Amerigo Vespucci – explorer

Medici clerk who discovered a new world

Amerigo Vespucci began exploring as an observer
at the invitation of the King of Portugal 

Explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci was born on this day in 1454 in Florence.

Vespucci was the first to discover the ‘new world’, which later came to be called the Americas, taking the Latin version of his first name.

He was the son of a notary in Florence and a cousin of the husband of the beautiful artist’s model, Simonetta Vespucci. He was educated by his uncle, Fra Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar, and he was later hired as a clerk by the Medici family.

He acquired the favour of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who sent him to the Medici office in Cadiz in Spain to investigate the managers, who were under suspicion.

Later, as the executor of an Italian merchant who had died in Seville, Vespucci fulfilled the deceased’s contract with Castile to provide 12 vessels to sail to the Indies. He then continued supplying provisions for expeditions to the Indies and was invited by the King of Portugal to participate as an observer on several voyages of exploration.

Although letters have been forged and fraudulent claims have been made about his discoveries, Vespucci is known to have taken an active part in at least two real voyages of exploration.

Vespucci's arrival in the 'new world', as imagined by the
Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry 

In 1499, on a voyage intended to round the southern end of the African mainland into the Indian ocean, Vespucci is believed to have crossed the Atlantic, hitting land in what is now Guyana on the South American mainland, then sailed southwards, discovering the mouth of the Amazon river and seeing Trinidad and the Orinoco river, before returning to Spain.

In 1501, he was on a voyage which reached the coast of Brazil and sailed along the coast of South America to Rio di Janeiro’s bay. He wrote in a letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici that the land masses were ‘larger and different from the Asia described by Marco Polo and, therefore, must be a new world, a previously unknown fourth continent.’

In 1507, an author of a geography book, Martin Waldseemüller, suggested the name America, especially for the Brazilian part of the new world, in honour of the ‘illustrious man’ who discovered it. This is how the names for North America and South America originated.

Vespucci was made chief navigator of Spain in 1508 by King Ferdinand and was commissioned to start a school of navigation, where he developed a rudimentary method of determining longitude. He died in 1512 at his home in Seville, aged 57.

The church of San Salvatore di Ognissanti
is the parish church of the Vespucci family

Travel tip:

The parish church of the Vespucci family is the Church of All Saints - Chiesa di San Salvatore di Ognissanti - in Borgo Ognissanti, close to the Santa Maria Novella railway station. In the Vespucci Chapel, a fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio depicts the Madonna della Misericordia protecting members of the Vespucci family. It is believed to show Amerigo Vespucci as a child among them. Vespucci later named a bay in Brazil, San Salvatore di Ognissanti, which is the origin of the name of the city of Salvador in Brazil.

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The statue of Amerigo
Vespucci by the Ufizzi 

Travel tip:

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence has a posthumous portrait of Amerigo Vespucci, which has been attributed to Cristofano dell’Altissimo. Outside the gallery there is also a statue of Amerigo Vespucci. The Uffizi is one of the most important art galleries in the world and attracts so many visitors it is vital to book a ticket in advance to avoid a long wait. The complex of buildings that make up the gallery was designed by Giorgio Vasari as offices - uffizi - for the Medici family in 1560.

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More reading: 

Why Simonetta Vespucci was seen as the embodiment of female perfection

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici - the art enthusiast who was Botticelli's patron

Created by an Italian - New York's monument to Christopher Columbus

Also on this day:

1809: The birth of statesman and Chianti wine 'inventor' Bettino Ricasoli

1908: The founding of football superpower Internazionale of Milan

1948: The birth of radical politician Emma Bonino

(Picture credit: Church of San Salvatore di Ognisanti by Sailko; statue by Jebulon)

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Carlo Gesualdo – composer

Madrigal writer was also a murderer

Carlo Gesualdo devoted himself to music
from an early age

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, who composed highly experimental music for his time, was born on this day in 1566 in the principality of Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples.

He was to become known both for his extraordinary music and for the brutal killing of his first wife and her aristocratic lover after he caught them together.

Gesualdo was the nephew of Carlo Borromeo, who later became Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother, Geronima Borromeo, was the niece of Pope Pius IV.

Although Gesualdo was sent to Rome to begin an ecclesiastical career, he became heir to the principality after his older brother died. He married his cousin, Donna Maria D’Avalos, and they had a son, Emanuele.

Gesualdo was devoted to music from an early age and mixed with musicians and composers, learning to play the lute, harpsichord and guitar.

Donna Maria began an affair with Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria and Count of Ruova, and one night in 1590 Gesualdo caught them in flagrante at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples. He killed them both on the spot.

A delegation of officials from Naples inspected the room where they were killed and found the corpses were mutilated.

