4 October

Giovanni Battista Piranesi – artist

Genius who put 18th century Rome on the map

Draftsman, printmaker and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born on this day in 1720 in Mogliano Veneto near Treviso in the Veneto.  He became famous for his large prints depicting the buildings of Rome, which stimulated interest in Rome and inspired the neoclassical movement in art in the 18th century.  Piranesi went to Rome to work as a draftsman for the Venetian ambassador when he was 20. There he studied with some of the leading printmakers of the day.  It was during this period that he developed his own, original etching technique, producing rich textures and bold contrasts of light and shadow by means of intricate, repeated bitings of the copperplate.  Among his finest early prints are the Prisons - Carceri - imaginary scenes depicting ancient Roman ruins, which are converted into fantastic dungeons filled with scaffolding and instruments of torture.  Piranesi later opened a workshop in Via del Corso and created the series of vedute - views - of Rome that established his fame.  Among his best mature prints are the series Roman Antiquities - Le antichita romane, Views of Rome - Vedute di Roma - and views of the Greek temples at Paestum.  Read more…

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Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lamps light up Assisi in memory of saint

The city of Assisi in Umbria is today celebrating the Feast Day - la festa - of their famous Saint, Francis - Francesco -  who is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.  It is the most important festival in the Franciscan calendar as it commemorates Saint Francis’s transition from this life to the afterlife.  For two days Assisi is illuminated by lamps burning consecrated oil. Special services are held in the Basilica Papale di San Francesco and the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli.  The feast day is also celebrated in other churches all over the world and children are encouraged to bring their pets to be blessed in memory of Saint Francis’s love for animals.  Saint Francis was born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone in about 1181 in Assisi but he was informally known as Francesco by his family.  A theory is that his father, Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant, decided to call his new son Francesco - the Frenchman - because he had been on business in France at the time of the birth.  His wife, Pica de Bourlemont, was a noblewoman from Provence, although it was she who chose the name Giovanni.  Read more…

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Francesco Solimena - painter

Neapolitan artist who influenced a generation

Francesco Solimena, a prolific painter in the Baroque style who became one of the wealthiest and most influential artists in Europe, was born on this day in 1657 in Canale di Sereno, a village in Campania about 14km (9 miles) southeast of Avellino.  He spent most of his working life in Naples yet his fame spread far beyond and his work was in such demand among his wealthy patrons, including Prince Eugene of Savoy, Louis XIV of France and Pope Benedict XIII, that he acquired a considerable fortune, was given the title of baron and lived in a palace.  His workshop became effectively an academy, at the heart of the Naples cultural scene. Among many who trained there were the leading painters Francesco de Mura, Giuseppe Bonito, Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca.  The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay was a pupil in his studio in around 1737-38.  Solimena’s own training came initially from his father, Angelo, a revered painter of frescoes, with whom he worked at the cathedral of Nocera in the province of Salerno, and at the church of San Domenico at Solofra, not far from his home village.  He often worked in Nocera later in life.  Read more…

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The Gregorian Calendar

Why a 16th century Pope decreed that 10 days would not happen

The Gregorian Calendar, which is used today by every country in the world with just four exceptions, was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on this day in 1582.  The calendar replaced the Julian calendar, which had been implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 BC but which was based on a miscalculation of the length of the solar year and had gradually fallen out of sync with the seasons.  The Catholic Church wanted to make the change because the actual spring equinox - one of the two days in each year when the sun appears directly above the equator - was drifting further away from the ecclesiastical date of the equinox, which in turn determines the date of Easter.  In Christian tradition, Easter marks the resurrection of Jesus three days after his crucifixion, which historical evidence suggests occurred around the time of the spring equinox, nominally dated as March 21.  The miscalculation in the Julian calendar seems tiny, an assumption that the average solar year was exactly 365.25 days when the reality is 365.2422 days. Yet even after the inclusion of the supposedly corrective leap year every four years, the error meant that over the 1,628 years of the calendar’s use, the gap between the actual equinox and the date of the equinox in the ecclesiastical year had grown to 12.7 days.  Read more…

