12 August

Luigi Galleani - anarchist

Activist who mainly operated in the United States

Luigi Galleani, an anarchist active in the United States in the early part of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1861 in Vercelli in Piedmont.  Galleani was an advocate of the philosophy of "propaganda of the deed" first proposed by the 19th century Italian revolutionary Carlo Pisacane.  The theory was that violence against specific targets identified as representatives of the capitalist system would be a catalyst for the overthrow of government institutions.  Between 1914 and 1932, Galleani's followers in the United States - known as i Galleanisti - carried out a series of bombings and assassination attempts against institutions and perceived “class enemies.”  The Wall Street bombing of 1920, which resulted in the deaths of 38 people, was blamed on followers of Galleani, who had been deported from the United States to Italy the previous year.  The large following he acquired among Italian-speaking workers both in Italy and the United States stemmed from his brilliant oratory.  He also edited a newspaper, Cronaca Sovversiva - Subversive Chronicle - which he published for 15 years until the United States government closed it down in 1918.  At one point Cronaca Sovversiva had 5,000 subscribers.  Read more…

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Giovanni Gabrieli – composer

Venetian musician inspired spread of the Baroque style

Giovanni Gabrieli, composer and organist, died on this day in 1612 in Venice.  He had been a major influence behind the transition from Renaissance music to the Baroque style in Europe.  Born in Venice between 1554 and 1557, Giovanni grew up studying with his uncle, the composer Andrea Gabrieli, for whom he always had great respect.  He also went to Munich to study with the musicians at the court of Duke Albert V, which had a lasting influence on his composing style.  After his return to Venice he became principal organist at St Mark’s Basilica in 1585.  Following the death of his uncle, he took the post of principal composer at St Mark’s as well and spent a lot of time editing his uncle’s music for publication, which would otherwise have been lost.  He took the additional post of organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which was second only to St Mark’s in prestige at the time.  The English writer Thomas Coryat wrote about musical performances there in his travel memoirs.  Composers from all over Europe came to Venice to study after the publication of Giovanni’s Sacred Symphonies (Sacrae Symphoniae) in 1597.  Read more…

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Vittorio Sella - mountain photographer

Images still considered among the most beautiful ever made

The photographer Vittorio Sella, who combined mountaineering with taking pictures of some of the world’s most famous and challenging peaks, died on this day in 1943 in his home town of Biella in Piedmont.  Even though Sella took the bulk of his photographs between the late 1870s and the First World War, his images are still regarded as among the most beautiful and dramatic ever taken.  His achievements are all the more remarkable given that his first camera and tripod alone weighed more than 18kg (40lbs) and he exposed his pictures on glass plates weighing almost a kilo (2lbs).  He had to set up makeshift darkrooms on the mountain at first because each shot had to be developed within 10 to 15 minutes.  Sella had exploring and photography in his blood. He was born in 1859 in Biella, in the foothills of the Italian Alps. It was an important area for wool and textiles and his family ran a successful wool factory.   Sella’s father, Giuseppe, was fascinated with the new science of photography A few years before Vittorio’s birth, he published the first major treatise on photography in Italian.  Meanwhile, Sella’s uncle, Quintino Sella, led the first expedition to the top of Monte Viso (or Monviso), the highest mountain in the French-Italian Alps.  Read more… 

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Mario Balotelli - footballer

Volatile star of Milan clubs and Manchester City

Controversial footballer Mario Balotelli, who has played for both major Milan clubs in Serie A and for Manchester City and Liverpool in the Premier League in England, was born on this day in 1990 in Palermo.  Balotelli scored 20 goals in 54 Premier League matches for Manchester City and made the pass from which Sergio Aguero scored City’s dramatic late winning goal against Queen’s Park Rangers on the last day of the 2011-12 season, which gave City the title for the first time since 1968.  He had a difficult relationship with City manager Roberto Mancini, with whom he first worked at Internazionale in Milan, and with Mancini’s successor in charge of the nerazzurri, Jose Mourinho.  His volatile temperament has also brought him more red and yellow cards than he and his managers would have liked.  Yet he still won three Serie A winner’s medals with Inter in addition to his English title and won the Coppa Italia with Inter and the FA Cup with Manchester City.  Balotelli is also a Champions League winner, having been part of the Inter squad in 2009-10, when Diego Milito’s two goals beat Bayern Munich in the final in Madrid.  Read more…

