Rodolfo Siviero - art historian and secret agent

Life’s work earned nickname ‘the 007 of art’

Rodolfo Siviero spent his entire career
hunting down plundered works of art

Rodolfo Siviero, an Italian intelligence officer who recovered hundreds of priceless works of art stolen from Italy by the Nazis in World War Two, was born on this day in 1911 in Guardistallo, a village just inland from the Tuscan coast about 50km (30 miles) south of Pisa.

Siviero spent the whole of his adult life working for Italian military intelligence, first under the Fascist regime and then in the permanent employ of postwar Italian governments until his death in 1983.

During that time, effectively his sole mission was to track down and repatriate works of art taken from Italy during World War Two, many of which had been destined for a museum of the German dictator Adolf Hitler planned to open in Linz, or to the private collection of his long-time ally and Luftwaffe chief, Hermann Göring.

He achieved remarkable success, not only in bringing looted works back to Italy, but also in establishing a country’s right to ask for the return even of works that were previously seen as having been acquired legitimately by the aggressor in a conflict.

In all, Siviero is thought to have recovered more than 3,000 works of art, including masterpieces by Fra Angelico, Titian, Tintoretto, Masaccio and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, as well as the so-called Lancellotti Discobulus, an Italian-owned copy by an unknown sculptor of the ancient Greek original by Myron that the Fascist Italian government had been effectively coerced into selling to the Nazis.

Siviero’s association with the world of the arts began after his father’s career as a Carabinieri officer led the family to move to Florence in 1924. With ambitions to become an art critic, Siviero enrolled at the University of Florence.

In the 1930s, convinced that only a totalitarian regime could solve Italy’s problems as a country, he became a Fascist and at the same time joined the Servizio Informazioni Militare, Italy's secret service. 

In 1937, even though by this time Italy and Germany were allies, Siviero was sent by the SIM to spy on the Nazi regime in Berlin. His cover was that he was studying the history of art on a scholarship from the University of Florence. His mission ended in 1938 when Germany expelled him as an ‘undesirable person’ for reasons that remain unexplained.

German soldiers in Rome posing with a painting by
Giovanni Paolo Panini stolen from a Naples museum

At the same time, Siviero’s views on Italy’s Fascists began to change. He was dismayed by Benito Mussolini’s apparent desire to align Italy’s policies with those of the Nazis, becoming particularly fearful for the future of Italy’s Jews after the introduction of Mussolini’s race laws in 1938.

When the armistice between Italy and the Allies was announced in 1943, he switched sides, becoming an undercover operative for the anti-Fascist front, supplying intelligence for the partisans and monitoring the activities of the Kunstschutz, the body originally set up to protect cultural heritage during the war years but was now suspected of co-ordinating the large-scale shipping of artworks from Italy to Germany under Nazi direction.

During this time, Siviero was based at the Jewish art historian Giorgio Castelfranco's house on the Lungarno Serristori in Florence, which today houses the Casa Siviero museum. At one point, he was imprisoned and tortured by Fascist militias but stood firm against their interrogation. Happily, he escaped with the help of Fascist officials working undercover for the Allies.

The Servizio Informazioni Militare was disbanded in 1944 but Siviero continued to work with the Allies and for the new Armed Forces Intelligence Service established in 1949. In the meantime, postwar prime minister Alcide De Gasperi in 1946 appointed him "minister plenipotentiary".

Tintoretto's Leda and the Swan, which Siviero 
repatriated despite it having been sold to Germany

It was in this role that he undertook a diplomatic mission to the Allied military government of Germany, in which role he successfully lobbied for Article 77 of the Peace Treaty signed by Italy and the Allies after the 1943 armistice to be revised. Siviero argued that artworks acquired by the Nazis, even through ‘legitimate’ purchase, from the point at which they became allies with Italy in 1937 should be returned to Italy, rather than simply those taken after the armistice.

This enabled him to repatriate the Lancellotti Discobolus - a statue of a discus-throwing athlete wanted by Hitler himself - along with the Leda and the Swan by Tintoretto, the Equestrian Portrait of Giovanni Carlo Doria by Rubens, and 36 other works, all ‘sold’ to Germany between 1937 to 1943 with the complicity of the Mussolini’s regime.  The sale of the Discobolus was agreed only after the direct intervention of Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law and his Foreign Minister.

Other major works saved or recovered by Siviero included Fra Angelico’s Annunciation of San Giovanni Valdarno, which with the help of two monks he hid in the convent of Piazza Savonarola in Florence, and the Danae by Titian, which was taken from the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples and hidden in the Abbey of Monte Cassino, where the Apollo from the ruins of Pompeii was also secreted. 

Siviero recovered more than 200 paintings taken from the Uffizi and other Florence museums and hidden in a castle in South Tyrol, and tracked down two paintings of The Labours of Hercules by Antonio del Pollaiuolo to an address in Los Angeles, where they had been smuggled by two German soldiers.

He also saved several modern paintings by Giorgio De Chirico, founder of the Scuola Metafisica, that had been taken from his villa in Fiesole, outside Florence, after he and his wife - a Russian Jew - had gone into hiding.

Siviero continued recovering missing paintings and sculptures for the remainder of his life, acquiring the ‘007 of art’ nickname in the 1960s, after the first James Bond films appeared on cinema screens. In the 1970s, he became president of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence.

