Death of Pope Julius II

Pope who commissioned Michelangelo for Sistine Chapel

Raphael's portrait of Pope Julius II, which
is housed in the National Gallery in London

Pope Julius II, who was nicknamed ‘the Warrior Pope’, died on this day in 1513 in Rome.

As well as conducting military campaigns during his papacy he was responsible for the destruction and rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica and commissioning Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

He is also remembered by students of British history as being the Pope who gave Henry VIII dispensation to marry Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow.

Born Giuliano della Rovere, he was the nephew of Francesco della Rovere, who became Pope Sixtus IV.

His uncle sent him to be educated by the Franciscans and he was made a Bishop soon after his Uncle became Pope.

He later became Cardinal Priest of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome and was very influential in the College of Cardinals.

One of his major rivals was Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who was elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492. After accusing him of corruption, Della Rovere retreated from Rome until Alexander died in 1503.

He was succeeded by Pope Pius III who died less than a month after becoming Pope and Della Rovere was finally elected as Pope Julius II in November 1503.

Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Julius ordered all traces of the Borgias to be removed or covered up and their apartments remained sealed till the 19th century.

He fought to rid the Romagna of the Republic of Venice and freed Perugia and Bologna from the despots that were ruling them.

He also founded the Swiss Guard to provide a constant supply of soldiers to protect the Pope.

Julius joined in the Italian Wars in league with France and Spain to take territory back from Venice but his allies later switched sides and little was gained from his efforts.

Julius II remained Pope for nine years until he died of fever in 1513.

When Henry VIII later asked for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to be annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, he claimed that Pope Julius II should never have issued the dispensation to allow him to marry his sister in law. But the Pope at the time, Clement VII, refused to annul the marriage so Henry VIII divorced the Catholic Church instead, leading to the English Reformation.

During his time as Pope, Julius II had ordered the old St Peter’s Basilica to be demolished and commissioned the building of the new church that was to replace it. He was also a patron of Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo.

The remains of Pope Julius II lie with those of his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, under the floor in St Peter’s Basilica.

The chains said to have bound St Peter are on
display in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli

Travel tip:

The Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, St Peter in Chains, near the Colosseum in Rome, was the church where Julius was Cardinal. The Church is a shrine for the chains that are believed to have bound St Peter during his imprisonment. It is also the home of Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses, completed in 1515. This was originally intended to be part of a funeral monument for Pope Julius II, but his remains were interred in St Peter’s Basilica instead.


Travel tip:

The Sistine Chapel 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, created by the artist lying on his back, depicts scenes from Genesis in bright colours that are easily visible from the floor and cover more than 400 square metres.


More reading: 

Alexander VI, the scheming Borgia pope

The death of Michelangelo

The precocious genius of Raphael

Also on this day:

1609: The birth of military leader Raimondo Montecuccoli

1817: The birth of chocolatier Domenico Ghirardelli

1868: The death of painter and revolutionary Giuseppe Abbati

(Picture credits: Michelangelo portrait painted by Jacopino del Conte; San Pietro chains by Raja Patnaik; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Laura Bassi – scientist

Ground-breaking academic paved the way for women

A portrait of the physicist Laura Bassi,
thought to have been painted in 1732

Brilliant physicist Laura Bassi died on this day in 1778 in Bologna.

She had enjoyed a remarkable career, becoming the first woman to earn a Chair in Science at a university anywhere in the world.

When she was just 13 her family’s physician had recognised her potential and took charge of her education.

When she was 20 he invited philosophers from the University of Bologna along with the Archbishop of Bologna, who later became Pope Benedict XIV, to examine her progress.

They were all impressed and Bassi was admitted to the Bologna Academy of Sciences as an honorary member, the first female ever to be allowed to join.

Her theses at the university showed influences of Isaac Newton’s work on optics and light. She was a key figure in introducing his ideas about physics to Italy.

When she received her degree from the university there was a public celebration in Bologna.

Another of her theses about the property of water led to her being awarded the post of Professor of Physics at the university.

As a woman, she was not allowed to teach at the university so she gave lessons and did experiments in her own home.

