9 August

NEW - Emilio Vedova - painter

Self-taught Venetian became influential figure in 20th century Italian art

The painter Emilio Vedova, regarded as one of the most influential Italian artists in the second half of the 20th century, was born in Venice on this day in 1919.  Vedova was known for his expressive abstract paintings, which often had a raw and violent character seemingly inspired by the tumultuous political climate of his time and the apprehension that clouded people’s lives.  A politically engaged figure, in 1942 he joined the Milanese anti-Fascist artists’ association known as Corrente, which included other painters such as Renato Guttuso and Renato Birolli, and fought in the Italian Resistance movement from 1943-45.  After World War Two, he was a co-signatory with Corrente member Ennio Morlotti of the Oltre Guernica - Beyond Guernica - manifesto in 1946, which encouraged artists to use abstract notions rather than figures to reflect the reality of society.  A year later, he founded Fronte Nuovo delle Arti.  He described his paintings of this period as Geometrie nere (Black geometries).  Vedova is also associated with the Italian school of Arte Informale, a movement that emerged in various parts of Europe in the mid-1940s, which paralleled the Abstract Expressionism movement in the United States.  Read more…

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Romano Prodi – politician

Il professore became prime minister and European Commission president

Romano Prodi, who has twice served as prime minister of Italy, was born on this day in 1939 in Scandiano in Emilia-Romagna.  A former academic, who was nicknamed Il professore by the Italians, Prodi was also president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.  Prodi graduated from the Catholic University in Milan in 1961 and studied as a postgraduate at the London School of Economics.  After moving up to become professor of economics at Bologna University, Prodi served the Italian government as minister for industry in 1978.  In 1996 after two productive stints as chairman of the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, Prodi set his sights on becoming Italy’s prime minister and built a centre-left base of support known as the Olive Tree coalition.  While Silvio Berlusconi used television to campaign, Prodi went on a five-month bus tour around Italy, calling for more accountability in government. His approach appealed to the voters and his coalition won by a narrow margin.  Prodi was appointed prime minister of Italy for the first time on May 17, 1996.  He remained prime minister for two years and four months.  Read more…

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Leaning Tower of Pisa

Poor foundations created tourist attraction by accident

Work began on the construction of a freestanding bell tower for the Cathedral in Pisa on this day in 1173.  The tower’s famous tilt began during the building process. It is believed to have been caused by the laying of inadequate foundations on ground that was too soft on one side to support the weight of the structure.  The tilt became worse over the years and restoration work had to be carried out at the end of the 20th century amid fears the tower would collapse.  At its most extreme the tower leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees but since the restoration work undergone between 1990 and 2001 the tower leans at about 3.99 degrees.  The identity of the architect responsible for the design of the tower is not clear but the problem with the structure began after work had progressed to the second floor in 1178.  It is thought the tower would have toppled had construction not been halted for almost a century while Pisa, a Tuscan seaport, fought battles with Genoa, Lucca and Florence. This allowed time for the soil beneath the tower to settle.  When construction resumed in 1272, the upper floors were built with one side taller than the other to compensate for the tilt.  Read more…

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Filippo Inzaghi - football manager

World Cup winning player turned successful coach

The former Azzurri striker Filippo Inzaghi, who was a member of Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning squad, was born on this day in 1973 in Piacenza.  A traditional goal poacher, known more for his knack of being in the right place at the right moment than for a high level of technical skill, Inzaghi scored 313 goals in his senior career before retiring as a player in 2012 and turning to coaching. He spent the 2019-20 season in charge of Serie B side Benevento, near Naples.  Inzaghi came off the substitutes’ bench to score the second goal as Italy beat the Czech Republic 2-0 to clinch their qualification for the knock-out stage of the 2006 World Cup in Germany but found it impossible to win a starting place in competition with Luca Toni, Alberto Gilardino, Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero in Marcello Lippi’s squad.  He also picked up a runners-up medal in Euro 2000, hosted jointly by Belgium and the Netherlands, where he scored against Turkey in the opening group game and against Romania in the quarter-final but was overlooked by coach Dino Zoff in his team for the final.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Emilio Vedova: Revolution Vedova, by Gabriella Belli and Andrea Jacchia

Emilio Vedova is considered one of the most influential Italian artists of the second half of the 20th century. A radical artist and pioneer of Arte Informale, he bore witness to events that left their mark on the century and  is known for his raw, visceral and historically informed works that reflect strong political convictions. His dark, expressive compositions are titled after tumultuous movements from his lifetime: from the Prague Spring to the Years of Lead. His work is the interpreter and witness of events that marked the 20th century, while maintaining the strength of a constant topicality. In the catalogue we find some of the fundamental works of the Venetian painter, characterised by the strong bond with the dramatic events of his time, such as Diario partigiano, Diario di Corea, Praga 1968 and Chi brucia un libro brucia un uomo (Whoever burns a book, burns a man). Emilio Vedova: Revolution Vedova traces the artist's production with extraordinary iconographic support and delves into his life and work.