He died from cancer in the Tuscan capital in October 1983, his body laid to rest in the Chapel of Painters in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata. In his will, he left his house and all its contents to the Regione Toscana, which turned it into a museum dedicated to him eight years after his death.

Guardistallo is full of pretty
narrow stone streets

Travel tip

Guardistallo, where Rodolfo Siviero was born, is a picturesque hilltop village in Tuscany known for its medieval origins, charming stone streets, and sweeping views over the nearby coastline. Originally built around a Lombard castle in the seventh century, it later became part of the Republic of Pisa and then Florence, flourishing after agrarian reforms in the 18th century created a new class of wealthy landowners. Pastel-painted houses and stone stairways line the narrow streets of Guardistallo, which retains a medieval layout. The village, which has a population of around 1,200, is home to the historic Teatro Marchionneschi, a beautiful 19th-century theatre built by the wealthy Marchionneschi family. Opened in 1883, it eventually fell into disuse, but was reopened in 1990 following extensive restoration and today hosts theatre performances, concerts, and special events. Siviero's birthplace in Via dell'Erbaio is marked with a plaque.

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The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in
Florence, where Siviero was laid to rest

Travel tip:

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, where Rodolfo Siviero is buried, is in the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in the San Marco district of Florence. Considered the mother church of the Servite Order, it is located at the northeastern side of the square. The facade of the church is by the architect Giovanni Battista Caccini, added in 1601 to imitate the Renaissance-style loggia of Filippo Brunelleschi's facade of the Foundling Hospital, which defines the eastern side of the piazza. The main part of the church, founded in 1250, was rebuilt by Michelozzo between 1444 and 1481. Art works in the church include frescoes by Volterrano and Andrea del Sarto. The Cappella della Madonna del Soccorso was designed by the sculptor Giambologna for his own tomb and includes a large, bronze Crucifix, showing the dead Christ with his head reclining and his eyes closed. Other notable Florentines buried in the basilica include painter Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo, the architect Caccini’s brother, Giulio, a composer, and the musician Bernardo Pisano, thought to have composed the first madrigal.  By tradition, newly-wed couples visit the church to present a bouquet of flowers to a painting of the Virgin by a 13th century monk, where they pray for a long and fruitful marriage.

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More reading:

Umberto Baldini, the art restorer who saved hundreds of works damaged by Arno floods

Why family ties could not save Galeazzo Ciano from Mussolini’s wrath

The armistice that ended Italy’s war with the Allies

Also on this day:

1639: The birth of composer Domenico Sarro

1836: The birth of canning pioneer Francesco Cirio

1897: The birth of supercentenarian war veteran Lazzaro Ponticelli

1930: The birth of electronics engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto

Vigilia di Natale - Christmas Eve

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Bernardo Pisano – musician and priest

First composer to have collection of his music printed

A page from an early printed collection
of music by Bernardo Pisano

Bernardo Pisano, who is believed to have been the first composer of the Italian madrigal, was born on this day in 1490 in Florence.

Pisano - sometimes known as Pagoli - was so important in musical circles during his lifetime that he is also thought to have been the first composer anywhere in the world to have a printed collection of secular music devoted entirely to himself.

Although he was born in Florence, it is supposed that, because he used the name Pisano, he must have also spent some time living in Pisa. 

As a young man, he sang and studied music at the Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence. In 1512, he became maestro di cappella there in addition to supervising the choristers and singing in the chapels himself. 

As a favourite of the Medici family, he was appointed to sing in the papal chapel in Rome in 1514 after Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope Leo X. While there, he also taught Francesco Corteccia, an organist and composer for Cosimo I de’ Medici.

Pisano stayed in Rome for the rest of his life, singing in the papal chapel choir, and he acquired ecclesiastical benefices from the Medici at the cathedrals of Seville and Lerida in Spain.

However, he made the mistake of returning to Florence in 1529 during the three-year period of republican government of the city. He was seized and imprisoned because he was known to have close connections to the Medici family. While he was being kept prisoner, he was accused of being a papal spy and tortured.

After the siege of Florence in 1529, the city was recaptured by papal troops and the Medici were returned to power there. Pisano was released and was able to go back to live in Rome.

Raphael's portrait of Pope Leo X, who
was Pisano's friend and patron

Pisano had written sacred music during his time as maestro di cappella at the Church of the Annunziata. But he was later to be more influential as a composer of secular music and he was believed to be history's first madrigalist.

Madrigals were sung during the 15th and 16th centuries by groups of between two and eight voices. In 1520, a Venetian printer published ‘Musica di Messer Bernardo Pisano sopra del canzone del Petrarca’. While the pieces in the collection were not actually called madrigals, they contained features that have been recognised in retrospect as being distinctive of the madrigal genre. 

The collection was made up of verses by the poet Petrarch set to music by Pisano. He was influenced by the literary theories of the poet and scholar Pietro Bembo, who was a secretary to Pope Leo X and later became a Cardinal appointed by Pope Paul III.

This publication was also the first known collection of secular music by a single composer to be printed. 

Later composers who became masters of the madrigal genre are known to have been aware of this work by Pisano and to have copied some of his stylistic traits from it.

In 1546, Pope Paul III appointed Pisano as maestro di cappella of his private chapel. Among the singers in his group was a Franco/Flemish musician, Jacques Arcadelt, who was later to become famous as a madrigal composer. 

Bernardo Pisano died in 1548 in Rome. He is buried in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva next to the two Medici popes who had been his friends and patrons.

