Alessandro Safina – singer

Tenor who has blended opera and rock

Alessandro Safina has become a household name
in Italy after several successful albums

Alessandro Safina, a singer trained in opera who has expanded the so-called ‘crossover’ pop-opera genre to include rock influences, was born on this day in 1963 in Siena.

A household name in Italy, the tenor is less well known outside his own country but has recorded duets with international stars such as Sarah Brightman, South Korean soprano Sumi Jo, Rod Stewart, former Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde, Scottish actor and singer Ewan McGregor and the superstar Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Safina’s biggest album to date is Insieme a Te, which has sold more than 700,000 copies.

It was written in collaboration with the Italian pianist and composer Romano Musumarra, who helped realise Safina’s ambition of creating soulful rock-inspired music for the tenor voice.  He first performed songs from the album at the Olympia theatre in Paris in 1999.

Safina was born into an opera-loving family and earned money to pay for singing lessons by working in his father’s stationery business.  Set on becoming a professional singer from the age of nine, he began attending a music academy at 12 and was accepted for a place at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence at 17.

In 1989, he won a competition – the Concorso Lirico Internazionale in Mantova, Italy – and made his opera debut the following year, appearing alongside soprano Katia Ricciarelli as Rodolfo in Puccini's La bohème.

Safina made his operatic debut in 1990 singing
alongside the soprano Katia Ricciarelli

Professionally, Safina’s singing remained focussed on the classic tenor operatic roles for much of the 1990s. Privately, his musical tastes were much less confined. He was late to discover rock music, but once he had he became a fan of such bands as U2, Genesis, Depeche Mode and even punk outfit The Clash.

His collaboration with Musumarra led to his debut album, simply called Alessandro Safina, in 2001, from which the single Luna became a hit. After he had performed the song live in The Netherlands, it reached number one in the Dutch singles charts and remained there for 14 weeks.

This success sparked numerous engagements over the coming years, including a duet singing Elton John’s Your Song with Ewan McGregor for the score of Moulin Rouge, an appearance in front of Queen Elizabeth at the 73^rd Royal Variety Performance in London (singing Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Music of the Night) and another rendition of Your Song, this time with Elton John, for the Sport Relief fund-raising campaign.

He made his acting debut in the role of the painter Mario Cavaradossi in a film based on Puccini’s Tosca and sang a duet with Rod Stewart on the latter’s album, As Time Goes By.

His links with South Korea began after he performed at the opening ceremony of the 2002 football World Cup.

Safina’s second album, Insieme a Te, consolidated his position as a star of the crossover genre, featuring his duet with Chrissie Hynde as well as Lloyd Webber’s classic Music of the Night.

In more recent years, Safina has recorded a duet with the British soprano Sarah Brightman for her album, Symphony, performed "O Sole Mio" with Andrea Bocelli.  He recorded his fifth album, Dedicated, in 2014.

The Palio di Siena delivers spectacular thrills 

Travel tip:

The city of Siena is famous for its twice-yearly horse race, Il Palio, which brings massive crowds both to watch the spectacular action as the horses, ridden bareback by colourfully adorned jockeys from 10 of the city’s contrade (wards), career around a track that follows the perimeter of Piazza del Campo.  Generally speaking, the race takes place on July 2, when it is contested as the Palio di Provenzano, in honour of the Madonna of Provenzano, and on August 16, when it is named the Palio dell'Assunta, in honour of the Assumption of Mary.

The Piazza del Campo is shaped like a scallop shell

Travel tip:

The Piazza del Campo is the heart of Siena’s medieval centre, one of the largest and most beautiful squares in Italy, shaped a little like a scallop shell, with a gentle slope towards the imposing Palazzo Pubblico.  From the square, some 11 narrow streets and alleyways radiate outwards into the city, which has a sense of charm and mystery that visitors find beguiling.

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The Maestà of Duccio

Masterpiece influenced the course of Italian art history

Duccio's altarpiece in the Duomo di Siena, the Maestà

A magnificent altarpiece by the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna was unveiled in the cathedral in Siena on this day in 1311.

Duccio’s Maestà was to set Italian painting on a new course, leading away from Byzantine art towards using more realistic representations of people in pictures.

The altarpiece was commissioned by the city of Siena from the artist and was composed of many individual paintings.

The front panels made up a large picture of an enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels.

At the base of the panels was an inscription, which translated into English means: ‘Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and life to Duccio because he painted thee thus.’

Duccio's Madonna col bambino, which is housed
 in the Metropolitan Museum in New York

When the painting was installed in the cathedral on June 9, 1311, one witness to the event wrote: ‘…on that day when it was brought into the cathedral, all workshops remained closed and the bishop commanded a great host of devoted priests and monks to file past in solemn procession.

