19 February

Massimo Troisi – actor, writer and director

Tragic star died hours after completing finest work

Massimo Troisi, the comic actor, writer and director who suffered a fatal heart attack in 1994 only 12 hours after shooting finished on his greatest movie, was born on this day in 1953 in a suburb of Naples.  Troisi co-directed and starred in Il Postino, which won an Oscar for best soundtrack after being nominated in five categories, the most nominations in Academy Award history for an Italian film.  He also wrote much of the screenplay for the movie, based on a novel, Burning Patience, by the Chilean author Antonio Skármeta, which tells the story of a Chilean poet exiled on an Italian island and his friendship with a postman whose round consists only of the poet’s isolated house.  Plagued by heart problems for much of his life, the result of several bouts of rheumatic fever when he was a child, Troisi was told just before shooting was due to begin that he needed an urgent transplant operation.  However, he was so committed to the project, a joint enterprise with his friend, the British director Michael Radford, he decided to postpone his surgery.  He was so ill that he collapsed on set on the third day but recovered to continue.  Read more…

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Domenico Grimani - cardinal and art collector

Owned works by Da Vinci, Titian and Raphael among others

The Venetian cardinal Domenico Grimani, whose vast art collection now forms part of the Museo d'Antichità in the Doge's Palace in Venice, was born on this day in 1461.  Grimani acquired works among others by Italian Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgione, Titian and Raphael, as well as by Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch, two of the great Early Netherlandish painters of the 15th century.  He also owned the illustrated manuscript that became known as the Grimani Breviary, produced in Ghent and Bruges between 1510 and 1520, which is considered one of the most important  works of Flemish art from the Renaissance period.  Gerard David, Gerard Horenbout, Simon Bening and other illustrators contributed to the work, which was acquired by Grimani for 500 gold ducats, and subsequently bequeathed to the Venetian Republic.  It is now housed in the Biblioteca Marciana, opposite the Doge’s Palace.  Domenico also began the collection of Greek and Roman antiquities that was subsequently expanded by his nephew, Giovanni, and now kept in the Palazzo Grimani museum, near Campo Santa Maria Formosa.  Read more…

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Luigi Boccherini – musician

Composer gave the cello prominence in his charming quintets

Cellist and composer Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was born on this day in 1743 in Lucca in Tuscany.  Boccherini is particularly known for a minuet from his String Quintet in E, which became popular after its use by characters posing as musicians in the 1955 film, The Ladykillers, which starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.  Though his works became neglected after his death in 1805 they enjoyed a revival after the Boccherini Quintet, which was formed in Rome, started performing them in the 1950s.  Boccherini’s father was himself a cellist and double bass player and sent the young Luigi to study in Rome.  In 1757 they went to Vienna together where the court employed them both as musicians in the Imperial Theatre orchestra.  In 1764 Luigi obtained a permanent position back in Lucca, playing in both the church and theatre orchestras.  But after the death of his father he moved to Paris where some of his early compositions were published.  Boccherini later moved to Spain, where for a time he enjoyed the patronage of the Royal family. But one day King Charles III of Spain ordered him to change a passage of his music.   Read more…

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Vittorio Grigolo - opera singer

Tenor courted public popularity as way to land 'serious' roles

The operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo was born on this day in 1977 in Arezzo in Tuscany.  Grigolo has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses and recently starred in Werther by Jules Massenet at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  Yet he has achieved fame as a serious performer after first releasing an album of popular songs and using reality TV shows to put himself in the public eye.  Brought up in Rome, Grigolo was a child prodigy who began to sing at the age of four, his love for music inspired by his father, who liked the family house to be filled with the sound of opera arias.  He won a place at the prestigious Sistine Chapel Choir School by the time he was nine and at 13 appeared on the same stage as the opera legend Luciano Pavarotti as the shepherd boy in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca at the Rome Opera House.  It earned him the nickname Il Pavarottino - the little Pavarotti.  Grigolo's progress continued to be rapid.  At 18 he joined the Vienna Opera Company and became the youngest tenor to perform at Teatro alla Scala in Milan at the age of 23.  But in the years that followed, he felt his career reached a plateau. Read more…

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18 February

NEW - Francesco Redi - biologist and poet

Renaissance scholar who debunked scientific myths

The physician Francesco Redi, famous for challenging a centuries old belief that certain living things arose through spontaneous generation rather than any reproductive process involving parent organisms, was born on this day in 1626 in Arezzo, Tuscany.  Redi, who enjoyed literary success alongside his work in experimental biology, devoted much of his scientific life to dismantling some of the widely held beliefs in his field that he was sure were incorrect.  The most famous of these was that the maggots frequently discovered in rotting meat occurred spontaneously as a product of the decaying flesh. In order to show that this was a myth, Redi conducted a number of experiments in 1668 involving sets of jars containing dead fish and raw pieces of different meats. In the first, he sealed three of six jars and left the other three open. In the second, he placed raw meat in three jars, plugging one with a cork stopper, placing gauze over the other and leaving the third open.  After a period of time, the flesh in the open jars contained maggots, but in the sealed jars did not.  In the gauze-covered jars, maggots appeared on the surface of the gauze but not in the meat.  Read more…

