Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli - composer

Neapolitan who snubbed Napoleon wrote 37 operas

Niccolò Zingarelli was one of the most
successful composers of his time

The composer Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, who wrote 37 mainly comic operas and more than 500 pieces of sacred music, was born on this day in 1752 in Naples.

His success made him one of the principal composers of opera and religious music of his time. At various points in his career, he was maestro di cappella - music director - at Milan Cathedral, choir master at the Sistine Chapel and director of the Naples Conservatory.

Many of Zingarelli’s operas were written for Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Early in his career he worked in Paris, which held him in good stead later when he was arrested after refusing to conduct a hymn for the newly-born son of the Emperor Napoleon, who at the time was the self-proclaimed King of Italy.

Sometimes known as Nicola, the young Zingarelli studied from the age of seven at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto, which was the original conservatory of Naples, dating back to 1537. He was tutored by Fedele Fenaroli, whose pupils also included Domenico Cimarosa and, later, Giuseppe Verdi, and also by Alessandro Speranza.

As a young man, Zingarelli earned a living as a violinist, while also composing. His first opera, Montezuma, was successfully produced at Teatro di San Carlo in Naples in 1781. Four years later Alsinda was staged at La Scala, the first of a series of his operas produced there until 1803.

Zingarelli refused to conduct a service for
Napoleon's new son at the Sistine Chapel

In 1789, he was invited to Paris to compose Antigone to a libretto by Jean-François Marmontel for the Opéra. He might have stayed longer in Paris had the French Revolution not driven him to Switzerland.

From there he returned to Milan, where in 1793 he became music director at the Duomo.

A year later, Zingarelli moved again, to take up the post of maestro di cappella at the Basilica della Santa Casa in Loreto, in Marche, an important and prestigious position at the time. He stayed there for 10 years, composing a large number of sacred works, at the same time continuing to write operas for La Scala and other theatres.

When he left Loreto, it was to become music director and choir master at the Sistine Chapel in Rome, where he composed cantatas on poems by Torquato Tasso and Dante.

It was in Rome that he wrote Berenice (1811), an opera that achieved great popularity, although two operas he composed for La Scala, Il mercato di Monfregoso (1792), based on a play by Carlo Goldoni, and Giulietta e Romeo (1796), inspired by William Shakespeare’s play, are said to be his finest work.

It was in 1811 that he was asked to conduct a Te Deum - a short religious service, held to bless an event or give thanks, which is based on the Latin hymn of the same name - for Napoleon, to celebrate the emperor’s new-born son.  As an Italian patriot, however, he felt he could not and, as a consequence of his public refusal, was arrested.

As it happened, though, Napoleon was a fan of his music and not only allowed Zingarelli to go free, he also awarded him a state pension.

In 1813, he left Rome to return to Naples, where he became director of the Conservatorio di San Sebastiano, before moving to the current site, the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella, in 1826. By then, he had also replaced Giovanni Paisiello as choir master of Naples Cathedral, a position he held until his death, in 1837, in Torre del Greco, just along the coast.

The huge Basilica della Santa Casa sits at the highest point
of Loreto and therefore dominates the skyline

Travel tip:

The hill town of Loreto, about 5km (3 miles) inland from the Adriatic coast about 25km (16 miles) south of Ancona and a similar distance north of Civitanova Marche, is easily identified from a distance away by the dome of the basilica, which stands taller than anything else in the area. The Basilica della Santa Casa takes its name from the rustic stone cottage that once occupied its site - and indeed is preserved inside the structure of the cathedral - which was said to be the place of refuge to which angels brought the Madonna as a safe haven after the Saracens who had invaded the Holy Land. The beautiful basilica itself is a late Gothic structure upon which Giuliano da Maiano, Giuliano da Sangallo and Donato Bramante all worked at different times. Inside, there are artworks by Luca Signorelli and Lorenzo Lotto, who died there in 1556.

Torre del Greco was once a thriving upmarket seaside
resort, as depicted in this late 19th century postcard

Travel tip:

Torre del Greco was once part of Magna Graecia – Great Greece – in the eighth and seventh centuries BC but its name is thought to originated in the 11th century AD when a Greek hermit was said to have occupied an eight-sided coastal watch tower called Turris Octava. From the 16th century it became popular with wealthy families and even Italian nobility, who built elaborate summer palaces there. The area is largely run down these days but in the 19th century and early 20th century Torre del Greco enjoyed its peak years as a resort to which wealthy Italians flocked, both to enjoy the sea air and as a point from which to scale Vesuvius via a funicular railway. A thriving café scene developed, and the art nouveau Gran Caffè Palumbo became famous across the country.  Since the 17th century it has been a major producer of coral jewellery.

More reading:

Why Carlo Goldoni is seen as the greatest Venetian dramatist

The story of the troubled Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso

How Domenico Cimarosa developed the model for comic opera

Also on this day:

1951: The birth of singer-songwriter Francesco De Gregori

1960: The birth of businesswoman Daniela Riccardi

1963: The birth of politician and journalist Irene Pivetti


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Francesco Maria II della Rovere - the last Duke of Urbino

Last male in famous family line

Francesco Maria II della Rovere, as depicted by Italian
painter Federico Barocci in 1572 (Uffizi Gallery)

Francesco Maria II della Rovere, the last holder of the title Duke of Urbino and the last surviving male from a famous noble family, was born on this day in 1549 in Pesaro in Le Marche.

