Trajan - Roman emperor

Military expansionist with progressive social policies

This bust of the Emperor Trajan, one of many, can be
found in the Royal Baths Park in Warsaw, Poland

Marcus Ulpius Traianus succeeded to the role of Roman Emperor on this day in 98 AD.  The 13th ruler of the empire and known as Trajan, he presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman history, the consequence of which was that in terms of physical territory the empire was at its largest during his period in office.

Despite his taste for military campaigns - he conquered Dacia (the area now called Romania), Armenia, Mesopotamia, and the Sinai Peninsula - Trajan was seen as the second of the so-called Good Emperors to rule during the years known as Pax Romana, a long period of relative peace and stability.

He was credited with maintaining peace by working with rather than against the Senate and the ruling classes, introducing policies aimed at improving the welfare of citizens, and engaging in massive building projects that were to the benefit of ordinary Romans.

Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born in the Roman province of Baetica, which approximates to the area now known as Andalusia in southern Spain. His father was a provincial governor who then turned soldier, commanding a legion in the Roman war against Jews. He became a consul and then governor, successively, of Syria and Asia.

Trajan served 10 years as a legionary staff tribune before being appointed to the command of a legion in Spain in 89 AD, in which capacity he was sent to help quell a revolt against the emperor Domitian by the governor of Upper Germany. Domitian rewarded him with a consulship.

His rise to emperor followed the assassination of Domitian in a palace conspiracy. Domitian's replacement, Nerva, was childless but adopted Trajan as his successor as someone who seemed acceptable both to the army commanders and to the Senate.

Trajan's Column, built in 113 AD

Trajan, who had married Pompeia Plotina but, in common with many among the Roman high command, had male and female sexual partners, was a much more active ruler than Nerva had been during his short reign. He immediately began planning for his Dacia campaign, remaining at his governer's residence in Upper Germany for almost a year before returning to Rome to accept the imperial powers.

When he finally did return to Rome in 99 AD, he made generous gifts to the people, distributing cash handouts and giving more poor citizens free grain from the state.  He reduced taxes and began a public fund for the support of poor children in the Italian cities, who had previously had to rely on donations from private individuals.

He saw to it that competent and honest officials administered  the provinces, with special governors appointed to provinces whose cities had suffered financial difficulties.

Trajan undertook or encouraged extensive public works. Roads, bridges and aqueducts were built, wastelands reclaimed and harbours constructed.

Rome, in particular, saw substantial improvements, including a new aqueduct bringing water from the north. An impressive public bathing complex was built on the Esquiline Hill, and a magnificent new forum, designed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus, at the centre of which was a colossal equestrian statue of the emperor. New streets of shops and warehouses sprang up nearby.

A court flanked by libraries for Greek and Latin books and backed by a temple was developed close to the forum. Trajan’s Column, an innovative work of art that commemorated his Dacian Wars, is still standing. Trajan's ashes were later placed in the column's cubical base. The statue of Trajan on top was removed during the Middle Ages and replaced in 1588 by one of Saint Peter.

Scenes from the Dacian Wars are captured on the
extraordinary bas relief that decorates Trajan's Column

Away from his civil accom-plishments, Trajan made his mark chiefly by abandoning the policy, established by the first Roman emperor, Augustus, and generally maintained by his successors, of not extending the Roman frontiers. In 101, he resumed the invasion of Dacia that Domitian had been forced to abandon, creating a new province that enabled Rome to exploit rich mines of gold and salt.

Trajan’s second major war was against the Parthians. He annexed the Nabataean kingdom, the part of Arabia extending east and south of Judaea, reinstated the pre-Roman king of Armenia previously deposed by the Parthians, annexed upper Mesopotamia and captured the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon.

In 115, Trajan survived the earthquake that devastated Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey) but not long afterwards decided to leave after revolts had broken out in the newly conquered territories. He intended to return to Rome but did not get there. Aged 64 and in failing health, he died at Selinus - now the southern Turkish resort of Gazipasa.

His ashes were returned to Rome for a state funeral. Just before his death was made public, it was announced that he had nominated Hadrian as his successor.

