Scipione Borghese – Cardinal and art collector

Pope’s nephew used position to acquire wealth to buy art

Ottavio Leoni's portrait of
Cardinal Scipione Borghese

Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who was a patron of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Caravaggio and established a magnificent art collection during his life, was born on this day in 1576 in Artena, a town to the southeast of Rome

As the nephew of Pope Paul V,  Borghese was given the official title of Cardinal Nephew - cardinale nipote - and he had great power as the effective head of the Vatican government. He amassed an enormous fortune through the papal fees and taxes he gathered and he acquired vast amounts of land. He was able to use his immense wealth to assemble a large and impressive art collection.

Cardinal Borghese was the son of Francesco Caffarelli and Ortensia Borghese. When his father suffered financial difficulties, his uncle, Camillo Borghese, stepped in to pay for his education.

After Camillo Borghese was elected as Pope Paul V, he made his nephew a Cardinal and gave him the right to use the Borghese name and coat of arms.

Borghese was given many honours by his uncle, the Pope, who entrusted him with the management of the papal finances as well as the finances of the Borghese family.

He used money from the papal finances to fund Borghese family investments and, exploiting his power as Cardinal Nephew, he compelled people to sell their land to him at discounted prices.

Caravaggio's Madonna and
Child with Saint Anne

Borghese took a great interest in the development of the extensive gardens at his Roman residences, Palazzo Borghese, and Villa Borghese, and he built up one of the most impressive art collections in Europe. He collected paintings by Caravaggio, Raphael, and Titian, as well as ancient Roman art.

The Pope gave Scipione a collection of 107 paintings that he had confiscated from the artist Cavalier d’Arpino when he did not pay a tax bill. The haul included two important, early works by Caravaggio, a probable self-portrait usually called Bacchino Malato - Sick Bacchus - and A Boy with a Basket of Fruit. He also organised the removal of Raphael’s Deposition from a church in Perugia to be given to his nephew. He was later forced to provide Perugia with two good copies of the painting in order to avoid the population of the city rising up in violent rebellion against him.

Borghese also appropriated Caravaggio’s Madonna and Child with Saint Anne, a large altarpiece which had been commissioned for a chapel in St Peter’s Basilica. It was suspected that he had planned to acquire it for his collection when the work was commissioned.

The Cardinal’s patronage of Bernini helped the artist become the leading Italian sculptor and architect of the 17th century in Italy.

Between 1618 and 1623, Bernini worked primarily for the Cardinal Nephew, creating innovative pieces that foreshadowed the early Baroque style. He produced two marble busts of his patron, which are both in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the second carved after Bernini found a flaw in the marble used for the first.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese died in Rome in 1633 and was buried in the Borghese chapel in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

The Galleria Borghese is housed
in the Villa Borghese Pinciana

Travel tip:

The Villa Borghese Pinciana, built for Scipione Borghese by the architect Flaminio Ponzio, which now houses the Galleria Borghese, was originally intended as a party villa, where Scipione would entertain guests. The villa and the gardens surrounding it, developed on the site of a former vineyard, were acquired by the Italian state from the Borghese family in 1901 and opened to the public two years later. Generally known as the Villa Borghese Gardens, they now form the third largest public park in Rome, covering an area of 80 hectares or 197.7 acres, with entrances near the Spanish Steps and Piazza del Popolo. The Pincio, in the south part of the park, offers one of the finest views over the city.  Other villas in the area of the park include the Villa Giulia, which now houses the Etruscan Museum, and the Villa Medici, home of the French Academy in Rome.  The Piazza di Siena, an open space within the gardens, hosted equestrian events at the 1960 Rome Olympics.

The main facade of the Palazzo Borghese, which
was the Borghese family's principal Rome residence

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Borghese, the original home of the family’s art collection, is notable for its unusual trapezoidal layout, having two parallel sides but two that are not parallel, with its narrowest facade facing the Tiber. It was the main seat of the Borghese family in Rome, situated in the Campo Marzio district, not far from the Ponte Cavour and about 600m (0.37 miles) on foot from the Spanish Steps. It was built in about 1560-61 by the architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola on behalf of Monsignor Tommaso del Giglio and acquired by Cardinal Camillo Borghese in 1604, shortly before he became Pope Paul V.  The first floor of the palace has been the home of the Embassy of Spain in Italy since 1947. The Borghese family’s art collection, which contained works by Raphael, Titian and many others, was transferred in 1891 to the Galleria Borghese.

