Showing posts with label Bergamo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bergamo. Show all posts

22 November 2023

Beatrice Trussardi – entrepreneur

Art promoter chosen among the 100 most successful Italian women

Beatrice Trussardi has become an important promoter of art and design
Beatrice Trussardi has become an
important promoter of art and design
Art and design promoter and business woman Beatrice Trussardi, the daughter of fashion designer Nicola Trussardi, was born on this day in 1971 in Milan.

Since 1999, Beatrice has been president of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, which was founded by her father to promote contemporary art and culture.

Nicola Trussardi, who was born in Bergamo, went to work in his grandfather’s glove making business in the city and turned it into a multimillion-dollar business that helped contribute to the popularity of the Made in Italy label throughout the world.

Beatrice, who was his eldest child, obtained a degree in Art, Business and Administration at New York University and went on to work at the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.  

She directed the move by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi from its permanent exhibition space in Milan to develop a new, itinerant model. The foundation now focuses on holding art exhibitions in historical monuments and forgotten buildings in Milan, that were not previously accessible to the public.

As part of this, Palazzo Litta, Palazzo Dugnani and Palazzo Citterio have all been restored, enabling them to host major exhibitions by contemporary artists.

In 2021, Beatrice launched the Beatrice Trussardi Foundation, a nomadic art foundation, working with artistic director Massimiliano Gioni to produce and exhibit art installations in international locations. Issues such as climate change, gender inequality and talent empowerment are at the core of the foundation’s research programme.

Beatrice was CEO of her father's Trussardi Group for 11 years
Beatrice was CEO of her father's
Trussardi Group for 11 years
Beatrice became president and CEO of Trussardi Group in 2003, positions she held until 2014.

In 2007, she enrolled in the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st century programme at the John F Kennedy School of Government.

Beatrice became one of 237 people selected by the World Economic Forum to be part of its Young Global Leaders group in 2005. She joined the Women’s Leadership Board at the John F Kennedy School of Government, which was founded to promote gender equality in society and politics, in 2007. She became president of the Friends of Aspen at Aspen Institute Italia, whose aim is to analyse and discuss important economic, social and cultural issues fundamental to development.

She was appointed to the Board of Directors of Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome in 2013 by invitation of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and, in 2014, she joined the Board of Directors of Comitato Fondazioni Italiane Arte Contemporanee.

Beatrice is married to businessman Federico Roveda and the couple have two children. She was chosen by Forbes Italia as among the 100 Most Successful Italian Women in 2019.

Bergamo's Città Alta is guarded by imposing walls built by the Venetians in the 16th century
Bergamo's Città Alta is guarded by imposing
walls built by the Venetians in the 16th century
Travel tip:

Bergamo, where Trussardi’s father, Nicola, was born, is a beautiful city in Lombardy about 50km (31 miles) northeast of Milan. It has upper and lower town that are separated by impressive fortifications. The magical upper town - the Città Alta - has gems of mediaeval and Renaissance architecture surrounded by the impressive 16th century walls, which were built by the Venetians who ruled at the time. Outside the walls, the elegant Città Bassa, which grew up on the plain below, has some buildings that date back to the 15th century as well as imposing architecture added in the 19th and 20th centuries. While the Città Alta is the draw for many tourists, the lower town also has art galleries, churches and theatres and a wealth of good restaurants and smart shops to enjoy.  The Trussardi family home, Casa Trussardi, which they acquired in 1983, sits on top of the south-facing walls overlooking Viale delle Mura, with commanding views over the Città Bassa and the vast Po Valley.

Travel tip:

Palazzo Litta, also known as Palazzo Arese-Litta, is a Baroque palace on Corso Magenta in the centre of Milan, opposite the church of San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore and a short distance from the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which houses Leonardo da Vinci’s wall painting of The Last Supper. Built between 1642 and 1648, it dates back to the period of Spanish rule of the city. The original owner was Count Bartolomeo Arese, a member of one of Milan’s most influential families of the period, who went on to become President of the Senate of Milan in 1660. The structure of the palace has changed over time, although parts of architect Francesco Maria Richini’s original design remain intact. Having become the property of the Litta family in the mid-18th century, the palace was given a facelift when Bartolomeo Bolli constructed the current façade, highly decorated with Rococò features. Apart from its exhibition spaces, the palace is home to the oldest theatre in Milan, originally Richini’s oratory and later turned into a private theatre for the use of the Arese family and guests. It is still in use as the Teatro Litta di Milano.

Also on this day:

1533: The birth of Alfonso II d’Este, last Duke of Ferrara

1710: The death of Baroque composer Bernardo Pasquini

1902: The birth of Mafia boss Joe Adonis

1911: The birth of Olympic champion cyclist Giuseppe Olmo

1947: The birth of footballer and coach Nevio Scala

1949: The birth of entrepreneur Rocco Commisso

1954: The birth of former prime minister Paolo Gentiloni


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28 August 2023

Giovanni Maria Benzoni - sculptor

Roman collectors called him the ‘new Canova’

Benzoni's self-portrait bust is in the Biblioteca Angelo Mai in Bergamo
Benzoni's self-portrait bust is in the
Biblioteca Angelo Mai in Bergamo
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 the ancient city - even though he spent much of his life in Rome.

As such he was held in similar regard to celebrated bergamaschi 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.

He was later commissioned to sculpt a monumental tomb for Cardinal Mai in the Basilica of Sant’Anastasia al Palatino in the centre of Rome.

Benzoni’s parents, Giuseppe and Margherita, were farmers of modest means. Giovanni Maria worked briefly as a shepherd, but his father died when he was around 11 years old, after which he was sent to work in his uncle’s small carpentry shop at Riva di Solto, on the western shore of Lago d’Iseo, about 25km (16 miles) away.

