Marisa Merlini - actress

Fifties star who turned down Oscar-winning role

Marisa Merlini appeared in more than 100 films
in a career spanning 60 years

The actress Marisa Merlini, whose sixty-year movie career was at its peak in the 1950s and early 1960s, was born in Rome on this day in 1923. 

Although she had built a solid reputation in a string of movies as the foil to the comedic genius of Totó, the role with which Merlini is most often associated is the midwife Annarella in Luigi Comencini’s 1953 romantic comedy Pane, amore e fantasia - Bread, Love and Dreams - which presented an idyllic view of Italian rural life.

She starred opposite Vittorio De Sica, who played an amorous policeman who woos Merlini’s character after being snubbed by the beautiful farm girl played by Gina Lollobrigida. The movie won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and Merlini’s performance was hailed by both audiences and critics, bringing many offers to play similar characters. 

Merlini and De Sica were paired again in Antonio Racciopi’s comedy Tempo di villeggiatura (1956), in which her performance as a downcast tourist won her Italy’s Silver Ribbon as Best Supporting Actress.

Merlini starred with Vittorio De Sica (right) in
Tempo di Villeggiatura in 1956

De Sica was impressed with Merlini’s acting skills and when he turned to directing he had her earmarked for the part of Cesira, the widowed shopkeeper in La Ciociara, the 1960 wartime drama based on Alberto Moravia’s novel Two Women.

It was a chance for Merlini to break free of her comedy typecasting and prove herself as a serious actress. Yet she turned down the role, deciding that at 36 she was not yet ready to play older women. The part instead went to Sophia Loren, whose portrayal of Cesira won her an Oscar for Best Actress.

Marisa Merlin, to use her birth name, grew up as one of five children in a middle-class family in the Monteverde Vecchio district of Rome and attended drama school as a girl. Her parents split up, however, and her father’s departure from the family home meant she had to work to help her mother support the family. At 17, she took a job on the perfume counter of a department school.

As luck would have it, she found her way on to the stage by another route, taken on as a showgirl in revues fronted by the comedian Erminio Macaro, whose wife, Mariuccia, was a customer at her perfume counter and noted her good looks and pin-up figure.  Her costume was little more than two strategically-placed fig leaves, yet each show made her 130 lire - as much as she earned in a month as a shop assistant.

Sophia Loren won an Oscar for her
performance in La Ciociara

The big screen soon beckoned and in 1942 she made her movie debut in Stasera niente di nuovo - Tonight nothing is new - a 1942 drama film directed by Mario Mattoli and starring Alida Valli.

Back in the world of revue she met Totó, the comic actor with whom she made several films, including Comencini’s L’imperatore di Capri (1949), in which she played a German baroness.  She also became close friends with another Roman actress, Anna Magnani.

The fifties saw her popularity soar, with more plum roles. As well as her successes opposite Totó and De Sica, in 1957 she appeared with Marcello Mastroianni in Monicelli’s Padri e figli - Fathers and Sons - and in 1960 was Alberto Sordi’s wife in Il vigile - The Policeman - directed by Luigi Zampa.

After her decision not to take the part in La Ciociara, Merlini’s career stalled. Her appearance in Dino Risi’s 1963 comedy I mostri - The Monsters - preceded a fallow period of few meaningful roles until she was asked in 1970 to play Lady Hamilton’s Neapolitan governess in the first production of Terence Rattigan’s A Bequest to the Nation at The Haymarket theatre in London, an unexpected opportunity that Merlini accepted, despite not speaking English.

The play ran for a year and after returning to Italy, she appeared thereafter on stage and in television dramas alongside her film work. Her final screen role was in Pupi Avati’s La seconda notte delle nozze in 2005, by which time her film credits exceeded 100 movies.

She died at her home near Piazza Vescovio in Rome in 2008 at the age of 84, the funeral taking place at the church of Santa Maria in Montesanto in the Campo Marzio district.