Also on this day:

1878: The birth of conductor Tullio Serafin

1886: The birth of vaudeville star Guido Deiro

1922: The birth of actor Vittorio Gassman

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Guido Reni – painter

Bolognese artist who idealised Raphael

Guido Reni: a self-portrait executed in about
1603, currently in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome

The leading Baroque painter, Guido Reni, was born on this day in 1575 in Bologna, then part of the Papal States.

He was to become a dominant figure in the Bolognese school of painting, which emerged under the influence of the Carracci, a family of painters in Bologna. He was held in high regard because of the classical idealism of his portrayals of mythological and religious subjects.

Although his father, Daniele, wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a musician, Guido Reni passionately wanted to become an artist and was apprenticed to the Flemish painter Denis Calvaert when he was 10 years old. He focused on studying the works of Raphael, who, for the rest of his life, remained his ideal.

Reni went on to enter the academy led by Ludovico Carracci, the Accademia degli Incamminati - The academy of the newly-embarked - in Bologna. He was received into the guild of painters in the city in 1599 when he was nearly 24.

After this he divided his time between his studios in Bologna and Rome.

One of his most famous works, Crucifixion of St Peter, which is now in the Vatican Museum in Rome, was painted for Cardinal Aldobrandini in 1605.

Reni's dramatic depiction of the
Crucifixion of St Peter (1605)

Early in his career, Reni executed important commissions for Pope Paul V, painting frescoes in churches in Rome, including the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. One of his most celebrated works from this period is the Aurora fresco, painted between 1613 and 1614 for the large central hall of the Casino dell’Aurora, located in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi.

Reni travelled to Naples in 1622 to paint frescoes on the ceiling of the chapel of San Gennaro in the Cathedral.

In 1630, the Barberini family commissioned from Reni a painting of the Archangel Michael for the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. There was a rumour that Reni had represented Satan, crushed under St Michael’s foot, with the facial features of Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphili, in revenge for a slight he had experienced from him.

Reni’s unique style was to paint religious and mythological subjects in light, soft colours, posing the figures gracefully, as in Atalanta and Hippomenes, executed in 1625.

Ancient Greek sculptures and the frescoes of Raphael were the main inspiration for his type of art.

He became one of the most famous painters of his day in Europe and was the model for other Italian Baroque artists who came later.

Reni died, aged 66, in 1642 in Bologna. He was buried in the Rosary Chapel of the Basilica of San Domenico. The painter Elisabetta Sirani, whose father had been Reni’s pupil, and who was considered by many to have been the artistic reincarnation of Reni, was later interred in the same tomb.

Reni painted frescoes in the Naples Duomo, also known
as the Cattedrale di San Gernnaro

Travel tip:

The Duomo in Naples, in Via Duomo, off Via Tribunali, was built over the ruins of two earlier Christian churches for Charles I of Anjou at the end of the 13th century. One of the main attractions inside is the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, which contains Reni’s frescoes, along with many other precious works of art. The Duomo is also sometimes referred to as Cattedrale di San Gennaro. It is open to the public from 8.30am to 1.30pm and 2.30 to 8pm, Monday to Saturday, and 8.30am to 1.30pm and 4.30 to 7.30pm on Sundays.

The Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, where Reni is
buried, contains several important works of art

Travel tip:

Guido Reni is buried in the Rosary Chapel of the 13th century Basilica of San Domenico in Piazza San Domenico in Bologna. The church is close to the Archiginnasio, once the main building of the University of Bologna. Behind the red-brick façade of the church, which was added as recently as 1910, lies a treasure house of art including works by Pisano, Michelangelo, Iacopo da Bologna and Guido Reni himself. In the Rosary Chapel, the most important work is the Mystery of the Rosary, a group of paintings worked on by Lodovico Carracci, Bartolomeo Cesi, Denis Calvaert, Lavinia Fontana, Guido Reni and Domenichino. The artist Elisabetta Sirani was later interred in the same tomb as Guido Reni.

