10 March

NEW - Giacomo Serpotta – sculptor

Artist could transform wet plaster into realistic scenes

Sicilian sculptor Giacomo Serpotta, whose creations in stucco have been described as turning a craft into an art, was born on this day in 1656 in Palermo.  Serpotta constructed entire scenes that included lifelike figures with realistic facial expressions. He decorated churches in his home town using stucco, a traditional material used in Sicily during the 17th century in architecture.  His decorations for the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo incorporate such a profusion of statuary that the walls appear to quiver with the movement of a crowd, according to people who have visited the church. It has been claimed by Serpotta’s biographer that the artist never left Sicily and had no exposure to the Italian baroque style, but this has never been proved one way or the other.  Serpotta was born into a family of sculptors and stucco workers. Read more… 

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Marcello Malpighi – scientist

Controversial doctor furthered the use of the microscope

Marcello Malpighi, who founded the science of microscopic anatomy, was born on this day in 1628 in Crevalcore, a town near Bologna in Emilia-Romagna.  Malpighi became a physician and biologist who developed experimental methods for studying human anatomy. As a result of his work, microscopic anatomy became a prerequisite for advances in the fields of physiology, embryology and practical medicine.  In 1646, at the age of 18, Malpighi went to study at Bologna University. Although both of his parents died when he was 21, he was fortunately able to continue with his studies.  He was granted doctorates in both medicine and philosophy in 1653 and appointed as a teacher by the university, despite not having been born in Bologna. He immediately set out to continue with his studies of anatomy and medicine.  Read more…

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Lorenzo Da Ponte - writer and impresario

Colourful life of Mozart's librettist

The librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who could be described on two counts as a figure of considerable significance in the story of opera, was born on this day in 1749 in Ceneda - since renamed Vittorio Veneto - about 42km (26 miles) north of Treviso in the Veneto region.  Da Ponte wrote the words for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest successes, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte.  He also opened New York City's first opera house in 1833 at the age of 84 and is credited with introducing the United States both to Mozart and Gioachino Rossini. Da Ponte was born Emanuele Conegliano at a time when Ceneda was a strongly Jewish community. His mother, Rachele, died when he was only five and at the age of 14 he was baptised as a Catholic along with his father, who wanted to marry a Catholic girl but could do so only if he converted.  Read more…

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

Revolutionary was ideological inspiration for Italian unification

Giuseppe Mazzini, the journalist and revolutionary who was one of the driving forces behind the Risorgimento, the political and social movement aimed at unifying Italy in the 19th century, died on this day in 1872 in Pisa.  Mazzini is considered to be one of the heroes of the Risorgimento, whose memory is preserved in the names of streets and squares all over Italy.  Where Giuseppe Garibaldi was the conquering soldier, Vittorio Emanuele the unifying king and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour the statesman who would become Italy's first prime minister, Mazzini is perhaps best described as the movement's ideological inspiration.  Born in 1807, the son of a university professor in Genoa, Mazzini spent large parts of his life in exile and some of it in prison.  His mission was to free Italy of oppressive foreign powers, to which end he organised numerous uprisings. Read more…

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Corrado Parnucci – architectural sculptor

Prolific artist whose work adorns cities of Michigan

The architectural sculptor Corrado Giuseppe Parnucci, who left his artistic mark on more than 600 buildings in Detroit and other cities in the US state of Michigan, was born on this day in 1900 in Buti, a Tuscan village about 15km (9 miles) east of Pisa.  Taken to live in America at the age of four, Parnucci – generally known as Joe – settled in Detroit after accepting some work there in 1924.  Among the Detroit landmarks with architectural embellishments by Parnucci are the Buhl Building, The Players, the Guardian Building, the David Stott Building, the Detroit Masonic Temple, the Detroit Historical Museum and the Wilson Theater.  Most of those buildings went up during the 1920s as the city’s skyline underwent huge change.  Parnucci also sculpted work for buildings in most other major Michigan cities, including Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Flint.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Art and Architecture of Sicily, by Julian Treuherz

