Death of Pliny the Elder

Roman writer was fascinated by nature and geography

A 19th century lithograph depicting the death of Pliny
the Elder by the Spanish painter Ricardo Martí Aguiló

The author, philosopher, and naval and army commander who became known as Pliny the Elder died on this day in 79 AD during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples in Campania.

Pliny had been stationed with the Roman Navy a short distance away at Misenum, on what is now known as the Gulf of Pozzuoli, and had organised a rescue mission after a friend had sent him a message saying that she was stranded at Stabiae. It is thought he died from asphyxiation  caused by the toxic gases coming from the volcano.

Born Gaius Plinius Secundus in either 23 or 24 AD in Como, then called Novum Comum, in Lombardy, Pliny grew up to become a prolific writer, naturalist and philosopher.

He wrote Naturalis Historia - The Natural History - a 37-volume work about the natural world, based on his extensive studies and investigations into nature and geography. He also wrote the 20-volume Bella Germaniae, a history of the German wars, which was used as a source by Roman historians such as Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius.

Pliny had some legal education in Rome and became a junior officer in the army at the age of 23. He was interested in Roman literature and through this made influential literary friends, who helped him advance his career.

Pliny the Elder was a writer and
lawyer as well as a naval officer

Pliny the Elder’s first book was about the use of missiles by cavalry troops, but it has not survived. Some of its contents were revealed in his Naturalis Historia, where he refers to using the movements of the horse to assist the rider when throwing a javelin.

During the reign of Nero, Pliny lived in Rome, where he witnessed the construction of Nero’s Domus Aurea, or Golden House. As well as pleading law cases, Pliny studied and carried on writing. His second published work was The Life of Pomponius Secundus, a distinguished statesman and poet.

After the death of Nero, Vespasian became emperor and put Pliny to work immediately governing various provinces and he spent time in Africa and Spain. He was trusted by Vespasian right up to the emperor’s death, which was a few months before that of Pliny.

Vespasian had appointed Pliny as praefectus classis in the Roman Navy and the writer was in Misenum with the fleet when Vesuvius erupted in August 79 AD and he saw what he at first thought was an unusual cloud formation in the sky. According to the writing of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, he ordered a fleet of galleys to cross the Gulf of Naples to Stabiae to investigate what was happening and try to rescue his friend, Rectina, and any others who were stranded there.

A 15th century copy of Pliny the Elder's
Naturalis Historia printed in Venice

When cinders and pumice began to fall on the vessel, Pliny was advised to turn back, but he vowed to continue, saying, ‘Fortune favours the bold.’ 

After reaching Stabiae, strong winds prevented his party from leaving again. But later, when they did try to leave because they realised that they were in danger, a plume of hot, toxic gases engulfed them. Pliny, who it is thought may have suffered from asthma, probably died from asphyxiation.

Pliny the Elder never married and he had no children. In his will, he adopted his nephew, who later became known as Pliny the Younger, to enable him to inherit his entire estate. 

Pliny the Elder had deliberately reserved some of his writing on Roman history to be published after his death, knowing it to be controversial and that it could have put his life in danger during the reign of Nero. During his lifetime he had tried to stick to writing about safe topics, such as grammar and nature.

His huge work, Naturalis Historia, which was published just before his death, is thought to have been the first ever encyclopaedia, and it is the earliest known encyclopaedia to have survived to this day. It remained an authority on scientific matters until the Middle Ages.

Statues of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger
flank the entrance to the Duomo di Como

Travel tip:

Como, where Pliny the Elder was born, is a city at the foot of Lake Como in Lombardy, which in Roman times was called Novum Comum, so called because it was a new city built on swampland at the southern tip of the lake that had been drained on the orders of Julius Caesar after he had deemed that the settlement be moved from its former location on nearby hills. Today it is a popular tourist destination because of its proximity to the lake and has many attractive churches, gardens, museums, theatres, parks, and palaces to visit. The Villa Olmo, built in neoclassical style there in 1797 by an aristocratic family, has hosted Napoleon, Ugo Foscolo, Prince Metternich, Archduke Franz Ferdinand I and Giuseppe Garibaldi, to name but a few of the eminent people who have stayed there. The 15th century facade of Como's duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta - has a portal flanked by Renaissance statutes of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger.

The atrium, with some frescoes still intact, at the
well-preserved Villa San Marco in Castellammare

Travel tip:

The town of Stabiae in Campania, where Pliny the Elder met his death, was an ancient city which used to be situated near the modern town of Castellammare di Stabia. Many Roman villas were built in ancient Stabiae because it was a popular seaside resort for wealthy Romans and, although the town was buried under layers of volcanic ash, like nearby Pompei, some of the villas can still be visited today. They are the largest concentration of well-preserved Roman seaside villas known in the world. Built on the northernmost edge of Varano hill, which offers panoramic views of the Gulf of Naples, they include the Villa San Marco, one of the largest villas ever discovered in Campania, measuring over 11,000 square meters. It has an atrium, courtyard with a pool, triclinium with bay views, colonnaded courtyard, kitchen, and two internal gardens, as well as a private bath complex. The walls are decorated with mosaics and frescoes. At the time of the eruption, the Villa San Marco is thought to have been undergoing repairs following an earthquake and was not occupied.

