La cambiale di matrimonio - opera

Rossini’s first professional work premieres in Venice

The title page of the libretto
for the opera, by Gaetano Rossi

La cambiale di matrimonio - the first opera by Gioachino Rossini to be performed before a paying audience - premiered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice on this day in 1810.

Although the Pesaro-born composer, who would go on to write 39 operas including Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola (Cinderella), had tried his hand at the genre earlier, La cambiale di matrimonio was the first to be staged in public.

Rossini had written the one-act farce - translated in English as The Bill of Marriage or The Marriage Contract - in the space of just a few days while he was an 18-year-old student at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna.

Based on a play of the same name by Camillo Federici, an 18th century dramatist from Piedmont, La cambiale di matrimonio revolves around the attempts by a London merchant, Tobias Mill, to marry off his daughter, Fanny, to a somewhat mature Canadian businessman by the name of Slook.

Mill makes this arrangement, which is designed primarily for his own financial gain, without knowing that Fanny has a lover, Edward Milfort, whose existence she has kept secret from her father on account of his lowly financial status.

The action takes place in the drawing room of the Mill house, where Edward and Fanny are together at just the moment Slook arrives.

La cambiale di matrimonio had a brief run, lasting just 13 performances, but the presence of a well-regarded mezzo-soprano, Rosa Morandi, in the role of Fanny attracted attention and the two baritones cast as Mill and Crook are said to have played to the gallery as the composer intended.

The young Rossini wrote a series of
farces for the Teatro San Moisè

Rossini himself was pleased enough with one aria, performed by Morandi, that he used it as the basis for a duet between Figaro and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, which premiered in 1816, by which time the composer was enjoying enormous fame and the wealth that came with it.

The Teatro San Moisè, meanwhile, invited the young Rossini to compose more works along the same lines. He obliged by delivering three more farces, L'inganno felice (The Fortunate Deception), La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder) and Il signor Bruschino.

Active from 1620 to 1818, the Teatro San Moisè, which could be found near the start of the Grand Canal and just a few steps from Piazza San Marco, was a small theatre but an influential one.

Its first opera production was Claudio Monteverdi's L'Arianna in 1640, while in the 18th century the music of the Baroque composers Francesco Gasparini, Antonio Vivaldi and Tomaso Albinoni was frequently performed there. 

When the Neapolitan opera buffa genre arrived in Venice in the 1740s, San Moisè became something of a showcase for the genre, staging works by Baldassare Galuppi, who formed a partnership with the brilliant playwright and librettist, Carlo Goldoni.

The theatre closed in 1818 and was later revived as a puppet theatre and a cinema but the building was demolished in the 20th century.

The church of San Moisè contains works
by Tintoretto and Palma il Giovane

Travel tip:

The church of San Moisè, from which the theatre took its name, can be found just 124m (135 yards) from Piazza San Marco in Campo San Moisè, flanked on one side by the modern, five-star Hotel Bauer and on the other by the Venice stores of Versace and Prada. Built originally in the eighth century, the church’s elaborately decorated Baroque facade was added in the late 17th century to a design by the Padua architect Alessandro Tremignon. The interior is dominated by Heinrich Meyring's huge altarpiece, depicting Moses at Mount Sinai receiving the Tablets. The Old Testament prophets were considered by the Venetians as saints. Also inside are a Washing of the Feet by Tintoretto and a Last Supper by Palma il Giovane.

The Ducal Palace in Pesaro was commissioned
by ruler Alessandro Sforza in the 15th century

Travel tip:

Pesaro, while a major centre for tourism due to its location on the Adriatic coast, is also a former mediaeval city of some standing, ruled by Giovanni Sforza between 1483 and 1510. It had a 15th century Ducal Palace, commissioned by Alessandro Sforza, one of Giovanni’s ancestors, and an imposing castle, the Rocca Costanza, built by Costanza I Sforza, the condottiero who was Alessandro’s son. Today, it is known as the city of music. Each summer, in honour of Gioachino Rossini, born in 1792, it hosts the Rossini Opera Festival, and the town is home to the Conservatorio Statale di Musica Gioachino Rossini, which was founded from a legacy left by the composer.

