Paolo Uccello - painter

Pioneer of perspective also worked in mosaics

The first panel of Uccello's fresco series, Battle of
San Romano, on display at the National Gallery

Paolo Uccello, who was one of the leading painters in Florence in the 15th century, died on this day in 1475 at the age of 78.

The son of a surgeon, Uccello served an apprenticeship in the workshop of the sculptor and goldsmith Lorenzo Ghiberti but made his own mark as a painter and also as a mosaicist, at one time employed to work on the facade of Basilica di San Marco in Venice.

Younger than Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello, three giants of the Early Renaissance period, Uccello belonged to a generation of artists eager to move away from the flat, decorative forms of traditional Gothic art. His work is more often characterised by clear colours, well-defined outlines and a dramatic narrative, although he retains the fairytale quality of Gothic.

He was noted for his interest in linear perspective, which helped create a sense of depth in many of his paintings. According to Giorgio Vasari, the 16th century painter and architect whose book, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, led him to become known as the first art historian, Uccello was so fixated with perspective that he would stay up all night, seeking to apply his knowledge of mathematics to ensuring the angles in his pictures and the relative scale were exactly right.

Uccello's St George and the Dragon echoed the
typical themes of traditional Gothic art

Uccello’s most celebrated works include a 1456 cycle of paintings depicting the Battle of San Romano, in which a Florentine army defeated Sienese troops in 1432, originally commissioned to adorn the palace of a Florentine politician, Lionardo Bartolini Salimbeni.  The three panels that comprised the cycle are now shared between the National Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence.

His love of perspective, meanwhile, was no better illustrated than in The Flood and The Waters Receding, part of a 1447-48 fresco depicting Scenes from the Life of Noah, which he painted for the Chiostro Verde of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

His St George and the Dragon (c1456), which is also kept by the National Gallery in London), and the Miracle of the Desecrated Host (c1467), housed in Urbino’s Galleria Nazionale, are other notable works.

Uccello was born Paolo di Dono or Paolo Doni. His father was from a wealthy Florentine family and his mother from the noble Del Beccuto family, who had three chapels in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of which Uccello would decorate himself. It is not known with certainty why he came to be known as Paolo Uccello, although he often used birds - uccelli - as well as small animals in his paintings as a device to help create perspective.

At the age of 10, Uccello became an apprentice in the workshop of Ghiberti. It was around the time that Ghiberti was creating the renowned bronze doors for the Florence cathedral's Baptistery, known as The Gates of Paradise.  

Uccello's fascination with perspective is evident
in this section of his Scenes from the life of Noah

Little remains of his work for Ghiberti. The earliest frescoes attributed to him, though now badly damaged, are in the Chiostro Verde of Santa Maria Novella and depict episodes from the Creation. 

From 1425 to 1431, Uccello worked as a master mosaicist in Venice. Documentary evidence has come to light suggesting that a mosaic of Saint Peter for the facade of the Basilica di San Marco, which was depicted in Gentile Bellini's 1496 painting, Processione in Piazza San Marco, was Uccello’s. Sadly, if there was such a piece, it no longer exists.  Some floor mosaics within the basilica are more confidently attributed to Uccello.

After returning to Florence, where he was to stay for most of the rest of his life, he executed works for various churches and patrons, most notably the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the city’s Duomo.

This mosaic on the floor of Basilica San
Marco in Venice is attributed to Uccello

In 1436, Uccello completed a monochrome fresco of an equestrian monument to Sir John Hawkwood in the Duomo. This work exemplified his keen interest in perspective. The condottiero and his horse are presented as if the fresco was a sculpture seen from below. At the same time, a sense of controlled potential energy within the horse and rider were characteristic of the new style of the Renaissance that had blossomed during Uccello’s lifetime.

Later, he painted the four heads of the prophets that surround the clock on the Duomo’s interior west facade clock, and designed a number of stained glass windows.

The three paintings celebrating the Battle of San Romano are thought to have been executed between 1438 and 1440. The three panels were exhibited until 1784 in a room in the Medici Palace on Via Larga in Florence.

Married in 1453 to Tommasa Malifici, Uccello had a son, Donato, with whom he worked towards the end of his life, and a daughter, Antonia, who became a Carmelite nun. 

In poor health, Uccello stopped working in 1470. His last will and testament was dated November 11, 1475, about a month before he died. He was buried in his father's tomb in the church of Santo Spirito in Florence.