Gabriella Belli is an Italian art historian and curator, currently director of the Foundation for the Municipal Museums of Venice. Andrea Jacchia is a journalist and artist based in Paris and Milan.

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Emilio Vedova - painter

Self-taught Venetian became influential figure in 20th century Italian art

Emilio Vedova was one of the 20th
century's most influential artists

The painter Emilio Vedova, regarded as one of the most influential Italian artists in the second half of the 20th century, was born in Venice on this day in 1919.

Vedova was known for his expressive abstract paintings, which often had a raw and violent character seemingly inspired by the tumultuous political climate of his time and the apprehension that clouded people’s lives.

A politically engaged figure, in 1942 he joined the Milanese anti-Fascist artists’ association known as Corrente, which included other painters such as Renato Guttuso and Renato Birolli, and fought in the Italian Resistance movement from 1943-45.

After World War Two, he was a co-signatory in 1946 with Corrente member Ennio Morlotti of the Oltre Guernica - Beyond Guernica - manifesto, which encouraged artists to use abstract notions rather than figures to reflect the reality of society.  A year later, he founded Fronte Nuovo delle Arti.  He described his paintings of this period as Geometrie nere (Black geometries).

Vedova is also associated with the Italian school of Arte Informale, a movement that emerged in various parts of Europe in the mid-1940s, which paralleled the Abstract Expressionism movement in the United States.  Both favoured an art based on spontaneous, expressive gestures and a rejection of traditional forms. In Italy, Vedova, Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana were the most prominent painters in this movement.

Born in Venice into a working-class family, Vedova's father was a house painter. His own first employment - at the age of 11 - was in a factory, after which he was taken on as a photographer’s assistant before finding a position in a restoration workshop. 

Vedova's Image of Time/Barrier (1958) can be seen
at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

At the same time, he developed a passionate interest in drawing and painting. He studied the works of Titian, Tintoretto and Guardi in his native city but also Rembrandt, Goya and Daumier.  Some of his own early work was inspired by Venetian Baroque architecture, in particular the churches, in which he admired the dynamism of their lines and the way they made use of light.

He went to Florence to attend a free school of nude painting, mixing with other artists and artisans in the San Frediano district. It was there he made his first contacts within anti-Fascist circles. 

Returning to Venice, he struggled to make ends meet but with the help of the Opera Bevilacqua La Masa, which supported poor artists, managed to obtain an attic-studio in Palazzo Carminati. His first paintings on public view - mainly nudes and still lifes - were exhibited at the Galleria Ongania in Venice in 1940.

Appalled at the direction in which Italy was travelling under Mussolini, his attraction to the Corrente group in Milan was that he saw it as a counterpoint to the Novecento and Italian Futurism schools, both of which were regarded as nationalistic and pro-Fascist.

As a young painter, Vedova was fortunate to be
provided with a studio by a charitable organisation

Given his own passionate opposition to Fascism, it was no surprise that he was drawn to the Resistance movement. He took part in activities in Rome and in the hills around Belluno in the Veneto, where he was wounded.

When peace returned, he began to create pastels in which he expressed his state of mind as it was shaped by the experience of war.  In 1948 he participated for the first time in the Venice Biennale. By 1952, his work was seen as important enough to have a room at the exhibition entirely dedicated to him. 

In 1951, Vedova exhibited his first solo show in the United States at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York, where he began to be noticed by high-profile collectors such as Peggy Guggenheim. He received a Guggenheim International award in 1956 and the Grand Prize for Painting at the 1960 Venice Biennale.

As appreciation for his work spread, he spent time abroad, including spells in Brazil, Japan, the United States, Mexico and Berlin.  Back in Italy, the student revolts of the late 1960s and the instability of the so-called Years of Lead in the 1970s and ‘80s, informed his work in the same way as his wartime experience earlier.

Vedova was a restlessly inventive artist throughout his career. He collaborated with the avant-garde composer Luigi Nono, designing sets and costumes for the opera Intolleranza in 1960, and a light setting for Nono's opera Prometeo at La Fenice in 1984. 

He designed large-scale glass engravings, as well as numerous plurimi - freestanding, multi-panelled painted sculptures made of wood and metal.  In 1993 the Accademia dei Lincei awarded him the Feltrinelli Prize for painting, and in 1997 he received the Golden Lion for his work at the Venice Biennale.