She was appointed to the Chair of experimental physics at Bologna University in 1776.

She died two years later, having made physics a lifelong career and broken new ground for women in academic circles.

A street in Bologna and a crater on Venus are named after her.

The Basilica of San Petronio in the centre of
Bologna, where Laura Bassi married

Travel tip:

Laura Bassi married Giovanni Giuseppe Veratti, a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Bologna  in 1738 at the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna. A street in the city to the south of the university is now named Via Laura Bassi Veratti in honour of her.

Bologna hotels by Booking.com

Travel Tip:

The Basilica di San Petronio, where Laura Bassi was married, is the main church of Bologna, located in Piazza Maggiore in the centre of the city. It is the largest brick-built Gothic church in the world. Building work began on the church in 1390 and it was dedicated to San Petronio, who had been the Bishop of Bologna in the fifth century. The facade was designed by Domenico da Varignana and started in 1538 by Giacomo Ranuzzi but was never finished. Despite being Bologna’s most important church, San Petronio is not the city’s cathedral. This is the Duomo di San Pietro, which stands nearby on Via Indipendenza. In the 16th century, the basilica staged the coronation of Charles V to Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII.

More reading:

How astronomer Caterina Scarpellini discovered a new comet

The particle physicist who scored a first for women in science

Margherita Hack, the astrophysicist who tried to make science fun

Also on this day:

1339: Visconti v Visconti in the Battle of Parabiago

1549: The birth of  Francesco Maria II della Rovere, the last Duke of Urbino

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

1993: The death of car maker Ferruccio Lamborghini

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Luigi Boccherini – musician

Composer gave the cello prominence in his charming quintets

Boccherini playing the cello, thought to
have been painted between 1764 and
1767 by Pompeo Batoni

Cellist and composer Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was born on this day in 1743 in Lucca in Tuscany.

Boccherini is particularly known for a minuet from his String Quintet in E, which became popular after its use by characters posing as musicians in the 1955 film, The Ladykillers, which starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.

Though his works became neglected after his death in 1805 they enjoyed a revival after the Boccherini Quintet was formed in Rome, who started performing them in the 1950s.

Boccherini’s father was himself a cellist and double bass player and sent the young Luigi to study in Rome.

In 1757 they went to Vienna together where the court employed them both as musicians in the Imperial Theatre orchestra.

Listen to Boccherini's String Quintet in E, which featured in The Ladykillers

In 1764 Luigi obtained a permanent position back in Lucca, playing in both the church and theatre orchestras.

But after the death of his father he moved to Paris where some of his early compositions were published.

Boccherini later moved to Spain, where for a time he enjoyed the patronage of the Royal family. But one day King Charles III of Spain ordered him to change a passage of his music. Boccherini doubled the passage instead and was immediately dismissed from the King’s service.

Movie poster from The Ladykillers

He went to live in a small town in the mountains in Spain, where he wrote many of his most famous works.

He still enjoyed patronage from the King of Spain’s younger brother, the Infante, from the French ambassador to Spain, Lucien Bonaparte, and from King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Towards the end of Boccherini’s life it is believed he fell on hard times. He had lost both his first and second wives and four of his daughters.

He died in Madrid in 1805 and was survived by two sons. He was buried in Madrid but his remains were brought back to Italy a century later and he was reburied in the Church of San Francesco in Lucca.

Boccherini was a brilliant cellist who received much praise for his performances and he brought the cello to prominence with the music he composed, rather than just using it for accompaniment.

His Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid  became popular after it was used in the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World in 2003.

The Boccherini Quintet was founded after two of its members discovered a complete collection of Luigi Boccherini string quintets in Paris. They performed the long-neglected music all over the world and made many recordings.

Boccherini's home town of Lucca in Tuscany
is famous for its Renaissance walls

Travel tip:

Lucca, where Boccherini was born, is famous for its Renaissance walls, which have remained intact over the centuries. A promenade now runs along the top of the walls, providing a popular place to walk round the city enjoying the views. The Luigi Boccherini Musical Institute in Piazza del Suffragio in Lucca was founded in 1842 to provide a musical education up to the standard adopted by the famous 
Conservatories of Milan and Paris.