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Roberto Baggio - football icon

Azzurri star regarded as Italy's greatest player

The footballer Roberto Baggio, regarded by fans in Italy and around the world as one of the game's greatest players, was born on this day in 1967 in Caldogno, a small town situated about 10km (6 miles) north of Vicenza in the Veneto.  Baggio's career spanned 22 years, most of them spent at the highest level, with Fiorentina, Juventus, Bologna, both Milan clubs and, finally, Brescia, winning the Serie A title twice, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup.  He played in three World Cups - in 1990, 1994 and 1998 - and achieved the unique distinction among Italian players of scoring at all three.  He scored 318 goals all told, the first Italian for 50 years to top 300 in his career.  Yet he spent almost the whole of his active playing days battling against injury.  Over the course of his career, he had six knee operations, four on his right knee and two on the left, and often could play only with the help of painkillers.  His fans believe that without his injuries, Baggio would have been placed in the same bracket as Pele, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi as the best players in history.  Italy's most famous football journalist, the late Gianni Brera, said Baggio was the greatest Italian player he ever saw, better than both Giuseppe Meazza and Gianni Rivera.  Read more…

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Michelangelo – Renaissance painter and sculptor

‘Greatest artist of all time’ left amazing legacy of work

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni - generally known simply as Michelangelo - died on this day in 1564 in Rome.   His death came three weeks before his 89th birthday while he was still working on his last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà, a version of the Virgin Mary with the body of the dead Christ.  Michelangelo had been a sculptor, painter, architect and poet who had exerted an enormous influence on the development of art. During his lifetime he was considered to be the greatest living artist and he is now considered to be one of the greatest - if not the greatest - artists of all time.  Michelangelo was born in 1475 in the small town of Caprese near Arezzo in Tuscany, which is now known as Caprese Michelangelo.  He was sent to Florence to be educated but preferred to spend his time with painters, trying to copy the pictures in the churches, rather than be at school.  At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to the artist Ghirlandaio and was asked to produce sculptures for Lorenzo dè Medici.  Eventually he moved to Rome where he was commissioned to carve his first Pietà, a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the dead body of Jesus.  Read more…

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Roberta Vinci - tennis champion

Won five Grand Slam doubles titles with partner Sara Errani

The tennis player Roberta Vinci, one half of the most successful Italian women’s doubles partnerships of all time and one of only four Italian women to rank in the world’s top 10 at singles, was born on this day in 1983 in the major port city of Taranto in Puglia.  Vinci and partner Sara Errani reached the women’s doubles final at eight Grand Slam tournaments between 2012 and 2014, winning five of them.  They were the champions at the French Open and United States Open in 2012 and the Australian Open in 2013 and again in 2014. When they won the Wimbledon title in 2014 they became one of only five women’s doubles partnerships to complete a career Grand Slam of all the four majors.  The pair, who reached No 1 in the world rankings in 2012, unexpectedly ended their five-year partnership in 2015, after which Vinci focussed on singles.  Vinci’s finest achievement in singles came at the US Open in 2015, when she defeated world No 1 Serena Williams in the semi-finals before facing her compatriot and childhood friend Flavia Pennetta in the final, the first in a Grand Slam in the open era to pit one Italian against another.  Read more…

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Blessed Fra Angelico – painter

Talented Friar became patron of Catholic artists

The early Renaissance painter who became known as Fra Angelico died on this day in 1455 in Rome.  Fra Angelico is regarded as one of the greatest painters of the 15th century, whose works reflected his serene religious attitude.   He painted many altarpieces and frescoes for the Church and Priory of San Marco in Florence where he lived for about nine years.   In 1982, more than 500 years after his death, Fra Angelico was beatified by Pope John Paul II in recognition of the holiness of his life. In 1984, Pope John Paul II declared him ‘patron of Catholic artists’.  The artist was born Guido di Pietro at Rupecanina near Fiesole, just outside Florence, towards the end of the 14th century.  The earliest recorded document concerning him dates from 1417 when he joined a religious confraternity at the Carmine Church and it reveals that he was already a painter.  The first record of him as a Friar is dated 1423 and shows him to have been a member of the Dominican order.  It is believed his first paintings were an altarpiece and a painted screen for the Carthusian Monastery in Florence, but these no longer exist.  Read more…

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Francesco Redi - biologist and poet

Renaissance scholar who debunked scientific myths

Francesco Redi proved that maggots
resulted from flies' eggs

The physician Francesco Redi, famous for challenging a centuries old belief that certain living things arose through spontaneous generation rather than any reproductive process involving parent organisms, was born on this day in 1626 in Arezzo, Tuscany.

