Carlo Maderno - architect

Facade of St Peter's among most notable works

The facade of St Peter's Basilica in Rome is one of
Carlo Maderno's most significant architectural works

The architect Carlo Maderno, who has been described as one of the fathers of Italian Baroque architecture, died on this day in 1629 in Rome.

His most important works included the facades of St Peter’s Basilica and the other Roman churches of Santa Susanna and Sant’ Andrea della Valle.

Although most of Maderno's work was in remodelling existing structures, he had a profound influence on the appearance of Rome, where his designs also contributed to the Palazzo Quirinale, the Palazzo Barberini and the papal palace at Castel Gandolfo. 

One building designed and completed under Maderno's full control was the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in the Sallustiano district.

Carlo Maderno was born in Capolago
on the shore of Lake Lugano

Maderno was born in 1556 in the village of Capolago, on the southern shore of Lake Lugano in what is now the Ticino canton of Switzerland, part of the finger of Italy's northern neighbouring country that extends between the Italian lakes Como and Maggiore.

Marble was quarried in the mountains around Capolago and as well as a talent for sculpture he had experience as a marble cutter when he moved with four of his brothers to Rome in 1588 to work with his uncle, Domenico Fontana.

Fontana also made his architectural mark in the city, where he worked on the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the nearby Palazzo Montalto.  He also erected the 327-ton Egyptian obelisk at the centre of St Peter's Square as well as the obelisks in Piazza del Popolo, Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore, and Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano.

Maderno's first commission in his own right, in 1596, was to build a facade for the church of Santa Susanna at the Baths of Diocletian, located on the Quirinal Hill.

Completed in 1603, Maderno's work on Santa Susanna has earned praise from modern architectural critics and at the time won him the admiration of Pope Paul V, who appointed him as the architect of St Peters, a position previously held by Domenico Fontana.

The facade of St Peter's has attracted criticism because it
obscures the view of Michelangelo's dome from the piazza

Extensive changes to St Peter's Basilica were demanded of Maderno by Paul V, both inside and out. Principally, he was required to modify Michelangelo's plans by adding an extended nave and a palatial facade.

His work on the inside, which changed the layout from Michelangelo's Greek cross to the present Latin cross, is generally seen as a seamless expansion but the facade has been condemned by some critics as a disaster.

Their main complaint is that the massive classical structure, with its lower two levels in brown stone and the top level in white marble, severely limits the view of Michelangelo's magnificent dome, despite it being the tallest in the world, particularly for the crowds looking up from the piazza.  The eight unevenly spaced columns have also divided opinions, praised in some quarters as a forceful statement, criticised in others as incongruous.

Happily, more blame was attached to an over-ambitious and architecturally ignorant pope than to Maderno himself.  There is an acceptance that he had much less freedom over the design than in his other projects.

The Palazzo Barberini was designed by Maderno on
behalf of the the family of Pope Urban VIII

Maderno's influence is seen too in the churches of Gesù e Maria, San Giacomo degli Incurabili, Santa Lucia in Selci and San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, where he is buried.

The Palazzo Barberini, which Maderno designed for the family of Pope Urban VIII, was completed by Francesco Borromini and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Travel tip:

From conception to completion, St Peter's Basilica took more than 150 years to build.  Suggested by Pope Nicholas V in about 1450, at which time the original St Peter's was near collapse, it was not finished until 1615.  Although the principal design input from the laying of the first stone in 1506 came from Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Maderno and Bernini, contributions were also made by Giuliano da Sangallo, Fra Giocondo, Raphael and Antonio da Sangallo.  Michelangelo became involved with reluctance, ironically, after Pope Paul III's first choice as architect, Giulio Romano, died before he could take up the post and second choice Jacopo Sansovino refused to leave Venice.

Michelangelo's dome dominates the Rome skyline

Travel tip:

For all that the view from close quarters may have been impaired, Michelan- gelo's dome is one of the dominant features of the Rome skyline.  Situated in the Vatican City next to the Tiber river, St Peter's is the largest Christian church in the world, covering 5.7 acres with a capacity to accommodate 60,000 people, with room for a further 400,000 in the square outside.  The dome itself rises to a height of 136.57 metres (448.1 feet) from the floor of the basilica to the top of the external cross.  The Egyptian obelisk in the square, which rises to 40m (132 ft), is said to have been erected at or near the spot in which St Peter was allegedly crucified by the Romans in 64 AD.

