Domenico Dragonetti - musician

Venetian was best double bass player in Europe

Domenico Dragonetti: a lithograph from the
New York City Public Library collection

The composer and musician Domenico Dragonetti  - Europe's finest double bass virtuoso - was born on this day in 1763 in Venice.

Apart from the fame his talent brought him, Dragonetti is remembered as the musician who opened the eyes of Ludwig van Beethoven and other composers to the potential of the double bass.

They met in Vienna in 1799 and experts believe it was Dragonetti’s influence that led Beethoven to include passages for double bass in his Fifth Symphony.

From 1794 onwards until his death in 1846 at the age of 83, Dragonetti lived in London but it was in Venice that he established his reputation.

The son of a barber who was also a musician, Domenico Carlo Maria Dragonetti taught himself to play the guitar and the double bass as a child using his father’s instruments.  It was not long before word of his precocious ability spread and he was sent to the Ducal Palace of San Marco for tuition from Michele Berini, who was widely respected as the best double bass player in Venice.

Berini declared after only 11 lessons that there was nothing more he could teach the young Dragonetti, who at the age of just 13 was appointed principal player in opera buffa, the comic opera genre that was becoming popular in Venice, possibly at Teatro San Moisé, Teatro San Cassiano or Teatro San Samuele.  A year later, he was made principal double bass player in the mainstream, serious opera at Teatro San Benedetto.

Dragonetti with his three-
stringed da Salò double bass

In 1787 he was accepted for the orchestra at the Chapel of San Marco, who valued him so highly they twice increased his annual salary to stop him going to Russia, where the Tsar was keen to recruit him.  Such was his dexterity with the instrument he was given solo pieces to perform, which was highly unusual.

An example of Dragonett's ability to exploit the potential of the instrument came when he was staying at the Monastery of St Giustina in Padua, where he produced a sound that woke the monks in the middle of the night, thinking it was thunder.

In 1794, the Chapel of San Marco agreed that he could accept an invitation to play at the King’s Theatre in London and gave him paid leave for a year.  In the event, he settled in England and never returned for more than brief visits.

He made his debut at the King’s Theatre in December 1794 and within only a few months had become famous. He was able to provide for his extended family in Venice with his earnings, but also invested in art and purchased musical instruments previously owned by Stradivari, Maggini, and Montagnana, which he would later bequeath to members of the orchestra.

He became a prominent figure in the musical events of the English capital, performing at the concerts of the Philharmonic Society of London.  Prominent figures in London society, such as the Prince Consort and the Duke of Leinster, would invite him to play in private concerts. He and his close friend, the cellist Robert Lindley, found themselves in demand across Europe and embarked on many tours.

A bust of Gasparo da Salò, in Salò on the
shores of Lake Garda

In 1795, on a visit to London, the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn met Dragonetti and they became friends. In turn, Haydn invited Dragonetti to Vienna, where he was introduced to Beethoven. He also became acquainted with Paganini, Spohr, Hummel, Liszt and Rossini. He collaborated with many composers but also wrote several pieces for double bass in his own right.

Dragonetti was unusually tall for an Italian of his era and blessed with formidable strength and stamina, which was one factor that helped him get so much out of the instrument, playing parts that many double bass players would have thought impossible.

His favoured instrument was a massive, three-stringed bass made by the renowned luthier Gasparo da Salò, which he kept all of his life, turning down a number of offers, including one of 20,000 lire.  There are different stories as to how he acquired the instrument. One says he was given it by the Benedictine nuns of St Peter's monastery in Vicenza, where Dragonetti lived while he was paying in the Grand Opera. Another says it was bought from the monks of St Peter's by the Chapel of San Marco and given to Dragonetti as an enticement to stay.

The bow with which he played, which evolved during his career to suit his physical size and style of playing, became known as the Dragonetti bow.

He died at his lodgings in Leicester Square in central London in April 1846. He was buried initially in the vaults of the Roman Catholic Chapel of St Mary, Moorfields. In 1889 his remains were moved to the Roman Catholic cemetery at Wembley.

