Andrea Mantegna – artist

Genius led the way with his use of perspective

The painter Andrea Mantegna died on this day in 1506 in Mantua.

Mantegna's San Sebastian is at
the Louvre in Paris

He had become famous for his religious paintings, such as St Sebastian, which is now in the Louvre in Paris, and The Agony in the Garden, which is now in the National Gallery in London.

But his frescoes for the Bridal Chamber (Camera degli Sposi) at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua - Mantova in Italian - were to influence many artists who followed him because of his innovative use of perspective.

Mantegna studied Roman antiquities for inspiration and was also an eminent engraver.

He was born near Padua - Padova - in about 1431 and apprenticed by the age of 11 to the painter, Francesco Squarcione, who had a fascination for ancient art and encouraged him to study fragments of Roman sculptures.

Mantegna was one of a large group of painters entrusted with decorating the Ovetari Chapel in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua.

Much of his work was lost when the Allied forces bombed Padua in 1944, but other early work by Mantegna can be seen in the Basilica of Sant’Antonio and in the Church of Santa Giustina in Padua.

Mantagna's Miracolo di San Giacomo in the Ovetari
Chapel of the Church of the Eremitani in Padua

The artist later came under the influence of Jacopo Bellini, the father of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, and in 1453 he married Jacopo’s daughter, Nicolosia.

By 1459 he had moved on to Verona, where he painted a grand altarpiece for the Church of San Zeno and the following year he was appointed court artist by the Marquis Ludovico III Gonzaga of Mantua.

Mantegna’s frescoes for the Camera degli Sposi are considered among his best works and include portraits of members of the Gonzaga family.

The artist went on to paint nine pictures of the Triumphs of Caesar, drawing on his classical knowledge, which are also considered by experts to be among his finest works. These were sold in 1628 to King Charles I of England and are now in Hampton Court Palace.

After his death at about the age of 75 in Mantua, Mantegna’s sons set up a monument to him in the Church of Sant’Andrea.

Mantegna's ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi shows how he
created an illusion of depth through his use of perspective

Mantegna’s main artistic legacy is considered to be the introduction of spatial illusionism, as exemplified by the ceiling cupola of the Camera degli Sposi, which although flat appears concave. This use of perspective was followed by other artists for centuries.

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric old city in Lombardy, to the south east of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707. The Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna, depicting the life of Ludovico Gonzaga and his family. The beautiful backgrounds of imaginary cities and ruins reflect Mantegna’s love of classical architecture.

The Basilica of Sant'Andrea in Mantua.

Travel tip:

The 15th century Basilica of Sant’Andrea, which houses Andrea Mantegna’s tomb, is in Piazza Mantegna in Mantua. Mantegna was buried in the first chapel on the left, which contains a picture of the Holy Family and John the Baptist that had been  painted by him. The church was originally built to accommodate the large number of pilgrims who came to Mantua to see a precious relic, an ampoule containing what were believed to be drops of Christ’s blood mixed with earth. This was claimed to have been collected at the site of his crucifixion by a Roman soldier.

(Photo of the Basilica of Sant'Andrea by Geobia CC BY-SA 3.0)

Home

Nazis free captive Mussolini

Extraordinary daring of Gran Sasso Raid

Mussolini, centre, is escorted to a waiting aircraft after being
 freed from his captors. SS captain Otto Skorzeny is on his left.

One of the most dramatic events of the Second World War in Italy took place on this day in 1943 when Benito Mussolini, the deposed and imprisoned Fascist dictator, was freed by the Germans.

The former leader was being held in a remote mountain ski resort when 12 gliders, each carrying paratroopers and SS officers, landed on the mountainside and took control of the hotel where Mussolini was being held.

They forced his guards to surrender before summoning a small aircraft to fly Mussolini to Rome, from where another plane flew him to Austria.  Even Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime prime minister, professed his admiration for the daring nature of the daylight rescue.

Known as the Gran Sasso Raid or Operation Oak, the rescue was ordered by Adolf Hitler himself after learning that Mussolini's government, in the shape of the Grand Fascist Council, had voted through a resolution that he be replaced as leader and that King Victor Emmanuel III had ensured that the resolution was successful by having the self-styled Duce arrested.

The Campo Imperatore Hotel at the time of the raid.

The Italian government by then had decided defeat in the War was inevitable following the Allied invasion of Sicily and the damage inflicted by Allied bombers on Rome.  Despite the weaknesses of Italy's military capability being exposed in Greece, Albania and North Africa, Mussolini made an impassioned speech to the Grand Council before his arrest, insisting they fight on. Yet many of his former supporters, including his son-in-law, the foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, turned against him.