Also on this day: 

79: Vesuvius erupts, destroying Pompeii and other cities

665: The death of Saint Patricia of Naples

1509: The birth of Borgia cardinal Ippolito II d'Este

1609: Galileo demonstrates the potential of telescope

1691: The birth of architect Alessandro Galilei 

1829: The birth of composer Carlo Eduardo Acton

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Flavius Stilicho - Roman general

Last defender of the Western Empire

A diptych in Monza cathedral is thought to show 
Stilicho (right), with Serena and Eucherius

The military commander Flavius Stilicho, who for part of his career could be considered the most powerful man in the Western Roman Empire, was executed on this day in 408 in Ravenna.

Stilicho had successfully defended the empire against several Barbarian invasions and gained his power through acting as regent when the death of Theodosius I in 395 left the Western Empire in the hands of Honorius, his 10-year-old son.

But as a soldier of partly Vandal descent, Stilicho had always aroused suspicion within the Roman court and his failure to deal with the advance across northern Europe of the rebellious Constantine III, leader of the Romans in Britain, combined with rumours that he planned to install his own son, Eucherius, as emperor of the Eastern Empire following the death of Arcadius, sparked a mutiny of the Roman army at Ticinum - modern Pavia - on August 13, 408.

Stilicho retreated to Ravenna, then capital of the Western Empire, where he was imprisoned on the orders of Honorius and executed, along with Eucherius, on August 22.

Born around 359, at a time of political turbulence and rivalries within a Roman Empire in decline, Stilicho is thought to have been the son of a soldier of Vandal origin in the Roman army and a Roman mother. 

A bust of Theodosius I,
in the Louvre in Paris

As a soldier himself, he proved to be a skilled strategist and diplomat and quickly rose through the ranks under Theodosius I, the last emperor of a unified Roman Empire.

His success in 383 in negotiating a territorial settlement with Shapur III, the King of Persia, on behalf of Theodosius saw him quickly promoted to be head of the emperor's corps of bodyguards.

Theodosius increasingly saw Stilicho as a valued ally and strengthened their bond by allowing Stilicho to marry his favourite niece, Serena.

In around 393, Theodosius made him commander-in-chief of the Roman army and entrusted him with the guardianship of Honorius ahead of his death in 395.

Stilicho’s successes on the battlefield strengthened his position still further.

The Battle of the Frigidus in 394 in what is now western Slovenia saw him fighting alongside Alaric, the King of the Visigoths, to defeat the usurper Eugenius, unifying the Empire under Theodosius, while between 395 and 398 he successfully contained the Gothic threat in the Balkans.

In 398 Stilicho defeated Gildo, the rebel governor of Africa, securing a vital grain supply for Rome.

In the early fifth century, he defeated the Ostrogoth king Radagaisus, preventing an invasion of the Italian peninsula, and twice defeated Alaric, his ally in Frigidus, in the Battles of Pollentia and Verona.

A bust depicting Emperor
Honorius as an adolescent

Stilicho’s power inevitably made him enemies, notably a Praetorian prefect by the name of Rufinus, who is said to have been appointed to be the guardian for Theodosius’s other son, Arcadius, in the Eastern Empire.

They clashed over a number of issues but matters came to a head during one of Stilicho’s battles against Alaric, sparked by the latter reneging on a peace treaty with Rome.  

After purportedly trying to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the conflict, Rufinus is said to have instructed Arcadius to order the Roman troops to withdraw just as they were about to attack Alaric's army.  A group of the returning soldiers then murdered Rufinus, leading some historians to speculate that Stilicho ordered Rufinus to be killed because he suspected him of being in league with Alaric.

Stilicho’s power began to wane after the twin threat of Alaric and Radagaisus depleted the Roman forces defending the empire in the north. 

In 407, Constantine, a Roman general who had been proclaimed by his soldiers as the Emperor in Britain, moved his troops across the English Channel, taking control of Gaul and Hispania. 

Stilicho failed to stop his advance, which further drained his resources and highlighted the empire’s inability to defend its borders, leading to growing dissent among the Roman army.

The Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan has a monument called 
 the Sarcophagus of Stilicho, although it is unlikely he is buried there 

This and the false news that Stilicho was planning a coup d’état to install his son as Eastern Roman Emperor led to their mutiny. They killed Stilicho’s most trusted generals, leaving him powerless to the extent that when he was arrested in Ravenna, he is said to have accepted his fate.

For the future of the Western Empire, Stilicho’s execution proved to be a telling moment. In the disturbances that followed, murderous attacks by Romans on fellow  citizens of Vandal and other Germanic descent caused an exodus of 30,000 men to the side of Alaric, demanding that he lead them against the Romans.

The Visigoth leader subsequently led his forces on a campaign that saw them reach the walls of Rome and lay siege to the city in September, 408.

Without a general in the mould of Stilicho, Honorius could do little to break the siege. Alaric tried and failed four times to negotiate a peace treaty until August 27, 410, when - with the people of Rome dying of hunger - his army smashed through the gates and sacked the city.

It was the first time in 800 years that an invading army had successfully breached the walls of the Eternal City and many historians regard the event as the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire.

The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna is
famous for its Byzantine mosaics

Travel tip:

Ravenna, where Stilicho was executed, was the capital of the Western Roman Empire from 402, when Honorius moved his court from Mediolanum (modern Milan), until the collapse of the empire in 476, after which it became the capital of the Italy ruled by the barbarian Odoacer until he was defeated by the Ostrogoth king Theodoric. In 540 Belisarius conquered Ravenna for the Byzantine Empire, and the city became the capital of Byzantine Italy.  The city, which is in the region of Emilia-Romagna, about 78km (48 miles) east of Bologna, is now renowned for its wealth of well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture and has eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture is the Basilica of San Vitale, which is famous for its fine Byzantine mosaics.  Ravenna was also the city where the 13th century poet Dante Alighieri lived in exile until his death in 1321. Dante's tomb is next to the Basilica of San Francesco.