The magnificent Florence Duomo, topped by
Brunelleschi's colossal dome, towers over the city

Travel tip:

Florence’s Duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore - with its enormous dome by Filippo Brunelleschi and campanile by Giotto, is one of Italy's most recognisable and most photographed sights, the dominant feature of the city’s skyline. From groundbreaking to consecration, the project spanned 140 years and involved a series of architects. Arnolfo di Cambio, who also designed the Basilica of Santa Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio, was the original architect engaged and it was largely to his template that the others worked.  When he died in 1410, 14 years after the first stone was laid, he was succeeded by Giotto, who himself died in 1337, after which his assistant Andrea Pisano took up the project.  Pisano died in 1348, as the Black Death swept Europe, and a succession of architects followed, culminating in Brunelleschi, who won a competition - against Lorenzo Ghiberti - to build the dome, which remains the largest brick-built dome ever constructed.

The facade of the Basilica of Santa Maria
Novella, designed by Leon Battista Alberti

Travel tip:

The Gothic Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, for which Uccello created his Scenes from the Life of Noah fresco series, which included The Flood and The Waters Receding, was built in the 13th century by the Dominicans and can be described as the city’s first great basilica. This church was given the suffix ‘Novella’ - new - because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne.  The new church was commissioned by wealthy Florentine wool merchant Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai and designed principally by Leon Battista Alberti. The church, recognisable for its white marble façade, was built between 1456 and 1470. A list of its notable artworks reads like a roll call of masters of Gothic and early Renaissance painting and sculpture, including Botticelli, Bronzino, Brunelleschi, Duccio, Ghiberti, Ghirlandaio, Lippi, Masaccio, Pisano, Uccello and Vasari. The city’s nearby main railway station takes its name from the basilica.

Also on this day:

1813: The birth of composer Errico Petrella

1903: The birth of painter Giuseppe Dossena

1907: The birth of actor Amedeo Nazzari

1921: The birth of football administrator Giuseppe 'Peppino' Prisco

1936: The death of playwright and novelist Luigi Pirandello

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9 December

Baldassare Ferri – singer

Male soprano was admired by the crowned heads of Europe

Castrato singer Baldassare Ferri was born on this day in 1610 in Perugia in the region of Umbria.  He is said to have possessed a beautiful soprano voice that was praised by other musicians and by much of the aristocracy of Europe.  The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, who was a great patron of music and himself a composer, is believed to have become so enchanted with Ferri that he had a portrait of the singer hung in his bedroom with the inscription, Baldassare Ferri, Re dei Musici (King of Musicians).  By the age of 11, Ferri was a chorister serving Cardinal Crescenzi in Orvieto. He then studied music in Naples and in Rome, where he was taught by Vincenzo Ugolini of Perugia, who was maestro of the Cappella Giulia.  Prince Wladislaus of Poland then secured Ferri’s services for the court of King Sigismund III at Warsaw, where the singer took part in dramas set to music. He continued to be employed at the court when the prince became King Wladislaus IV Vasa in 1632.  A few years later Ferri moved to Vienna, where he entered the services of the Emperor Ferdinand III and afterwards sang for the Emperor Leopold I.  Read more…

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Sonia Gandhi - Indian politician

Widow of ex-PM Rajiv born in pre-Alps of Veneto

Sonia Gandhi, an Italian who married into a famous political dynasty and became the most powerful woman in India, was born on this day in 1946 in a small town near Vicenza. In 1965, in a restaurant in Cambridge, England, where she was attending a language school, she met an engineering student from the University of Cambridge. They began dating and three years later were married. His name was Rajiv Gandhi, the eldest son of the future Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi. They were married in a Hindu ceremony, Sonia moved into her mother-in-law’s house and from then on lived as an Indian. Rajiv became an airline pilot while Sonia looked after their two children, Rahul and Priyanka. Everything changed when Indira Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh nationalists in 1984, a year after Sonia had been granted Indian citizenship. Rajiv had entered politics in 1982 following the death of his brother, Sanjay, in a plane crash and was elected to succeed his mother as prime minister. Sonia wanted to remain in the background, having developed a passionate interest in preserving India’s artistic treasures. But when Rajiv himself was killed by a suicide bomber in 1991, she was invited to take over as prime minister. Read more…

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Bruno Ruffo - motorcycle racer

Italy's first world champion on two wheels

Motorcycle racer Bruno Ruffo, winner of the inaugural 250cc World Championship in 1949, was born on this day in 1920 in Colognola ai Colli, a village in the province of Verona.  He shares with Nello Pagani the distinction of being Italy's first world champion motorcyclist, Pagani having won the first world title in the 125cc class in the same year.  Ruffo wanted to race from the age of eight, having become fascinated with the motorcycles and cars that his father repaired in his workshop.  He was able to drive a car at the age of 10 and was given his first motorcycle by his father as a 16th birthday present.  He entered a race for the first time the following year at Montagnana near Padua and won. The minimum age for participants was 18 and it later transpired he had falsified his identity papers to take part.  The Second World War interrupted his progress.  Drafted into the Italian Army, Ruffo served for 20 months on the Russian front.   After the war, he bought a Moto Guzzi 250, which he raced privately, enjoying considerable success in 1946, when he won nine of the 11 races he entered in the cadet class.  Read more…