Hitler was furious. He regarded Mussolini not only as the only leader capable of organising the Italian forces, but as a personal friend. He denounced his successor, Marshall Pietro Badoglio, as a traitor.  The Italian government, by this time preparing to switch sides and declare war against Germany, tried to keep Mussolini's whereabouts a secret, moving him from one offshore island to another and them to remote areas of the mainland.

But the SS captain, Otto Skorzeny, personally chosen by Hitler to plan and organise Mussolini's rescue, intercepted coded radio messages and established that the former dictator's place of captivity since late August had been the Campo Imperatore Hotel, a ski resort built on a plateau in Italy's Gran Sasso massif in Abruzzo, high in the Apennine Mountains, around 2,200 metres (7,200 feet) above sea level.  It was guarded by 200 Carabinieri soldiers and accessible only by a funicular railway.

The only viable way of reaching the hotel was from the air.  Dropping troops by parachute was seen as too dangerous because of the altitude but Skorzeny had an alternative plan. His reconnaissance identified what he thought was a strip of grassy land near the hotel, which he believed would be suitable to land troop-laden gliders. These had the added benefit of being effectively noiseless, which would lend the attack an element of surprise.

The Germans landed gliders on the mountainside in order
to take troops to the scene of the rescue

In the event, the grassy strip turned out to be strewn with rocks but Skorzeny ordered his pilots to attempt to land anyway, which was a considerable gamble.  It paid off as all bar two gliders touched down safely, including his own.

In another clever move, Skorzeny had taken with him an Italian military commander sympathetic to the German cause in General Fernando Soleti, who stepped out of his glider and immediately ordered the Italian guards advancing towards the invasion party not to shoot, threatening them with execution for treason if they disobeyed.

The ensuing confusion gave the Germans opportunity to take control and the entire Italian protection squad surrendered without a shot fired.  The only injury was to a radio operator, whom Skorzeny struck with his rifle butt to stop him summoning assistance.

Skorzeny found Mussolini's room and is said to have greeted the dictator with the words 'Duce, the Fuhrer has sent me. You're free!'. He immediately ordered a small aircraft known as the Storch (Stork), designed to take off and land in limited spaces, to fly to the hotel so that he could complete the next leg of the rescue.

The Hotel Campo Imperatore as it is today

The mission almost came to grief at this stage after Skorzeny, determined that he would deliver Mussolini personally to Hitler, insisted on flying to Rome with him, even though the plane was not meant to carry more than one passenger, in addition to the pilot.  There was no spare seat but Skorzeny found he could lie on the floor, his legs stretching into the fuselage.

With 12 men holding the plane back by its wings, the pilot powered up his engine to maximum speed before ordering the men to let go, at which point the plane shot off along the makeshift runway.  It left the ground but with extra weight on board failed to gain altitude quickly enough to avoid striking a rock, sending it veering off the plateau on a downwards trajectory towards the valley below.

The watching German soldiers thought the aircraft was certain to crash but the pilot somehow managed to regain control and gain height, disappearing into the distance to reach an airstrip just outside Rome without further mishap. Skorzeny later admitted he was prepared to take the risk, fearing the consequences if the mission failed.

Later, Mussolini would return to Italy to take charge of a puppet German state, the Italian Social Republic, based in the town of Salò on Lake Garda.  Within less than two years he was dead, captured by partisans and shot as he and his mistress, Clara Petacci, tried to flee to Switzerland.

Travel tip:

The Campo Imperatore still exists as a hotel today, consisting of 45 rooms, a panoramic restaurant, bar and swimming pool. The room where Mussolini was held has been turned into a museum, its decor and furnishings preserved as they were in 1943.  It is now accessible by road in summer but the road is partially closed in winter and visitors have to transfer to the funicular railway at Fonte Cerreto, which is a town on the road between L'Aquila and Assergi.  The area is now part of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga national park.

The Venetian column with its winged lion of St Mark
on the waterfront of Salò on Lake Garda

Travel tip:

Salò, where Mussolini spent his last months in power, albeit as the leader of a satellite state controlled by the Nazis, is situated on the western shore of Lake Garda. For three centuries part of the Republic if Venice, it was captured by the Austrians in the 19th century before being freed by Garibaldi.  Its points of interest include a Gothic-style cathedral, a column topped by the winged lion of St Mark, symbolising its link with Venice, and the 16th century Palazzo della Magnifica Patria, home to an exhibition of documents from Renaissance history, Italy's colonial wars and the Resistance against Fascism.

