Execution of former King of Naples

Joachim Murat, key aide of Napoleon, shot by firing squad

Joachim Murat, King of Naples,
depicted by Francois Gerard

Joachim Murat, the French cavalry leader who was a key military strategist in Napoleon's rise to power in France and his subsequent creation of an empire in continental Europe, was executed on this day in 1815 in Pizzo in Calabria.

The charismatic Marshal was captured by Bourbon forces in the coastal town in Italy's deep south as he tried to gather support for an attempt to regain control of Naples, where he had been King until the fall of Napoleon saw the throne returned to the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV in May 1815.

Murat was held prisoner in the Castello di Pizzo before a tribunal found him guilty of insurrection and sentenced him to death by firing squad.

The 48-year-old soldier from Lot in south-west France had been an important figure in the French Revolutionary Wars and gained recognition from Napoleon as one of his best generals, his influence vital in the success of Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt and Italy and in victories against the numerically superior Prussians and Russians.

He was a flamboyant dresser, going into battle with his uniform bedecked in medals, gold tassels, feathers and shiny buttons.  Yet for all his peacock tendencies, he was renowned as a bold, brave and decisive leader, often securing victory through daring cavalry charges.  In all he is thought to have fought around 200 battles.

A defiant Murat faces his executioners

Napoleon rewarded him with the hand of his sister, Caroline, and promotion to the rank of Marshal and Admiral of France. He made him King of Naples in 1808, although it was something of a consolation prize to Murat, who had hoped to be given the throne of Spain, which went instead to Napoleon's brother, Joseph.

Murat moved into the Royal Palace and indulged himself in a life of luxury, entertaining lavishly and surrounding himself with expensive acquisitions.  He had portraits of himself, his wife and other family members commissioned by celebrated artists as well as numerous scenes depicting his victories on the battlefield.

Nonetheless, he was an effective ruler of Naples, where he broke up the large landed estates, introduced workable laws and established the Napoleonic Code, under which class privilege and hereditary nobility were abolished and all male citizens deemed as equal. He also cracked down on the many gangs who made their living through robbery and pillage.

He foresaw and supported the potential unification of Italy, attempting to position himself to take control beyond Naples by encouraging the secret societies that eventually were central to the Risorgimento.

When it became clear, however, that Napoleon's grip on Europe was weakening, Murat's thoughts became focussed on self-preservation.

A room at the Murat museum in Pizzo imagines the scene
as Murat appears before the Bourbon tribunal

Desperate to retain power in Naples and the lifestyle that went with it, he entered into an alliance with Austria after France’s defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in October of 1813. However, the summit of European powers that met at the Congress of Vienna after Napoleon's defeat had other ideas, planning to return Naples to the Bourbons.

Murat fled, declared himself in support of Italian independence and fought the Austrians in northern Italy. He was defeated, then attempted to regain favour with Napoleon, who had escaped his exile on Elba, only to be turned away without even speaking to him. The emperor would later regret shunning his former trusted aide, claiming that with Murat at his side he would have won the Battle of Waterloo,

In a last throw of the dice, Murat then assembled an expedition force on Corsica and set out to recapture Naples himself. With only 250 men, however, he was never likely to succeed. In the event, bad weather blew his three ships of course and his landed in Pizzo, more than 350km south of Naples, almost at the toe of the boot, where he was soon arrested.

He faced death in the same way as he had gone into battle, extravagantly dressed and fearless. Having been granted his last wish for a perfumed bath and the opportunity to write to his wife and children, he refused the offer of a blindfold and a stool to sit on, and instead stood before the firing squad, eyes wide open.  His final words, or so the story goes, were: “Soldiers, do your duty. Aim for my heart, but spare my face. Fire!”

Travel tip:

Pizzo has made the most of its connection with Joachim Murat, who was buried in the town's Baroque Church of St George. The Aragonese castle has been renamed Castello Murat and contains a Murat museum.  Each year celebrations take place on the anniversary of his death, sometimes with historical re-enactments.  Pizzo is also notable for tuna fishing and for its speciality tartufo ice cream, which features a ball of ice cream encasing molten chocolate.

