Tintoretto – painter

Dyer’s son whose work still adorns Venice

Tintoretto: this 1548 self-portrait is housed
 in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Renaissance artist Tintoretto died on this day in 1594 in Venice.

Known for his boundless energy, the painter was also sometimes referred to as Il Furioso.

His paintings are populated by muscular figures, make bold use of perspective and feature the colours typical of the Venetian school.

Tintoretto was an expert at depicting crowd scenes and mythological subjects and during his successful career received important commissions to produce paintings for the Scuola Grande di San Marco and the Scuolo Grande di San Rocco.

Tintoretto was born Jacopo Comin, the son of a dyer (tintore), which earned him the nickname Tintoretto, meaning 'little dyer'.

He was also sometimes known as Jacopo Robusti as his father had defended the gates of Padua against imperial troops in a way that was described as ‘robust’ at the time.

As a child, Tintoretto daubed on his father’s walls so the dyer took him to the studio of Titian to see if he could be trained as an artist.

Things did not work out and Tintoretto was quickly sent home. Although Tintoretto later claimed to be an admirer of Titian, the famous artist remained distant towards him so Tintoretto studied on his own and practised his technique day and night.

One of Tintoretto’s early pictures, which is still in the Church of the Carmine in Venice, is the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, one of Tintoretto's
 early works, can be found in the Church of the Carmine

He then painted four subjects from Genesis and, two of these, Adam and Eve and The Death of Abel, are now in the Accademia Museum in Venice.

In 1546 he painted three of his major works, The Worship of the Golden Calf, The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple and The Last Judgement, for the Church of Madonna dell’Orto in Canareggio.

Then in 1548 he was commissioned for four pictures about the life of St Mark for the Scuola Grande di San Marco. From 1565 onwards Tintoretto produced many paintings for the walls and ceilings of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

The last important picture painted by Tintoretto was a vast canvas entitled Paradise, which takes up an entire wall of the Great Council Chamber in the Doge’s Palace. A painted sketch of it is also in the Louvre in Paris.

In May 1594, after suffering severe stomach pains and fever, Tintoretto died aged 75 and was buried in the Church of Madonna dell’Orto.

The Church of the Madonna dell'Orto in
Venice, where Tintoretto is buried

Travel tip:

The Church of Madonna dell’Orto in Cannaregio, where Tintoretto is buried, is one of the finest Gothic churches in Venice. In his painting, The Adoration of the Golden Calf on the left wall, the figure carrying the calf is said to represent Tintoretto himself.

Travel tip:

Tintoretto lived with his family in a house near the Church of Madonna dell’Orto overlooking the Fondamento dei Mori from 1574 till his death in 1594. He was born, lived and died in Cannaregio and is believed to have left Venice only once in his life.

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Giacomo Matteotti - martyr of freedom

Politician kidnapped and murdered by Fascist thugs

Giacomo Matteotti

A brave and historic speech made in the Italian parliament on this day in 1924 marked the start of a crisis for Benito Mussolini's Fascist government.

The young socialist politician who delivered the speech, denouncing the Fascist victory in the general election held in April of that year as having been won through fraud and violence, was subsequently kidnapped and murdered.

Giacomo Matteotti, the 29-year-old founder and leader of the Unified Socialist Party, accused Mussolini's party of employing thugs to intimidate the public into voting Fascist and said that changes to electoral law were inherently corrupt in that they were framed to make a Mussolini government almost inevitable.

Matteotti, who had already written a controversial book about the Fascists' rise to power, knew the risk he took in making the speech and is said to have told colleagues they should "get ready to hold a wake for me" as they offered him their congratulations.

Less than two weeks later, on June 10, Matteotti was walking along the banks of the River Tiber close to his home in Rome when he was attacked by five or six assailants who beat him up and bundled him into a car.  He tried to escape but was repeatedly stabbed with a sharply pointed carpenter's wood file.

Matteotti's body was not discovered until August 16, buried in a shallow grave near Riano, about 30 kilometres outside Rome, but witnesses identified the car, which was found bloodstained and abandoned a few days after he was taken.  Arrests soon followed, with the kidnap gang revealed to be members of Mussolini's secret police, the Ceka.

There was public outrage at the murder, especially over the implication that Mussolini had ordered it himself, not only on account of the May 30 speech but because Matteotti was thought to have uncovered evidence that an American oil company was funding the Fascists in return for exclusive rights to Italy's oil reserves.

Giacomo Matteotti is commemorated in the name of a
square in Bergamo in Lombardy

Opposition politicians refused to attend the Chamber of Deputies and demanded that the King, Victor Emmanuel III, dismissed Mussolini from power.  But the monarch, anxious not to expose the country to possible civil war and wary, in any case, of the republican leanings of the socialists, declined to do so.