 Giovanni Battista Caccini's Renaissance-style
facade of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata

Travel tip:

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, where Bernardo Pisano was maestro di cappella, is a minor Catholic basilica near the centre of Florence. The church was founded in 1250 by the seven original members of the Servite order and is located in Piazza Santissima Annunziata. In 1252 a friar was commissioned to produce a painting of the Annunciation for the church. He was said to have despaired about being able to do justice to the face of the Virgin and eventually fell asleep while working on it, but when he woke again the painting had been miraculously completed. He attributed this to the work of an angel. The painting has since attracted many pilgrims to visit it, including Pope Alexander VI, who gave a silver effigy to the church. It has since become the tradition for brides in Florence to visit the church to leave their bouquets there.

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The Gothic interior of the Basilica di Santa Maria
sopra Minerva in Rome, where Pisano is buried

Travel tip:

The Basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where Bernardo Pisano is buried, is in Piazza della Minerva in Rome. The name of the church is derived from the fact that the original structure was built directly over the ruins of a temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis, that had been wrongly ascribed to the Greek/Roman goddess Minerva. It is located to the east of the Pantheon in the Pigna rione of Rome in the ancient district known as Campus Martius. Dominican friars began building the present Gothic church structure in 1280, modelling it on Santa Maria Novella in Florence. In 1431 the church and adjacent convent was the site of a papal conclave, when 14 Cardinals sitting in the sacristy elected Pope Eugenius IV. After his death, a second conclave was held there in 1447 when 18 Cardinals elected Pope Nicholas V. The church houses a marble sculpture by Michelangelo, Cristo della Minerva, representing the figure of Christ carrying the cross, which is located to the left of the main altar.

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More reading:

How the madrigal genre influenced the composer Monteverdi 

The madrigal writer also known for a brutal murder

The Medici musician who invented the madrigal comedy

Also on this day:

1492: The death of Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca

1812: The death of Ascanio Sobrero, the chemist who discovered nitroglycerine

1935: The birth of tenor Luciano Pavarotti

2006: The death of film director Gillo Pontecorvo

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Giambologna – sculptor

Artist worked for three successive Medici Grand Dukes in Florence

Giambogna's Abduction of a Sabine
Woman in Piazza della Signoria

Giambologna, the last in the line of significant Renaissance sculptors, died on this day in 1608 in Florence.

He was considered so important by the Medici family that once he had started working for them, they would never allow him to leave their city. They feared he would be enticed away by either the Austrian or Spanish branches of the Habsburgs to work for them.

His best known works include Abduction of a Sabine Woman - often known as Rape of the Sabine Women - in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, and his Neptune, atop the Fountain of Neptune, in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore.

Although influenced by Michelangelo, Giambologna produced many beautiful works in marble and bronze in his own late-Mannerist style, with perhaps less emphasis on emotion, and more on the elegance of the figures.

The sculptor was also sometimes known as Giovanni da Bologna, or Jean de Boulogne in French, and Jehan Boulongne in Flemish.

Giambologna had been born in Douai in Flanders in 1529, which was then part of the Netherlands, but is now part of France. He studied in Antwerp with the architect and sculptor Jacques du Broeucq, before moving to live in Italy in 1550. 

There, he made a detailed study of the sculptures of classical antiquity in Rome. His first major commission was given to him by Pope Pius IV, who employed him to sculpt the colossal bronze Neptune and subsidiary figures, for the Fountain of Neptune in Bologna.

Giambologna moved to live and work in Florence in 1553. He had become established there within a few years and he was invited to become a member of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno after it was founded by the Medici Duke, Cosimo I, in 1563, who was influenced by the painter and architect Giorgio Vasari.

Giambologna was so prized by the
Medici he was forbidden to leave

Among Giambologna’s most celebrated works are the Mercury, of which he did four versions. In his depictions of Mercury, the figure is poised on one foot, supported by a zephyr.

His marble sculpture Abduction of a Sabine Woman still stands in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria. The work includes three full figures and yet it was carved from a single block of marble. It was produced for Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

The sculpture was inspired by a story from ancient Roman history of the mass abduction of women from other cities for the purposes of growing the population of Rome which, at the time of its foundation, had relatively few female inhabitants. The Latin word raptio, which occurs in accounts of the incident written by the Roman historian Livy, can be translated as ‘rape’ in certain circumstances, but in this context may more accurately be taken to mean ‘abduction’ or ‘kidnapping’.

Giambologna’s several depictions of Venus produced a canon of proportions for the female figure, and also set standards for artists making Venus their subject that were to influence many future sculptors in Italy and Europe.

He also produced sculptures and ornaments for the Boboli Gardens in Florence and the gardens of other Medici villas in Tuscany.

His pupils went on to influence other sculptors throughout Europe as well as in Italy. Giambologna’s style, which incorporated grace, strength, and movement in his figures, anticipated the Baroque sculptures that were later created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

After he died in Florence at the age of 79, Giambologna was interred in a chapel that he had designed for himself in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in the centre of the city.

He had been an Italian sculptor in all but birth, who had left his mark on Florence and helped to make it the refined, elegant city it is today.

The Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza delle Signori 
houses a number of important statues

Travel tip:

Giambologna’s most famous work, the marble sculpture Abduction of a Sabine Woman, stands in the Loggia dei Lanzi on the south corner of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, close to the Uffizi gallery. The 14th century Loggia is named after the Lancers, who were the bodyguards of Cosimo I de’ Medici and it now provides an open air sculpture gallery for visitors to Florence to enjoy. The back wall of the Loggia is lined with ancient Roman statues of priestesses. On the far left of the Loggia is the bronze statue of Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini. Giambologna’s Abduction of a Sabine Woman, stands on the far right. Including three separate figures, it is believed to have been worked from the largest block of marble ever to have been transported to Florence and it was designed so that it can be appreciated equally from all sides. It has stood in the Loggia since 1583. A plaster cast model of the sculpture can also be seen in the Accademia Gallery in Florence. 

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in
Florence, where Giambologna was buried

Travel tip: 

Giambologna was laid to rest in the Cappella della Madonna del Soccorso in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, the mother church of the Servite Order, in Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence. The sculptor designed the chapel between 1594 and 1598 for his own tomb and it is richly decorated with frescoes and statues. The most important work in the chapel is the large bronze Crucifix by Giambologna, showing the dead Christ with his head reclining and his eyes closed. It towers over everyone who enters the chapel and depicts the body of Christ as elegant and athletic, free from the marks of the Passion.  The church itself dates back to the laying of its foundation stone in 1250. Its richly decorated interior harks back more to Roman Baroque than to Tuscan religious tradition, being decorated with marble, stucco and gilding, with impressive ceiling frescoes by Volterrano.

Also on this day: 

1819: The birth of republican activist Aurelio Saffi

1868: The birth of electrical engineer Camillo Olivetti

1912: The birth of microbiologist Salvador Luria

1958: The birth of fashion designer Domenico Dolce

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Baldassare Cossa – Antipope

The colourful career of a pirate who became a pope

A 1713 depiction of John XXIII by
French printmaker Bernard Picart

Baldassare Cossa, who reigned as Pope for five years under the name of John XXIII, was deposed as pontiff on this day in 1419. Stripped of his powers, he had been accused of charges that included piracy, rape, and incest, but he was still later appointed Cardinal Bishop of Frascati by a subsequent pope, Martin V.

Cossa is now known in history as an Antipope, because he was appointed as John XXIII during the Western Schism, a split within the Catholic church in the 14th and 15th centuries. 

Bishops in Rome and Avignon, France, were simultaneously claiming to be the true Pope and were eventually joined by a line of Pisan claimants, from which Cossa was appointed.

The papacy had resided in Avignon since 1309, when Rome was wracked by political chaos and violence, but Pope Gregory XI returned it to Rome in 1377. The Catholic church split in September 1378, when, following Gregory XI's death and Urban VI’s subsequent election, a group of French cardinals declared the election invalid and elected Clement VII, who claimed to be the true pope. 

As Roman claimant, Urban VI was succeeded by Boniface IX, Innocent VII and Gregory XII. Meanwhile, Clement VII was succeeded as Avignon claimant by Benedict XIII.

Following several attempts at reconciliation, the Council of Pisa declared that both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII were illegitimate and elected a third pope, Alexander V. 

The Schism was finally resolved when Cossa, who succeeded Alexander V as John XXIII, was deposed, and Pope Martin V was elected.

Rome pope Gregory XII, whose papacy was
declared illegitimate by the Council of Pisa

Cossa had been born on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples. After following a military career, he fought in a war on the side of Naples. It has been claimed that he started out in life as a pirate and that his two brothers were sentenced to death for piracy by King Ladislaus of Naples.

After studying Law at the University of Bologna, Cossa entered the service of Pope Boniface IX in 1392. 

He later became a canon and an archdeacon in Bologna and then Cardinal Deacon and a papal legate in Romagna. He is remembered as being unscrupulous and immoral and leading a depraved life, seducing countless women. It was also claimed he had links with local robber bands that were used to intimidate his rivals and attack carriages, and that these connections helped him achieve power and influence in the region.

As a Cardinal, he was a leading figure at the Council of Pisa that deposed Gregory XII and Benedict XIII, and elected Alexander V. Because both Gregory and Benedict ignored the council’s decision, it meant there were then three simultaneous claimants to the papacy.

Alexander V died while he was with Cossa in Bologna in 1410. Cossa was quickly ordained as a bishop and consecrated as Pope the following day, taking the name John XXIII.

The new pope made the Medici Bank the official bank of the papacy, which contributed considerably to the wealth of the family.

Cossa's tomb in the Battistero
di San Giovanni in Florence

John XXIII’s main enemy was King Ladislaus, who was still protecting the Roman claimant, Gregory XII, so he joined forces with Louis II of Anjou against him. But Ladislaus took Rome in 1413, forcing him to flee to Florence.

While in Florence, John XXIII met Sigismund of Luxembourg, who wanted to end the Schism and urged him to call for a General Council.  The resulting Council of Constance resolved that all three papal claimants should abdicate and a new pope should be elected. 

John XXIII escaped from Constance disguised as a postman. But he was later deposed by the council and tried in his absence on charges of piracy, rape, sodomy, murder, and incest. After he was caught in Germany and given up to Ludwig III Elector Palatine, he was imprisoned for a few months until a large ransom was paid for his release by the Medici.

Martin V then made Baldassare Cossa the Cardinal Bishop of Frascati, but Cossa died a few months later in 1419 in Florence. The Medici had a magnificent tomb created for him by Donatello and Michelozzo in the Battistero di San Giovanni, which was inscribed, ‘John the former pope’ - despite protests by Martin V.