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11 August

NEW - Lavinia Fontana – artist

Mother-of-11 was Italy’s first female professional painter

Bolognese Mannerist artist Lavinia Fontana, who became famous for her portraits, died on this day in 1614 in Rome. She has come to be regarded as the first female professional painter in both Italy and throughout western Europe because her family lived on her income from commissioned works. Her husband worked as her assistant and agent and helped her bring up their 11 children.  Lavinia was born in Bologna in 1552 and baptised at the Basilica di San Petronio in the city. Her father, Prospero, was a prominent artist of the Bolognese school and trained Lavinia to follow in his footsteps. This allowed her to become an artist at a time when women were not widely accepted in the profession.  Her earliest known work, Child of the Monkey, was painted in 1575 when she was 23, but is now lost. Another early painting, Christ with the Symbols of the Passion, which was painted in 1576, is now in the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas.  Bologna society was largely supportive of Lavinia’s career, providing opportunities that were not given to women artists in other areas of Italy. She is thought to be the first woman artist working within the same sphere as her male counterparts to live outside a court or a convent.  Read more…

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Alfredo Binda - cyclist

Five times Giro winner who was paid not to take part

The five-times Giro d’Italia cycle race winner Alfredo Binda, who once famously accepted a substantial cash payment from the race organisers not to take part, was born on this day in 1902 in the village of Cittiglio, just outside Varese in Lombardy.  The payment was offered because Binda was such a good rider - some say the greatest of all time - that the Gazzetta dello Sport, the daily sports newspaper that invented the race, feared for the future of the event - and their own sales - because of Binda’s dominance.  He had been the overall winner of the coveted pink jersey in 1925, 1927, 1928 and 1929, on one occasion winning 12 of the 15 stages, on another racking up nine stage victories in a row.  Binda, who was perceived as a rather cold and detached competitor, was never particularly popular outside his own circle of fans and his habit of ruthlessly seeing off one hyped-up new challenger after another did nothing to win him new fans.  By 1929 it became clear to the Gazzetta’s bosses that interest in the race was waning, sales of the famous pink paper were falling and advertisers were less willing to part with their cash.  Read more…

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Massimiliano Allegri - football coach

Former AC Milan boss topped Conte's record

Massimiliano Allegri, the man who looked to have taken on one of the toughest acts to follow in football when he succeeded Antonio Conte as head coach of Juventus, was born on this day in 1967 in Livorno.  Conte won the Serie A title three times and the domestic double of Serie A and Coppa Italia twice in his three years as boss of the Turin club.  Yet after Allegri took over in 2014 he exceeded Conte’s record, leading the so-called Old Lady of Italian football to the double in each of his first four seasons in charge before winning a fifth consecutive Serie A title in 2019.  The 2016-17 scudetto - the club’s sixth in a row - set a Serie A record for the most consecutive titles.  Allegri was well regarded as a creative midfielder but although there were high spots, such as scoring 12 Serie A goals from midfield in a relegated Pescara side in 1992-93, he enjoyed a fairly modest playing career which was marred by his suspension for a year as one of six players alleged to have conspired in fixing the result of a Coppa Italia tie while with the Serie B club Pistoiese.  Read more…

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Pope Alexander VI

Scheming pontiff married off his children to secure power

Rodrigo Borgia became one of the most controversial popes in history when he took the title of Alexander VI on this day in 1492 in Rome.  He is known to have fathered several illegitimate children with his mistresses and his reign became notorious for corruption and nepotism.  Born in Valencia in Spain, Borgia came to Italy to study law at the University of Bologna. He was ordained a Deacon and then made Cardinal-Deacon after the election of his uncle as Pope Callixtus III. He was then ordained to the priesthood and made Cardinal-Bishop of Albano.  By the time he had served five popes he had acquired considerable influence and wealth and it was rumoured that he was able to buy the largest number of votes to secure the papacy for himself.  He had made himself the first archbishop of Valencia and when he was elected as Pope Alexander VI, following the death of Innocent VIII, his son, Cesare Borgia, inherited the post.  Borgia had many mistresses, but during his long relationship with Vanozza dei Cattanei he had four children that he acknowledged as his own, Cesare, Giovanni, Lucrezia and Goffredo.   Read more…

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Lavinia Fontana – artist

Mother of 11 was Italy’s first female professional painter

A detail from Fontana's Self-Portrait at the
Clavichord with a Servant, painted in 1577

Bolognese Mannerist artist Lavinia Fontana, who became famous for her portraits, died on this day in 1614 in Rome. She has come to be regarded as the first female professional painter in both Italy and throughout western Europe because her family lived on her income from commissioned works. Her husband worked as her assistant and agent and helped her bring up their 11 children.

Lavinia was born in Bologna in 1552 and baptised at the Basilica di San Petronio in the city. Her father, Prospero, was a prominent artist of the Bolognese school and trained Lavinia to follow in his footsteps. This allowed her to become an artist at a time when women were not widely accepted in the profession.