Travel tip:

Trajan's Column is located in what remains of Trajan's Forum, built near the Quirinal Hill in Rome. The freestanding column is most famous for its spiral bas relief, which depicts 155 scenes from the Dacian Wars.  Standing about 30m (98 feet) in height -  35m including the pedestal - the column is made from 20 colossal drums in Carrara marble, each weighing about 32 tons. Inside the shaft, a spiral staircase of 185 steps provides access to a viewing platform at the top. After construction, a statue of Trajan was put in place on the top but this statue disappeared in the Middle Ages. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V replaced it with a bronze figure of St. Peter, which remains to this day.

The remains of Trajan's Forum, looking towards the
 church of  Santissimo Nome di Maria al Foro Traiano

Travel tip:

Trajan's Forum, situated in Via Alessandrina, was the last Imperial forum to be constructed in ancient Rome. It consisted of a vast portico-lined piazza measuring 300m (980 feet) by 185m (607 feet), which required parts of the Quirinal and Capitoline hills to be excavated to make a flat area sufficiently large. The main entrance on the southern side was via a triumphal arch surmounted by a statue of Trajan in a six-horse chariot.  Today, only a restored section of the nearby markets - off Via Quattro Novembre - and Trajan's Column remain. A number of columns from the Basilica Ulpia which remained on site have been re-erected.

More reading:

How Emperor Titus rallied support for the victims of Vesuvius eruption

Walk around the forum inspired Edward Gibbon's epic history of the Roman empire

Santa Giustina and the purge of Christians that claimed her life

Also on this day:

1901: The sudden death in Milan of the great composer Giuseppe Verdi

(Picture credits: Warsaw bust by Brandmeister; Trajan's Column by Alvesgaspar; Forum and church by LPLT;  all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Hebrew Bible in print for first time

Bologna printer makes history

The early printed editions of the Torah
were presented in the form of a scroll

The first printed edition of the Hebrew Bible was completed in Bologna on this day in 1482.

Specifically, the edition was the Pentateuch, or Torah, which consists of the first five books of the Christian and Jewish Bibles - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Torah, in Hebrew, means 'instruction'.  The book was given that name because the stories within it, which essentially form the opening narrative of the history of the Jewish people, and the interpretations offered of them, were intended to set out the moral and religious obligations fundamental to the Jewish way of life.

The book was the work of the Italian-Jewish printer Abraham ben Hayyim dei Tintori, from Pesaro.

The text consisted of large, clear square letters, accompanied by a translation in the Jewish biblical language Aramaic and a commentary by Rashi, who had been the foremost biblical commentator of the Middle Ages.

It was published and financed by Joseph ben Abraham, a member of the Caravita banking family in Bologna. The editor was the Hebrew scholar Yosef Hayyim ben Aaron, of Strasbourg.

The printing press had been invented in Germany in 1439 by Johannes Gutenburg and presses were soon set up across Europe as news of the phenomenon - as revolutionary at the time as the word processor more than five centuries later - spread.

The technology reached Italy in 1464, when the German monks Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweinheim set up the Subiaco Press in the Abbey of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco, about 70km (43 miles) to the east of Rome.

The Abbey of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco, which saw Italy's
first printing press set up by German monks in 1464

It is thought that Abraham ben Hayyim probably started as a textile printer and bookbinder at Pesaro. In 1477 he printed two Hebrew books at Ferrara.

In Bologna, where he was employed as master printer for the wealthy Soncino family from just outside Milan, he became the first printer to find a solution for the difficult technical problem of adding vowels and cantillation signs to the previously vocalised biblical text.

How many copies were printed is not known. Some 27 are known to exist in public collections, of which only 10 are complete. One of them, auctioned at Christie's in Paris in 2014, printed on vellum in an 18th century binding, achieved a price of €2.785 million ($3,866,578).

Six years later, ben Hayyim completed the first printed edition of the whole of the Hebrew Bible, comprising the Neviim and Ketuvim as well as the Torah, at the Soncino press in the town of the same name, near Milan.