After Angelo Roncalli from Bergamo was elected pope in 1958, there was confusion over whether he would be called John XXIII or John XXIV, but the new pope declared himself John XXIII to put the question to rest for good, and Baldassare Cossa is now remembered as Antipope John XXIII.

Procida's pretty harbour and waterfront, which is
notable for its houses painted in pastel colours

Travel tip:

Procida, the island off the coast of Naples where Antipope John XXIII was born, lies next to the larger island of Ischia and is just a short boat trip from Naples. Procida is less than 4km (2½ miles) long and 2km (1¼ miles) across at its widest point. It has a pretty seafront with yellow, white, and pink painted houses. The ferries arrive and depart from Marina di San Cattolico, where there is a tourist office and bars and restaurants. The small islet of Vivara is attached to the island by a walking bridge. No one lives there and it is now a nature reserve. Around Procida are dark sandy beaches suitable for sunbathing and swimming in the sea. The main church on the island is San Michele Arcangelo which has many old statues and religious paintings. On the main ceiling is Luca Giordano’s The Glory of San Michele. In the apse is Nicola Rosso’s painting San Michele Defending the Island, showing the saint with sword and shield above Procida, which is surrounded by shiploads of Turkish invaders.

Frascati's main church is the Cattedrale di
San Pietro, completed in the 18th century

Travel tip:

Frascati, where Antipope John XXIII was appointed as Cardinal Bishop, is an ancient, wine-producing city to the south of Rome. It has the feel of Rome, but it is on a smaller scale and life is at a less frantic pace. There are statues, fountains, and wonderful architecture, but it is easy to walk around in Frascati. It is said that Frascati’s eponymous white wine ‘non viaggia bene’ (does not travel well), which is all the more reason to drink it there, in quaint wine bars serving it cheaply by the glass. Villas built by wealthy Romans on the hills behind Frascati now lie in ruins, but there are elegant 16th and 17th century villas, such as the imposing Villa Aldobrandini, to look round. In the centre of Frascati, the 16th century Chiesa del Gesù has statues on the façade believed to be the work of Pietro da Cortona and frescoes inside by Andrea Pozzo. Piazza del Gesù leads into the larger Piazza San Pietro, where Frascati’s main church, Cattedrale di San Pietro stands. Inside the church is the tombstone of Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender. He died while in exile in Rome and was first buried in Frascati’s cathedral, where his brother, Henry Benedict Stuart, Duke of York, was Bishop. In 1807 his body was moved to St Peter’s in Rome, but his heart was left in Frascati, in a small urn, under the floor below his monument. Within a few streets in Via dell’Olmo, is the Osteria dell’Olmo, one of Frascati’s oldest osterie, where you can taste Frascati wine and typical local dishes.

Also on this day:

Feast Day of Saint Bona of Pisa

1568: The birth of noblewoman Virginia de’ Medici

1926: The birth of Caterina di Francavilla, aka TV personality Katie Boyle

1931: The execution of anarchist Michele Schirru

2013: The death of actress and writer Franca Rame

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Catherine de’ Medici – Queen of France

Florentine girl was the mother of three French kings

Cristofano dell'Altissimo's portrait of
Catherine de' Medici, in the Uffizi

Catherine de’ Medici, who married King Henry II of France and gave birth to the three subsequent Kings of France, was born on this day in 1519 in Florence.

Because of her influence over France during the period of the French-Huguenot wars, Catherine is said to have been one of the most important people in Europe during the 16th century.

She was the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne, but within a month of her birth, both her parents had become ill and died.

Her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini cared for her initially, but after her death, Catherine was brought up by her aunt, Clarice de’ Medici.

After her uncle, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523, he hosted Catherine in stately surroundings in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.

But in 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence and Catherine was taken hostage by Pope Clement VII’s enemies and housed in a series of convents.

The three-year period while she was living in the convent of the Santissima Annunziata delle Murate is believed to have been the happiest of her life and the time in which her interest in plants and Tuscan food was fostered. 

It was also a period of great danger for Catherine, as Clement VII had crowned Archduke Charles V of Austria as Holy Roman Emperor in return for his help taking the city.

A depiction of the marriage of Catherine de'
Medici to Henry II of France, in 1533

Charles began to lay siege to Florence and after a while some Florentines called for Catherine to be killed and for her body to be displayed on the walls of the city.

However, the city surrendered to Charles in 1530, and afterwards Clement VII summoned Catherine to Rome where he was said to have greeted her with ‘open arms and tears in his eyes’.

Clement VII then decided to find a suitable husband for Catherine and he accepted the offer from King Francis I of France, who had suggested his second son, Henry, Duke of Orleans. The pontiff regarded this as a good match for Catherine, who was not of royal birth, despite her wealth. 

The wedding took place in Marseille in 1533, when Catherine was still only 14. Three years later, after Henry’s older brother, Francis II, died, Catherine’s husband became heir to the French throne.

The pressure was on for Catherine to produce an heir, and after more than ten years of marriage she gave birth to a son, Francis. Catherine then went on to have another nine children, another two of whom were to become kings of France.

Francis became King Francis II of France and he married Mary Queen of Scots. He died in 1558 and was succeeded by his brother, Charles, who became Charles IX of France and married Elizabeth of Austria. After Charles died in 1574, he was succeeded by his brother, Henry, who became Henry III of France and married Louise of Lorraine. He reigned until he was assassinated in 1589. He had survived his mother by just eight months.

