Lamberto Maggiorani - unlikely movie star

Factory worker who shot to fame in Bicycle Thieves

Maggiorani with Enzo Staiola, who played his son, Bruno,
in Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves

Lamberto Maggiorani, who found overnight fame after starring in the neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves (1948), was born on this day in 1909 in Rome.

Maggiorani was cast in the role of Antonio Ricci, a father desperate for work to support his family in post-War Rome, who is offered a job pasting posters to advertising hoardings but can take it only on condition that he has a bicycle – essential for moving around the city carrying his ladder and bucket.

He has one, but it has been pawned.  To retrieve it, his wife, Marie, strips the bed of her dowry sheets, which the pawn shop takes in exchange for the bicycle. They are happy, because Antonio has a job which will support her, their son Bruno and their new baby.

However, on his first day in the job the bicycle is stolen, snatched by a thief who waits for Antonio to climb to the top of his ladder before seizing his moment.  The remainder of the film follows Antonio and Bruno as they try to find the bicycle.

As a portrait of life among the disadvantaged working class in Rome in the late 1940s, the film is hailed as a masterpiece, director Vittorio de Sica and his screenwriter Cesare Zavattini fêted by the critics for turning a little-known novel by Luigi Bartolini into a piece of cinema genius.

For Maggiorani, however, his participation was something of a bitter-sweet experience.

An original poster from the 1948 movie

De Sica, who had won an Academy Award two years earlier with Shoeshine, attracted plenty of interest when news spread of his new project, with one American producer willing to offer a lucrative deal to cast Cary Grant in the lead role.

It did not interest De Sica, who was determined to be faithful to the principles of the burgeoning neorealist genre be picking actors who would infuse his characters with realism, regardless of whether they had any experience.

Maggiorani was not an actor at all, but a worker in a steel factory. He had himself experienced unemployment as Rome and De Sica saw him as perfect for the role of Antonio.

Delighted, Maggiorani accepted De Sica’s offer, taking time off work for the filming. He was paid $1,000 dollars, the equivalent of about $10,500 dollars (€8,800) today, with which he was able to give his family their first real holiday and buy new furniture for their home.

His performance was magnificent.  Sometimes, De Sica had to use another actor to dub Maggiorani’s dialogue because his strong Roman accent was occasionally hard to follow, but otherwise he was delighted with how his unlikely protégé understood the way he wanted his character to be portrayed. The critics hailed the arrival of a new star.

Yet once the fuss died down and his pay cheque was spent, Maggiorani found his life had changed. One thousand dollars might have been a large sum but it did not set him up for life.

The director Vittorio de Sica

He went back to the factory, but when orders fell away he was told he was no longer required, the perception being that he must be worth millions of lire after his movie success and that there were others whose need for work was greater.

Shunned by many of his friends, too, after failing to share his perceived wealth, he went back to the movie industry, assuming he would be offered more parts.

He was given some, but usually they were minor roles. Pier Paolo Pasolini gave him a bit part in Mamma Roma, a film about a prostitute trying to start a new life and starring Anna Magnani, but only because he thought his name in the credits would raise the movie’s profile.

De Sica was reluctant to use him at all as anything but an extra. Zavattini recognised and sympathised with his predicament and wrote a screenplay entitled ‘Tu, Maggiorani’ about how non-professional actors such as Maggiorani were sometimes used to execute one particular role and then cast aside.

Maggiorani made 16 movies, the last one a comedy entitled Ostia, directed by Sergio Citti and produced by Pier Paolo Pasolini, but none was particularly successful nor earned him much money.

He died at the San Giovanni Hospital in Rome in 1983 at the age of 73, having never regained the standing he enjoyed with Bicycle Thieves.  It is ironic that the film has recently been recognised as one of the greatest of all time.

The Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura adjoins
the Campo Verano cemetery

Travel tip:

Lamberto Maggiorani is buried at the Cimitero Comunale Monumentale Campo Verano, situated beside the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, in the Tiburtino area of Rome. It is the city's largest cemetery, with some five million internments. The name 'Verano' is thought to date back to the Roman era, when the area was known as Campo dei Verani.

The San Giovanni Addolorata Hospital is built on top of
Roman Ruins on Celio hill, south-east of the city centre

Travel tip:

The hospital complex San Giovanni Addolorata, where Maggiorani died, is on the Celio hill, an area of ancient Roman urban settlements. Under the existing buildings are archaeological remains, including the Villa of Domitian Lucilla, mother of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.  Renovation work has also uncovered a villa belonging to the powerful Valerii family, great landowners, which contained historic mosaics preserved in perfect condition.

