Alberico Gentili – international lawyer

Academic gave the world its first system of jurisprudence

Alberico Gentili moved to London after
becoming a Protestant

Alberico Gentili, who is regarded as one of the founders of the science of international law, was born on this day in 1552 in San Ginesio in the province of Macerata in Marche.

He was the first European academic to separate secular law from Roman Catholic theology and canon law and the earliest to write about public international law.

He became Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford in England and taught there for 21 years.

Gentili graduated as a doctor of civil law in 1572 from the University of Perugia but was exiled from Italy in 1579 and eventually went to live in England because he became a Protestant.

He taught at Oxford from 1581 until his death in 1608 and became well-known for his lectures on Roman law and his writing on legal topics.

In 1588 Gentili published De jure belli commentatio prima - First Commentary on the Law of War. This was revised in 1598 to become Three Books on the Law of War, which contained a comprehensive discussion on the laws of war and treaties.

Gentili advised Queen
Elizabeth I of England

Gentili believed international law should comprise the actual practices of civilised nations, tempered by moral, but not specifically religious, considerations.

Although he rejected the authority of the church, he used the reasoning of the canon law as well as the civil law whenever it suited his purpose.

The Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius, who wrote On the Law of War and Peace in 1625, drew extensively on Gentili’s work.

Legal scholars say Gentili was the first to attempt to provide the world with anything like a regular system of natural jurisprudence.

In 1584 Queen Elizabeth I’s ministers called on Gentili and another expert in international law, Jean Hotman, to advise them on how to deal with the Spanish ambassador in London, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who was implicated in a conspiracy against the Queen.

De Mendoza was suspected of being involved in the Throckmorton Plot, which was a conspiracy to replace Elizabeth on the throne with her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots and to restore Catholicism to England.

The Church of St Helen Bishopsgate in the City of
London, where Gentili is buried

Elizabeth’s Privy Council wanted De Mendoza tried for treason but they weren’t sure of the legality of this move.

Gentili and Hotman’s legal advice was that ambassadors were protected by diplomatic immunity ‘infallibly within the sanctuarie of the lawe of nations.’ They said the Privy Council’s only recourse was to order the recall of De Mendoza. Their advice was followed and when Mendoza ignored the order, he was transported to Calais.

From about 1590 Gentili practiced in the High Court of Admiralty in London where continental civil law rather than common English Law was applied.

In 1600 he was called to the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in London.

Gentili died in London in 1608 and was buried in the Church of St Helen Bishopsgate in the City of London.

The square in the centre of San Ginesio in the Marche
region, where Gentili was born

Travel tip:

San Ginesio, where Gentili was born, is a town of 3,500 inhabitants in the province of Macerata in the Marche region, about 60 km (37 miles), southwest of Ancona. It is surrounded by imposing 14th century castle walls with all the defensive structures of the period still visible.  Buildings of note in the town include the Ospedale dei Pellegrini - The Hospital of the Pilgrims of St. Paul - a 13th century building with a low-column portico and loggia,and the Collegiate Church of San Ginesio, which has a noteworthy  terracotta decoration attributed to Enrico Alemanno, the only Florentine gothic style work in the Marche region.

The Piazza della Repubblica in Perugia

Travel tip:

Gentili graduated from the 14th century University of Perugia, in the capital city of the region of Umbria. A stunning sight on a hilltop, Perugia, which was one of the main Etruscan cities of Italy, is also home to a second university for foreign students learning Italian.  Some 34,000 students bolster the population each year. Perugia is a notable centre for culture and the arts, hosting the world-renowned Umbria Jazz Festival each July. It also hosts a chocolate festival – Perugia being the home of the Perugina chocolate company, famous for Baci.  The artist Pietro Vannucci, commonly known as Perugino, lived in nearby Città della Pieve and was the teacher of Raphael.


