Mantegna frescoes reduced to rubble

Precious works of art damaged by Allied bombing

A photograph taken soon after the raid
shows the scale of damage to the church

One of the heaviest losses to Italy’s cultural heritage during World War Two occurred on this day in 1944 in Padua in the Veneto region when 15th century frescoes painted by the artist Andrea Mantegna were blown into thousands of pieces by bombs.

A raid on the city was carried out by the Allies, hoping to hit Padua’s railway station and an adjoining marshalling yard, as well as a building where the occupying Germans had established their headquarters. But the bombs landed on Padua’s Chiesa degli Eremitani instead, causing devastating damage to frescoes created by the young Mantegna in one of the side chapels.

It was one of the worst blows inflicted on Italy’s art treasures during the war, as Mantegna’s frescoes, which had been painted directly on to the walls of the church, were considered a major work.

Andrea Mantegna, who was born near Vicenza in 1431, had been commissioned to paint a cycle of frescoes in the Ovetari Chapel, one of the side chapels in the Church of the Eremitani.

The commission marked the beginning of Mantegna’s artistic career when he started work at the age of 17 in 1448. The artist was in his mid-20s by the time he had finished the cycle in 1457, which showed scenes from the lives of Saint James and Saint Christopher. 

Some of the scenes from Mantegna's
frescoes have been partially restored

Because of the historical value of Mantegna's work, the Church of the Eremitani was on a list of buildings and monuments Allied bombers had been instructed to avoid. However, tragically, the German invading army had established their headquarters in Padua right next to the church.

When the bombs fell in 1944, targeting was not as precise as it is today and the Ovetari Chapel was severely damaged. Mantegna's wonderful frescoes were reduced to more than 88,000 separate pieces, which were later found mixed in with bits of plaster and bricks on the ground.

Fortunately, a detailed photographic survey of the work had been made previously and it was possible later to reconstruct the artist’s designs and recompose part of the cycle depicting the Martyrdom of Saint James. The photographic record was used to create panels in black and white where Mantegna's frescoes had been.

 Recovered fragments that could be identified were then fixed to the panels in their original positions, so that at least a partial reconstruction could be carried out. Colour has been applied to other parts of the panels to give visitors to the chapel a better idea of how the frescoes originally looked. 

Other frescoes by Mantegna, including the Assumption and the Martyrdom of St. Christopher, had been removed before the war to protect them from damp, and they remained undamaged and were eventually reinstated in the church.

In other chapels in the church, 14th century frescoes painted by Guarentio and Giusto de’ Menabuoi miraculously survived.

Padua was bombed 24 times by Allied aircraft between December 1943 and the end of the war. On  March 11, when the Church of Eremitani was hit, the city was attacked by 111 planes, which dropped 300 tons of bombs.

The previous month, during the Battle of Rome, the Abbey of Monte Cassino to the south east of the capital city, which was the oldest Benedictine monastery in the world, was destroyed by Allied bombers. This is now acknowledged as one of the biggest strategic errors of the Second World War on the Allied side.

Some of the remains of Padua's Roman
amphitheatre are still standing

Travel tip: 

Padua is believed to be one of the oldest cities in northern Italy. It was founded in about 1183 BC by the Trojan prince, Antenor. The Roman writer, Livy, records an attempted invasion of the city by the Spartans in 302 BC. Later attempts at invasions were made unsuccessfully by the Etruscans and Gauls. The city formed an alliance with Rome against their common enemies and it became a Roman municipium in about 49BC. By the end of the first century BC, Padua was the wealthiest city in Italy, apart from Rome. The Roman name for Padua was Patavium. You can still see the remains of the Roman Ampitheatre, or Arena as it was known, which is in Padua’s Giardino dell’Arena. The main entrance would have been near the present-day Piazza Eremitani, where the Church of the Eremitani is located. 