A portrait of Catherine de' Medici
wearing a widow's black cap and veil

Catherine had died in January 1589, probably of pleurisy. She was buried in Blois at first, but her remains were later interred at the Saint Denis basilica in Paris at the request of her husband’s long-time mistress, Diane de Poitiers.  But in 1789, a revolutionary mob tossed Catherine’s bones into a mass grave in Paris along with those of other former kings and queens.

During the reigns of all three of her sons, Catherine played a big part in ruling France. When Charles IX became king at just ten years old, she was appointed Governor of France and had sweeping powers. She also played a key role during the reign of her third son, Henry III. She is said to have taken a hard line against the Calvinist Protestants, known as Huguenots. She has been blamed by historians for her part in the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 when thousands of Huguenots were killed.

There is a long-held belief that Catherine de’ Medici had a strong influence on the cuisine of France by introducing Italian recipes, although this is disputed.

Proponents of this story claim Catherine brought in Italian chefs to the royal kitchen, who introduced the use of herbs and spices from Italy and Catherine’s favourite vegetables, which were not being served in France at the time. Some of today’s classic French recipes are said to have their origins in Tuscan cooking.

However, some experts say France already had a sophisticated cuisine of its own.

Florence's Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore,
with Brunelleschi's enormous brick-built dome

Travel tip: 

The founder of the Medici dynasty, Catherine’s ancestor, Cosimo de’ Medici, became Europe’s richest banker and a great art patron, supporting Fra Angelico, Donatello, Ghiberti, and many others. He also had a great influence on the skyline of Florence by encouraging Filippo Brunelleschi to complete his great dome for Florence’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. The largest dome of its time, it was built without scaffolding and given an inner shell to provide a platform for the timbers that support the outer shell. The architect died in 1446 before it was completed, but his dome remains to this day the largest masonry dome in the world.

The Murate monastery complex now houses bars,
shops, apartments and a restaurant 

Travel tip:

It is said that Catherine de’ Medici’s happiest time was spent living as a young girl in the 15th century convent of the Santissima Annunziata delle Murate in Florence. It was there she is said to have become interested in plants and cookery. Once a closed, religious community, the convent, between Via Ghibellina and Via Agnolo near Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, became a men’s prison for many years, and is where Carlo Levi, the doctor and politician, who wrote Cristo e fermato a Eboli, was held during the Fascist era. It has now been converted into a restaurant and cultural hub following designs by Renzo Piano.

Also on this day:

1808: The birth of engineer and inventor Antonio Meucci

1920: The birth of banker Roberto Calvi

1928: The birth of racing driver Giannino Marzotto

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Paolo Uccello - painter

Pioneer of perspective also worked in mosaics

The first panel of Uccello's fresco series, Battle of
San Romano, on display at the National Gallery

Paolo Uccello, who was one of the leading painters in Florence in the 15th century, died on this day in 1475 at the age of 78.

The son of a surgeon, Uccello served an apprenticeship in the workshop of the sculptor and goldsmith Lorenzo Ghiberti but made his own mark as a painter and also as a mosaicist, at one time employed to work on the facade of Basilica di San Marco in Venice.

Younger than Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello, three giants of the Early Renaissance period, Uccello belonged to a generation of artists eager to move away from the flat, decorative forms of traditional Gothic art. His work is more often characterised by clear colours, well-defined outlines and a dramatic narrative, although he retains the fairytale quality of Gothic.

He was noted for his interest in linear perspective, which helped create a sense of depth in many of his paintings. According to Giorgio Vasari, the 16th century painter and architect whose book, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, led him to become known as the first art historian, Uccello was so fixated with perspective that he would stay up all night, seeking to apply his knowledge of mathematics to ensuring the angles in his pictures and the relative scale were exactly right.

Uccello's St George and the Dragon echoed the
typical themes of traditional Gothic art

Uccello’s most celebrated works include a 1456 cycle of paintings depicting the Battle of San Romano, in which a Florentine army defeated Sienese troops in 1432, originally commissioned to adorn the palace of a Florentine politician, Lionardo Bartolini Salimbeni.  The three panels that comprised the cycle are now shared between the National Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence.

His love of perspective, meanwhile, was no better illustrated than in The Flood and The Waters Receding, part of a 1447-48 fresco depicting Scenes from the Life of Noah, which he painted for the Chiostro Verde of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

His St George and the Dragon (c1456), which is also kept by the National Gallery in London), and the Miracle of the Desecrated Host (c1467), housed in Urbino’s Galleria Nazionale, are other notable works.

Uccello was born Paolo di Dono or Paolo Doni. His father was from a wealthy Florentine family and his mother from the noble Del Beccuto family, who had three chapels in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of which Uccello would decorate himself. It is not known with certainty why he came to be known as Paolo Uccello, although he often used birds - uccelli - as well as small animals in his paintings as a device to help create perspective.

At the age of 10, Uccello became an apprentice in the workshop of Ghiberti. It was around the time that Ghiberti was creating the renowned bronze doors for the Florence cathedral's Baptistery, known as The Gates of Paradise.  

Uccello's fascination with perspective is evident
in this section of his Scenes from the life of Noah

Little remains of his work for Ghiberti. The earliest frescoes attributed to him, though now badly damaged, are in the Chiostro Verde of Santa Maria Novella and depict episodes from the Creation. 