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Bernardino Ramazzini - physician

Pioneer in knowledge of occupational diseases, cancer and malaria

The physician Bernardino Ramazzini, often described as the “father of occupational medicine” and responsible also for pioneering work in the study of cancer and the treatment of malaria, was born in Carpi in Emilia-Romagna on this day in 1633.  Ramazzini’s tour de force, which he completed at the age of 67, was his book De Morbis Artificum Diatriba - Discourse of the Diseases of Workers - which came to be regarded as a seminal work in his field, the lessons from which still influence practice today in the prevention and treatment of occupational diseases.  A student at the University of Parma, Ramazzini was appointed chair of theory of medicine at the University of Modena in 1682 and professor of medicine at the University of Padua from 1700 until his death in 1714.  It was while he was in Parma that he began to take an interest in diseases suffered by workers.  When he became a departmental head at Modena, he began to study the health problems of workers in a more systematic way.  He would visit their workplaces, observe the activities they undertook in their work and discuss their health problems with them.  Read more…

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Ignazio Boschetto - tenor

Talented singer is known for being the funny guy in Il Volo

Ignazio Boschetto, a singer in the award-winning pop and opera trio Il Volo, was born on this day in 1994 in Bologna in the region of Emilia-Romagna.  His Sicilian parents, Vito Boschetto and Caterina Licari, took him back to live in Sicily and he grew up in Marsala in the province of Trapani in the most western part of Sicily.  He has said in interviews that from being about three years old he used to sing operatic arias alone in his room, such as La donna e mobile from Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, much to the surprise of his parents.  Ignazio could be classed as a lyric tenor, considering the timbre of his voice, which is warm and soft, but strong enough to sing over an orchestra. A complete artist, Ignazio also plays the piano, guitar and drums.  When he was 12 he started to take part in festivals and competitions and in December 2007 he reached the finals of the Premio Nave Punica, winning third place among competitors of all ages.  The following year he won the 11th Festival della Canzone di Custonaci singing Il mare calmo della sera. In December, when he had turned 13, he won the third edition of the Premio Nave Punica.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Sublime Ideas: Drawings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, by John Marciari

This beautiful publication accompanied an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum of the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). It is the most important study of Piranesi’s drawings to appear in more than a generation. In a letter written near the end of his life, Giovanni Battista Piranesi explained to his sister that he had lived away from his native Venice because he could find no patrons there willing to support “the sublimity of my ideas.” He resided instead in Rome, where he became internationally famous working as a printmaker, designer, architect, archaeologist, theorist, dealer, and polemicist. While Piranesi’s lasting fame is based above all on his etchings, he was also an intense, accomplished, and versatile draftsman, and much of his work was first developed in vigorous drawings.  The Morgan Library & Museum holds what is arguably the largest and most important collection of these works, more than 100 drawings that include early architectural caprices, studies for prints, measured design drawings, sketches for a range of decorative objects, a variety of figural drawings, and views of Rome and Pompeii. These works form the core of the book. More than merely an exhibition catalogue or a study of the Morgan’s Piranesi holdings, however, Sublime Ideas is a monograph that offers a complete survey of Piranesi’s work as a draftsman.  The most comprehensive study of Piranesi’s drawings to appear in more than a generation, the book includes more than 200 illustrations. 

John Marciari is the Charles W Engelhard Curator of Drawings and Prints and Curatorial Chair at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York City.