Descended from the 15th century Pope Sixtus IV, Francesco Maria II’s only male heir, Federico Ubaldo della Rovere, died without fathering a son, which meant the Duchy reverted to Francesco Maria II, who in turn was convinced he should give it to Pope Urban VIII, of the Barberini family.

Federico’s daughter, Vittoria della Rovere, had been convinced she would be made Duchess of Urbino but had to be content with the Duchies of Rovere and Montefeltro, as well as an art collection that became the property of Florence after she had married Ferdinando II de’ Medici.

Pope Sixtus IV, best known for building the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official papal residence in Vatican City, had come from a poor family in Savona in Liguria, but once elected pope became wealthy and powerful and set about ensuring that his personal prosperity was used to the betterment of his family.

He soon made his nephews Giuliano della Rovere (the future Pope Julius II) and Pietro Riario both cardinals and bishops, while appointing four other nephews as cardinals.

Vittoria della Rovere, granddaughter of Francesco
Maria II, was the last to carry the family name 

He made Giovanni Della Rovere - Giuliano’s brother - prefect of Rome, and arranged for him to marry into the da Montefeltro family, dukes of Urbino.

Guidobaldo da Montefeltro adopted Francesco Maria I della Rovere, his sister's child and nephew of Pope Julius II, and named him as heir of the Duchy of Urbino in 1504.

Francesco Maria I inherited the duchy in 1508 thereby starting the line of Rovere Dukes of Urbino. Francesco Maria II della Rovere was his grandson after the third Rovere to hold the title.

As a young man, Francesco Maria II was raised at the court of Philip II of Spain. He would have married a Spanish girl but his father, Guidobaldo II della Rovere, forbade it and demanded he return to Urbino.

Instead, he married Lucrezia d'Este, a daughter of Ercole II d'Este and became Duke of Urbino in 1574, when his father died.

Francesco Maria II inherited considerable debts, however, and was forced to sell the Duchy of Sora and the family’s historic seat in Arce in Lazio.

The Ducal Palace at Pesaro, where
Francesco Maria II was born

His marriage to Lucrezia  remained childless, which was bad news because without an heir his family's would lapse on his death and his entire estate would be acquired, by default, by the Papal States.

It was fortunate, then, that the death of Lucrezia in 1599 allowed him to marry his teenage cousin, Livia della Rovere, who had a male child, Federico Ubaldo, in 1605. He became Duke of Urbino on being married in 1621 but died only two years later, from epilepsy, leaving only a daughter, the aforementioned Vittoria Della Rovere.

The aging Francesco Maria II took up the title of Duke again, but as there was no more hopes of there being a male heir he arranged for his Duchy to be annexed to the Papal States after his death in 1631.

Vittoria inherited the Duke's art collection but after marrying into the Medici family and had it transferred to Florence to the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, where it remains today.

The Fortezza del Priamar was built by the Genoese to
protect the city of Savona in the 16th century

Travel tip:

The third largest city in Liguria after Genoa and La Spezia, Savona, where the Della Rovere family originated, used to be one of the biggest centres of the Italian iron industry, the iron-works and foundries providing materials for shipbuilding and railways among other things. It also has a busy port but as well as industrial areas the city has a charming medieval centre containing architectural gems such as the baroque Cattedrale di Nostra Signora Assunta - behind which is Italy’s other Sistine Chapel, like the Rome version erected by Pope Sixtus IV - and the Fortezza del Priamar, built by the Genoese in 1542 after their conquest of the city and later used a prison. It was there in 1830 that the revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini was imprisoned. There is a Palazzo Della Rovere built by Cardinal Giulio della Rovere and designed by Giuliano da Sangallo.

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The resort city of Pesaro has a long stretch of sandy
 beach that is free for public use

Travel tip:

Pesaro, where Francesco Maria II was born, is a coastal city and resort in Le Marche about 35km (22 miles) from Urbino. It has a 15th century Ducal Palace, commissioned by Alessandro Sforza. The city has become well known for being the home of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini, who was born there in 1792. There is a Rossini Opera Festival every summer and Pesaro is home to the Conservatorio Statale di Musica Gioachino Rossini, which was founded from a legacy left by the composer. Look out also for the Rocca Costanza, a massive castle built by Costanzo I Sforza. Of the 17th century Mura Roveresche - the Della Rovere Walls - demolished in the early 20th century, only the Porta del Ponte and Porta Rimini gates remain.

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More reading:

The death of Julius II, the 'Warrior Pope'

Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany

Isabella d'Este - 'First Lady of the world'

Also on this day:

1339: Visconti against Visconti in the Battle of Parabiago

1778: The death of Laura Bassi, physics professor who broke new ground for female academics

1816: Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville premieres in Rome

1993: The death of car marker Ferruccio Lamborghini

(Picture credits: Ducal Palace by Italtrucker; Savona fortress by Diani Stefano; Pesaro beach by Whiskerdisco; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Louis Visconti - architect

Roman who made his mark on Paris

The French painter Théophile Vauchelet's
portrait of  the architect Louis Visconti 

The architect Louis Visconti, who designed a number of public buildings and squares as well as numerous private residences in Paris, was born on this day in 1791 in Rome.