Read more:

Benito Mussolini and the founding of the Italian Fascists

How Italy entered the Second World War

Victor Emmanuel III abdicates

(Photos of Gran Sasso Raid courtesy of German Federal Archive)
(Photo of Campo Imperatore by Ra Boe CC BY-SA 3.0)

Home

Scipione Borghese - adventurer

Nobleman from Ferrara won Peking to Paris car race

Scipione Borghese (left) and journalist Luigi Barzini
pictured with Borghese's Itala car

The Italian adventurer Prince Scipione Borghese, who won a car race since described as the most incredible of all time, was born on this day in 1871 in Migliarino in Emilia-Romagna, not far from Ferrara.

Borghese was a nobleman, the eldest son of Paolo, ninth Prince of Sulmona.  He was described as an industrialist and politician but he was also a mountaineer and a keen participant in the revolution in transport that began when the first petrol-powered motor vehicles appeared in the late 19th century.

In 1907 the French newspaper, Le Matin, which was keen to promote the growing motor industry in France, challenged readers to prove their theory that the car would open up the world's horizons, enabling man to travel anywhere on the planet.

When it asked for volunteers to take part in a drive from Paris to Peking (Beijing) - a 5,000-mile journey - Borghese's taste for the daring was immediately excited.

Volunteers haul the Itala through a
steep mountain pass

Originally, more than 40 teams proposed to sign up.  In time, this dwindled to five vehicles and 11 men, consisting of drivers, mechanics and, in some cases, journalists who would file reports using the telegraph system as the event progressed.  Apart from Borghese, taking part were a Dutch Spyker driven by an unknown named Charles Goddard, a three-wheeler Cyclecar piloted by the father of the opera singer Lily Pons and two French De Dions.

Borghese, despite his family having lost much of their wealth through a series of misfortunes, commissioned a car powered by a seven-litre engine from the Itala company in Turin with sponsorship from tyre manufacturers Pirelli.  He would be accompanied on the journey by two more Italians - his mechanic and sometime chauffeur, Ettore Guizzardi, and Luigi Barzini, a journalist.

To avoid the monsoon rains, the proposed direction of the race was reversed to start in Peking in June 1907 with the cars driving westward to Paris. The conditions could hardly have been less car-friendly, the route taking in numerous mountain ranges and two major deserts where no provision had been made for recognisable roads.

Although the project was conceived as a demonstration of the potential of the automobile rather than a race, Borghese was determined to make it one and win it, planning assiduously to give his team the best chance.  He arranged for fuel and spare parts to be stored along the route and, before the race began, took a 300-mile ride on horseback to the mountain passes north of Peking carrying a bamboo pole cut to the width of his car to see if the Itala could squeeze through.

The route led through deserts, mountain passes and steppes to Outer Mongolia, on to Moscow and then across Russia, Poland, Germany and Belgium to Paris. There were often mountain tracks and paths rather than roads, no petrol stations and no one who had ever seen a motor car before.

The Itala was left upside down after
falling through a bridge but survived

Auguste Pons dropped out of the race after running out of fuel in the Gobi Desert and being rescued by nomadic Mongolians and Goddard failed to complete the trip but Borghese's journey was hardly plain sailing.

At one point the Itala rolled back down a narrow pass and Guizzardi only just managed to stop the car dropping into a ravine, taking him with it; at another, all three of the team were lucky to escape injury when a bridge collapsed under them.  At times, the car had to be hitched to mule trains or teams of men to cross treacherous mountain passes.

Amazingly, the car kept going and by the time they reached Moscow, Borghese and his crew were 17 days in front of their nearest pursuers, enough of a lead for Borghese even to make a detour to St Petersburg for a party.

The final leg to Paris was uneventful by comparison, although Borghese was stopped for speeding in Belgium.  When the Itala reached Paris on August 10, the lead had been extended to 20 days.

The Itala arrived at the finishing line in the French capital at 4.30pm to a huge ovation from crowds encouraged to attend by Le Matin's trumpeting of the success of their challenge. A dinner was given in Borghese's honour, attended by the Italian chargé d’affaires and prominent automobile industry figures.

Luigi Barzini, who worked as a war correspondent during the First World War and was editor at different times of both Corriere della Sera and Il Mattino, two prominent Italian newspapers, was followed into journalism by his son, also called Luigi, who was most famous for his 1964 book, The Italians, a probing analysis of the Italian national character that is credited with generating the fascination with Italian life and culture shared by many outside the country.