The plaque on the wall of Murat's
villa at Santa Maria Annunziata

Travel tip:

As well as his home at the Royal Palace in Naples, Joachim Murat kept a villa on the Sorrentine peninsula, just outside the small town of Massa Lubrense at the village of Santa Maria Annunziata. The building, identifiable by a plaque on the wall, has a clear view of the island of Capri and was used as a vantage point by Murat from which, early in his reign as King of Naples, he was able to oversee an operation to recapture the island, which had been garrisoned by a combined force of English and Corsican soldiers in 1806.

Capri as seen from Murat's villa on the Sorrentine peninsula

More reading:

How the defeat of Austria at the Battle of Marengo helped Napoleon secure power

Napoleon crowns himself King of Italy

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Luciano Pavarotti - tenor

Singer who became known as ‘King of the High Cs’

Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti, one of the greatest operatic tenors of all time, was born on this day in 1935 in Modena in Emilia-Romagna.

Pavarotti made many stage appearances and recordings of arias from opera throughout his career. He also crossed over into popular music, gaining fame for the superb quality of his voice.

Towards the end of his career, as one of the legendary Three Tenors, he became  known to an even wider audience because of his concerts and television appearances.

Pavarotti began his professional career on stage in Italy in 1961 and gave his final performance, singing the Puccini aria, Nessun Dorma, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. He died the following year as a result of pancreatic cancer, aged 71.

The young Pavarotti had dreamt of becoming a goalkeeper for a football team but he later turned his attention to training as a singer.

His earliest influences were his father’s recordings of the Italian tenors, Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa and Enrico Caruso. But Pavarotti has said that his own favourite tenor was the Sicilian, Giuseppe di Stefano.

Pavarotti with the Australian
soprano Joan Sutherland

Pavarotti experienced his first singing success as a member of a male voice choir from Modena, in which his father also sang. The choir won first prize at the International Eisteddfod in Wales in 1955.

He was later to say that this was the most important experience of his life and had inspired him to become a professional singer.

Pavarotti made his debut as Rodolfo in La Bohème at the Teatro Municipale in Reggio Emilia in 1961.

He sang with Joan Sutherland on a tour of Australia and America and then returned to Italy to make his debut at La Scala in Milan in La Bohème with his childhood friend from Modena, Mirella Freni, singing Mimi opposite his Rodolfo.

His first performance as Tonio in Donizetti’s La fille du regiment took place at the Royal Opera House in London in 1966. This role was later to earn him the title, ‘King of the High Cs’, on account of the aria, Pour mon âme, which requires the singer to deliver the most challenging of notes nine times. Pavarotti, at his peak, was able to hit it every time with no loss of power.

Pavarotti with Plácido Domingo (left) and José Carreras
at the Three Tenors concert at the Baths of Caracalla in 1990

Pavarotti became world famous with audiences of a different kind when his rendition of the aria, Nessun Dorma, from Puccini’s Turandot, was taken as the theme tune for the BBC’s coverage of the FIFA World Cup in Italy in 1990. Then came the hugely successful Three Tenors concert on the eve of the World Cup Final with Plácido Domingo and 
José Carreras at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome. A recording of this concert was to become the biggest selling classical record of all time.

In 2004 Pavarotti gave his last opera performance, as the painter Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Every summer he hosted an annual ‘Pavarotti and Friends’ concert in Modena, singing with other popular artists to raise money for humanitarian causes. Having helped to raise money for the elimination of landmines worldwide, he became a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales, who was also dedicated to the cause. Pavarotti attended her funeral at Westminster Abbey in 1997.

His own funeral was to take place in Modena Cathedral ten years later and, like Princess Diana’s funeral, it was also televised and watched by a huge international audience.

The Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival Hall flew black flags in mourning for the great tenor.

The Duomo at Modena, where the funeral
of Pavarotti took place in 2007

Travel tip:

Modena is a city on the south side of the Po Valley in the Emilia-Romagna region. The ancient Cathedral of Modena in Piazza Grande, where Pavarotti’s funeral was held, is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its first stone was laid in 1099 but the building was not finished until 1184 and its Gothic Campanile was added in 1319.