Notably, Visconti was the architect chosen to design the tomb to house the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte after King Louis Philippe I obtained permission from Britain in 1840 to return them from Saint Helena, the remote island in the South Atlantic where the former emperor had died in exile in 1921.

Born Louis Tullius Joachim Visconti, he came from a family of archaeologists. His grandfather, Giambattista Antonio Visconti was the founder of the Vatican Museums and his father, Ennio Quirino Visconti, was an archaeologist and art historian.

Ennio had been a consul of the short-lived Roman Republic, proclaimed in February 1798 after Louis Alexandre Berthier, a general of Napoleon, had invaded Rome, but was forced to leave with the restoration of papal control.

He and his family moved to Paris and were naturalised as French citizens, with Ennio becoming a curator of antiquities and paintings at the Musée du Louvre. 

Visconti's magnificent tomb for Napoleon Bonaparte, in
red porphyry on a granite base, standing 16ft high

In 1808, Louis enrolled at Paris's École des Beaux-Arts.  He excelled in architecture and secured second prize in the architecture section of the Prix de Rome in 1814 and the architecture department prize at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1817.

He was was appointed by the city in 1826 to oversee building works in the 3rd and 8th arrondissements and subsequently as curator of the 8th section of public monuments, which comprised the Bibliothèque Royale, the monument on Place des Victoires, Porte Saint-Martin, Saint-Denis and the Colonne Vendôme.

He became divisional architect in 1848, and government architect in 1849.

In May 1848, he produced a first-draft design for completing the Palais du Louvre. He was made architect to the Palais des Tuileries in July 1852 and architect to Napoleon III the following year.

The Hôtel de Pontalba in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré,
now home to the US Ambassador to France

Visconti built a number of Renaissance-style public fountains in Paris, including the Fontaine Gaillon, the Fontaine Louvois, the Fontaine Molière, the Fontaine Quatre Evèques and the Fontaine Saint-Sulpice. He was an important participant in the revival of the Picturesque and Gothic styles, as is reflected in the Château de Lussy (1844), which is modelled after an English cottage.

Among several large houses he designed, the Hôtel de Pontalba in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, built in 1839, is an outstanding example.

Hôtel de Pontalba is an example of an hôtel particulier, a type of large townhouse. It was commissioned by New Orleans-born Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba. Nowadays, it is the official residence of the United States Ambassador to France.

During his time as the official architect for the Louvre under Napoleon III, he was commissioned to design the tomb for Napoleon Bonaparte.

Louis Philippe had arranged for Napoleon’s remains to be brought to France in 1840 and they were first buried in the Chapelle Saint-Jérôme in Hôtel des Invalides, the complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris that contains museums and monuments relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose.

The buildings include the Dôme des Invalides, the tallest church in Paris at a height of 107m (351ft), which contains the tombs of some of France's war heroes. It became Napoleon’s final resting place in Visconti’s magnificent, dramatic tomb, crafted in red porphyry on a green granite base, circled by a crown of laurels, standing 5m (16 feet) high and 4.5m wide.

The remains of the Forum of ancient Rome attract some
4.5 million visitors every year

Travel tip:

When the new Roman Republic was declared in 1798, its supporters symbolically gathered in the Foro Romano, the remains of the Forum of ancient Rome, a rectangular piazza (square) surrounded by important government buildings at the centre of the city. For centuries the Forum was the centre of day-to-day life in Rome, a market place but also the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, elections and triumphal processions. Statues and monuments were built to commemorate the city's great men. Located between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today attracts some 4.5 million visitors every year.

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Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ
is among the Vatican's art treasures 

Travel tip:

The Vatican Museums, located inside the Vatican City, display works from the immense collection amassed by popes throughout the centuries including several renowned Roman sculptures and some of the most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The museums, founded by Pope Julius II in the 16th century, contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display. The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling decorated by Michelangelo, and the Stanze di Raffaello, decorated by Raphael, are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums, which are visited by some six million people each year, making in the fifth most visited art museum in the world. The museums employ a full-time staff of 640 people.

More reading:

Why Luigi Vanvitelli was the 18th century's most celebrated architect

How architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini reshaped Catania in Sicily

The founding of the papal Swiss Guard

Also on this day:

1881: The birth of Futurist painter Carlo Carrà

1917: The birth of film director Giuseppe De Santis

1929: The Lateran Treaty declares the Vatican an independent state

1948: The birth of footballer Carlo Sartori

1995: The birth of singer Gianluca Ginoble


(Picture credits: Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb by Son of Groucho; Hôtel de Pontalba by Mouloud47; Rome Forum by Rennett Stowe; via Wikemedia Commons)

(Paintings: Portrait of Visconti - Musée Carnavalet, Paris; Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ - Pinacoteca Vaticano, Rome)

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Ruggiero Giovannelli – composer

Church musician wrote popular madrigals and songs

Ruggiero Giovannelli was maestro di
cappella at St Peter's for five years

Ruggiero Giovannelli, a religious composer who also wrote a surprising number of light-hearted madrigals, died on this day in 1625 in Rome.