The beautiful Ponte Coperto, which links the city
of Pavia with the suburb of Borgo Ticino

Travel tip:

Ticinum, which occupied the site of the modern Pavia, was an ancient city of Gallia Transpadana, a division of Cisalpine Gaul. It was founded on the banks of the river of the same name - now the Ticino - near where it joins the Po, then called the Padus. Its importance in Roman times was due to the extension of the Via Aemilia from Ariminum (Rimini) to the Padus, which it crossed at Placentia (Piacenza) and there forked, one branch going to Mediolanum (Milan) and the other to Ticinum.  Modern Pavia has little in the way of Roman remains.  It is thought that the city’s Duomo might have been built over the remains of an ancient temple, but there is no evidence of this. Pavia’s picturesque covered bridge, the Ponte Coperto or Ponte Vecchio, which originated in the 16th century and was rebuilt after being bombed in the Second World War, linking Pavia with the Borgo Ticino suburb, was preceded by a Roman bridge, of which only one pillar exists under the remains of the central arch of the mediaeval bridge.  Pavia is also known for its ancient university, which was founded in 1361, and its famous Certosa, a magnificent monastery complex north of the city that dates back to 1396. 

Also on this day:

1599: The death of composer Luca Marenzio

1849: Venice hit by history’s first air raid

1913: The birth of nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo

1914: The death of bishop Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi

1970: The birth of TV chef Giada De Laurentiis

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Lucrezia Maria Romola de’ Medici – noblewoman

Daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent supported popes and poets

Lucrezia de' Medici

Lucrezia Maria Romola de’ Medici, who as a newborn baby inspired Sandro Botticelli’s depiction of baby Jesus in one of his paintings, was born on this day in 1470 in the Republic of Florence.

After her brother became Pope Leo X, Lucrezia helped him fund papal building projects in Florence and Rome. She also raised money to pay a ransom and secure the release of her husband when he was taken prisoner by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

She had 11 children, many of whom were to play an important part in the history of Renaissance Europe.  

Lucrezia was the eldest daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici and Clarice Orsini. After her birth, Botticelli painted Our Lady of the Magnificat, which is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and used her image as a baby as the model for the figure of the newborn Christ in his masterpiece.

She grew up to be married to Florentine politician Jacopo Salviati in 1488 and brought a dowry of 2000 florins with her. But after her brothers were exiled from Florence, she was unable to help them because her husband was a supporter of the new rulers.

In 1497 she spent 3000 ducats to support a plot to bring her brother, Piero, to power in the city. The plot failed and all the men involved in it were executed, but Lucrezia was spared from harm because she was a woman.

Lucrezia is thought to have inspired
Botticelli's depiction of baby Jesus

Afterwards she worked to build more support for the Medici family and organised a marriage for her niece, Clarice de’ Medici, to Filippo Strozzi the Younger, even though it was against the wishes of the rulers of Florence at the time.

When her brother, Giuliano, returned to Florence in 1512, he asked for her advice on how to restructure the government of the city.

Another of Lucrezia’s brothers, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, became Pope Leo X in 1513, and during the celebrations in Florence, Lucrezia and her family gave out money and gifts to the crowds who gathered outside their palace.

By 1514, Leo X had drained the Vatican treasuries and had to pawn the papal tiara, which was worth 44,000 ducats, to Lucrezia and her husband.

Lorenzo the Magnificent
was Lucrezia's father

After Leo X had appointed Lucrezia’s son, Giovanni, a cardinal, Lucrezia managed his household and office for him, especially when he was travelling as a papal legate, and she used her influence to promote Medici causes in Rome.

When the Medici were again exiled from Florence in 1527, Lucrezia’s husband, Jacopo, was taken prisoner by Charles V along with her cousin, who had become Pope Clement VII, and she worked to gather money for a ransom to get them released.

During her life, Lucrezia supported convents in Florence, funding new dormitories, cloisters, and workshops, and she also paid for the building of chapels in Rome, including a chapel that would be a resting place for members of the Medici family.

She corresponded with Niccolò Machiavelli about editing a biography of Alexander the Great and was a patron of the poet, Girolamo Benivieni.  With Benivieni, she petitioned her brother, Pope Leo X, to support their efforts to bring the body of the poet, Dante Alighieri, back to his home town of Florence.

After her husband, Jacopo, died in 1533, Lucrezia survived him by 20 years. She died at the age of 83. Of their children, Maria Salviati (1499–1543) was married to Lodovico de' Medici, uniting two branches of the Medici family, while Bernardo Salviati (1505/1508 - 1568) served Catherine de' Medici in France.

Lorenzo de' Medici was living at the family
villa in Careggi at the time of Lucrezia's birth

Travel tip:

Lorenzo de’ Medici, Lucrezia’s father, who is usually known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, lived at the Villa Medici at Careggi, originally a working farm acquired in 1417 by Cosimo de’ Medici’s father to help make his family self-sufficient. Cosimo employed the architect Michelozzo, who was considered one of the great pioneers of building design during the Renaissance, to remodel it around a central courtyard overlooked by loggias. Lorenzo - Cosimo’s grandson - extended the terraced garden and the shaded woodland area. After his death, in 1492, the villa was allowed to become somewhat run down until the early 17th century, when Cardinal Carlo de' Medici commissioned the remodelling of the interior, and updated the garden. Careggi, which is not far from Florence’s airport, is nowadays a suburb of the city, about 8km (5 miles) northwest of the centre.

