Ludovico Manin - the last Doge of Venice

Surrender to Napoleon ended La Serenissima’s independence 

Ludovico Manin was Doge of Venice
from 1789 until its fall in 1797 

The man who would become the last of Venice’s 120 Doges, Ludovico Giovanni Manin, was born on this day in 1725.

The Doge was the highest political office in Venice, its history going back to the seventh century, when the Venetian Lagoon was a province of the Byzantine (Eastern) Roman Empire and, in common with other provinces, was governed by a Dux (leader).

By the 11th century, when Venice had become an independent republic, the Doge was more of a figurehead, the head of a ruling council, and the title tended to be given to one of the oldest and most respected members of Venetian nobility.

Manin was 64 by the time he was elected but his eight years in post were significant in that they ended with the fall of La Serenissima - as the Venetian Republic was grandly known -its 1,100 years of independence ending with surrender to the French army of Napoleon Bonaparte, who subsequently handed control of the city to Austria.

The eldest of five sons of Lodovico III Alvise and Lucrezia Maria Basadonna, the great-granddaughter of cardinal Pietro Basadonna, Ludovico went straight into public life after completing his studies at the University of Bologna.

At 26 he was elected captain of Vicenza, then of Verona and finally Brescia, before being appointed procurator de ultra of Saint Mark's Basilica in 1764. 

Noted for his generosity, honesty and kindness as a governor, he married Elisabetta Grimani in 1748 but the marriage produced no children. 

The conclave of the Venetian Grand Council at
which Ludovico Manin formally abdicated

Despite his own failing health, he was elected Doge in March, 1789, a few months before the start of the French Revolution. Although Venice was even then regarded as a playground for the rich, its own wealth had been in decline for some years, and Manin had to oversee policies designed to reduce the republic’s financial obligations.

These included cutting the size of Venice’s merchant and military fleets to the degree that when Napoleon’s series of empire-building wars reached Italy, it was clear that Venice would be unable to defend itself.  Manin declined to enter the coalition of Italian states formed to counter Napoleon’s advance in 1795 and Venice declared itself neutral.

However, Napoleon had signed a secret deal with Austria, his most powerful rival for European dominance, to cede control of Venice to Austria in exchange for territories in the Netherlands, which meant he ignored Venice’s neutrality and came after the city anyway.

Manin refused an ultimatum from the French to surrender and on 25 April, 1797, the French fleet arrived at the Lido. Venice responded by sinking one of the French vessels but with only seven warships of their own to call on, the prospects for defending the city were remote and the French needed no second bidding to launch an attack.

The reaction of Manin and the Venetian Grand Council was to pass a motion to dissolve the republic and put the city under French rule.  After all the formalities of the surrender were completed, 4,000 French soldiers entered the city on 16 May and staged a parade in Piazza San Marco - St Mark's Square.

The Manin Chapel at the church
of the Scalzi in Venice

It was a humiliation for Venice, the first time that foreign troops had set foot in the city, but worse was to come. Despite having agreed to hand Venice to the Austrians, Napoleon first wanted to help himself to its treasures and triggered a large-scale looting operation by his troops, who also destroyed what remained of the Venetian fleet and the Venice Arsenal.

Manin, meanwhile, was offered the chance to become interim head of the new Venice but refused, returning the ducal insignia and withdrawing to Palazzo Dolfin Manin, his residence on the Grand Canal.

It was a lonely life. He refused to answer the door even to friends and his meek surrender to the French did not go down well with Venetians, who jeered and insulted him when he ventured out.

Manin died of heart problems in October, 1802. His remains were interred in the family tomb, in a chapel designed by Jacopo Antonio Pozzo, in the Church of the Scalzi in Venice, near the present railway station of Venice Santa Lucia.

The Palazzo Dolfin Manin is now
an office of the Banca d'Italia

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Dolfin Manin, the home of Ludovico Manin, is a 16th century palace on the Grand Canal, a short distance from the Rialto Bridge in the sestiere San Marco. It was built in 1536 for the Dolfin family by the great Florentine architect Jacopo Sansovino, whose work in Venice includes the Biblioteca Marciana, opposite the Doge’s Palace in Piazzetta San Marco, which connects St Mark’s Square with the waterfront. Sansovino created the palace by merging two existing structures and adding a facade in white Istrian stone with a portico of six arches. Inside are works by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, who decorated the palace for the wedding of Ludovico Manin and Elisabetta Grimani. The palace remained in the possession of the Manin family until 1867, when it was bought by the Banca Nazionale del Regno, forerunner of the Banca d’Italia, which still has its Venice headquarters in the building.