He may have been a pupil of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the most famous of the Roman School composers of the 16th century. Even though there is no documentary evidence to support this, there are stylistic similarities in their music.

On Palestrina’s death in 1594, Giovannelli was chosen to replace him as maestro di cappella at the Julian Chapel in St Peter’s Basilica.

Giovannelli was born in Velletri near Rome and not much is known about his life until 1583 when he became maestro di cappella at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi near the Piazza Navona in Rome. He moved on to become maestro di cappella at the Collegio Germanico, a pontifical college in Rome, in 1591.

His most important appointment was when he was chosen to replace Palestrina at St Peter’s in 1594, a position he held until 1599 when he became a singer at the Sistine Chapel, a position he held until he became maestro di cappella there in 1614.

Giovannelli was influenced by Giovanni Pierluigi da
Palestrina (above), whom he succeeded at St Peter's 

Giovannelli composed church music in the style of Palestrina, although after 1600 he experimented with innovations that reflected the beginning of the Baroque era. Manuscripts of his masses, motets and psalms are kept in the Vatican Library.

Giovannelli wrote a surprising amount of secular music, mostly madrigals and canzonettas. He wrote three books of madrigals for five voices and two books for four voices, as well as a large quantity of other secular songs. His music was reprinted in Italy and abroad, which indicates its popularity at the time.

After retiring in 1624, he died the following year. He is buried in the church of Santa Marta in Rome.

The Cathedral of San Clemente in Velletri, which dates
back to the fourth century

Travel tip:

Velletri, where Ruggiero Giovannelli was born, is a municipality outside Rome in the Alban Hills. It has a fourth century cathedral, the Cathedral of San Clemente, which was originally built over the ruins of a pagan temple, but was rebuilt in the 17th century and given a Renaissance-style portal. The town suffered extensive damage during bombing raids in the Second World War, although the cathedral survived.  In the 15th century, Velletri had the dubious claim to fame of being the host to what is believed to have been the world's first pawnshop.

Michelangelo's incredible work
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Travel tip:

The Sistine Chapel, where Ruggiero Giovannelli was both a singer and maestro di cappella, is in the Apostolic Palace, where the Pope lives, in Vatican City. The chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, the uncle of Pope Julius II, who had it restored during his papacy. Between 1508 and 1512, Michelangelo painted the ceiling at the request of Pope Julius II.  His amazing masterpiece is in bright colours, easily visible from the floor, and covers more than 400 square metres.



More reading:

Domenico Bartolucci - a musician who directed the Sistine Chapel choir under six 20th century popes

The tale of Carlo Gesualdo, the 16th century composer of madrigals who brutally killed his wife and her lover

Andrea Gabrieli, the father of Venetian music

Also on this day:

1655: The death of the controversial Pope Innocent X

1797: Italy's tricolore flag is hoisted for the first time

1920: The birth of actor Vincent Gardenia


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Pietro Torrigiano – sculptor

Achievements overshadowed by assault on Michelangelo

Pietro Torrigiano was born in Florence in 1472

Pietro Torrigiano, the sculptor credited with introducing Renaissance art to England in the early years of the 16^th century but who is best remembered for breaking the nose of Michelangelo in a fight, was born on this day in 1472 in Florence.

The incident with the man who would become the greatest artist of their generation came when both were teenagers, studying in Florence under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Torrigiano was older than Michelangelo by two and a half years and confessed some years later that he found his young rival to be somewhat irritating, especially since it was his habit to peer over the shoulders of his fellow students and make disparaging comments about the quality of their work.

On the occasion they clashed, when Michelangelo was said to be about 15, he was with Torrigiano and some others in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, studying frescoes by Masaccio.  Looking at a sketch Torrigiano was making, the younger boy made some slighting remark and Torrigiano lashed out.

He caught him such a blow that Michelangelo, who was knocked out cold at the time, suffered a broken nose and a disfigurement he would carry for life.

Torrigiano's tomb of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey

Torrigiano knew he would be in trouble and when word reached him that Lorenzo de’ Medici was incensed by the incident he fled Florence for Rome.

He would not return to the Tuscan city until more than a quarter of a century had passed, by which time Michelangelo was famous, the creator of masterpieces of sculpture such as his Pietà and David, and the wonderful frescoes that adorned the Sistine Chapel.

In conversation with Benvenuto Cellini, a young sculptor he was trying to recruit as an assistant, Torrigiano confessed to having been the man responsible for Michelangelo’s crooked nose, explaining that he was regularly annoyed by Michelangelo’s sniping comments but on this occasion had let his temper get the better of him.

He is said to have told Cellini: “I got more angry than usual, and clenching my fist, gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this mark of mine he will carry with him to the grave.”

At the time it happened, though, Torrigiano made no such confession.  To escape the Medici wrath, he went to Rome, where he worked briefly with Pinturicchio, but soon put his artistic ambitions to one side and essentially went on the run.