The Palazzo San Severo, where Gesualdo murdered his
wife and her aristocratic lover

Witnesses said he had returned to the room to make certain they were dead. But the court decided Gesualdo had not committed a crime.

After Gesualdo’s father died, he became Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. He arranged to marry Leonora d’Este and travelled to the Este court at Ferrara.

At the time the court was a centre of musical activity and the madrigal was popular. Surrounded by some of the finest musicians in Italy, Gesualdo wrote his first book of madrigals, having worked with three renowned female singers.

Back at his castle in the town of  Gesualdo, in the province of Avellino, he established a group of resident singers and musicians to perform his music, both sacred and secular, which he later published with a printer in Naples.

Listen to one of Gesualdo's best-known madrigals

His relationship with his second wife was poor and she spent a lot of time away. His son by his second marriage died in 1600.

Gesualdo began to suffer from depression and it has been claimed he asked his servants to beat him regularly. He died alone at his castle three weeks after the death of his eldest son, Emanuele, in 1613.

The church of Gesu Nuovo in Naples, where Carlo
Gesualdo was buried after his death in 1613

He was buried in the chapel of Saint Ignatius, in the church of Gesu Nuovo in Naples. His tomb was destroyed in the earthquake of 1688 and covered over when the church was rebuilt. The composer now lies beneath the church, but his burial plaque is still visible.

It has been said the the guilt he felt over the murders he committed was expressed through his music, which was among the most experimental of the Renaissance. Similar music was not composed again until the 19th century.

Gesualdo’s most famous works are his six books of madrigals, but his music and life story has inspired other music, operas and books.  The Music Conservatory in Potenza is named the Conservatoria di Musica Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa in his honour.

The Aragonese Castle in Venosa, built in 1470, which
Gesualdo turned into a residence 

Travel tip:

Venosa, where Carlo Gesualdo was born, is in the province of Potenza in Basilicata. One of the main sights is the Aragonese Castle, built in 1470, which he turned into a residence. It now houses the National Museum of Venosa and a collection of Roman artefacts. The nearby Archaeological Area of Notarchirico covers the Palaeolithic period with eleven layers dating from 600,000 to 300,000 years ago. Remains of ancient wildlife, including extinct species of elephants, bisons and rhinoceroses, have been found, as well as a fragment of a femur from the Homo erectus species of ancient humans.

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The town of Gesualdo in Campania, which is called 'the city
of the prince of musicians' in honour of Carlo Gesualdo

Travel tip:

Gesualdo, in the province of Avellino in Campania, is called ‘the city of the prince of musicians’ in honour of the composer, who wrote madrigals at the castle, which he transformed from a fortress into a palace able to accommodate writers, such as Torquato Tasso, and musicians.

More reading:

How Carlo Borromeo led moves to stop the spread of Protestantism

Luca Marenzio, the madrigal writer who influenced Monteverdi

Salomone Rossi, the leading Jewish composer of the Renaissance

Also on this day:

La Festa della Donna - International Women's Day

1949: The birth of evergreen singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti

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Filippo Juvarra – architect

Baroque designer influenced the look of ‘royal Turin’

Agostino Masucci's portrait of Filippo Juvarra

Architect and stage set designer Filippo Juvarra was born on this day in 1678 in Messina in Sicily.

Some of his best work can be seen in Turin today as he worked for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy from 1714 onwards. The buildings Juvarra designed for Turin made him famous and he was subsequently invited to work in Portugal, Spain, London and Paris.

Juvarra was born into a family of goldsmiths and engravers but moved to Rome in 1704 to study architecture with Carlo and Francesco Fontana.

He was commissioned to design stage sets to begin with, but in 1706 he won a contest to design the new sacristy at St Peter’s Basilica.

He then designed the small Antamoro Chapel for the church of San Girolamo della Carità with his friend, the French sculptor, Pierre Le Gros. He was later to design the main altar for the Duomo in Bergamo in Lombardy.

One of his masterpieces was the Basilica of Superga, built in 1731 on a mountain overlooking the city of Turin, which later became a mausoleum for the Savoy family.

The magnificent Basilica of Superga overlooking Turin
 is considered to be Juvarra's masterpiece

It was said to have taken 14 years to flatten the mountain top and it was very costly to bring the stones and other supplies to the peak for the build.

As chief court architect, Juvarra designed many other churches in Turin, the Palace of Stupinigi, built as the royal hunting lodge outside Turin, and the façade of the Palazzo Madama in the royal centre of the city. His later works are among the finest examples of the early Rococo style in Italy.

The architect moved to Madrid to supervise the construction of a new palace for Philip V and he designed other buildings for the city, but he died in 1736 less than nine months after arriving in Spain.

His designs were all executed after his death by his pupils and they strongly influenced the work of the other architects who came after him.