From 1425 to 1431, Uccello worked as a master mosaicist in Venice. Documentary evidence has come to light suggesting that a mosaic of Saint Peter for the facade of the Basilica di San Marco, which was depicted in Gentile Bellini's 1496 painting, Processione in Piazza San Marco, was Uccello’s. Sadly, if there was such a piece, it no longer exists.  Some floor mosaics within the basilica are more confidently attributed to Uccello.

After returning to Florence, where he was to stay for most of the rest of his life, he executed works for various churches and patrons, most notably the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the city’s Duomo.

This mosaic on the floor of Basilica San
Marco in Venice is attributed to Uccello

In 1436, Uccello completed a monochrome fresco of an equestrian monument to Sir John Hawkwood in the Duomo. This work exemplified his keen interest in perspective. The condottiero and his horse are presented as if the fresco was a sculpture seen from below. At the same time, a sense of controlled potential energy within the horse and rider were characteristic of the new style of the Renaissance that had blossomed during Uccello’s lifetime.

Later, he painted the four heads of the prophets that surround the clock on the Duomo’s interior west facade clock, and designed a number of stained glass windows.

The three paintings celebrating the Battle of San Romano are thought to have been executed between 1438 and 1440. The three panels were exhibited until 1784 in a room in the Medici Palace on Via Larga in Florence.

Married in 1453 to Tommasa Malifici, Uccello had a son, Donato, with whom he worked towards the end of his life, and a daughter, Antonia, who became a Carmelite nun. 

In poor health, Uccello stopped working in 1470. His last will and testament was dated November 11, 1475, about a month before he died. He was buried in his father's tomb in the church of Santo Spirito in Florence.

The magnificent Florence Duomo, topped by
Brunelleschi's colossal dome, towers over the city

Travel tip:

Florence’s 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, the dominant feature of the city’s skyline. From groundbreaking to consecration, the project spanned 140 years and involved a series of architects. Arnolfo di Cambio, who also designed the Basilica of Santa Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio, was the original architect engaged and it was largely to his template 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 Lorenzo Ghiberti - to build the dome, which remains the largest brick-built dome ever constructed.

The facade of the Basilica of Santa Maria
Novella, designed by Leon Battista Alberti

Travel tip:

The Gothic Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, for which Uccello created his Scenes from the Life of Noah fresco series, which included The Flood and The Waters Receding, was built in the 13th century by the Dominicans and can be described as the city’s first great basilica. This church was given the suffix ‘Novella’ - new - because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne.  The new church was commissioned by wealthy Florentine wool merchant Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai and designed principally by Leon Battista Alberti. The church, recognisable for its white marble façade, was built between 1456 and 1470. A list of its notable artworks reads like a roll call of masters of Gothic and early Renaissance painting and sculpture, including Botticelli, Bronzino, Brunelleschi, Duccio, Ghiberti, Ghirlandaio, Lippi, Masaccio, Pisano, Uccello and Vasari. The city’s nearby main railway station takes its name from the basilica.

Also on this day:

1813: The birth of composer Errico Petrella

1903: The birth of painter Giuseppe Dossena

1907: The birth of actor Amedeo Nazzari

1921: The birth of football administrator Giuseppe 'Peppino' Prisco

1936: The death of playwright and novelist Luigi Pirandello

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Irma Marchiani - partisan

Resistance heroine honoured with medal for valour

Irma Marchiani was deputy
commander of her battalion

Irma Marchiani, who was one of only a small number of women to achieve promotion to a leadership role in the Italian Resistance movement in WW2, died on this day in 1944 in the town of Pavullo nel Frignano in the Apennine mountains, about 50km (31 miles) south of the city of Modena.

Along with three other partisans, Marchiani was shot dead by a firing squad, having a few days earlier been captured by a German patrol as they tried to cross enemy lines. She was 33 years old.

Posthumously awarded a Gold Medal for Military Valour by the postwar Italian government, wrote a poignant letter to his sister, Palmyra, shortly before she was killed, in which she said she would die ‘sure that I have done everything possible for freedom to triumph’.

Marchiani was born in Florence, on February 6, 1911. Her father Adamberto was a railway worker with strong anti-Fascist views who would regularly participate in industrial action aimed at achieving better living conditions for his fellow workers. 

After taking part in a large-scale insurrection in June 1914, marked by multiple riots and strikes, Adamberto was given a transfer from Florence to La Spezia in Liguria, seemingly as punishment for his role in the unrest. 

During Irma Marchiani’s school years, violent acts committed by supporters of Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Party became commonplace, with squads of Blackshirt thugs allowed to pursue their agenda with little regard for the rule of law. They set fire to premises used by groups associated with their Socialist enemies and handed savage beatings to their opponents. 

Marchiani was familiar with the rugged territory
around Sestola in the Modena Apennines

Against this backdrop, her father was dismissed from his job in La Spezia in 1924 and Irma grew increasingly to hate what her country had become. In memory of her grandfather, who had fought for Italy’s freedom in a different era, she would often wear on her chest the five-pointed star of Garibaldi's volunteers, of which he had been a member.

At school, Irma had excelled at drawing but her father’s sudden unemployment meant she had to give up her education and find a job. She first found work as a milliner, then as an embroiderer and window dresser. She had ambitions to design clothes of her own and in the 1930s enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara so that she could attend a course in anatomical drawing.