Torrigiano's extraordinarily lifelike sculpture
of Henry VII in terracotta

A bullish man and something of a braggart, he made a living for a while as a professional soldier, moving from one state to another. 

He is thought to have been invited to England by Henry VIII, who was looking for a court artist shortly after the death of his father, Henry VII.

Torrigiano created sculptures in terracotta of Henry VII, Henry VIII and John Fisher, the Roman Catholic bishop that Henry VIII would ultimately have killed.  He is also thought to have made an extremely lifelike funeral effigy of Henry VII.

Henry VIII ultimately commissioned Torrigiano to created the magnificent tomb of his father and his queen that can still be admired in the Henry VII Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey.  When he met Cellini in Florence in about 1518, he was trying to recruit young artists to work with him in England on other commissions in the Abbey.

Cellini, horrified at his confession, refused to take up his offer and Torrigiano left Italy again, never to return.

He spent the last few years of his life in Sevilla in Spain, where the Museum of Fine Arts houses his sculpture of Saint Jerome (Hieronymus), which he finished in 1525.

Still inclined to outbursts of violent temper, he became well known to the authorities and was often in trouble.  In fact, he died in prison in 1528 at the age of 55.

Inside the church of Santa Maria del Carmine 

Travel tip:

The church of Santa Maria del Carmine, of the Carmelite Order, is in the Oltrarno area of Florence. The Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino di Panicale can be found in the Brancacci Chapel. The church was built in 1268, enlarged in 1328 and 1464 and renovated in Baroque style in the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

Part of Pinturicchio's fresco cycle at the Borgia Apartments

Travel tip:

During his brief time in Rome, Torrigiano worked with Pinturicchio – real name Bernardino di Betto – on decorating the Borgia Apartments, a suite of rooms in the Apostolic Palace adapted for personal use by Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo de Borgia), with paintings and frescoes.  After Rodrigo’s death in 1503 the rooms remained little used for centuries but are now considered part of the Vatican Library.

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Alberto Sordi - actor

Comic genius who appeared in 190 films

Alberto Sordi with Sophia Loren in the 1954 film
Due notti con Cleopatra (Two Nights with Cleopatra)

Alberto Sordi, remembered by lovers of Italian cinema as one of its most outstanding comedy actors, died on this day in 2003 in Rome, the city of his birth.

He was 82 and had suffered a heart attack.  Italy reacted with an outpouring of grief and the decision was taken for his body to lie in state at Rome's town hall, the Campidoglio.

Streams of his fans took the opportunity to file past his coffin and when his funeral took place at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano it was estimated that the crowds outside the church and in nearby streets numbered one million people.

Only the funeral of Pope John Paul II, who died two years later, is thought to have attracted a bigger crowd.

Sordi (right) in a scene from An American in Rome 
(1954) which established him as a comic character actor

Sordi was the Italian voice of Oliver Hardy in the early days of his career, when he worked on the dubbing of the Laurel and Hardy movies.  He made the first of his 190 films in 1937 but it was not until the 1950s that he found international fame.

He appeared in two movies directed by Federico Fellini - The White Sheik and I vitelloni.  In the latter, he played an oafish layabout, something of a simpleton but an effeminate and vulnerable character to whom audiences responded with warmth and affection due to Sordi's interpretation.

It was Sordi's eye for the foibles of quirks of the Italian character that identified him as an actor of considerable talent.  His films often had the simple titles of the Italian stereotypes he was sending up, such as The Seducer, The Bachelor, The Husband, The Widower, The Traffic Cop and The Moralist.

Some were black comedies, some slapstick farces, others more serious dramas. Along with Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi and Nino Manfredi, he made up a quartet that has been described as Italy's equivalent of the Ealing comedy school.

Alberto Sordi in the 1962 black comedy Mafioso

Born in Rome in June 1920 in the working class Trastevere district, Sordi came from a musical family. While his mother was a schoolteacher, his father played the tuba in the orchestra at the Rome Opera House.

His father encouraged an interest in music and by the age of 10 Sordi was singing in the Sistine Chapel choir. At 16 he went to Milan to study at drama school but was told he would never be successful unless he shed his thick Roman accent.  In the event, the accent and distinctive voice became part of his popularity.

Back in Rome, he became popular in radio shows and as a music hall act before landing the voice-over part for the Laurel and Hardy films, employing the bogus English accent he had used in a music hall sketch.

Eager for more work in the burgeoning movie industry, he hung around the cafes in Piazza di Spagna, where he befriended Fellini and his fellow director, Vittorio De Sica.  After working as an extra, he landed his first important role was as an air force cadet in Tre Aquilotti (Three Eaglets) in 1941.

Sordi (in the foreground) lounges outside a cafe in I vitelloni

The two Fellini movies brought him to the attention of the movie world as an actor of potential but it was his performance in An American in Rome (1954), directed by Stefano Vanzina - usually known as Steno - that established his brilliance in exaggerating the foibles and idiosyncrasies of his fellow Italians.