‘This was accompanied by all the high officers of the commune and by all the people; all honourable citizens of Siena surrounded said panel with candles held in their hands, and women and children followed humbly behind.

‘They accompanied the panel amidst the glorious pealing of bells after a solemn procession on the Piazza del Campo into the very cathedral; and all this out of reverence for the costly panel… the poor received many alms, and we prayed to the holy mother of God, our patron saint, that she might in her infinite mercy preserve this our city of Siena from every misfortune, traitor or enemy.’

The altarpiece remained in place until 1711, when it was dismantled in order to distribute the pieces between two altars. The five-metre high construction was sawn up and some of the paintings were damaged in the process. Some pieces went astray and are unaccounted for, while some pieces are now in museums.

The Cathedral of St Mary of the Assumption 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. In the attached Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Duccio’s Maestà can be seen in a first floor room.

Travel tip:

The shell-shaped Piazza del Campo in Siena, where the Palio di Siena takes place twice each year, was established in the 13th century as an open marketplace. It is now regarded as one of the finest medieval squares in Europe. The red brick paving, fanning out from the centre in nine sections, was put down in 1349.

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Giuseppe Moretti - sculptor

Sienese artist who became famous in the United States

Giuseppe Moretti

The sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, who became well known in the United States as a prolific creator of public monuments, was born on this day in 1857 in Siena.

Moretti's favourite medium was marble and he considered his Head of Christ, which he carved from a block of Alabama marble in 1903, to be his greatest work.

The creation which earned him most fame, however, was the 56-foot (17.07m) statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking, which he made for the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri on behalf of the city of Birmingham, Alabama as a symbol of its heritage in the iron and steel industry.

Moretti made the statue in clay in New Jersey before overseeing its casting in iron in Birmingham.  Vulcan, the largest cast iron statue in the world, was relocated to Alabama State Fairgrounds after the St Louis Exposition before being moved again to the top of Red Mountain, the ridge overlooking Birmingham, which it shares with a number of radio and television transmission towers.

Moretti's enormous statue of Vulcan on
Red Mountain, overlooking Birmingham

Although he spent much of his life away from Italy, it was in his homeland that Moretti developed his love for art and sculpture.  The nephew of Vincenzo Cardinal Moretti, a patron of the arts, he began sculpting at the age of nine with Tito Serrochi, who had a studio Siena.

Aware that Florence was the cradle of Italian art, the young Moretti apparently set off on foot one day, following the road sign that pointed towards the Tuscan capital, unaware that it was more than 60km (37 miles) away.  He was taken home by a neighbour.  A few years later, he reached his intended destination by gaining a place at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

Always prepared to move in search of work, Moretti relocated to Carrara to work with marble before accepting an invitation to work in Croatia, where he might have stayed but for a devastating earthquake in Zagreb.  Instead, he moved on to Vienna and then Budapest before taking the bold decision in 1888 to emigrate to the United States.

He set up a studio in New York in partnership with the Austrian-American sculptor Karl Bitter, operating from a town house in Manhattan.  The architect Richard Morris Hunt hired him for commissions for wealthy clients in Newport, Rhode Island, including William K and Alva Vanderbilt.

The house in Manhattan's East Village that
Moretti shared with fellow sculptor Karl Bitter

A keen opera fan and an amateur singer himself, it was around this time that he joined the Liederkranz music club in New York, where he met and became friends with the great tenor, Enrico Caruso.

Work took him next to Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, where he took regular commissions over a 28-year period, beginning with a series of works in the city's Schenley Park.

His popularity in Pittsburgh brought him wide attention and the commission to create Birmingham's Vulcan followed shortly afterwards.

While overseeing the casting, Moretti visited the marble quarries around Sylacauga and discovered that Alabama marble was of outstanding quality, good enough to rival the Carrara marble that was imported to the United States in large quantities each year. He hauled a block of the gleaming white stone back to his studio in Birmingham and carved The Head of Christ, a work that he carried with him to every place that he lived for the rest of his life. It is now on display at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Although he was a brilliant sculptor, Moretti was a poor businessman, in that most of his ventures ended badly and cost him money.

Giuseppe Moretti felt his Head of Christ in Alabama marble
was his finest piece of work

Ultimately, it became clear that the only way he would make money was from the fees he earned from individual commissions.  So he abandoned his ambitions to own marble quarries and focussed again on sculpting.

This explains why he was so prolific. In all, he completed 12 First World War memorials, 19 monumental works, six church sculptures, 24 memorial tablets, 14 cemetery memorials, 27 sculptures in marble, bronze, and aluminum, and 27 bronze statuettes.

There are at least 17 Moretti works in Pittsburgh's east end. Moretti's notable work in Pittsburgh includes two imposing entrances to Highland Park and four bronze Panthers erected on Panther Hollow Bridge.