Travel tip:

The Baths of Caracalla in Rome, where the first Three Tenors concert was held in 1990, were public baths that had been built in Rome between 211 and 217. They were used free of charge by local people until the sixth century, when the hydraulic installations were destroyed by invaders. During the 1960 Summer Olympics, gymnastic events were hosted there and the Rome Opera company now perform there in the summer. The Baths of Caracalla have become a popular concert venue, following the success of the Three Tenors concert.

More reading:

The genius of Gaetano Donizetti

How Puccini picked up the baton from Verdi

Enrico Caruso - was he the greatest tenor of them all?

(Top photo of Pavarotti by Pirlouiiiit CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Cesare Andrea Bixio - composer and lyricist

Pioneer of Italian film music left catalogue of classic songs

Cesare Andrea Bixio

Cesare Andrea Bixio, the composer behind such classic Italian songs as Vivere, Mamma, La mia canzone al vento and Parlami d'amore Mariù, was born in Naples on this day in 1896. 

Bixio enjoyed many years of popularity during which his compositions were performed by some of Italy's finest voices, including Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa and Carlo Buti, and later became staples for Giuseppe Di Stefano and Luciano Pavarotti.

He was also a pioneer of film soundtrack music, having been invited to compose a score for the first Italian movie with sound, La Canzone dell'Amore, in 1930. As well as writing more than 1,000 songs in his career, Bixio penned the soundtracks for more than 60 films.

Bixio's father, Carlo, was an engineer from Genoa; his grandfather was General Nino Bixio, a prominent military figure in the drive for Italian Unification and one of the organisers of Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand.

Carlo, who died when Cesare was only six years old, married a Neapolitan, Anna Vilone, who wanted him to pursue a career in engineering, like his father. However, after developing an interest in music at an early age he had other ideas.

He wrote his first song, Suonno e Fantasia - Sound and Fantasy - when he was only 13 years old. He loved the variety shows that were popular in Naples and all over Italy as he was growing up and it was not long before he received the first payment for his work.

The movie poster for Solo per Te, starring
Beniamino Gigli and with music by Bixio

It came after he had waited outside the stage door one night for the singer Domenico 'Mimì' Maggio and told him he had written a song for him, called Canta Maggio.  Maggio liked it so much he included it in a performance, for which Bixio was paid six lire.

As important as that first financial reward was, equally so was the chance to meet some of the most influential figures in the Neapolitan music scene, such as Ernesto de Curtis, brother of Gianbattista - famous for Torna a Surriento - and Eduardo di Capua, who wrote the melody for 'O Sole Mio.

More successes followed and in 1920 Bixio set up his own publishing company, initially in Naples but soon to move to Milan, where he was able to operate from a prestigious address in Galleria del Corso.

This was to bring him real wealth when he signed a lucrative contract worth some 64,000 lire - a colossal sum at the time - to compose for the French revue star Gabrè - who was actually a Calabrian called Aurelio Cimato - at the Casino de Paris.

In turn, this brought him work at the Folies Bergère music hall and with one of the darlings of French cabaret in the 1920s, Lys Gauty.

However, it was the burgeoning movie business that enabled Bixio to create the legacy of famous songs still performed today, many of which stemmed from his partnership with the Italian lyricist, Bixio Cherubini.

Watch Andrea Bocelli sing Mamma

These included Mamma, from the 1940 film of the same name starring operatic tenor Beniamino Gigli, who also sang Nanna nanna della vita - Lullaby of life - in the 1938 production Solo per Te.

Bixio, centre, flanked by the actor Walter Chiari
and  the director Vittorio di Sica

Parlami d'amore Mariù came from the 1932 movie Gli uomini, che mascalzoni! - Men, what scoundrels!- for which the lyrics were written by Ennio Neri for Vittorio di Sica, an actor and singer who would later win Academy Awards as a director.

Equally popular with contemporary singers is Bixio's Vivere, title track from the 1937 film starring Tito Schipa, another tenor from an opera background.

He continued to write for the big screen until around 1960, after which soundtracks for television became part of his repertoire.  His songs have featured in films even since his death such as Raging Bull, released in 1980, which included Vivere and Stornelli fiorentini, and two movies in 1990, The Freshman and Goodfellas, both of which featured Parlami d'amore Mariù.