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3 October

Eleonora Duse – actress

Performer 'became' the person she played with her whole being

Regarded as one of the greatest acting talents of all times, Eleonora Duse was born on this day in 1858 in Vigevano in Lombardy.  Often simply known as Duse, she was admired for her total assumption of the roles she played. In 1947, the film, Eleonora Duse, was made about her life.  She began acting at the age of four, joining her father and grandfather in the profession. She worked in a troupe with her family, travelling from city to city. Duse became famous for creating Italian versions of roles made famous by the actor Sarah Bernhardt.  Duse toured South America, Russia and the US, beginning the tours as an unknown actor, but leaving in her wake a general recognition of her genius.  She had an affair with the Italian poet, Arrigo Boito, who was the librettist for the composer, Giuseppe Verdi.  They carried out their relationship in a clandestine manner, but the letters they exchanged have survived and they remained on good terms until Boito’s death in 1918.  In 1895 Duse met the writer Gabriele D’Annunzio and they became involved romantically as well as professionally.  D’Annunzio wrote four plays for her but when he gave the lead in La città morta to Bernhardt instead of her, Duse ended her relationship with him.  Read more…

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Francesco Bianchini - jockey

19th century rider who contested Palio di Siena 55 times

The jockey Francesco Bianchini, who holds the record for the most consecutive participations in the historic Palio di Siena horse race, was born on this day in 1808 in Siena.  Bianchini, who raced under the name of Campanino, rode in 44 editions of the famous event, in which horses and riders represent 10 of the city of Siena’s 17 contrade or districts, without missing one between his debut in 1827 and the second running of the twice-yearly race in 1847. He rode in 55 editions in total before he retired for good in 1860, at the age of 51, chalking up a total of nine wins. In his career, he rode for all bar two of the 17 contrade.  Held in July and again in August every summer in the mediaeval square at the centre of Siena, the Piazza del Campo, with occasionally an extra race to commemorate a special event or anniversary, the Palio can be a brutal affair.  The 10 participants in the bareback contest race each other on a temporary dirt track around the perimeter of the shell-shaped piazza. The race consists of three laps, which the horses cover at such a furious pace that the whole thing is over in about 90 seconds.  Read more…

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Alessandro Mazzinghi - boxing champion

Tuscan fighter held world title twice

The boxer Alessandro 'Sandro' Mazzinghi, who won the world light middleweight championship twice in his 64-fight career, was born on this day in 1938 in Pontedera in Tuscany.  Mazzinghi won the title for the first time at the Velodromo Vigorelli in Milan in September 1963, defeating the American Ralph Dupas, defending his title successfully in a rematch in Sydney, Australia in December of the same year.  He lost the crown to fellow Italian Nino Benvenuti in 1965 at the San Siro football stadium in Milan but regained it at the same venue in May 1968, defeating  the South Korean Ki-Soo.  He did so after recovering from an horrific car crash in January 1964 that claimed the life of his young wife, Vera, only 12 days after they were married.  The couple had been on their way home to Pontedera from a gala dinner in Montecatini Terme in Tuscany when their car slid off a muddy road in heavy rain and collided with a tree.  Vera was killed instantly and Mazzinghi, who was thrown from the car, suffered a fractured skull.  He was in a critical condition for several days but recovered. Amazingly, he was back in the ring within weeks.  Read more…

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Ruggero Raimondi - opera star

Singer overcame shyness to become a great bass-baritone

The bass-baritone singer Ruggero Raimondi, who would become famous for his performances in the operas of Verdi, Rossini, Puccini and Mozart, was born on this day in Bologna in 1941.  Blessed with a mature voice at an early age, he was soon encouraged to pursue a career in opera and enrolled at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan at the age of only 16, later continuing his studies in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia.  He won a national competition for young singers in Spoleto and made his debut in the same Umbrian city in 1964 in the role of Colline in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème in 1964. Soon afterwards, he appeared in the leading role of Procida in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani at the Rome Opera House.  Raimondi was also studying accountancy, wary that his ambitions in opera might not materialise.  But then came an audition at La Fenice opera house in Venice, after which Raimondi was offered a five-year contract.  Naturally shy, he struggled with the acting element to operas but was able to conquer his inhibitions with the help of acting lessons and work with a vocal coach who taught him interpretation.  Read more…

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Book of the Day:  Eleonora Duse: A Biography, by Helen Sheehy 