The Basilica of San Petronio towers over the
Piazza Maggiore in Bologna

Travel tip:

The origins of Bologna, one of Italy's most historic cities, can be traced back to 1,000BC or possibly earlier, with a settlement that was developed into an urban area by the Etruscans, the Celts and the Romans.  The University of Bologna, the oldest in the world, was founded in 1088.  Bologna's city centre, which has undergone substantial restoration since the 1970s, is one of the largest and best preserved historical centres in Italy, characterised by 38km (24 miles) of walkways protected by porticoes.  At the heart of the city is the beautiful Piazza Maggiore, dominated by the Gothic Basilica of San Petronio, which at 132m long, 66m wide and with a facade that touches 51m at its tallest, is the 10th largest church in the world and the largest built in brick.

Travel tip:

Subiaco, a town on the eastern fringe of the Lazio region near the border with Abruzzo, is notable for its two abbeys, the Abbey of Santa Scolastica, and St Benedict's, where the Benedictine Order originated in the sixth century, the first of 12 monasteries built by St Benedict, who from the age of 14 lived for three years in a cave above the nearby Anio river.  Over the centuries, many monks came to Subiaco from Germany, hence the presence of Pennartz and Sweinheim in 1464.  Notable people born in Subiaco include Lucrezia Borgia and the actress, Gina Lollobrigida.

More reading:

Giambattista Bodoni - printer patronised by Napoleon

Guglielmo Marconi - inventor from Bologna who created first radio

How Giovanni Riccioli had a moon crater named after him

Also on this day:

Saints day of friar Gabriela Allegra

(Picture credits: Bible scroll by HOWI; Abbey by Livioandronico2013; Basilica by Giovanni Dall'Orto; all via Wikimedia Commons)


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Antonio Scotti - baritone

Neapolitan singer who played 35 seasons at the Met

Antonio Scotti in his most famous role as
Baron Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca

The operatic baritone Antonio Scotti, who performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York for a remarkable 35 consecutive seasons, was born on this day in 1866 in Naples.

Scotti's career coincided with those of many fine baritones and experts did not consider his voice to be among the richest. Yet what he lacked in timbre, he compensated for in musicality, acting ability and an instinctive grasp of dramatic timing.

Later in his career, he excelled in roles that emerged from the verismo movement in opera in the late 19th century, of which the composer Giacomo Puccini was a leading proponent, drawing on themes from real life and creating characters more identifiable with real people.

For a while, Scotti's portrayal of the chief of police Baron Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, for example, was the yardstick against which all performances were measured, at least until Tito Gobbi's emergence in the 1930s.  Indeed, in 1924 the Met chose a gala presentation of Tosca as a fitting way for Scotti to mark the 25th anniversary of his debut there.

Scotti's parents in Naples were keen for him to enter the priesthood but he chose to pursue his ambitions in music. He received his first serious training at the Naples Conservatory under Esther Trifari-Paganini and Vincenzo Lombardi, who was the vocal coach employed by Enrico Caruso.

Most accounts of Scotti's career say he made his debut in Malta in 1889 in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida but some suggest he had already performed in public at the Circolo Filarmonico in Naples in Gaspare Spontini's La vestale.  What is agreed is that audiences and critics were impressed by the young baritone and he was soon being booked to appear elsewhere, not only in Italy but in Spain and Portugal, Russia and South America.

Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where Scotti made his debut
in 1898 in Richard Wagner's Der Meistersinger

His status as a singer destined for an illustrious career was confirmed when he made his debut at La Scala in Milan in 1898 in the role of Hans Sachs in Richard Wagner's Der Meistersinger, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.

He performed at Covent Garden in London for the first time in 1899 as Don Giovanni in Mozart's opera of the same name, in which he also made his New York debut in the same year.  He would return to Covent Garden almost every year until the outbreak of war in 1914.

Scotti's association with Baron Scarpia in Tosca began in 1901, when he became the first artist to sing the role in America.  He would go on to perform the role a further 216 times, playing opposite 15 different Toscas, including the beautiful American soprano Geraldine Farrar, with whom he was said to be infatuated.