Benzoni's Flight from Pompeii is notable for its extraordinary realism
Benzoni's Flight from Pompeii is
notable for its extraordinary realism
He began to show a talent for carving religious statues which came to the attention of a wealthy patron called Giuseppe Fontana, who was impressed enough to speak about him to Count Luigi Tadini, who would later open the Tadini Academy of Fine Arts in Lovere, another town on Lago d’Iseo.

Tadini asked Benzoni to make a copy of the Stele Tadini, the sculpture made for him by Antonio Canova in memory of the count’s son Faustino, who had died at a young age.

He was so impressed by Benzoni’s attention to detail and the accuracy of the reproduction that he arranged for the young man, who had never had a formal education, to attend a college in Lovere. 

When he reached the age of 18 or 19, Tadini took Benzoni to Rome, where he would work in the workshop of Giuseppe Fabris - an artist who would later became director general of the Vatican museums - and attend the prestigious Accademia di San Luca, where his fees were paid by Count Tadini.

Benzoni’s elegant marble sculptures had echoes of Canova’s work, which he greatly admired. One of his earliest pieces sculpted at the Academy, entitled Silent Love, attracted the approval of wealthy buyers in Rome, who soon began to speak of him as “il novello Canova” - the new Canova. 

After winning several competitions at San Luca, Benzoni began to earn money for his work and opened a small studio in Via Sant'Isidoro, in the centre of Rome, off the street now called Via Vittorio Veneto. Demand for his work grew so rapidly that he was obliged to find bigger premises, first in Via del Borghetto and later in Via del Babuino, between the Spanish Steps and Piazza del Popolo.

Benzoni's bust of his former patron, Count Luigi Tadini, in Lovere
Benzoni's bust of his former patron,
Count Luigi Tadini, in Lovere
At the peak of his fame, he employed more than 50 assistants, making multiple versions of his most popular works. His Cupid and Psyche (1845) and Veiled Rebecca (1863) are considered to be two of his greatest triumphs.  Benzoni had clients in Holland, France, England and Ireland as well as in Italy.  

One of his later works, Flight from Pompeii or The Last Days of Pompeii (1868), was inspired by his visits to the Naples region in the 1850s and 1860s, when he was moved by the capacity for destruction of the volcano Vesuvius. The sculpture depicts with notable realism a man, his wife and their baby child, the man holding a cloak above his head to try to protect the trio as they seek refuge from the falling ashes.

The original was made for the wife of a wealthy New York hotelier. Among the many copies Benzoni produced, one is housed in a museum in Australia, another in the Neoclassical-style Town Hall at Todmorden, in the English county of Yorkshire.

Benzoni, who married into a noble Roman family and had six children, always lived in Rome but returned regularly to Bergamo, where he became a member of the city’s university and donated busts of famous citizens. His own self-portrait bust is in the Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai on Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo’s mediaeval Città Alta.

He sculpted a statue of his former patron, Count Tadini, which stands on a plinth in a lakeside garden opposite the Tadini Academy in Lovere.

After his death in 1873, the popularity of Benzoni’s work declined, in common with the Neoclassical style as the newlly unified-Italy began to look forward. It has enjoyed a revival in recent years, however. Among his most famous works, his 1861 sculpture Innocenza difesa dalla fedeltà (Innocence Defended by Loyalty), which shows a young girl removing a thorn from the paw of her faithful pet dog, sold at Sotheby’s in New York in 2001 for more than $84,000 (€77,800; £66,800) and was presented as a gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Torre dell'orologio is one of several notable buildings in the town of Clusone
The Torre dell'orologio is one of several
notable buildings in the town of Clusone
Travel tip:

Benzoni’s birthplace, Songavazzo, is just outside the town of Clusone, about 35km (22 miles) northeast of Bergamo, a beautiful small town nestling on a plain against the backdrop of the Alpi Orobie - sometimes translated as the Orobic Alps - which attracts visitors all year round. Apart from its proximity to ski resorts, Clusone is famous for the frescoes that decorate some of its most significant buildings, such as the Municipio (Town Hall), the Torre dell'orologio (Clock Tower) and the Oratorio dei Disciplini (Oratory of the Disciplines), which has a macabre offering entitled The Triumph of Death. Clusone is also home to a prestigious annual jazz festival.

The Palazzo Tadini in Lovere on Lago d'Iseo is home of the Accademia di Belle Arti Tadini
The Palazzo Tadini in Lovere on Lago d'Iseo is
home of the Accademia di Belle Arti Tadini
Travel tip:

Lovere, where Benzoni received his first formal education, is the largest town on the western shore of Lago d’Iseo  and has wonderful views of the top of the lake with its dramatic backdrop of mountains. Benzoni’s patron, Count Luigi Tadini of Crema, established the Accademia di Belle Arti Tadini in the lakefront Palazzo Tadini in 1829 and it has become one of the most important art galleries in Italy. The church of Santa Maria in Valvendra has some 16th century frescoes and the church of San Giorgio, which is built into a mediaeval tower, contains an important work by Palma il Giovane. A pleasant boat ride connects Lovere with Pisogne on the eastern shore of the lake, which has a railway line linking the lake with the city of Brescia. The landing stage adjoins Piazza XIII Martiri.

Also on this day:

1665: The death of painter and printmaker Elisabetta Sirani

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

1938: The birth of journalist and talk show host Maurizio Costanza


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20 May 2023

Giovanni Paolo Cavagna – artist

Prolific painter left a rich legacy of religious canvases

Frescoes by Cavagna illuminate the dome of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo
Frescoes by Cavagna illuminate the dome of the
Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo
Late Renaissance painter Giovanni Paolo Cavagna, who became famous for his religious scenes, died on this day in 1627 in his native city of Bergamo.

Cavagna was mainly active in Bergamo and Brescia, another historic city in the Lombardy region, for most of his career, although he is believed to have spent some time training in Venice in the studio of Titian.