More reading:

Elisabetta Sirani - talented young painter whose sudden death shocked Bologna

How Annibale Carracci made his mark in Rome

Domenichino - the Bolognese master who rivalled Raphaal

Also on this day:

1333: Florence devastated by catastrophic floods

1737: The inauguration of Teatro San Carlo in Naples

1964: The birth of crime writer Sandrone Dazieri


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Caravaggio and a death in Campo Marzio

Hot-tempered artist killed man in Rome in row over a woman

Caravaggio was a brilliant painter but had
a reputation for drunken violence

The brilliant late Renaissance artist Caravaggio committed the murder that would cause him to spend the remainder of his life on the run on this day in 1606.

Renowned for his fiery temperament and history of violent acts as well as for the extraordinary qualities of his paintings, Caravaggio is said to have killed Ranuccio Tomassoni, described in some history books as a ‘wealthy scoundrel’, in the Campo Marzio district of central Rome, not far from the Piazza Monte D'Oro.

The incident led to Caravaggio being condemned to death by order of the incumbent pope, Paul V, and then fleeing the city, first to Naples, eventually landing in Malta.

It was thought that the two had a row over a game of tennis, which was gaining popularity in Italy at the time, and that the dispute escalated into a brawl, which was not unusual for Caravaggio. The story was that Tomassoni wounded the painter in some way, at which Caravaggio drew a sword and lashed out at his rival, inflicting a gash in the thigh from which he bled to death.

This was accepted by historians as a plausible story for almost 400 years until evidence emerged to challenge the theory in 2002, when papers unearthed in a search of Vatican and Rome state archives suggested a different explanation.

According to the English art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, who revealed the findings in a BBC television documentary, Caravaggio killed Tomassoni in a botched attempt to castrate him.

Caravaggio among the narrow crowded
streets of the Campo Marzio district

The evidence had been turned up by Monsignor Sandro Corradini, an Italian art historian with a particular interest in Caravaggio, who found a surgeon’s report written on the day of Tomassoni’s death.

Maurizio Marini, another historian, told Graham-Dixon in the documentary that the surgeon’s report described a fatal wound to Tomassini’s femoral artery and surmised that Caravaggio was probably trying to castrate him.

Such barbaric acts were relatively common in Rome at the time, part of a ‘code of honour’ that dictated that if a man was insulted by another man he would cut his face, but that if a man’s woman was insulted then the man delivering the insult could expect a different part of his anatomy to be under threat.

The woman at the heart of their row was said to be Fillide Melandroni, who had allegedly succumbed to Caravaggio’s charms after he was asked to paint her for an Italian nobleman. It is thought that she was a prostitute and that Tomassino was her pimp.

It is little wonder, after he had been found guilty of murder, that Caravaggio was not keen to hang around. The sentence was beheading. Worse still, from the artist’s point of view, the sentence allowed for any member of the public, on spotting Caravaggio, to carry out the sentence themselves, on the spot.

In the event, Caravaggio escaped, yet died only four years later in mysterious circumstances. Official records said that he fell victim to a fever at Porta Ercole, on the Tuscan coast, but no records exist of a funeral or a burial and it is suspected that he himself may have been murdered, either by relatives of Tomassino or representatives of the ancient order of the Knights of Malta, avenging the maiming of one of their members in another brawl involving the painter, in Malta.

Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath.
painted shortly before he died in 1610

Shortly before he died, while lying low in Naples with the intention of returning to Rome to seek clemency, he completed his David with the Head of Goliath, in which the severed head of the giant bears his own facial features, while David is given an expression of compassion for his victim.

Born Michelangelo Merisi in Milan in 1571, Caravaggio became known by the name of the town, in the province of Bergamo, where his family settled after leaving Milan to escape an outbreak of plague.

His work became famous for his realistic observation of the physical and emotional state of human beings and for his dramatic use of light and shade, known as chiaroscuro, which gave his paintings an almost three-dimensional quality. This was a formative influence for the baroque school of painting.

Some of his major works, such as The Calling of St Matthew, The Crucifixion of St Peter and Deposition, can be found in churches in Rome, but his work is also well represented in the Uffizi gallery in Florence.

The Sanctuary of the Madonna in Caravaggio

Travel tip:

In addition to its connection with the artist, another attraction of the town of Caravaggio is the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Caravaggio, which was built in the 16th century on the spot where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a local peasant woman.  The Sanctuary was later rebuilt and completed in the 18th century and is now visited by pilgrims from all over the world.  The town did have a theatre named after Caravaggio that was held in high regard but it was destroyed during the Second World War.

