Showing posts with label Orvieto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orvieto. Show all posts

9 December 2019

Baldassare Ferri – singer

Male soprano was admired by the crowned heads of Europe


A 19th century engraving depicting Ferri and
fellow castrato Caffariello (Gaetano Majorano)
Castrato singer Baldassare Ferri was born on this day in 1610 in Perugia in the region of Umbria.

He is said to have possessed a beautiful soprano voice that was praised by other musicians and by much of the aristocracy of Europe.

The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, who was a great patron of music and himself a composer, is believed to have become so enchanted with Ferri that he had a portrait of the singer hung in his bedroom with the inscription, Baldassare Ferri, Re dei Musici (King of Musicians).

By the age of 11, Ferri was a chorister serving Cardinal Crescenzi in Orvieto. He then studied music in Naples and in Rome, where he was taught by Vincenzo Ugolini of Perugia, who was maestro of the Cappella Giulia.

Prince Wladislaus of Poland then secured Ferri’s services for the court of King Sigismund III at Warsaw, where the singer took part in dramas set to music. He continued to be employed at the court when the prince became King Wladislaus IV Vasa in 1632.

A few years later Ferri moved to Vienna, where he entered the services of the Emperor Ferdinand III and afterwards sang for the Emperor Leopold I.

The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I was said to be a big fan of Ferri's vocal qualities
The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I was said
to be a big fan of Ferri's vocal qualities
His voice became famous throughout Europe and he received honours from the aristocrats and royal families of many countries.

He was made a Knight of St Mark of Venice, sonnets were written praising him, and he was once even summoned to Sweden to sing before Queen Christina, who was a great patron of music. Sweden was at war with Poland at the time but a brief armistice is said to have been arranged so that Ferri could pass safely through the battle lines.

The singer returned to live in Italy five years before he died, enjoying a comfortable retirement because of the wealth he had built up. He left 600,000 scudi to charity on his death in 1680.

Ferri was said to have been handsome with a tall figure. Musicians of the period praised the limpid quality of his voice and recorded that his intonation was perfect, his singing was expressive and his length of breath was ‘almost inexhaustible’.

The walled Etruscan city of Perugia enjoys a spectacular setting in the hills of Umbria
The walled Etruscan city of Perugia enjoys a spectacular
setting in the hills of Umbria
Travel tip:

Perugia, the capital city of the region of Umbria, where Baldassare Ferri was born, is built on a hilltop, which makes it a stunning sight. One of the main Etruscan cities of Italy, it is also home to two universities, the ancient Universita degli Studi and the Universita per Stranieri, Foreigners University, for foreign students learning Italian and studying Italian culture. Perugia is the home of the Perugina chocolate company, famous for producing Baci, which literally means kisses, chocolates. The artist Pietro Vanucci, commonly known as Perugino because he lived close to the city, is a well known resident as he became the teacher of Raphael.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Orvieto, with its handsome facade of marble, gold and mosaics
The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Orvieto, with
its handsome facade of marble, gold and mosaics
Travel tip:

Orvieto, where Ferri was a chorister at the beginning of his career, is a small city in Umbria, about 77 km south west of Perugia/ It was built on the top of a cliff and is surrounded by defensive walls that were erected by the Etruscans. Orvieto is said to have one of the finest cathedrals in Italy, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, where Baldassare Ferri sang as a young chorister. It has a beautiful Romanesque Gothic façade, which was built of black and white marble and inlaid with gold and mosaics.

Also on this day:

1544: The death of poet Teofilo Folengo

1920: The birth of politician Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

1920: The birth of Bruno Ruffo, Italy's first motorcycling world champion

1946: The birth - near Vicenza - of Indian politician Sonia Gandhi


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12 April 2019

Giorgio Cantarini - actor

Child star of Oscar-winning Life Is Beautiful


Cantarini's performance as Roberto Benigni's son in Life Is Beautiful captivated cinema audienced
Cantarini's performance as Roberto Benigni's son in Life Is
Beautiful
captivated cinema audiences
Giorgio Cantarini, who delivered an award-winning performance in the triple Oscar-winning movie Life Is Beautiful when he was just five years old, was born on this day in 1992 in Orvieto.

Cantarini was cast as Giosuè, the four-year-old son of Roberto Benigni’s character, Guido, in the 1997 film, which brought Academy Awards for Benigni as Best Actor and, as the director, for Best Foreign Film. For his own part, Cantarini was rewarded for a captivating performance in the poignant story with a Young Artist award.