Throughout this time, she suffered regularly from bronchial disorders and every year would spend holidays in the Modena Apennines, breathing the clean air and attending a clinic in the village of Sestola. 

She happened to be there in September, 1943, when Italy’s surrender to the Allies prompted Nazi Germany to invade the country from the north. Having acquired a knowledge of the territory through her frequent visits, Irma recalled her grandfather’s support for Garibaldi and decided she too would fight for Italy’s freedom. Opting to stay in the mountains rather than return to La Spezia, she joined up with the fledgling resistance movement.

After some months working as a courier, conveying vital messages as the various resistance groups tried to co-ordinate their activities, she joined the Garibaldi Roveda brigade and was assigned to the Matteotti battalion. She was known by the nom de guerre "Anty".

In August, 1944, while fighting near Montefiorino, she was arrested, captured while bravely attempting to help a seriously wounded fellow partisan get to a field hospital. She was imprisoned with a view to being deported to Germany.

Irma Marchiani was inspired by
her grandfather to fight for freedom

Determined to continue to fight against the occupation of her homeland, she escaped and managed to rejoin her group. 

Many of the leaders of the resistance movement were communists but for all their supposedly progressive political ideals, the hierarchy was almost exclusively male and it was rare for a female to have a prominent position. Yet Irma’s bravery and knowledge impressed her colleagues and she was soon promoted, first to commissioner and then deputy battalion commander. 

It was her bravery that proved to be her downfall. During fighting in Benedello, she remained alone in occupied territory, again seeking to guide wounded partisans to safety. On the morning of 12 November, while trying to cross enemy lines, she was spotted and was captured by a German patrol along with three fellow fighters.

They were taken to the prison of Pavullo nel Frignano and subjected to questioning under torture. After 15 days of detention, as night fell on November 26, the four were taken outside the prison and executed. 

Alongside Marchiani, 27-year-old Domenico "Pisolo" Guidani, 28-year-old Renzo “Remo” Costi and 17-year-old Gaetano “Balilla” Ruggeri were also shot. Today, there is a monument bearing their names set into a wall that marks the spot where they fell.

Another monument commemorating the trio stands at the entrance to the Ducal Park of Pavullo nel Frignano.

Irma’s letter to her sister came to light in May My Blood Serve, a book written about the men and women of the Italian Resistance by the journalist Aldo Cazzullo, published in 2015. It read:

“My beloved Pally, These are the last moments of my life. Beloved Pally I tell you: greet and kiss everyone who will remember me. Believe me, I have never done anything that could offend our name. I felt the call of the homeland for which I fought: now I am here, soon I will no longer be here, I die sure that I have done everything possible for freedom to triumph. Kisses and kisses from your Paggetto. I would like to be buried in Sestola.”

Eight years after her death, Irma’s Gold Medal for Military Valour was pinned to the chest of her brother, Pietro Marchiani, at a ceremony in La Spezia in June, 1952.

The municipalities of Pavullo nel Frignano, Rome, Modena, Savignano sul Panaro, Livorno and Ciampino all have named a street after her.

In Pavullo nel Frignano, the monument outside the Ducal Park is marked with a plaque that bears the words: 

“Valiant partisan ..... she participated with indomitable courage in the battles of Montefiorino and Benedello did her utmost in loving assistance to the wounded ..... Arrested and sentenced to deportation, she managed to escape, falling back into the hands of the enemy, fearlessly facing death.”

The pretty fishing village of Portovenere is
just a short distance from La Spezia

Travel tip:

The port town of La Spezia, where Irma Marchiani grew up, is home to Italy's largest naval base. It is often overlooked as a travel destination because of the proximity of the tourist hot spots of the Cinque Terre coastline but offers an affordable alternative base for touring the area as well as an attractive destination in its own right. It is one of Italy’s busiest ports, yet the narrow streets of the old city are deeply atmospheric and have plenty to interest visitors, with a wealth of good restaurants showing off the best Ligurian cuisine. La Spezia is a point of departure for visiting Lerici, Portovenere and the Cinque Terre by boat. The recently-restored Castle of San Giorgio, the 13th century Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and a number of Art Nouveau villas are all worth visiting. The Gulf of La Spezia is known as the Gulf of the Poets because of its associations with the English romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The Castle of Montecuccolo has stood guard
over Pavullo nel Frignano since the 1600s

Travel tip:

In the heart of Frignano Regional Park, the town of Pavullo nel Frignano was once the main Roman stronghold in the Modena Apennines, while it is also home to the medieval Castle of Montecuccolo, birthplace of the 17th century condottiero Raimondo Montecuccoli, which stands well preserved despite the area suffering extensive damage during World War II due to its proximity to the German defensive positions of the Gothic Line.  As well as the mediaeval centre, it is well worth visiting the Ducal Palace and Park, the Parish Church of St Bartholomew, the Church of St Francis of Assisi and the modern art gallery. The surrounding countryside offers the Sassoguidano nature reserve, mountain-bike trails, opportunities for trekking, and an equestrian centre.

Also on this day: 

1908: The birth of hotelier and businessman Charles Forte

1918: The birth of entrepreneur Giorgio Cini

1940: The birth of mathematician Enrico Bombieri

1949: The birth of politician and businesswoman Letizia Moratti

1963: The death of soprano Amelita Galli-Curci

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