Marietta Piccolomini – soprano

Popular star who found fame as Violetta

Marietta Piccolomini had to persuade
reluctant parents to let her sing

The operatic soprano Marietta Piccolomini, who was most famous for her performances as Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata, was born on this day in 1834 in Siena.

Her career was relatively brief, spanning just 11 years. Yet she managed to achieve unprecedented popularity, to the extent that crowds of fans would gather outside her hotel and men would volunteer to take the place of horses in pulling her carriage through the streets.

Some critics said that the adulation she enjoyed was more to do with her youthful good looks and her acting ability than her voice, who they argued was weak and limited.

Nonetheless, she was seldom short of work and she was the first Violetta to be seen by operagoers in both Paris and London.  She had a particularly enthusiastic following in England, where she undertook several tours of provincial theatres as well as appearing in the capital.

Born Maria Teresa Violante Piccolomini Clementini, she came from a noble Tuscan family. Her musical mother, a talented amateur, would sing duets with her. However, while her family were happy to arrange lessons for her with Pietro Romani, one of Italy’s first professional singing teachers, her father was reluctant to allow her to make opera singing a career.

She made her first stage appearances in 1852, at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence in Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, and at the Teatro Apollo in Rome, where she performed in two more Donizetti operas, Poliuto and Don Pasquale.

Giuseppe Verdi tried to stop
Piccolomini's Paris debut

Piccolomini took the role of Gilda in Guiseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto in Pisa in 1853 and appeared as Violetta for the first time in Turin two years later, receiving a rapturous response from the audience. It was there for the first time that she enjoyed the adulation of a star, with fans waiting outside her hotel in the hope of catching a glimpse of her.

In 1856, she was invited to reprise the role in the British premiere of La Traviata at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, where she became a favourite.  She enjoyed popularity in Dublin also.

The following year she was Violetta in the first French production of La Traviata, which was staged at the Theatre des Italiens in Paris despite attempts by Verdi, who did not have copyrights in France, to stop it going ahead.

Returning to England in 1858, she sang in Donizetti’s La figlia del reggimento and Lucia di Lammermoor, and in Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart, before embarking on a long provincial tour. Later in the year, she performed in Holland and Germany.

After another season and another tour of English cities in 1859, in the autumn she made her New York debut at the Academy of Music, as Violetta in La Traviata, after which she took her repertoire of Verdi, Donizetti and Mozart roles on a successful tour of cities across America.

Her marriage in 1860 to the Marquis Francesco Caetani della Fargna effectively ended her career, although she was persuaded out of retirement in 1863 for some benefit concerts in honour of Benjamin Lumley, the former impresario of Her Majesty’s Theatre and the man who had launched her career as an international artist, who had fallen on hard times.

Piccolomini died in 1899 at her villa in Florence, having contracted pneumonia.  She was buried at the Cimitero della Porte Sante at the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte.

The Piccolomini library adjoins
Siena's beautiful cathedral 

Travel tip:

Adjoining Siena’s beautiful Italian Gothic and Romanesque cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, is the Piccolomini Library, which houses precious illuminated choir books and is decorated with frescoes by Bernardino di Betto, who was better known as Pinturicchio, which were favourites of Cardinal Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who would become Pope Pius II.

The Basilica di San Miniato at Monte is a Romanesque
church standing at one of the highest points in Florence

Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Miniato al Monte, a handsome Romanesque church, stands at one of the highest points in Florence, commanding sweeping views across the city. The cemetery was established there in 1848 within the basilica’s 16^th century fortifications.  Among those interred there are the painters Giuseppe Abbati and Pietro Annigoni, the author Carlo Collodi (of Pinocchio fame), the actor Tommaso Salvini and the historian and politician Pasquale Villari.

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More reading:

La Traviata's premiere in Venice

Verdi: How Italy mourned the loss of a national symbol

Rigoletto debuts at La Fenice

Also on this day:

1696: The birth of painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

1827: The death of scientist Alessandro Volta

1922: The birth of writer and movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini

(Picture credits: Siena cathedral by Myrabella; Basilica di San Miniato by Rufus46)

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Birth of the Italian Constitution

Celebrations in Turin for historic Statute

Charles Albert, King of Sardinia

The Albertine Statute - Statuto Albertino - which later became the Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy, was approved by Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, on this day in 1848 in Turin.

The Constitution was to last 100 years, until its abolition in 1948 when the Constitution of the new Italian republic came into effect.

The Statute was based on the French Charter of 1830. It ensured citizens were equal before the law and gave them limited rights of assembly and the right to a free press.