In 1905, Moretti married Dorothea Long, a member of an aristocratic Boston family, in her hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts. Two years later, he encountered the work of Geneva Mercer, a student, whom he took on as an apprentice and then his assistant.

He decided to travel again and in 1909, with Dorothea and Geneva, left Alabama. During the next 13 years they lived in New York City, Florence, Havana and Pittsburgh.  One of his great achievements during this period was to complete, with Mercer's help, 97 sculptures for the Gran Teatro de la Habana in Cuba.

When he suffered another business failure in 1925, and with his health beginning to fail, Moretti decided to return to Italy, settling in a large villa and studio in Sanremo, where he died in February 1935.

The Torre del Mangia towers over Siena's Piazza del Campo

Travel tip:

Siena is best known for the twice-yearly Palio, the horse race between the city's rival contrade (parishes) that takes place in the city's expansive Piazza del Campo, but there are many other good reasons to visit.  Among them, dominating the piazza, is the 800-year old castellated Palazzo Pubblico, which contains frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Simone Martini and Duccio, and the adjoining Torre del Mangia, at 88m (289 feet) high the third tallest tower in Italy.  Visitors wanting to enjoy the stunning view from the top need patience and stamina.  A restriction on 25 people inside the tower at any one time can mean a lengthy queue in high season, followed by a 300-step climb.

Travel tip:

The Academy of Fine Arts in Florence can be found in Via Ricasoli, next door to the Galleria dell'Accamedia, which houses Michelangelo's original David. An instructional art academy, it was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of the artist and historian Giorgio Vasari. It was both a guild for working artists and a body of established artists responsible for supervising artistic production in the area.  Members have included Vasari, Michelangelo, Lazzaro Donati, Francesco da Sangallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Bartolomeo Ammannati, and Giambologna.

More reading:

How Giorgio Vasari wrote the world's first history of art

Giacomo Manzù - the son of a shoemaker who taught himself to sculpt

The genius of Antonio Canova almost brought marble to life

Also on this day:

1757: The birth of eye surgeon Giuseppe Forlenza



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Palio di Siena

First of two annual races is contested today

The Palio is run at a furious pace around the perimeter
of the Piazza del Campo in Siena

The first of the two annual contests for the historic Palio di Siena takes place in Piazza del Campo in the Tuscan city this evening.

The passionately competitive horse race, first run in 1656, is staged on July 2 and August 16 each year. The first race is in honour of Siena's Madonna of Provenzano, the second forms part of the celebrations marking the Feast of the Assumption.

A colourful pageant, the Corteo Storico, precedes the race, which sees the square filled with spectators from many parts of the world.

The Palio features 10 horses, each representing one of Siena's 17 contrade, or wards, ridden bareback by riders wearing the colours of the contrada they represent.   They race for three circuits of a dirt track laid around the perimeter of the Piazza del Campo.

It is an event with no holds barred.  Riders are allowed to use the whip to encourage their own mounts but also to hamper their rivals and falls are frequent.  The winner is the horse that crosses the finishing line first, even if its rider is no longer on board.

Horses are trained specifically with the Palio in mind and 10 judged to be of approximately equal quality are chosen four days before the race by the heads - capitani - of each contrada.  A lottery then takes place to determine which contrada each will represent.

The rules are complex.  The first nine horses are called into the starting area, known as the Mossa, in the order in which they are drawn and the race begins only when the rider of the 10th horse chooses what he judges to be the right moment tactically to join them.

Packed crowds line the narrow circuit

Winning is down to the skill of the rider, but with as much emphasis placed on preventing other contenders from finishing first as on actually crossing the line in front it can sometimes be a confusing event.  In the celebrations that follow, supporters of the winning contrada will naturally be seen enjoying their own success, but others might be equally joyful because their traditional rival has lost.

The 17 contrade are: Eagle, Snail, Wave, Panther, Forest, Tortoise, Owl, Unicorn, Shell, Tower, Ram, Caterpillar, Dragon, Giraffe, Porcupine, She-Wolf and Goose.

The race is limited to 10 for safety reasons (although accidents are still commonplace along the narrow or steeply banked parts of the circuit).  Seven of the runners are those who did not participate in the immediately preceding race, with the other three chosen in a draw.

The winner receives a decorated Drappellone - a large drape - which is paraded around the track and then goes on display in the contrada's museum.  The most successful contrada in the history of the race has been Oca - the Goose - with 63 wins, followed by Chiocciola - the Snail - with 51, and Tartuca - the Tortoise - with 46.

The race begins at some point after 7pm but spectators are advised to arrive in the Piazza by 4pm.  Police close the entrances to the square once they consider it to be full and the Corteo Storica parade arrives at 5pm.