The Piazzale degli Uffizi in Florence
offers access to the Uffizi Gallery

Travel tip:

The Uffizi Gallery evolved from a building project that began in around 1560, when the artist and architect Giorgio Vasari was engaged to build offices for the Florentine magistrates, hence the name uffizi (offices). Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who commissioned the building, planned to display prime art works of the Medici collections in a part of the complex lit by a wall of windows .  Over the years, more sections of the palace were recruited to exhibit paintings and sculptures collected or commissioned by the Medici.  In 1765 it was officially opened to the public as an art gallery. Located in Piazzale degli Uffizi, it is close to Piazza della Signoria and the Palazzo Vecchio. Opening hours today are from 8.15 am until 6.50 pm from Tuesday to Sunday.

Also on this day:

1463: The birth of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici

1521: The birth of Pope Urban VII

1994: The death of politician Giovanni Spadolini

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The Battle of Bezzecca

Garibaldi-led force suffers heavy casualties but wins important victory

A depiction of the Battle of Bezzecca by the
Venetian painter Felice Zennaro

The Battle of Bezzecca, a significant Italian victory in the push for unification, took place on this day in 1866 on a site approximately 10km (6.2 miles) west of the northern tip of Lake Garda in what is now the Trentino region of northern Italy.

The battle was part of the Third Italian War of Independence as the new Kingdom of Italy, which had been formally proclaimed in 1861, sought to expel the Austrians from Venetia, which along with Papal Rome had remained outside the control of the fledgling nation.

It took place within the wider context of the Austro-Prussian War, a conflict that had begun earlier in the year after a territorial dispute. Italy, sensing an opportunity to annex Venetia and the part of Lombardy still under Austrian rule, had agreed an alliance with Prussia.

The Prussian victory at the Battle of Königgrätz resulted in Austria moving troops from Venetia towards Vienna, leaving their territories in northeastern Italy vulnerable to attack. 

Giuseppe Garibaldi, who had famously led the initial push for Italian unification with his Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 and was now a general in the Royal Italian Army, took arms again as the head of another volunteer army known as the Hunters of the Alps, as the Kingdom of Italy sought to capitalise on this supposed Austrian weakness.

The Hunters of the Alps were under
the command of Giuseppe Garibaldi

The Battle of Bezzecca came about a month after hostilities began as Garibaldi’s army, which initially had consisted of about 38,000 men, came up against 15,000 Austrian regulars under the command of General Baron Franz Kuhn von Kuhnenfeld. 

Despite some setbacks, which had included Garibaldi himself being wounded in an assault on an enemy position, the Hunters of the Alps seized control of strategically important towns, opening two potential routes towards the ultimate goal of capturing the city of Trento.

As Garibaldi’s troops moved towards Riva del Garda, from which they intended to push north towards Trento, the Austrians occupied the town of Bezzecca in Val di Ledro, blocking the route.

Garibaldi, overseeing the battle from a coach because of his injuries, directed his artillery to secure a hill near the town to provide support for an infantry assault, which forced the Austrians to withdraw.

It was an Italian victory, albeit one with heavy casualties. Of the 15,500 deployed by Garibaldi, at least 120 were killed or declared missing presumed killed, a further 450 wounded and, before the Austrian withdrawal, more than 1,000 captured. This compared with only about 100 casualties in total on the Austrian side.

In the event, it was the last battle Garibaldi would need to fight before the Italian objective of bringing Venetia into the new kingdom was achieved.

General Alfonso La Marmora, who 
ordered Garibaldi to withdraw

As he prepared to continue the invasion toward Garda, he received orders from General Alfonso La Marmora, commander-in-chief of the Italian army, to abandon Trentino ahead of an impending armistice between Italy and Austria following the cessation of hostilities between Austria and Prussia. 

From the main square of Bezzecca, Giuseppe Garibaldi famously replied with a telegram consisting of just one word: “Obbedisco!" - "I obey!” 

Under the terms of the Treaty of Vienna, which was signed on October 3, 1866, the Iron Crown of Lombardy, which had been in Austria’s possession since the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815, was returned to the Italian monarchy, while Venetia, consisting of modern Veneto, parts of Friuli and the city of Mantua, was ceded to Italy. 

The annexation of Venetia and Mantua was subject to a plebiscite, allowing the population to express its will. The result was overwhelmingly in favour, with 99.9 percent of participants saying yes to becoming part of the Kingdom of Italy.

The Chiesa di Santi Stefano e Lorenzo houses
a memorial to victims of the Battle of Bezzecca

Travel tip:

The Bezzecca of today, about 35km (22 miles) southwest of Trento, is a popular holiday destination in unspoilt surroundings, a short distance from Lago di Ledro, one of the most beautiful of the Trentino lakes. It is popular with walkers and cyclists, with many paths and trails to follow through the surrounding countryside. Since 2010, along with Pieve di Ledro, Concei, Molina di Ledro, Tiarno di Sopra and Tiarno di Sotto, it has been part of the new municipality of Ledro. The Battle of Bezzecca is recalled in many street names and buildings, while there is a small museum dedicated to Garibaldi and the Great War. Museum. In Piazza Garibaldi, the Chiesa di Santi Stefano e Lorenzo houses the Bezzecca War Memorial, which commemorates those who died fighting with Garibaldi and local men killed during the Great War. Outside the church, there is a 75 mm Italian cannon and a column donated to Bezzecca by the city of Rome in 1924.

