Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo – painter and printmaker

Famous artist’s son developed his own style

Many of Tiepolo's works, such as this carnival scene
in Venice, featured the comic character Pulcinella

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, who became famous for his paintings of Venetian life and of the clown, Pulcinella, was born on this day in 1727 in Venice.

Also known as Giandomenico Tiepolo, he was one of the nine children born to the artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his wife, Maria Guardi, the sister of painters Francesco and Giovanni Guardi.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Giandomenico inherited the talent to go into the same profession as his father and uncles and, by the age of 13, he had become the elder Tiepolo’s chief assistant. His younger brother, Lorenzo, also became a painter and worked as an assistant to his father.

By the age of 20, Giandomenico was already producing his own work for commissions. However, he continued to accompany his father when he received his major commissions in Italy, Germany and Spain.

He assisted his father with a grand stairwell fresco for a prince’s palace in Wurzburg in Bavaria in 1750 and with decorations for the Villa Valmarana ai Nani in Vicenza in 1757 and the Royal Palace of Madrid in 1770.

The elder Tiepolo died while in Madrid and after Giandomenico returned to live in Venice, his own style of painting began to develop. His portraits and scenes of life in Venice were realistic and characterised by movement and his use of colour. He drew inspiration for his paintings from the lives of both peasants and aristocrats.

One of the panels from the Via Crucis cycle,
in the Oratory of the Crucifix at San Polo

Giandomenico also received many commissions for drawings and reproduced his own and his father’s paintings as etchings.

He produced more than 100 separate sketches of Pulcinella, a physically deformed clown who was the standard character of commedia dell’arte in Venice and later became the Punch in Punch and Judy. The sketches were created as entertainment for children, but also poked fun at the pretensions and behaviour of the viewers of Pulcinella’s shows.

He accepted commissions for religious paintings also. Many can be seen in the Chiesa di San Polo in Venice, including the 14 panels of his Via Crucis cycle, which can be seen in the adjacent Oratory of the Crucifix.

Frescoes that Giandomenico painted for the Tiepolo family villa at Zianigo near Mirano were removed from the walls of the building at the beginning of the last century and nearly sold to a French buyer, but the export of the paintings was blocked by an Italian Government minister. They were subsequently acquired by the city of Venice and put on display at Ca’ Rezzonico on the Grand Canal, in a replica of their original arrangement at the villa.  

The paintings were executed between 1759 and 1797 solely for the entertainment of Giandomenico and his family. The ones featuring Pulcinella were the last to be painted and are perhaps the most famous of the cycle. Giandomenico was said to have been obsessed by the commedia dell’arte character during the last years of his life and is thought to have used him in his paintings as a vehicle to reflect his own irreverent and sarcastic spirit.

Giandomenico Tiepolo died in Venice in 1804, aged 76.

The Villa Valmarana ai Nani in Vincenza, where
Tiepolo and his father painted frescoes

Travel tip:  

Villa Valmarana ai Nani was built in 1669 near the gates of the city of Vicenza. The villa takes its name from the 17 stone sculptures of nani, dwarves, that once decorated the garden and have now been placed on the walls surrounding the villa. It is believed they were sculpted by Francesco Uliaco based on drawings by Giandomenico Tiepolo. The villa is famous for the frescoes by Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo in the palazzina, owner’s residence, which were commissioned by Giustino Valmarana in 1757. The present day Valmarana family still live in the villa.

Frescoes by Giandomenico Tiepolo on display
at Ca' Rezzonico, the palace on the Grand Canal

Travel tip:

Ca’ Rezzonico on the Grand Canal in Venice, which now houses Giandomenico Tiepolo’s frescoes on its second floor, was built in the 16th century to a design by the architect Baldassare Longhena. Before the building was complete the architect died and the unfinished construction was later bought by Giambattista Rezzonico, who commissioned Giorgio Massari to complete it. In the 19th century it was purchased by Pen Browning, the painter son of the poet, Robert Browning. The poet died there during a visit in 1889. The frescoes removed from Giandomenico’s villa went on display in Ca ‘Rezzonico in 1936. The palace is also now home to the Museum of 18th Century Venice.

Also on this day:

1580: The death of Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy

1585: The death of Venetian composer Andrea Gabrieli

1860: The birth of New York crime fighter Joe Petrosino

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Francesco Hayez - painter

Artist who pushed boundaries of sensuality

Francesco Hayez, as he appeared
in an 1820s self-portrait

The painter Francesco Hayez, regarded as the father of the Milanese Romanticism movement in the mid-19th century and an artist renowned for his depictions of historical events and for his political allegories, was born on this day in 1791 in Venice.

His father, a fisherman, was French in origin and married a girl from Murano called Chiara Torcello, although they were a relatively poor family and Francesco was largely brought up by his wife’s sister, who had the good fortune to marry Giovanni Binasco, a wealthy ship-owner who dealt in antiques and collected art.

It was Binasco who fostered in Hayez his love of painting and after initially beginning an apprenticeship as an art restorer became a pupil in the studio of the Venetian painter Francesco Maggiotto. He was admitted to the New Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 1806.

Hayez moved to Rome in 1809 after winning a one-year scholarship at the Accademia di San Luca.  In the event, he stayed in Rome until 1814, then moved to Naples where he was commissioned by Joachim Murat, the  French military commander and statesman who was King of Naples under Napoleonic rule, to paint a major work. 

By the mid-1830s, Hayez had become interested in the growing Risorgimento movement, the proponents of which foresaw an Italy liberated from foreign control in which artistic expression could thrive. He moved to Milan, where he met like-minded painters and writers at the Salotto Maffei, the salon hosted by Clara Maffei, whose portrait Maffei's husband commissioned Hayez to paint. 