The Chiesa degli Scalzi fronts on to
the Grand Canal near the railway station

Travel tip:

The Chiesa degli Scalzi, site of the Manin family tomb and Ludovico’s final resting place, can be found immediately next to Venice’s Santa Lucia railway station, at the foot of the bridge of the same name. Formally known as the church of Santa Maria di Nazareth, it takes its other name from the Carmelite religious order of which it was the seat, the Discalced, which means ‘without shoes’ or ‘scalzi’ in Italian. Designed by Baldassare Longhena, best known for the magnificent Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute at the end of the Grand Canal where it meets the Lagoon, its sumptuous interior includes paintings by Tiepolo and sculptures by Giovanni Maria Morlaiter. The Venetian Late Baroque facade is the work of Giuseppe Sardi, while the statues mounted at various points on the facade were sculpted by Bernardo Falconi.

Also on this day:

1509: The Battle of Agnadello 

1916: The birth of designer Marco Zanuso

1934: The birth of footballer Aurelio Milani

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13 May

The first Giro d'Italia

Tour of Italy cycle race ran from Milan to Naples and back

A field of 127 riders left Milan on this day in 1909 as Italy's famous cycle race, the Giro d'Italia, was staged for the first time.  Those who lasted the course returned to Milan 13 days later having covered a distance of 2,447.9 kilometres (1,521 miles) along a route around Italy that took them through Bologna, Chieti, Naples, Rome, Florence, Genoa and Turin.  The winner was Luigi Ganna, an Italian cyclist from Lombardy who had finished fifth in the Tour de France in 1908 and won the Milan-San Remo race earlier in 1909.  Only 49 riders finished.  Second and third places were also filled by Italian riders, with Carlo Galetti finishing ahead of Giovanni Rossignoli.  The race was run in eight stages with two to three rest days between each stage. It was a challenge to the riders' stamina. The stages were almost twice as long as those that make up the Giro today, with an average distance of more than 300 km (190 miles). The modern Giro covers a greater distance in total at 3,481.8 km (2,163.5 miles).  Thankfully, the route was primarily flat, although it did contain a few major ascents, particularly on the third leg between Chieti in Abruzzo and Naples, which took the race across the Apennines.  Read more…

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Daniele Manin - Venetian leader

Lawyer who led fight to drive out Austrians

The Venetian patriot Daniele Manin, a revolutionary who fought to free Venice from Austrian rule and thereby made a significant contribution to the unification of Italy, was born on this day in 1804 in the San Polo sestiere.  Manin had Jewish roots. His grandfather, Samuele Medina,  from Verona, had converted to Christianity in 1759 and took the name Manin because Lodovico Manin, the last Doge of Venice, had sponsored his conversion.  He studied law at the University of Padua and then took up practice in Venice. As his practice developed, he gained a reputation as a brilliant and profound jurist.  He harboured a deep hatred and resentment towards the Austrians, to whom control of the city passed after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. The city became part of the Austrian-held Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia.  Manin's first physical act to advance the cause of liberation was the presentation of a petition in 1847 to a body called the Venetian Congregation, an advisory assembly that had no actual powers. The petition listed the grievances of the Venetian people but Manin’s frankness was not to the liking of the Austrians, who arrested him in January 1848 on charges of treason.  Read more…

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Giuliano Amato – politician

‘Doctor Subtle’ is still working in his 80s

Giuliano Amato, who has twice served as prime minister of Italy and today sits in Italy’s Constitutional Court, was born on this day in 1938 in Turin.  During his first period as prime minister, for 10 months between 1992 and 1993, a series of corruption scandals rocked Italy, sweeping away the careers of many leading politicians. Amato was never implicated, despite being close to Bettino Craxi, the leader of the Italian Socialist party, who was investigated by Milan judges in the probe into corruption that became known as Mani pulite, which literally means ‘clean hands’. Craxi was eventually convicted of corruption and the illicit financing of his party.  Amato has earned the nickname ‘dottor sottile’ the sobriquet of the medieval Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus, which is a reference to his perceived political subtlety.  Born into a Sicilian family living in Turin at the time, Amato spent his early years growing up in Tuscany.  He attended the Collegio Medico Giuridico, which is today the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, part of Pisa University, and obtained a degree in law. He also received a Masters degree in comparative law from Columbia Law School.  Read more…

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Francesco Pistocchi – singer and composer