More reading:

The medieval lawyer who wrote more than 3,000 opinions

Giuseppe 'Peppino' Prisco - lawyer and football administrator

The feast day of Ercolano, patron saint of Perugia

Also on this day:

1451: The birth of Franchino Gaffurio

1883: The birth of dress designer Nina Ricci

1919: The birth of political survivor Giulio Andreotti


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Veronica De Laurentiis - actress and author

Turned personal torment into bestselling book

Veronica De Laurentiis has become a fervent campaigner
against domestic violence because of her own experiences

The actress and author Veronica De Laurentiis, the daughter of legendary film producer Dino De Laurentiis and actress Silvana Mangano, was born on this day in 1950 in Rome.

Although she still works in film and TV, she is best known as a campaigner against domestic violence and the author of the bestselling book Rivoglio la mia vita (I Want My Life Back), which revealed details of the attacks she was subjected to in her first marriage. Her then-husband was subsequently jailed for 14 years.

Veronica De Laurentiis was cast in the blockbuster movie Waterloo - produced by her father - when she was just 18, alongside the great actors Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer.

She married young, however, and after the birth of her first child, Giada - now well known as a TV cook in the United States - decided to suspend her acting career in order to focus on parenthood.

Her mother, the actress Silvana Mangano,
was a star of postwar Italian cinema

With her husband, she lived in Italy until after the birth of her third child, at which point they moved to America, living first in Florida, then New York and finally in Los Angeles.

They divorced four years after the birth of their fourth child, after which Veronica sustained herself by setting up a fashion design studio in Los Angeles, where she spent 12 years designing and making clothes.

At the same time she was undergoing therapy, the culmination of which was a book, published in 2006, the shocking revelations in which saw it rocket to the top of the Italian bestseller lists.

Rivoglio la mia vita not only described the violence she suffered in her marriage and the torment that followed her daughter’s revelation that she had been abused, as well as the personal guilt she felt at being unaware that it was going on.

De Laurentiis also wrote about her mother’s depression and the suicide attempt that she helped her father avert at the age of 14, but also about her life in the family villa near the Via Appia Antica in Rome and the aggressive, controlling nature of her father, not only over her mother’s career but her own.

Dino De Laurentiis, who died in 2010, opposed the publication of the book, telling Veronica she should not “wash the family’s linen in public” but she believed she had to go ahead.

Veronica's father, the film producer Dino
De Laurentiis, opposed her book

Nowadays, married again, she has returned to acting and does some television work, but devotes much time to touring Italy speaking to women about rape, abuse, and the importance of speaking out.

She wrote a second book - Riprenditi La Tua Vita – Le otto chiavi di Veronica  (Take Back Your Life - Veronica’s Eight Keys), published in 2009.

She set up a group in Los Angeles in which she encourages women to come forward and tell their stories and began a foundation to fight domestic violence in Italy.  The first “Silvana Mangano Centre” for the victims of domestic abuse, named in honour of her mother, opened in 2011 in Formia in Lazio, midway between Rome and Naples.

Formia is now a modern port on the coast between Rome
and Naples but has a rich history

Travel tip:

Situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast between Rome and Naples, in Lazio but close to the border with Campania, Formia is a port town with that was a popular resort with the wealthy of Imperial Rome. One of its major attractions is the Tomba di Cicerone, a Roman mausoleum just outside the town which is said to have been built for the great Roman orator Cicero, who was reportedly assassinated on the Appian Way outside the town in 43 BC. Formia is also home to the Cisternone Romano, an underground reservoir built by the Romans. testament to Roman ingenuity.  Other remains include the towers of the forts of Mola and Castellone, once two neighbouring villages. The generally modern feel of much of the resort and harbour today is down to a bombardment suffered during the Second World War, when Formia was a point on the German army’s Gustav Line and suffered heavy damage during the Allied invasion.