Also on this day:

1560: The birth of painter Annibale Carracci

1801: The birth of composer Vincenzo Bellini

1908: The birth of politician Giovanni Leone

1918: The Villa Giusti Armistice

1931: The birth of actress Monica Vitti

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2 November

Battista 'Pinin' Farina - car designer

Family's 'smallest brother' became giant of automobile history

Battista 'Pinin' Farina, arguably the greatest of Italy's long roll call of outstanding automobile designers, was born on this day in 1893 in the village of Cortanze in Piedmont.  His coachbuilding company Carrozzeria Pininfarina became synonymous with Italian sports cars and influenced the design of countless luxury and family cars thanks to the partnerships he forged with Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Nash, Peugeot, Rolls Royce and others - most notably Ferrari, with whom his company has had a continuous relationship since 1951.  Among the many iconic marques that Pinin and his designers created are the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the Ferrari Dino 206 and the Cisitalia 202.  Battista was the 10th of 11 children raised by his parents in Cortanze, a small community in the province of Asti, situated about 30km (19 miles) east of Turin.  He was always known as 'Pinin', a word from Piemontese dialect meaning 'smallest brother'.  In 1961, he had his name legally changed to Pininfarina.  He acquired his love of cars at a young age and from 12 years old he spent every spare moment working at his brother Giovanni’s body shop, Stabilimenti Industriali Farina, learning about bodywork and design.  Read more…

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Gaspare Nadi - builder and diarist

Craftsmen kept chronicle for 50 years

Gaspare Nadi, a builder who became famous for the insight into life in 15th century Italy provided by a diary he maintained for half a century, was born on this day in 1418 in Bologna.  Nadi worked on several important buildings in Bologna, including the bell tower of the Palazzo d’Accursio and several churches. He built the library of the Basilica of San Domenico.  He attained the position of Master Mason in the local guild of bricklayers, whom he also served for many terms as guild manager and other official positions.  Yet it was the diary he began to compile in 1452 that became his legacy. Written in idiomatic Bolognese, it proved to be an extraordinary document, a source for historians seeking to understand how families and society functioned in the Italy of Nadi’s lifetime.  As well as detailing family issues,the diary explained much about the construction industry of the time, with entries about clients and remuneration, injuries suffered by workers, the times demanded to turn around projects and the workings of the guilds, even down to the taverns in which members met and the vineyards that supplied their wine.  Read more…

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Luchino Visconti – director and writer

The aristocrat of Italian cinema

Luchino Visconti, who most aficionados of Italian cinema would place among the top five directors of all time, was born in Milan on this day in 1906.  Visconti’s movies include Ossessione, Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard, Death in Venice and The Innocent.  One of the pioneers of neorealism – arguably the first to make a movie that could be so defined – Visconti was also known as the aristocrat of Italian cinema, figuratively but also literally.   He was born Count Don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, the seventh child of a family descendant from a branch of the House of Visconti, the family that ruled Milan from the late 13th century until the early Renaissance.  Paradoxically, although he maintained a lavish lifestyle, Visconti’s politics were of the left. During the First World War he joined the Italian Communist Party, and many of his films reflected his political leanings, featuring poor or working class people struggling for their rights.  He enraged Mussolini with his grim portrayal of Italy's poverty in Ossessione (1943), based on James M Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.  Read more…

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Bartolomeo Colleoni - soldier

Death of an ‘honourable’ Italian military leader

Bergamo soldier Bartolomeo Colleoni, who became known for using his wealth to benefit people, died on this day in 1475.  Colleoni spent most of his life in the pay of the republic of Venice defending the city of Bergamo against invaders.  But he is remembered as one of the most decent condottieri of his era, carrying out charitable works and agricultural improvements in Bergamo and the surrounding area when he was not involved in military campaigns.  Condottieri were the leaders of troops, who worked for the powerful ruling factions, often for high payments.   Bergamo’s Bartolomeo Colleoni was unusual because he remained steadfast to one employer, the republic of Venice, for most of his career.  During a period of peace between Venice and Milan he worked briefly for Milan but the rulers never fully trusted him and eventually he was arrested and imprisoned. On his release, he returned to work for Venice and subsequently stayed faithful to them.  Towards the end of his life he lived with his family at his castle in Malpaga, to the south of Bergamo and turned his attention to designing a building to house his own tomb.   Read more…

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San Giusto of Trieste - martyr

Patron saint of maritime city 

San Giusto of Trieste - also known as Saint Justus of Trieste - died on this day in 293 after being found guilty of being a Christian, which was illegal under Roman law at the time.  His death occurred during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, who was notable for his persecution of Christians.  After his trial, he was given the opportunity to renounce his faith and make a sacrifice to the Roman gods.  He refused to do so and was condemned to death by drowning. The story handed down over the centuries was that weights were attached to his ankles before he was thrown from a small boat into the Gulf of Trieste, off the shore of the area known today as Sant'Andrea.  The legend has it that on the night of San Giusto’s death, his friend Sebastian, said to have been a bishop or priest, was told in a dream that the body had broken free of the weights and been washed ashore.  When he woke from his sleep, Sebastian assembled a group of fellow Christians to search for the body, which they discovered near what is now the Riva Grumula, less than a kilometre from Piazza Unità d’Italia, Trieste’s elegant sea-facing main square.   Read more…