Trento's Piazza Duomo, with the Palazzo Pretorio
on the left and the Cattedrale di San Vigilio

Travel tip:

The prosperous modern city of Trento is considered one of the most desirable places to live in Italy for quality of life and employment opportunities. With a population of 117,000, it is situated in an Alpine valley on the Adige river between the northern tip of Lake Garda and the border city of Bolzano, about 95km (59 miles) north of Verona. Settled by the Romans in the first century, it changed hands many times before becoming a major city in the Holy Roman Empire. The Austrians took charge in the 14th century and it remained under their control, with the exception of a spell of French domination in the Napoleonic era until the First World War.  It was notable in the 16th century for hosting the Council of Trent, the ecumenical council of the Catholic Church that gave rise to the resurgence of the church following Protestant Reformation. The 13th century Castello del Buonconsiglio, next to Trento’s city walls, was a military barracks under the Austrians, then a jail, before falling into disrepair.  It was restored after Trento became part of Italy in the 1920s and now houses a museum and art gallery.

Also on this day: 

1871: The birth of writer and historian Guglielmo Ferrero

1914: The birth of screenwriter Suso Cecchi D’Amico

1948: The birth of comedian-turned-activist Beppe Grillo

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Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello – poet

Talented writer kept record of 1848 rebellions and produced verses in local dialect

Enrico Scuri's 1838 portrait of Pietro Ruggeri
da Stabello (Accademia Carrara, Bergamo)

Prolific writer Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello, who became famous after his death for the poetry he had written in his local dialect, was born on this day in 1797 in a hamlet near Zogno, a short distance from the city of Bergamo in Lombardy.

Ruggeri da Stabello wrote a valuable account of events that occurred in the north of Italy during revolts against the Austrian occupying army, which were later collected in a volume entitled Bergamo Revolution of the Year 1848.

He was the second son of a Bergamo couple, Santo Ruggeri and Diana Stella Ceribelli, who had moved to the Brembana valley to escape the riots that followed the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797.

When Pietro Ruggeri became an adult, he added the words da Stabello to his name, to honour the small village where he had grown up, which is less than one kilometre from the municipality of Zogno in Val Brembana, to which it belongs.

After Pietro Ruggeri moved to live in Bergamo to study for a diploma in accountancy, he began to compose verses, inspired by his contact with local people and what he had witnessed of how they lived their daily lives in the city.

He wrote his 1816 work, Letter of Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello Against the Widespread Misery, in the Italian language, more for his own pleasure than as a literary exercise. He went on to write four more works in Italian between 1820 and 1822 that were never published.

Ruggeri da Stabello started to write poetry in the Bergamo dialect from about 1822. As his fame spread, he was portrayed in a painting by Enrico Scuri and invited to social gatherings to meet other learned people from the area, while he continued to do a variety of jobs to earn his living.

He founded and became president of The Philharmonic Academy in Bergamo and he was painted on the occasion by Luigi Deleidi, a Bergamo artist, who was also known as Nebbia.

Ruggeri da Stabello wrote sonnets dedicated to his friends and some well-known people, such as the painter Francesco Coghetti, and he started to compile, but never finished, a Bergamo-Italian vocabulary.

Ruggeri da Stabello is commemorated with
a mounted bust in Bergamo's Piazza Pontida 

During 1848, he wrote his volume about the revolts against the Austrians while he was being forced to take refuge in the safer territory of Zogno, because of verses he had written in honour of Pope Pius IX and of Italy, after the Austrians returned to occupy the country.

Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello died in Bergamo in 1878. He was buried in the cemetery of San Maurizio in the Città Bassa, but his tomb was lost after the cemetery was closed.

However, his writing was evaluated after his death and he was recognised as the greatest writer in the Bergamo dialect ever known. In appreciation of his talent, his native city named a street after him and erected a mounted bust of him in Piazza Pontida, one of the historic squares in the Città Bassa, Bergamo’s lower town. 

In 1933, another Bergamo citizen, Bortolo Belotti, published some of his poetry in the volume, Pietro Ruggeri, Poet from Bergamo.

Modern Italian is now the most widely spoken language in Bergamo, but the Bergamo dialect - dialetto Bergamasco - is still seen on menus, street signs and often reproduced in popular Bergamo sayings. Linguistically it is closer to French and Catalan, than to Italian. It is still spoken in some of the small villages out in the province of Bergamo and the area around Crema, another city in Lombardy.

Because of migration in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bergamo dialect is still spoken in some communities in southern Brazil.

The town of Zogno nestles in Val Brembana, 
a beautiful valley north of Bergamo

Travel tip:

The municipality of Zogno, where Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello was born, is about 11km (7 miles) north of Bergamo in the Brembana Valley. Set in beautiful countryside, Zogno has a 17th century church, San Lorenzo Martire, as well as a modern church, the Santuario di Maria Santissima Regina. The village of Stabello now has a population of fewer than 500 people. The Val Brembana is an area rich in history and traditions, about which much can be learned by visiting the San Lorenzo Museum and the Valley Museum. Zogno also attracts many visitors to the Terme di Bracca spa facility.

Piazza Pontida, in Bergamo's Città Bassa, was
once a hub of commercial activity in the city

Travel tip:

Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello’s statue stands in Bergamo's Piazza Pontida in the Città Bassa, the Lombardy city's lower town. It is near the junction of Via Sant’Alessandro and Via XX Settembre, which would have been the hub of the lower town in the 15th century. The piazza is close to a point known for centuries as Cinque Vie (five roads), where traffic from Milan, Lecco, Treviglio and Crema would converge. It was the place where goods arriving in Bergamo would be unloaded before being sent up to the Città Alta (upper town). Some of the portici (porticos) date back to the 15th century, when farmers and merchants would shelter from the sun under them, while negotiating over the goods. It would have been a lively scene, with storytellers and poets roaming from one inn to the next, entertaining the crowds who had come to trade in the square. There are now modern shops doing business behind the porticos, but the square is still a popular meeting place with plenty of bars and restaurants.