Her earliest known work, Child of the Monkey, was painted in 1575 when she was 23, but is now lost. Another early painting, Christ with the Symbols of the Passion, which was painted in 1576, is now in the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas.

Bologna society was largely supportive of Lavinia’s career, providing opportunities that were not given to women artists in other areas of Italy. She is thought to be the first woman artist working within the same sphere as her male counterparts to live outside a court or a convent.

Lavinia began working professionally by painting small devotional pictures on copper, which had popular appeal as papal and diplomatic gifts. By the 1580s she was in demand as a portrait painter of Bolognese noblewomen, who competed for her services and paid large sums of money for her work because of her close attention to detail. 

Mancini's Christ with the Symbols of
Passion, at the El Paso Museum of Art

She displayed the wealth of the sitter by not neglecting any fashionable detail and by using bright colours for their clothes and jewellery. She also painted portraits of important people connected with the University of Bologna. As her career developed, she began creating large-scale paintings with religious or mythological themes. Among her most famous works are her large altarpieces for churches in Bologna.

Lavinia married another painter, Gian Paolo Zappi, in 1577, at the age of 26, and continued to paint professionally, adding the name Zappi to her signature.

Her husband helped her take care of the household and worked as her painting assistant and agent. He would paint minor elements of her canvases, such as draperies. Lavinia attended Bologna University and was listed as one of the city’s ‘donne addotrinate’, women with doctorates, in 1580.

In 1589, Lavinia painted the altarpiece Holy Family with the Sleeping Christ Child for El Escorial in Madrid.

At the invitation of Pope Clement VIII, Lavinia and her family moved to Rome in 1604 and she was appointed Portraitist in Ordinary at the Vatican. Pope Paul V was later among her sitters.

In 1604, Lavinia painted her largest work, The Martyrdom of St Stephen, an altarpiece for San Paolo Fuori le Mura - Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls - in Rome.

Among the honours she received was a bronze portrait medallion of herself cast by sculptor and architect Felice Antonio Casoni in 1611. She was also elected into the Accademia di San Luca of Rome, which was rare for a woman.

Minerva Dressing (1613), thought to be
the first female nude painted by a woman 

Lavinia died in Rome on 11 August 1614 and was later buried in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, one of the major Dominican churches in the capital.

One of Lavinia’s masterpieces is considered to be the Self-Portrait at the Clavichord with a Servant, which she painted as a gift to the Zappi family before her wedding, describing herself as a virgin in the signature. She also stated that she painted it while looking at herself in a mirror as a testament to it being an accurate depiction of her.

Over 100 of her works have been documented, but only 32 signed and dated are still known today. Another 25 have been attributed to her, giving her the largest collection of works by any female artist before 1700.

Lavinia’s religious and mythological paintings sometimes featured nude figures. Her painting, Minerva Dressing, for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew to Pope Paul V, is believed to be the first female nude executed by a woman in Italy.  This can be seen in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. It has also been claimed Lavinia was the first female artist to paint mythological subjects.

Lavinia was immortalised by being the subject of Portrait of a Woman by Paolo Veronese, painted in 1595, when she was 43. She was the only woman to be featured in the 17th century book Considerazioni sulla pittura - Considerations on Painting - written by the physician and art collector Giulio Mancini, where the beauty of her paintings was likened to her own physical attractions by the writer.

It was rare for a woman painter to achieve such success and to profit from her talent during the Renaissance period. Some experts would argue that, to this day, Lavinia Fontana remains insufficiently appreciated as an artist.

The Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna
is the sixth largest church in Europe

Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Petronio, where Lavinia Fontana was baptised, dominates Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore. Standing 47m (154ft) tall, 132m (144yds) long and 60m (66yds) wide, it is the sixth largest church in Europe and is seen as a symbol of the city. Strangely,  it was not consecrated as a church until 1954 - 574 years after it was built. It was constructed as a civic temple and not transferred from the city to the diocese until 1929.  It is notable for its unfinished facade, the red and brick marble of Domenico da Varignana’s design abandoned when it had barely reached one third of the building’s height, following the intervention of Pope Pius IV, who considered the project too expensive and ambitious.

The Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls is
one of Rome's four major Papal Basilicas

Travel tip:

St Paul Outside-the-Walls is one of the four major Papal Basilicas in Rome, along with St John in the Lateran (San Giovanni in Laterano), St Peter’s (San Pietro in Vaticano) and St Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore). Originally built in the fourth century, it was founded by the Roman emperor Constantine I over the burial place of St Paul. It was damaged and rebuilt after Saracen raids in the ninth century and an earthquake in the 14th century and almost completely destroyed by a fire in 1823, after which Pope Leo XII ordered it to be reconstructed to exactly resemble the original, consecrated in 324, although this turned out to be an unrealistic ambition. The new basilica bears only a general resemblance to the original. The tomb of St Paul is below a marble tombstone in the basilica’s crypt.

