Enea Salmeggia – artist

Painter was dubbed the Raphael of Bergamo

Enea Salmeggia's Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro
is one of his most famous paintings

Prolific painter Enea Salmeggia, who was active during the late Renaissance period and left a rich legacy of art in northern Italy, died on this day in 1626 in Bergamo in the region of Lombardy.

Salmeggia, also known as Il Talpino, or Salmezza, went to Rome as a young man, where he studied the works of Raphael. His style has often been likened to that of Raphael and he has even been called the Bergamo Raphael by some art lovers. A drawing formerly attributed to Raphael, now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, of two figures seated with some architectural studies, has subsequently been ascribed to Enea Salmeggia.

The artist was born at Salmezza, a frazione of Nembro, a comune - municipality - in the province of Bergamo, between 1565 and 1570. It is known that he grew up in Borgo San Leonardo in Bergamo, where his father, Antonio, was a tailor.

He learnt the art of painting from other Bergamo painters and is also believed to have studied under the Bergamo artist Simone Peterzano in Milan. Caravaggio was one of Peterzano’s most famous pupils and it has been suggested that Salmeggia could have been studying with Peterzano at the same time as Caravaggio.

Enea's Madonna col Bambino e santi
 Ambrogio e Carlo Borromeo

Salmeggia was so young when he received his first commission to paint an Adoration of the Magi for the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo that his father had to sign the acceptance document on his behalf.

The artist married Vittoria Daverio, the sister of Milanese sculptor Pietro Antonio Daverio, and they had six children. Two of their children died from the plague and one went into a monastery, but his daughters, Chiara and Elisabetta, and his son, Francesco, worked in his studio near the Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna in Bergamo and later became painters themselves.

One of Salmeggia’s most famous works, Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro, an oil on canvas in the choir of the Church of Sant'Alessandro in Colonna, was completed in 1623.

Among the other churches with paintings by Salmeggia are Sant’Andrea and Santi Bartolomeo e Stefano in Bergamo, Sant’Afra in Brescia, San Francesco in Lodi, San Vittorio in Terno d’Isola and San Gregorio in Gromo.

The Accademia Carrara in Bergamo has works by Salmeggia, including his Portrait of a Gentleman. The Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco in Milan also has paintings by Salmeggia, including his Madonna col Bambino e santi Ambrogio e Carlo Borremeo.

Salmeggia died in 1626 and was buried in the Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna.

The parish church of San
Martino in the centre of Nembro

Travel tip:

Nembro, the suburb of Bergamo in which Enea Salmeggia was born, can be found about 9km (5 miles) northwest of the city of Bergamo, on the right bank of the Serio river. The surrounding countryside is popular with walkers, with many defined paths in the hills above the town, one of which leads to the Santuario della Madonna dello Zuccarello, built in 1374 by the nobleman Bernardo Vitalba. The town itself surrounds the parish church of San Martino, erected in the ninth century but rebuilt in the 18th century, which contains no fewer than 27 of Salmeggia’s paintings.  In recent history, Nembro was notable as one of the areas of Bergamo worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, with 188 known to have died from the disease, 94 in the first 15 days. On average, every household in Nembro mourned at least one family member.

Stay in Nembro with Booking.com

The Festa di Sant'Alessandro sees
the church facade illuminated

Travel tip:

The Chiesa di Sant’Alessandro in Colonna in Via Sant’Alessandro in Bergamo is the church of the city’s patron saint.  Outside the church is a Roman column, said to have been erected in the exact spot where Alessandro was executed by the Romans. The column was constructed in the 17th century from Roman fragments and there are various theories about where the pieces came from. The church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna was rebuilt in the 18th century on the site of an earlier church. Its ornate campanile was completed at the beginning of the 20th century. Over several days each August, the facade of the church is illuminated as part of the Festa di Sant’Alessandro, marking the anniversary of his execution in 303.

Accommodation choices in Bergamo from Booking.com

More reading:

The Bergamo painter who left a visual record of changing society

The Bergamo shoemaker’s son who became internationally acclaimed sculptor

Raphael - the precocious genius from Urbino

Also on this day:

1682: The birth of anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni

1707: The birth of Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni

1866: The birth of philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce

1873: The birth of tenor Enrico Caruso

2003: The death of actor Alberto Sordi

(Picture credits: Nembro church by Giorces via Wikimedia Commons)

(Paintings: Il Martirio di Sant’Alessandro, Galleria dell Accademia Carrara, Bergamo; Madonna col Bambino e santi Ambrogio e Carlo Borromeo, Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan)

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Baldassare Peruzzi - architect and painter

Pupil of Bramante who left mark on Rome

The portrait of Baldassare Peruzzi in
Giorgio Vasari's 1568 book Lives of the Most
 Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects

The architect and painter Baldassare Peruzzi, who trained under Donato Bramante and was a contemporary of Raphael, was born on this day in 1481 in a small town near Siena.