Also on this day:

1823: Fire damages Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls

1850: The birth in Italy of Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first American saint

1933: The birth of cartoonist Guido Crepax

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Antoninus Pius - Roman Emperor

Hadrian’s adopted son presided over 23 years of peace

History has judged Antoninus
Pius to be a benevolent leader

Antoninus Pius, the fourth of the so-called Five Good Emperors who ruled the Roman Empire between 96 and 180AD, assumed power on this day in 138 following the death of Hadrian at his villa outside Naples the previous day.

As well as being notable for peace and stability, his reign was one of well-run administration, support for education and public works projects including expanded free access to drinking water in all parts of the empire.

He was seen as a wise and benevolent ruler who made the well-being of his subjects a priority, an example being the attention he gave to ensuring freed slaves were given the full rights of citizenship.

Antoninus instigated legal reforms, built temples and theatres, was an active promoter of the arts and sciences, and rewarded the teachers of rhetoric and philosophy in particular with honours and financial incentives.

Despite a number of disturbances in different parts of the empire during his time, he was reluctant to commit to any aggressive military action. Revolts in Mauretania, Germany, Dacia and Egypt were successfully contained by his armies with no recourse to escalation.

Only in response to an uprising of the Brigantes, who controlled large parts of northern Britain, did Antoninus take a more aggressive approach.

He appointed a new governor, Quintus Lollius Urbicus, who had previously governed Germania Inferior. Antoninus ordered Lollius to invade southern Scotland, driving the Brigantes back and constructing a new wall, the Antonine Wall across the Scottish territory 100 miles (62km) north of Hadrian’s Wall, from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde. 

The map of the Roman Empire as it looked during
the 23-year reign of Antoninus Pius

Unlike Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall was not maintained and had been abandoned by the time Antoninus died in 161.

Antoninus Pius was born Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Antoninus near Lanuvium, on the site of modern-day Lanuvio, about 38km (24 miles) south of Rome. His father, Titus Aurelius Fulvus, was a consul, whose father had been a senator of the same name. 

Titus Aurelius Fulvus died when Antoninus was a child and he was raised instead by his maternal grandfather, Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus, who was a friend of Pliny the Younger and had a reputation as a man of integrity. 

Antoninus held a number of official roles during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, including consul and proconsul, impressing Hadrian with his performance in these roles in Etruria and Asia. He married Hadrian's niece, Faustina, and following the death of Hadrian's first adopted son, Lucius Aelius Caesar, was adopted as Hadrian’s son and successor.

His own adoption by Hadrian was conditional on adopting future emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus as his own successors. 

On taking over from Hadrian, Antoninus persuaded the senate to convey divine honours on his predecessor. They in turn gave Antoninus the surname Pius.

A coin from the reign of Antoninus Pius. The head
on the reverse is that of his son, Marcus Aurelius 

When Faustina died in 141, Antoninus asked the senate to deify her as a goddess. He authorised the construction of a temple to be built in the Roman Forum in her name and in her memory founded the Puellae Faustinianae, a charitable institution for the daughters of the poor.

Much of Antoninus’s popularity stemmed from his skill as an administrator and his generosity.

Free access for Roman citizens to drinking water was expanded with the construction of aqueducts, not only in Rome but throughout the Empire. He also built bridges and roads, yet still managed to reach the end of his reign with a substantial treasury surplus. 

He suspended the collection of taxes from multiple cities affected by natural disasters such as the fires and floods and offered large financial grants for rebuilding and recovery of Greek cities after two serious earthquakes.

The health of Antoninus declined as he approached 70 years of age. He found it difficult to stand and often fell asleep during official meetings. Anticipating his death after contracting a fever at his ancestral estate at Lorium, about 19 km (12 miles) west of Rome, he summoned the imperial council and passed the state to Marcus Aurelius.

Antoninus's body was buried in Hadrian's mausoleum. Marcus and Lucius nominated their father for deification, a request granted readily by the senate.  A column dedicated to Antoninus on the Campus Martius and the temple he had built in the Forum in 141 to his deified wife Faustina was rededicated to Faustina and Antoninus.

The term Good Emperors was coined by the political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, who noted that while most emperors to succeed to the throne by birth were “bad” in his view, there was a run of five - Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, all of whom succeeded by adoption - who enjoyed the reputation as benevolent dictators, governing by earning the good will of their subjects.

The Torre Medievale was built in the ninth century
to protect Lanuvio against Saracen attacks

Travel tip:

The ancient Lanuvium, over which the present day town of Lanuvio is built, was a prosperous town under the Roman Empire but was destroyed by the Barbarians. Rebuilt in the 11th century, it was enriched by noble families such as the Cesarini and the Colonna. Situated in the Castelli Romani area south of Rome, Lanuvio has among its main visitor attractions the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which has a rich history dating back to the 13th century and contains the Colonna family tombs. Lanuvio’s civic museum contains more than 2,000 artefacts from prehistoric, pre-Roman, Roman, and Mediaeval periods. Look out also for the Torre Medievale, a cylindrical tower in two graduated sections with an encircling walkway, thought to have been erected in the ninth century to protect against Saracen attacks. Today the tower is home to the Consortium Vini Colli Lanuvini, with a tasting room and information on the vintages.  Lanuvio is host to an annual Festa della Musica every June, and the Festa del Vino in September.