Hayez's 1867 painting, The destruction
of the Temple of Jerusalem

It was in Milan that he established himself at the centre of intellectual life, being held in such high regard that in 1850 he was appointed director of the Brera Academy, where he remained for the rest of his working life. His pupils included Alessandro Focosi, Angelo Pietrasanta and Francesco Valaperta.

Hayez’s output was substantial and varied throughout his career, from biblical themes to grand works depicting key contemporary political and social figures in settings from Italian history. 

He had a particular penchant for paintings involving semi-clothed Odalisques, a favorite topic of Romantic painters. These women were female attendants in Turkish harems under Ottoman rule but the term came to mean a concubine in western usage, and their depiction in historical works allowed artists the ability to paint scenes that otherwise would not be deemed acceptable in 19th century society.

Later, Hayez focussed more and more on allegorical themes, often with strong patriotic or political connotations.

The allegorical painting, Il bacio, is seen
by some as Hayez's finest work

It was during this phase that he produced one of his most famous works, and one that many of his contemporaries regarded as his best, Il bacio - The Kiss - painted in 1859.

Il bacio is notable first for the passion with which the male figure kisses the woman, one hand at the back of her head while the other caresses her face, a sensual echo of his much earlier work, L'ultimo bacio di Romeo e Giulietta - The Last Kiss of Romeo and Juliet - painted in 1823, in Romeo’s hand on Juliet’s lower back, pulling her closer to him, was seen as somewhat risqué at the time.

It was seen as having a political message, too. Painted at a time when Milan and much of northern Italy was under the control of the Austrian Empire and the Habsburgs, Il bacio was interpreted as showing a young Italian soldier kissing goodbye to his lover before going off to fight for Italy against the Austro-Hungarians. 

This was reinforced in a later version - Hayez is thought to have painted five versions in total - in which the red and green in the male figure’s costume, juxtaposed to a white shawl that has fallen on to some nearby steps, is seen to represent the Italian tricolore, and the blue and white of the woman’s clothing, next to the red of the man’s tights, is taken to represent the French flag, symbolising the alliance between Italy and France that ultimately brought about Italian unification.

Hayez was in demand also for his portraits, often commissioned by the nobility but also by his fellow artists and musicians. In the late stages of his career, he was known to have made use of photographs, sparing his subjects the need to pose for long periods. 

He died in Milan in 1892 at the age of 91.

A canal in Murano, flanked by the examples of
the island's characteristic coloured houses

Travel tip:

Murano, the home of Francesco Hayez’s mother, is a group of islands in the Venetian lagoon about a kilometre across the water from Venice’s northern shore. Like its neighbour, it has a network of canals. Historically a fishing port and a centre for salt production, nowadays it is famous for its multi-coloured houses and glass factories and attracts crowds of tourists, although this does not detract from its charm. The island is proud of its glass-making history, which can be studied at the Museo del Vetro, on Fondamenta Giustinian, but aggressive sales techniques and cheap imports masquerading as Murano glass have sullied its reputation in recent years.

Hotels in Murano by Booking.com

The Palazzo Brera is home to the Milan's
renowned Accademia di Belle Arti

Travel tip:

The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, sometimes shortened to Accademia di Brera, where Francesco Hayez was the director, is now a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Via Brera in Milan, in a building it shares with the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan's main public museum for art, which houses the original version of Il bacio. The academy was founded in 1776 by Maria Theresa of Austria and shared its premises with other cultural and scientific institutions, including an astronomical observatory, botanical garden, school of philosophy and law, laboratories for physics and chemistry, and a library. The main building, the Palazzo Brera, was built in about 1615 to designs by Francesco Maria Richini.

Find a hotel in Milan with Booking.com

More reading:

How Giovanni Mazzini inspired the Risorgimento movement

Baldassare Verazzi, the painter who captured the Five Days of Milan uprising

The 18th century master of frescoes who became court painter to Napoleon

Also on this day:

1482: The death of sculptor Luca della Robbia

1821: The birth of painter Roberto Bompiani

1918: The death of Nobel Prize-winning peace activist Ernesto Teodoro Moneta

1944: The birth of writer and politician Raffaele Lauro

1953: The founding of oil and gas company ENI

1966: The birth of footballer Andrea Silenzi

(Paintings: Hayez's Self-Portrait in a Group of Friends (1824), Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan; The Destruction of The Temple of Jerusalem (1867), Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice; Il bacio (1859), Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan)

(Picture credits: Palazzo Brera by MarkusMark via Wikimedia Commons)

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Baldassare Galuppi – opera composer

Musician from Burano had a talent for comic opera

Galuppi became a major figure
in the evolution of comic opera

The prolific Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi, who worked alongside the playwright Carlo Goldoni, died on this day in 1785 in Venice.

At the height of his career, Galuppi achieved international success, working at different times in Vienna, London and Saint Petersburg, but his main base was Venice, where he held a succession of prestigious posts during his life.

Galuppi was born on the island of Burano in the Venetian lagoon and was sometimes referred to as Il Buranello, a signature he used on his music manuscripts. His father was a barber who also played the violin in an orchestra, and is believed to have been his first music teacher.

At the age of 15, Galuppi wrote his first opera, which was performed at Chioggia and Vicenza. He then became harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.

In the early part of his career, Galuppi was successful in the opera seria genre, but after 1749 many of his operas were comic collaborations with the Venetian dramatist Carlo Goldoni. The most popular of his comic operas was his 1754 composition Il filosofo di campagna – The Country Philosopher.