Also on this day:

1492: The election of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI

1902: The birth of cycling champion Alfredo Binda

1967: The birth of football coach Massimiliano Allegri 

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10 August

Marina Berlusconi - businesswoman

Tycoon’s daughter who heads two of his companies

Marina Berlusconi, the oldest of business tycoon and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s five children, was born on this day in 1966 in Milan.  In 2003 she became chair of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Italy’s largest publishing company, and in 2005 president of Fininvest, the Berlusconi holding company that is also Mondadori’s parent company.  She is or at times has been a director of several other Berlusconi companies, including Mediaset, Medusa Film, Mediolanum and Mediobanca.  Forbes magazine once described her as the most powerful woman in Italy and one of the 50 most powerful women in the world.  Born Maria Elvira Berlusconi, her mother is Carla Elvira Lucia Dall’Oglio, a woman the businessman met for the first time at a tram stop outside Milan Centrale railway station in 1964 and married the following year, at a time when he was an enterprising but relatively obscure real estate broker.  They were divorced in 1985, much to the disappointment of Marina and her brother, Piersilvio, after their father had begun a relationship with the actress Veronica Lario, who would become his second wife and the mother of his third, fourth and fifth children.  Read more…

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Carlo Rambaldi - master of special effects

Former commercial artist who created E.T.

Carlo Rambaldi, the brilliant special effects artist who created Steven Spielberg's ugly-but-adorable Extra-Terrestrial known as E.T. and Ridley Scott's malevolent Alien, died on this day in 2012 in Lamezia Terme, the city in Calabria where he settled in later life.  He was a month away from his 87th birthday.  Unlike modern special effects, which consist of computer generated images, Rambaldi's creatures were typically made of steel, polyurethane and rubber and were animated by mechanically or electronically powered rods and cables.  Yet his creations were so lifelike that the Italian director of one of his early films was facing two years in prison for animal cruelty until Rambaldi brought his props to the court room to prove that the 'animals' on screen were actually models.  It was during this time that Rambaldi, a former commercial artist who had graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, not far from his home town of Vigarano Mainarda in Emilia-Romagna, pioneered the use animatronics (puppets operated mechanically by rods or cables) and mechatronics, which combined mechanical and electronic engineering.  Read more…

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Ippolito de' Medici – Lord of Florence

Brief life of a Cardinal, soldier and patron of the arts

Ippolito de' Medici, who ruled Florence on behalf of his cousin, Giulio, after he became Pope Clement VII, died on this day in 1535 in Itri in Lazio.  At the age of 24, Ippolito was said to have contracted a fever that turned into malaria, but at the time there were also rumours that he had been poisoned.  There were two possible suspects. The fatal dose could have been administered on behalf of Alessandro de' Medici, whose abuses he was just about to denounce, or on behalf of the new pope, Paul III, who was believed to want Ippolito’s lucrative benefices for his nephews.  Ippolito was born in 1509 in Urbino, the illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici. His father died when Ippolito was seven and he came under the protection of his uncle, Pope Leo X. When he died five years later, Ippolito’s cousin, Giulio, who had become Pope Clement VII, sent him to Florence to become a member of the government, destined to rule the city when he was old enough.  Ippolito ruled Florence on his behalf between 1524 and 1527 but then Clement VII chose his illegitimate nephew, Alessandro, to take charge of Florence instead.  Read more…

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Francesco Zabarella – Cardinal

Reformer helped to end the Western Schism

Cardinal Francesco Zabarella, an expert on canon law whose writings on the subject were to remain the standard authority for centuries, was born on this day in 1360 in Padua.  Zabarella studied jurisprudence in Bologna and in Florence, graduating in 1385. He taught canon law in Florence until 1390 and in Padua until 1410.  He took minor orders and in 1398 was made an archpriest of the Cathedral of Padua.  Zabarella carried out diplomatic missions on behalf of Padua. In 1404 he was one of two ambassadors sent to visit King Charles VI of France to ask for his assistance against Venice, which was preparing to annex Padua.  But when Padua became part of the Venetian Republic in 1406, Zabarella became a loyal supporter of Venice.  In 1409 he took part in the Council of Pisa as councillor of the Venetian legate.  The antipope John XXIII appointed him Bishop of Florence and cardinal deacon of Santi Cosma and Damiano in Rome in 1411.  There were two antipopes at the time as a result of the Western Schism, which had begun in 1378 when the French cardinals, claiming that the election of Pope Urban VI was invalid, had elected antipope Clement VII as a rival to the Roman pope.  Read more…

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