The Teatro San Benedetto in its heydey

Travel tip:

None of the Venice theatres – the San Moisé,  the San Cassiano or the San Samuele – in which Dragonetti might have played in opera buffa exists today. The San Benedetto closed in the early 20th century and was remodelled as a cinema.  Renamed Teatro Rossini in 1868 in honour of the composer Gioachino Rossini, it reopened as the Cinema Rossini in 1937. Nowadays, the building, in Salizzada de la Chiesa o del Teatro, which is between Teatro la Fenice and the Grand Canal in the San Marco district, holds a multi-screen cinema.


Travel tip:

Dragonetti’s prized da Salò double bass is said to have been stored in a room in Venice for 150 years after his death, where it inevitably fell into disrepair. However, the Venice authorities had the good sense to hire the modern-day luthier Sergio Scaramelli to restore the 400-year-old instrument in 2007 and it is now on display in the museum inside the Basilica di San Marco.

Let TripAdvisor advise on Venice hotels

More reading:

Giovanni Battista Pergoloesi - genius of opera buffa

The beautiful music of Antonio Vivaldi

La Fenice opera house destroyed by fire

Also on this day:

1794: The birth of opera singer Gianni Battista Rubini

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Saint Gerard Majella

Patron saint of expectant mothers

St Gerard Majella

Gerardo Maiella, a poor tailor from what is now Basilicata who became the Catholic Church’s patron saint of expectant mothers, was born on this day in 1726.

Maiella, from the hillside town of Muro Lucano near Potenza, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, was credited with a number of miracles. The one that led him to be associated with childbirth relates to a handkerchief he dropped when visiting a family as a lay brother of the Congregation of the Redeemer, having become famous locally on account of his supposedly mystical powers.

According to the story, one of the daughters of the family picked up the handkerchief and ran out of the house to return it to him, at which he told her to keep it, suggesting  she ‘might need it some day’.  Years later, as a pregnant young woman fearing for her life in a painfully difficult labour, she remembered his words and asked for the handkerchief to be placed on her. Immediately, the pain ceased and she gave birth to a healthy child.

At the time, only about one in three pregnancies ended in a live birth and Maiella was hailed for his miraculous intervention. Word spread of the story and Italian mothers adopted him as their patron.

He was beatified in January 1893 by Pope Leo XIII and canonised as Saint Gerard Majella in December 1904 by Pope Pius X.

A statue of the Saint in Wittem, in the Netherlands

The youngest of five children, Gerardo was the son of a tailor who died when he was 12, leaving the family in poverty.

His mother sent him to her brother’s workshop so that he could learn his father’s trade. Despite being bullied by the foreman of the workshop, Gerardo saw out his four-year apprenticeship and after a period working as a servant to the Bishop of Lacedonia he set about making a living from his new skills, first as an employee of other tailors, then in his own shop. He reputedly gave his mother a third of what he earned to keep him and his three surviving sisters, distributing the rest among the poor people of his town and making offerings for the souls in purgatory.

Rejected twice by the Capuchin Order on the grounds of his frail appearance and supposedly poor health, in 1749 he joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer - also known as Redemptorists – an order founded in 1732 by St Alphonsus Liguori at Scala, near Naples, with a mission to preach the word of God to the poor.

St Gerard's Church at Lostock Hall,
near Preston in Lancashire

Maiella took the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. He remained the friend of the poor and worked on behalf of the order in many different jobs. He was said to have the gift of reading consciences and was permitted to counsel communities of religious women.

His intercession is now sought not only for expectant mothers but unborn children, women in childbirth, mothers generally, good confessions and, somewhat incongruously, falsely accused people.

This stemmed from an incident when Maiella was accused maliciously of breaking his vows by having a relationship with a young woman. When confronted by Alphonsus Liguori about the accusation, Gerardo remained silent. The girl later admitted the accusation was a lie and cleared his name.

Among other miracles credited to him were restoring life to a boy who had seemingly fallen to his death from a cliff, blessing the small amount of wheat possessed by an impoverished family so that it lasted for a year, multiplying the loaves of bread he was distributing to the poor and even walking across the surface of a stormy sea to rescue a stricken fishing boat.