He was one of the earliest opera composers to use the ensemble finale, in which all the characters appear together in a musical ensemble that carries the action forward to the end of the act. He was regarded as the father of comic opera - opera buffa - by the next generation of composers.

Carlo Goldoni, with whom
Galuppi worked successfully

Galuppi belonged to a group of composers, including Johann Adolph Hasse, Giovanni Battista Sammartini and C P E Bach, whose works all displayed a style of music that developed in Europe after the late Baroque era.

The composer held important positions with charitable and religious organisations in Venice and for these posts he composed a lot of sacred music. His most prestigious appointment was as maestro di cappella at the Doge’s chapel in St Mark’s Basilica. He was also a virtuoso performer and composer of music for keyboard instruments.

In 1741, Galuppi was invited to work in London, where he spent 18 months supervising productions for the Italian opera company at the King’s Theatre. At least four of the operas the company performed had been composed by Galuppi.

On his return to Venice, Galuppi continued to compose for the opera houses, often in partnership with the librettist Pietro Metastasio. He wrote his first comic opera, La forza d’amore in 1745.

He was invited to the court of Maria Theresa in Vienna in 1748, where he composed the music for Metastasio’s libretto Artaserse. He compressed four arias at the end of the first act into a single dramatic ensemble piece, which was seen as a breakthrough that strengthened the relationship of the music to the drama, although Metastasio was reported to have been unimpressed.

The King's Theatre in London's Haymarket,
where Galuppi worked for 18 months

When Galuppi returned to writing comic opera in 1749, he collaborated with Goldoni, who was fortunately happy for his libretti to be subservient to the music. Their joint works became very popular and by the 1750s Galuppi was judged by a music critic to be the most popular composer anywhere.

In 1794, he was summoned to be court composer to Catherine the Great to Saint Petersburg, where he composed both operas and sacred music and gave harpsichord recitals.

On his return to Venice, he continued to be a prolific composer of both operas and sacred music.  His last opera was La serva per amore which premiered in October 1773. In 1782, he conducted concerts to mark the visit to Venice of Pope Pius VI. His last known completed work was the 1784 Christmas mass for St Mark’s.

After Galuppi’s death, his body was buried in the church of San Vitale. The actors from the Teatro San Benedetto sang in a requiem mass for him at the church of Santo Stefano, which was paid for by local professional musicians.

Napoleon’s invasion of Venice in 1795 resulted in Galuppi’s manuscripts being either destroyed, lost or scattered around Europe.

Robert Browning wrote a poem, A Toccata of Galuppi’s, about the composer and his work, but it was not until the end of the 20th century that Galuppi’s compositions were revived in live performances and recordings.

The statue of Galuppi
in Piazza Galuppi

Travel tip:

Burano, where Baldassare Galuppi was born, is an island at the northern end of the Venetian lagoon and is known for its lace work and brightly coloured fishermen’s houses. More than 2,700 people live there and virtually all of the island has been built on, with very little green space. The island can be reached in about 45 minutes from St Mark’s Square in Venice by vaporetto. There is a statue of Galuppi in Piazza Galuppi, the main square. Burano’s church of San Martino has a leaning campanile and a painting of the Crucifixion by Giambattista Tiepolo.

Travel tip:

Baldassare Galuppi was buried in the former church of San Vitale (known as San Vidal) in Venice, although there is no gravestone for the composer there. The church has a 29 metre (94 feet) bell tower, or campanile, which was part of the original 1084 design, although it was rebuilt along with the church after a fire in 1105. The church is at one end of the Campo Santo Stefano and is now used as an event and concert hall.

Also on this day:

106BC: The birth of Cicero, Roman politician and philosopher

1698: The birth of poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio

1920: The birth of singer-songwriter Renato Carosone

1929: The birth of film director Sergio Leone

1952: The birth of politician Gianfranco Fini

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The opening of Venice’s historic Caffè Florian

Meeting place on St Mark’s Square became an institution

The Caffè Florian took its name from its
original owner, Floriano Francesconi

Venice’s famous Caffè Florian opened its doors for the first time on this day in 1720.

Florian’s nowadays occupies a long stretch of the arcades on the southern side of Piazza San Marco, its seats stretching out across the square with a permanent orchestra in residence to entertain clients. Yet the original consisted of just two rooms. 

It was officially given the grand title of Alla Venezia Trionfante (“To Triumphant Venice”), but soon became known as Florian’s after the owner, Floriano Francesconi.

The cafè’s 301-year history makes it the oldest still-active coffee house in Italy and the second oldest in Europe behind the Café Procope in Paris, which was founded in 1686. 

Florian’s soon became a fashionable meeting place for Venetian society, especially its writers. Among its 18th century clientele were the Venetian playwright and librettist Carlo Goldoni and the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, while the writer and adventurer Giacomo Casanova is said to have been regularly seen there, possibly drawn by the cafè’s then-unusual policy of opening its doors to women.

Florian's sits under the arcade on
the southern side of the piazza

When the critic and dramatist Gasparo Gozzi launched his literary magazine Gazzetta Veneta in 1760, Florian’s agreed to help him publicise his venture and sell copies.

Its popularity with writers continued in the 19th century, when the growing number of tourists visiting Venice might have found themselves sitting at the next table to English poet Lord Byron, the French novelist Marcel Proust or the increasingly popular English novelist Charles Dickens. 