Bixio, whose son Carlo Andrea Bixio was a music and television producer, died in Rome in 1978, aged 81.

The historic and beautiful Teatro Bellini in Via Vincenzi
Bellini in central Naples

Travel tip:

Naples has a thriving theatre scene of which the world famous opera house Teatro san Carlo is just one part.  In the centre or close by are many more, including the elegant and historic Teatro Bellini, situated halfway between the Dante and Museo metro stations, the Teatro delle Palme in the fashionable Chiaia district, the Teatro Diana in Vomero, the Teatro Greco-Romano and the Teatro Augusteo.

Travel tip:

Bixio's Milan office in Galleria del Corso was a few steps away from Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, a porticoed street connecting Piazza Duomo and Piazza San Babila which today is one of the city's upmarket shopping areas, particularly for clothing and accessory boutiques.  Closed to traffic by day, in the evening Corso Vittorio Emanuele II is notable for its concentration of cinemas and late-night bars and remains crowded until the early hours.

(Photo of Teatro Bellini by Armando Mancini CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Daniele Comboni – Saint

Missionary who worked miracles after his death

Daniele Comboni

The Feast Day - festa - of Saint Daniel Comboni - San Daniele - is held on this day every year in Italy.

Saint Daniel, who was a Roman Catholic missionary to Africa, died on this day at the age of 50 in 1881 in Khartoum in the Sudan. He was canonised in 2003 by Pope John Paul II in recognition of two miracle cures claimed to have been brought about by his intercession.

Comboni was born in 1831 at Limone sul Garda in the province of Brescia in Lombardy in northern Italy.

His parents were poor and he was the only one of their eight children to live to become an adult.

Comboni was sent away to school in Verona and after completing his studies prepared to become a priest.

He met and was profoundly influenced by missionaries who had come back from Central Africa and three years after his ordination set off with five other priests to continue their work.

After they reached Khartoum some of his fellow missionaries became ill and died because of the climate, sickness and poverty they encountered, but Comboni remained determined to continue with his mission.

On his return to Italy, while praying for guidance at the tomb of Saint Peter in Rome, Comboni came up with the idea of a missionary project to save Africa.

A statue of Daniele Comboni in Verona, where
he was educated before training to be a priest

He wanted the Church and society to be more concerned about Africa and so he launched appeals throughout Europe for aid for Africa.

He established missionary institutes for men and for women, becoming the first person to bring women into missionary work in central Africa.

In 1877 he was named Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa and ordained a bishop. In 1880 he travelled to Africa again to speak out against the slave trade, but the following year, after falling ill with disease, he died. His last words were believed to have been: ‘I am dying, but my work will not die.’

His work was continued by the Comboni missionaries, whose numbers grew to nearly 2000 members spread all over the world.

More than 100 years later it was believed that an Afro-Brazilian girl and a Muslim mother from the Sudan were both cured of illness by a miracle worked through Comboni’s intercession.

This led to Comboni being canonised by Pope John Paul II in St Peter’s in Rome in 2003.

The stairway to the church of San
Rocco in Limone sul Garda

Travel tip:

Limone sul Garda where Comboni was born is one of the most popular resorts on Lake Garda and the only tourist attraction on the north west side of the lake. It can be reached from Riva del Garda along a narrow road that travels through tunnels inside the cliffs. In the centre of the town is the 15th century church of San Rocco, built by residents of Limone who had survived the plague. It is accessed by a picturesque stairway decorated with flowers and plants and is one of the most photographed sights in Limone.

Travel tip:

Lake Garda is Italy’s largest lake, with soft hills at the southern end and steep rugged cliffs at the northern end where Limone is situated. The beauty of Lake Garda has been praised by Catullus, Dante and Goethe over the centuries and nowadays it is a popular holiday destination in Italy visited by tourists from all over the world.

(Photo of Comboni statue by Giacomo Augusto 2 CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of San Rocco stairway from visitlimonesulgarda.com)

More reading:

Pope John Paul II forgives the man who tried to assassinate him

Celebrating the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi 

From Naples to New York, Italians celebrate the Festival of San Gennaro



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