Redi, who enjoyed literary success alongside his work in experimental biology, devoted much of his scientific life to dismantling some of the widely held beliefs in his field that he was sure were incorrect.

The most famous of these was that the maggots frequently discovered in rotting meat occurred spontaneously as a product of the decaying flesh.

In order to show that this was a myth, Redi conducted a number of experiments in 1668 involving sets of jars containing dead fish and raw pieces of different meats. In the first, he sealed three of six jars and left the other three open. In the second, he placed raw meat in three jars, plugging one with a cork stopper, placing gauze over the other and leaving the third open.

After a period of time, the flesh in the open jars contained maggots, but in the sealed jars did not.  In the gauze-covered jar, maggots appeared on the surface of the gauze but not in the meat.

The cover of Redi's book about
the generation of insects

Redi’s belief was that maggots came from tiny eggs laid by flies on the surface of the rotting meat or fish. To add further weight to his theory, he captured some live maggots, which then metamorphosed into flies.

In a further experiment, he placed dead flies in one jar containing meat and live flies in another. Only in the jar with live flies did maggots appear in the meat.

These experiments were described in Redi’s magnum opus, Esperienze intorno alla generazione degl'insetti (Experiments on the Generation of Insects).

This is generally recognised as the first refutation of spontaneous generation, the belief in which went back at least 2,000 years to the time of the Greek philosopher Aristotle and possibly beyond. It was not entirely disproved until the mid-19th century. Redi’s work with maggots was also one of the first recorded examples of a scientific experiment using controls, which would later be recognised as an essential element of biological research. 

Earlier, Redi’s 1664 work Osservazioni intorno alle vipere (Observations on vipers) challenged some bizarre suppositions relating to vipers, which were thought for many years not only to be capable of shattering glasses but drinking wine.

Redi proved that the venom of the snake, which was thought to be harmful when swallowed, came not from the reptile’s gallbladder but was contained in fangs in the mouth and poisoned its victims by entering their bloodstream via a bite. He also showed that by tightening a ligature around a bitten limb, the venom could be prevented from reaching the victim’s heart.

Detail from the funeral monument
to Redi in Arezzo's duomo

As well as debunking myths, Redi also carried out considerable research in his major area of interest, parasitology.  His books on the subject described 180 species of parasites that he had identified.

Redi, whose father was an eminent physician, obtained degrees in medicine and philosophy at the University of Pisa. His career took him to Rome, Naples, Bologna, Padua and Venice before he settled in Florence, where he served at the Medici Court as both the head physician and superintendent of the ducal apothecary to Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his successor, Cosimo III. 

His major contribution to Italian literature was a collection of his poems published in 1685 called Bacco in Toscana (Bacchus in Tuscany), which he wrote in praise of Tuscan wine and is considered one of the finest works of 17th-century Italian poetry, and which prompted Cosimo III to award Redi a medal of honour.

Redi died in Pisa in 1697 at the age of 71. His remains were taken to Arezzo, where there is a funeral monument to him on the wall of the left nave of the city’s duomo, the Cattedrale di Ss. Donato e Pietro.

Science commemorated his life in several ways, including a crater on Mars named in his honour. The Redi Award has been given annually by the International Society on Toxinology since 1967, a scientific journal called Redia, an Italian journal of zoology first published in 1903, was named after him, as is a European viper subspecies, vipera aspis francisciredi.

Arezzo's sloping Piazza Grande is regarded as one
of the most beautiful squares in Tuscany

Travel tip:

Arezzo, the city of Redi’s birth, is one of the wealthiest cities in Tuscany. Situated at the confluence of four valleys - Tiberina, Casentino, Valdarno and Valdichiana – its medieval centre suffered massive damage during the Second World War but still has enough monuments, churches and museums to be a worthwhile stopover on tourist itineraries. Its main sights include the Basilica di San Francesco, with its beautiful frescoes by Piero della Francesca, the central Piazza Grande, with its sloping pavement in red brick, the Medici Fortress, the duomo and a Roman amphitheatre.

Arezzo's cathedral stands in an elevated location
a short distance from the city centre

Travel tip:

Arezzo’s original cathedral was built on the nearby Pionta Hill, over the burial place of Donatus of Arezzo, who was martyred in 363. In 1203 Pope Innocent III had the cathedral moved within the city's walls, to the current site in another elevated position a short walk from Piazza Grande.  The construction of the current structure started in 1278 and continued in phases until 1511, although the façade visible today, designed by Dante Viviani was not completed until 1914, replacing one left unfinished in the 15th century.  The interior contains several notable artworks, including a relief by Donatello, entitled Baptism of Christ, and a cenotaph to Guido Tarlati, lord of Arezzo until 1327, said to be designed by Giotto, near to which is Piero della Francesca's Mary Magdalene.  The wooden choir of the Grand Chapel was designed by Giorgio Vasari.