The artist was born in Borgo di San Leonardo in Bergamo’s Città Bassa in about 1550. The painter Cristoforo Baschenis Il Vecchio is believed to have taken him as an apprentice from the age of 12. Cavagna is also thought to have spent time as a pupil of the famous Bergamo portrait painter Giovanni Battista Moroni.

Cavagna’s work can still be seen in many churches in Bergamo and villages in the surrounding area. In the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo’s Città Alta there are paintings by him of the Assumption of the Virgin, the Nativity, and Esther and Ahasuerus.

The church of Santo Spirito in Bergamo's Città Bassa
The church of Santo Spirito
in Bergamo's Città Bassa
In the Church of Santo Spirito in Bergamo’s Città Bassa, there are his paintings of Santa Lucia and the Crucifixion with Saints. He painted a Coronation of the Virgin for the Church of San Giovanni Battista in the province of Casnigo, which is to the north east of Bergamo, and some of his paintings can also be seen in the sanctuary of the Madonna del Castello in Almenno San Salvatore, a province to the north west of Bergamo.

The artist also completed a painting of the Crucifixion for the Church of Santa Lucia in Venice.

Cavagna’s son, Francesco, who became known as Cavagnuola, and his daughter, Caterina, also became painters.

After his death in 1627, Cavagna was buried in the Church of Santa Maria Immacolata delle Grazie in the Città Bassa in Bergamo, but after the reorganization of the lower town in the 19th century, the church was rebuilt and Cavagna’s tomb had to be moved, and it is now uncertain what happened to it.

Piazza Pontida is in Bergamo's Borgo San Leonardo quarter in the Città Bassa
Piazza Pontida is in Bergamo's Borgo San
Leonardo quarter in the Città Bassa
Travel tip:

Borgo San Leonardo, where Cavagna was born and lived, is a historic part of Bergamo’s Città Bassa where the Church of San Leonardo fronts an attractive square, Piazza Pontida, which links the important thoroughfares of Via Sant’Alessandro and Via XX Settembre. Piazza Pontida is part of an area that was known for centuries as Cinque Vie (five roads), where traffic from Milan, Lecco, Treviglio and Crema would converge and goods arriving in Bergamo would be unloaded. Some of the porticos in the piazza date back to the 15th century, when the farmers and merchants of the time would shelter from the sun under them.

The Via Arena entrance to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
The Via Arena entrance to the
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Travel tip:

Some of Cavagna’s paintings can be seen in one of the most important and beautiful churches in Bergamo, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, which has entrances from both Piazza Duomo and Via Arena in the Città Alta. The basilica was built in the 12th century in the shape of a Greek cross but was modified in the 14th and 16th centuries. It has a large interior with a richly decorated cupola from the 16th century and some fine Flemish and Florentine tapestries and works of art. At the back of the church is an elaborate white marble monument designed by Vincenzo Vela, marking the tomb of opera composer Gaetano Donizetti, who was born in Bergamo and came back to die in the city.





Also on this day:

1470: The birth of poet Pietro Bembo

1537: The birth of anatomist Hieronymous Fabricius

1916: The birth of athlete Ondina Valla

1943: The birth of singer Al Bano

1967: The birth of film director Gabriele Muccino


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25 February 2023

Enea Salmeggia – artist

Painter was dubbed the Raphael of Bergamo

Enea Salmeggia's Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro is one of his most famous paintings
Enea Salmeggia's Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro
is one of his most famous paintings
Prolific painter Enea Salmeggia, who was active during the late Renaissance period and left a rich legacy of art in northern Italy, died on this day in 1626 in Bergamo in the region of Lombardy.

Salmeggia, also known as Il Talpino, or Salmezza, went to Rome as a young man, where he studied the works of Raphael. His style has often been likened to that of Raphael and he has even been called the Bergamo Raphael by some art lovers. A drawing formerly attributed to Raphael, now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, of two figures seated with some architectural studies, has subsequently been ascribed to Enea Salmeggia.

The artist was born at Salmezza, a frazione of Nembro, a comune - municipality - in the province of Bergamo, between 1565 and 1570. It is known that he grew up in Borgo San Leonardo in Bergamo, where his father, Antonio, was a tailor.

He learnt the art of painting from other Bergamo painters and is also believed to have studied under the Bergamo artist Simone Peterzano in Milan. Caravaggio was one of Peterzano’s most famous pupils and it has been suggested that Salmeggia could have been studying with Peterzano at the same time as Caravaggio.

Enea's Madonna col Bambino e santi
 Ambrogio e Carlo Borromeo
Salmeggia was so young when he received his first commission to paint an Adoration of the Magi for the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo that his father had to sign the acceptance document on his behalf.

The artist married Vittoria Daverio, the sister of Milanese sculptor Pietro Antonio Daverio, and they had six children. Two of their children died from the plague and one went into a monastery, but his daughters, Chiara and Elisabetta, and his son, Francesco, worked in his studio near the Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna in Bergamo and later became painters themselves.

One of Salmeggia’s most famous works, Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro, an oil on canvas in the choir of the Church of Sant'Alessandro in Colonna, was completed in 1623.

Among the other churches with paintings by Salmeggia are Sant’Andrea and Santi Bartolomeo e Stefano in Bergamo, Sant’Afra in Brescia, San Francesco in Lodi, San Vittorio in Terno d’Isola and San Gregorio in Gromo.

The Accademia Carrara in Bergamo has works by Salmeggia, including his Portrait of a Gentleman. The Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco in Milan also has paintings by Salmeggia, including his Madonna col Bambino e santi Ambrogio e Carlo Borremeo.

Salmeggia died in 1626 and was buried in the Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna.