Florian’s would remain in family ownership for more than a century. After the death of Floriano, his grandson, Valentino Francesconi, took over the running of the establishment in 1773 - by then expanded to four rooms - and he in turn handed it on to his son, Antonio, in 1810.

In the late 18th century, in the last days of the Republic of Venice, Florian’s was closed on order of the authorities, who were worried that its rooms were being used by would-be revolutionaries encouraged by the uprising in France that had toppled the French court of Louis XVI.  In the event, it was only a matter of months before the army of Napoleon Bonaparte began to support the Venice revolutionaries and the cafè was allowed to re-open.  

Today, Florian’s is known for its sumptuous elegance and for its art, a tradition that stems from its change of hands in 1858, which marked an era of new ownership outside the Francesconi family.  The new proprietors commissioned the architect and designer Lodovico Cadorin to undertake a substantial renovation project.

Cadorin transformed its four rooms, which emerged on the completion of his work as the Sala del Senato (Senate Room), the Sala Greca (Greek Room), the Sala Cinese (Chinese Room) and the Sala Orientale (Oriental Room).

Inside the sumptuously decorated Sala del Senato,
one of Florian's several elegant rooms

The Senate Room was notable for its paintings by Giacomo Casa, mainly themed around the progress of civilisation and science, while both the Chinese and Oriental Rooms were decorated by Antonio Pascuti, whose paintings had an exotic nature inspired by the art of the Far East.

The Sala degli Uomini Illustri (Hall of the Illustrious Men) was decorated by Giulio Carlini with paintings of notable Venetians; Vincenzo Rota’s decorations in the Sala degli Specchi (Hall of Mirrors) represented the four seasons.

Having been suspected of being a centre of revolutionary plotting in the 18th century, Florian’s openly played a part in the upheavals of the 19th century. The Senate Room became a meeting point for Venetian patriots eager to promote the cause of the Risorgimento and was used as a temporary hospital as Venetians fought to expel the occupying forces of Austria from the city in 1866.

More peaceful times followed, and early in the 20th century, Florian’s followed the fashion in central Europe for providing entertainment for its clients with daily concerts, a practice that soon led to the appointment of a resident orchestra. At around the same time, a seventh room was added, given the name of Sala Liberty, decorated in an art nouveau style.

The cafè’s position in the Venetian art world had taken on a new dimension in 1893 when it became home to the Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Contemporanea (International Exhibition of Contemporary Art), known today as the Venice Biennale.  Since 1988, Florian’s has hosted a contemporary art exhibition that takes place every two years in conjunction with the modern Biennale.

Piazza San Marco is often
thronged with visitors

Travel tip:

Piazza San Marco, often known by its English name, St Mark's Square, is Venice’s main public space. It has the distinction of being one of only two squares in Venice to be known as piazza (Piazzale Roma is the other one). All the other open spaces in the city are called campi, campo being the Italian word for field. Along with the Piazzetta, which connects the main Piazza to the waterfront, San Marco has become the religious, political and social centre of the city. It flanks the Basilica di San Marco, the city’s cathedral church, and the Doge’s Palace, which was the traditional seat of government when Venice was an independent state, while also playing host on opposite sides to two of the city’s most famous cafes, Florian and Quadri.  Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have dubbed the square as ‘the drawing room of Europe’.

The gold mosaics that adorn the facade of Basilica
San Marco led it to be nicknamed Chiesa d'Oro

Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Marco is one of the best examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture in existence. Because of its opulent design and gold ground mosaics it became a symbol of Venetian wealth and power and has been nicknamed Chiesa d’Oro (Church of Gold). The spacious interior with its multiple choir lofts inspired the development of the Venetian polychoral style used by the Gabrielis, uncle and nephew, and Claudio Monteverdi. The original church on the site of the basilica may have been built in the ninth century, although the earliest recorded mention was dated 1084. It has been rebuilt several times, the present neoclassical church dating from a rebuilding of 1795-1806, for patrician Pietro Zaguri, by Giannantonio Selva.

Also on this day:

1847: The birth of the sculptor Gaetano Russo

1891: The birth of WW1 flying ace Luigi Olivari

1941: The death of mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita

1966: The birth of footballer Stefano Eranio

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Ludovico Manin - the last Doge of Venice

Surrender to Napoleon ended La Serenissima’s independence 

Ludovico Manin was Doge of Venice
from 1789 until its fall in 1797 

The man who would become the last of Venice’s 120 Doges, Ludovico Giovanni Manin, was born on this day in 1725.

The Doge was the highest political office in Venice, its history going back to the seventh century, when the Venetian Lagoon was a province of the Byzantine (Eastern) Roman Empire and, in common with other provinces, was governed by a Dux (leader).

By the 11th century, when Venice had become an independent republic, the Doge was more of a figurehead, the head of a ruling council, and the title tended to be given to one of the oldest and most respected members of Venetian nobility.

Manin was 64 by the time he was elected but his eight years in post were significant in that they ended with the fall of La Serenissima - as the Venetian Republic was grandly known -its 1,100 years of independence ending with surrender to the French army of Napoleon Bonaparte, who subsequently handed control of the city to Austria.

The eldest of five sons of Lodovico III Alvise and Lucrezia Maria Basadonna, the great-granddaughter of cardinal Pietro Basadonna, Ludovico went straight into public life after completing his studies at the University of Bologna.

At 26 he was elected captain of Vicenza, then of Verona and finally Brescia, before being appointed procurator de ultra of Saint Mark's Basilica in 1764. 

Noted for his generosity, honesty and kindness as a governor, he married Elisabetta Grimani in 1748 but the marriage produced no children. 