The Via Antica Appia passes through
the ancient port of Terracina

Travel tip:

The Via Appia Antica - the Appian Way - is the ancient Roman road that linked Rome with the port of Brindisi some 550km (340 miles) away in the southeast corner of the peninsula. Beginning at Porto San Sebastiano, two miles south of the Colosseum, while some of the road is open to traffic other sections are preserved in their original form, passing through pleasant parkland, and there are numerous catacombs, tombs and other ruins along the way.  It offers a quieter experience to visitors to Rome, away from the inevitably thronged centre. From Rome, the road followed a straight route to Terracina, followed the coast through Formia and then diverted inland through Capua and Benevento before crossing the peninsula to Taranto and on to Brindisi.


More reading:

Dino De Laurentiis - how a pasta trader from Naples helped put Italian cinema on the map

How Silvana Mangano shook off her sex-symbol image

Vittorio Gassman - Italy's 'Olivier'

Also on this day:

1898: The birth of opera singer Carlo Tagliabue

1936: The birth of operatic baritone Renato Bruson

1970: The birth of tragic cycling star Marco Pantani


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John Singer Sargent - painter

Celebrated portraitist had lifelong love for Italy

John Singer Sargent, photographed in
1903 by James E Purdy

The painter John Singer Sargent, who was hailed as the leading portraitist of his era but was also a brilliant painter of landscapes, was born on this day in 1856 in Florence.

Although he became an American citizen at the first opportunity, both his parents being American, he spent his early years in Italy and would regularly return to the country throughout his life.

At his commercial peak during the Edwardian age, his studio in London attracted wealthy clients not only from England but from the rest of Europe and even from the other side of the Atlantic, asking him to grant them immortality on canvas.

His full length portraits, which epitomised the elegance and opulence of high society at the end of the 19th century, would cost the subject up to $5,000 - the equivalent of around $140,000 (€122,000; £109,000) today.

Sargent was born in Italy on account of a cholera pandemic, the second to hit Europe that century, which caused a high number of fatalities in London in particular. His parents, who were regular visitors to Italy, were in Florence and decided it would be prudent to stay.

A Sargent portrait of a celebrated
American actress and her daughter

There was always a strong chance that he would be born in Italy. Although his parents had a home in Paris, they were almost constantly travelling to one part of Europe or another in search of culture, and Italy, with its wealth of classical attractions, was a favourite destination.

Sargent’s sister, Mary, was also born in Florence and in time the family decided to stay there, his father relinquishing his position as an eye surgeon in Philadelphia.

The young Sargent did not have a formal education but learned much from his parents, quickly developing an appreciation of art, particularly in Venice, where he studied at first hand the works of Tintoretto, whom he rated an inferior only to Titian and Michelangelo.

By the age of 12, Sargent was already making his own sketches of the scenic wonders of Italy. He received his first organised art instruction from the German landscape painter, Carl Welsch, in Florence but left in 1874 to study in Paris. He was 22 before he made his first visit to the United States, and although he took the opportunity to claim his American citizenship, he immediately returned to Italy.

He spent time in Naples and Capri in 1878 before taking a studio in Venice, from which he painted many views, often of the lesser-known parts of the city and of Venetian people going about their normal daily lives. Where many painters focused on the places that attracted tourists, and did very well as a result, Sargent was more interested in the real Venice.

Sargent's impressionist-style watercolour of the Scuola di San
Rocco in Venice, noted for its collection of Tintoretto paintings

Among his Venetian scenes, his Scuola di San Rocco (c. 1903) marks Sargent as one of the finest watercolour painters of all time.

He found his own best commercial opportunities lay in Paris, and subsequently London, however, and portrait-painting became the driving force of his career.

His gift was in his ability to make each portrait somehow unique, despite the repetitive nature of the work. He managed to find something different about every sitter, could use props and background to suggest their class or occupation, and specialised in capturing his subjects in off-guard moments, rather than formal poses, to evoke a sense of their nature.

But portraits were not really what he wanted to do and, in 1910, having grown wealthy, Sargent gave up portraiture and devoted the rest of his life to painting murals and Alpine and Italian landscapes in watercolour.