The Villa Pamphili in the Monteverde Vecchio
district is part of the biggest public park in Rome

Travel tip:

Monteverde Vecchio, where Merlini grew up, forms half of the Monteverde residential district just outside the centre of Rome located south of the Janiculum hill and southwest of Trastevere.  Consisting mainly of early 20th century stately villas, the area is the home of the Villa Doria Pamphili, which used to be private property of the Pamphili family, but is now a public park, the largest in Rome.  The American University of Rome and the American Academy in Rome are also located in the neighbourhood. 

The Basilica of Santa Maria in
Montesanto in Piazza del Popolo

Travel tip:

The church of Santa Maria in Montesanto, where Merlini’s funeral was held, is in the Rione Campo Marzio and stands in Piazza del Popolo, between Via del Corso and Via del Babuino. Also known as the Church of the Artists, it was built in 1662 to an original design by Carlo Rainaldi. After an interruption due to the death of the Pope, work resumed in 1673 under the supervision of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the cooperation of Carlo Fontana and was finished in 1679, except for a belfry that was added in the 18th century.  The statues of saints on the exterior have been attributed to Bernini's design.  In August 1904, Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, was ordained a priest at the church. 

Also on this day:

1284: The Battle of Meloria sparks the decline of Pisa as a sea power

1619: The birth of singer and composer Barbara Strozzi

1994: The death of singer-songwriter Domenico Modugno

Home

5 August

Franco Lucentini – author

Writer was one half of a famous literary partnership

The novelist Franco Lucentini, who achieved success with Carlo Fruttero in a remarkable literary association, died on this day in 2002 in Turin.  A news correspondent and editor, Lucentini met Fruttero in 1953 in Paris and they started working together as journalists and translators.  But they were best known for the mystery thrillers they produced together, which they composed in a businesslike manner.  After choosing a subject they would take it in turns to write and then edit the material until a novel was complete.  Their most popular books were The Sunday Woman (La donna della domenica), which was later made into a film and The D Case (La verità sul caso D), which was based on an unfinished work by Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  Lucentini fell foul of the Fascist regime while studying Philosophy at the University of Rome because of distributing anti-war messages among his fellow students and had to spend two months in prison.  But after the Second World War he was hired by the Allies to work as a junior editor for their news agency in Naples. Lucentini then went on to work in Rome for Italy's ANSA news agency.  Read more…

___________________________________________________________

Antonio Barberini – Cardinal

Pope’s nephew amassed fortune and became patron of the arts

Catholic cardinal, military leader and patron of the arts Antonio Barberini was born on this day in 1607 in Rome.  As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII he helped to shape the politics, religion, art and music of 17th century Italy and took part in many papal conclaves.  He is sometimes referred to as Antonio the Younger, or Antonio Barberini Iuniore, to distinguish him from his uncle, Antonio Marcello Barberini.  Antonio was the youngest of six children born to Carlo Barberini and Costanza Magalotti. Like his brothers, he was educated at the Collegio Romano.  His brother, Francesco Barberini, became Grand Inquisitor of the Roman Inquisition.  His uncle, Maffeo Barberini, was elected as Pope the day after Antonio’s 16th birthday and became Pope Urban VIII.  Urban VIII was notorious for nepotism and he appointed Antonio as a cardinal just after his 20th birthday.  Nepotism was commonplace among popes from the Middle Ages up to the 17th century. The word derives from the Latin nepos (Italian: nipote), meaning nephew, to describe the practice among popes, who had taken vows of chastity and therefore could have no legitimate children, of appointing nephews to key positions.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________