More reading:

Why Michelangelo was called 'the greatest artist of all time'

How Gian Lorenzo Bernini's spectacular fountains adorn Rome

The consecration of St Peter's Basilica

Also on this day:

1935: The birth of movie actress Elsa Martinelli

(Picture credits: Main picture of St Peter's by Jean-Pol Grandmont; Palazzo Berberini by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra; Rome skyline by Daryl_Mitchell; all via Wikimedia Commons)

Home

Luigi Nono - avant-garde composer

Venetian used music as a medium for political protest

Luigi Nono: the composer who used his music
to express his political viewpoint

The Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono, famous for using music as a form of political expression, was born in Venice on this day in 1924.

Nono, whose compositions often defied the description of music in any traditional sense, was something of a contradiction in that he was brought up in comfortable surroundings and had a conventional music background.

His father was a successful engineer, wealthy enough to provide for his family in a large house in Dorsoduro, facing the Giudecca Canal, while his grandfather, a notable painter, inspired in him an interest in the arts.  He had music lessons with the composer Gian Francesco Malipiero at the Venice Conservatory, where he developed a fascination for the Renaissance madrigal tradition, before going to the University of Padua to study law.

Nono appreciated the natural sounds of Venice, in particular how much they were influenced by the water, and as he began to compose works of his own there might have been an expectation that any contemporary influences would have been against a backcloth of ideas rooted in tradition.

Yet the classical Venetian music of Giovanni Gabrieli, Antonio Vivaldi and others could not have been further away from the sounds that would define much of Nono's output.

There was no harmony or melody, none of the things commonly associated with music.  Instead, Nono's compositions often comprised strange sounds, generated by conventional instruments and voices, yet difficult to associate with them.  Listening to them was uncomfortable but that was their purpose, to defy convention and challenge the listener to be aroused and seek an interpretation, in much the same way that modern art asks the observer to see visual images in a different way.

Luigi Nono was born in this house on Fondamenta Zattere
al Ponte Longo, facing the wide Giudecca Canal

Nono's early influences were the Italian composer-conductor Bruno Maderna and German conductor Hermann Scherchen, with whom he began working in 1946 and who both encouraged his work.  He attended the Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany, where his compositions reflected his admiration for the Austrian abstract composer Anton Webern. 

Yet just as strong an influence was his politics. Like many Italian intellectuals of the post-war period, Nono had been disturbed by the experience of growing up under Fascism. He rebelled in the 1950s by becoming a Communist, following in the footsteps of other well-heeled intellectuals, such as the film director Luigi Visconti.

However, there was nothing faddish or self-indulgent about his interest in left-wing causes. It seemed to be at the roots of his being. "An artist must concern himself with his time," he once said. "Injustice dominates in our time. As man and musician I must protest.

"The genesis of every work of mine springs from some human 'provocation' – an event or a text in our lives which provokes my instinct and my consciousness to bear witness."

Thus he produced pieces such as Il Canto Sospeso  - 'The Suspended Song' - which celebrates the heroic deaths of Resistance fighters. Later pieces would highlight revolutionary causes around the world from Mao to Castro yet never was any protesting sentiment expressed in a rousing chorus, rather in distorted and fragmented sounds, the sounds of shouts and screams and rage.

Nono's grave at the cemetery of San Michele

He wrote pieces protesting against the atomic bomb, against American involvement in Vietnam and was inspired by visits to former Nazi prison camps.  Nono was once described as the angriest composer that ever lived, a flippant remark yet once that seemed to be borne out by his body of work.

Only in his later years did he mellow, when his compositions sought to reflect the stillness and muffled sounds of Venice at its most haunting, in the winter, empty of crowds and shrouded in mists.

Married to the daughter of Arnold Schoenberg, the Austrian composer and music theorist who was an early influence, Nono had two daughters, Silvia and Serena. He died from a liver complaint in 1990. He is buried at the cemetery on San Michele island.

Travel tip:

The Dorsoduro, where Nono grew up, is one of the six sestieri - municipal areas - of Venice, sitting between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal.  It is regarded as a good place to get the feel for the more traditional Venice, without the huge crowds and tourist trappings associated with the areas around St Mark's and the Rialto.  There are many traditional bacari, the small bars that sell inexpensive small snacks - cicchetti - along with glasses of wine - known locally as ombre, as well as squares where local people meet during the day and students gather at night.  Yet it is also home to some fine churches, such as San Sebastiano, full of works by Veronese, and two of the city's most prestigious galleries, the Accademia and the Peggy Guggenheim.

Hotels in Venice from Hotels.com

The church of San Sebastiano in Dorsoduro has many
works by the Venetian Renaissance painter Veronese

Travel tip:

The Giudecca itself - an island divided from the main body of Venice by the wide Giudecca Canal - is perhaps even more representative of the real Venice, if such a thing exists.  Rarely a destination for many tourists, apart from the well-heeled ones who stay at the famed Hotel Cipriani at its eastern tip, it was once home to only the residents of a small fishing village. Later it was developed for market gardens and then became fashionable with Venice's wealthier residents as somewhere with space to build their grand houses.  More recently, the western end of the island has become home to shipyards and factories.  There are plenty of interesting streets and enough bars and local restaurants to satisfy those curious enough to explore.