Art and Architecture of Sicily is the first book to cover the rich artistic heritage of Sicily from prehistory up to the late 20th century. Sicily’s strategic position in the centre of the Mediterranean led to settlement or conquest by a succession of different peoples - Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Germans, French, Spanish - each one leaving its traces on Sicilian culture.  The book provides a chronological survey, each section opening with a brief historical overview which is followed by an authoritative and engaging account of the development of the period’s art and architecture. The leading architects, artists and stylistic currents are all discussed and outstanding individual buildings and works of art are analysed, some famous, others which may be unfamiliar to readers. While architecture is the principal starting point for the understanding of each period, paintings and sculpture are treated in some detail; archaeology, urban development, patronage and decorative arts are also covered.  The development of art and architecture in Sicily is not interpreted as a story of artistic conquests, but as one of acculturation and creative transformation. The author reveals that successive layering of different cultures, and the way each one interacted with its predecessors, produced art and architecture quite distinct from anywhere else in Europe. 

Julian Treuherz is an art historian who was Keeper of Art Galleries for National Museums Liverpool between 1989 and 2007. He has written many books, articles and exhibition catalogues, and over the last 20 years he has spent part of each year in Sicily studying its art and architecture.

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Giacomo Serpotta – sculptor

Artist could transform wet plaster into realistic scenes

A section of Serpotta's remarkable work in the Oratory
of San Cita in Palermo, depicting a naval battle

Sicilian sculptor Giacomo Serpotta, whose creations in stucco have been described as turning a craft into an art, was born on this day in 1656 in Palermo.

Serpotta constructed entire scenes that included lifelike figures with realistic facial expressions. He decorated churches in his home city using stucco, a traditional material used in Sicily during the 17th century in architecture.

His decorations for the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo incorporate such a profusion of statuary that the walls appear to quiver with the movement of a crowd, according to people who have visited the church.

It has been claimed by Serpotta’s biographer that the artist never left Sicily and had no exposure to the Italian baroque style, but this has never been proved one way or the other.

Serpotta was born into a family of sculptors and stucco workers. With his brother, Giuseppe, and his son, Procopio, he established his own studio in Palermo that specialised in stucco work.

Stucco is a type of building material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. It is applied wet and later hardens and can be used as a decorative coating for walls. Serpotta used it to create statues and complex wall decorations, working with it when it was still a malleable paste before it hardened irreversibly.

Serpotta’s remarkable work for the Oratory of Santa Cita includes a detailed depiction of a naval battle, inspired by the Battle of Lepanto, all made out of stucco.

His biographer, Filippo Meli, has stated that Giacomo Serpotta never left Sicily, but some experts have said his work indicates the clear influence of Roman-style baroque art. There is a theory that Serpotta may have visited Rome, but that the trip was never documented. However, this has never been corroborated.

Serpotta's eye for facial
detail was extraordinary

Some experts thought the influence of Roman baroque style to be evident in his design for an equestrian statue of Charles II, which was cast in stucco and then constructed in bronze and erected in the square of the Duomo di Messina in 1680. Unfortunately, this statue was destroyed in 1848 and so it is now known to scholars only through the drawings of it that remain.

His work, Ecstasy of Santa Monica is also believed to show Roman influence as it is a translation of Bernini’s marble sculpture through the medium of stucco.

In addition to decorating churches in Palermo, Serpotta also worked with his family on the Palermo hospital chapel, the Archbishop’s Palace in Santa Chiara, and the Badia Nuova of Alcamo.

Giacomo Serpotta has been described by an art historian as ‘a meteor in the Sicilian sky’ because of his light, graceful style. The signature he used on his work was a carving of a lizard, because the word ‘sirpuzza’ means ‘small serpent’ in the Sicilian language. An example of this signature can be seen on a gold column next to one of his statues in the Oratory di San Rosario di San Domenico. 

Stories about the churches he decorated in Sicily eventually spread to Germany, where his style went on to influence artists of the Rococo period there.

Serpotta died in 1732 in Palermo, at the age of 76.

Catania's Cattedrale di Sant'Agata is an
example of Sicily's prevalent Baroque style

Travel tip:

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, just off the toe of Italy’s boot. The ancient ruins, diverse architecture and wonderful cuisine enjoyed by visitors are all testament to the island’s colourful history. Watching over the island is Mount Etna, a volcano that is still active today. Palermo, the capital of Sicily, is a vibrant city with a wealth of beautiful architecture, plenty of shops and markets to browse in, and a large opera house. Sicily’s other major cities include Catania, a vibrant city of Baroque architecture sitting in the shadow of Etna, with a splendid fish market, as well as Messina, which faces the mainland in the northeast corner of the island, and the Baroque gems that are Siracusa, Noto and Ragusa. Siracusa is also famous for its Archaeological Park, which contains the remains of both a Greek theatre and a Roman amphitheatre. Agrigento, on the south coast, is home to the Valley of the Temples, one of the most outstanding examples of ancient Greek art and architecture of Magna Graecia to be found anywhere.