Spectators can watch free of charge from the public space in the centre of the Piazza but because of the large numbers that inevitably want to attend the crowd will become tightly packed and the local tourist office advises against bringing small children.  There are also no public toilets and bottles of water and sun hats are considered to be essential.

Balcony positions and some private boxes can be obtained but they attract premium prices and tend to be booked up months in advance.

The beautiful Piazza del Campo in Siena is one of the
finest squares in Italy

Travel tip:

The shell-shaped Piazza del Campo, established in the 13th century as an open marketplace on a sloping site between the three communities that eventually merged to form Siena, is regarded as one of Europe's finest medieval squares, looked over by the Palazzo Pubblico and the Torre del Mangia.  The red brick paving, fanning out from the centre in nine sections, was put down in 1349.

Travel tip:

Plans for an enormous basilica, which would have been the largest in the world, in Siena had to be abandoned because of lack of funds due to war and the plague but the smaller Duomo (cathedral) built in its place is nonetheless considered a masterpiece of Italian Romanesque-Gothic architecture.  It contains a 13th century pulpit designed by Nicola Pisani.

(Photos of the Palio by Roberto Vicario CC BY-SA 3.0)


(Photo of Piazza del Campo By Ricardo André Frantz CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Claudio Saracini – musician

Baroque songs have survived till modern times

Composer Claudio Saracini was born on this day in 1586 in or close to Siena in Tuscany.

He is one of the most highly regarded composers of his time and is known also to have played the lute and been a singer.

An example of Saracini's surviving music:


He became famous for composing monody, which is secular music for a single voice, and 133 of the songs he wrote in this style have survived till today.

Some of Saracini’s compositions are still recorded, often in collections along with works by other composers of the same era, such as Monteverdi, who is said to have admired him.

Saracini travelled widely and seems to have established useful connections abroad as he dedicated a lot of his music to foreign aristocrats. He also appeared to have absorbed some of the musical styles of the lands he visited in his own compositions.

A unique feature of his work is the influence of folk music, particularly music from the Balkans, which is rarely heard in early Baroque music. 

Saracini’s music was all published in Venice between 1614 and 1624, before his death in 1630.

During the 20th century there was renewed interest in his work after it had been neglected for a long time.

The Piazza del Campo in Siena

Travel tip:

Siena is a beautiful old Tuscan town with a fan-shaped, central piazza, the Piazza del Campo, where the famous Palio, or horse race, is held twice every year. 

Travel tip:

When visiting Venice there are many opportunities to hear Baroque music played by orchestras in concerts held in some of the churches. To find out about concerts in Venice during your stay visit www.musicinvenice.com.

(Photo of Siena by Ricardo André Frantz CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies in Florence

Romantic poet produced some of her best work after fleeing to Italy

Hungarian artist Károly Brocky's portrait of
 Elizabeth  Barrett Browning

English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning died on this day in 1861 in Florence.

She had spent 15 years living in Italy with her husband, the poet Robert Browning, after being disinherited by her father who disapproved of their marriage.

The Brownings’ home in Florence, Casa Guidi, is now a memorial to the two poets.

Their only child, Robert Weidemann Barrett Browning, who became known as Pen, was born there in 1849.

Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era and was popular in both Britain and the United States during her lifetime.

From about the age of 15 she had suffered health problems and therefore lived a quiet life in her father’s house, concentrating on her writing.

A volume of her poems, published in 1844, inspired another writer, Robert Browning, to send her a letter praising her work.

He was eventually introduced to her by a mutual acquaintance and their legendary courtship began in secret.

They were married in 1846 and, after she had continued to live in her father’s home for a week, they fled to Italy. They settled in Florence, where they continued to write, inspired by art, the Tuscan landscape, and their contact with other writers and artists living there.

A plaque above the door of the Casa Guidi in Piazza San
 Felice recalls that Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived there

Barrett Browning wrote Casa Guidi Windows in 1851, giving her personal impressions of political events in Italy.

The poets also spent some time living in Siena, where Barrett Browning continued to write poetry expressing her sympathy with the Italian struggle for independence from foreign rule.

When her health began to deteriorate, they moved back to Florence. Barrett Browning died in her husband’s arms on 29 June, 1861 at the age of 55. She is buried in the Protestant English Cemetery in Florence.

Travel tip:

A plaque marks Casa Guidi, the home of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband Robert in Piazza di San Felice in the Oltrarno district of Florence.  The house in Piazza San Felice, close to the Pitti Palace, now houses a museum dedicated to the lives of the literary couple.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tomb in the
Protestant English Cemetery in Florence

Travel tip:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s tomb, which was designed by Frederic, Lord Leighton, is frequently visited by her admirers in the picturesque setting of the English Cemetery in Piazzale Donatello in Florence.

(Photo of Casa Guidi plaque by Robert Greenham CC BY-SA 3.0)


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