The conclave of the Venetian Grand Council at
which Ludovico Manin formally abdicated

Despite his own failing health, he was elected Doge in March, 1789, a few months before the start of the French Revolution. Although Venice was even then regarded as a playground for the rich, its own wealth had been in decline for some years, and Manin had to oversee policies designed to reduce the republic’s financial obligations.

These included cutting the size of Venice’s merchant and military fleets to the degree that when Napoleon’s series of empire-building wars reached Italy, it was clear that Venice would be unable to defend itself.  Manin declined to enter the coalition of Italian states formed to counter Napoleon’s advance in 1795 and Venice declared itself neutral.

However, Napoleon had signed a secret deal with Austria, his most powerful rival for European dominance, to cede control of Venice to Austria in exchange for territories in the Netherlands, which meant he ignored Venice’s neutrality and came after the city anyway.

Manin refused an ultimatum from the French to surrender and on 25 April, 1797, the French fleet arrived at the Lido. Venice responded by sinking one of the French vessels but with only seven warships of their own to call on, the prospects for defending the city were remote and the French needed no second bidding to launch an attack.

The reaction of Manin and the Venetian Grand Council was to pass a motion to dissolve the republic and put the city under French rule.  After all the formalities of the surrender were completed, 4,000 French soldiers entered the city on 16 May and staged a parade in Piazza San Marco - St Mark's Square.

The Manin Chapel at the church
of the Scalzi in Venice

It was a humiliation for Venice, the first time that foreign troops had set foot in the city, but worse was to come. Despite having agreed to hand Venice to the Austrians, Napoleon first wanted to help himself to its treasures and triggered a large-scale looting operation by his troops, who also destroyed what remained of the Venetian fleet and the Venice Arsenal.

Manin, meanwhile, was offered the chance to become interim head of the new Venice but refused, returning the ducal insignia and withdrawing to Palazzo Dolfin Manin, his residence on the Grand Canal.

It was a lonely life. He refused to answer the door even to friends and his meek surrender to the French did not go down well with Venetians, who jeered and insulted him when he ventured out.

Manin died of heart problems in October, 1802. His remains were interred in the family tomb, in a chapel designed by Jacopo Antonio Pozzo, in the Church of the Scalzi in Venice, near the present railway station of Venice Santa Lucia.

The Palazzo Dolfin Manin is now
an office of the Banca d'Italia

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Dolfin Manin, the home of Ludovico Manin, is a 16th century palace on the Grand Canal, a short distance from the Rialto Bridge in the sestiere San Marco. It was built in 1536 for the Dolfin family by the great Florentine architect Jacopo Sansovino, whose work in Venice includes the Biblioteca Marciana, opposite the Doge’s Palace in Piazzetta San Marco, which connects St Mark’s Square with the waterfront. Sansovino created the palace by merging two existing structures and adding a facade in white Istrian stone with a portico of six arches. Inside are works by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, who decorated the palace for the wedding of Ludovico Manin and Elisabetta Grimani. The palace remained in the possession of the Manin family until 1867, when it was bought by the Banca Nazionale del Regno, forerunner of the Banca d’Italia, which still has its Venice headquarters in the building.

The Chiesa degli Scalzi fronts on to
the Grand Canal near the railway station

Travel tip:

The Chiesa degli Scalzi, site of the Manin family tomb and Ludovico’s final resting place, can be found immediately next to Venice’s Santa Lucia railway station, at the foot of the bridge of the same name. Formally known as the church of Santa Maria di Nazareth, it takes its other name from the Carmelite religious order of which it was the seat, the Discalced, which means ‘without shoes’ or ‘scalzi’ in Italian. Designed by Baldassare Longhena, best known for the magnificent Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute at the end of the Grand Canal where it meets the Lagoon, its sumptuous interior includes paintings by Tiepolo and sculptures by Giovanni Maria Morlaiter. The Venetian Late Baroque facade is the work of Giuseppe Sardi, while the statues mounted at various points on the facade were sculpted by Bernardo Falconi.

Also on this day:

1509: The Battle of Agnadello 

1916: The birth of designer Marco Zanuso

1934: The birth of footballer Aurelio Milani

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Loredana Marcello – Dogaressa of Venice

Doge’s wife developed treatments for plague sufferers

Loredana Marcello developed 
treatments for plague in Venice

Loredana Marcello, who became a Dogaressa of Venice as she was the wife of Doge Alvise I Mocenigo, died on this day in 1572.

A scholar and writer, Loredana developed treatments to help people suffering from the horrific symptoms of the plague. These were put to good use during the deadly outbreak that brought Venice to a standstill in 1575, three years after her death.

Loredana was the daughter of Giovanni Alvise Marcello. She received a good education, along with her sisters, Bianca, Daria and Maria. They were all considered by the nobility in Venice to represent the ideal of the educated Renaissance woman.

Loredana wrote letters and poetry and also studied botany, under Melchiorre Giulandino, a custodian of the Botanical Garden of the University of Padua and the first to occupy the chair in botany at the university.

As part of her research into plants, Loredana developed formulas and recipes to help plague sufferers, but unfortunately all her written work has been lost.

She married Alvise I Mocenigo in 1533. He was elected Doge of Venice in 1570 but Loredana’s time living in the Doge’s Palace didn’t last very long as she died on 12 December 1572.