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Serpotta's stucco adorns the Church of
San Domenico in Palermo

Travel tip:

The Oratory of the Rosary of San Domenico, which showcases the magnificent stucco work of Giacomo Serpotta, is in the historic centre of Palermo in Via dei Bambini. Building work on the Oratory began in 1574 next to the Church of San Domenico, in the Loggia quarter. In 1714, Serpotta was commissioned by the Oratory to create, in stucco, episodes from the Apocalypse, and Allegorical statues of the Virtues to go above and between the paintings on display there. In addition to Serpotta’s sumptuous decorations, the Oratory houses paintings by important artists such as Matthias Stom, Pietro Novelli, Valerio Castello and Luca Giordano as well as an altarpiece by Anthony van Dyck, the Flemish Baroque painter, whose depiction of the Madonna of the Rosary with Saints Dominic, was commissioned during the period of the 1624 plague. Van Dyck spent six years in Italy, based mainly in Genoa. He was visiting Palermo at the time of the plague outbreak and remained quarantined there.

Palermo hotels from Expedia

More reading:

The unsolved theft of a Caravaggio masterpiece from Palermo's Oratory of San Lorenzo

Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, the architect who shaped the look of Catania

How the devastation of a massive earthquake led to Sicily’s architectural rebirth

Also on this day: 

1628: The birth of scientist Marcello Malpighi

1749: The birth of librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte

1872: The death of Risorgimento inspiration Giuseppe Mazzini

1900: The birth of architectural sculptor Corrado Parnucci

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9 March

Amerigo Vespucci – explorer

Medici clerk who discovered a new world

Explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci was born on this day in 1454 in Florence.  Vespucci was the first to discover the ‘new world’, which later came to be called the Americas, taking the Latin version of his first name.  He was the son of a notary in Florence and a cousin of the husband of the beautiful artist’s model, Simonetta Vespucci. He was educated by his uncle, Fra Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar, and he was later hired as a clerk by the Medici family.  He acquired the favour of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who sent him to the Medici office in Cadiz in Spain to investigate the managers, who were under suspicion.  Later, as the executor of an Italian merchant who had died in Seville, Vespucci fulfilled the deceased’s contract with Castile to provide 12 vessels to sail to the Indies. Read more…

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Internazionale - football superpower

Famous club that broke away from rivals AC Milan

Internazionale, one of Italy's most successful football clubs, came into being on this day in 1908.  The winner 20 times of lo scudetto - the Italian championship - the club known often as Inter or Inter-Milan was born after a split within the membership of the Milan Cricket and Football Club, forerunner of the club known now as A C Milan.  The original club was established by expatriate British football enthusiasts with a membership restricted to Italian and British players. It was after a dispute over whether foreign players should be signed that a breakaway group formed.  Plans for a new club were drawn up at a meeting at the Ristorante L'Orologio in Via Giuseppe Mengoni in Milan, a short distance from the opera house, Teatro alla Scala.  It was a restaurant popular with theatregoers and artists, among them Giorgio Muggiani, a painter who would become renowned for his work in advertising. Read more…

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Bettino Ricasoli - statesman and winemaker

Prime minister and inventor of modern Chianti wine

The politician and winemaker Barone Bettino Ricasoli was born on this day in 1809 in Florence.  Ricasoli, who is considered one of the driving forces of the Risorgimento alongside Giuseppe Mazzini, Count Camillo Benso of Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi and others, succeeded Cavour as prime minister in 1861, the second person to hold the office in the new Kingdom of Italy.  After withdrawing from politics, he concentrated on the family vineyards around the Castello di Brolio in the Tuscan hills between Siena and Arezzo, seat of the Ricasoli family since the early 12th century.  It was there in 1872, seeking to create a wine with universal appeal, that he developed the formula for Chianti wine that is still used today, made up of 70 per cent Sangiovese grapes, 15 per cent Canaiolo and 15 per cent Malvasia bianca.  Read more…