Suffering from tuberculosis, Gerardo died in the chapel of Santa Maria Materdomini in Caposele, some 35km (22 miles) from Muro Lucano, where he was serving the Redemptorist order as clerk of works for a building project, on October 16, 1755, the date which is commemorated each year as St Gerard’s feast day.

The Basilica di San Gerardo developed from the chapel
in Materdomini where Maiella died 

There are churches in many parts of the world dedicated to St Gerard, the first of which was built in 1908 in Wellington, New Zealand.

In England, the town of Preston and the city of Bristol have churches named in his honour, as does Bellshill in the Scottish county of Lanarkshire.

There are Catholic parishes dedicated to St Gerard Majella in the Borough of Queens in New York and in the Del Rey section of Los Angeles, while St Gerard's Chapel in St Lucy's Church in Newark, New Jersey has since 1977 been a national shrine.

Muro Lucano perches on a hillside near Potenza

Travel tip:

Muro Lucano is situated about 50km (31 miles) north-west of Potenza.  With a population of around 5,500 it is built on a slope overlooking the Muro ravine, its houses built on a series of terraces. The area has significance in history as the site of a battle between Hannibal and Marcellus in the second Punic War, while its castle is said to have witnessed the murder of Queen Joan of Naples on the orders of her adopted son, Charles III of Naples.

Travel tip:

The village of Materdomini, a frazione of Caposele, grew from a hamlet after the chapel of Santa Maria Materdomini was developed into the Basilica of Santa Gerardo Maiella and became a centre for pilgrimage dedicated to the worship of St Gerard.

More reading:

How the festival of San Gennaro is celebrated across the world

The missionary saint from Limone sul Garda

Why St Thomas Aquinas is so important among saints

Also on this day:

1483: The birth of Renaissance great Raphael

(Picture credits: Saint Gerard by Nashastudiya; Wittem statue by Kris Roderburg; Mura Lucano by Pitichinaccio; San Gerardo Basilica by Gerrusson; all via Wikimedia Commons)




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Giovanni dalle Bande Nere - condottiero

Medici soldier who fathered Cosimo I de' Medici

Giovanni dalle Bande Nere: a portrait by an
unknown artist

Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, the military leader regarded as the last of the great Italian condottieri, was born on this day in 1498 in Forlì, in what is now the Emilia-Romagna region.

The condottieri were professional soldiers, mercenaries who hired themselves out to lead the armies of the Italian city-states and the Papacy in the frequent wars that ensued from the Middle Ages through to the Renaissance.

Giovanni spent the greater part of his military career in the service of Pope Leo X, the Medici pope. Indeed, he was a Medici himself, albeit from a then secondary branch of the family. Baptised Ludovico, he was the son of Giovanni de’ Medici, also known as Il Popolano and a great-nephew of Cosimo the Elder, the founder of the dynasty.

It was his mother, Caterina Sforza, the powerful daughter of the Duke of Milan, who renamed him Giovanni in memory of his father, her fourth husband, who died when the boy was just five months old. He became Giovanni dalle Bande Nere much later, in 1521, when he added black stripes to his military insignia in a show of mourning for Pope Leo X.

His upbringing brought out the worst aspects of his character, which was deeply influenced by his mother’s fiery nature. The family moved to Florence after his father’s death and after Caterina herself passed away in 1509, his care was placed in the hands of Iacopo Salviati and Lucrezia de’ Medici, the daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Giovanni's wife, Maria Salviati: a portrait by
Jacopo Pontormo, in the Uffizi Gallery

Giovanni was no easy child to look after. At the age of 12, a rebellious and bored schoolboy, he murdered another boy of the same age and for a while was banished from the city.

It was Salviati who found him a way to channel his aggression to a profitable purpose, using his influence after the Medicis returned to power in 1512 following an 18-year exile to get him work as commander of a cavalry company of mercenaries fighting for Leo X during the Battle of Urbino (1516-17).