Sargent's watercolour of the church of Santa Maria della Salute

Travel tip:

The great Baroque church of Santa Maria della Salute was one of Sargent’s favourite churches in Venice. Standing at the entrance to the Grand Canal and supported by more than a million timber piles, it was built to celebrate the city’s deliverance from the plague that claimed the lives of 46,000 Venetians in 1630. It is one of the most imposing architectural landmarks in Venice and has inspired painters such as Canaletto, Turner and Guardi. The interior consists of a large octagonal space below a cupola with eight side chapels. There are paintings by Titian and Tintoretto and a group of statues depicting the Virgin and Child expelling the plague by the Flemish sculptor, Josse de Corte.

Sargent's impression of a gondola passing beneath the Rialto

Travel tip:

The Rialto Bridge, of which Sargent sought different aspects, is the oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, connecting the sestieri of San Marco and San Polo. Originally built as a pontoon bridge in 1181, and called Ponte della Moneta after the city’s mint, which stood near its eastern entrance, it was rebuilt several times, first in 1255, when it was replaced with a wooden bridge to cope with extra traffic generated by the development of the Rialto market. It had two inclined ramps meeting at a movable central section, that could be raised to allow the passage of tall ships. The rows of shops along the sides of the bridge were added in the first half of the 15th century. It was replaced by a stone bridge after once burning down and twice collapsing under the weight of people.

More reading:

Tintoretto, the dyer's son whose work adorns Venice

Titian, the giant of Renaissance art

The Festival of Madonna della Salute, when Venetians celebrate their deliverance from the plague

Also on this day:

1562: The birth of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy

1751: The birth of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

1848: Sicily rebels against the Bourbons


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The 1693 Sicily earthquake

Devastation that led to architectural rebirth

An engraving dated at 1696 is thought to depict ruined
buildings in Catania after the 1693 earthquake

A huge earthquake destroyed or severely damaged scores of towns and cities in Sicily on this day in 1693, killing more than 60,000 people.

Records say the tremor struck at around 9pm local time and lasted about four minutes.  It was mainly confined to the southeast corner of the island, with damage also reported in Calabria on the Italian mainland and even on Malta, 190km (118 miles) away.

Although it is an estimate rather than a verifiable figure, the earthquake has been given a recorded magnitude of 7.4, which makes it the most powerful in Italian history, although in terms of casualties it was eclipsed by the earthquake that destroyed much of Messina and Reggio Calabria in 1908, with perhaps up to 200,000 killed.

By another measure, the Mercalli intensity scale, it was awarded a score of XI, the maximum.  The Mercalli scale, devised in 1902, judges a quake’s severity by the intensity of shaking. The XI rating given to the 1693 event may well reflect accounts such as that offered by Vincentius Bonajutus, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, who wrote that "It was in this country impossible to keep upon our legs, or in one place on the dancing Earth; nay, those that lay along on the ground, were tossed from side to side, as if on a rolling billow."

The Palazzo Ducezia, designed by Vincenzo Sinatra, is one
of the Sicilian Baroque palaces in the rebuilt city of Noto

At least 70 towns and cities - including Catania, Syracuse (Siracusa), Noto and Acireale - were either very badly damaged or destroyed, with an area of 5,600 sq km (2,200 sq mi) affected.

Locally recorded counts of the dead indicate that there were probably more than 60,000 people killed. Around 12,000 of those - two thirds of the city’s population - were in Catania alone.

More damage and deaths occurred before the main earthquake in a powerful foreshock on January 9, itself with an estimated magnitude of 6.2, and as a result of tsunamis that devastated the coastal villages on the Ionian Sea and in the Straits of Messina.