Eleonora Duse: A Biography, the first in two decades, tells the story of the legendary actress who inspired Anton Chekhov, popularized Henrik Ibsen, and spurred Stanislavski to create a new theory of acting based on her art and to invoke her name at every rehearsal.  Writers loved her and wrote plays for her. She befriended Rainer Maria Rilke and inspired the young James Joyce, who kept a portrait of her on his desk. Her greatest love, the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, made her the heroine of his novel Il fuoco (The Flame). She radically changed the art of acting: in a duel between the past and the future, she vanquished her rival, Sarah Bernhardt.  When asked about her acting, Duse responded that, quite simply, it came from life. Except for one short film, Duse’s art has been lost. Despite dozens of books about her, her story is muffled by legend and myth. The sentimental image that prevails is of a misty, tragic heroine victimized by men, by life; an artist of unearthly purity, without ambition.  Now Helen Sheehy gives us a different Duse. Drawing on newly-discovered material, including Duse’s own memoir, and unpublished letters and notes, Sheehy brings us to an understanding of the great actress’s unique ways of working: Duse acting out of her sense of her character’s inner life, Duse anticipating the bold aspects of modernism and performing with a sexual freedom that shocked and thrilled audiences. Sheehy writes about the Duse that the actress herself tried to hide, tracing her life from her childhood as a performing member of a family of touring actors. We follow her through her 20s and through the next four decades of commissioning and directing plays, running her own company, and illuminating a series of great roles. 

Helen Sheehy is the author of Eva Le Gallienne: A Biography; Margo: The Life and Theatre of Margo Jones; and All About Theatre. She lives in Hamden, Connecticut.

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2 October

NEW - Nino Bixio – soldier and politician

Patriotic general helped to unify Italy

A leading personality during the unification of Italy, Nino Bixio was born Gerolamo Bixio on this day in 1821 in Genoa.  Bixio helped to organise Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 against the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, and he took part in the capture of Rome in 1870, which completed the unification process for Italy.  Bixio’s parents had made him join the navy of the Kingdom of Sardinia while he was still a boy and he travelled abroad on his ship. When he returned to Italy in 1846, he joined Giovine Italia, a political movement founded by Giuseppe Mazzini, who had written to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, asking him to unite and lead Italy.  The following year in Genoa, Bixio is said to have seized the bridle of Charles Albert’s horse and cried out: “Pass the Ticino, Sire, and we are all with you” - a reference to the Ticino river, which his army would have to cross in order to drive out the Austrians in northern Italy.  Bixio fought during the wave of revolution that swept through Europe in 1848 and, while serving under Garibaldi in 1849 in Rome, he took an entire battalion of French soldiers as prisoners, winning a gold medal for valour.  Read more…

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Saint Charles Borromeo

Great reformer earned appreciation after his death

Charles (Carlo) Borromeo, a leading Catholic figure who led the movement to combat the spread of Protestantism, was born on this day in Milan in 1538.  Part of the noble Borromeo family, he became a Cardinal and brought in many reforms to benefit the Church, which made him unpopular at the time. But he was held in high regard after his death and was quickly made a saint by Pope Paul V.  Borromeo was born at the Castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, near Milan. His father was Count of Arona and his mother was part of the Medici family.  He was educated in civil and canon law at the University of Pavia.  When his uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici became Pope Pius IV in 1559, Borromeo was brought to Rome and given a post in the Vatican.  The following year the Pope made him a Cardinal and asked him to supervise the Franciscans, Carmelites and Knights of Malta and organise the last session of the Council of Trent, which was being held in Trento to reform the Church and counter the spread of Protestantism.  The Council issued a long list of decrees covering disputed aspects of the Catholic religion as well as denouncing what it considered to be heresies committed in the name of Protestantism.  Read more…