Child prodigy who wrote many operas and also taught

Francesco Pistocchi, a singer who became known to audiences as Pistocchino, died on this day in 1726 in Bologna.  Pistocchi left the world many operas, oratorios and cantatas he had composed, which are now highly regarded for their melodic elegance and colourful harmony.  Born Francesco Antonio Mamiliano Pistocchi in Palermo in 1659, Pistocchi became a child prodigy because of his beautiful soprano voice. He began performing as a singer in public at the age of three and the first music he composed, Capricci puerili, was published when he was just eight years old.  Believed to have become a castrato, Pistocchi made regular appearances as a singer in Bologna’s cappella musicale at the Basilica of San Petronio, where his father was a violinist, from 1670 onwards.  He later had a brilliant opera career as a contralto, touring in Italy and Germany and serving at the court in Parma in the 1680s.  His opera, Il leandro, was premiered at Teatro alle Zattere in Venice in 1679.  In 1696 Pistocchi became Court Kapellmeister for the Duke of Ansbach in Germany. His operas, Il Narciso and Le pazzie d’amore e dell’interesse, were presented in Ansbach in the late 1690s.  Read more…

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12 May

Zeno Colò - Olympic skiing champion

Downhill ace reached speeds of almost 100mph with no helmet

Zeno Colò, the first Italian to win an Olympic alpine skiing title when he took the downhill gold at the 1952 Oslo Winter Games, died on this day in 1993, aged 72.  The winner, too, of the downhill and giant slalom World championship titles in Aspen in 1950, Colò achieved his success during a brief window in a life spent on skis.  Deprived of prime competitive years by the Second World War, part of which he spent as a prisoner of war, he began his career late, in 1947 at the age of 27, only to be banned for life in 1954 under the strict rules defining amateur status after he endorsed a brand of ski boots and a ski jacket.  Colò was born in Tuscany but in a mountainous part of the region in the village of Cutigliano, which is 678m (2,044ft) above sea level and is just 14km (9 miles) from Abetone, one of the largest ski resorts in the Apennines, with more than 50km (31 miles) of ski slopes, several of which were designed by Colò himself.   He began competitive skiing at the age of 14 and was selected for the Italian national team at 15. The outbreak of war brought his career to a stop but he maintained his skills as a member of an army alpine patrol in Cervinia, close to the Swiss border.  Read more…

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Cosimo II de' Medici - patron of Galileo

Grand Duke of Tuscany maintained family tradition

Born on this day in Florence in 1590, Cosimo II de' Medici, who was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609 until his premature death in 1621, was largely a figurehead ruler during his 12-year reign, delegating administrative powers to his ministers.  His health was never good and he died from tuberculosis aged only 30 yet made his mark by maintaining the Medici family tradition for patronage by supporting the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei.  Galileo, from Pisa, had been Cosimo's childhood tutor during the time that he was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Padua.  From the beginnings of the Medici dynasty, with Cosimo the Elder's rise to power in 1434, the family supported the arts and humanities, turning Florence into what became known as the cradle of the Renaissance.  Cosimo the Elder gave his patronage to artists such as Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello and Fra Angelico.  His grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, supported the work of such Renaissance masters as Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.  Galileo, who also had the patronage of Cosimo's eldest son and heir, Ferdinando II de' Medici, dedicated his treatise Sidereus Nuncius, an account of his telescopic discoveries, to Cosimo.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Viotti – violinist and composer

Brilliant musician wrote the melody for the Marseillaise

Violinist Giovanni Battista Viotti, who was to become court musician to Marie-Antoinette and composed 29 violin concertos, was born on this day in 1755 in Fontanetto Po in the region of Piedmont.  Among Viotti’s many compositions for the violin, string quartets and the piano, his violin concerto No. 22 in A Minor became particularly well known.  He is also credited with having composed the original music of La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France, 11 years before it was officially published by another composer.  Viotti’s musical talent was spotted early and he was taken into the household of Principe Alfonso dal Pozzo della Cisterna in Turin, where he received a musical education.  This prepared him to become a pupil of the virtuoso violinist and composer Gaetano Pugnani, while still a teenager, funded by the prince.  Viotti served at the Savoy court in Turin from 1773 to 1780, before travelling with Pugnani in Germany, Poland and Russia.  He went to France alone, where he made his debut as a violinist in 1782 in Paris.  He was an instant sensation and became court musician to Marie-Antoinette at Versailles.  Read more…

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Silvio Scaroni - fighter pilot