In 1517, Giovanni married Maria, Salviati's daughter. Their son Cosimo, born on June 15, would go on to be Cosimo I de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, under whose rule Florence enjoyed considerable prosperity and military power.

Giovanni continued to serve Leo X and in 1521 took part in the war to oust the French from the Duchy of Milan, gaining praise for his skirmishing tactics in securing a victory for the combined forces of Leo X and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V at Vaprio d’Adda.

His loyalties could be bought, however. Following the death of Leo X, and chronically in debt, he agreed to fight for the French, only to be on the losing side at the Battle of Bicocca in 1522.

Subsequently he fought for the Sforza family and then for another Medici pope, Clement VII, who agreed to pay off all his debts.

Bronzino's portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici

It was while he was in the service of Clement VII, who was part of the League of Cognac, which united France, the Duchy of Milan, Venice, Florence and the pope against Charles V, that Giovanni died.

During a battle in November 1526 to hold back the advance of Imperial forces into Lombardy, he was struck in the right leg by a cannon ball. His leg was amputated, but he died, probably of gangrene, four days later.

Buried initially in Mantua, his body was eventually returned to Florence in 1685 to be entombed in the Chapel of the Princes in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. It was exhumed in 2012 to preserve the remains, which had been submerged during the Florence floods of 1966.

Soon after his death, mobile cannons became much more common on the battlefield and the armoured cavalry companies that the condottieri tended to lead became almost obsolete very quickly, hence Dalle Bande Nere tends to be called the last of the condottieri.

Bandinelli's statue of Giovanne dalle
Bande Nere dominates Piazza San Lorenzo

Travel tip:

Piazza San Lorenzo in Florence is notable for the statue of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo I in honour of his father and created by the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, who placed Giovanni not on a horse but on a chair, holding what has been suggested is a broken lance. The statue was to have rested on a pedestal inside the Basilica of San Lorenzo but Cosimo I changed his mind and had the statue installed in the Palazzo Vecchio, in the Sala dell'Udienza.  However, the enormous marble pedestal on which Bandinelli wanted it to rest, decorated with a relief meant to depict the condottieri’s clemency towards his prisoners, proved too big and Cosimo changed his plans again, placing it in Piazza San Lorenzo. In another statue, under the portico of the Uffizi Gallery, Giovanni is standing and holding a sword.

Piazza Saffi is the main square in the centre of Forlì

Travel tip:

Forlì, a city of almost 120,000 inhabitants in the wealthy Emilia-Romagna region, has been the site of a settlement since the Romans were there in around 188BC.  Forlì today has several buildings of architectural, artistic and historical significance. At the heart of the city is Piazza Aurelio Saffi, named after the politician Aurelio Saffi, an important figure in the pro-republican faction during the Risorgimento. The Piazza Saffi also includes the 12th century Abbey of San Mercuriale.

More reading:

Bartolomeo Colleoni - the benevolent condottiero

How Federico da Montefeltro channelled profits of war into love of art

The grand designs of Cosimo I de' Medici

Also on this day:

1622: The birth of mathematician and scientist Vincenzo Viviani

1801: The birth of political philosopher and patriot Vincenzo Gioberti


(Picture credits: statue by Sailko via Wikimedia Commons)

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Francesco De Gregori - singer-songwriter

Performer inspired by songs of hero Bob Dylan

Francesco de Gregori on stage in 2008

The singer-songwriter Francesco De Gregori - popularly known as "Il Principe dei cantautori" (the prince of the singer-songwriters) – was born on this day in 1951.

Born in Rome, De Gregori has released around 40 albums in a career spanning 45 years, selling more than five million records.

Famous for the elegant and often poetic nature of his lyrics, De Gregori was once described by Bob Dylan as an “Italian folk hero”.

De Gregori acknowledges Dylan as one if his biggest inspirations and influences, along with Leonard Cohen and the Italian singer Fabrizio de André.  Covers of Dylan songs have regularly featured in his stage performances. He made an album in 2015 entitled Love and Theft: De Gregori Sings Bob Dylan.