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Zanetta Farussi – actress

Venetian performer who gave birth to a legendary womaniser

Giacomo Casanova, whose mother was
 the actress Zanetta Farussi

Zanetta Farussi, the comedy actress who was the mother of the notorious adventurer, Casanova, was born on this day in 1707 in Venice.

At the age of 17, Zanetta had married the actor Gaetano Casanova, who was 10 years older than her.

He had just returned to Venice after several years with a touring theatrical troupe, to take a job at the Teatro San Samuele.

Farussi’s parents opposed the marriage because they considered acting to be a disreputable profession.

But Farussi soon began working at Teatro San Samuele herself and the following year she gave birth to a son, Giacomo, who was to grow up to make the name Casanova synonymous with womanising and philandering.  Giacomo Casanova would later claim that his real father was Michele Grimani, who owned the Teatro San Samuele.

Zanetta and Gaetano accepted a theatrical engagement in London where Farussi gave birth to their second son, Francesco, who became a well-known painter.

They returned to Venice in 1728 and went on to have four more children. The youngest child was born two months after the death of his father. 

The Teatro San Samuele, where Farussi found work

The same year, Farussi met the playwright Carlo Goldoni in Verona and he wrote a short comedy for her called La Pupilla (The Female Ward), which was inspired by the jealous infatuation she had inspired in a famous actor and theatrical impresario of the day. It was presented as an interlude with his tragicomedy, Belisario.

In 1737 Farussi signed a long contract to appear in Italian comedies in Saxony.

The following year she made her debut in Pilnitz, near Dresden, on the occasion of the proxy wedding of Crown Princess Maria Amalia.

Farussi eventually visited Warsaw, where she presented two short theatrical pieces she had written herself.

When the Seven Years War started, the Saxon court suspended the activities of the Italian comedy troupe and the actors all retired and were granted an annual pension.

The playwright Carlo Goldoni

During the war, Farussi sought refuge in Prague but as soon as it was safe she returned to Dresden where she was to remain for the rest of her life. She was joined by one of her sons, Giovanni, who taught at the Academy of Fine Arts there, and one of her daughters, Maria Maddalena, who married the court organist, Peter August.

Meanwhile, her eldest son, Giacomo Casanova, had graduated in law from the University of Padua. At various times during his life he worked as a clergyman, military officer, violinist, businessman and spy. Throughout his life it was a recurring pattern that he embarked on passionate affairs with women, ran out of money and was imprisoned for debt.

He was locked up for a time in the Doge’s Palace in Venice in terrible conditions, but he eventually escaped through the ceiling of his cell, broke back into the building through a window, walked out through the main entrance and made his escape in a gondola across the lagoon on his way to exile in France.

Farussi, who was known in theatrical circles as La Buranella, a reference to her family roots on the island of Burano, died in 1776 in Dresden.

Travel tip:

The church of San Samuele, just beyond the waterbus stop

Teatro San Samuele, where Farussi began her theatrical career, was an opera house and theatre at the Rio del Duca, between San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano. It was first opened in 1656 in Venice and the playwright, Carlo Goldoni, was the theatre’s director between 1737 and 1741. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1747 but then rebuilt and it remained a theatre until the building was demolished in 1894. San Samuele is in the San Marco sestiere and has a waterbus stop on the right bank of the Grand Canal before you reach the Rialto.

Goldoni's home was the beautiful Palazzo Centani

Travel tip:

The playwright, Carlo Goldoni, who wrote more than 250 comedies, was born in the beautiful Gothic Palazzo Centani in Venice. The palace, in Calle dei Nomboli in the San Polo district, is now a centre for theatrical studies and has a collection of theatrical memorabilia on display. It is open to the public every day except Wednesday.

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La Pietà - Michelangelo's masterpiece

Brilliant sculpture commissioned by French Cardinal

Michelangelo's masterpiece, La Pietà

Michelangelo Buonarotti agreed the contract to create the sculpture that would come to be regarded as his masterpiece on this day in 1498.

It was made between the artist and Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, the French ambassador to the Holy See, who wanted a sculpture of the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of Jesus, which was a common theme in religious art in northern Europe at the time.

Michelangelo, who would live until he was almost 89, was just 23 at the time and had been in Rome only a couple of years, but was about to produce a piece of work that astounded his contemporaries and is still seen as one of the finest pieces of sculpture ever crafted.

La Pietà – in English, 'the pity' – was carved from a block of blue and white Carrara marble selected by Michelangelo a good six feet (183cm) tall by six feet across.  The Cardinal intended it to be his funeral monument. It was eventually placed in a chapel in St Peter’s Basilica.

