Domenico Bartolucci – composer

Talented musician served under six popes

Cardinal Domenico Bartolucci

Cardinal Domenico Bartolucci, director of the Sistine Chapel Choir for 40 years and a talented and prolific composer, was born on this day in 1917 in Borgo San Lorenzo in Tuscany.

Bartolucci was considered one of the most authoritative interpreters of the works of composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and he led the Sistine Chapel Choir in performances all over the world.

His own compositions are said to fill more than 40 volumes and include masses, hymns, madrigals, orchestral music and an opera.

Bartolucci was born in Borgo San Lorenzo near Florence, the son of a brick factory worker who loved the music of Verdi and Donizetti. Bartolucci was recruited as a singer at the seminary in Florence at a young age. After the death of his music master, Bartolucci succeeded him as director of music for the Chapel of the Duomo of Florence and began to compose masses, motets and organ music.

Bartolucci went to Rome to deepen his knowledge of sacred music and served as deputy master of the choir at the Church of St John Lateran. In 1947 he was appointed Master of the Choir of St Mary Major, and in 1952 was appointed deputy master of the Sistine Chapel Choir.

Bartolucci was director of the Sistine Chapel Choir from
1956 until his retirement in 1996

Pope Pius XII gave him the position of permanent director of the Pontifical Sistine Chapel Choir in 1956. During his 40 years of leadership he strengthened the choir and took it to perform in countries all over the world.

Bartolucci had been a child prodigy and composed his first mass at the age of 12. His best known mass is the Misa Jubilei, written in the Holy Year of 1950. His biggest musical influences were Palestrina and the opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi. Bartolucci’s own three-act opera, Brunelleschi, dedicated to the history and construction of Filippo Brunelleschi’s colossal dome atop Florence’s cathedral, is yet to be performed.

Pope Benedict XVI created Bartolucci a cardinal in 2010 in recognition of his contribution to the church in the area of sacred ecclesiastical music. He became the fourth oldest member of the College of Cardinals and because he was over 80 was not eligible to vote in a papal conclave.

Bartolucci died in 2013 at the age of 96. After his funeral mass at St Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis described him as ‘an ‘illustrious composer and musician, who exercised his long ministry particularly through sacred music, which is born of faith and expresses faith.’

The unusual campanile at the church of
Pieve di San Lorenzo

Travel tip:

Borgo San Lorenzo, the birthplace of Bartolucci, is the largest of the towns and villages of the Mugello, the green, hilly area to the north and west of Florence. The Romanesque church of Pieve di San Lorenzo has a campanile that is circular in its lower stages and hexagonal above. Nearby are the Medici properties of Castello del Trebbio and the Villa di Cafaggiolo, both built for Cosimo il Vecchio in the 15th century.

Travel tip:

The Sistine Chapel, whose choir Bartolucci led for 40 years, is in the Apostolic Palace, where the Pope lives, in Vatican City. The chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, the uncle of Pope Julius II, who had it restored during his papacy. Between 1508 and 1512, Michelangelo painted the ceiling at the request of Pope Julius II.  His amazing masterpiece is in bright colours, easily visible from the floor, and covers more than 400 square metres.

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Lorenzo Ghiberti – sculptor

Goldsmith renowned for 'Gates of Paradise'

The baptistry doors known as
'The Gates of Paradise' 

Sculptor, goldsmith and architect Lorenzo Ghiberti died on this day in 1455 in Florence.

Part of his legacy were the magnificent doors he created for the Baptistery of the Florence Duomo that have become known as the Gates of Paradise.

Ghiberti had become a man of learning, living up to the image of the early 15th century artist as a student of antiquity, who was investigative, ambitious and highly creative.

His Commentaries - I Commentarii - which he started to write in 1447, include judgements on the great contemporary and 14th century masters as well as his scientific theories on optics and anatomy, revealing the scope of his artistic and practical experimentation.

Ghiberti was born in 1378 in Pelago near Florence and was trained as a goldsmith by Bartolo di Michele, whom his mother had married in 1406 but had lived with for some time previously.  Ghiberti took his name from his mother’s first husband, Cione Ghiberti, although he later claimed that Di Michele was his real father.

He moved to Pesaro in 1400 to fulfil a painting commission from the city's ruler, Sigismondo Malatesta, but returned to Florence when he heard about a competition that had been set up to find someone to make a pair of bronze doors for the Baptistery of the cathedral.  

Detail from Ghiberti's second set of doors to the baptistery,
which depicts scenes from the life of Joseph

Ghiberti’s design won and the contract was signed for him to produce the doors in Di Michele’s workshop.  He began the project in 1407 and it would take him until 1424 to complete. He actually created two sets of doors; the first, for the Baptistery, depicted scenes from the New Testament, the second, with ten square panels and deemed to be superior to the first, scenes from the Old Testament.

It was Michelangelo who suggested they were of such quality they would be worthy of being chosen as the Gates of Paradise.  The painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari declared then to be “undeniably perfect in every way”.

Although, it was the doors that established Ghiberti’s reputation he took other commissions, including gilded bronze statues of St John the Baptist for niches of the Orsanmichele church in Florence and the Arte di Calimala (Wool Merchants' Guild) and one of St. Matthew for the Arte di Cambio (Bankers' Guild). He  also produced a bronze figure of St. Stephen for the Arte della Lana (Wool Manufacturers' Guild).

He also wrote what is considered to be the first autobiography of an artist, which formed part of I Commentarii. 