The Pantheon is the most notable survivor of the
buildings that covered the Campus Martius

Travel tip:

Campus Martius in Roman times was a floodplain of the Tiber river, covering the land to the east of the curve in the river that begins south of Piazza del Popolo and loops round to the Isola Tiberina. It was the site of the altar of Mars and the temple of Apollo in the 5th century BC, later being drained and used as a military exercise. From the first century BC, it became covered with large public buildings, including baths, an amphitheatre, theatres, a gymnasium, crematorium and many temples, of which The Pantheon is the most notable surviving structure. The district of Rome called Campo Marzio covers part of the area. Like many of the structures of ancient Rome, the Column of Antoninus Pius ultimately collapsed and became buried. The remains were discovered in 1703, when some buildings were demolished in the area of Montecitorio. The marble base was restored between 1706 and 1708 and erected in the centre of Piazza di Montecitorio in 1741, before being taken to the Vatican Museums in 1787. Today it occupies a space in the courtyard outside the entrance to the Vatican Pinacoteca.

Also on this day: 

1576: The murder of noblewoman Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo

1593: The death of artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo

1934: The birth of fashion designer Giorgio Armani

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Michele Amari – politician, historian, and writer

Scholarly revolutionary became a leading translator of mediaeval Arabic

Michele Amari embraced the 
cause of Italian unification

Patriotic Sicilian revolutionary Michele Amari was born on this day in 1806 in Palermo.

Amari published a history in 1842 of the War of the Sicilian Vespers, was a minister in the Sicilian revolutionary government in 1848, and was part of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s revolutionary cabinet in Sicily in 1860.

He embraced the cause of Italian unification and helped prepare Sicilians for the annexation of Sicily by the Kingdom of Sardinia. During his later years, he served as a Senator of the new Kingdom of Italy.

A grandson of the third Count Amari of Sant’Adriano, he grew up in an aristocratic household. The title had been acquired in 1772 by one of his ancestors, who had held the hereditary office of the administrator of the royal tobacco monopoly.

Michele Amari lived with his grandfather in the centre of Palermo after his father, Ferdinando, had financial problems caused by his gambling. Armari was educated in Palermo and one of his teachers was a leading Sicilian historian.

Amari’s father later introduced him to Francophile democratic circles in Palermo and secured him a position at the Ministry of the Interior in 1820.

After his grandfather died, Amari returned to live in his father’s house and he was involved, along with his father, in the uprising of the Carbonari in Palermo. The rebels were demanding Sicilian independence and a liberal constitution.

Amari served in the governments
of Sicily and the unified Italy

Ferdinando Amari was initially sentenced to death in 1822 for his participation in the rebellion, but he was kept in prison instead until he was released in 1834. During those years, Michele Amari read widely about politics and published translations of English authors, at one point receiving a letter of thanks from Sir Walter Scott for his work.

By 1837, Amari had prepared an outline for his book investigating the War of the Sicilian Vespers between 1282 and 1302. The work was interpreted by many people as being a call to overthrow the Bourbon rule in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Amari was involved in health administration during an outbreak of cholera in 1837 and he was transferred to Naples in 1838, but the book was eventually released in 1842.

The title was deliberately understated to bypass censorship, but it rapidly won an audience in Sicily and on the mainland in Italy. This caused concern to the Neapolitan Government and Amari had to go into exile in Paris, where he moved in French liberal elite circles.

During the 1848 Sicilian revolution, Amari returned to the island to take up the Chair of Law at the University in Palermo. He was elected as a deputy in the Sicilian parliament and became Minister of Finance in the revolutionary government.

After lobbying for the recognition of the Sicilian state in Paris and London, he accepted an academic position at the University of Pisa.

The Villa Amari in Via Traversa
was the family's home in Palermo

Amari returned to Sicily in 1860 after Garibaldi’s Expedition of The Thousand and campaigned among Sicilians for approval of the annexation of the island. Amari was appointed a senator of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1861, two months before the proclamation of the new Kingdom of Italy.

He served as Minister of Education in the Italian Government from 1862 until 1864 and lived at times in Florence, Rome, and Pisa. He died in Florence in 1889 and was later buried in Palermo, at the church of San Domenico.

Having mastered Arabic while living in Paris, Amari was a forerunner for Oriental studies in Italy and became recognised as one of the finest translators of mediaeval Arabic in Europe.

Pasta alla Norma, served in a sauce made from
tomatoes and aubergine, is a typical Sicilian dish

Travel tip:

With an area of 10,000 square miles (26,000 sq km), and 620 miles of coastline, Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, just off the toe of Italy’s boot. The ancient ruins, diverse architecture and wonderful cuisine enjoyed by visitors are all testament to the island’s colourful history. It's two biggest cities are Palermo and Catania, while the among the biggest draws for tourists are the cities of the southeast of the island, such as Siracusa (Syracuse), Noto and Ragusa, famous for their stunning Sicilian Baroque architecture, the upmarket resort of Taormina, and the Greek temples at Agrigento. Watching over the east of the island is Mount Etna, a volcano that is still active today. 

Palermo's magnificent cathedral relects the
diversity of architectural style on the island

Travel tip:

Sicily’s capital city, Palermo, where Michele Amari was born and is buried, has a wealth of beautiful architecture, plenty of shops and markets, and is home to the largest opera house in Italy, the Teatro Massimo. Amari’s family residence, the baroque Villa Amari, was built in 1720 by the first Count of Armari in Via Traversa in the Piano dei Colli in Palermo. Palermo's architectural styles bear testament to a history of northern European and Arabian influences.  The church of San Cataldo on Piazza Bellini is a good example of the fusion of Norman and Arabic architectural styles, having a bell tower typical of those common in northern France but with three spherical red domes on the roof, while the city’s majestic Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary includes Norman, Moorish, Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical elements. 