The Piazza del Popolo is among the highlights of Campo Marzio

Travel tip:

Campo Marzio is Rome’s 4th rione - district - situated in the centre of Rome, comprising an area that includes Piazza di Spagna and the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti - otherwise known as the Spanish Steps - and Piazza del Popolo, as well as the fashion district with the Via dei Condotti at its centre, overlooked by the Pincian Hill.  During the Middle Ages it was the most densely populated quarter of the city. It is bordered by the Tiber, the Quirinal hill in the north and the Capitoline Hill.

More reading:

The mysterious death of Caravaggio

Also on this day:

1987: The birth of Leandro Jayarajah, former member of the Italy national cricket team

1999: Da Vinci's The Last Supper goes back on display after 20-year restoration

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Paolo Sarpi – writer and statesman

Patriotic Venetian who the Pope wanted dead

Paolo Sarpi was an outspoken critic of
the Catholic Church

Historian, scientist, writer and statesman Paolo Sarpi died on this day in 1623 in Venice.

He had survived an assassination attack 16 years before and was living in seclusion, still preparing state papers on behalf of Venice, writing, and carrying out scientific studies.

The day before his death he had dictated three replies to questions about state affairs of the Venetian Republic.

He had been born Pietro Sarpi in 1552 in Venice. His father died while he was still a child and he was educated by his uncle, who was a school teacher, and then by a monk in the Augustinian Servite order.

He entered the Servite order himself at the age of 13, assuming the name of Fra Paolo. After going into a monastery in Mantua, he was invited to be court theologian to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga.

He then went to Milan, where he was an adviser to Charles Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, before being transferred back to Venice to be professor of philosophy at the Servite convent.

At the age of 27, Sarpi was sent to Rome, where he interacted with three successive popes. He then returned to Venice, where he spent 17 years studying. His writings were highly critical of the Catholic Church.

Pope Paul V, who plotted to have
Sarpi killed

Sarpi was a defender of the liberties of Republican Venice and a proponent of the separation of the church and state.

After Paul V was made pope, Venice adopted measures to restrict papal prerogative, but Paul V excommunicated the Venetians. Sarpi entered the argument and set out principles, which struck radically at papal intervention in secular matters. A compromise was finally arranged between the Pope and Venice through Henry IV of France

Afterwards, however, Sarpi became the target of an assassination attempt instigated by the Pope. In 1607, an unfrocked friar assisted by two other people agreed to kill Sarpi for the sum of 8,000 crowns, but the plot was discovered and they were arrested and imprisoned after crossing into Venetian territory.

The following month Sarpi was attacked and left for dead with 15 stiletto thrusts. His attackers were welcomed back into papal territory but the pope’s enthusiasm for them cooled after he discovered Sarpi had survived his injuries.

His would-be assassins settled in Rome and were granted a pension by the viceroy of Naples.

Plots continued to be formed against Sarpi and he occasionally occasionally spoke of taking refuge in England.

But he stayed in Venice and served the state until the end. His last words are said to have been: ‘Esto perpetua,’ or ‘May she endure forever.’

These words were later adopted as the state motto of American state of Idaho and appear on the back of the 2007 Idaho quarter.

The statue of Parlo Sarpi in Campo
Santa Fosca in Cannaregio in Venice

Travel tip:

A bronze statue of Paolo Sarpi stands on a monument to him in Campo Santa Fosca in the Cannaregio district of Venice near Strada Nova. It is close to the place where he was stabbed by the Pope’s would-be assassins.

Travel tip:

Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, established in 1803, is a public high school in Bergamo’s Città Alta, which is ranked highly nationally because of the teaching methods and the subjects studied. Students shared their experience in a 2012 television documentary film, Gli anni e I giorni.

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Simonetta Stefanelli – actress

Godfather star now designs bags and shoes

Simonetta Stefanelli, in a scene from Dino Risi's 1971
movie, In the Name of the Italian People

Simonetta Stefanelli, the actress and fashion designer, was born on this day in 1954 in Rome.

Stefanelli is perhaps best-known for her performance as Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone in the 1972 film The Godfather directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

She also made several films with her former husband, the actor and director Michele Placido.