Hotels in Venice from Expedia

More reading:

How the Baroque master Antonio Vivaldi died penniless in Vienna

Gabrieli's music led the transition from Renaissance to Baroque in music of Venice

How the Venetian Patty Pravo turned her back on classical music for a career in pop

Also on this day:

1966: Fire destroys Venice's La Fenice opera house

(Picture credits: Luigi Nono from Zoeken; Nono's house and San Sebastiano by Didier Descouens; grave by Smerus; all via Wikimedia Commons)


Home

Paolo Gorini – scientist

Teacher invented technique for preserving corpses

The statue of Paolo Gorini in
Piazza Ospedale in Lodi

Mathematician and scientist Paolo Giuseppe Antonio Enrico Gorini, who made important discoveries about organic substances, was born on this day in 1813 in Pavia.

He is chiefly remembered for preserving corpses and anatomical parts according to a secret process he invented himself. His technique was first used on the body of Giuseppe Mazzini, the politician and activist famous for his work towards the unification of Italy.

Gorini was orphaned at the age of 12, but thanks to financial help from former colleagues of his father, who had been a university maths professor, he was able to continue with his studies and he obtained a mathematics degree from the University of Pavia.

He paid tribute in his autobiography to his private teacher, Alessandro Scannini, who he said first inspired his interest in geology and volcanology.

Gorini went to live in Lodi, just south of Milan, in 1834, where he became a physics lecturer at the local Lyceum.

As well as teaching, he dedicated his time to geology experiments, actually creating artificial volcanoes to illustrate their eruptive dynamics. He also made his first attempts at the preservation of animal substances.

Gorini took an interest in politics at a time when Italy was moving towards unification and was in touch with some of the famous names of the time, such as Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. He even came up with an innovative plan of attack against the Austrians during a secret meeting of revolutionaries in Lodi in 1848.

The Mazzini Mausoleum in Genoa, where the body of
Giuseppe Mazzini, preserved by Gorini, was laid to rest

He retired from teaching at the age of 43 to spend more time on his experiments. He was commissioned by the Government to write a report on the characteristics and dangers of the volcanoes in Italy and in 1871 he published Sull’origine dei vulcani - On the Origins of Volcanoes.

He was asked to preserve the remains of Mazzini after the latter's death in Pisa in 1872, ahead of a funeral in Genoa that drew a crowd of some 100,000 people.

Mazzini’s body now lies in the cemetery of Stigliano near Genoa and the last examination of the corpse in 1946 acknowledged its substantial preservation.

Gorini had arrived in Pisa two days after the death of Mazzini when the body’s condition was already compromised.

Gorini embalmed the body of
the novelist Giuseppe Rovani

But although the process of mineralisation of the tissues did not produce excellent results because of the delay, the Gorinian technique was praised and brought the scientist international fame.

After successfully preserving the body of the novelist Giuseppe Rovani, who died in Milan in 1874, Gorini began to focus his energies on cremation. He planned the first crematorium in Italy, which was built in the cemetery of Riolo near Lodi in 1877.

In 1878 he was commissioned by the Cremation Society of Great Britain to construct the cremator at Woking Crematorium.

Gorini died in 1881 at the age of 67 in Lodi. There is now a statue of him and a museum dedicated to his work in Lodi.

The beautiful Piazza della Vittoria in Lodi is famous
 for the porticoes that line all four sides

Travel tip:

Lodi, where Gorini taught and carried out his experiments, is a city in Lombardy, south of Milan and on the right bank of the River Adda. The main square, Piazza della Vittoria, has been listed by the Touring Club of Italy as among the most beautiful squares in Italy and it has porticoes on all four sides. Nearby Piazza Broletto has a 14th century marble baptismal font from Verona.

Travel tip:

A museum in Lodi houses the Collezione Anatomica Paolo Gorini, where you can see some of the animal and human anatomical preparations created by the scientist as he focused his efforts on preserving dead bodies. The collection is on display inside the Ospedale Vecchio of Lodi in the beautiful 15th century Chiostro della Farmacia. It is open on Wednesday from 10.00 to 12.00, on Saturday from 9.30 to 12.30 and on Sunday from 14.30 to 16.30. Entry is free of charge.

More reading:

Giuseppe Mazzini, the revolutionary who became the hero of Italian unification

Why the discoveries of 18th century anatomist Antonio Maria Valsava still help astronauts today

How physicist Luigi Galvani's name entered scientific terminology

Also on this day:

1968: The birth of Italy and Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon




Home

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 success- ors, 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)

Home