Antonio Cesti – opera composer

Singer and organist wrote operas and church music

Composer Pietro Marc’Antonio Cesti was baptised on this day in 1623 in Arezzo in Tuscany. It was also probably the date of his birth.  One of the leading composers of the 17th century, Cesti is said to have written about 100 operas, although only 15 are known today.  He joined the order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, a Catholic religious group founded by St Francis of Assisi in 1637.  Cesti studied first in Rome and then moved to Venice, where his first known opera, Orontea, was produced in 1649.  In 1652 he became chapel master to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck and from 1669 he was vice chapel master to the imperial court in Vienna.  Throughout the 17th century his operas were widely performed in Italy. His most famous operas, Il pomo d’oro, Dori, and Orontea, have survived to this day.  Il pomo d’oro was a lavish production, written for the wedding of Emperor Leopold I in 1666 in Vienna.  An important manuscript collection of 18 secular and three sacred cantatas by Cesti are preserved in Oxford.  His cantatas and religious works show Roman influences, whereas his operas demonstrate the influence of the Venetian school.  Read more…

__________________________________________________________

Felice Casson - politician and magistrate

His investigations revealed existence of Operation Gladio

Felice Casson, the magistrate whose investigations exposed the existence of the NATO-backed secret army codenamed Gladio, was born on this day in 1953 in Chioggia, near Venice.  A former mayor of Venice and a representative of the Democratic Party in the Italian Senate, Casson devoted much of his career in the judiciary to fighting corruption and rooting out terrorists.  In 1984, his interest in terrorism led him to examine the unsolved mystery of the Peteano bombing in 1972, in which three Carabinieri officers were killed by a car bomb placed under an abandoned Fiat 500 in a tiny hamlet close to the border with Yugoslavia in the province of Gorizia.  Casson discovered flaws in the original investigation into the bombing, which at the time was blamed on the left-wing extremist group the Red Brigades, who would later be responsible for the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro, a former prime minister.  Afterwards, Italy launched a nationwide crackdown on left-wing organisations and made more than 200 arrests.  But Casson found no record of any investigation of the scene of the bombing.  Read more…

Home

4 August

Pope Urban VII

Pope for just 12 days but introduced world's first smoking ban

Pope Urban VII was born Giovanni Battista Castagna on this day in 1521 in Rome.  Although his 12-day papacy in 1590 was the shortest in history, he is remembered as being the first person in the world to declare a ban on smoking.  He was against the use of tobacco generally, threatening to excommunicate anyone who ‘took tobacco in the porchway of, or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe, or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose’.  The ban is thought to have been upheld for the most part until 1724, when Pope Benedict XIII, himself a smoker, repealed it.  Castagna was the son of a nobleman of Genovese origin and studied in universities all over Italy. He obtained a doctorate in civil law and canon law from the University of Bologna.  He served as a constitutional lawyer to Pope Julius III and was then ordained a priest.  He took part in the Council of Trent and then served as an apostolic nuncio in Spain for four years.  Castagna was also Governor of Bologna, apostolic nuncio to Venice and then Papal Legate to Flanders and Cologne.  He is remembered for his charity to the poor.  Read more…

__________________________________________________________

Giovanni Spadolini - politician

The first non-Christian Democrat to lead Italian Republic

Giovanni Spadolini, who was the Italian Republic’s first prime minister not to be drawn from the Christian Democrats and was one of Italy's most respected politicians, died on this day in 1994.  In a country where leading politicians and businessmen rarely survive a whole career without becoming embroiled in one corruption scandal or another, he went to the grave with his reputation for honesty intact.  Although he was an expert on Italian unification and became a professor of contemporary history at the University of Florence when he was only 25, a background that gave him a deep knowledge of Italian politics, he first built a career as a journalist.  He became a political columnist for several magazines and newspapers, including Il Borghese, Il Mondo and Il Messaggero, and was appointed editor of the Bologna daily II Resto del Carlino in 1955, at the age of 30.  In 1968, having doubled Il Resto’s circulation, he left Bologna to become the editor at Corriere della Sera, in Milan, where he remained until 1972.  It was while editing the Corriere that he became known for his anti-extremist stance, condemning violent student activists on the left and terrorists on the right in equal measure.  Read more…