Peruzzi worked in his home city and in Rome, where he spent many years as one of the architects of the St Peter’s Basilica project but where he was also responsible for two outstanding buildings in his own right - the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne.

The Villa Farnesina, a summer house commissioned by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere district, is unusual for its U-shaped floor plan, with a five-bay loggia between the arms.

Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo were among those who helped decorate the villa with frescoes, but Peruzzi is acknowledged as the chief designer, possibly aided by Giuliano da Sangallo. He was relatively inexperienced at the time but was personally selected by Chigi despite the huge array of talent on offer in the city at the time.

Some of the frescoed paintings on the walls of the interior rooms are also by Peruzzi. One example is the Sala delle Prospettive, in which the walls are painted to create the illusion of standing in an open-air terrace, lined by pillars, looking out over a continuous landscape.

Peruzzi's brilliant Sala delle Prospettive, with its illusion
of an open-air terrace, inside the Villa Farnesina

Originally known as the Villa Chigi, the house in 1577 became the property of the Farnese family after whom it was renamed. Michelangelo at one time proposed linking the villa with Palazzo Farnese on the other side of the Tiber. The project was never completed, although there are remnants of a few arches still visible in the back of Palazzo Farnese.

The Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne on the present-day Corso Vittorio Emanuele II is still more unusual, featuring a curved facade, dictated by the shape of the foundations of the building that had previously stood on the site - destroyed during the 1527 Sack of Rome by mutinous troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V - which had owed their pattern to the semi-circular Odeon of Domitian, an ancient Roman theatre.

Commissioned by Pietro Massimo, descendent of one of the oldest noble families in Rome, the palace has an entrance characterised by a central portico with six Doric columns. Inside, a courtyard and a loggia feature more Doric columns, hence the palace’s name.

The monument to
Peruzzi at the Pantheon

Peruzzi, born in the town of Sovicille, about 10km (6 miles) southwest of Siena, began his career as a painter of frescoes in the Cappella San Giovanni in Siena’s cathedral. He moved to Rome in his 20s, receiving the commission for the Villa Farnesina in 1509.

With the death of Raphael, in 1520 he was appointed as one of the architects engaged on the massive programme to build a new St Peter’s Basilica.

However, he fled Rome following the events of 1527 and returned to Siena, where he was employed as architect to the Republic. He built new fortifications for the city, remodelled the Church of San Domenico and designed a remarkable dam on the Bruna river near Giuncarico.

From 1531 he was back in Rome and again working at St Peter's, where he was appointed the principal architect to the basilica in 1534.

Other works attributed to Peruzzi include a mosaic ceiling for the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, paintings in the churches of Sant'Onofrio and San Pietro in Montorio and in Santa Maria in Portico a Fontegiusta in Siena.

Peruzzi’s son, Giovanni Sallustio, was also an architect. Another son, Onorio, learned painting from his father but then became a Dominican priest in the convent of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome.

He died in Rome in January 1536, aged 54.

The Villa Farnesina is one of Baldassare Peruzzi's two
masterpieces from his time working in Rome

Travel tip:

The Villa Farnesina can be found on Via della Lungara in the Trastevere district of Rome.  After the Farnese family, the villa belonged to the Bourbons of Naples and in 1861 to the Spanish Ambassador in Rome, Bermudez de Castro, Duke of Ripalta. Today, it is owned by the Italian State and accommodates the Accademia dei Lincei, a long-standing academy of sciences. The main rooms of the villa, including the Loggia, are open to visitors from 9am to 2pm on Monday to Saturday, and on every second Sunday of the month from 9am to 5pm. For more details, visit http://www.villafarnesina.it

The beautiful Romanesque-Gothic
cathedral in Siena

Travel tip:

Siena’s Duomo - the Cathedral of St Mary of the Assumption - was designed and completed between 1215 and 1263 on the site of an earlier structure. It has a beautiful façade built in Tuscan Romanesque style using polychrome marble. There had been plans to build an enormous basilica, which would have been the largest in the world, but the idea was abandoned because of lack of funds due to war and the plague. Nonetheless, the cathedral built in its place to plans drawn up by Giovanni di Agostino, with a pulpit designed by Nicola Pisani, is considered a masterpiece of Italian Romanesque-Gothic architecture.