Also on this day:

1573: The death of architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola

1903: The birth of film director Vittorio De Sica

1911: The death of composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti

1990: Italy finished third in Italia '90 World Cup

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Latina - Fascist architectural showcase

First stone laid in city that rose from a swamp

Crowds gather in front of the Torre Civica
for the inauguration of the new city

The project to build the new city of Latina in Lazio began with the laying of the first foundation stone on this day in 1932.

Originally called Littoria, a name derived from the fascio littorio, an ancient Roman symbol of power adopted by Benito Mussolini, Latina was built on land that was previously part of the virtually uninhabitable Pontine Marshes, south of Rome.

The Pontine Marshes was a vast swampland that had covered an area of more than 180 square miles (446 sq km) between the Volscian Mountains, the Alban Hills and the Tyrrhenian Sea for more than two thousand years. 

The area was totally infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes, whose presence made the disease so rife that anyone who visited the area was almost certain to catch it.

The northern extremities of the Marshes were little more than 70km (42 miles) from the capital and frequent outbreaks of malaria in Rome in the early 1930s forced the Fascist government to take action and implement a plan to drain the area, reclaim it as productive agricultural land and build new cities.

An aerial view of the city during the early stages of
construction, with Piazza del Popolo the centrepiece

They recruited an army of workers to clear scrubland, build canals, dykes and pumping stations, and build new cities, with Latina the showpiece. Conditions were grim for the workers involved in the project, and many quit soon after starting, yet others were brought in to take their place and the project was completed remarkably quickly.

Latina was built to a design commissioned from the Roman architect Oriolo Frezzotti. Architects and urban designers such as Marcello Piacentini, Angiolo Mazzoni and Duilio Cambellotti contributed to the creation of a modern city with broad thoroughfares, wide squares, and monumental buildings, mainly built along rationalist, neo-classical lines.

The city’s inauguration took place in December, 1932. Notable buildings constructed in the 1930s include the Cattedrale di San Marco, the Palazzo del Municipio with its 32m (105ft) Torre Civico overlooking the Piazza del Popolo, the Palazzo M in Corso della Republic - built in the shape of the letter ‘M’ after Mussolini - and the fountain in Piazza Libertà.

The first inhabitants were farmers from the north of Italy, mainly from Veneto and Friuli, who were promised land, houses and livestock in return for agreeing to relocate. Some 2,000 families had settled in Littoria by the time building work was completed in 1935.

Latina's duomo, the Cattedrale di
San Marco, which was built in 1932

Given that the surrounding area was transformed from a inhospitable boggy wasteland to one of the most productive areas of agricultural territory in Italy, and its mosquito population vastly reduced, the project was undeniably a success, which Mussolini’s propaganda machine was only too keen to exploit.

Nonetheless, after World War Two and the fall of Fascism, Littoria was renamed Latina. Although the fascio littorio - an axe enclosed within a  bundle of wooden sticks tied together with leather strips - had its roots in ancient Rome, its adoption by Mussolini somewhat tarnished its history.

The word fascio became part of the language of Italian politics in the late 19th century, when it was normally applied to radical, social-revolutionary groups, the bundle symbolising unity. Mussolini’s Fasci italiani di combattimento evolved into the National Fascist Party.

Nowadays, Latina is a city of more than 120,000 inhabitants, making it the second largest city in Lazio after Rome itself.

It has a modern economy based on pharmaceutical, chemical and cheese exports. Yet the town's Fascist past is still perfectly preserved and the fascio littorio is displayed in many architectural features.

The Opera Nazionale Combattenti building, which
now houses a museum of the area's history

Travel tip:

The historic headquarters of the Opera Nazionale Combattenti, the body that was responsible for the reclamation of the Pontine countryside,  located in Piazza del Quadrato in Latina, now houses a museum, the Museo della Terra Pontina. The museum traces the history of the Agro Pontino - the Pontine Plain - in the 20th century and displays around 1,000 artefacts. The building, built in 1932 in common with the rest of ​​the piazza, was one of the first creations in Littoria by the architect Oriolo Frezzotti. Some of the rooms in the museum are set out as they would have been in a typical farmhouse occupied by the settlers from northern Italy who helped to turn the reclaimed land into a thriving agricultural area.

The Fontana del Grano in
Piazza della Libertà

Travel tip:

Latina’s Piazza della Libertà is a good example of the wide squares characteristic of the look Mussolini's architects were trying to achieve in the new city. It features a fountain in the centre of the square, characterized by a double system of basins, surmounted by a bundle of ears of corn, which serves as a symbol of the redemption of the Agro Pontino and the victory of the reclamation of the marshlands.  Around the square are Carabinieri Barracks, built in 1932 and remodelled in the 1970s and 1980s, and various office buildings in the rationalist style, housing branches of the Compagnia Assicuratrice Milano and of the Riunione Adriatica Sicurtà, complete with Venetian lion, plus the Istituto Nazionales delle Assicurazione (INA) building and the former seat of the Bank of Italy.

Also on this day:

First Martyrs’ Day

1916: The birth of actor Mario Carotenuto

1961: The birth of novelist Gianrico Carofiglio

1986: The birth of heiress Allegra Versace

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