The Church of San Francesco in Lucca, where
Boccherini was reburied

Travel tip:

Luigi Boccherini was reburied in the Church of San Francesco in Lucca in the 1920s after his remains were brought back from Spain.  The Gothic church and monastery in Piazza San Francesco in the historic centre of the city was built out of gravel in the 14th century, not far from Lucca’s historic Piazza dell’Anfiteatro.


More reading:

The cellist who found 'accidental' fame in Yugoslavia

The composer credited with the 'revival' that shot Vivaldi to 20th century popularity

How soprano Cecilia Bartoli put spotlight on 'forgotten' composers

Also on this day:

1953: The birth of comic actor and writer Massimo Troisi

1977: The birth of operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo

(Picture credits: Lucca walls by Notafly; Church of San Francesco by Sailko; via Wikimedia Commons)


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Michelangelo – Renaissance painter and sculptor

‘Greatest artist of all time’ left amazing legacy of work

The Rondanini Pietà, which the death of
Michelangelo left incomplete
Photo: Paolo da Reggio (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni died on this day in 1564 in Rome.

His death came three weeks before his 89th birthday while he was still working on his last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà, a version of the Virgin Mary with the body of the dead Christ.

Michelangelo had been a sculptor, painter, architect and poet who had exerted an enormous influence on the development of art.

During his lifetime he was considered to be the greatest living artist and he is now considered to be one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- artists of all time.

Michelangelo was born in 1475 in the small town of Caprese near Arezzo in Tuscany, which is now known as Caprese Michelangelo.
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He was sent to Florence to be educated but preferred to spend his time with painters, trying to copy the pictures in the churches, rather than be at school.
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At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to the artist Ghirlandaio and was asked to produce sculptures for Lorenzo dè Medici.
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Eventually he moved to Rome where he was commissioned to carve his first Pietà, a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the dead body of Jesus.

Michelangelo was 24 when he finished what soon came to be regarded as a masterpiece. The sculpture is located inside St Peter’s Basilica.

On his return to Florence he was commissioned to produce a statue in Carrara marble portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom. He completed the statue of David, perhaps his most famous work, in 1504 before he reached the age of 30.

Michelangelo's David in the Accademia
in Florence. Photo: Jorg Bittner Unna
(CC BY-SA 3.0)

It was decided at the time to place the statue in Piazza della Signoria in front of Palazzo Vecchio. It is now in the Accademia in Florence and a replica occupies its place in the Piazza.

Although painting was not his favourite art form, Michelangelo completed two of the most famous frescoes in the history of art. He painted the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in Rome and the Last Judgment on its altar wall.

At the age of 74 he was asked to take over the designs for the new St Peter’s Basilica and he transformed the original plan.

The western end was finished to Michelangelo’s design and the Dome was completed after his death.

His artistic output throughout his whole life was prolific and much of his work has had an impact on the course of art history. He was the first artist to have his biography published while he was still alive. Giorgio Vasari said Michelangelo’s work was ‘the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance.’

Michelangelo was referred to as ‘Il Divino’, (the divine one) even while he was still alive.

After Michelangelo’s death, his body was taken from Rome for interment at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the great artist’s last request to be buried in his beloved Florence.

Travel tip:

Arezzo, the nearest town to Michelangelo’s birthplace, Caprese Michelangelo, is an interesting old town in eastern Tuscany. The 13th century Basilica of San Francesco in the centre of the town is famous for containing Piero della Francesco’s cycle of frescoes, The Legend of the True Cross, painted between 1452 and 1466.

Travel tip:

Michelangelo’s last sculpture, the unfinished Rondanini Pietà, which he was working on during the last days of his life, can be seen in the museum named after it in the Sforza Castle in Milan. There is free entrance to the 15th century castle in Piazza Castello, but entrance to the Museo Pietà Rondanini-Michelangelo inside the castle is by ticket. For more details visit www.milanocastello.it


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