His work began to find a permanent place in gallery and museum exhibitions at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice among others.

He kept a permanent home in Venice for much of his life and between 1975 and 1986 taught the city’s Accademia di Belle Arti.  He died in Venice in 2006 at the age of 87. He is buried in the monumental cemetery of San Michele, on an island in the lagoon.

An example of the studio spaces on offer to
selected young artists at Palazzo Carminati

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Carminati, where Emilio Vedova had his first studio, is in the Santa Croce sestiere of Venice. Recently restored, in addition to offering a wonderful view of the city, the top floor of the historic building also houses seven studios for selected young artists under the auspices of the Bevilacqua La Masa foundation, and two guest houses reserved for residency programmes.  It can be accessed from the San Stae vaporetto stop by walking approximately 230m along Salizada San Stae and turning right into Ramo Carminati. 

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is kept
at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice

Travel tip:

Peggy Guggenheim died in 1979 but her legacy to Venice remains in the collection of modern art she accumulated, much of which is on display at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a museum located in the 18th century Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro district, where the American heiress lived for three decades. Open to the public from 10am to 6pm, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is home to the works of many prominent painters.  Two works by Emilio Vedova acquired by her in the 1950s remain in the collection: Image of Time/Barrier (1958) and Hostage City (1954). More recently, Vedova's monotype Opposite Space IV (2006) was donated to the Collection by the Emilio and Annabianca Vedova Foundation.

Also on this day:

1173: Work begins on the campanile later famous as the Leaning Tower of Pisa

1939: The birth of politician Romano Prodi

1973: The birth of footballer and coach Filippo Inzaghi

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8 August

Leo Chiosso – songwriter

Writer of lyrics and scripts was inspired by crime fiction

Prolific songwriter Leo Chiosso was born on this day in 1920 in Chieri, a town to the south of Turin in Piedmont.  He became well known for the songs he wrote in partnership with Fred Buscaglione, a singer and musician, but Chiosso also wrote many scripts for television and cinema.  Chiosso met Buscaglione in 1938 in the nightclubs of Turin, where Buscaglione was working as a jazz singer. They formed a songwriting duo that went on to produce more than 40 songs.  However, their friendship was interrupted by the Second World War.  Chiosso was taken prisoner and deported to Poland, where he became friends with the writer Giovanni Guareschi, while Buscaglione was sent to a US internment camp in Sardinia.  It was only when Chiosso heard Buscaglione playing in a musical broadcast by the Allied radio station in Cagliari that he knew his friend was still alive.  They were reunited in Turin after the war and continued to write songs together. Chiosso was an avid reader of American crime fiction, which inspired his lyrics and also suited Buscaglione’s amiable gangster image.  Their first hit was Che bambola in 1956, which turned humorous tough guy Buscaglione into a celebrity.  A subsequent hit was Love in Portofino, recently recorded by Andrea Bocelli and also the inspiration for one of his albums.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Conte – politician and academic

Lawyer who led Italy despite having no political experience

Former Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte was born on this day in 1964 in the town of Volturara Appula in the province of Foggia in Puglia.  Conte served as Italian Prime Minister between 2018 and 2021, becoming the longest serving independent prime minister in the history of Italy.  He was the fifth technocrat Italian Prime Minister - defined as being appointed without any previous political experience - and the first from southern Italy since Ciriaco De Mita in 1989.  A law professor for a large part of his career, Conte is often referred to as ‘the people’s lawyer’ (l’avvocato del popolo), as this is how he described himself during his first speech as Prime Minister. He is now the president of the Italian political party, the Five Star Movement (M5S).  Conte’s father, Nicola, was an employee of the local authority, and his mother, Lillina, was a school teacher.After the family moved to San Giovanni Rotondo, another town in the province of Foggia, Conte attended the nearby liceo classico and then went to study at the Sapienza University of Rome. To this day he remains an avid AS Roma fan, having started to support the club while at university.  Read more…

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Ugo Bassi - priest and patriot

Unarmed chaplain was a follower of Garibaldi

Catholic priest Ugo Bassi was executed by firing squad on this day in 1849 in Bologna.  Bassi had been a preacher of eloquent sermons that attracted large crowds and had travelled all over Italy helping the poor, often himself not having enough food to eat.  He was also strongly patriotic and had been a follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi in his fight for a united, independent kingdom of Italy. It was while he was with Garibaldi’s army battling French troops loyal to the Pope in Rome that he was captured and sentenced to death on a false charge of carrying a weapon.  His execution was said to have enraged Liberals all over Europe.  Bassi was born in 1801 in Cento, a small town in the province of Ferrara, in what is now Emilia-Romagna. Although he was baptised as Giuseppe Bassi, he later changed his name to Ugo in honour of the patriotic and revolutionary poet, Ugo Foscolo.  An unhappy love affair led to Bassi becoming a novice in the Barnabite order at the age of 18 and, after studying in Rome, he entered the priesthood in 1833.  In 1848, when the revolutionary movement began in Italy, Pope Pius IX was known to be an Italian nationalist and liberal.  Read more…