Tintoretto's painting Doge Alvise Mocenigo and
 Family before the Madonna and Child
 

According to John Edgcumbe Stayley in his book The Dogaressas of Venice: The wifes of the Doges, Loredana is remembered as being ‘remarkable for her constancy, both in the experiences of adversity and in the distractions of prosperity, judicious and discreet in the supervision of her household, reverent and charitable in her church duties, benevolent to her relatives and her dependents, in a word, she was a most virtuous and noble Princess.’

It has been suggested Loredana died from the plague herself, but this is not certain.

One of the worst outbreaks of plague in the city’s history began in the summer of 1575, nearly three years after her death, and killed a third of the city’s 170,000 inhabitants before it petered out in the middle of 1577.

The Basilica di San Giovanni e
Paolo, where Loredana is buried

Venice went into lockdown, using similar measures to the ones currently being used to stop the spread of Covid 19.

Preaching and church services were stopped, shops, inns and taverns were closed and people were not allowed to congregate in the streets.

Venice became eerily quiet with vessels going back and forth to the lazzaretti, the plague hospitals out on the islands, being the only traffic seen out in the lagoon.

Although Loredana’s research into plague treatments is now no longer in existence, it went on record that her treatments were used on plague sufferers during this outbreak.

Loredana’s husband was the first of three doges named Alvise Mocenigo.

He became severely depressed after Loredana’s death and committed suicide in 1577 by hanging himself.

He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, the traditional burial place of the doges, in a tomb alongside his wife.

The Doge's Palace occupies a position next to St
Mark's Basilica overlooking the lagoon

Travel tip:

The Doge’s Palace, where Loredana lived for the last two years of her life, was the seat of the Government of Venice and the home of the Doge from the early days of the republic. For centuries this was the only building in Venice entitled to the name palazzo. The others were merely called cà, short for casa. The current palazzo was built in the 12th century in Venetian Gothic style, one side looking out over the lagoon, the other side looking out over the piazzetta that links St Mark’s Square with the waterfront. The palace opened as a museum in 1923 and is now run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

The Botanical Garden of the University of Padua
is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Travel tip:

It is possible that Loredana Marcello may have visited Padua’s Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico) as it was created in 1545. Thought to be the world’s first botanical garden, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The garden, which still belongs to the University of Padua, is in Via Orto Botanico close to Prato della Valle, a main square where there is a tram stop. When it was founded, the garden was devoted to the growth of medicinal plants that could provide natural remedies. The garden was designed by Bergamo architect Andrea Moroni as a circle enclosing a square divided into four quadrants, in which the plants were grown. Normally the Botanical Garden is open to the public every day but it is currently closed due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

Also on this day:

1685: The birth of composer Lodovico Giustini

1889: The death, in Venice, of poet Robert Browning

1901: Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal

1957: The birth of novelist Susana Tamaro

1969: The Piazza Fontana bombing

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Pietro Aretino – writer

Satirist was both admired and feared by the nobility

Pietro Aretino, captured by his friend, the
Venetian painter Titian in around 1545

Poet, playwright and prose writer Pietro Aretino was born on this day in 1492 in Arezzo in Tuscany.

Aretino became famous for his satirical attacks on important figures in society and grew wealthy from the gifts he received from noblemen who feared being exposed by his powerful pen.

Although he was the son of an Arezzo shoemaker, he pretended to be the natural son of a nobleman and took his name from Arretium, the Roman name for Arezzo.

He moved to Perugia while still very young and lived the life of a painter, but in 1517 when he was in his early twenties, Aretino moved on to Rome, where he secured the patronage of the rich banker, Agostino Chigi.

When Pope Leo X's pet elephant, Hanno, died, Aretino wrote a satirical pamphlet, The Last Will and Testament of the Elephant Hanno, cleverly mocking the leading political and religious figures in Rome at the time. This established his fame as a satirist. He then wrote a series of viciously satirical lampoons supporting the candidacy of Giulio de’ Medici for the papacy. Giulio duly became Pope Clement VII in 1523.

Despite being supported by the Pope and his patron, Chigi, Aretino was finally forced to leave Rome because of writing a collection of ‘lewd sonnets’, sonetti lussuriosi, in 1524.

The painter Titian became a good friend
and supporter of Aretino

By 1527 Aretino had settled in Venice where he was admired but also feared by those in power and he received enough money to be able to live in a grand - albeit dissolute - style.

He became a close friend of the painter Titian and sold paintings on Titian’s behalf to Francis I, the King of France.

Titian’s portrait of Aretino, painted in around 1545, shows him wearing a gold chain that he had received as a gift from the King of France.

It is claimed Francis I of France and Charles V of Spain both paid him a pension at the same time, each hoping he would damage the reputation of the other.

Aretino wrote six volumes of letters that were published from 1537 onwards which reveal his cynicism and justify the name he gave to himself, ‘flagello dei principe’ - scourge of princes.

He was particularly vicious in his attack on Romans, not forgetting that they had forced him to move to Venice. In his Ragionamenti - Discussions - written between 1534 and 1536, Roman prostitutes reveal to each other the moral failings of many of the important men in the city and in his Dialogues, he examines the carnality and corruption among Romans at the time.

Aretino’s dramas present well observed pictures of lower-class life, free from the conventions that burdened other contemporary dramas. The best known is Cortigiana - The Courtesan - published in 1534, a lively and amusing insight into the life of the lower classes in Rome.

Aretino captured in another portrait
by Titian, painted in 1512

Aretino also wrote a tragedy, Orazia, published in 1546, which has been judged to be the best Italian tragedy written in the 16th century.

Pietro Aretino died in 1556 in Venice aged 64. It was claimed at the time that he either suffocated because he could not stop laughing, or fell backwards and hit his head while laughing.