The parish church of San
Martino in the centre of Nembro
Travel tip:

Nembro, the suburb of Bergamo in which Enea Salmeggia was born, can be found about 9km (5 miles) northwest of the city of Bergamo, on the right bank of the Serio river. The surrounding countryside is popular with walkers, with many defined paths in the hills above the town, one of which leads to the Santuario della Madonna dello Zuccarello, built in 1374 by the nobleman Bernardo Vitalba. The town itself surrounds the parish church of San Martino, erected in the ninth century but rebuilt in the 18th century, which contains no fewer than 27 of Salmeggia’s paintings.  In recent history, Nembro was notable as one of the areas of Bergamo worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, with 188 known to have died from the disease, 94 in the first 15 days. On average, every household in Nembro mourned at least one family member.

Stay in Nembro with Booking.com

The Festa di Sant'Alessandro sees the church facade illuminated
The Festa di Sant'Alessandro sees
the church facade illuminated
Travel tip:

The Chiesa di Sant’Alessandro in Colonna in Via Sant’Alessandro in Bergamo is the church of the city’s patron saint.  Outside the church is a Roman column, said to have been erected in the exact spot where Alessandro was executed by the Romans. The column was constructed in the 17th century from Roman fragments and there are various theories about where the pieces came from. The church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna was rebuilt in the 18th century on the site of an earlier church. Its ornate campanile was completed at the beginning of the 20th century. Over several days each August, the facade of the church is illuminated as part of the Festa di Sant’Alessandro, marking the anniversary of his execution in 303.

Accommodation choices in Bergamo from Booking.com




More reading:

The Bergamo painter who left a visual record of changing society

The Bergamo shoemaker’s son who became internationally acclaimed sculptor

Raphael - the precocious genius from Urbino

Also on this day:

1682: The birth of anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni

1707: The birth of Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni

1866: The birth of philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce

1873: The birth of tenor Enrico Caruso

2003: The death of actor Alberto Sordi

(Picture credits: Nembro church by Giorces via Wikimedia Commons)

(Paintings: Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro, Galleria dell Accademia Carrara, Bergamo; Madonna col Bambino e santi Ambrogio e Carlo Borromeo, Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan)




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13 December 2022

Enrico Rastelli – juggler

Performer whose juggling record has never been surpassed

Enrico Rastelli practised until he had skills that set him apart
Enrico Rastelli practised until he
had skills that set him apart
Enrico Rastelli, who is thought to have been the greatest juggler of all time, died on this day in 1931 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

Rastelli began his career in the circus ring and practised his juggling skills constantly until he was able to achieve levels of skill beyond those of any of his contemporaries. By the 1920s he had become a star, touring Europe and America, amazing audiences with his skill and amassing large earnings.

Eventually he made the move to performing in vaudeville shows in theatres where he would appear in full football strip and juggle up to five footballs at a time.

Rastelli had been born in Russia in 1896, into a circus family originally from the Bergamo area of Lombardy. Both his parents were performers and trained him in circus disciplines including acrobatics, balancing, and aerial skills. He made his debut at the age of 13 as part of his parents’ aerial act.

He practised juggling diligently and by the age of 19 was performing his own solo juggling act. He started by manipulating sticks and balls in Japanese style. While many jugglers at the time would throw and catch plates, hats, and canes, Rastelli restricted himself to working with balls and sticks and achieved higher technical skills than any other juggler of this period.

In 1917, Rastelli married Harriet Price, a highwire artist, and they had three children. They frequently toured Europe with his act and established a permanent home in Italy, building a large Liberty style villa in Bergamo, 

Rastelli's routine often involved performing with footballs
Rastelli's routine often involved
performing with footballs
While on tour in Europe in 1931, Rastelli contracted pneumonia and had to return home to Bergamo quickly. Sadly, his condition worsened and he died in the early hours of the morning of 13 December of anaemia, aged 34.

When his funeral took place in Bergamo, it was attended by thousands of people. He was buried in the Cimitero Monumentale in Bergamo and a life-sized statue of him was erected at his tomb, showing him spinning a ball on his raised finger.

The February 1932 edition of Vanity Fair magazine included a full-page photograph of Rastelli, captioned: ‘One of the most sensational attractions in the international world of vaudeville.’ The magazine said Rastelli had elevated juggling to an art, ‘due not only to the amazing agility and complexity of the juggling itself,’ but also ‘to the incredible ease of his execution, and the visual impression made on the audience.’

The Juggling Hall of Fame website says Rastelli was ‘the most famous and in the opinion of many, the greatest juggler who ever lived.’ They say that as well as his work with large balls, he could also juggle up to ten small balls, which is generally considered to be the record.   

The beautiful Piazza Vecchia is the focal point of Bergamo's mediaeval Città Alta
The beautiful Piazza Vecchia is the focal point
of Bergamo's mediaeval Città Alta
Travel tip:

The Lombardy city of Bergamo, where Enrico Rastelli’s family had their roots and where Rastelli himself built a house for his family, can be found approximately 50km (31 miles) northwest of Milan. It is a beautiful city with an upper and lower town that are separated by impressive fortifications. The magical upper town - the Città Alta - has gems of mediaeval and Renaissance architecture surrounded by the impressive 16th century walls, which were built during the time the city belonged to Venice. Outside the walls, the elegant Città Bassa, which grew up on the plain below, has some buildings that date back to the 15th century as well as imposing architecture added in the 19th and 20th centuries. While the Città Alta, with the enchanting Piazza Vecchia at its heart, is the draw for many tourists, the lower town also has art galleries, churches and theatres and a wealth of good restaurants and smart shops to enjoy.