Already under pressure from extremists in his party to abandon all pretence to democracy and impose a dictatorship on the country, Mussolini saw the king's backing as a chance to strengthen his grip.

He made a speech accepting broad responsibility for Matteotti's death as head of the Fascist party while at the same time challenging his opponents to prosecute him if they thought he was directly linked to the crime.

When they failed to do so, he began to introduce laws that would ultimately outlaw any form of opposition to the Fascist regime, marking the start of totalitarian rule.

Three of the kidnappers were jailed, although Victor Emmanuel subsequently granted them amnesty. Retried after the Second World War, the three were sentenced again to 30 years in prison, although in none of the trials could it be proved that they acted on Mussolini's direct orders.

Matteotti's body, meanwhile, had been returned to his home town of Fratta Polesine, just outside Rovigo in the Veneto region, where he had enjoyed a comfortable upbringing in a wealthy family, his interest in left-wing politics taking hold after he had left to study law at the University of Bologna. He is buried in the family crypt.

Façade of the Villa Badoer in Fratta Polesine

Travel tip:

A village of fewer than 3,000 inhabitants, Fratta Polesine is notable for the Villa Badoer, built between 1557 and 1563 by the architect Andrea Palladio for a Venetian nobleman, and the first to feature the temple-like façade that would become Palladio's hallmark.

Travel tip:

Matteotti's memory is preserved in streets and squares named in his honour all over Italy, one example being the Piazza Giacomo Matteotti in in Bergamo, the elegant city north of Milan in Lombardy, where the street sign describes him as Martire della Libertà - martyr of freedom.

More reading:

Antonio Gramsci - the Communist leader Mussolini could not gag

Benito Mussolini and the founding of the Italian Fascists

The death of Mussolini

Victor Emmanuel III abdicates

(Photo of Villa Badoer by Marcok CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Katie Boyle – actress and television presenter

Daughter of Italian Marquis became the face of Eurovision

Katie Boyle, pictured presenting the 1974
Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton

Television personality Katie Boyle was born Caterina Irene Maria Imperiali di Francavilla on this day in 1926 in Florence.

The actress, who became known for her appearances on panel games such as What’s My Line?, and also for presenting the Eurovision Song Contest on the BBC, died in 2018 at the age of 91.

She was the daughter of an Italian Marquis, the Marchese Imperiali di Francavilla, and his English wife, Dorothy Kate Ramsden.

At the age of 20, Caterina moved from Italy to the UK to begin a modelling career and she went on to appear in several 1950s films.

In 1947 she had married Richard Bentinck Boyle, the ninth Earl of Shannon, and although the marriage was dissolved in 1955, she kept the surname, Boyle, throughout her career.

Boyle was an on screen continuity announcer for the BBC in the 1950s and then became a television personality who regularly appeared on panel games and quiz programmes.

She was the presenter of the 1960, 1963, 1968 and 1974 Eurovision Song Contests, impressing viewers with her range of European languages.

Boyle has also worked in the theatre and on radio and has been an agony aunt for the TV Times.

She was later married to Greville Baylis, a racehorse owner, who died in 1976, and Sir Peter Saunders, a theatre impresario, who died in 2002.

The Ponte Vecchio in Florence, one of the city's
most famous sights, was built in 1345

Travel tip:

One of the most famous sights in Boyle’s birthplace of Florence is the Ponte Vecchio, built in 1345 and the oldest bridge remaining in the city. The medieval workshops inhabited by butchers and blacksmiths were eventually given to goldsmiths and are still inhabited by jewellers today. The private corridor over the shops was designed by the architect, Vasari, to link the Palazzo Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti, via the Uffizi, allowing the ruling family, the Medici, to move about between their residences without having to walk through the streets.

Travel tip:

Work on the Uffizi in Florence began in 1560 to create a suite of offices (uffici) for the new administration of Cosimo I dè Medici. The architect, Vasari, created a wall of windows on the upper storey and from about 1580, the Medici began to use this well-lit space to display their art treasures, which was the start of one of the oldest and most famous art galleries in the world. The present day Uffizi Gallery, in Piazzale degli Uffizi, is open from 8.15 am to 6.50 pm from Tuesday to Sunday.

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The Last Supper goes back on display

Leonardo’s masterpiece put on show again at last

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, as it appears on the wall
 of the refectory of the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie

After more than 20 years of careful restoration, the world famous wall painting by Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, was put back on display for visitors on this day in 1999.

The masterpiece, which shows the different expressions on the faces of the disciples at the moment Jesus says the words, ‘One of you will betray me’, was finally back where it belonged on the wall of the refectory of the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

Commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, Leonardo began work on The Last Supper (known as Il Cenacolo in Italian) in 1495 and he completed it four years later. He felt traditional fresco painting techniques would not adequately capture the intensity he wanted so he experimented by painting on to dry plaster on the wall of the refectory.