The waterfront at Messina, with the colossal church
 of Christ the King dominating the scene

Travel tip:

Messina, where Juvarra was born, is a city in northeast Sicily, separated from mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily and is home to a large Greek-speaking community. The 12th century cathedral in Messina has a bell tower which houses one of the largest astronomical clocks in the world, built in 1933.

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Travel tip:

The Basilica of Superga, designed by Juvarra overlooking Turin, was tragically destined to be the site of an air disaster in 1949, when a plane carrying the entire Torino football team crashed into a wall at the back of the church, killing all 31 people on board.

More reading:

How Italy lost one of its greatest players in the Superga plane crash

Also on this day:

1274: The death of the philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas

1481: The birth of architect and painter Baldassare Peruzzi

1785: The birth of novelist Alessandro Manzoni 

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Augusto Odone – medical pioneer

Father who invented ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’ for sick son

Augusto Odone devoted his life to caring
for his stricken son Lorenzo

Augusto Odone, the father who invented a medicine to treat his incurably ill son despite having no medical training, was born on this day in 1933 in Rome.

Odone’s son, Lorenzo, was diagnosed with the rare metabolic condition ALD (Adrenoleukodystrophy) at the age of six. Augusto and his American-born wife, Michaela, were told that little could be done and that Lorenzo would suffer from increasing paralysis and probably die within two years.

Refusing simply to do nothing, the Odones, who lived in Washington, where Augusto was an economist working for the World Bank, threw themselves into discovering everything that was known about the condition and the biochemistry of the nervous system, contacting every doctor, biologist and researcher they could find who had researched the condition and assembled them for a symposium.

Drawing on this pooled knowledge, and with the help of Hugo Moser, a Swiss-born professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, they eventually came up with the idea of combining extracts of olive oil and rapeseed oil in a medicine that would break down the long-chain fatty acids in the human body that were considered a major cause of the nerve damage suffered by people with ALD.

The medicine, which seemed to slow the progression of Lorenzo’s disease, soon became known as Lorenzo’s Oil. Against all odds, Lorenzo survived until the day after his 30^th birthday, having lived more than 20 years beyond his doctors’ gloomy forecasts.

Lorenzo (left), with his father, lived for 22 years longer
 than doctors predicted after his diagnosis

The Odones, moreover, were convinced that Lorenzo drew some pleasure from being alive. He showed signs that he enjoyed music and listening to stories and responded to voices, even though for the last 22 years of his life he was paralysed, blind and unable to speak, could only be fed through a tube and required round-the-clock nursing care. He communicated by blinking and wiggling his fingers.

Their story attracted attention all over the world.  It became the subject of a film, entitled Lorenzo’s Oil, directed by George Miller and starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon, that was a box office hit and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

The movie attracted criticism from medical experts for portraying scientists as unfeeling, although the Odones had been outspoken in their comments about the response of the medical establishment to their attempts to find a treatment.

Doctors also criticised the film for suggesting that Lorenzo’s Oil was a cure for ALD, although the medicine is still used today and has been shown to delay the onset of symptoms if prescribed before they develop.

Lorenzo seemed a normal
child until the age of four

Augusto Odone, whose mother was a novelist and his father a general in the Italian army, grew up in Gamalero, a village in Piedmont, not far from Alessandria.  He was educated at the University of Rome before attending the University of Kansas on a scholarship.  He joined the World Bank in 1969.

He devoted much of his life to raising money for research before deciding in 2010, two years after Lorenzo’s death, to move back to Italy, settling in Acqui Terme, about 20km (12 miles) from Gamalero.  He died there in 2013, aged 80, having survived Michaela, his second wife, by 13 years.

His daughter by his first marriage is the Kenyan-born English journalist and novelist, Christina Odone.

La Bollente in Acqui Terme

Travel tip:

Acqui Terme in Piedmont, which is situated about 100km (62 miles) southeast of Turin, is a town of just over 20,000 people best known for the local wine, Brachetto d’Acqui, and for the hot sulphur springs that were discovered during the Roman era, which bubble up at a temperature of 75 degrees Celsius, emerging at a site in the centre of the town where a small pavilion, called La Bollente, was built in 1870.

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Travel tip:

Alessandria, a city of 94,000 people about equidistant from Turin and Milan, is notable for the Cittadella, the 18^th century star fort across the Tanaro river from the city, which is one of the best preserved fortifications of that era, with the outer wall and defensive towers still intact.  It is also home to a military museum that contains more than 1500 uniforms, weapons and other memorabilia from the Italian Army.

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More reading:

How Renato Dulbecco's research led to greater understanding of cancer

The first physiologist to explain human movement

Camillo Golgi - the greatest nueroscientist of the 19th century

Also on this day:

1483: The birth of historian Francesco Guicciardini

1853: Verdi's La Traviata is performed for the first time

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