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Dino De Laurentiis – film producer

Campanian pasta seller helped make Italian cinema famous 

The producer of hundreds of hit films, Agostino ‘Dino’ De Laurentiis was born on this day in 1919 at Torre Annunziata, near Naples in Campania.  He made Italian cinema famous internationally, producing Federico Fellini’s Oscar- winning La strada in 1954 in Rome.  After moving to the US he enjoyed further success with the film Serpico in 1973.  De Laurentiis was the son of a pasta manufacturer for whom he worked as a salesman during his teens.  While selling pasta in Rome in the 1930s he decided on impulse to enrol at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in the city as an actor.  He quickly realised he had more talent for producing and after gaining experience in the different sectors of the industry made his first film, L’amore canta - Love Song - in 1941 when he was just 22.  After serving in the army during the Second World War, De Laurentiis became an executive producer at one of Rome’s emerging film companies, Lux.  Among the films he produced for Lux was Riso amaro - Bitter Rice - starring Silvana Mangano, whom he later married and had four children with. The film was a box-office success both at home and abroad.  Read more…

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Danilo Gallinari - basketball player

Giant from Lodi province who plays in America’s NBA

Danilo Gallinari, one of only two Italian-born players currently active in America’s National Basketball Association, was born on this day in 1988 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in Lombardy.  Only nine Italian-born players have participated in the NBA – America’s premier basketball league – since its formation in 1946.  Gallinari, who stands 6ft 10ins tall, has played for six NBA teams, the latest of which is Boston Celtics. Previously he had played for New York Knicks, under the coaching of Mike D’Antoni, is an American-born former player who is now an Italian citizen, the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Atlanta Hawks.  Gallinari, whose father, Vittorio, played professional basketball for teams in Milan, Pavia, Bologna and Verona, began his career in 2004 with Casalpusterlengo, a third-level Italian team from a town about 25km (15 miles) from his home in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano.  He moved up a tier in 2005 by joining Armani Jeans Milano and then Edimes Pavia, where in 2006 he was named best Italian player in the Italian League Second Division, despite missing half the season through injury.  Read more…

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Recording of the Day: Love in Portofino: Andrea Bocelli

Love in Portofino is a CD/DVD compilation highlighting Andrea Bocelli's breathtaking performance in Portofino, Italy on August 11, 2012 and includes songs from Bocelli's 2013 album Passione. Playing to an intimate crowd at sunset the legendary tenor sings the most famous love songs in the world accompanied by 16-time Grammy Award winner David Foster and a 40-piece orchestra. The recording features 15 songs, including Leo the title track, which Leo Chiosso and Fred Buscaglione co-wrote and recorded in 1958. It was written in Italian, although the line ‘I found my love in Portofino’ was sung in English. In 1959, it became a hit for the French singer Dalida, whose version consisted of parts in English, Italian and French and peaked at 15 in the French singles chart. The song has become symbolic of Portofino, the upmarket resort on the Ligurian Riviera, about 35km (22 miles) east of Genoa. The Bocelli DVD includes footage from his 2012 concert as well as views of the resort itself which, when the tourists disappear, is a picturesque fishing village of fewer than 400 permanent residents.

Andrea Bocelli is an Italian tenor known for his powerful and soulful voice.  He is considered one of the most popular classical crossover artists of all time, with a discography that includes both opera and pop music.

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7 August

Alfredo Catalani - composer

Music from Loreley and La Wally lives on 

Opera composer Alfredo Catalani died on this day in 1893 in Milan at the age of just 39.  He is best remembered for his operas, Loreley, written in 1890, and La Wally, written in 1892, which are still to this day passionately admired by music experts.  Catalani was born in Lucca in Tuscany in 1854 and went to train at the Milan Conservatoire.  His work is said to show traces of Wagner and his style sometimes resembled that of Massenet and Puccini but his early operas were not successful.  Loreley premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1890. Later it was performed at Covent Garden in London in 1907 and in Chicago in 1919.  La Wally was first performed at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1892 to great acclaim.  The opera is best known for its aria, Ebben? Ne andro lontana - Well then, I’ll go far away - sung when Wally decides to leave her home forever.  American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez sang this aria in the 1981 film, Diva, in which a young Parisian is obsessed with an American soprano.  In the opera, the heroine throws herself into an avalanche at the end, a scene which is difficult to stage in the theatre and therefore the opera is not performed regularly, but Wally’s principal aria is still sung frequently.  Read more…