I Commentarii has come to be regarded as one of the most important sources of information about the Renaissance and the art of the period.

Ghiberti was an influential figure in many ways.  Among the artists who worked in his studios as they were making their way in the world included Donatello, Masolino di Panichale, Michelozzo di Bartolomeo Michelozzi, Paolo Uccello, and Antonio Pollaiuolo.

He married Marsilia, the 16-year-old daughter of Bartolomeo di Luca, a wool carder. They had two sons – Tommaso, who was born in 1417, and Vittorio born the following year – who both joined Ghiberti in his business, Vittorio taking over the workshop after his father’s death.

The market square in Pelago

Travel tip:

Pelago, a small town in Tuscany about 20km (12 miles) east of Florence, was developed by the Etruscans on the site of a settlement thought to date back to the Paleolithic period. It grew around a castle built in the 11th century in an area rich in castles, usually built on the top of a hill.  At the foot of Pelago Castle is a marketplace and a number of palaces once owned by wealthy noblemen.  The church of San Clemente, which originates in the 12th century and now contains a museum, can be found within the castle walls.

Florence's Duomo is one of the most familiar sights in Italy

Travel tip:

The Florence Duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore - with its enormous dome by Filippo Brunelleschi and campanile by Giotto, is one of Italy's most recognisable and most photographed sights, towering above the city and the dominant feature of almost every cityscape. From groundbreaking to consecration, the project took 140 years to complete and involved a series of architects. Arnolfo di Cambio, who also designed the church of Santa Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio was the original architect engaged and it was to his template, essentially, that the others worked.  When he died in 1410, 14 years after the first stone was laid, he was succeeded by Giotto, who himself died in 1337, after which his assistant Andrea Pisano took up the project.  Pisano died in 1348, as the Black Death swept Europe, and a succession of architects followed, culminating in Brunelleschi, who won a competition - against Ghiberti, as it happens - to build the dome, which remains the largest brick-built dome ever constructed.

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Cosimo de' Medici

Banker who founded the Medici dynasty

This portrait of Cosimo by Jacopo da Contormo
 can be viewed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

The first of the Medici rulers of Florence, Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici, died on this day in 1464 in Careggi in Tuscany.

Cosimo had political influence and power because of the wealth he had acquired as a banker and he is also remembered as a patron of learning, the arts and architecture.

Cosimo, who is sometime referred to as Cosimo the Elder (il Vecchio) was born into a wealthy family in Florence in 1389. His father was a moneylender who then joined the bank of a relative before opening up his own bank in 1397.

The Medici Bank opened branches in Rome, Geneva, Venice and Naples and the Rome branch managed the papal finances in return for a commission.

The bank later opened branches in London, Pisa, Avignon, Bruges, Milan and Lubeck, which meant that bishoprics could pay their money into their nearest branch for the Pope to use.

In 1410, Baldassarre Cossa, who was on one side of a power struggle within the Catholic Church, borrowed money from the bank to buy himself into the office of Cardinal and in return put the Medici in charge of all the papal finances.   This gave the Medici family the power to threaten defaulting debtors with excommunication.

Cosimo and his younger brother Lorenzo took over the running of the bank from their father in 1420 and Cosimo established power over Florence using his wealth to control votes. He was described at the time as ‘king in all but name'.

The Villa Medici in Careggi near Florence, where
Cosimo died in 1464

Eventually his enemies had him imprisoned him in the Palazzo Vecchio for the crime of ‘failing to conquer Lucca’ but he managed to have his sentence changed to exile. He went to live in Padua and then to Venice, taking his bank with him.

When the order of banishment was lifted he was able to return to Florence, where effectively he was to govern the city for the next 30 years.

Cosimo worked to create peace in northern Italy by establishing a balance of power between Florence, Venice and Milan, which allowed for the development of the Renaissance.

The architects Brunelleschi and Michelozzo carried out Cosimo’s building projects in Florence and artists such as Ghiberti, Donatello and Fra Angelico were commissioned to produce works of art for him.

Cosimo also organised a methodical search for ancient manuscripts in Europe and the East and the books and documents procured by him are now housed in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana), which was built in a cloister of the Basilica di San Lorenzo.

Cosimo had married Contessina de' Bardi, who was from another wealthy banking family, in about 1415 and the couple had two sons, Piero and Giovanni.

On his death on 1 August 1464 Cosimo was succeeded by Piero, who later became the father of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

The Government of Florence awarded Cosimo the title Pater Patriae, Father of the Country, which is carved on his tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo.

Travel tip:

Cosimo died in 1464 at the Villa Medici at Careggi, in the hills above Florence. The villa had been purchased in 1417 by Cosimo’s father as a working farm to make his family self sufficient. Cosimo employed the architect Michelozzo to remodel it around a central courtyard overlooked by loggias. Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo, later extended the terraced garden and the shaded woods.

The interior of the Basilica of
San Lorenzo in Florence

Travel tip:

The Basilica of San Lorenzo, where Cosimo is buried, is in the centre of the market district and is one of the biggest churches in Florence. It also claims to be the oldest in the city as it dates back to 393. Cosimo’s father offered to pay for a new building to replace the 11th century Romanesque structure there at the time and commissioned Brunelleschi to design it. Michelangelo later designed the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana to house the Medici family’s collection of manuscripts.

More reading:

How Cosimo II maintained the family tradition

Grand designs of Cosimo I


(Photo of Villa Medici by Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of San Lorenzo Basilica by Stefan Bauer CC BY-SA 2.5)

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