The work shows the body of Christ, shortly after being taken down from the cross following his crucifixion by the Romans, cradled in the lap of Mary.  It is necessarily out of proportion – Michelangelo makes Mary quite a broad figure, with voluminous clothes, to accommodate the body of a man lying full length across her -  but the detail is exquisite.

Michelangelo Buonarotti: a detail from Daniele
da Volterra's portrait, painted in about 1544

Michelangelo broke with convention by portraying Mary as a young and beautiful woman. The long and physically almost perfect body of Christ, moreover, with few signs of the damage done to him, wears a facial expression conveying almost serenity, rather than suffering. Giorgio Vasari, the artist and art historian, a contemporary of Michelangelo, described the work as “perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh.”

One explanation for Michelangelo’s decision to make Mary a young woman rather than the middle-aged figure of convention is that he intended her to be a symbol of incorruptible beauty.

Another is that it stems from his enthusiasm, as a Tuscan, for Dante’s Divine Comedy and is a reference to a scene in Paradiso, the third part of the epic poem, in which Saint Bernard describes Mary as ‘Virgin mother, daughter of your son’ on the basis that if Jesus is one of the figures of the Holy Trinity, then Mary would be his daughter.

When challenged about it, Michelangelo suggested that, as a chaste woman, Mary would retain her freshness and therefore could still appear youthful, even though the mother of a 33-year-old son.

Despite its scale and the intricacies of detail Michelangelo sought to achieve, the work took less than two years to complete.

The dome of the 'new' St Peter's

The Pietà's first home was the Chapel of Santa Petronilla, a Roman mausoleum near the south transept of the old St. Peter's, which the Cardinal had chosen as his funerary chapel.  Word of its outstanding brilliance spread and artists would travel to Rome especially to study it.  Michelangelo, already a noted sculptor who had worked for the Medici in Florence, became almost a revered figure among his peers.

The statue is the only one Michelangelo ever signed, something he would later say he regretted as an act of vanity.

Apparently, it happened shortly after it had been installed in the chapel, when Michelangelo overheard a conversation among a group of visitors from Lombardy in which one of the group said the work was by a sculptor from Milan, Cristoforo Solari, also known as Il Gobbo (the hunchback).  Furious, Michelangelo returned to the chapel that night with his chisels and chipped out an inscription across the sash of Mary’s robe, which read: ‘Michelangelus Bonarotus Florent Faciebat’ – Michelangelo Buonarotti, Florentine, Made This’.

According to Vasari, Michelangelo later felt ashamed at having left a rather tawdry mark on his work out of petty impulsiveness.  From then on, nothing he created bore his signature.

The Pietà  has been moved a number of times, including in the early 18^th century when four fingers on Mary’s outstretched left hand were damaged and had to be reconstructed, but remarkably it survived the extraordinary journey undertaken in 1964 after Pope John XXIII agreed for the sculpture to be displayed at the New York World’s Fair.

The SS Cristoforo Colombo, on which the Pietà
was shipped to New York in 1964

Packed into a crate padded with plastic foam within two outer crates, it was loaded on to the SS Cristoforo Colombo, the luxury cruiser of the Italian Line, and embarked on an eight-to-nine-day journey across the Atlantic.

Apparently, the crate, despite weighing 5.26 metric tonnes (11,600lb), would have floated to the surface had the Cristoforo Colombo sunk, and have been visible in the water by its red painted top.  There was also radio equipment in the crate which would have given its position had it slipped below the surface, although this was operational only to a depth of three metres (10ft).

Happily, both voyages were completed without mishap and the Pietà , not previously moved from the Vatican in 465 years, was returned safely to St Peter’s, where it can be found in the first chapel on the right after entering through the main doors.

Following an attack in 1972 by a mentally disturbed geologist, the Hungarian-born Australian Laszlo Toth, who struck the Pietà  with a hammer 15 times, damaging Mary’s left arm, part of her nose and one of her eyelids, it is now behind a bulletproof acrylic glass panel.

Travel tip:

Visitors to Rome will find that St Peter’s Basilica is open every day throughout the year, from 7am to 7pm between April and September and from 7am to 6pm October to March. As with most religious buildings in Italy, visitors must abide by the dress code, that tends to mean no shorts or short skirts and that shoulders should be covered. The Pietà  is in the Chapel of the Pietà , which is immediately on the right after entering from St Peter’s Square via the Porta Santa (Holy Door).