Three years later, in Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning blockbuster Gladiator, Cantarini was given another coveted part as the son of Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus.

Born to parents who separated soon after his fifth birthday, Cantarini went to an audition for the part of Giosuè after an uncle read a description in a newspaper article of the kind of child Benigni wanted and told him he was a perfect match.

Cantarini remains a close friend of the director Roberto Benigni (above)
Cantarini remains a close friend of
the director Roberto Benigni (above)
Cantarini recalled in an interview in 2018 that the audition consisted simply of a conversation with Benigni, with no acting involved. Once shooting began, he was told what to do on a scene-by-scene basis.

Despite the success of Life Is Beautiful and Gladiator, and the acclaim he received, Cantarini went back to school with no thought of becoming an actor when he grew up. His ambition was to become a footballer. Once he was in high school, however, his friends and teachers convinced him he should not let his acting talent go to waste.

After appearing in a small number of films and tv dramas - plus an appearance on the the popular tv show Ballando con le Stelle - he joined hundreds of hopefuls in applying for a place at the prestigious Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia - the national film school - in Rome and to his surprise and delight was accepted as one of just six boys and six girls to be admitted in 2012.

After graduation, he was immediately cast in the lead role of AUS- adotta uno studente - Adopt a Student - the first online-only series produced by Rai.

Following a period working in Paris, he returned to Italy in 2016 to perform, direct and produce Harold Pinter's play The Dumb Waiter for theatres in Rome and Vicenza, in collaboration with his friend and colleague, Miguel Gobbo Diaz.

Giorgio Cantarini today
Giorgio Cantarini today
In 2017, he played the lead role in Il dottore dei pesci - The Fish Doctor - an Italo-American short film directed by Susanna Della Sala, which was presented at numerous film festivals in Europe and Canada.

At the beginning of 2018 he moved to New York to study at the New York Film Academy and later in the year  was selected for the cast of Lamborghini - the Legend, directed by Bobby Moresco, filmed in Italy and starring Antonio Banderas and Alec Baldwin.

Cantarini’s home in Italy is in Viterbo in Lazio, where his mother and brother Lorenzo live. He remains in touch with Roberto Benigni, who provided a reference for his application for a visa to work in the United States.

Travel tip:

Orvieto, where Cantarini was born, is a small city in Umbria with a population of just 20,000, built on the top of a cliff of volcanic tuff stone. Surrounded by defensive walls built by the Etruscans, it makes an imposing sight. Situated about 120km (75 miles) north of Rome, it boasts one of Italy’s finest cathedrals in Italy - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta - with a stunningly beautiful Romanesque Gothic facade inlaid with gold mosaics fronting a building constructed from alternate layers of black and white marble.  The city’s medieval streets are known as a cultural paradise - busy with cafés and restaurants, bookshops, artisans' workshops and antique emporia.

Travel tip:

Viterbo, where Cantarini now lives when in Italy, is the largest town in northern Lazio, situated about 80km (50 miles) north of Rome. It is regarded as one of the best preserved medieval towns in Italy, with many buildings in the San Pellegrino quarter featuring external staircases. The town’s impressive Palazzo dei Papi, was used as the papal palace for about 20 years during the 13th century. Completed in about 1266, the palace has a large audience hall, which connects with a loggia raised above street level by a barrel vault.

More reading:

How Life Is Beautiful turned Roberto Benigni into a household name

Dino De Laurentiis – the Campanian pasta seller helped make Italian cinema famous 

The brilliance of Life Is Beautiful cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli

Also on this day:

1710: The birth of the famed castrato opera singer Caffarelli

1948: The birth of World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi

1950: The birth of controversial entrepreneur Flavio Briatore



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12 December 2018

Susanna Tamaro - bestselling author

Writer’s third published novel was international hit


Susanna Tamaro's novel is one of the biggest selling fiction titles in Italian literary history
Susanna Tamaro's novel is one of the biggest selling
fiction titles in Italian literary history
The writer Susanna Tamaro, whose novel Va' dove ti porta il cuore - published in English as Follow your Heart - was one of the biggest selling Italian novels of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1957 in Trieste.

Va' dove ti porta il cuore - in which the main character, an elderly woman, reflects on her life while writing a long letter to her estranged granddaughter - has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide since it was published in 1994.