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Giorgetto Giugiaro - automobile designer 

Creative genius behind many of the world’s most popular cars

Giorgetto Giugiaro, who has been described as the most influential automotive designer of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1938 in Garessio, a village in Piedmont about 100km (62 miles) south of Turin.  In a career spanning more than half a century, Giugiaro and his companies have designed around 200 different cars, from the high-end luxury of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and DeLorean to the mass production models of Fiat, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Daewoo and SEAT.  The Volkswagen Golf and the Fiat Panda, two of the most successful popular cars of all time, were Giugiaro’s concepts.  In 1999, a jury of more than 120 journalists from around the world named Giugiaro “Designer of the Century.”  Giugiaro’s father and grandfather both painted in oils and Giugiaro became passionately interested in art. He enrolled at the University of Turin to study art and technical design.  He took an interest in styling automobiles only after one of his professors suggested that the motor industry would pay big money for someone of his artistic vision who could come up with elegant and practical designs.  Read more…

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Vincenzo Scamozzi – architect

Follower of Palladio had his own distinctive style

The architect and writer Vincenzo Scamozzi, whose work in the second half of the 16th century had a profound effect on the landscape of Vicenza and Venice, died on this day in 1616 in Venice. Scamozzi’s influence was later to spread far beyond Italy as a result of his two-volume work, L’idea dell’Architettura Universale - The idea of a universal architecture - which was one of the last Renaissance works about the theory of architecture. Trained by his father, Scamozzi went on to study in Venice and Rome and also travelled in Europe. The classical influence of Andrea Palladio is evident in many of the palaces, villas and churches that Scamozzi designed in Vicenza, Venice and Padua.  His work influenced English neoclassical architects such as Inigo Jones and many others who came after him.  Scamozzi was also an important theatre architect and stage set designer. He completed Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza in 1585, adding his own design for a stage set constructed of timber and plaster, using trompe-l'œil techniques to create the appearance of long streets receding to a distant horizon.  Read more…

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Gerry Scotti - television show host

One-time politician who presented Chi vuol essere milionario?

Gerry Scotti, the host of Italy’s equivalent of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and one of the most familiar faces on Italian television, was born on this day in 1956 in Camporinaldo, an agricultural village in Lombardy.  The presenter, whose career in television began in the 1980s, was also a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 1987 and 1992, having won the Lombardy 1 district in the Milan college for Bettino Craxi’s Italian Socialist Party.  But he is best known as the face of Chi vuol essere milionario?, which he fronted when it launched in Italy in 2000 and continued in the role after Italy’s entry into the single currency in 2002 required the show to make a subtle change of name.  Originally Chi vuol essere miliardario – billionaire – the title was changed to milionario – millionaire – with a new top prize of 1,000,000 euro replacing the 1,000,000,000 lire of the original.  Scotti continued to host the show until it aired for the last time in Italy in 2011, at which time he held a Guinness World Record for the number of editions presented of the show, which was created for the British network ITV in 1998 and exported to 160 countries. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The First Lives of Alfredo Catalani, by Alfredo Soffredini  and Giuseppe Depanis. Edited by David Chandler

Unappreciated by most of his colleagues and unable to experience a fulfilling amorous relationship, Catalani has been described as the ‘Chopin of opera’. He felt drawn to the supernatural literature of German Romanticism and the incarnation of death in female form. Beginning with his opera Elda, Catalani created a prototype of the unearthly phantom luring the male to an all-embracing Liebestod - a German word intended to convey a sense of love consummated in death. Loreley furthered the genre and La Wally - Catalani’s spiritual testament - completed the cycle.  A composer of delicate and 'otherworldly' music, Catalani demands the re-evaluation that David Chandler herewith provides in The First Lives of Alfredo Catalani - a fascinating book which gathers together the earliest biographical writings on Catalani by the late 19th century Italian music critics Alfredo Soffredini and Giuseppe Depanis, the composer's earliest surviving letters, and some account of his cultural afterlife in the first age of recorded music.

David Chandler is Professor of English Literature at Doshisha University in Kyoto. His publications range widely across 18th and 19th century culture, including work on provincial society, the Lake Poets, George Borrow, Charles Dickens, Romantic essayists, theatrical performance and musical culture, including opera and popular song.

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