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1 November

Pietro da Cortona – painter and architect

Outstanding exponent of Baroque style

Artist Pietro da Cortona was born Pietro Berrettini on this day in 1596 in Cortona in Tuscany.  Widely known by the name of his birthplace, Cortona became the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and contributed to the emergence of Baroque architecture in Rome.  Having been born into a family of artisans and masons, Cortona went to Florence to train as a painter before moving to Rome, where he was involved in painting frescoes at the Palazzo Mattei by 1622.  His talent was recognised and he was encouraged by prominent people in Rome at the time. He was commissioned to paint a fresco in the church of Santa Bibiana that was being renovated under the direction of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1624.  Then, in 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned Cortona to paint a large fresco on the ceiling of the Grand Salon at Palazzo Barberini, his family’s palace. Cortona’s huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marked a watershed in Baroque painting as he created an illusion of an open, airy architectural framework against which figures were situated, creating spatial extension through the medium of paint.  Read more…

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Annibale Bergonzoli - soldier

Commander who was both decorated and imprisoned by the British

The military commander Annibale Bergonzoli, who served the Italian army in both world wars and led an Italian expeditionary force supporting General Francisco Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, was born on this day in 1884 in Cannobio, a town on the shore of Lago Maggiore. Bergonzoli had the distinction of being awarded a medal for bravery by the British during World War One only to be held by them as a prisoner of war after being captured during World War Two. As a boy, Bergonzoli always had a taste for adventure. He completed a 1.5 mile (2.4km) swim across Lago Maggiore at the age of seven. He enrolled at the Military Academy of Modena, graduating with the rank of sub-lieutenant in 1907. He joined the Royal Italian Army in 1911 and was immediately sent to take part in the Italo-Turkish War, helping to take control of the areas of the Ottoman Empire in Libya that became known as Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, as well as some islands in the Aegean Sea.  He remained in Libya for some years after the conflict. Read more…

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Sistine Chapel ceiling revealed

All Saints’ Day chosen to show off Michelangelo’s work

Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel were unveiled for public viewing for the first time on this day in 1512.  The date of All Saints’ Day was chosen by Pope Julius II, who had commissioned Michelangelo, because he felt it appropriate to show off the frescoes on a significant festival in the Catholic Church year.  The frescoes, the central nine panels of which depict stories from the Book of Genesis, have become one of the most famous works of art in the world, the image of  The Creation of Adam rivalled only perhaps by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa for iconic status.  Yet Michelangelo was reluctant initially to take on the project, which was first mooted in 1506 as part of a general programme of rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica being undertaken by Julius II, who felt that the Sistine Chapel, which had restored by his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, ought to have a ceiling that carried more meaningful decoration than the gold stars on a blue background of his uncle’s design.  Michelangelo, only 31 or 32 at the time, regarded himself as a sculptor rather than a painter.  Read more…

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Antonio Canova - sculptor

Genius who could bring marble to life 

Sculptor Antonio Canova was born on this day in 1757 in Possagno in the hills near Asolo in the Veneto.  He became famous for creating lifelike figures, possessing the ability to make the marble he worked with resemble nude flesh. One of his masterpieces is the group, The Three Graces, now in the Victoria and Albert museum in London.  Canova’s father and grandfather were both stone cutters and his grandfather taught him to draw at an early age.  The noble Falier family of Venice took an interest in Canova’s talent and brought him to the city to learn his trade in the workshop of Giuseppe Bernardi.  Canova also studied anatomy, history and languages and later moved to work in Rome. His first big success was his funerary monument to Clement XIV, which was inaugurated in the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli.  The sculptor travelled to France and England and when he returned to Italy was made Marquis of Ischia and given an annual pension.  He died in Venice at the age of 64 and was buried in Tempio Canova in Possagno, the town of his birth.  Canova’s heart was interred in a marble pyramid he had designed as a mausoleum for the painter, Titian, in the Frari church in Venice.  Read more…

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Giulio Romano – artist and architect

Painter from Rome left his mark on Mantua

Giulio Romano, who was the principal heir to the artist Raphael and one of the most important initiators of the Mannerist style of painting, died on this day in 1546 in Mantua.  He is most remembered for his masterpiece, the Palazzo del Te, built on the outskirts of Mantua as a pleasure palace for the Gonzaga family, which was designed, constructed and decorated entirely by him and his pupils.  The artist had been born in Rome some time in the 1490s and was given the name Giulio di Pietro di Filippo de’ Gianuzzi. He was known originally as Giulio Pippi, but later was referred to as Giulio Romano because of where he was born.  Giulio was apprenticed to Raphael when still a child and worked on the frescos in the Vatican loggias to designs by Raphael. He also collaborated with him on the decoration of the ceiling in the Villa Farnesina.  He became so important in the workshop that on Raphael’s death in 1520 he was named as one of the master’s chief heirs and he also became his principal artistic executor, completing a number of Raphael’s works, including the Transfiguration.  His own works from this time, such as the Madonna and Saints and the Stoning of St Stephen, both completed in 1523, show he had developed a highly personal style of painting.  Read more…