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Joe Profaci - Mafia boss

Sicilian who influenced profile of Mario Puzo’s Godfather

The Mafia boss Giuseppe ‘Joe’ Profaci, one of the real-life gangsters who influenced the author Mario Puzo as he created the character of his fictional mob boss Vito Corleone in The Godfather, was born in Villabate in Sicily on this day in 1897.  It was after studying Profaci’s crime career that Puzo decided that Corleone, who is thought to have been based largely on one of Profaci's fellow mob bosses, Carlo Gambino, should hide his criminal activities behind his ‘legitimate’ identity as an olive oil importer, mirroring what Profaci did in real life in New York.  Profaci is believed to have started importing olive oil before he became heavily involved in crime but chose to keep the business going as one of a network of legitimate companies, so that he could mask the proceeds of his crime empire and satisfy the authorities that he was paying his taxes.  In fact, the olive oil business became a hugely lucrative concern, particularly when shortages in the Second World War enabled him to sell the product at premium prices. The irony of Profaci’s criminal life was that his legitimate companies, of which he had as many as 20, actually provided work for hundreds of New Yorkers.  Read more…

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Antonio Di Pietro – magistrate and politician

Former policeman who led mani pulite corruption investigations

The politician and former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, who uncovered wide-ranging corruption in the Italian government in a scandal that changed the landscape of Italian politics, was born on this day in 1950 in Molise.  Di Pietro was the lead prosecutor in the so-called mani pulite trials in the early 1990s, which led to many politicians and businessmen being indicted and to the collapse of the traditional Socialist and Christian Democratic parties.  The Christian Democrats had been the dominant force in Italian politics since the formation of the Italian Republic at the end of the Second World War but after several high-profile arrests and resignations and poor results in the 1992 general election and 1993 local elections the party was disbanded in 1994.  The Italian Socialist Party was dissolved in the same year following the resignation of party secretary and former prime minister Bettino Craxi, who was the most high-profile casualty in the corruption scandal. It was also known as tangentopoli, which can be roughly translated as “Bribesville”.  Di Pietro was born into a poor rural family in Montenero di Bisaccia, a hill town in the province of Campobasso in the Molise region.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Garibaldi: Citizen of the World: A Biography, by Alfonso Scirocco

What adventure novelist could have invented the life of Giuseppe Garibaldi? The revolutionary, soldier, politician, and greatest figure in the fight for Italian unification, Garibaldi (1807-1882) brought off almost as many dramatic exploits in the Americas as he did in Europe, becoming an international freedom fighter, earning the title of the "hero of two worlds," and making himself perhaps the most famous and beloved man of his century. Alfonso Scirocco's Garibaldi: Citizen of the World is the most up-to-date, authoritative, comprehensive, and convincing biography of Garibaldi yet written. In vivid narrative style and unprecedented detail, and drawing on many new sources that shed fresh light on important events, Scirocco tells the full story of Garibaldi's fascinating public and private life, separating its myth-like reality from the outright myths.  Scirocco tells how Garibaldi devoted his energies to the liberation of Italians and other oppressed peoples. Sentenced to death for his role in an abortive Genoese insurrection in 1834, Garibaldi fled to South America, where he joined two successive fights for independence - Rio Grande do Sul's against Brazil and Uruguay's against Argentina. He returned to Italy in 1848 to again fight for Italian independence, leading seven more campaigns, including the spectacular capture of Sicily. During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln even offered to make him a general in the Union army.  Presenting Garibaldi as a complex and even contradictory figure, Scirocco shows us the pacifist who spent much of his life fighting; the nationalist who advocated European unification; the republican who served a king; and the man who, although compared by contemporaries to Aeneas and Odysseus, refused honours and wealth and spent his last years as a farmer.

Alfonso Scirocco was an Italian historian, professor emeritus of the University of Naples Federico II. He was a member of the presidential council of the Institute for the History of the Italian Risorgimento.

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Nino Bixio – soldier and politician

Patriotic general helped to unify Italy

Nino Bixio helped Garibaldi organise
his Expedition of the Thousand in 1860

A leading personality during the unification of Italy, Nino Bixio was born Gerolamo Bixio on this day in 1821 in Genoa.

Bixio helped to organise Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 against the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, and he took part in the capture of Rome in 1870, which completed the unification process for Italy.