Also on this day:

1455: The death of early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico

1564: The death of painter and sculptor Michelangelo

1967: The birth of football icon Roberto Baggio

1983: The birth of tennis star Roberta Vinci

(Picture credits: Funeral monument by Stefano Bolognini via Wikinedia Commons; Piazza Grande, Arezzo by El_en_a from Pixabay; Arezzo cathedral by Spike)

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17 February

Giordano Bruno - 'martyr of science'

Dominican friar condemned as a heretic

Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar, philosopher and cosmological theorist who challenged orthodox Christian beliefs in the 16th century, died on this day in 1600 when he was burned at the stake after being found guilty of heresy.  The principal crimes for which he was tried by the Roman Inquisition were the denial of several core Catholic doctrines.  Bruno challenged the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and the transubstantiation - the idea that Eucharistic offering of bread and wine in Mass becomes the body and blood of Christ.  He also questioned the idea of God as a holy trinity of divine persons - the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.  His own belief was closer to pantheism, which contends that a God is an all-encompassing divine presence rather than existing in some personal form with human traits.  This idea formed part of his cosmological theory, in which he supported the idea that everything in the universe is made of tiny particles (atoms) and that God exists in all of these particles.  Yet this was in contradiction of the established Catholic wisdom, as was his support for the idea advanced by the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus that Earth revolved around the sun, rather than the other way round.  Read more…

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Arcangelo Corelli – musician

Baroque composer had a major influence on the development of music

Violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli was born on this day in 1653 at Fusignano, a small town near Ravenna.   He is remembered for his influence on the development of violin style and for his use of the genres of sonata and concerto. Corelli’s 12 Concerti Grossi established the concerto grosso as a popular medium of composition.  Named Arcangelo after his father, who died a few weeks before his birth, he studied music with the curate of a neighbouring village before going to the nearby towns of Faenza and Lugo to learn musical theory.  Corelli later studied with Giovanni Benvenuti, who was a violinist at San Petronio in Bologna and in 1670 he started at the Philharmonic Academy in Bologna.  He moved on to Rome where to begin with he played the violin at a theatre. It is known that by 1677 he had written his first composition, a Sonata for Violin and Lute.  By 1675 Corelli was third violinist in the orchestra of the chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi and by the following year he had become second violinist. In 1681 his 12 Trio Sonatas for two violins and a cello were published and the following year he became first violinist in the San Luigi dei Francesi orchestra.  Read more…

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Raffaele ‘Raf’ Vallone – actor

Movie star who had four careers

Raffaele Vallone, the stage and screen actor who was born on this day in 1916 in Tropea, Calabria, was remarkable for having embarked on three starkly different career paths even before he made his acting debut.  Usually known as Raf, he grew up from the age of two in Turin, where his father, an ambitious young lawyer, had relocated to set up a legal practice.  A natural athlete, he was a fine footballer – so good, in fact, that at the age of 14 he was snapped up by Torino FC, who made him an apprentice professional.  Compared with the average working man, he was handsomely paid as a footballer, and he won a medal as part of the Torino team crowned Coppa Italia winners in 1936.  Yet he quickly became bored with football and enrolled at Turin University, where he studied Law and Philosophy with a view to joining his father’s firm.  Ultimately, he baulked at the idea of becoming a lawyer, too, and instead joined the staff of the left-wing daily newspaper L’Unità, where he rose quickly to be head of the culture pages, at the same time establishing himself as a drama and film critic for the Turin daily La Stampa.  Read more…

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Giovanni Pacini – opera composer

Works of overshadowed musician have enjoyed recent revival

Composer Giovanni Pacini, who wrote operas in the early part of the 19th century to suit the voices of the great singers of the period, was born on this day in 1796 in Catania in Sicily.  Pacini began his formal music studies at the age of 12, when he was sent by his father, the opera singer Luigi Pacini, to study voice in Bologna with castrato singer and composer, Luigi Marchesi.  He soon switched his focus to composing and wrote an opera, La sposa fedele - The Faithful Bride. It premiered in Venice in 1818 and, for its revival the following year, Pacini provided a new aria, to be sung specifically by the soprano Giuditta Pasta.  By the mid 1820s he had become a leading opera composer, having produced many successful serious and comic works.  Pacini’s 1824 work Alessandro nelle Indie - Alexander in the Indies - was a successful serious opera based on Andrea Leone Tottola’s updating of a text by librettist Pietro Metastasio.  But by the mid 1830s, Pacini had withdrawn from operatic activity after he found his operas eclipsed by those of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini.  He settled in Tuscany, where his father had been born.  Read more…

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