World War I ace was air force commander in World War II

Silvio Scaroni, a fighter pilot whose tally of aerial victories in the First World War was bettered only by Francesco Baracca among Italian flying aces, was born on this day in 1893 in Brescia.  Flying mainly the French-designed Hanriot HD.1 single-seater biplane, Scaroni had 26 confirmed successes out of 30 claimed.  Baracca, who was shot down and killed only a few months before the war ended, was credited with 34 victories.  Recalled to service, Scaroni became commander of the Italian air forces in Sicily during the Second World War, in which role he clashed with Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, who claimed Scaroni did not provide enough support to Germany’s attempts to destroy strategically vital British bases on Malta.  Scaroni enlisted first with the Italian Army as a corporal in the 2nd Field Artillery. With the Italian entry to the First World War looking more likely - they took a neutral position at first - he transferred to the Italian Air Service in March, 1915, flying his first missions in September of that year as a reconnaissance pilot. Piloting French-built Caudron G.3 aircraft, he carried out 114 scouting missions in 20 months.  Read more…

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11 May

Valentino Garavani - fashion icon

Designer favoured by the world's best dressed women

The fashion designer best known simply as Valentino was born in Voghera, a town about 70km (43 miles) south of Milan in the province of Pavia, on this day in 1932.  The favourite designer of the world’s best dressed women from the 1960s onwards, he built up a business that he eventually sold for $300 million.  Born Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, he became interested in fashion while still in primary school. After working initially for his aunt Rosa, with the financial support of his parents he moved to Paris to pursue his interest, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne.  His first taste of working life came in the salons of Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche.  Armed with the knowledge and experience he gained at the feet of two French masters, he left Paris in 1959 to set up his first fashion house in Rome, on the fashionable Via Condotti. He quickly gained kudos for his bright red dresses, in a shade that became widely known as "Valentino red."  In July 1960, Valentino met Giancarlo Giammetti at the Café de Paris on the Via Veneto in Rome.  Read more…

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Filippo De Pisis - painter and poet

Artist known for extravagant lifestyle

The painter and poet Filippo De Pisis, whose works grace the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome among other galleries, was born Luigi Filippo Tibertelli De Pisis in Ferrara on this day in 1896.  A close associate for a while of Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà, De Pisis is best known for his cityscapes, metaphysically-inspired maritime scenes, and still life pictures, especially depicting flowers.  De Pisis, who was homosexual, also made many homoerotic sketches of the male nude. Later in life, he lived in Venice and became somewhat eccentric, travelling everywhere in his personal gondola.  Born into a noble family, as a boy he was known as Gigi. He was educated at home and was strongly influenced by his sister, Ernesta Tibertelli, who was a distinguished illustrator with libertarian views, and who probably introduced De Pisis to mystical writings.  De Pisis spent his childhood reading, drawing, collecting butterflies and wildflowers and writing poetry. He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Bologna, and published a volume of poems, Canti della Croara, in 1916.  Read more…

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Fanny Cerrito - ballerina

Neapolitan star thrilled audiences across Europe

One of the most famous ballerinas of the Romantic era, Francesca 'Fanny' Cerrito was born on this day in 1817, in Naples.  Her talent for dancing emerged early and after training in the ballet school of the famed Naples opera house Teatro di San Carlo she made her debut there in 1832, aged only 15.  She quickly became the darling of the San Carlo and wowed dance audiences in many Italian cities. By the age of 21 she had obtained the position of prima ballerina at La Scala in Milan, working under the direction of Carlo Blasis, another Neapolitan, who was renowned for his rigorous and exacting classes.  When Cerrito and the Swedish-born ballerina, Marie Taglioni, who had Italian heritage, danced in the same programme in Milan, the event caused considerable excitement in the city, with audiences divided in their support for one or the other.  Cerrito's fame spread around Europe and for nine seasons between 1840 and 1848 she became a major attraction at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London, where she worked with the French choreographer Jules Perrot and enjoyed what many critics regarded as her finest performance in Cesare Pugni's Ondine.  Read more…

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Ignazio Fiorillo – composer

Talented Neapolitan influenced music in Germany

Ignazio Fiorillo, who is remembered as an opera seria composer, was born in Naples on this day in 1715.  Fiorillo often composed music for the libretti of the acclaimed writer, Pietro Metastasio, creating the type of noble and serious operas that were fashionable in Europe in the 18th century.  After studying music at the Naples Conservatory, Fiorillo composed the opera L’egeste, which premiered in Trieste in 1733.  Another of his operas, Mandane, was first performed at the Teatro Sant’Angelo in Venice in 1736.  Fiorillo was later engaged as a composer for an ensemble specialising in performances for children and toured Europe with them.  In 1749 they stayed in Braunschweig in Germany at the court of Carl I von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. Fiorillo was appointed court composer the following year and during his remaining time at Braunschweig composed most of his operas.  He became composer to the court of Frederick II Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in 1762 and went on to improve significantly the quality of court opera in Kassel. He also composed intermezzi and stage music for court theatre.  Read more…

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