Farrar had an affair with Toscanini and was rumoured to be involved romantically also with Caruso, who became Scotti's close friend, their careers at the Met running parallel.  Scotti was Rigoletto to Caruso's Duke of Mantua when the latter made his debut at the house in Verdi's opera in 1903 and they would share the stage on many occasions.

A dapper Antonio Scotti pictured in New
York in 1915 at the height of his fame

By the time he retired, Scotti had clocked up more than 1,200 performances with the Metropolitan Opera House Company, either in New York or on tour.  Among his other notable roles, he was Puccini's Marcello in La bohème and Sharpless in Madame Butterfly, each on more than 100 occasions.

From 1919 he also toured with his own troupe of singers, under the name of the Scotti Opera Company, although the venture was not a financial success.

His final Met appearance came in January 1933, shortly before his 67th birthday, when he sang Chim-Fen in Franco Leoni's one-act opera L'Oracolo, a role he had premiered at Covent Garden in 1905 and which he played in New York several times.  Despite a voice that was by then beginning to fail, a dynamic performance was still hailed as a fitting send-off.

Scotti made a number of recordings, including several duets with Caruso, Farrar and with the Polish coloratura soprano, Marcella Sembrich, although he did not enjoy the commercial success that came the way of Caruso.

He returned to Naples, intending to enjoy retirement in the city of his birth, but had not been able to turn his years of celebrity in New York into financial security and after three years in reduced circumstances, relying on money he was sent occasionally by sympathetic friends and fans in the United States, he died in hospital in 1936 from arterial disease.

Travel tip:

Milan's famous opera house, Teatro alla Scala - popularly known as La Scala - came into being in 1778.  It was at first called the Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala, having been commissioned by the Empress Maria Theresa of the House of Habsburg, of which the Duchy of Milan was at the time a part, as replacement for the Teatro Regio Ducale following a fire in 1776.  It was built on the site of the former church of Santa Maria alla Scala.  As with many theatres of the time, La Scala was also a casino, and opera-goers in the early days had to contend with the distraction of gambling activities taking place at the same time as the cast were performing on the stage.

The Naples Music Conservatory is next to the
Church of San Pietro a Majella 

Travel tip:

The Naples Music Conservatory occupies the former monastery adjoining the church of San Pietro a Majella at the western end of Via dei Tribunali, one of the three parallel streets running from east to west that mark the grid of the historic centre of the city, one of which - Via San Biagio dei Librai - is more commonly known as Spaccanapoli.  Formerly housed in the monastery of San Sebastiano, on the eastern side of Piazza Dante, the Conservatory moved to its present location in 1826.

More reading:

The brilliant career of the great tenor Enrico Caruso

Giacomo Puccini - the musical genius who took the baton from Verdi

How Tito Gobbi found fame on both stage and screen

Also on this day:

1348: Devastating earthquake hits Friuli Venezia Giulia

(Picture credit: Church of San Pietro a Majella by Armando Mancini; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Giorgio Chinaglia - footballer

Centre-forward from Carrara became a star on two continents

Giorgio Chinaglia, wearing the blue shirt
of Lazio. embroidered with the Scudetto

The footballer Giorgio Chinaglia, who would start his career in Wales before enjoying stardom in his native Italy and then the United States, was born on this day in 1947 in Carrara in Tuscany.

A powerful centre forward and a prolific goalscorer, Chinaglia scored more than 100 goals for Lazio. His 193 for New York Cosmos made him the all-time leading goalscorer in the North American Soccer League.

Chinaglia left Italy at the age of nine after his father, Mario, decided that his family would enjoy a more prosperous future abroad given the state of Italy's economy in the immediate wake of the Second World War.  Jobs at a Cardiff steelworks were advertised in the employment office in Carrara and Mario successfully applied.  He would eventually leave the steelworks to train as a chef, building on his experience as a cook in the army, and ultimately opened his own restaurant.

The catholic schools Chinaglia attended tended to favour rugby as their principal winter game and his teachers saw in him a potential second-row forward.  But rugby was an alien game to him and he much preferred football.  Ultimately he was picked for Cardiff Schools, for whom he scored a hat-trick in an English Schools Shield match, in doing so earning a trial at Swansea Town.