Siena hotels from Booking.com


More reading:

Raphael, the precocious genius who became one of the Renaissance greats

How Agostino Chigi became one of Europe's richest men

The mutinous army that laid waste to Rome

Also on this day:

1274: The death of the philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas

1678: The birth of Turin architect Filippo Juvarra

1785: The birth of novelist Alessandro Manzoni

Selected books:

Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Artists (Oxford World's Classics)

(Picture credits: Peruzzi monument by cmholm;Villa Farnesina by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra; Siena cathedral by Myrabella; all via Wikimedia Commons)


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Baldassare Verazzi - painter

Piedmontese artist famous for image of uprising in Milan

Verazzi's Episodio delle Cinque Giornate
 (Combattimento a Palazzo Litta)

The painter Baldassare Verazzi, whose most famous work depicts a scene from the anti-Austrian uprising known as The Five Days of Milan, was born on this day in 1819 in Caprezzo, a tiny village in Piedmont, 120km (75 miles) from Turin in the hills above Lake Maggiore.

Something of a revolutionary in that he was an active supporter of the Risorgimento, it is supposed that he was in Milan in 1848 when citizens rose up against the ruling forces of the Austrian Empire, which controlled much of northern Italy.

The Cinque Giornate di Milano, in March of that year, comprised five days of street fighting that eventually resulted in the Austrian garrison being expelled from the city, marking the start of the First Italian War of Independence.

Verazzi’s painting, which is today on display at the Museum of the Risorgimento in the Castello Sforza in Milan, is entitled Episodio delle Cinque Giornate (Combattimento a Palazzo Litta), and shows three figures sheltering behind a barricade while another aims a rifle over the barricade, presumably in the direction of Austrian troops.

Born into a family of humble origins, Verazzi studied at the Brera Academy in Milan from 1833 to 1842 under the guidance of the Venetian painter Francesco Hayez. He participated in numerous art exhibitions in Milan and Turin.

In 1851 he won the prestigious Canonica Prize with The Parable of the Samaritan and in 1854 the Mylius Prize with his portrait of Raphael, which was presented to Pope Julius II.

Verazzi's Portrait of a Gentleman and Girls, in the
National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires

He became sought after for his frescoes, depicting historical scenes, such as his work on the dome of the enclosed annex to the Fatebenesorelle Hospital in Milan.

Although he had no shortage of work in Lombardy and Piedmont - his paintings can be found in many churches across the two regions - Verazzi took the bold decision in 1856 to move to South America.

Settling first in Buenos Aires, he became known for his historical and allegorical compositions, and for portraits, as well as the decorations at the Teatro Colón.

In Buenos Aires an intense rivalry developed between him and another Italian painter, Ignazio Manzoni, while he also had a dispute with General Justo José de Urquiza, an influential politician and military leader, which led him to move on to Montevideo in Uruguay, where he became a sought-after portraitist and decorated the frescoes of the Rotonda of the city cemetery.

Between Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, he spent 12 fruitful years of his artistic career in South America, where he became one of the most appreciated and well-known painters.

He returned to Italy in 1868 but decided not to reopen his former studio in Milan in favour of taking up residence again in Caprezzo, although he ultimately decided that the wealth he had accumulated in South America deserved something grander.

Eventually, he took a fancy to the small town of Lesa, on the shores of Lake Maggiore and a favourite of the novelist Alessandro Manzoni.

He bought a extensive property in the hamlet of Villa Lesa, where he spent the last 16 years of his life, 1870 to 1886, and where his son Serafino, who also became a noted painter, was born in 1875.

The town of Lesa on the shores of Lake Maggiore, which
was once the home of novelist Alessandro Manzoni

Travel tip:

Lesa is a pretty town on the shores of Lake Maggiore, halfway between Stresa and Arona, known for its calm atmosphere and beautiful views. The town and surrounding area is notable for its many extravagant villas and palaces, with gardens and distinctive architecture, a legacy of its one-time popularity with noble families. It remains a sought-after area for the wealthy, such as the businessman and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns the Villa Campari, built by Gaspare Campari, inventor of the famous aperitif liqueur.  On the lakeshore are the ruins of a castle that once guarded the town.

