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… 

___________________________________________

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…

________________________________________

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…

_________________________________________

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…

_________________________________________

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…

________________________________________

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. 

Buy from Amazon

Home

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.

Rome hotels with Expedia

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.

Stay in Bistagno with Hotels.com

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

Home

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…

___________________________________________

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…

___________________________________________

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…

_________________________________________

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…

_________________________________________

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.

Buy from Amazon

Home

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… 

_________________________________________

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…

_________________________________________

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…

__________________________________________

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…

__________________________________________

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…

_________________________________________

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.

Buy from Amazon

Home