But his new method was not as durable as the traditional one and the painting deteriorated quickly. By as early as 1556, the painting was described by one commentator as ‘ruined’.

Over the ensuing years it suffered from poor restoration techniques, blatant vandalism by French soldiers, having a doorway cut into it to provide a shortcut for the monks, and wartime bomb damage. Sadly, by 1978 only a small part of Leonardo’s original work remained.

A restoration project was mounted to reverse the damage and the refectory was sealed and converted to provide a climate-controlled environment for the painting.

Using the latest techniques, the restoration team slowly removed everything that had been added after Leonardo completed the painting in 1498. Then the areas that couldn’t be repaired were repainted in subdued colours so that they could be distinguished from the original painting.

After more than 20 years of restoration, which was four times longer than it took Leonardo to paint it originally, The Last Supper was again revealed for visitors to marvel at on 28 May, 1999.

The refectory has since remained a protected environment and the number of visitors inside at any one time is carefully restricted.

The Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, where
Leonardo painted The Last Supper between 1495 and 1499

Travel tip:

Santa Maria delle Grazie is a church and Dominican convent in Milan. It is necessary to book in advance to see Leonardo’s masterpiece on the wall of the refectory. Entrance is limited to 25 people at a time for a maximum stay of 15 minutes. For more details visit www.cenacolo.it 

Travel tip:

A portrait of a man in red chalk in the Royal Library, Biblioteca Reale, in Turin is widely accepted to be a self portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, drawn when he was about 60 years of age. The library, on the ground floor of the Royal Palace in Piazzetta Reale, was founded in 1840 to hold the many rare manuscripts collected by members of the House of Savoy over the years.

(Photo of Church exterior by MarkusMark CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Bruno Vespa – television journalist

TV host opened the door to late night political debate

Television presenter Bruno Vespa

Bruno Vespa, the founding host of the television programme Porta a Porta, was born on this day in 1944 in L’Aquila in Abruzzo.

Vespa, who celebrates his 72nd birthday today, has fronted the late night television talk show, which literally means ‘Door to Door’ in English, since Italy's state broadcaster RAI launched the programme in 1996.

Vespa became a radio announcer with RAI when he was 18 and began hosting the news programme Telegiornale RAI a few years later.  He had begun his career in journalism by writing sports features for the L’Aquila edition of the newspaper, Il Tempo, when he was just 16 years old.

On television, he became well known for interviewing influential world figures just before they became famous, an example being his programme featuring Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the year before he was elected as Pope John Paul II.

In June 1984, Vespa was official commentator for the live televised broadcast of the state funeral for Enrico Berlinguer, the former leader of the Italian Communist party.

Italian Prime Minster Matteo Renzi has appeared on
Vespa's Porta a Porta show on a number of occasions

Vespa has won awards for his journalism and television programmes and has also written many books.

Since he began presenting Porta a Porta, much of Italy’s political debate has taken place on the programme. The late night slot on RAI Uno is sometimes referred to sarcastically as ‘the third house’ after the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Travel tip:

L’Aquila, where Bruno Vespa was born, is the capital city of the Abruzzo region. The city is set within medieval walls on a hill and has many fascinating, narrow streets lined with Baroque and Renaissance buildings and churches to explore.

The Piazza Duomo in L'Aquila

Travel tip:

RAI, which is short for Radio- televisione Italiana, is Italy’s national public broadcasting company. RAI’s main headquarters are in Viale Giuseppe Mazzini, just north of Vatican City in Rome.

(Photo of Bruno Vespa by Roberto Vicario CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of L'Aquila by Ra Boe CC BY-SA 2.5)

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Napoleon becomes King of Italy

French Emperor places Iron Crown of Lombardy on his own head

Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Italian
artist Andrea Appiani in 1805

Napoleon Bonaparte was declared King of Italy on this day in 1805 in Milan.

He crowned himself at a ceremony in the Duomo using the Iron Crown of Lombardy.

The title King of Italy signified that Napoleon was the head of the new Kingdom of Italy, which was at that time a vassal state of the French Empire. The area controlled by Napoleon had previously been known as a republic, with Napoleon as its president.

But Napoleon had become the Emperor of France the year before and had decided Italy should become a Kingdom ruled by himself, or a member of his family.

Before the ceremony, the Iron Crown had to be fetched from Monza. The crown consisted of a circlet of gold with a central iron band, which according to legend was beaten out of a nail from Christ’s true cross, found by Saint Helena in the Holy Land. The crown is believed to have been given to the city of Monza in the sixth century.

During his coronation, Napoleon is reported to have picked up the precious relic, announced that God had given it to him, and placed it on his own head.