Born into a middle class family – his father was a librarian, his mother a teacher - De Gregori spent his youth living in Rome or on the Adriatic coast at Pescara. He began to develop his musical career at the Folkstudio in Rome’s Trastevere district, where Dylan had performed in 1962.

De Gregori (left) and Lucio Dalla in Genoa in 2010

He became friends with fellow singer-songwriters Antonello Venditti, Mimmo Locasciulli and Giorgio Lo Cascio. It was alongside Venditti that he made his professional debut and the two collaborated on an album, Theorius Campus, in 1972. Venditti had more songs and was considered to have a better voice and when their record label indicated that they were more interested in Venditti, the partnership broke up.

De Gregori's 1973 solo debut album, Alice Non Lo Sa, did not impress the critics, who were not enthused either by his 1974 follow-up. But with his 1975 album, Rimmel, he began to enjoy some success. Reviewers liked his reflective and intelligent lyrics – less obscure than some of his earlier songs – and the album benefitted from some input from Lucio Dalla, with whom he struck a lasting friendship.

In 1976 he had another success with Bufalo Bill but an incident in Milan during a tour the following year led to him abruptly quitting the music business.

Bob Dylan in 2010

De Gregori had been a member of the Italian Communist Party and his songs often had a political theme, as did those of many Italian performers at that time, but while he was on stage at the PalaLido arena in Milan he was targeted by a group of left-wing extremists who began a protest during the show, accusing him of using left-wing messages merely to sell his records.  Fearing physical attack, he left the stage and the concert was abandoned, after which he announced that his career was over.

For the next few months he worked as a clerk in a book and music shop but was persuaded to resume his career the following year. A new album, De Gregori, included a song, "Generale," that would become one of his signature tracks. Soon afterwards, he joined Dalla on a successful tour entitled Banana Republic.  The two would later host a music show on the Rai television network, entitled Due.

Ironically, the title track of his next album, Viva l’Italia, was adopted as an anthem by the Italian Socialist Party.  In 1982 he recorded Titanic, the album many critics consider his tour de force, and since then, after a period working as a journalist for the newspaper L’Unità, De Gregori has recorded albums at a rate of one every year. His latest, Sotto il Vulcano, was released in February this year.

Married to Alessandra, whom he met at high school, De Gregori has two sons, Marco and Federico.  His nickname – Il Principe – was given to him by a journalist and apparently related to his sometimes haughty manner when dealing with the press.

Via Garibaldi in Trastevere

Travel tip:

The Folkstudio club opened in 1961 in a cellar in Via Garibaldi in the Trastevere area of Rome. Its founder was an American painter and musician, Harold Bradley Jr, who invited a then little known Bob Dylan to play there soon after it opened. The club, which at first promoted jazz and blues musicians, eventually hosted performers of many different styles and helped launch the careers of many Italian artists. Bradley moved back to the United States in 1967 but music lover Giancarlo Cesaroni took over. The club’s premises moved subsequently to the library L'Uscita, in Via dei Banchi Vecchi, then to Via Sacchi and later Via Frangipane, near the Colosseum.  A plaque on the wall in Via Garibaldi marks its original home.

Prati is an affluent Roman neighbourhood

Travel tip:

De Gregori was raised in the Prati district of Rome, close to the Vatican and St Peter’s Basilica, which is now an affluent residential neighbourhood which is popular with tourists for offering a relatively quiet place to stay that still provides easy access to the city’s historical centre. It has many authentic Roman trattorie as well as a host of bars and pubs.

More reading:

The enduring talents of Antonello Venditti

How pop singer Lucio Dalla found inspiration in opera great Enrico Caruso

The story of Adelmo Fornaciari - otherwise known as Zucchero

Also on this day:

1752: The birth of composer Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli

1960: The birth of businesswoman Daniela Riccardi

1963: The birth of politician turned TV presenter Irene Pivetti

(Picture credits: De Gregori and Dalla by Gianky; Bob Dylan by Alberto Cabello; Via Garibaldi by Mark Ahsmann; Prati street by Lalupa; all via Wikimedia Commons)


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