Poking fun at Italy's obsession with things American, Sordi played Ferdinand 'Nando' Mericoni, a young Roman who is so in awe of the American lifestyle he tries to make his room look like a Hollywood set, pretends he is from Kansas City and lives out everyday situations as if he were an actor in an American film. He makes up for his inability to speak English by making American vocal sounds.  Sordi would return to the theme years later, in 1968, with an Italian in America, which he directed himself.

In the opinion of the critics, the most accomplished performance of his career was as a middle-class Italian in Mario Monicelli's hard-hitting 1977 film Un Borghese Piccolo Piccolo (A Very Small Petit Bourgeois), who takes vengeance after seeing his child killed in a robbery.

Sordi never married but was the long-time partner of the actress Andreina Pagnani. Later in life, he lived quietly with his dogs and his two sisters in a splendid villa near the Baths of Caracalla, indulging his interests in opera, collecting antiques and supporting his football team, AS Roma.

Over a career that spanned five decades, he won seven David di Donatello awards for best actor - the most won by anyone in that category - and four awards from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists. He also received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 1995.

Less than a week after his death, the mayor of Rome announced that the gallery of shops opposite the Palazzo Chigi would be renamed Galleria Alberto Sordi in his memory.

The Isola Tiberina adjoins the Trastevere district

Travel tip:

The Trastevere district has evolved from its working class roots into one of Rome's most fashionable neighbourhoods, certainly among young professionals, who are attracted by its pretty cobbled streets and the wealth of inexpensive but chic restaurants.  There are interesting attractions for visitors, too.  Apart from some fine churches, the area boasts the Botanical Garden of Rome, the lovely Isola Tiberina, an island in the middle of the river on which is built an old hospital and a church, and the lively Porta Portese Sunday market.

Rome hotels from Booking.com


Travel tip:

Numbering John Keats, Mary Shelley and Casanova among its fans, the Piazza di Spagna is a beautiful square noted for the famous Spanish Steps leading up to the Trinità dei Monti church. Keats had a house next to the steps on the right looking up from the square. The steps tend to be crowded with tourists during the day but thin out after 10pm, when the square still looks glorious under the street lights. Leading off the square, Via Condotti has become home to Rome’s most exclusive shops, including Prada and Gucci. There are plenty of restaurants and bars around the square, although they can be expensive. However, inexpensive beer, ice creams and roasted chestnuts can be bought from street vendors.


More reading:

Giulietta Masina - Fellini's muse and wife of 50 years

Otto e mezzo - the greatest Fellini movie of them all?

How tough-talking Roman actress Anna Magnani became an Oscar-winning star

Also on this day:

1682: The birth of anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni

1707: The birth of Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni

1873: The birth of the brilliant tenor Enrico Caruso

Selected books:

A History of Italian Cinema, by Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni


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Vittorio Grigolo - opera singer

Tenor courted public popularity as way to land 'serious' roles

Vittorio Grigolo in a picture for
his album The Italian Tenor

The operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo was born on this day in 1977 in Arezzo in Tuscany.

Grigolo has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses and is currently starring in Werther by Jules Massenet at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Yet he has achieved fame as a serious performer after first releasing an album of popular songs and using reality TV shows to put himself in the public eye.

Brought up in Rome, Grigolo was a child prodigy who began to sing at the age of four, his love for music inspired by his father, who liked the family house to be filled with the sound of opera arias.

He won a place at the prestigious Sistine Chapel Choir School by the time he was nine and at 13 appeared on the same stage as the opera legend Luciano Pavarotti as the shepherd boy in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca at the Rome Opera House.  It earned him the nickname Il Pavarottino - the little Pavarotti.

Grigolo's progress continued to be rapid.  At 18 he joined the Vienna Opera Company and became the youngest tenor to perform at Teatro alla Scala in Milan at the age of 23.

Grigolo performs in the role of Nemorino in
Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore

But in the years that followed, he felt his career reached a plateau. It was this lull that persuaded him to switch his attention to the pop world, cashing in on the vogue for classically trained voices singing contemporary songs by releasing in 2006 the album, In the Hands of Love, a collection of pop ballads and songs from the musicals.

As part of his promotion campaign, he appeared with Pavarotti and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa at the Classical Brit Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London, sang numbers from the album at a Miss Universe 2006 evening gown competition in Los Angeles, performed alongside Lionel Richie at the 'Proms in the Park' in Hyde Park, London and sang at a charity event sponsored by Macy's department store in New York.

While in America, he appeared in the third series of the hit show Dancing with the Stars - based on the British show Strictly Come Dancing and mimicked in Italy with Ballando con le Stelle - although not as a competitor but a guest artist.  He also accepted an invitation to appear on the dating game show The Bachelor.

Watch Grigolo perform E lucevan le stelle from Tosca in Verona in 2012

The effect was as he had hoped.  His profile raised, as well as his talent he now had box-office appeal. Better roles at more prestigious venues began to come his way. By 2010 Grigolo had made his debut at both the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden (as Le Chevalier des Grieux in Massenet's Manon) and at the Met (as Rodolfo in Puccini's La bohème).