The Second Division club - now playing in the Premier League as Swansea City - signed him as an apprentice in 1962 but he was criticised for poor timekeeping, for having a casual attitude to training and being more interested in drinking, gambling and women.  He had to wait until 1965 to make his league debut and after just six appearances - and one goal - in a 15-month period, he was released.

Giorgio Chinaglia celebrates a goal for New York Cosmos

National service then compelled Chinaglia to return to Italy.  The experience was perfect for him, enabling him to train hard and develop discipline.

On returning to civilian life, he was barred from playing for a Serie A club for three years because he had been a professional in another country.  But he was able to play for Massese, a Serie C club in the neighbouring town to Carrara, before moving to Naples to play for another Serie C team, Internapoli, for whom he scored 26 goals in 66 games.

Lazio gave him his chance in Serie A and although he was not an elegant player - more a big, bustling centre forward in the classic English style - he was a deadly finisher, scoring 122 goals in 246 appearances for the Rome club.

Nicknamed 'Long John' for his resemblance to John Charles, the Wales striker who had starred for Juventus a generation before, he helped Lazio win the first Scudetto in their history in 1974, when his 24 goals included the title-winning penalty against Foggia.

Giorgio Chinaglia made 14 appearances for
the Azzurri - Italy's national team

He made 14 appearances in the Italy national team but his international career ended abruptly in 1974 when was substituted in a game against Haiti in the World Cup finals in West Germany and reacted by arguing with head coach Ferruccio Valcareggi and kicking down a dressing-room door.

Subjected to abuse back home, he took the bold decision to quit Italy for America. Married to an American girl he had met in Italy, he had already bought a house in Englewood, New Jersey and in 1976 joined New York Cosmos.

The wealthy NASL franchise had signed up the Brazilian great Pelé the year before and Chinaglia would soon be joined in by former West Germany captain Franz Beckenbauer and other big-name stars such as Carlos Alberto of Brazil and Johan Neeskens of The Netherlands.

But whereas these players were nearing the end of their careers, Chinaglia was a player in his prime.  Coaches and team officials found him difficult, but the Cosmos were NASL champions four times during his seven seasons and he was the league's top scorer on four occasions, including three of the title-winning years. In all competitions, including the indoor league, he scored 262 goals.

Aware of his star quality, Chinaglia would hold court for the media after games in the locker room wearing a brocaded dressing gown.

He became an American citizen in 1979, but was tempted back to Italy in 1983 to become president of Lazio. His temperament was not suited to being a club official, however. and he was banned from football for eight months for threatening a referee.

He died in 2012 in Naples, Florida, having suffered a heart attack.

The mountains above Carrara are famous for the blue-grey
marble used for many buildings in Italy and worldwide

Travel tip:

Carrara, a small city in Tuscany just inland from the Ligurian Sea coastline, is famous for its blue-grey marble, which is quarried in the mountains nearby and has been used since the time of ancient Rome.  The Pantheon and Trajan's Column were both constructed using Carrara marble, which was also the material used for many Renaissance sculptures.  Carrara is home to many academies of sculpture and fine arts and a museum of statuary and antiquities.  The exterior of the city's own 12th century duomo is almost entirely marble.

Travel tip:

Società Podistica Lazio - Lazio Athletics Club - was founded in January 1900 in the Prati district of Rome, making it the oldest Roman football team currently active. Keen to attract players and supporters from outside the city of Rome, the club took the name of the region, Lazio.  It might have gone out of existence in 1927, when the Fascist government proposed merging all the city's teams into one under the umbrella of AS Roma. However, Giorgio Vaccaro, a general in the Fascist regime and a Lazio fan, defended the club's right to keep its own identity, thereby creating one of Italian football's fiercest rivalries as the two battle each year to be the city's number one club.

More reading:

How Luigi Riva became the darling of Cagliari and Italy's greatest goalscorer

Salvatore 'Toto' Schillaci - the golden boy of Italia '90

Gigi Radice - the coach who brought joy back to Torino

Also on this day:

1916: Birth of actor Arnaldo Foà

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