The Cascata del Toce waterfall is one of the attractions
of the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in Piedmont

Travel tip:

Caprezzo is part of the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, an area of unspoiled nature that encompasses many beautiful valleys such as Val d’Ossola, through which flows the Toce River and the dramatic Cascata del Toce waterfall. The area includes the picturesque Lake Mergozzo, the northern bank of Lake Orta and the town of Omegna, which in the early part of the 20th century was famous for the production of small domestic appliances, including the first coffee makers and pressure cookers. The province includes the western bank of Lake Maggiore that hosts renowned resorts of Cannobio, Cannero Riviera, Verbania, Baveno and Stresa, as well as the Borromean Islands, lying in the middle of Lake Maggiore, including the Baroque palace and gardens of Isola Bella.

More reading:

What happened in the Five Days of Milan

Why Alessandro Manzoni is considered to have written the greatest novel in Italian history

Garibaldi and the Expedition of the Thousand

Also on this day:

Befana - the Italian tradition on January 6

1907: Educationalist Maria Montessori opens her first school

1938: The birth of Italy's biggest-selling recording artist Adriano Celentano


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Agostino Chigi - banker and arts patron

Nobleman from Siena became one of Europe’s richest men

A Roman coin bearing the image of Agostino Chigi,
who was one of the 16th century's richest bankers

The banker Agostino Chigi, who was a major sponsor of artists during the Renaissance, was born on this day in 1466 in Siena.

At its height, Chigi’s banking house in Rome was the biggest financial institution in Europe, employing up to 20,000 people, with branches throughout Italy and abroad, as far apart as London and Cairo.

Chigi invested a good deal of his wealth in supporting the arts, notably providing financial backing to almost all the main figures of the early 16th century, including Perugino, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Giulio Romano, Il Sodoma (Giovanni Bazzi) and Raphael.

Perugino painted The Chigi Altarpiece, dated at around 1506-1507, which hangs in the Chigi family chapel in the church of Sant'Agostino in Siena. 

Chigi’s significant legacy to Rome was to have built a chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Pace, another - his mortuary chapel, the Chigi Chapel - in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, and the superb suburban villa in Trastevere, on the banks of the Tiber, which since 1579 has been known as the Villa Farnesina. 

The altarpiece painted by Perugino
for Agostino Chigi in Siena

Agostino Chigi was the son of the prominent Sienese banker Mariano Chigi, from an ancient and illustrious Tuscan family. He moved to Rome around 1487, taking with him a rich fund of capital.

He grew the wealth of his own bank by lending considerable sums to Pope Alexander VI and others, and by diversifying from regular banking practice by buying monopoly control of salt mining in the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples, as well as that of alum, a mineral used in the textile industry.

After the death of the Borgia pope Alexander VI and his short-lived Sienese successor Pius III Piccolomini, Chigi helped Pope Julius II, in return for which he became treasurer and notary of the Apostolic Camera.  Agostino even accompanied Julius in the field in his military campaigns and went to Venice on his behalf to buy Venetian support for the papal forces in the War of the League of Cambrai.

Work began on his magnificent palace in Trastevere in 1506. Chigi took the unusual step of commissioning an untried pupil of Bramante, Baldassare Peruzzi, to design and oversee the construction of the villa, although he may have been helped Giuliano da Sangallo, the favored architect of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Raphael's fresco The Triumph of Galatea.
in the loggia at the Villa Farnesina

His design differed from that of the typical urban palazzo, which tended to be rectangular, with an enclosed courtyard. This villa, intended as an airy summer pavilion, had a U-shaped plan with a five-bay loggia between the arms, facing north, which was the main entrance.

The best known element of the sumptuous decorations are Raphael's frescoes on the ground floor, both in the loggia depicting the classical and secular myths of Cupid and Psyche, and in the east-facing loggia, depicting The Triumph of Galatea. 

This was a mythological scene from an intended series inspired by the Stanze per la giostra of the Florentine poet Angelo Poliziano. It shows the near-naked sea nymph Galatea on a shell-shaped chariot drawn by two dolphins, surrounded by other sea creatures.

It has been noted that Raphael’s Galatea bore similarities to the courtesan, Imperia Cognati, who was Agostino Chigi's lover and is said to have posed for Raphael on more than one occasion. The art historian and Raphael's near-contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, noted, however, that Raphael had said that Galatea was the product of his imagination, an idealised beauty.

It was at this villa that Chigi held sumptuous banquets. He was recognised as the richest man in Rome but was said to have affected a contempt of money by throwing silver dishes into the Tiber at the end of the parties, although it is thought his servants were on hand to collect them in nets draped under the windows.