After the coronation there were celebratory fireworks in Milan and over the next few days there were horse races, public amusements in the streets and parks, and a grand concert and ball.

The new King appointed his stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais, as his viceroy in Italy. De Beauharnais was Josephine’s son from her previous marriage. Napoleon also later gave him the title of Prince of Venice.

The new Kingdom of Italy lasted till 1814 when Napoleon had to abdicate from the thrones of both France and Italy and go into exile on the island of Elba.

The magnificent Duomo in Milan, where Napoleon
proclaimed himself as King of Italy in 1805

Travel tip:


Construction of the Duomo in Milan began in 1386 using marble brought into the city along the Navigli canals. Although it was consecrated as a Cathedral in 1418, building work was not finally completed until the 19th century when Napoleon had the façade finished before his coronation.

Travel tip:

The Iron Crown of Lombardy is kept in a chapel in the Cathedral of Saint John in Monza, a city about nine miles to the north east of Milan. Monza is now also famous for its Grand Prix motor racing circuit, the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, which hosts the Formula One Italian Grand Prix.

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Enrico Berlinguer - Communist politician

Popular leader turned left-wing party into political force

Enrico Berlinguer

Enrico Berlinguer, who for more than a decade was Western Europe's most powerful and influential Communist politician, was born on this day in 1922 in the Sardinian city of Sassari.

As secretary-general of the Italian Communist Party from March 1972 until his death in 1984, he led the largest Communist movement outside the Eastern Bloc, coming close to winning a general election in 1976.

He achieved popularity by striving to establish the Italian Communists as a political force that was not controlled from Moscow, pledging a commitment to democracy, a parliamentary system, a mixed economy, and Italian membership of the Common Market and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

At its peak, Berlinguer's Westernized brand of Communism appealed to nearly a third of Italian voters.  His policies were adopted by other left-wing parties in Europe under what became known as Eurocommunism. 

As support for the previously dominant Christian Democrats waned in the 1970s, he proposed a ''historic compromise'' with other parties, rejecting the traditional left-wing vision of violent revolution, and declared that the Italian Communists would be happy to enter into a coalition with Christian Democrats and others.

In fact, in the elections of 1976, at a time when Italy faced economic collapse, Berlinguer's Communists came close to winning power in their own right, polling 34 per cent of the vote.  The Christian Democrats prevailed with 38 per cent but needed the support of some groups on the extreme right to do so.

The result sent shock waves across the Atlantic.  Political leaders in America, in particular Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, regarded Italy as a bulwark against the Eastern Bloc and were alarmed that the Italian Communists had been so close to power.

This cover of Time magazine reflected disquiet
 in the United States at Berlinguer's success

Despite his failure to become Prime Minister, Berlinguer remained one of Italy's foremost politicians. The Christian Democrats had to rely on Communist support to pass legislation and Berlinguer was thereby in a position to influence policy.

His party membership grew to 1.7 million and its success in local elections meant the Communists effectively governed nearly half of the Italian population anyway, controlling Rome and many of the major northern cities, including Turin, Milan, Bologna, Florence and Venice.

Berlinguer was born into a middle-class Sardinian family of noble descent yet the politics of his father Mario, a lawyer, leaned heavily towards the left. A socialist deputy and later senator, he was acquainted with a number of Communist leaders, including Antonio Gramsci and Palmiro Togliatti. The latter became Enrico Berlinguer's political mentor.

Having become a Communist Party member in 1943, Berlinguer was put in charge of the Young Communists in his home town of Sassari. He was arrested and jailed in 1944 after taking part in demonstrations against the Fascist regime.

Released after three months, he resumed his role as an organizer of communist youth, first in Milan and then Rome. He became a member of the party’s Central Committee in 1945 and the party executive in 1948.

He was elected to the Italian parliament in 1968, becoming the party's deputy secretary-general a year later and replacing Luigi Longo, an old-style Communist who had become the party leader after Togliatti's death in 1964, as secretary-general in March 1972.

Married with three children and fiercely protective of his private life, Berlinguer died in June 1984 aged only 62, having suffered a stroke while delivering a speech in Padua and never regaining consciousness.

Sassari's Piazza d'Italia is an example of the city's
elegant neoclassical architecture

Travel tip:

The second largest city in Sardinia, with a population of more than 125,000, Sassari is rich in art, culture and history.  It is well known for beautiful palazzi, the Fountain of the Rosello, and its elegant neoclassical architecture, such as Piazza d'Italia and the Teatro Civico.

Travel tip:

Padua - Padova in Italian - is a city in the Veneto region of northern Italy, best known for the frescoes by Giotto that adorn the Scrovegni Chapel and for the vast 13th-century Basilica of St. Anthony.

(Photo of Piazza d'Italia in Sassari by Gianni Careddu CC BY-SA 4.0)

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