The Chiesa degli Eremitani in Padua dates
back to the mid-13th century 

Travel tip:

La Chiesa degli Eremitani - Church of the Eremitani or Church of the Hermits - is a former Augustinian Gothic-style church close to the Cappella Scrovegni in Piazza Eremitani in the centre of Padua. The church was built for Augustinian friars between 1260 and 1276 and dedicated to the Saints Philip and James. The friars remained in the church and adjoining monastery until 1806 when Padua was under Napoleonic rule and the order was suppressed. The church was reopened for services in 1808 and became a parish church in 1817. The church has a single nave with plain walls decorated with ochre and red bricks and it has a vaulted wooden ceiling. It houses the ornate tombs of two lords of Padua, Jacopo II da Carrara and Ubertino da Carrara, designed by Andriolo de Santi. The Musei Civici agli Eremitani (Civic Museum) of Padua is now housed in the former Augustinian monastery to the left of the church.  The Scrovegni Chapel is famed for its brilliant frescoes by Giotto, painted between 1303 and 1305.

Also on this day: 

1544: The birth of poet Torquato Tasso

1669: Mount Etna’s biggest eruption

1847: The birth of politician Sidney Sonnino

1851: Premiere of Verdi opera Rigoletto

1924: The birth of psychiatrist Franco Basaglia

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Barbara Strozzi – composer

One of few 17th century women to have her own music published

Bernardo Strozzi's painting The Viola da
Gamba Player, is said to be Barbara Strozzi

The talented singer and composer Barbara Strozzi was baptised on this day in 1619 in the Cannaregio district of Venice.

Strozzi had been recognised by the poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi as his adopted daughter. It was thought at the time she was likely to have been an illegitimate daughter he had fathered with his servant, Isabella Garzoni.

Giulio Strozzi encouraged his adopted daughter’s musical talent, even creating an academy where she could perform to an audience. She became one of only a few women in the 17th century to publish her own compositions.

The Academy of the Unknown - Accademia degli Incogniti - was a circle of intellectuals in Venice that met to discuss literature, ethics, aesthetics, religion and the arts. They were supporters of Venetian opera in the late 1630s and 1640s. Giulio Strozzi formed a musical sub-group, Academy of the Like-Minded, Accademia degli Unisoni, where Barbara Strozzi performed as a singer and even suggested topics for discussion.

In addition to her vocal talent she showed herself to be a gifted composer and so her father arranged for her to study with the composer, Francesco Cavalli.

When she was older it was rumoured she was a courtesan, although this could have been made up by male contemporaries who were jealous of her talent.

Tiberio Tinelli's portrait of Giulio Strozzi,
which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

A portrait of her by Bernardo Strozzi, who was no relation to her, has been interpreted as highlighting her activities both as a musician and as a courtesan.

It is believed three of her four children were fathered by the same man, Giovanni Paolo Vidman, who was a patron of the arts and a supporter of early opera.

Barbara Strozzi launched her career as a composer in 1644 with the publication of a volume of madrigals. Over the next 20 years she published eight collections of music.

Strozzi was said to be the most prolific composer of printed, secular, vocal music in the middle of the 17th century, even compared with male composers as well as female. She is also known to have composed just one volume of sacred songs.

Barbara Strozzi was appreciated for her poetic lyrics as well as for her ability to compose music.

Nearly three quarters of her music was written for the soprano voice and although she may have written many of her own lyrics, some are by her father, Giulio.

Barbara Strozzi died in Padua in 1677 at the age of 58 and she is believed to have been buried at the Church of the Eremitani in the city.

The Church of Santa Sofia seen from Strada Nova in Venice

Travel tip:

Barbara Strozzi was baptised soon after her birth in the Church of Santa Sofia in the Cannaregio district of Venice. The church is in Strada Nova, which runs parallel with the Grand Canal. It is believed to date back as far as 886 but was rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries. The church was closed in 1810 while Venice was under Napoleonic rule but was later purchased by a Venetian and was re-consecrated and reopened as a church in 1836.

The Church of the Eremitani in Padua

Travel tip:

Barbara Strozzi is believed to have been buried in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua, an Augustinian Church that dates back to the 13th century in Piazza Eremitani, close to the centre of Padua. It became one of the most important churches in Padua and was decorated by the greatest masters working in the city over the years. But during the Second World War, the church and its beautiful frescoes suffered a lot of damage from bombing raids.

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