Grigolo cashed in on the popularity of pop
songs performed by operatic voices

Known for his exuberant, impassioned performances, it was feared that he would burn out quickly but critics agree that he has managed his voice well despite a hectic schedule.  Not a fan of the faddy diets some opera performers follow, he allows himself a glass of wine with his lunch even when he is singing in the evening, keeping his vocal chords supple by sucking peppermint bonbons.

He has recorded five more albums since In the Hands of Love.  Most consist of opera arias, although one of them, entitled Ave Maria, is of songs he remembers from his time with the Sistine Chapel Choir.

A music lover with eclectic tastes, he has not ruled out future dalliances in the pop world but for the moment his focus is on serious opera.  Not one to bother with false modesty, in one recent interview he claimed he had succeeded Pavarotti as "the Italian tenor, the voice of Italy" and was "proud to carry the flag for Italy" - even though he actually lives in Lugano, across the border from Italy in tax-friendly Switzerland.

Although it may seem Grigolo's destiny was to sing, the world of opera almost lost him to his other great passion, cars.

At the same time as supporting him in his development as a singer, Grigolo's father, a successful designer, also agreed to sponsor his ambitions as a racing driver, helping him progress through karting right up to Formula 3000, a now defunct feeder class for Formula One.

He even tested for Benetton in Formula One after signing up with F1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella's manager, but after an accident left him with two broken ribs and a cancelled concert appearance he had to make a choice.  He plumped for singing.

The distinctive, sloping Piazza Grande is a feature of Arezzo

Travel tip:

Grigolo's home city of Arezzo in Tuscany, situated about 80km (50 miles) south-west of Florence, is a medieval city that has grown into a modern conurbation of around 100,000 people, although the historic centre remains an attractive spot on the Tuscan tourist trail.  The main sights include the sloping Piazza Grande, which sits just behind the 13th century Romanesque apse of Santa Maria della Pieve and was once the main marketplace of the city.  A few streets away, the city's Duomo - the Cathedral of Santi Pietro e Donati - contains among other artistic treasures a wooden choir designed by Giorgio Vasari and a painting of Mary Magdalene attributed to Piero della Francesca.


Travel tip:

The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna, the chapel was renamed after Pope Sixtus IV, who restored it between 1477 and 1480.  As well as being a place of religious activity, the chapel is the meeting place for the Papal conclave, the process by which a new pope is selected. The Sistine Chapel is notable too for the frescos that decorate the interior, most particularly the ceiling and The Last Judgment, painted by Michelangelo.



More reading:

Why Luciano Pavarotti is among Italy's greatest opera stars

Andrea Bocelli - the perfect voice for pop and opera

The musical genius of Giacomo Puccini

Also on this day:

1743: The birth of cellist Luigi Boccherini

1953: The birth of comic actor and director Massimo Troisi

(Picture credit: Arezzo piazza by Enlightenmentreloaded via Wikimedia Commons)


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Lorenzo Perosi - priest and composer

Puccini contemporary chose sacred music over opera

Lorenzo Perosi forsook opera in
 favour of religious music

Don Lorenzo Perosi, a brilliant composer of sacred music who was musical director of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican for almost half a century, was born on this day in 1872 in the city of Tortona in Piedmont.

A devoutly religious man who was ordained as a priest at the age of 22, Perosi was a contemporary of Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni, both of whom he counted as close friends, but was the only member of the so-called Giovane Scuola of late 19th century and early 20th century composers who did not write opera.

Instead, he concentrated entirely on church music and was particularly noted for his large-scale oratorios, for which he enjoyed international fame.

Unlike Puccini and Mascagni, or others from the Giovane Scuola such as Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea, Perosi's work has not endured enough for him to be well known today.

Yet at his peak, which music scholars consider to be the period between his appointment as Maestro of the Choir of St Mark's in Venice in 1894 and a serious mental breakdown suffered in 1907, he was hugely admired by his fellows in the Giovane Scuola and beyond.

Perosi with Arturo Toscanini before the
premiere of his work Mosè in Milan 

Arturo Toscanini conducted his work Mosè on the occasion of its premiere at La Scala in Milan in November 1901, his French admirers included Claude Debussy and Jules Massenet and many of the great opera singers on his day were keen to perform in his works, including Enrico Caruso, Mario Sammarco, Carlo Tagliabue and Beniamino Gigli.

Puccini is quoted as saying that "there is more music in Perosi's head than mine and Mascagni's put together".

Perosi is credited with reviving the oratorio as a musical genre. His grand productions for chorus, soloists, and orchestra based on Latin texts were noted for their bringing together of Renaissance harmony, Gregorian chant, and the flamboyant melodies and orchestrations characteristic of the Giovane Scuola. 

Perosi was one of 12 children born into a pious Catholic family in Tortona, only half of whom survived infancy.  His own birth was said to have been difficult and music historians believe it was probably the cause of the mental health problems he suffered in adulthood.

His father, Giuseppe, was choir director at the cathedral in Tortona and his talent for music was shared with his brothers Carlo, who also became a priest, and Marziano, who would later be musical director at the Duomo of Milan.