Nabucco premieres in Milan

Verdi opera that became a symbol of the Risorgimento

The opera Nabucco, with music by Giuseppe Verdi and a libretto by Temistocle Solera, was first performed on this day in 1842 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.  The opera contains the famous chorus Va, pensiero, a lament for a lost homeland that many Italians now regard as their unofficial national anthem.  The opera and Verdi himself have become synonymous with the Risorgimento, the period in the 19th century when people worked to free the Italian states of foreign domination and unite them under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy.  It is said that during the last years of the Austrian occupation of Lombardia and the Veneto, for example, that Italian patriots adopted Viva Verdi as a slogan and rallying call, using the composer’s name as an acronym for 'Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia' - 'Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy'.  Read more…

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Andrew Viterbi – electrical engineer and businessman

The amazing life of 'the father of the mobile telephone'

Andrew Viterbi, who invented the Viterbi algorithm and co-founded the American multinational corporation Qualcomm, was born Andrea Giacomo Viterbi on this day in 1935 in Bergamo in the Lombardy region of Italy.  The Viterbi algorithm is still used widely in cellular phones and other communication devices for error correcting codes as well as for speech recognition, DNA analysis and other applications. Viterbi also helped to develop the Code Division Multiple Access standard for cell phone networks.  He is recognised in Italy as ‘il padre del telefonino’ - the father of the mobile telephone.  Viterbi’s father, Achille, was director of Bergamo Hospital’s ophthalmology department, and his mother, Maria Luria, had a teaching degree. But after Mussolini introduced his new racial laws in Italy before the start of World War II, the couple, who were both Jewish, were deprived of their positions and could no longer support their family.  Read more…

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Emma Bonino – politician

Leading Radical learnt Arabic to understand Middle East press

Veteran politician Emma Bonino, who most recently served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of Enrico Letta, was born on this day in 1948 in Bra in Piedmont.  A leading member of the Italian Radicals, Bonino has throughout her career been an activist for reform policies and a campaigner for women's and human rights.  Bonino graduated in modern languages and literature from Bocconi University in Milan in 1972. She founded the Information Centre on Sterilisation and Abortion in 1975 and promoted the referendum that led to the legalisation of abortion in Italy.  She was first elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1976 and was re-elected six times afterwards.  In 1986 Bonino was among the promoters of a referendum against nuclear energy, which led to the rejection of a civil nuclear energy programme in Italy.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America, by by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

In Amerigo, Felipe Fernández-Armesto answers the question "What's in a name?" by delivering a rousing flesh-and-blood narrative of the life and times of Amerigo Vespucci. Here we meet Amerigo as he really was: a rogue and raconteur who counted Christopher Columbus among his friends and rivals; an amateur sorcerer who attained fame and honor through a series of disastrous failures and equally grand self-reinventions. Filled with well-informed insights and amazing anecdotes, this magisterial and compulsively readable account sweeps readers from Medicean Florence to the Sevillian court of Ferdinand and Isabella, then across the Atlantic of Columbus to the brave New World where fortune favored the bold.  Amerigo Vespucci emerges from these pages as an irresistible avatar for the age of exploration-and as a man of genuine achievement as a voyager and chronicler of discovery. And now, in Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America, this mercurial and elusive figure finally has a biography to do full justice to both the man and his remarkable era.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto, born in London, is William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre-Dame in Indiana and former chair of History at Queen Mary College, University of London. 

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8 March

Carlo Gesualdo – composer

Madrigal writer was also a murderer

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, who composed highly experimental music for his time, was born on this day in 1566 in the principality of Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples.  He was to become known both for his extraordinary music and for the brutal killing of his first wife and her aristocratic lover after he caught them together.  Gesualdo was the nephew of Carlo Borromeo, who later became Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother, Geronima Borromeo, was the niece of Pope Pius IV.  Although Gesualdo was sent to Rome to begin an ecclesiastical career, he became heir to the principality after his older brother died. He married his cousin, Donna Maria D’Avalos, and they had a son, Emanuele.  Gesualdo was devoted to music from an early age and mixed with musicians and composers, learning to play the lute, harpsichord and guitar.  Read more…

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La Festa della Donna – Women’s Day