Bixio’s parents had made him join the navy of the Kingdom of Sardinia while he was still a boy and he travelled abroad on his ship. When he returned to Italy in 1846, he joined Giovine Italia, a political movement founded by Giuseppe Mazzini, who had written to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, asking him to unite and lead Italy.

The following year in Genoa, Bixio is said to have seized the bridle of Charles Albert’s horse and cried out: “Pass the Ticino, Sire, and we are all with you" - a reference to the Ticino river, which his army would have to cross in order to drive out the Austrians in northern Italy.

Bixio fought during the wave of revolution that swept through Europe in 1848 and, while serving under Garibaldi in 1849 in Rome, he took an entire battalion of French soldiers as prisoners, winning a gold medal for valour. 

During Garibaldi’s Sicilian campaign, Bixio contributed to his victory at the Battle of Calatafimi. After some of the peasants revolted against Garibaldi in a village in the province of Catania, Bixio was sent to the area to restore order. Among the 16 people killed had been two children and a priest and the town’s theatre and archives were set on fire by the peasants.

Bixio led a division of troops in
the capture of Rome in 1870

With two battalions of red shirts, Bixio besieged and successfully secured the village.  Bixio organised a military court, which found 150 people guilty and sentenced five of them to death.

After arriving with Garibaldi’s men in Reggio Calabria later that year, Bixio took part in the Battle of Volturno, during which he suffered a broken leg.

He ignored the Austrians when they demanded an Italian surrender after his men were forced to retreat in the Battle of Custoza in 1866.

In 1870, Bixio was given command of a division during the movement against Rome and his men took Civitavecchia. On 20 September they participated in the capture of Rome, which completed Italian unification. His division entered Rome through Porta Pancrazio. There is a bust of General Nino Bixio in the Gianicolo, a hill near Porta Pancrazio in Rome where Garibaldi and his famous soldiers are remembered. 

After Bixio became involved in politics and was appointed a deputy in 1861, he attempted to heal the rift between Cavour and Garibaldi and he was appointed as a senator in 1870.

Nino Bixio died of cholera in 1873 in Sumatra. He had been on his way to Batavia, now known as Jakarta, to take command of a commercial expedition. The exact location of his grave is not known, although local people said he had been buried on the beach. 

In 1876 a small military expedition was sent to try to pinpoint the exact spot where he was buried but the exercise ended in disaster when several of the soldiers were brutally killed by some members of the indigenous population.

Three years later his remains were at last traced and they were taken to be cremated under the supervision of the Italian consul in Singapore. They were transported to Genoa in 1877 and interred in the Cimitero di Staglieno in the city.

The huge Cimitero di Staglieno as it looked
when Bixio's remains were buried there

Travel tip:

The Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno is one of the largest cemeteries in Europe and is famous for its monumental sculpture. The extensive cemetery is located on a hillside in the district of Staglieno in Genoa and covers an area of more than a square kilometre, As well as being the final resting place of Nino Bixio, the cemetery houses the grave of Giuseppe Mazzini, the spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement who inspired Bixio to fight for the cause of the Risorgimento.

The Porta Pancrazio, where Nino Bixio led his
troops as they entered Rome in 1870

Travel tip:

Porta Pia and Porta Pancrazio are gates through which soldiers entered Rome in 1870 and were finally able to unite Italy in the name of Vittorio Emanuele II. Rome had remained under French control even after the first Italian parliament had proclaimed Victor Emanuel of Savoy the King of Italy, despite repeated events by nationalists to liberate it. But after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon III withdrew some of his troops. Italian soldiers seized their chance and after a brief bombardment were able to enter Rome through a breach in the walls at Porta Pia. At the same time, the troops of Nino Bixio entered through Porta Pancrazio. Victor Emanuel II took up residence in the Quirinale Palace and Italy was declared officially united. 

Also on this day:

1588: The birth of Saint Charles Borromeo

1897: The birth of Mafia boss Joe Profaci

1950: The birth of politician and magistrate Antonio Di Pietro

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