He was buried in the Church of San Luca, which lies between St Mark’s Square and the Rialto bridge in Venice.

In 2007, the composer Michael Nyman set some of Aretino’s Sonetti lussoriosi to music under the title 8 Lust Songs. Aretino’s texts again caused controversy when the songs were performed in London in 2008 as the printed programmes containing extracts had to be withdrawn after there were allegations of obscenity.

The interior of the 13th century Basilica di San Francesco
in Piazza San Francesco in the heart of Arezzo

Travel tip:

Arezzo, where Pietro Aretino was born and acquired his surname, is an interesting old town in eastern Tuscany, which was used as the location for the 1997 film Life Is Beautiful. One of the scenes in the film took place in front of the Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla, a medieval abbey. Right in the centre of the town, the 13th century Basilica di San Francesco in Piazza San Francesco is the most famous sight in Arezzo and attracts many visitors as it contains Piero della Francesco’s cycle of frescoes, The Legend of the True Cross, painted between 1452 and 1466 and considered to be his finest work.

The church of San Luca in Venice, which can be found
between Piazza San Marco and the Rialto bridge

Travel tip:

Pietro Aretino was buried in the Church of San Luca close to Salizzada San Luca in the St Mark’s sestiere of Venice. On his tombstone was the epitaph: ‘Here lies Aretino, poet Tosco, that everyone spoke poorly about, except Christ, who apologised saying: ‘I do not know him.’’ This inscription was later removed, either by the Inquisition, or during restoration work on the floor of the church in the 18th century. It is claimed many journalists, writers and non-believers used to visit the church looking for Aretino’s tomb. On either side of the altar there used to be paintings from the 16th century, in which Aretino was portrayed as part of the crowd. It has been claimed that the paintings were removed by one of the priests in the 19th century to discourage the interest and they have still not been put back.

Also on this day:

1317: The death of Sant’Agnese of Montepulciano

1949: The birth of Massimo D’Alema, Italy’s first Communist prime minister

1951: The death of anti-Fascist politician Ivanoe Bonomi


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Domenico Grimani - cardinal and art collector

Owned works by Da Vinci, Titian and Raphael among others

Lorenzo Lotto's portrait of Cardinal Domenico
Grimani, painted in the 16th century

The Venetian cardinal Domenico Grimani, whose vast art collection now forms part of the Museo d'Antichità in the Doge's Palace in Venice, was born on this day in 1461.

Grimani acquired works among others by Italian Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgione, Titian and Raphael, as well as by Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch, two of the great Early Netherlandish painters of the 15th century.

He also owned the illustrated manuscript that became known as the Grimani Breviary, produced in Ghent and Bruges between 1510 and 1520, which is considered one of the most important  works of Flemish art from the Renaissance period. 

Gerard David, Gerard Horenbout, Simon Bening and other illustrators contributed to the work, which was acquired by Grimani for 500 gold ducats, and subsequently bequeathed to the Venetian Republic.  It is now housed in the Biblioteca Marciana, opposite the Doge’s Palace.

Domenico also began the collection of Greek and Roman antiquities that was subsequently expanded by his nephew, Giovanni, and now kept in the Palazzo Grimani museum, near Campo Santa Maria Formosa in the Castello District.

Grimani's father, Antonio, a wealthy
merchant who became Doge of Venice

Grimani was the eldest of five sons of Antonio Grimani, a merchant who had grown wealthy through the spice trade and would be elected as the oldest Doge of Venice in 1521 at the age of 87. His mother was Catarina Loredan, who came from another noble Venetian family.

After showing an early interest in humanist studies, Domenico moved to the Medicean academy in Florence, where he became part of the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici and associated with scholars such as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano. He obtained a doctorate in canon law at the University of Padua in 1487 and was elected a Senator of Venice that same year.

He became a cardinal in 1493, an appointment paid for by his father. He was not ordained a priest until 1498, becoming cardinal priest of San Marco after the election of Pope Julius II in 1503.

Other titles he held during his life included apostolic administrator in Nicosia, Patriarch of Aquileia, cardinal bishop of Albano, administrator of the diocese of Urbino and Bishop of Ceneda.

He died in 1523. Initially buried in the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Rome, his remains were later moved to San Francesco della Vigna in Venice.

In addition to his fascination with art and antiquities, which began when he stumbled upon buried Roman remains while building a villa and a vineyard in Rome, Domenico also wrote several theological treatises.

The entrance to the Palazzo Grimani in
Venice, which now houses a museum

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Grimani was built at the confluence of the canals of San Severo and Santa Maria Formosa. Purchased by Antonio Grimani, it was  passed on as a legacy to his grandsons Vettore Grimani, Procurator de Supra for the Venetian Republic, and Giovanni Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia, who refurbished the old structure inspired by architectural models taken from classicism. In 1558, at the death of Vettore, Giovanni became the sole owner of the building, in which he set up his collection of antiques, including sculptures, marbles, vases, bronzes and gems.  Until 1865, the palace was the property of the Santa Maria Formosa branch of the Grimani family but it later deteriorated and passed through several owners until it was bought by the city in 1981. After a long period of restoration, it was opened to the public in December 2008.

The Piazzetta San Marco, with the Doge's Palace on the
left and the Biblioteca Marciana opposite

Travel tip:

The Doge’s Palace - Palazzo Ducale in Italian - is the former seat of the Government of Venice and the home of the Doge from the early days of the republic. For centuries this was the only building in Venice entitled to the name palazzo. The others were merely called Cà, short for Casa. The current palazzo was built in the 12th century in Venetian Gothic style, one side looking out over the lagoon, the other side looking out over the piazzetta that links St Mark’s Square with the waterfront. It opened as a museum in 1923 and is now run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.  The Biblioteca Marciana sits opposite, across the Piazzetta.