The exact position of the epicentre remains unknown, although it was probably close to the coast, or slightly offshore, between Catania and Syracuse.  The tsunamis that followed affected some but not all coastal settlements. One place that did suffer was the port of Augusta, north of Syracuse, where the harbour was left drained when the sea receded, only to be swamped by waves of up to eight metres (26ft) high as the waters surged back.

Stefano Ittar's facade of the Basilica
della Collegiata in Catania

It may seem perverse to talk of good coming from such a catastrophic natural disaster that claimed so many lives, but it is an inescapable fact that had it not been for the 1693 earthquake, much of the wonderful architecture that makes the cities of southeast Sicily so attractive today might not exist.

That it does is thanks to the extravagantly wealthy aristocracy that controlled the purse strings on the island, which was then part of the Spanish empire.

After concentrating initially on restoring military defences around the strategically important Syracuse, Augusta, Catania and Acireale, the island’s government began drawing up of plans for the reconstruction of towns and cities.

Some, such as Catania, would be rebuilt to new plans on their existing sites, others such as Syracuse and Ragusa rebuilt following existing layouts, and others moved to new sites and built from scratch, as was the case with Noto and Avola.

In all cases, dozens of local architects were given palaces and churches to build.  Many had trained under the great Baroque architects in Rome and this was their opportunity, with money apparently no object, to recreate the sophisticated Baroque architecture that had become popular in mainland Italy, but had not really reached Sicily.

On such architect was Vincenzo Sinatra, a pupil of Rosario Gagliardi, who had been influenced by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s work in Rome.  Sinatra was responsible for many of the new buildings in the new city of Noto, including the churches of Monte Vergine and San Giovanni Battista, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore and its Loggiato, and the splendid Palazzo Ducezio (now the town hall).

Their work inspired more local architects to follow suit and between 1730 and 1780 the style that became known as Sicilian Baroque, characterised by typically Baroque curves and flourishes, but often with the addition of grinning masks or chubby cherubs, was at its peak, reflecting the flamboyance of the era.

Although the fashion for neoclassicism changed the thinking of architects on the island towards the end of the 18th century, it is Sicilian Baroque that gives Sicily much of its architectural character even today.

Other notable Sicilian Baroque architects include Andrea Giganti, Guarino Guarini, Stefano Ittar, Andrea Palma and Giovanni Battista Vaccarini.

The facade of the cathedral at Syracuse, which was
rebuilt by Andrea Palma in Baroque style

Travel tip:

As well as its Sicilian Baroque buildings, concentrated on the island of Ortygia, the historic centre linked to the modern city of Syracuse by the Ponte Umbertino, Syracuse is known for its ancient ruins. The Parco Archeologico Neapolis, situated within the city, comprises the Roman Amphitheater, the Teatro Greco and the Orecchio di Dionisio, a limestone cave shaped like a human ear. The Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi, meanwhile, exhibits terracotta artifacts, Roman portraits and Old Testament scenes carved into white marble.  Syracuse as a city is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The city of Ragusa occupies a spectacular setting
on a rugged hillside in southeastern Sicily

Travel tip:

Ragusa, the principal city of the province of the same name, which also suffered much damage in the earthquake, is one of Sicily’s most picturesque cities. Set in same rugged landscape with a mix of medieval and Baroque architecture. The older part of the city, the spectacular Ragusa Ibla, is the town that was built on the site of the settlement destroyed in the quake, and is home to the grand Duomo di San Giorgio and the Giardino Ibleo, a public park with churches and fountains that offers stunning views.  Ragusa Ibla may seem familiar to viewers of the TV detective series Inspector Montalbano as the dramatic hillside city in the title sequence. The city streets also feature regular in location filming for the series, based on the books of Andrea Camilleri.



More reading:

How Giovanni Battista Vaccarini left his mark on Catania

The genius of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Why the Messina earthquake of 1908 is the worst in Italian history

Also on this day:

1944: Mussolini has his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, shot dead by a firing squad

1975: The birth of Matteo Renzi, Italy's youngest PM

1980: The birth of the Giannini sextuplets


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