Only Umberto Eco’s historical novel Il Nome della Rosa  - The Name of the Rose - has enjoyed bigger sales among books by Italian authors written in the 20th century.

Tamaro has gone on to write more than 25 novels, winning several awards, as well as contributing a column for a number of years in the weekly magazine Famiglia Cristiana and even co-writing a song that reached the final of the Sanremo Music Festival.

Born into a middle-class family in Trieste, Tamaro is a distant relative of the writer Italo Svevo on her mother’s side. Her great-grandfather was the historian Attilio Tamaro.

Margherita Buy and Virna Lisi in a scene from Cristina
Comencini's 1996 movie version of Va' dove ti porta il cuore
In 1976, after obtaining a teaching diploma, Tamaro received a scholarship to study at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the Italian school of cinema in Rome.

She was awarded a diploma in direction after making a short animation film entitled The Origin of Day and Night, taken from an Incas myth. After returning briefly to Trieste to work as assistant director on a feature film, she settled in Rome, where she would from time to time work for the Italian state television network, Rai. 

She completed her first novel, Illmitz, in 1981 but it was rejected by every publisher she approached (it was eventually published in 2014) and it was not until 1989, when the Marsilio publishing house began a project aimed at launching a series of young unpublished writers, that she managed to make her literary debut with La testa tra le nuvole - Head in the Clouds.

The novel won two awards - the Italo Calvino Award and the Elsa Morante Award - which encouraged Tamaro to keep up her writing.

Susanna Tamaro is related through her mother to the Trieste-born novelist Italo Svevo
Susanna Tamaro is related through her mother
to the Trieste-born novelist Italo Svevo
Her second novel Per voce sola - For Solo Voice - published in 1991 won the PEN International prize and was praised by film director Federico Fellini and the novelist Alberto Moravia, although sales were not spectacular.

However, when Va' dove ti porta il cuore appeared in 1994, Tamaro became the toast of the Italian literary world, hailed as “a unique voice” whose story, while rooted in her native Italy, displayed “an understanding of human lives that is universal”.

The book was turned into a film in 1996, directed by Cristina Comencini and starring Virna Lisi and Margherita Buy. At the Turin Book Fair of 2011, it was named as one of the 150 most important books in the history of Italian literature. It has been translated into more than 35 languages.

Subsequently, Tamaro has written several bestsellers, including Anima Mundi, Rispondimi (Answer Me), Ascolta la mia voce (Listen to My Voice), Fuori (Outside) and her memoir, Verso Casa (Towards Home), many of which have been published in English.

In 1997 she collaborated with the songwriter Ron (artistic name of Rosalino Cellamare) to write a Sanremo entry for the singer Tiziana Tosca Donati.

Tamaro revealed recently that she suffered from Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism, as a child
Tamaro revealed recently that she suffered from Asperger
Syndrome, a form of autism, as a child
She directed her first film, Nel mio amore (In My Love) in 2005, based on one of the stories in Rispondimi.

Since 1988 Tamaro has lived with the crime novelist Roberta Mazzoni, who invited her to stay in her home in Orvieto after she suffered a bout of asthmatic bronchitis, exacerbated by the smog and pollution of Rome.  The two subsequently shared a cottage in Porano, a nearby village. Tamaro has insisted that their relationship has always been platonic, describing it as “a loving friendship.” Tamaro recently revealed that she suffered from Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism, as a child.

Tamaro’s novels have often conveyed her political views, including her opposition to abortion, surrogacy and euthanasia, but she declined an invitation to stand in the 2008 Italian elections on an anti-abortion ticket.

The Canal Grande is one of the attractions of Trieste, a port city with a great literary tradition
The Canal Grande is one of the attractions of Trieste, a
port city with a great literary tradition
Travel tip:

The coastal city of Trieste, where Tamaro was born, is the main town of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Officially, it became part of the Italian Republic only in 1954, having been disputed territory for thousands of years. It was granted to Italy in 1920 after the First World War, after which thousands of the resident Slovenians left. The final border with Yugoslavia was settled in 1975 with the Treaty of Osimo. The area today is one of the most prosperous in Italy and Trieste is a lively, cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building. It has a strong literary tradition, having been the home of the Irish author James Joyce for more than a decade, during which he wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, most of Dubliners and the outline of Ulysses.  Joyce’s close friend, Italo Svevo, was one of several prominent writers born in the city, including the poet Umberto Saba and the essayist Claudio Magris.  The 19th century French writer Stendhal and the English novelist DH Lawrence also spent time there.