Teofilo Folengo – poet

Style of writer’s verses took its name from the dumpling

Teofilo Folengo, who is remembered as one of the principal Italian ‘macaronic’ poets, died on this day in 1544 in the monastery of Santa Croce in Campese, a district of Bassano del Grappa in the Veneto.  Folengo published, under the pseudonym Merlin Cocaio, a macaronic narrative poem entitled Baldo, which was a humorous send-up of ancient epic and Renaissance chivalric romance.  Writing in verse that mixed vernacular language with Latin became known as macaronic verse, the word deriving from the Latin macaronicus and the Italian maccarone, which meant dumpling, fare mixed crudely from different ingredients that at the time was regarded as a coarse, peasant food. It is presumed to be the origin of the modern Italian word maccheroni.  Folengo was a runaway Benedictine monk who satirised the monastic life using an invented, comic language that blended Latin with various Italian dialects.  Born Girolamo Folengo in 1491 in Cipada, a village near Mantua, he entered the Benedictine order as a young man taking the name Teofilo. He lived in monasteries in Brescia, Mantua and Padua.  Read more…

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Carlo Azeglio Ciampi - prime minister and president

The politician who took Italy into the euro

The politician and banker, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was born on this day in 1920 in Livorno.  He was the 49th prime minister of Italy between 1993 and 1994 and the tenth president, in office from 1999 to 2006.  Ciampi studied ancient Greek literature in Pisa, before being called up to do military duty, but in 1943 he refused to stay with the Fascists and took refuge in Abruzzo.  He managed to get to Bari, where he joined the Italian resistance movement.  After the war, he gained a doctorate in law from Pisa University and began working at the Banca d’Italia. He went on to become Governor of the bank and then President of the National Bureau de Change.  Ciampi was the first-non parliamentarian prime minister of Italy for more than 100 years, appointed by the President, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, to oversee a technical government.  Later, as the treasury minister under Romano Prodi and Massimo d’Alema, Ciampi, a staunch supporter of the EU, adopted the euro currency for Italy.  When he was elected president, he had a broad majority and was only the second president ever to be elected at the first ballot. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The World of the Castrati: The History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon, by Patrick Barbier

For two centuries, the castrati were the darlings of the operatic stage. They enjoyed the adulation of European society, were patronised by royalty and were the pop stars of their era. How did the phenomenon come about? Why were boys deprived of their manhood to satisfy the eccentric taste of a baroque society that demanded that its heroes should sing with female voices? Entertaining, authoritative, as dazzling as its subject, The World of the Castrati is a comprehensive study that looks at every aspect of their lives - from their social origins, rigorous training, brilliant careers and their often lonely and poverty-stricken old age. Farinelli, Carestini, Bernardi... the names still hold the glamour that surrounded them and they live again in the pages of this book, as vibrant, fascinating and enigmatic as ever. Illustrated with rare archive paintings and engravings this is a fitting celebration of the artistry of one of the strangest episodes in operatic history.

Born in Nantes, Patrick Barbier is professor of music history at the West Catholic University in Angers. He specialises in the history of opera. He is the author of many books, including Venice: The Enchanted Mirror and The World of the Castrati.

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8 December

Marcello Piacentini – architect

Designer whose buildings symbolised Fascist ideals

Urban theorist and architect Marcello Piacentini was born on this day in 1881 in Rome.  The son of architect Pio Piacentini, he studied arts and engineering in Rome before going on to become one of the main proponents of the stark, linear designs characteristic of the Fascist era.  When he was just 26, he was commissioned with redesigning the centre of the Lombardy city Bergamo’s lower town, the Città Bassa, where Piacentini's buildings remain notable landmarks today.  The project marked Piacentini as an architect of considerable vision and talent.  He then went on to work throughout Italy, and in particular in Rome, for the Fascist government.  He designed a new campus for the University of Rome, La Sapienza, the road approaching St Peter’s in Rome that was named Via della Conciliazione, and much of the EUR district of the capital, of which he was not only the architect but, by appointment to the Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, the High Commissar.  Characteristic of all these projects was Piacentini's simplified neoclassicism, which became the mainstay of Fascist architecture.  Read more…

