to Paris by her widowed mother, Geronima, in the hope that Cardinal Mazarin would use his influence to help them all marry advantageously.

Two of Marie’s cousins, who were the daughters of Mazarin’s eldest sister, were also taken to France for the same purpose, and the seven girls were all known at the French court as ‘the Mazarinettes’.

Although Marie was christened Anna Maria, she became known in France as Marie and was said to have grown up as ‘dark, vivacious and beautiful’. 

She was nearly a year younger than Louis XIV, who had become King of France at the age of four, after the death of his father, Louis XIII.

Louis XIV - later known also as the Sun King - fell in love with Marie and wanted to marry her and she said she was willing to marry him, but his adviser, Mazarin, and his mother, Queen Anne of Austria, were both against the match.

Queen Anne wanted Louis to marry his cousin, Maria Theresa of Austria, the Infanta of Spain, who was the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain. Cardinal Mazarin agreed with the Queen because he knew that her support for him and his foreign policy depended on making peace with Spain and on the Spanish marriage going ahead.

Louis XIV became aware that there were plans to exile Marie from the court and sent for Mazarin and asked him if he could marry his niece. Mazarin refused, saying he had been appointed to his position by the King’s parents to protect the welfare of the kingdom. It is said that Louis XIV fell on his knees before the Cardinal and pleaded with him, but without success.

Louis XIV pleaded to be allowed to marry
Marie Mancini (portrait by Charles Le Brun) 

The King also spoke to his mother about it for more than an hour and she managed to convince him that he must give up love for politics, but after the conversation he was observed with his eyes ‘red with tears’.

When Marie left the court, Louis XIV escorted her to her carriage and she is reputed to have said: “Sire, you weep, you love me, and yet you allow me to go!”

In 1660, Louis XIV married Maria Theresa of Spain and in 1661 Marie was sent to marry an Italian, the eighth Duke and Prince of Paliano, Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna.

Marie and Louis XIV had never been lovers, and Colonna was said to have been surprised to discover that she was still a virgin.

Marie bore him three sons, but after she found the third birth was particularly difficult, she refused to be intimate with him again. Their relationship deteriorated and she left Rome in 1672, accompanied by her younger sister, Hortense, because she said she was afraid that her husband might kill her.

She later spent a period living in a convent in Turin and some time travelling around Europe independently, which was unusual for a woman at the time.

Marie wrote her memoirs after a false account about her life had been circulated in France. Her sister, Hortense, also wrote her memoirs, after escaping from an abusive marriage with a French duke. She eventually travelled to London, where she became a mistress of the English King Charles II. The Mancini sisters were said to be among the first women in France to have published their own memoirs.

Marie Mancini died in Pisa in May 1715 at the age of 75 and she was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there. Her death occurred a little over three months before the death of Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles in France on September 1 of the same year.

The character of Marie Mancini has since been used by writers, both in novels and a musical, and a number of biographies have been written about her and her sister, Hortense Mancini.

An 18th century etching of Palazzo Mancini
by Giovanni Battista Piranese

Travel tip:

Palazzo Mancini, in Rome’s Via del Corso, where Marie would have lived as a child,  was created in 1634 by Lorenzo Mancini when the family’s old residence - also in Via del Corso - was enlarged for the celebrations of his wedding to Geronima Mazzarino, the sister of Cardinal Mazarin. Four adjoining houses were purchased and a new building was designed by the architect Carlo Rainaldi. After Lorenzo died and his widow and children went to live in France, the work was completed by Filippo Mancini. The palace was leased to the French Academy in Rome in 1725. One second floor room is still frescoed with scenes produced by the artists who were accommodated there during its time as an academy. After the French Revolution the building became the French Embassy to the Holy See. In 1818 the Palazzo was bought by Louis Bonaparte, who ceded it to Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, the widow of Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia, who gave it to her daughter, Maria Christina, who became Queen of Naples, and passed it on to the Bourbons of Naples. It was acquired by the Banco di Sicilia in 1919.

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The 12th century octagonal Chiesa del Santo
Sepolcro in Pisa, where Marie Mancini is buried

Travel tip:

Pisa, where Marie Mancini died, is a historic town in the Tuscany region that has become famous for its leaning tower, which dates back to 1173. The freestanding bell tower for the Cathedral now has a famous tilt that began during the building process, believed to have been caused by the laying of inadequate foundations on ground that was too soft on one side to support the weight of the structure. The tilt got worse over the years until work had to be carried out to correct it in the 20th century. In 1987, Pisa’s 60-metre-high tower was included in the Unesco World Heritage site list along with the neighbouring cathedral and baptistery  in the Piazza del Duomo. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Chiesa del Santo Sepolcro, where Marie Mancini was laid to rest in Pisa, is an octagonal church, which dates from early in the 12th century and is located in Piazza San Sepolcro, near the Lungarno Galilei in the San Martino district, along the southern bank of the River Arno.