Orvieto's beautiful Duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria  Assunta - is one of the finest cathedrals in Italy
Orvieto's beautiful Duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria
Assunta - is one of the finest cathedrals in Italy
Travel tip:

The small city of Orvieto in Umbria, with a population of only 20,000, has a dramatic appearance, built on the top of a cliff of volcanic tuff stone, its elevated position further emphasised by the defensive walls built by the Etruscans. Situated about 120km (75 miles) north of Rome, it boasts one of Italy’s finest cathedrals in Italy - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta - with a stunningly beautiful Romanesque Gothic facade inlaid with gold mosaics fronting a building constructed from alternate layers of black and white marble.  The city’s medieval streets are a cultural paradise - busy with cafés and restaurants, bookshops, artisans' workshops and antique emporia.


More reading:

Why Alberto Moravia is recognised as a major figure in 20th century literature

The broad intellectual talents of Umberto Eco

How screen siren Virna Lisi turned back on glamour roles

Also on this day:

1685: The birth of composer Lodovico Giustini

1901: Marconi receives first transatlantic radio signal

1969: The Piazza Fontana bombing


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20 April 2018

Sant’Agnese of Montepulciano

Miraculous life and death of young nun


A traditional image of Sant'Agnese
A traditional image of Sant'Agnese
Dominican prioress Agnese Segni, who was reputed to have performed miracles, died on this day in 1317 in Montepulciano in Tuscany.

She was canonised by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726 and her feast day is celebrated every April 20 on the anniversary of her death.

Agnese was born into the noble Segni family in Gracciano, a frazione - parish - of Montepulciano.

At the age of nine she convinced her parents to allow her to enter a Franciscan sisterhood. She had to have the permission of the pope to be accepted into this life at such a young age, which normally would not be allowed under church law.

After a few years she was one of a group of nuns sent to start a new monastery near Orvieto. When she was just 20 years old she was chosen to be abbess of the community.

She gained a reputation for performing miracles, curing people of their ailments just by her presence. She was reported to have multiplied loaves, creating many from a few on several occasions.

The tomb of Sant'Agnes in the church of  Sant'Agnese in Montepulciano
The tomb of Sant'Agnes in the church of
Sant'Agnese in Montepulciano
In 1306 she was recalled to head the monastery in Montepulciano and she started to build a church, Santa Maria Novella, to honour Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she felt she had been commanded to do in a vision.

She was also inspired to lead her nuns to embrace the Rule of St Augustine as members of the Dominican order.

When her health began to decline she was recommended to visit the thermal springs at nearby Chianciano Terme to take a cure but she received no benefit from the springs and was carried back to the monastery on a stretcher. She died in 1317 at the age of 49.

When her body had to be moved years later, it was found to be incorrupt, having not decayed, and her tomb became a site for pilgrims.


Michelozzo's Palazzo Comunale
Michelozzo's Palazzo Comunale 
Travel tip:

Montepulciano is a medieval hill town some 70km (43 miles) southeast of  Siena, known worldwide for its wine. Connoisseurs consider Montepulciano’s Vino Nobile to be one of the best wines produced in Italy. Among the important buildings in the town are the Palazzo Comunale, designed by Michelozzo, the favoured Medici architect, in the tradition of the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence, and the Duomo, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, which contains a huge triptych, Assumption of the Virgin, by Taddeo di Bartolo.

A panorama of Chianciano Vecchia
A panorama of Chianciano Vecchia
Travel tip:

Situated a little over 10km (6 miles) from Montepulciano, the town of Chianciano Terme has two parts. Chianciano Vecchia (Old Chianciano) is situated on top of a hill, entered via the elegant Porta Rivellini, and is quite distinct from the modern community, which has grown around the thermal springs. It is considered among the finest health resorts in Italy with attractive parks, many hotels and a range of therapeutic waters said to be beneficial for the liver, the kidneys, the urinary tract and even for respiratory problem.

More reading:

Why thousands take to the streets of Catania to celebrate Saint Agatha of Sicily

The wisdom of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dominican philosopher

The First World War nurse who was made a saint

Also on this day:

1949: The birth of former prime minister Massimo D'Alema

1951: The death of Ivanoe Bonomi, statesman who helped Italy's transition to peace after World War Two


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