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31 October

NEW - Angelo Rizzoli – publisher

Rags to riches story of an editorial entrepreneur

Printer, publisher and film producer Angelo Rizzoli was born on this day in 1889 in Milan.  Rizzoli was orphaned when still very young and grew up in poverty, but by the time he was in his 20s he had become an entrepreneur.  Young Angelo was brought up in the orphanage of Martinitt in Milan, which had been founded in the 16th century in Via Manzoni for orphaned and abandoned Roman Catholic boys. It was there that he learnt the trade of a printer.  Along with another trained print worker, and using his savings for the downpayment on a Linotype machine, he opened a typographical firm under the name of A. Rizzoli & C. in Via Cerva in Milan in 1911. The company was later to evolve into the publishing giant, RCS MediaGroup.  Rizzoli acquired Novella magazine, a bi-weekly aimed mainly at women and went on to add new publications, such as Annabella, Bertoldo, Candido, Omnibus, Oggi and L’Europeo.  In 1929, he started publishing books, producing La Storia del Risorgimento by Cesare Spellanzon. He later began producing both classic and popular novels.  His business gradually grew. He bought the Lama di Reno paper mill, near the town of Marzabotto in Emilia-Romagna.  Read more…

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Eduardo De Filippo - Neapolitan dramatist

Playwright captured essence of city's spirit

One of Italy’s greatest dramatists, Eduardo De Filippo, died on this day in 1984 in Rome at the age of 84.  An actor and film director as well as a playwright, De Filippo – often referred to simply as Eduardo – is most remembered as the author of a number of classic dramas set in his native Naples in the 1940s that continue to be performed today.  Arguably the most famous of these was Filomena Marturano, upon which was based the hit movie Marriage, Italian Style, which starred Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni under the direction of Vittorio de Sica.  De Filippo’s other memorable works included Napoli Milionaria, Le voci di dentro and Sabato, domenica e lunedi.  All of these plays showcased De Filippo’s ability to capture the essence of life in Naples in his time, particularly in the working class neighbourhoods that he felt were the beating heart of the city.  Rich in Neapolitan dialect, they were often bittersweet comedies of family life. They were social commentaries in which typical themes were the erosion of morals in times of desperation, the struggle of the downtrodden to retain their dignity and the preservation of family values even in the most poverty-stricken households.  Read more…

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Bud Spencer – swimmer-turned-actor

Competed at two Olympics before turning to screen career

The actor known as Bud Spencer was born Carlo Pedersoli on this day in 1929 in Naples.  He was best known for the series of so-called spaghetti westerns and comedies he made with another Italian-born actor, Terence Hill.  Hill was from Venice and his real name was Mario Girotti.  They began their partnership in 1967 in a spaghetti western directed by Giuseppe Colizzi called God Forgives…I Don’t! and were asked to change their names so that they would sound more American.  Pedersoli came up with Bud Spencer because his movie idol was Spencer Tracy and his favourite American beer was Budweiser.   The two would go on to make 18 movies together, with westerns such as Ace High (1968) and They Call Me Trinity (1970) winning them box office success.  As Carlo Pedersoli, he had already achieved a measure of fame as a swimmer, the first Italian to swim the 100m freestyle in less than one minute.  He represented Italy at the Olympics in Helsinki in 1952 and Melbourne four years later, on each occasion reaching the semi-final in the 100m freestyle.  He also played professional water polo, winning an Italian championship with SS Lazio and a gold medal at the 1955 Mediterranean Games in Barcelona.  Read more…

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Galileo Ferraris - electrical engineer

Pioneer of alternating current (AC) systems

The physicist and electrical engineer Galileo Ferraris, who was one of the pioneers of the alternating current (AC) system for transmitting electricity and invented the first alternators and induction motors, was born on this day in 1847 in Piedmont.  The AC system was a vital element in the development of electricity as a readily-available source of power in that it made it possible to transport electricity economically and efficiently over long distances.  Ferraris did not benefit financially from his invention, which is still the basis of induction motors in use today. Another scientist, the Serbian-born Nikola Tesla, patented the device after moving to the United States to work for the Edison Corporation.  Tesla had been working simultaneously on creating an induction motor but there is evidence that Ferraris probably developed his first and as such is regarded by many as the unsung hero in his field.  He saw himself as a scientist rather than an entrepreneur and, although there is no suggestion that his ideas were stolen, openly invited visitors to come in and see his lab.  Unlike Tesla, he never intended to start a company to manufacture the motor and even had doubts whether it would work.  Read more…

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