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More reading:

How Cardinal Jules Mazarin became de facto ruler of France

Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of three French kings

Marie Josephine of Savoy, the Italian noblewoman who married Louis XVIII of France

Also on this day:

1665: The unexplained death of painter Elisabetta Sirani

1809: The birth of sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni

1909: The birth of Lamberto Maggiorani, star of classic movie Bicycle Thieves

1928: The birth of photographer Ugo Mulas

1938: The birth of talk show host Maurizio Costanzo

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27 August

Zanetta Farussi – actress

Venetian performer who gave birth to a legendary womaniser

Zanetta Farussi, the comedy actress who was the mother of the notorious adventurer, Casanova, was born on this day in 1707 in Venice.  At the age of 17, Zanetta had married the actor Gaetano Casanova, who was 10 years older than her.  He had just returned to Venice after several years with a touring theatrical troupe, to take a job at the Teatro San Samuele.  Farussi’s parents opposed the marriage because they considered acting to be a disreputable profession.  But Farussi soon began working at Teatro San Samuele herself and the following year she gave birth to a son, Giacomo, who was to grow up to make the name Casanova synonymous with womanising and philandering.  Giacomo Casanova would later claim that his real father was Michele Grimani, who owned the Teatro San Samuele.  Read more…

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Alessandro Farnese – Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro

Duke was a brilliant strategist and diplomat

The outstanding military leader, Alessandro Farnese, was born on this day in 1545 in Rome.  As regent of the Netherlands on behalf of Philip II of Spain between 1578 and 1592, Alessandro restored Spanish rule and ensured the continuation of Roman Catholicism there, a great achievement and testimony to his skill as a strategist and diplomat.  However, his brilliant military career gave him no time to rule Parma, Piacenza and Castro when he succeeded to the Dukedom.  Alessandro was the son of Duke Ottavio Farnese of Parma and Margaret, the illegitimate daughter of the King of Spain and Habsburg Emperor, Charles V.  Ottavio, and was the grandson of Pope Paul III, a Farnese who had set up the papal states of Parma, Piacenza and Castro as a duchy in order to award them to his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi. Read more…

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Lina Poletti - writer and feminist

One of first Italian women to come out as gay

The writer, poet and playwright Lina Poletti, who was one of the first gay Italian women to openly declare their sexuality, was born on this day in 1885 in Ravenna.  Poletti, an active campaigner for the emancipation of women, had relationships with a number of high-profile partners, including the writer Sibilla Aleramo and the actress Eleonora Duse. Her own works included the epic Il poemetto della guerra (The War Poem), many essays and lectures on her literary heroes, including Dante Alghieri, Giovanni Pascoli and Giosuè Carducci, and a number of collections of poetry.  One of four daughters born to Francesco Poletti and his wife Rosina Donati, who ran a business making ceramics, Lina’s birth name was Cordula.  She was said to be a rebellious child, misunderstood by her sisters and something of a loner.  Read more…

The 410 Sack of Rome

Invasion that signalled terminal decline of Western Roman Empire

The ancient city of Rome was left in a state of shock and devastation after three days of looting and pillaging by Visigoths under the command of King Alaric came to an end on this day in 410.  An unknown number of citizens had been killed and scores of others had fled into the countryside. Countless women had been raped. Many buildings were damaged and set on fire and Alaric and his hordes made off with vast amounts of Roman treasure.  It was the first time in 800 years that an invading army had successfully breached the walls of the Eternal City and many historians regard the event as the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire.  It could have been more devastating still had Alaric, a Christian, been a more cruel leader.  Although he struggled to control his men, he stopped short of ordering large-scale slaughter of the population. Read more…

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Titian - giant of Renaissance art

Old master of Venice who set new standards

Tiziano Vecellio, the artist better known as Titian, died in Venice on this day in 1576.  Possibly in his 90s by then - his date of birth has never been established beyond doubt - he is thought to have succumbed to the plague that was sweeping through the city at that time.  Titian is regarded as the greatest painter of 16th century Venice, a giant of the Renaissance held in awe by his contemporaries and seen today as having had a profound influence on the development of painting in Italy and Europe.  The artists of Renaissance Italy clearly owe much to the new standards set by Titian in the use of colour and his penetration of human character.  Beyond Italy, the work of Rubens, Rembrandt and Manet have echoes of Titian.  Titian was enormously versatile, famous for landscapes, portraits, erotic nudes and monumental religious works.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Story of My Life, by Giacomo Casanova. Introduced and edited by Gilberto Pizzamiglio (Penguin Classics)