No 9 Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, the former home of juggler Enrico Rastelli and his family
No 9 Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, the former home
of juggler Enrico Rastelli and his family
Travel tip

Enrico Rastelli’s home in Bergamo was a beautiful villa on the edge of the Santa Lucia neighbourhood of the Città Bassa, at No 9 Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, where it can still be admired. He had it built in Stile Liberty, the Italian variation of Art Nouveau that was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which had influences of the Baroque architectural style but also incorporated elements that had their roots in Japanese and Far Eastern art. With ornate arches over the upper floor windows, balconies and an extra floor forming a tower in one corner, it is a good example of the style. The villa is thought to be owned now by the Praderio family, well known locally for their historic fabric shop in nearby Via XX Settembre, one of Bergamo’s main shopping streets.




Also on this day:

1466: The death of Renaissance sculptor Donatello

1521: The birth of Pope Sixtus V

1720: The birth of playwright Carlo Gozzi

La Festa di Santa Lucia


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17 October 2022

The founding of Atalanta football club

Bergamo institution started by students of local high school

An historic picture of the Atalanta team that competed in the 1913-14 season
An historic picture of the Atalanta team that
competed in the 1913-14 season
The football club now known as Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio - generally known as Atalanta - was founded on this day in 1907 in the Lombardy city of Bergamo.

The club was the idea of a group of students from the Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, one of the city’s oldest and most prestigious high schools.

They gave it the rather long-winded name of the Società Bergamasca di Ginnastica e Sports Atletici - the Bergamasca Society of Gymnastics and Athletic Sports - to which they attached the name Atalanta after the Greek mythological heroine famed for her running prowess.

For the first seven years of its life, the new club had no home and played friendly matches on whatever open space was available, but in 1914 found a home ground in Via Maglio del Lotto, adjoining the railway line just outside Bergamo station.

The ground had a small grandstand housing 1,000 spectators. It is said that the drivers of trains approaching the station on match days would slow down in order to enjoy a few moments of the action.

The club badge depicts Greek heroine Atalanta
The club badge depicts
Greek heroine Atalanta
In the event, after Italy was drawn into World War One, the club remained in Via Maglio del Lotto only two seasons. With so many young men going off to fight, the club suspended its activities and sold the ground.

When the club was reconstituted before the start of the 2019-20 season, they established a new home, named the Clementina Stadium, on the site of a former racecourse to the southeast of the city centre.

By that point, club members were eager to join the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) and compete in their league but Bergamo had another team with similar ambitions, called Bergamasca, which had evolved from a club started by Swiss emigrants in 1904.

The FIGC would allow only one team from Bergamo to compete in their Prima Categoria, as their first division was then called. To decide which of them would represent the city, in 1919 a play-off was arranged, which Atalanta won 2-0.

In the event, the two clubs agreed to merge in 1920, forming a new club which at first was called Atalanta Bergamasca di Ginnastica e Scherma 1907 - scherma being fencing. It was soon shortened to Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio, which remains its name today. 

The club now plays at the Gewiss Stadium on Viale Giulio Cesare in the northeast of the city, a short walk from the centre of the Città Bassa - Bergamo’s lower city - and visible in the panoramic view available from vantage points on the eastern side of the mediaeval Città Alta, the elevated old part of the city.

Atalanta BC play their home games at the Gewiss Stadium in Bergamo's Città Bassa
Atalanta BC play their home games at the Gewiss
Stadium in Bergamo's Città Bassa
The stadium has been their home since 1928. It was built during the Fascist era at a cost of 3.5 million lira and originally named Stadio Mario Brumana after a Fascist official, which was common practice with public buildings at the time.

After the Fascist regime was overthrown in World War Two, the ground was renamed Stadio Communale and gradually expanded to allow more than 40,000 spectators to attend matches. It became the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d'Italia in 1994 and in 2019 adopted the Gewiss name after the club signed a sponsorship deal with the Swiss electronics company.

At the same time as Atalanta moved into the ground in 1928, the Italian championship was restructured with the top division renamed Serie A, as it is today.

Atalanta were initially placed in Serie B but within a decade had been promoted to Serie A. 

Nicknamed variously La Dea (The Goddess), Glo Orobici (after the Orobic or Bergamo Alps) or I Nerazzurri (the Black and Blues), Atalanta have never won the Serie A, yet have the proud record of having spent 62 seasons in the top division, 28 in Serie B and only one in Serie B, which is the best record of any team not based in a regional capital.

The current team, managed since 2016 by Gian Piero Gasperini, are enjoying one of the most successful spells in the club’s history, having qualified for the Champions League three seasons in a row and twice reached the final of the Coppa Italia.

The imposing walls around Bergamo's Città Alta go back to the time of the Renaissance
The imposing walls around Bergamo's Città 
Alta go back to the time of the Renaissance
Travel tip:

Bergamo, the fourth largest city in Lombardy, has an upper and lower town that are separated by impressive fortifications. The magical upper town - the Città Alta - has gems of mediaeval and Renaissance architecture surrounded by the impressive 16th century walls, which were built by the Venetians, of which Bergamo was a dominion at the time. Outside the walls, the elegant Città Bassa, which grew up on the plain below, has some buildings that date back to the 15th century as well as imposing architecture added in the 19th and 20th centuries. While the Città Alta is the draw for many tourists, the lower town also has art galleries, churches and theatres and a wealth of good restaurants and smart shops to enjoy.

The neoclassical facade of the Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi in Bergamo
The neoclassical facade of the Liceo
Classico Paolo Sarpi in Bergamo
Travel tip:

The Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, the high school whose students started the club now known as Atalanta BC, is an historic institution in Piazza Rosate in Bergamo’s Città Alta, opposite the rear entrance of the city’s cathedral. Identifiable by its neoclassical facade designed by Ferdinando Crivelli, the Liceo has its roots in the first public school of Grammar, Humanities, and Rhetorics established by the Republic of Venice in 1506 under the name of Accademia della Misericordia. It was renamed after Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian polymath, in 1803, by Napoleonic decree. The building that houses the modern school was built between 1845 and 1852 under the auspices of the Austrian Government, when it was known as Regio Liceo. In 1860, the academy contributed to the Italian Unification with 70 students joining Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand, aimed at annexing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the embryonic Kingdom of Italy. Today it is one of Italy’s leading elite academies, with 100 to 120 students graduating every year and a curriculum based in classical subjects such as Greek, Latin, Philosophy and History.