Also on this day:

1743: The birth of composer Luigi Boccherini

1953: The birth of actor and director Massimo Troisi

1977: The birth of opera singer Vittorio Grigolo


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Robert Browning – English poet

Writer who called Italy his ‘university’

Robert Browning pictured in 1888, about
 a year before he died in Venice,  aged 77

Victorian poet and playwright Robert Browning died on this day in 1889 at his son’s home, Ca’ Rezzonico, a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice.

Browning was considered one of the most important Victorian poets, who had made contributions to social and political debate through his work, and he was given the honour of being buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

The poet’s early career had begun promisingly with his work being well received by the critics, but his long poem, Sordello, produced in 1840, was judged to be wilfully obscure and it was to take many years for his reputation to recover.

In 1846 Browning secretly married the poet, Elizabeth Barrett, who was six years older than him and had been living the life of an invalid in her father’s house in London. A few days later they went to live in Italy, leaving their families behind in England forever.

Elizabeth’s poetry became increasingly popular and after the death of Wordsworth in 1850 she was considered as a serious contender to become the next Poet Laureate. However, the position eventually went to Alfred Tennyson.

The Brownings lived in Pisa at first but then moved to Florence, where they lived in an apartment in a 15th century house, Casa Guidi, in the Oltrarno district.

A younger Robert Browning in a portraint by
 Italian painter Michele Gordigiani in 1858

Their only child, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, who they nicknamed Penini, or Pen, was born to them in 1849.

Browning became fascinated with the art and cultural environment of Italy and would in later life describe the country as his ‘University’.

While Elizabeth continued to write and achieved fame through her poetry, Browning’s own work was still being dismissed by other writers and critics.

While in Florence, Browning worked on the poems that would eventually comprise his two-volume Men and Women, for which he is now well known.

But in 1855 when they were first published they made little impact.

When Elizabeth’s health began to deteriorate, the Brownings moved to the Villa Alberti in Siena.

They moved to Rome in 1860, but when Elizabeth’s health became worse they returned to Florence. Elizabeth died in Browning’s arms in June 1861, aged 55. She was buried in a white marble tomb, designed by Frederic, Lord Leighton, in the protestant English Cemetery of Florence.

Now a widower, Browning returned to London with his 12-year-old son, Pen. Through years of hard work he gradually built up his reputation again and became part of the London literary scene.

A portrait of Robert Browning painted by
his son, Pen, in aroud 1882

In 1868, after five years of intensive writing, he published The Ring and the Book, his most ambitious project,and considered by some to be his greatest work. The poem was a commercial and critical success and brought him the recognition he had long been hoping for.

In his later years, Browning travelled frequently to Italy, finding peace and inspiration in the small hilltop town of Asolo in the Veneto. However, he never visited Florence again.

After one last visit to Asolo in the summer of 1889, Browning, accompanied by his sister, Sarianna, travelled to Venice to visit Pen and his wife at the end of October.

Pen, who had by then become a successful painter, had recently bought and renovated Ca’ Rezzonico.

Browning would spend the mornings at the Lido, the afternoons visiting his friend, Katharine Bronson, at her residence Ca’ Alvisi, and the evenings at Ca’ Rezzonico with his family.

In December, Browning became unwell and was diagnosed with bronchitis and a weak heart.

On December 12 he received the news that his last volume of poetry, Asolando, had sold out on the same day it was published. Browning knew there was an advertisement for a new edition of Mrs Browning’s poetry on the back of the book.  He told his son he was ‘more than satisfied’ and died a few hours later. He was 77 years old.

The elegant Ca' Rezzonico on the Grand Canal
in Venice, which Browning's son, Pen, owned

A private funeral service was held in the sala (dining room) of Ca’ Rezzonico.

At the end of the service, eight pompieri (firemen) in blue uniforms and brass helmets, carried Browning’s body downstairs and on to a municipal barge, which conveyed the poet to the chapel on San Michele, the ‘isle of the dead’.

Two days later, Browning’s manservant escorted the coffin back to London by train.

On 31 December 1889, Browning was conveyed to Westminster Abbey along a route lined by thousands of people for a service, followed by an interment in Poets Corner, where he now lies surrounded by the great names of literature.

Casa Guidi in Florence, which has now
been converted into a study centre

Travel tip:

A plaque marks Casa Guidi, the home of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband Robert Browning in Piazza di San Felice in the Oltrarno district of Florence. The Brownings lived in the piano nobile apartment between 1847 and 1862. The New York Browning Society restored the apartment and then gave it to Eton College to be converted into a study centre. Casa Guidi is open to the public on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 3-6pm between April and November.

The main square - Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi - at Asolo in
the Veneto, which Browning made his home

Travel tip:

Robert Browning’s beloved Asolo is a hilltop town in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is known as ‘the pearl of the province of Treviso’ and also as ‘the city of a hundred horizons’ because of its beautiful views over the countryside and the mountains. Browning published Asolando, a volume of poetry written in the town, in 1889 just before his death. The main road leading into the town is named Via Browning in his honour. One of the main sights is the Castle of Caterina Cornaro, which now houses the Eleonora Duse Theatre.

Also on this day:

1685: The birth of composer Lodovico Giustini

1901: Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal

1957: The birth of author Susanna Tamaro

1969: The Piazza Fontana bombing kills 17


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