___________________________________________________________

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici - politician

Art enthusiast who was Botticelli’s major patron

The Florentine banker and politician Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, who was a significant figure in Renaissance art as the main sponsor and patron of the painter Sandro Botticelli, was born on this day in 1463.  The great-grandson of Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, the founder of the Medici bank, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco belonged to the junior, sometimes known as ‘Popolani’ branch of the House of Medici.  In 1476, when he and his brother, Giovanni, were still boys, their father, Pierfrancesco de’ Medici the Elder, died. They became wards, effectively, of their cousin, Lorenzo il Magnifico - Lorenzo the Magnificent - a member of the senior branch of the family and the effective ruler of Florence.  Relations between the two branches had been tense for some years and were not helped when Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco discovered, on becoming an adult, that Lorenzo had plundered a considerable sum from he and his brother’s joint inheritance in order to stave off a threatened bankruptcy of the family’s financial empire.  Although Lorenzo had provided the boys with the best education money could buy - the notable Florentine Renaissance humanists Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano and Giorgio Antonio Vespucci (uncle of Amerigo) were among their tutors - and given them a number of properties in compensation, the incident created a lingering bitterness.  Read more…

Home

3 August

La Scala - opera and ballet theatre

First night at the world’s most famous opera house

Milan’s Teatro alla Scala was officially inaugurated on this day in 1778.  Known to Italians simply as La Scala, the theatre has become the leading opera house in the world and many famous artists have appeared there. A fire had destroyed the Teatro Regio Ducale, which had previously been the home of opera in Milan. A group of 90 wealthy patrons, the owners of private boxes in the theatre, wrote to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este asking that a new theatre be built.  The new theatre was built on the site of the former Church of Santa Maria alla Scala, which is how the theatre got its name. The church was deconsecrated and demolished to make way for the theatre.  With the cost of the project met by the 90 patrons, who paid in advance for boxes, the new theatre was designed by neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini and at the official opening on 3 August 1778, Antonio Salieri’s opera L’Europa Riconosciuta was premiered.  As with most theatres at the time, the main floor had no seats, with audience members standing to watch the performances. This had the effect of making the theatre a meeting place, but also a venue for business dealings. Read more…

_________________________________________________________

Imperia Cognati - courtesan

Prostitute who became a celebrity

Imperia Cognati, who acquired celebrity status in Rome in the early 16th century as a courtesan to a number of rich and powerful figures, was born on this day in 1486.  Courtesans were originally the female companions of courtiers of the papal court, whose duties required them to be educated and familiar with etiquette, so that they could participate in the formalities of court life and take part in polite conversation.  In time, however, in some cases their companionship became of a more intimate nature and they became the mistresses of their courtiers, who in the papal court were clerics nor permitted to marry.  It was common, too, for courtesans to be the companions of several clients simultaneously.  They were in effect a new class of prostitute, refined and educated enough to hold their own in polite society.  Imperia Cognati acquired her elevated status mainly through being the chosen companion of Agostino Chigi, a Sienese banker closely associated with Pope Alexander VI and others and a patron of the Renaissance.  At one time he was thought to be the richest banker in the world.  He lavished Imperia – as she was usually known – to the extent that she could afford to keep both a palace in Rome and a country villa.  Read more…

___________________________________________________________

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger - Architect

Talented Florentine was commissioned by the Popes

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who left his mark on Rome during the Renaissance, died on this day in 1546 in Terni in Umbria.  Sangallo was the chief architect on St Peter’s Basilica from 1520 onwards and built many other beautiful churches and palaces in the city and throughout the Papal States.  He was born Antonio Cordiani in Florence in 1484. His grandfather had been a woodworker and his uncles, Giuliano and Antonio da Sangallo, were architects.  The young man followed his uncles to Rome to pursue a career in architecture and ended up taking the name Sangallo himself.  He became an assistant to Donato Bramante and started by preparing sketches for his master.  Recognising his talent, Bramante gave Sangallo projects to complete with no more than an outline of the design and motifs.  Sangallo’s first major commission was for the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto in 1507.  He came to the attention of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who later became Pope Paul III, and was commissioned to design the Farnese Palace in Piazza Farnese and a palace and church in the Cardinal’s home town of Gradoli.  Read more…

Home