The Basilica of St Peter with Bernini's colonnades and
Carlo Maderno's fountain in the foreground 

Travel tip:

At the time the Pietà was made, St Peter’s Basilica did not exist in its present form but as a church built originally in the fourth century on the spot where it was believed St Peter was buried. The idea of building a new basilica was first mooted in the mid-15^th century, and finally commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1505 after a competition was held, inviting designs for what Julius described as “the grandest building in Christendom". Donato Bramante, from Urbino, won the competition, although he was only the first of several architects to be involved, included Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.  Construction began in 1506 and took 120 years to complete.

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Saint Patricia of Naples

Patron saint performs a miracle every week

The Chapel of Saint Patricia inside the Church of
San Gregorio Armeno in the centre of Naples

The feast day of Saint Patricia is celebrated every year in Naples on this day.

The saint, who is also sometimes referred to as Patricia of Constantinople, is one of a long list of patron saints of Naples.

She is less well known than San Gennaro, also a patron saint of the city, who attracts crowds to Naples Cathedral three times a year to witness the miracle of a small sample of his blood turning to liquid.

But Saint Patricia’s blood, which is kept in the Church of San Gregorio Armeno, is said to undergo the same miraculous transformation every Tuesday morning as well as on August 25 each year - her feast day - which was believed to be the day she died in 665 AD.

Saint Patricia was a noble woman, who may have been descended from St Constantine the Great.

Saint Patricia

She was a devout virgin and travelled to Rome to become a nun in order to escape an arranged marriage.  She received the veil – symbolising her acceptance into the monastic community – from Pope Liberius.

When her wealthy father died, she returned to Constantinople and, renouncing any claim to the imperial crown, distributed her wealth among the poor.

She was planning to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but was shipwrecked after a terrible storm on to a small island off the coast of Naples, which is now the site of Castel dell’Ovo.

Patricia died shortly afterwards from disease, but according to a legend, a man pulled out one of her teeth after her death, which caused her body to haemorrhage. Her devoted followers collected the blood, which they preserved.

Patricia’s remains were transferred in the 19th century to the monastery of San Gregorio Armeno in Naples.

Every Tuesday morning, Saint Patricia’s blood liquefies after the service at the Church of San Gregorio, as it does on August 25, her feast day.

Patricia’s remains lie inside a coffin at a side altar in the church, but during Tuesday mass, a vial of her blood is hung from the main altar covered with a cloth. Worshippers queue up to kiss the receptacle containing the blood, which is said to turn into a dark liquid.

San Gennaro performs his miracle at the Duomo in Naples three times a year but attracts a lot more publicity.

Via San Gregorio Armeno is famous for
its stalls selling hand-made presepi

Travel tip:

The Church of San Gregorio Armeno, where Saint Patricia’s remains are kept, is in Via San Gregorio Armeno, a street just south of Via dei Tribunali that is well-known for its stalls of hand-made presepi - Christmas crib scenes - which are for sale all the year round. Construction of the Baroque Church began in the 16th century using designs by Giovanni Battista Cavagni, and much of the decoration was done by Luca Giordano, in particular the cupola, which is painted with the Glory of San Gregorio.  The cloister, added in 1580, has in its centre a marble fountain, decorated with dolphins and other marine creatures, with the statues of Christ and the Samaritan Woman by Matteo Bottiglieri.

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The imposing facade of the Duomo di Napoli,
which contains the relics of San Gennaro
 

Travel tip:

The Duomo in Naples, in Via Duomo, off Via dei Tribunali, was built over the ruins of two earlier Christian churches for Charles I of Anjou at the end of the 13th century. One of the main attractions inside is the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, which contains many precious works of art, including frescoes by Domenichino and Giovanni Lanfranco, altarpieces by Domenichino, Massimo Stanzione and Jusepe Ribera, the rich high altar by Francesco Solimena. The Duomo is also sometimes referred to as Cattedrale di San Gennaro. In addition to the remains of San Gennaro, the cathedral is also the burial place of Pope Innocent IV and of Charles I of Naples and Sicily. It is open to the public from 8.30am to 1.30pm and 2.30pm to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 8.30pm to 1.30pm and 4.30pm to 7.30pm on Sundays.

More reading:

The worldwide celebrations of the Festival of San Gennaro

How Catania hails its patron saint, Agatha of Sicily

Madonna della Salute and Venice's deliverance from plague

Also on this day:

79: Eruption of Vesuvius

1509: The birth of extravagant cardinal Ippolito II d'Este

1609: Galileo demonstrates potential of telescope

1691: The birth of architect Alessandro Galilei

1829: The birth of musician Carlo Eduardo Acton

(Picure credits: Chapel of Saint Patricia by Giuseppe Guida via Wikimedia Commons)

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