Ferrara has 9km of ancient walls, with walkways and cycle
paths along most of its length

Travel tip:

Migliarino, where Scipione Borghese was born, is a small town in the province in of Ferrara, a city famous for its castle, a wealth of palaces, a beautiful pink and white Duomo and the 12th century city walls that remain intact to this day, stretching to nine kilometres in length.

Travel tip:

Ferrara is the ideal city destination for cycling enthusiasts thanks to a network of cycle paths all around the city and the perimeter walls and a city centre from which cars are banned.  The self-proclaimed Città delle Biciclette - city of bicycles - since the late 1960s, Ferrara offers numerous outlets from which tourists can rent bicycles and enjoy exploring a beautiful city that combines medieval history and Renaissance elegance.

Books:

Luigi Barzini's book, Peking To Paris: Across Two Continents in an Itala, was reprinted by Penguin in 1986 and some second hand copies are still available on Amazon.

Buy Luigi Barzini junior's book, The Italians

Home

Historic victory at Rome Olympics

Bikila's golden moment for African athletics

Abebe Bikila (left) during the opening stages of the
marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics

History was made on this day at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome when Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila won the marathon.

Not only did he run the whole 26 mile 385 yards (42.195km) barefoot, he also became the first athlete from sub-Saharan Africa to win an Olympic gold medal.

Bikila retained the marathon title at Tokyo in 1964.  Subsequently, the middle and long-distance running events have become increasingly dominated by sub-Saharan runners, particularly Kenyans and Ethiopians.

The British runner Mo Farah - born in Somalia - continued that domination by winning both the 5,000m and 10,000m gold medals at consecutive summer Olympics in London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro this year.

In total, more than 40 gold medals at distances from 800m to the marathon have been won by sub-Saharan runners since Bikila's breakthrough.

Bikila competed in Rome only after a late call-up to the Ethiopia squad to fill a place vacated when a colleague became ill.

Bikila on the podium with runner-up Rhadi Ben Abdesselam

He arrived with no running shoes but hoped to be supplied with some by adidas, one of the Games sponsors.  However, by the time Bikila went to see their representatives in Rome, they had only a few pairs left and none would fit him comfortably, so he decided to run barefoot.

It was no real inconvenience in any event because he rarely trained in running shoes.

The starting point for the marathon was the foot of the wide staircase leading up to the Piazza del Campidoglio on Capitoline Hill and the finish line was at the Arch of Constantine, just outside the Colosseum.

Bikila came home first in a time of two hours 15 minutes 16.2 seconds, which at the time was an Olympic record.  He crossed the line 25 seconds ahead of the Moroccan runner, Rhadi Ben Abdesselam, from whom he had sprinted away in the last 500m.

The beautiful Piazza del Campidoglio on the
Capitoline Hill in the centre of Rome

According to accounts of the race, Bikila had been told before the race that Rhadi was his most dangerous rival but expected him to be wearing the number 26 on his vest.  In fact, Rhadi wore 185. The two ran side by side for more than half the distance with Bikila still believing there was another runner ahead of them, wearing 26.

Later in 1960, Bikila was briefly detained following an attempted coup in Ethiopia but was soon able to resume his career.  His winning time at Tokyo in 1964 was a world record 2 hours 12 minutes 11.2 seconds.

Travel tips:

The Capitoline is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.  It was the site of an ancient Roman citadel but few ruins exist.  The area was redeveloped in the 16th century in line with an urban plan drawn up by the artist and architect Michelangelo Buonarotti as a central square - the Piazza del Campidoglio - surrounded by palaces.

The parade of athletes at the opening ceremony
of the 1960 Olympics at the Stadio Olimpico

Travel tips:

Rome's Olympic Stadium - the Stadio Olimpico - was built between 1928 and 1938 as part of the Foro Mussolini (now Foro Italico), a sports complex Mussolini hoped would enable Rome to host the 1944 Olympics had they taken place.  Originally named Stadio dei Cipressi and later Stadio dei Centomila, it was renamed when Rome won the bidding process for the 1960 Games, pipping the Swiss city of Lausanne.  Rebuilt for the 1990 football World Cup, it is now home to the Roma and Lazio football clubs and has hosted four European Cup/Champions League finals.

(Photo of Piazza del Campidoglio by Prasenberg CC BY 2.0)
(Photo of Stadio Olimpico by Alex Dawson (Flickr) CC BY-SA 2.0)

Home