The couple had three children together, Michelangelo, Brenno and Violante Placido, who is also an actress.

They divorced in 1994 and Stefanelli and her three children went to live in London for a short time.

Before appearing in The Godfather, Stefanelli had small roles in films guided by some of the top Italian directors, such as Gian Luigi Polidoro, Giulio Petroni, Marco Vicario and Dino Risi.

In 1972 she appeared in a German film for television, Di Sonne angreifen, 'The Sun Attack'.

Then came her role in The Godfather alongside Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan and Diane Keaton.  Her character is the first wife of Pacino's character, Michael Corleone, a local girl Michael marries while in hiding in Sicily, but is then murdered in a bomb attack of which her husband was the intended victim.

Apollonia also featured in the 1977 mini series The Godfather: A Novel for Television.

Stefanelli with her then-husband Michele Placido
in a scene from the 1975 film Scandal in the Family

Stefanelli once explained during an interview that she had refused a career in Hollywood to avoid being typecast and chose instead to continue her career in Italy.

She appeared in Peccati in famiglia ('Scandal in the Family'), an erotic drama in which she starred opposite her husband Michele Placido, and in Francesco Rosi’s Tre Fratelli ('Three Brothers).

She made her final appearance in Michele Placido’s film Le Amiche del cuore, ('Close friends') before ending her acting career in 1992.

Stefanelli continues to live in Rome and now owns a fashion store in the city, Simo Bloom, for which she designs bags and shoes.

Michele Placido, who is now 70, is well-known for playing the role of Corrado Cattani in the TV series La Piovra, which means 'The Octopus' in English, a reference to the many tentacles of the Mafia.

The actress Violante Placido, who is now 40, has many film and television credits to her name and is also a singer and song writer.

The 18th century Temple of Aesculapius is an attraction
in the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome

Travel tip:

Stefanelli’s shop, Simo Bloom, is in Via Chiana in Rome to the north east of the Villa Borghese and its gardens on the Pincian Hill. The beautiful gardens were developed for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the nephew of Pope Paul V, starting in 1605. They were bought by the city of Rome and opened to the public in 1903.


Travel tip:

The Godfather's location scenes in Sicily were filmed in the towns of Savoca and Forza d’Agro near Taormina because the town of Corleone was considered too developed to be suitable. In Savoca you can see the church in which Michael and Apollonia (played by Stefanelli) were married and walk the route they took to the Bar Vitelli in the village’s main square where they went to celebrate afterwards in the film.



More reading:

How playing an anti-Mafia police inspector Michele Placido into a TV star

Nino Rota - the brilliant composer behind the music of The Godfather

The wonderful cinema legacy of Francesco Rosi

Also on this day:

1466: The birth of navy commander Andrea Doria

1485: The birth of writer and stateswoman Veronica Gambara

1957: The death of the great tenor Beniamino Gigli


(Picture credits: Simonetta Stefanelli by Cavarrone; Temple of Aesculapius by Jean-Christophe Benoist; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Saint Charles Borromeo

Great reformer earned appreciation after his death

This painting of Charles Borromeo is in the St.
Hermes Church in Ronse, Belgium

Charles (Carlo) Borromeo, a leading Catholic figure who led the movement to combat the spread of Protestantism, was born on this day in Milan in 1538. 

Part of the noble Borromeo family, he became a Cardinal and brought in many reforms to benefit the Church, which made him unpopular at the time.

But he was held in high regard after his death and was quickly made a saint by Pope Paul V.

Borromeo was born at the Castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, near Milan. His father was Count of Arona and his mother was part of the Medici family.

He was educated in civil and canon law at the University of Pavia.

When his uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici became Pope Pius IV in 1559, Borromeo was brought to Rome and given a post in the Vatican.

The following year the Pope made him a Cardinal and asked him to supervise the Franciscans, Carmelites and Knights of Malta and organise the last session of the Council of Trent, which was being held in Trento to reform the Church and counter the spread of Protestantism.  The Council issued a long list of decrees covering disputed aspects of the Catholic religion as well as denouncing what it considered to be heresies committed in the name of Protestantism.

When Borromeo’s older brother died, the family wanted him to leave the Church and marry and have children to continue the family name, but he would not give up his calling.

However, the death of his brother and also his contact with the Jesuits encouraged him to lead a stricter, more Christian life.