Also on this day:

1473: The birth of Renaissance sculptor Bartolommeo Bandinelli

1797: Venice loses its independence

1810: The birth of operatic tenor Giovanni Matteo Mario


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24 July 2022

Ermanno Olmi - film director

Won most prestigious awards at Cannes and Venice festivals

Ermanno Olmi's films won some of  cinema's most prestigious awards
Ermanno Olmi's films won some of 
cinema's most prestigious awards 
The film director Ermanno Olmi, who won both the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Venice Film Festival’s equivalent Golden Lion with two of his most memorable films, was born on this day in 1931 in the Lombardy city of Bergamo.

His 1978 film L'albero degli zoccoli - The Tree of Wooden Clogs - a story about Lombard peasant life in the 19th century that had echoes of postwar neorealism in the way it was shot, won the Palme d’Or - one of the most prestigious of film awards - at the Cannes Film Festival of the same year.

A decade later, Olmi won the Golden Lion, the top award at the Venice Film Festival, with La leggenda del santo bevitore - The Legend of the Holy Drinker - a story adapted from a novella by the Austrian author Joseph Roth about a homeless drunk in Paris, who is handed a 200-francs lifeline by a complete stranger and vows to find a way to pay it back as a donation to a local church.

He also won three David di Donatello awards  - the Italian equivalent of the Oscars - as Best Director, for Il posto - The Job - his first full length feature film, in 1962, for The Legend of the Holy Drinker, and for Il mestiere delle armi - The Profession of Arms - in 2002.

Born in the Malpensata district of Bergamo, near the railway station, Olmi grew up in Treviglio, a town in Bergamo province about 40km (25 miles) east of Milan. His mother worked in a cotton mill. His father, a railway worker and a staunch anti-Fascist, was killed during World War Two.

As a young man, Olmi enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Milan to take acting lessons, at the same time taking a job as a messenger at the electric company, Edison-Volta, where his mother also found work.

The original poster for the film seen as Olmi's masterpiece
The original poster for the
film seen as Olmi's masterpiece
The company entrusted Olmi with organising leisure activities and entertainment for employees. By now, the film industry was becoming the focus of his ambitions and he persuaded Edison-Volta to sponsor him to make documentaries promoting the company, which he saw as an opportunity to develop his skills behind the camera.

Edison-Volta were impressed with Olmi’s work, in particular his 1959 mini-feature film, Il tempo si è fermato - Time Stood Still, a story about a friendship between a student and the guardian of an isolated hydro-electric dam high in the mountains, which he filmed at the Sabbione Dam in Val Formazza, an Alpine valley in Piedmont, close to the Swiss border.

Subsequently, they agreed to support his first full-length feature, Il posto (1961), a semi-autobiographical and gently humorous story about the aspirations of two young men from rural areas whose first jobs are with big firms in Milan in the postwar years. In the tradition of Roberto Rossellini, the neorealist director whom he particularly admired, Olmi cast non-professional actors in many of the roles, one of whom, Loredana Detto, he would later marry. 

The success of Il posto, in terms of both critical acclaim and the doors opened by winning a David di Donatello and the critics’ prize at the Venice Film Festival, enabled Olmi to devote himself to film-making. His next few films, including a biographical feature about Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the Bergamo cardinal who became Pope John XXIII, enjoyed relatively modest success, but in 1978 came the movie regarded by many critics as his masterpiece.

Inspired by the stories he was told by his grandmother about the peasant community in rural Lombardy, L’albero degli zoccoli revolves around the lives of four peasant farming families earning a meagre living on land owned by the same landlord. 

Olmi followed in the tradition of the neorealist era in using non-professional actors
Olmi followed in the tradition of the
neorealist era in using non-professional actors
Set against the turbulent political background of late 19th century Italy, its focus is the plight of one of the families who want to give their son the opportunity to better himself and cut down a tree so that the father of their household can make wooden clogs for him to wear on his long daily walk to school. The fragility of their existence is then underlined when the landlord is so incensed he throws them off their land, with the other families looking on in dismay.

As well as winning the Palme d’Or, the movie won critical acclaim in Europe, Britain and the United States, where the actor Al Pacino many years later described it as his favourite film and where the New York Times in 2003 listed The Tree of Wooden Clogs in a feature entitled The Best 1,000 Movies Ever.

Il mestiere delle armi focuses on a battle between a Papal Army led by Giovanni de’ Medici and the army of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, in 1526, highlighting the harsh conditions and ultimate lack of glory in warfare.  It was shot in Bulgaria and featured several Bulgarian actors.

In the late 1960s, Olmi and his wife moved to a home he had built at Asiago, in the mountains above Vicenza. It was a story he was told by the residents of Asiago that inspired him to make I recuperanti (The Scavengers), his 1970 film about how the deprivations of World War Two forced local people to dig for scrap metal buried in the ground to sell for cash. 

Olmi spent the rest of his life in Asiago, where he died in 2018 after struggling for a number of years with the degenerative neurological condition Guillain-Barré syndrome. Fabio Olmi, one of Ermanno and Loredana's three children, also works in the world of cinema as a director of photography.

The Basilica of San Martino in the city of Treviglio
The Basilica of San Martino
in the city of Treviglio
Travel tip:

The small city of Treviglio in Lombardy can be found about 20km (13 miles) south of Bergamo and 40km (25 miles) northeast of Milan, in an area known as Bassa Bergamasca. Treviglio, the second most populous city in Bergamo province with 30,000 inhabitants, developed from a fortified town in the early Middle Ages and, having been at times controlled by the French and the Spanish. It became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.  Its most visited attraction is the Basilica of San Martino, originally built in 1008 and reconstructed in 1482, with a Baroque façade from 1740, which is in Piazza Manara. In 1915, the town was chosen by Italy’s future dictator Benito Mussoloni for his civil marriage to the long-suffering Rachele Guidi. 