Giacomo Casanova was not only the most notorious lover of the Western world, but a supreme story teller. In his time he was diplomat, business man, trainee priest, traveller, prisoner, magician, confidence trickster, gambler, professional entertainer and charlatan. He financed business projects, organised lotteries, wrote opera libretti and dabbled in high politics. Above all he was an autobiographer of enduring brilliance and subtlety who left behind him what is probably the most remarkable confession ever written, which he entitled simply The Story of My Life.  This new selection contains all the highlights of Casanova's life: his youth in Venice as a precocious ecclesiastic; his dabbling in the occult; his imprisonment and thrilling escape; and his amorous conquests, ranging from noblewomen to nuns.

Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) was born in Venice, the son of actors who wanted him to become a priest. Gilberto Pizzamiglio is Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Venice.

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26 August

Carlo Camillo Di Rudio - soldier

Italian aristocrat who survived Battle of the Little Bighorn

Carlo Camillo Di Rudio, a military officer who became known as Charles Camillus DeRudio and gave 32 years’ service to the United States Army in the late 19th century, was born in Belluno in northern Italy on this day in 1832.  Having arrived in New York City as an immigrant from England in 1860, he served as a volunteer in the American Civil War (1861-65) before joining the Regular Army in 1867 as a 2nd lieutenant in the 2nd Infantry. That appointment was cancelled when he failed a medical. Yet he was readmitted and joined the 7th Cavalry, eventually promoted to Major.  He participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which the US Army was defeated by the combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribesmen. The battle was part of the Great Sioux Wars of 1876, fought for possession of the Black Hills in South Dakota, where gold had been found.  Read more…

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La Pietà - Michelangelo's masterpiece

Brilliant sculpture commissioned by French Cardinal

Michelangelo Buonarotti agreed the contract to create the sculpture that would come to be regarded as his masterpiece on this day in 1498.  It was made between the artist and Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, the French ambassador to the Holy See, who wanted a sculpture of the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of Jesus, which was a common theme in religious art in northern Europe at the time.  Michelangelo, who would live until he was almost 89, was just 23 at the time and had been in Rome only a couple of years, but was about to produce a piece of work that astounded his contemporaries and is still seen as one of the finest pieces of sculpture ever crafted.  La Pietà – in English, 'the pity' – was carved from a block of blue and white Carrara marble selected by Michelangelo, a good six feet (183cm) tall by six feet across.  Read more…

Sant’Alessandro of Bergamo

Annual festival keeps alive the memory of city’s saint

The patron saint of Bergamo, Sant’Alessandro, was martyred on this day in 303 by the Romans for refusing to renounce his Christian faith.  It is believed Alessandro was a devout citizen who had continued to preach in Bergamo, despite having several narrow escapes from would-be Roman executioners, but he was eventually caught and suffered public decapitation.  In Christian legend, Alessandro was a centurion of the Theban Legion, a legion of the Roman army that converted en masse to Christianity, whose existence prompted a crusade against Christianity launched by the Romans in around AD 298.  Alessandro was reputedly held in prison in Milan on two occasions but escaped to Bergamo, where he defiantly refused to go into hiding and instead openly preached, converting many Bergamaschi to his faith.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Battle of the Little Big Horn: A New Appraisal, by Wendy Ann Wallace

Lt Col George Armstrong Custer died at the hands of native Americans by the banks of the Little Big Horn in Montana June 25, 1876. This is an established undisputed fact. What is disputed is the real reason that he died. So forget all you have been taught to believe and begin to learn the truth. George Custer was an anathema to his superiors, but the populace loved him. If he had stood for president there was a strong possibility that he would have won. Neither William T Sherman nor ‘Little Phil’ Sheridan could allow that to happen. Thus they conspired to put Custer in a position in the field where the opposing Sioux and Cheyenne were stronger and could deliver the ‘Coup de Gras’. The Battle of the Little Big Horn: A New Appraisal is the first of two volumes to deal with the circumstances that arose leading the native Americans on a collision course with the US Army that fateful day and the death of a national hero. Subsequently the conspiracy is uncovered and shows how these men used their powers and positions and so deftly covered their tracks. Perhaps, but not quite. 30 years of diligent research has uncovered the truth in this ground breaking history.

Wendy Ann Wallace is an English military historian known worldwide, the author of best-selling books and numerous articles. An authority on the American Indian Wars, she lives in Leicestershire. 

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