Borromeo was made a bishop in the Sistine Chapel in 1563 and became Archbishop of Milan in 1565.

The colossal statue of Charles Borromeo
in his home town of Arona on Lake Maggiore

Before he left Rome, where he had personally overseen church reforms, a nobleman remarked that the city was ‘no longer a place to enjoy oneself or make a fortune’.

Borromeo also reformed Milan after he arrived, simplifying church interiors, clearing away ornaments and banners and separating the sexes during worship.

He believed that many abuses in the church were caused by the ignorance of the clergymen and he established seminaries for the education of candidates for holy orders.

His reforms met with some opposition and a shot was once fired at him when he was in his own chapel. His survival was later considered to be miraculous.

When famine and plague struck Milan, Borromeo used all his own money and then got himself into debt in order to feed the hungry.

He faced increasing opposition while trying to implement the reforms to the Church dictated by the Council of Trent, but in 1584 he became ill with fever and died soon afterwards at the age of just 46.

Even a biographer who admired him described him as an ‘austere, humourless and uncompromising personality.’

But after Borromeo’s death his popularity increased and he was canonised in 1610 and eventually became venerated as a Saint of Learning and the Arts all over the world.

His nephew, Federico Borromeo, furthered his uncle’s support for learning by founding the Ambrosian Library in Milan.

Many churches, colleges, seminaries and even cities throughout the world have been named after Charles Borromeo.  The city of Saint Charles in Louisiana, for example, is named after him, as is the Brazilian city of São Carlos.

Travel tip:

Arona, where Charles Borromeo was born, is a town on Lake Maggiore in the province of Novara. One of its main sights is the Sancarlone, a giant statue of Saint Charles Borromeo made from bronze. It is second in size only to the Statue of Liberty and is believed to have been looked at by the architects of the Statue of Liberty when they were producing their own design.

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan

Travel tip:

The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Piazza Pio XI in Milan was established in 1618 to house paintings, drawing and statues donated to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, a library founded in the same building by Cardinal Federico Borromeo a few years before. In addition to works of art, the museum keeps curiosities such as the gloves Napoleon wore at Waterloo and a lock of Lucrezia Borgia’s hair, in front of which famous poets such as Lord Byron and Gabriele D’Annunzio spent a lot of time drawing inspiration. Visit www.leonardo-ambrosiana.it for more information.

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Cigoli – painter and architect

First artist to paint a realistic moon

Cigoli's fresco at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore shows
 the Madonna standing on a pock-marked crescent moon

The artist Cigoli was born Lodovico Cardi on this day in 1559 near San Miniato in Tuscany.

He became a close friend of Galileo Galilei, who is said to have regarded him as the greatest painter of his time. They wrote to each other regularly and Galileo practised his drawing while Cigoli enjoyed making astronomical observances.

Cigoli painted a fresco in the dome of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome depicting the Madonna standing upon a pock-marked lunar orb, exactly as it had been seen by Galileo through his telescope.

This is the first example still in existence of Galileo’s discovery about the surface of the moon being portrayed in art. The moon is shown just as Galileo had drawn it in his astronomical treatise, Sidereus Nuncius, which published the results of Galileo’s early observations of the imperfect and mountainous moon.

Until Cigoli’s fresco, the moon in pictures of the Virgin had always been represented by artists as spherical and smooth.

Cigoli's Martyrdom of St Stephen is in
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

Lodovico Cardi was born at Villa Castelvecchio di Cigoli, and was therefore commonly known as Cigoli.

He trained as an artist in Florence under the Mannerist painter Alessandro Allori. But he later discarded Mannerist principles and painted to express his own feelings and ideas.

Cigoli also worked with the architect Bernardo Buontalenti in Florence and the imposing inner courtyard of the Palazzo Nonfinito in the city is believed to have been designed by Cigoli.

He painted a version of Ecce Homo for a Roman patron, which was subsequently taken by Napoleon to the Louvre in Paris. It was later restored to Florence and can now be seen in Palazzo Pitti.

Also for the Pitti Palace, Cigoli painted a Venus and Satyr and a Sacrifice of Isaac.

He became so famous and admired that when he travelled to Rome he was personally welcomed and greeted by the Florentine ambassador to the city.