The villa was called the Viridario in Chigi's time. It became the property of the Farnese family in 1577, more than a half-century after his death.

The Palazzo Chigi, the current official residence of Italian prime ministers, was bought by Fabio Chigi, related to Agostino as a descendent of his father’s brother, shortly after he became Pope Alexander VII in 1655.

The northern aspect of the Villa Farnesina, which was
Agostino Chigi's summer palace in Rome

Travel tip:

The Villa Farnesina can be found on Via della Lungara in the Trastevere district of Rome.  After the Farnese family, the villa belonged to the Bourbons of Naples and in 1861 to the Spanish Ambassador in Rome, Bermudez de Castro, Duke of Ripalta. Today, it is owned by the Italian State and accommodates the Accademia dei Lincei, a long-standing academy of sciences. The main rooms of the villa, including the Loggia, are open to visitors from 9am to 2pm on Monday to Saturday, and on every second Sunday of the month from 9am to 5pm. For more details, visit http://www.villafarnesina.it

The Palazzo Chigi in Rome was built originally for the
Aldobrandini family before passing to the Chigi family in 1659

Travel tip:

The 16th-century Palazzo Chigi, which overlooks the Piazza Colonna and the Via del Corso in Rome, was begun in 1562 by Giacomo della Porta and completed by Carlo Maderno in 1580 for the Aldobrandini family. It was in the ownership of the Chigi family, who had it remodelled by Felice della Greca and Giovan Battista Contini, from 1659 until the 19th century. It became the residence of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Italy in 1878 before being bought by the Italian state in 1916, when it became the home of the Minister for Colonial Affairs. Later it was the official residence of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and in 1961 became the official meeting place of Council of Ministers, whose president is the head of the Italian government - the prime minister - and can now use the palace as his official residence.


More reading:

Raphael: The precocious genius from Urbino

How the courtesan Imperia Cognati became a 16th century celebrity

Pope Alexander VI - the scheming Borgia pope

Also on this day:

1463: The birth of antiquities collector Andrea della Valle

1797: The birth of composer Donizetti

1850: The birth of Agostino Richelmy, the cardinal who fought with Garibaldi

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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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Giulio Romano – artist and architect

Painter from Rome left his mark on Mantua

Titian's portrait of Giulio Romano, painted
between 1536 and 1540

Giulio Romano, who was the principal heir to the artist Raphael and one of the most important initiators of the Mannerist style of painting, died on this day in 1546 in Mantua.

He is most remembered for his masterpiece, the Palazzo del Te, built on the outskirts of Mantua as a pleasure palace for the Gonzaga family, which was designed, constructed and decorated entirely by him and his pupils.

The artist had been born in Rome some time in the 1490s and was given the name, Giulio di Pietro di Filippo de’ Gianuzzi. He was known originally as Giulio Pippi, but later was referred to as Giulio Romano because of where he was born.

Giulio was apprenticed to Raphael when still a child and worked on the frescos in the Vatican loggias to designs by Raphael. He also collaborated with him on the decoration of the ceiling in the Villa Farnesina.

He became so important in the workshop that on Raphael’s death in 1520 he was named as one of the master’s chief heirs and he also became his principal artistic executor, completing a number of Raphael’s works, including the Transfiguration.

Romano's 1523 painting The Stoning of St Stephen

His own works from this time, such as the Madonna and Saints and the Stoning of St Stephen, both completed in 1523, show he had developed a highly personal, anticlassical style of painting.

The following year, at the invitation of the Gonzaga family, Giulio left Rome for Mantua, where he remained until his death, completely dominating the artistic affairs of the duchy.

In Mantua he worked on the rebuilding of the ducal palace and his decorations in the Sala de Troia are thought to foreshadow the Baroque style.

He also sculpted the figure of Christ that is positioned above Castiglione’s tomb in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie just outside Mantua.

Romano's Palazzo del Tel is 

Giulio’s studio became a popular school of art in Mantua and many of his pupils later achieved fame as artists themselves.

Drawings by Giulio that are still in existence are treasured by collectors and contemporary prints of them, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, made a significant contribution to the spread of Italian style throughout Europe.

The architect built a house for himself in Mantua, which was a Mannerist version of Raphael’s house in Rome. He started rebuilding the city’s cathedral the year before his death, in 1546.

Giulio Romano was buried in the Church of San Barnaba in Piazza Giuseppe Bazzani in Mantua.