Bright fragrant mimosa signals respect

La Festa della Donna - Women’s Day - is celebrated in Italy on this day every year and is an occasion for men to show their appreciation for the women in their lives.  In many parts of Italy today, men will be seen carrying bunches of prettily wrapped mimosa to give to women who are special to them.  The flowers might be for their wives, girlfriends, mothers, friends or even employees and are meant as a sign of respect for womanhood.  The custom of men giving mimosa to their ladies began in the 1940s after the date 8 March was chosen as the Festa della Donna in Italy.  The date, which coincides with International Women's Day, has a political significance for campaigners for women's rights in Italy, marking the anniversary of a strike by female textile workers in New York in 1857 and the so-called 'bread and peace' strike by women in Russia in 1917. Read more…

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Antonello Venditti - enduring music star

Roman singer-songwriter's career spans 50 years

Singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti, one of Italy's most popular and enduring stars of contemporary music, was born on this day in 1949 in Rome.   Famous in the 1970s for the strong political and social content of many of his songs, Venditti can look back on a career spanning half a century, in which he has sold more than 30 million records.  Taking into account singles, studio and live albums and compilations, Venditti has released more than 100 recordings.  His biggest success came with the 1988 album In questo mondo di ladri (In This World of Thieves) - which sold 1.5 million copies, making it jointly the eighth best-selling album in Italian music history.  Venditti's music ranges from folk to soft rock, often with classical overtones. He enjoyed sustained success in the 1980s and 90s, when Cuore, Benvenuti in Paradiso and Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro all sold well. Read more…

Walter Chiari - actor

Talented star with taste for high life

The actor Walter Chiari, whose passionate affair with the American superstar Ava Gardner in 1950s Rome is said to have influenced Federico Fellini in the making of his landmark movie La dolce vita, was born on this day in 1924 in Verona.  Chiari was an accomplished stage and film actor when he met Gardner on the set of The Little Hut, a 1957 romantic comedy that was British made and with a Canadian director but was filmed largely at Cinecittà in Rome.  Gardner was still married to Frank Sinatra at the time but the pair were estranged and she was open to romance. She developed a taste for the Rome nightlife around the Via Veneto and her relationship with Chiari soon began to dominate the gossip columns. They were constantly harassed by photographers, some of whom felt the rough edge of Chiari’s temper.  Read more… 

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Gianni Baget Bozzo – priest and politician

Theologian moved from party to party

Prolific writer, ordained Catholic priest and political activist Gianni Baget Bozzo - often referred to as Don Gianni - was born on this day in 1925 in Savona in the northern Italian region of Liguria.  He took the name Baget from his mother, who was of Catalan origin but died when he was five, and Bozzo from the two uncles who raised him.  Baget Bozzo was known for supporting parties from both ends of the political spectrum at different times.  At one time a Christian Democrat activist, Baget Bozzo was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist party in 1984, which led to him being suspended from the priesthood. He was a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party from 1994.  He wrote many books about Christianity and as a theologian was a follower of the theories of Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Gesualdo Hex - Music, Myth, and Memory, by Glenn Watkins

In this vivid tale of adultery and intrigue, witchcraft and murder, Glenn Watkins explores the fascinating life of the Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo - a life suffused with scandal and bordering on the fantastical. An isolated prince, Gesualdo had a personal life that was no less eccentric and bewildering than the music he composed; his biography has often clouded our perception of his oeuvre, which music scholars have periodically dismissed as a late Renaissance deformation of little consequence. Today, however, Gesualdo’s music, once deemed so strange as to be unperformable, stands as one of the most vibrant legacies of the late Italian Renaissance with an undeniable impact on a host of 20th-century musicians and artists. The incendiary details of Gesualdo’s life recede, and his grip on our musical imagination comes to the fore. Watkins challenges our preconceptions of what has become a nearly mythic persona, weaving together the cumulative experience of some of the most vibrant artists of the past century from Stravinsky and Schoenberg to Abbado and Herzog. Beyond questions of mere influence, however, In The Gesualdo Hex, the author examines how Gesualdo’s life, music, myth, and memory intertwine with one another to reveal an uncanny affinity with our own time. 

Glenn E Watkins was a distinguished musicologist and Professor Emeritus of Music History and Musicology at the University of Michigan. 

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