For St Peter’s in Rome, Cigoli painted St Peter Healing the Lame. For the Church of San Paolo fuori le mura, he painted an unfinished Burial of St Paul. In a fresco for the Villa Borghese he painted a Story of Psyche.

Among other important Cigoli paintings are his Martyrdom of St Stephen and Stigmata of St Francis, which are both now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Just before Cigoli’s death in Rome in June 1613 he was made a Knight of Malta by Pope Paul V.

The statue of Lodovico Cardi in his home
village of Cigoli in Tuscany

Travel tip:

Villa di Castelvecchio di Cigoli, the artist’s birthplace, is now referred to simply as Cigoli and is a hamlet - frazione - of the town of San Miniato in the province of Pisa in Tuscany. The Bishop’s Sanctuary in San Miniato has a Baroque façade designed by Cigoli.  There is a statue of Lodovico Cardi outside the Santaurio della Madonna Madre dei Bambini. San Miniato is also famous for white truffles and during the last three weeks of November hosts a festival dedicated to the white truffle, which is harvested in the surrounding area and is more highly valued than the black truffles found in other regions of Italy.

Travel tip:

After Cigoli’s death in Rome in 1613, his remains were transferred to Florence and buried in the Church of Santi Michele Arcangelo and Gaetano da Thiene in Via de Tornabuoni. The Church is one of the most important examples of the Baroque style of architecture in the city. Cigoli’s family tomb is between the second and third chapel on the left.

(Photos of Martyrdom of St Peter and statue by Sailko CC BY 3.0)

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Pope Gregory XV

Legally-trained pontiff was against witchcraft and for secret ballots

Gian Lorenzo Bernini's marble bust of
Gregory XV, which he sculpted in 1621

Gregory XV, who was christened Alessandro Ludovisi, became Pope on this day in 1621.

He was the last Pope to issue a papal ordinance against witchcraft with his ‘Declaration against Magicians and Witches’, put out in March 1623.

He was already 67 years of age and in a weak state of health when he was chosen as Pope and relied heavily on his 25-year-old nephew, Ludovico Ludovisi, to assist him in his duties.

Born in Bologna in 1554, the young Alessandro Ludovisi was educated at a Jesuit college in Rome before going to Bologna University to study law.

He worked in various roles for the church until he was appointed Archbishop of Bologna in 1612, having at some stage been ordained.

In 1616 he was sent by Pope Paul V to mediate between Charles Emmanuel 1, Duke of Savoy and Philip III of Spain, who were involved in a dispute. The Pope elevated him to the rank of Cardinal in the same year.

He went to Rome after the death of Pope Paul V to take part in the conclave. He was chosen as Pope on February 9, 1621, the last Pope to be elected by acclamation.

His nephew, Ludovico, was made a cardinal and he used his energy and talents to benefit the Church during Gregory’s pontificate.

Gregory changed the way Popes were elected, bringing in the method of secret ballot for future papal conclaves.

He also made the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, a saint.

After Gregory’s death in 1623 he was buried in the Church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome.

The Church of Sant'Ignazio in Rome, where Pope
Gregory XV and his nephew are buried

Travel tip:

Pope Gregory XV and his nephew, Cardinal Ludovisi, are both buried in a chapel of the Church of Sant’Ignazio in Campo Marzio in Rome, which they built. After Ignatius Loyola had been made a Saint in 1622, Pope Gregory XV had suggested to his nephew that a new church dedicated to the founder of the Jesuits should be erected next to the Jesuit College he had attended as a child.

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Travel tip:

Alessandro Ludovisi studied law at Bologna University, which was founded in 1088 and is the oldest university in the world. The oldest surviving building, the Archiginnasio, is now a library, open Monday to Friday from 9am to 7pm, and on Saturdays from 9am to 2pm. It is just a short walk from Piazza Maggiore and the Basilica di San Petronio in the centre of the city.

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More reading:

The papal election that tore apart the Roman Catholic Church

John II - the first pope to take a regnal name

The Borgia pope who married off children to secure power

Also on this day:

1770: The birth of classical guitar composer Ferdinando Carulli

1891: The birth of politician Pietro Nenni

1953: The birth of world boxing champion Vito Antuofermo

1953: The birth of tragic missionary Ezechiele Ramin

(Picture credit: Church of Sant'Ignazio by Lalupa via Wikimedia Commons)

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