Listen to the choir of the church of the Beata Vergine in Mandria, near Padua

Lorenzo enrolled at Milan Conservatory, where he began his association with Puccini and Mascagni, after which he took his first professional post as organist at the Abbey of Montecassino.  He spent a year studying in Germany under Franz Xaver Haberl, where he learnt Renaissance polyphony, but declined a permanent teaching position in Germany in favour of a position nearer home as director of sacred music at the Duomo in Imola.

The bust of Lorenzo Perosi in the
gardens at the Pincio in Rome

From Imola he went to Solesmes Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery in France to study under the Gregorianists Dom André Mocquereau and Dom Joseph Pothier.

The appointment at St Mark's in Venice came in 1894 and brought Perosi under the influence of Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto, the Patriarch of Venice who would go on to be elected as Pope Pius X.  It was Sarto who ordained Perosi to the priesthood but just as importantly encouraged his music and was influential in his appointment in Rome.

Perosi's mental health problems began to manifest themselves in 1906, when doctors felt he was suffering from nervous exhaustion as a consequence of the hours he spent writing music in addition to his duties as a priest.

They became so severe following the deaths of both his parents within the space of a few years that at one stage his brother, Carlo, was nominated legal guardian as some doctors deemed him incurable. In time, however, his condition improved and he returned to a normal life.

He added to an already enormous body of work and the popes Pius XI and Pius XII waived the rules regarding mandatory retirement and retained him as 'maestro perpetuo' into his 80s. By the time his health deteriorated irreversibly he had served under five popes.  He died in Rome in October 1956.

The Duomo of Tortona, where Lorenzo Perosi is
buried along with his brother, Carlo

Travel tip:

Tortona is an elegant small city of around 27,000 inhabitants in the eastern part of Piedmont, roughly halfway between Milan and the Ligurian coast at Genoa.  It sits on the right bank of the Scrivia river between the plain of Marengo and the foothills of the Ligurian Apennines.  Lorenzo Perosi, along with his brother, Carlo, is buried at the Duomo, where his father was the choir director.  The Duomo has a 19th century neoclassical facade but the building itself dates back to the 16th century.


Travel tip:

The Sistine Chapel choir is one of the oldest religious choirs in the world, consisting today of 20 adult professional singers and 30 unpaid boy choristers.   Its reputation today owes much to Lorenzo Perosi, who raised its artistic level to a level as high as any it had known during his time as Maestro di Cappella and supported Pope Pius X in outlawing the use of boys whose voices were preserved by the barbaric practice of castration. Pius declared that only "whole men" should be allowed to be choristers or priests, and the last of the castrati were in time eased out of the choir.  A bust of Perosi can be found in the gardens on Pincian Hill - the Pincio - in Rome.

More reading:

How Giovanni Gabrieli helped popularity of Venetian Baroque

What made Puccini one of the greatest of opera composers

The genius of Venice's musical priest, Antonio Vivaldi

Also on this day:

1401: Birth of the great Renaissance artist Massacio

(Picture credits: bust by Lalupa; Tortona Duomo by Vincenzo da Tortona; both via Wikimedia Commons)


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Papal Swiss Guard

Colourful uniforms camouflage highly trained security professionals

The Pope’s Swiss Guard was founded on this day in Vatican City in 1506.

A soldier from the Swiss
Guard on duty in the Vatican

A contingent of guards from Switzerland has continued to guard the Pope from that day to present times and it is one of the oldest military units still in existence.

The Swiss had been producing mercenary soldiers for hundreds of years with a reputation for loyalty and good discipline.

In the 15th century they were known for their good battle tactics and were employed by many European armies.

Pope Julius II ordered the first Swiss troops to guard the Vatican and they arrived in Rome on 22 January, 1506, the official date now given for the foundation of the Papal Swiss Guard.

The Pope later gave them the title ‘Defenders of the Church’s freedom’.

Recruits to the Pope’s Swiss Guard unit have to be Catholic men of Swiss nationality who have completed military training and can produce evidence of their good conduct.

Since the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981, the Guards have received training in unarmed combat and in the use of modern weapons.

They are a colourful sight on ceremonial occasions at the Vatican in their blue, red, orange and yellow uniforms of Renaissance design.

US President Barack Obama on his way to an audience
with Pope Francis in 2014, with a Swiss Guard escort

But inside every traditional costume is a state of the art-trained Swiss security professional.

Not only do they guard the Pope in Rome but they are also responsible for security at the Pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo .

Travel tip:

Vatican City is an independent state inside Italy, policed by its own security force, the Swiss Guard. Within it is St Peter’s Basilica, built over the place where St Peter is believed to have been crucified and buried. A few minutes walk from the Basilica you will come to the entrance to the Vatican museums where you can see the Sistine Chapel, which was decorated by Michelangelo. The Pope holds audiences in the Vatican every Wednesday and blesses the crowds in St Peter’s Square every Sunday.

The Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo
Photo: Livioandronico2013 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Travel tip:

Castel Gandolfo overlooks Lake Albano from its wonderful position in the hills south
of Rome. The Pope takes up residence every summer in the Apostolic Palace there. Although his villa lies within the town’s boundaries, it is one of the properties of the Holy See. The palace is not under Italian jurisdiction and is policed by the Swiss Guard. The whole area is part of the regional park of Castelli Romani and there are many places of historic and artistic interest to see there.

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