However, it gave voting rights to less than three per cent of the population.

The Statute established the three classic branches of government: the executive, which meant the king, the legislative, divided between the royally appointed Senate and an elected Chamber of Deputies, and a judiciary, also appointed by the king.

Originally, it was the king who possessed the widest powers, as he controlled foreign policy and had the prerogative of nominating and dismissing ministers of state.

In practice, the Statute was gradually modified to weaken the king’s power. The ministers of state became responsible to the parliament and the office of prime minister, not provided for in the Constitution, became prominent.

Charles Albert signs the Albertine Statute

The king, however, retained an important influence in foreign affairs and in times of domestic crisis his role was pivotal.

The social base of the constitution was gradually broadened so that by 1913 universal adult male suffrage was achieved.

Under the Fascist regime the Statute was substantially modified to put control of the Government into the hands of the Fascist Party.

Charles Albert, the King of Sardinia between 1831 and 1839, gave his name to the beginnings of the Italian Constitution as it was called the Albertine Statute.

Before the statute was drafted Charles Albert had said he would not approve it if it did not clearly state the pre-eminent position of the Catholic religion and the honour of the monarchy. Once he had obtained these concessions he approved it.

Later that day a royal edict was published in the streets of Turin laying out the 14 articles which formed the basis of the Statute.

By the evening the city was lit up by bonfires and a massive demonstration in favour of Charles Albert took place.

The full version of the Statute with all its articles was finally agreed on March 4, 1848 and approved the same day by Charles Albert.

The Piazza Castello in the heart of royal Turin

Travel tip:

Turin, the capital city of the region of Piedmont, has some fine architecture, which illustrates its rich history as the home of the Savoy Kings of Italy. Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library and Palazzo Madama, which used to house the Italian senate, is at the heart of ‘royal’ Turin.

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The Palazzo Viceregio is a former royal palace

Travel tip:

The monarchs of the House of Savoy ruled from their mainland capital of Turin but styled themselves primarily Kings of Sardinia after Victor Amadeus II of Savoy was the first to rule the island after it was ceded to him by Emperor Charles VI in 1720. For a short period between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century the Palazzo Viceregio in Cagliari in Sardinia was the official royal residence after the King was exiled from Turin.

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Sebastiano Venier – Doge of Venice

Victorious naval commander briefly ruled La Serenissima

Jacopo Tintoretto's portrait of Sebastiano
Venier at the Battle of Lepanto

Sebastiano Venier, who successfully commanded the Venetian contingent at the Battle of Lepanto, died on this day in 1578 in Venice.

He had been Doge of Venice for less than a year when fire badly damaged the Doge’s Palace. He died soon afterwards, supposedly as a result of the distress it had caused him.

Venier was born in Venice around 1496, the son of Moisè Venier and Elena Donà. He was descended from Pietro Venier, who governed Cerigo, one of the main Ionian islands off the coast of Greece, which was also known as Kythira.

Venier worked as a lawyer, although he had no formal qualifications, and he went on to become an administrator for the Government of the Republic of Venice. He was married to Cecilia Contarini, who bore him two sons and a daughter.

Venier was listed as procurator of St Mark’s in 1570, but by December of the same year, he was capitano generale da mar, the Admiral of the Venetian fleet, in the new war against the Ottoman Turks.

As the commander of the Venetian contingent at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, he helped the Christian League decisively defeat the Turks.

The plaque to Sebastiano Venier at his house in Campo
Santa Maria Formosa in Venice

The battle took place in the Gulf of Patras when Ottoman forces sailing westwards from their naval station in Lepanto encountered the fleet of the Holy League sailing east from Messina in Sicily. The Holy League was a coalition of European Catholic maritime states, largely financed by Phillip II of Spain.

The Battle of Lepanto was the last major naval engagement to be fought almost entirely by rowing vessels and the victory of the Holy League was of great importance in the future defence of Europe against Ottoman military expansion.

Venier returned to Venice a hero and, as a popular figure, was unanimously elected Doge in 1577 at the age of 81.

The Doge’s Palace was in the process of being refurbished in the aftermath of a fire in 1547 when another fire broke out, damaging the Great Council Chamber and many works of art.

A heartbroken Venier died a few weeks later on March 3, 1578 and was interred in the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

There is a plaque commemorating his memory on the wall of the Palazzetto Venier in Campo Santa Maria Formosa, not far from St Mark’s.