The alpine landscape around the town of Asiago in the northern Veneto region
The alpine landscape around the town of
Asiago in the northern Veneto region
Travel tip:

Asiago, where Olmi lived from the late 1960s onwards, is in the province of Vicenza in the Veneto, halfway between Vicenza to the south and Trento, the capital of Trentino-Alto-Adige, to the west. It is now a major ski resort and famous for producing Asiago cheese. It is situated on a high plateau known as the Altopiano di Asiago - the Asiago upland - in an area that has been favoured by emigrants from Germany for more than 1,000 years. The widely spoken local dialect, known as Cimbro, is very similar to German. The landscape over the years has been dotted with fortresses. The Interrotto in Camporovere, in the centre of the town, is a barracks-fortress whose construction goes back to the middle of the 1800s.  The area also has many reminders of the Battle of Asiago, a major confrontation of Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces in World War One that resulted in more than 25,000 deaths.

Also on this day:

1759: The birth of Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia

1843: The birth of painter Eugene de Blaas

1921: The birth of tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano


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24 March 2022

Giorgio Gori - politician

Mayor who steered city of Bergamo through Covid nightmare

Giorgio Gori was elected Mayor of  Bergamo for the first time in 2014
Giorgio Gori was elected Mayor of 
Bergamo for the first time in 2014
The politician Giorgio Gori, who as Mayor of Bergamo became one of the spokespersons for Italy during the first stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, was born in Bergamo on this day in 1960.

Of 158,000 deaths from the virus in Italy since it was identified in a patient from the town of Codogno in February 2020, more than 39,000 have been in the Lombardy region, with the city of Bergamo and the surrounding area suffering the heaviest toll.

Bergamo province lost 4,500 citizens in the first month of the pandemic alone and is haunted by the image of a convoy of military vehicles carrying coffins away for cremation elsewhere because the city’s own crematorium could no longer cope with the numbers of dead.

As television crews descended on the city, Gori regularly agreed to be interviewed on camera and thus was seen by audiences in many countries as the story of Covid-19’s devastating impact on Italy dominated news bulletins.

Gori’s own background is in the media. Educated in the magnificent but traditionally demanding surroundings of the Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi in Bergamo’s historic Città Alta, he went on to study architecture at the University of Milan but at the same time began to contribute to local newspapers, including L’Eco di Bergamo and Bergamo-Oggi, and the city’s own television station, BergamoTV.

In 1984 he began working at Rete4, which at the time belonged to the Arnaldo Mondadori publishing house, but later became part of Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset stable, where Gori would work for 15 years. Between 1991 and 2001, he was director of the three Mediaset networks, Rete4, Canale5 and Italia1. 

Gori is a passionate advocate for the city of Bergamo, where he was born and grew up
Gori is a passionate advocate for the city of
Bergamo, where he was born and grew up
It was through Canale5 that Gori met his wife, the journalist and TV presenter Cristina Parodi, who was one of the faces of Canale5’s flagship news programme, TG5, which launched in 1992. They were married in 1995 and have three children, Benedetta, Alessandro and Angelica.

Benedetta and Angelica were both students in England when the pandemic spread across Europe. Their father made headlines by revealing - the day before UK prime minister Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown - that he had flown his daughters home to Italy, despite it being the European epicentre of the pandemic, because he felt the UK response had been too slow.

Gori was guilty of not taking Covid-19 seriously enough at first, infamously posting a picture of himself on social media in early February, 2020, alongside other diners at a Chinese restaurant, with a caption telling people to ignore the "completely unjustified alarmism” and insisting: “There is nothing to fear!"

He subsequently acknowledged his mistake, admitting that he had underestimated the size of the crisis about to unfold, but his political opponents still make capital of the incident.

Gori left Mediaset in 2001 to partner Ilaria Dallatana and Francesca Canetta in setting up a television production company, Magnolia, which specialised in the development and production of original formats for television and interactive media. Magnolia collaborated with the Rai, Mediaset, LA7 and Sky networks and had some memorable successes, including the hit shows L'isola dei famosi, Piazzapulita, MasterChef Italia and L'eredità.

Gori's wife, the TV journalist Cristina Parodi, who he met while working for Canale5
Gori's wife, the TV journalist Cristina Parodi,
who he met while working for Canale5
As a student, Gori had been quite politically active, aligning himself with groups on the reformist left, such as Azione e Libertà (Action and Liberty) and the Collective of Socialist Students, which had close links with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

Even as he pursued a career, he never turned away completely from politics and in 2012 he took the bold decision to leave Magnolia in order to devote himself to fulfilling some political ambitions and to help his home city, for which he had much affection.

He joined the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and in 2012 worked as a close adviser to Matteo Renzi, then Mayor of Florence, as he prepared what was ultimately his successful bid to become prime minister.

In Bergamo, Gori set up the InNova Bergamo Association with the aim of studying the issues concerning his city and in 2014 was elected the city’s mayor, defeating the incumbent Franco Tentorio, who represented Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia but had previously been a member of two neo-fascist parties, the Italian Social Movement and Allianza Nationale. 

Gori failed in his attempt in 2017 to become regional president of Lombardy but in 2019 was re-elected as Mayor or Bergamo, the first to be returned for a second term since the position became subject to a public vote.

During the first Covid-19 lockdown in Italy, Gori wrote a book entitled Riscatto - Bergamo e Italia: Appunti per un futuro possibile (Ransom - Bergamo and Italy: Notes for a possible future) in which he describes his life and professional experiences, the story of Bergamo during the first wave of Covid-19, and sets out his view of the path Italy must take to be reborn after the pandemic.