The Palazzo Ducale in Mantua was the seat
of the ruling Gonzaga family

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric, old city in Lombardy, to the southeast of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707. Giulio Romano was well paid by the Gonzaga family and could afford to build his own residence in Via Carlo Poma. He reconstructed it from existing buildings, creating an elegant stone façade with arched windows on the upper floor. It still stands as an example of his genius and has some of his original frescos inside. 

The Palazzo del Te was designed as a pleasure palace
considered to be Giulio Romano's masterpiece

Travel tip:

Palazzo del Te, designed for Federico Gonzaga as a summer residence, is a fine example of the Mannerist school of architecture and is considered to be Giulio Romano’s masterpiece. The name for the palace came about because the location chosen had been the site of the Gonzaga family stables at Isola del Te on the edge of the marshes just outside Mantua’s city walls. After the building was completed in about 1535, a team of plasterers, carvers and painters worked on the interior for ten years until all the rooms were decorated with beautiful frescoes.

More reading:

The outstanding legacy of Mannerist painter Parmigiano

Why Bronzino is regarded as the master of the Mannerist movement

Salomone Rossi and the enlightenment of the Mantua court

Also on this day:

1512: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling revealed

1596: The birth of painter and architect Pietro da Cortona

1757: The birth of sculptor Antonio Canova



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Francesco Solimena - painter

Neapolitan artist who influenced a generation

Francesco Solimena - a section from a self-portrait
painted in around 1730

Francesco Solimena, a prolific painter in the Baroque style who became one of the wealthiest and most influential artists in Europe, was born on this day in 1657 in Canale di Sereno, a village in Campania about 14km (9 miles) southeast of Avellino.

He spent most of his working life in Naples yet his fame spread far beyond and his work was in such demand among his wealthy patrons, including Prince Eugene of Savoy, Louis XIV of France and Pope Benedict XIII, that he acquired a considerable fortune, was given the title of baron and lived in a palace.

His workshop became effectively an academy, at the heart of the Naples cultural scene. Among many who trained there were the leading painters Francesco de Mura, Giuseppe Bonito, Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca.

The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay was a pupil in his studio in around 1737-38.

Solimena’s own training came initially from his father, Angelo, a revered painter of frescoes, with whom he worked at the cathedral of Nocera in the province of Salerno, and at the church of San Domenico at Solofra, not far from his home village.  He often worked in Nocera later in life.

Solimena's spectacular Expulsion of Heliodorus from the
Temple can be seen in the church of Gesù Nuovo in Naples

By the time he was 17, however, he had settled in Naples, where he worked in the studio of Francesco di Maria and later Giacomo del Po. Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini - the future Pope Benedict XIII - became his patron at an early stage of his career and encouraged him to become an artist rather than take religious orders.

He modeled his art on the exuberant style of the Roman Baroque master Luca Giordano, whose work he admired while he was engaged in decorating the Sacristy of San Paolo Maggiore. His classical influences are attributed to Pietro da Cortona. Others whose techniques he adopted include Massimo Stanzione, Giovanni Lanfranco and Mattia Preti.

Solimena painted many frescoes and altarpieces in Naples, and was in demand for celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions.  He favoured simple settings so that attention would be concentrated on the figures in his paintings and their dress, often highlighted by his placing of those figures in pools of light. His representation of figures often derived from the work of Annibale Carracci, Domenichino, and Raphael.

The Madonna and Child with San
Gennaro that sold for $33,000 in 2017

He painted frescoes in many of the city's most important churches, including the vast and spectacular Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple (1725) in the church of Gesù Nuovo.

He became the unchallenged head of the Neapolitan school of painting during the first half of the 1700s, following the death of Giordano, and his influence remained in the aesthetic of Naples for many years.

Before his death at age of 89, in 1747 in Barra, then an area of grand villas to the east of Naples, Solimena had become very wealthy and had influenced a vast new generation of painters.

Today, his works are held, among other places, in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery in London, and the Louvre Museum in Paris.

A Madonna and Child with San Gennaro by Solimena sold at auction in Rome in 2017 for $33,000 (about €28,700).

The Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo in Solofra

Travel tip:

The villages of Serino and neighbouring Canale di Serino fall into an area of Campania that produces wines from the Aglianico grape, notably Taurasi, Aglianico del Taburno and Falerno del Massico. The production of chestnuts is also a strong part of the local economy. The area was badly hit by the earthquake in 1980 that brought devastation to the region, but the richly decorated 17th century Baroque church - the Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo - in nearby Solofra, which contains 21 framed canvases painted by Giovanni Tommaso Guarino, has survived, following a number of reconstructions, as has the church of San Domenico, where a painting by Solimena can still be seen.

The Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore is a church that
can be found on the bustling Via dei Tribunali

Travel tip:

The Baroque-style basilica of San Paolo Maggiore, the burial place of Gaetano Thiene, known as Saint Cajetan, is located in the centre of Naples on Piazza Gaetano, just off Via dei Tribunali, the narrow, straight thoroughfare known as Spaccanapoli. The church was built on the site of the 1st-century temple of the Dioscuri. The decoration of the church in the early 18th century fell largely to Solimena and Domenico Antonio Vaccaro. The church suffered considerable bomb damage in the Second World War, sadly, with some frescoes by Massimo Stanzione almost completely destroyed.

More reading:

How the work of Annibale Carraci illuminates Rome

The prolific output of Luca Giordano

Why Domenichino's talent rivals Raphael

Also on this day:

The Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

1720: The birth of artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi


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Andrea del Sarto – painter

The brief career of an artist ‘senza errori’

Andrea del Sarto, captured here in a self-
portrait. lived in Florence all his life

Renaissance artist Andrea del Sarto was born Andrea d’Agnolo di Francesco di Luca di Paolo del Migliore on this day in 1486 in Florence.

He had a brilliant career but died at the age of 43 during an outbreak of plague and afterwards his achievements were eclipsed by the talents of Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Andrea’s father, Agnolo, was a tailor and therefore the child became known as del Sarto, meaning son of the tailor.

As a young boy del Sarto was apprenticed to a goldsmith and then a woodcarver before being sent to learn to be an artist.

He decided to open a joint studio with an older friend, Franciabigio, and from 1509 onwards they were employed to paint a series of frescoes at Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Del Sarto also painted a Procession of the Magi, in which he included a self-portrait, and a Nativity of the Virgin for the entrance to the church.

He married Lucrezia del Fede, a widow, in 1512 and often used her as a model for his paintings of the Madonna.

Part of Del Sarto's fresco series at the Villa Medici at
Poggio a Caiano, near Florence

After spending a year as court painter to Francis I of France in 1518, del Sarto returned home to his wife and was offered a major commission by the Medici family, to decorate the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano near Florence. The work was offered to him by Pope Leo X but the project ended when the Pope died in 1521.

Del Sarto’s fresco at the villa, Tribute to Caesar, is a fragment now incorporated into a much later decorative scheme.

His most important work is considered to be a series of frescoes on the life of St John the Baptist in the Chiostro dello Scalzo in Florence. He started the series in 1511 and it was not completed until 1526, so the work spans a large part of his career and most of the paintings are by his own hand.

Del Sarto's Nativity of the Virgin at the Basilica
della Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

His artistic style reflected his interest in colour and atmosphere and showed natural expressions of emotion. Del Sarto had a reputation for integrity and professionalism and was regarded by his peers as an artist ‘senza errori’ - faultless.

Del Sarto had a house built for himself in Florence, which was modified by other painters who lived there later. He died at his home after plague swept the city in 1530. The exact date of his death is unknown but he was buried in the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata on September 29, 1530.

A play, Andrea del Sarto, by Alfred de Musset, was premiered in Paris in 1848. The 1968 opera Andrea del Sarto by the French composer Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur was based on de Musset’s play.

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence

Travel tip:

The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, where Andrea del Sarto is buried, is in the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in the San Marco district of Florence. The church was founded by the Servite order in 1250 and later rebuilt by Michelozzo between 1444 and 1481. Del Sarto’s frescoes can be seen in the atrium of the church. Newly wed couples traditionally visit the church to present a bouquet of flowers to a painting of the Virgin by a 13th century monk, where they pray for a long and fruitful marriage.

The Chiostro dello Scalzo in Via Cavour

Travel tip:

The Chiostro dello Scalzo, where del Sarto painted his fresco cycle featuring the life of St John the Baptist, is in Via Cavour in the San Marco area near the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata. The cloister used to be the entrance to the chapel of the Confraternity of St John the Baptist, which was founded in 1376 and lasted until 1786. Thankfully the frescoes were preserved and can be viewed free of charge in the cloister every Monday and Thursday and on some Saturdays and Sundays each month.