The monument to Sebastiano Venier outside the
Basilica of SS Giovanni e Paolo in Venice

Travel tip:

The Doge’s Palace, where Sebastiano Venier lived during his brief reign, was the seat of the Government of Venice and the home of the Doge from the early days of the republic. For centuries this was the only building in Venice entitled to the name palazzo. The others were merely called Cà, short for Casa. The current palazzo was built in the 12th century in Venetian Gothic style, one side looking out over the lagoon, the other side looking out over the piazzetta that links St Mark’s Square with the waterfront. It opened as a museum in 1923 and is now run by Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

Travel tip:

The Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, where Sebastiano Venier is buried, is referred to by Venetians as San Zanipolo. The church, in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the Castello district, is one of the largest in Venice. It has the status of a minor basilica and a total of 25 of Venice’s Doges are buried there.

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Pietro Novelli – painter and architect

Sicilian great who was killed in Palermo riot

Novelli's Annunciation, which he painted
in the church of Santissima Annunziata

Pietro Novelli, recognised as the most important artist in 17^th century Sicily, was born on this day in 1603 in Monreale, a town about 10km (6 miles) from Palermo.

A prolific painter, his works can be seen in many churches and galleries in Sicily, in particular in Palermo.

There are good examples of his work outside the city, too, for example at Piana degli Albanesi, about 30km (19 miles) from Palermo, where he painted a fresco cycle in the cathedral of San Demetrio Megalomartire and another fresco, entitled Annunciation, in the church of Santissima Annunziata.

At his peak, wealthy and aristocratic members of Sicilian society, as well as monasteries and churches, competed to be in possession of a Novelli work.

His father, also called Pietro, was a respected artist who also worked with mosaics and Pietro initially worked in his father’s workshop in Monreale.

A great student of art who travelled extensively, among his major influences were Caravaggio, whose work in Sicily he studied, particularly his Adoration of the Shepherds, which was commissioned for the Capuchin Franciscans and was painted in Messina for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

He was also influenced by Anthony Van Dyck, who had been present in Sicily in 1624, and whose altarpiece, the Madonna of the Rosary in the Oratory of the Rosario di San Domenico in Palermo, persuaded him to lighten his palate, which gave his subsequent works elegance and sweetness.

Novelli's Immaculate Conception is at
the Civic Museum in Termini Imerese

Novelli’s travels took him to Rome, where he was particularly receptive to Bolognese classicism and neo-Venetian Roman painting, and to Naples, where he was introduced to the work of Caracciolo, Stanzione and Ribera, and studied the classicising naturalism of Andrea Vaccaro.

He incorporated the chiaroscuro of Ribera into his own style, as can be seen from his two canvases about St Benedict in the abbey of San Martino alle Scale in Mondovi.

In addition to his paintings, he drew up plans for fortifications, designed jewellery and stage scenery for the theatre and turned his architectural hand to a number of buildings, notably the presbytery and apse in the cathedral at Piana degli Albanesi.

He also served as the engineer and architect of the Senate of Palermo and was made engineer of the Kingdom on the appointment of the Viceroy Count of Cabrera, for whose entry to Palermo he realized the triumphal arch in 1641.

Novelli was killed during the riots against the viceroys in Palermo in 1647 and was buried in the cemetery of the Friars in San Domenico.

Around the world, there are works by Novelli on display, among other places, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and the Prado in Madrid.

The Norman cathedral in Monreale

Travel tip:

The town of Monreale is located on the slope of Monte Caputo, overlooking a valley known as La Conca d'oro (the Golden Shell), which produces and exports orange, olive and almond trees. The town is famous for its cathedral, which is regarded as one of the finest examples of Norman architecture anywhere in the world, built there by William II following the Norman conquest of 1072, and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Monreale hotels from Booking.com

The Oratory of the Rosario del San
Domenico in Palermo

Travel tip:

The Oratory of the Rosaria del San Domenico, where there are a number of works by Novelli in addition to the Van Dyck altarpiece, is situated in Via dei Bambinai in the La Loggia district of Palermo, near the historic Vucciria marketplace.



More reading:

How Giovanni Battista Vaccarini turned Catania into a city of Sicilian Baroque

The Sicilian painter whose work represented the victims of Italian Fascism

Guido Reni - the 17th century Bolognese painter who idealised Raphael

Also on this day:

1886: The birth of double World Cup-winning coach Vittorio Pozzo

1939: Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli elected Pope Pius XII

(Picture credits: Monreale cathedral by Jerome Bon; Oratory by Bjs; via Wikimedia Commons)

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