The Piazza Vecchia is the focal point of the historic Città Alta, Bergamo's older upper town
The Piazza Vecchia is the focal point of the
historic Città Alta, Bergamo's older upper town
Travel tip:

Bergamo in Lombardy is a beautiful city with an upper and lower town that are separated by impressive fortifications. The magical upper town - the Città Alta - has gems of medieval and Renaissance architecture surrounded by the impressive 16th century walls, which were built by the Venetians who ruled at the time. Outside the walls, the elegant Città Bassa, which grew up on the plain below, has some buildings that date back to the 15th century as well as imposing architecture added in the 19th and 20th centuries. While the Città Alta is the draw for many tourists, the lower town also has art galleries, churches and theatres and a wealth of good restaurants and smart shops to enjoy.

Bergamo hotels by Booking.com

The neoclassical facade of the Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi in the Città Alta
The neoclassical facade of the Liceo
Classico Paolo Sarpi in the Città Alta
Travel tip:

The Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, the high school attended by Gori, is an historic institution in Piazza Rosate in Bergamo’s Città Alta, opposite the rear entrance of the city’s cathedral. Identifiable by its neoclassical facade designed by Ferdinando Crivelli, the Liceo has its roots in the first public school of Grammar, Humanities, and Rhetorics established by the Republic of Venice in 1506 under the name of Accademia della Misericordia. It was renamed after Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian polymath, in 1803, by Napoleonic decree. The building that houses the modern school was built between 1845 and 1852 under the auspices of the Austrian Government, when it was known as Regio Liceo. In 1860, the academy contributed to the Italian Unification with 70 students joining Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand, aimed at annexing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the embryonic Kingdom of Italy. In 2011, the academy took part in the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Italian unification, attended by the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. Garibaldi dubbed Bergamo as La Città dei Mille, because of the major role it played in the Expedition of the Thousand. 

Also on this day:

1867: The birth of poet and librettist Guido Menasci

1874: The birth of politician and winemaker Luigi Einaudi

1926: The birth of playwright and actor Dario Fo

1934: The birth of photographer Mimmo Jodice


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31 January 2022

Mariuccia Mandelli – fashion designer

'Godmother of Italian fashion' was immortalized by Warhol

Mariuccia Mandelli's trademark bob and red lipstick in Andy Warhol's painting
Mariuccia Mandelli's trademark bob and
red lipstick in Andy Warhol's painting 
Mariuccia Mandelli, the founder of the fashion house Krizia, was born on this day in 1925 in Bergamo in northern Italy.

Although Mandelli trained to be a primary school teacher on the advice of her mother and pursued a teaching career when she was in her twenties, she had a talent for sewing and had always been interested in fashion. It took just one lucky break to get her started.

When a friend offered her the use of a flat rent-free for six months, Mandelli went to live there, bought an old sewing machine and started making clothes. She then launched her label, Krizia - a name by which she was sometimes known - by selling the clothes from her small car, a Fiat 500. She used to drive to shops in Milan with suitcases full of samples and by 1954 had established a ready-to-wear fashion house.

Mandelli also went on to establish a popular line of men’s wear, one of the first female fashion designers to do this successfully.

In 1964, Mandelli unveiled her first black-and-white collection at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the designs for which earned her a Critica della Moda award.

The Krizia logo became famous in the 1960s and '70s
The Krizia logo became famous
in the 1960s and '70s
Her fashion house, Krizia, grew rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1971, Mandelli launched a style of shorts cut very short, which were possibly the first version of hot pants to appear. Her knitwear became instantly recognizable, featuring animals such as elephants, lions, tigers, leopards and giraffes in the designs. During the 1990s, Krizia grew into a multi-million-dollar business and Mandelli’s hairstyle and trademark red lipstick were captured in a portrait by Andy Warhol.

Mandelli stepped down from her leadership of the company in 2014 when it was sold to a Chinese corporation, Shenzhen Marisfrolg, having run Krizia for 60 years.

After Mandelli died at her home in Milan in December 2015 at the age of 90, an obituary in the Guardian newspaper called her the Godmother of Italian fashion.

The Città Alta's elevated position offers views over beautiful rolling countryside
The Città Alta's elevated position offers
views over beautiful rolling countryside
Travel tip:

Mariucccia Mandelli was born in Bergamo’s Città Alta and although she lived in Milan after launching Krizia, she remained proud of her home town and often talked about it in interviews. Bergamo is just under 60km (37 miles) to the northeast of Milan, close to the Italian lakes and alpine skiing resorts and is regarded as Lombardy’s second most important city. Bergamo is an artistic and cultural treasure chest, but also has its own natural beauty, set among hills, mountains, lakes and rolling countryside. The Città Alta is visible in the skyline from both Bergamo airport and the city’s lower town, the Città Bassa. It is an impressive fortified city in its own right, which has retained many of its 12th century buildings and also has some stunning Renaissance and Baroque architecture.  

The Palazzo Pitti became the main Florence residence of the wealthy Medici family
The Palazzo Pitti became the main Florence
residence of the wealthy Medici family
Travel tip:

Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, where Mariuccia Mandelli showed her famous black and white collection in 1964, was originally built for the banker Luca Pitti in 1457 to try to outshine the palaces owned by the Medici family. The Medici eventually bought Palazzo Pitti from Luca Pitti’s bankrupt heirs and made it their main residence in Florence in 1550. Today, visitors can look round the richly decorated rooms and see artistic treasures from the Medici collections. The beautiful Boboli Gardens behind the palace are 16th century formal Italian gardens filled with statues and fountains.

Also on this day:

1788: The death in Rome of Bonnie Prince Charlie, pretender to the British throne

1857: The birth of architect Ernesto Basile

1888: The death of Saint Don Bosco

1933: The birth of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano

1942: The birth of actress Daniela Bianchi 


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