More reading:

The precocious genius of Raphael

Michelangelo 'the greatest of all time'

The multiple talents of Leonardo da Vinci

Also on this day:

1194: The birth of Saint Clare of Assisi

1852: The birth of Neapolitan sculptor Vincenzo Gemito

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Bronzino – master of Mannerism

Florentine became Medici court painter

Bronzino's portrait of Eleonora of Toledo, wife
of Cosimo I de' Medici, with her son, Giovanni

The Mannerist painter Agnolo di Cosimo – better known as Il Bronzino or simply Bronzino – was born on this day in 1503, just outside Florence.

Bronzino is now recognised as the outstanding artist of what has become known as the second wave of Mannerism in the mid-16^th century.  His style bears strong influences of Jacopo Pontormo, who was an important figure in the first wave and of  whom Bronzino was a pupil as a young man in Florence.

The Mannerist movement began in around 1520, probably in Florence but possibly in Rome. In the evolution of art it followed the High Renaissance period.

Typical of Mannerist painters is their use of elongated forms and a style influenced by the attention to detail allied to restrained realism that was characteristic of the Renaissance masters Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

Bronzino became best known for his portraits, which were detailed and stylishly sophisticated, in which the subjects were superbly realistic but also tended to wear stoical, rather haughty expressions.

He also paid particular attention to fabric and clothing, his works often notable for his recreation of textures. He often used strong colours - sometimes cold blues, at other times warm reds – and created effects that were almost like theatrical lighting.

Cosimo I de' Medici in armour, as portrayed by
Bronzino in 1545

He painted many religious works, in which the influence of Michelangelo could be seen in his use of dramatic body shapes, but his greatest contribution to the Mannerist period was his portraiture, particularly during his time in the Medici court, where his ability to give his subjects an air of elegant nobility made him very popular.

Born in Monticelli, then a small town just outside Florence but now essentially a neighbourhood of the Tuscan city, Bronzino became apprenticed to Pontorno in 1515, their relationship developing almost as that of father and son. Indeed, when plague swept the city in 1522, Pontorno took his pupil with him to stay in the relative seclusion of the Certosa di Galuzzo, a monastery.

When they returned, Pontorno’s trust in Bronzino – who is thought to have acquired his nickname mainly on account of a dark complexion, possibly due to a pigment disorder – was such that he enlisted his help in creating what is seen as his own masterpiece, the Deposition from the Cross, an altarpiece in the church of Santa Felicità in Florence, not far from the Ponte Vecchio, where they also worked together on a sidewall fresco, Annunciation.

Indeed, Bronzino became so adept as following his master’s methods that there has at times been fierce debate between experts over whether certain paintings were the work of Pontorno or his pupil.

Bronzino's Portrait of a Young Man, painted in
around 1540, is seen as one of his finest works

Bronzino left the city for a second time in 1530 when it came under siege from the armies of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, who were seeking to overthrow the Florentine republic established in 1527 and restore the Medici family to power.

When he rejoined Pontorno in Florence some years later, he had revealed his talent for portraiture while in the employ of the Duke of Urbino and it was not long before he was appointed by the Medici court as official portraitist, a role he would keep until he died in 1572, at the age of 69.

Bronzino’s figures influenced portraiture in Europe for almost a century. His best-known works include portraits of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de' Medici, and his wife, Eleonora, and other members of their court such as Bartolomeo Panciatichi and his wife Lucrezia.  He also painted idealized portraits of the poets Dante and Petrarch.

By the time of his death he had developed a relationship similar to that he had enjoyed with Pontorno with his own pupil, the late Mannerist painter Alessandro Allori.

The church of Santa Felicità in Florence

Travel tip:

The church of Santa Felicità is described as the oldest religious building in Florence, apart from the Basilica of San Lorenzo.  Although the current structure was built in 1739, it is thought that the first church on the site was probably built in the late fourth century.  As well as Pontorno’s painting, assisted by Bronzino, the church is famous for the fact that the Vasari Corridor, the enclosed passage built by the Medici to link the Palazzo Vecchio in Piazza della Signoria with the Medici’s family residence, the Palazzo Pitti, passes through the façade.

Piero della Francesco's Flagellation

Travel tip:

The town of Urbino in Le Marche has long been associated with art, most famously as the birthplace of Raffaello Sanzio – better known by the anglicised name, Raphael.  Its Galleria Nazionale delle Marche houses many fine works, including Raphael’s La Muta, several paintings by Titian and Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesco’s Flagellation, measuring 59cm by 82cm and once described as ‘the greatest small painting in the world’.

Also on this day: 

1494 - the death of philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

1878 - Attempted Assassination of Umberto I

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