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The Borghese Coup

Neo-fascist ‘plot’ aborted at last moment

Italians might have woken up on this day in 1970 to learn that the nation’s legitimate government had been overthrown in a neo-fascist coup had the plotters behind the insurrection not abandoned their action at the 11th hour. The night of December 7-8 had been chosen as the date for the Golpe Borghese - the Borghese Coup - the proposed coup d’état by Junio Valerio Borghese, a nobleman descended from the House of Borghese, which originated in Siena and went on to wield significant power and influence in Rome in the 17th century. Borghese, a former member of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party, had been a naval commander in World War Two who had aligned himself with Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic following the armistice of 1943. He became a prominent neo-fascist in post-war Italy, first as a member of the Italian Social Movement and later setting up his own political party, the Fronte Nazionale (National Front).   Like many on the far right of Italian politics, Borghese - known as the Black Prince both for his politics and his family history - had been alarmed by the rise of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Read more…

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Johann Maria Farina - perfumier

Emigrant to Germany who invented Eau de Cologne

Johann Maria Farina, the Italian perfumier said to have created the world’s first Eau de Cologne, was born on this day in 1685 in the small town of Santa Maria Maggiore in Piedmont.  Farina’s family were masters in the art of distilling alcohol to carry fragrances, which involves different techniques to those used to distill alcohol to drink.  The method was developed in northern Africa, exported to Sicily and then on to the Italian mainland.  Farina’s antecedents brought it with them to Piedmont, where his grandmother established the family workshop in Santa Maria Maggiore, which is located about 130km (81 miles) northeast of Turin, not far from the border with Switzerland.  In his early 20s, Farina emigrated to Germany. Taking the name Johann Maria Farina - his given Italian name was Giovanni - he initially worked for an uncle who had moved to Cologne (Köln) some years earlier.  Feeling homesick, Farina began to dabble in experiments using the distilling techniques he had inherited.  One day in 1708 he excitedly wrote a letter to his brother, Giovanni Battista Farina, exclaiming that he had produced a scent so pleasing to his nostrils that it was almost dreamlike in its qualities.  Read more…

Mario Minniti - painter

Sicilian influenced by long-time collaborator Caravaggio

The painter Mario Minniti, who has acquired some historical notoriety over his long association with the brilliant but hot-tempered Renaissance great Caravaggio but went on to enjoy a successful career in his own right, was born on this day in 1577 in Syracuse, Sicily.  Minniti first encountered Caravaggio - born Michelangelo Merisi - when he arrived in Rome at the age of 15, seeking an apprenticeship following the death of his father.  Caravaggio was just a few years older than Minniti. They became friends and Minniti, who was blessed with boyish good looks, is thought to have been the model Caravaggio used in a series of works commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, one of the leading connoisseurs in Rome.  These included his paintings Boy with a Basket of Fruit, The Fortune Teller, The Musicians, Bacchus and The Lute Player.  As well as learning Caravaggio’s style and techniques, whose influence shone through in many of his own works, Minniti became close friends with his mentor, with some historians buying into the theory that they were lovers and that Caravaggio was obsessed with his young model’s beauty.  Read more…

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Arnaldo Forlani - politician

Oldest surviving former prime minister

Arnaldo Forlani, who was Italy's oldest surviving prime minister until his death in 2023, was born on this day in 1925 in Pesaro.  A Christian Democrat for the whole of his active political career, Forlani was President of the Council of Ministers - the official title of the Italian prime minister - for just over eight months, between October 1980 and June 1981.  He later served as deputy prime minister (1983-87) in a coalition led by the Italian Socialist Party leader Bettino Craxi, having previously been defence minister under Aldo Moro (1974-76) and foreign affairs minister under Giulio Andreotti (1976-79).  Forlani represented Ancona in the Chamber of Deputies from his election in 1958 until the party collapsed in 1994 in the wake of the mani pulite corruption investigations.  He was premier during a difficult period for Italy, which was still reeling from the terrorist attack on Bologna railway station and the decade or so of social and political turmoil known as the Years of Lead.  Barely a month into his term, Forlani was confronted with the devastation of the Irpinia earthquake in Campania, which left almost 2,500 people dead, a further 7,700 injured and 250,000 homeless.  Read more…

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Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Prayers are followed by bonfires and feasting

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated on this day throughout Italy every year.  It is a public holiday everywhere, when banks and offices are closed, special masses take place in the churches and people celebrate the start of Christmas.  It is an official festa - feast day - in the Christian calendar, when the immaculate conception of Jesus is celebrated. The day commemorates Mary, the mother of Jesus, being given the grace of God to live a life ‘free of sin.’  Many people attend Mass and the Pope leads the celebrations from Rome.  The day was officially declared a festa by the Vatican in 1854.  It marks the official start of the Christmas season in Italy, when the lights and trimmings go up.  The shops are open and do a brisk trade, with many people not at work taking the opportunity to do some Christmas shopping.  Bonfires are lit in some parts of Italy and the different areas celebrate with their own traditional food and wine.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A Difficult Heritage: Fascist-Era Art and Architecture Out of its Time, edited by Carmen Belmonte

A volume focused on the artistic and architectural heritage of the Fascist period, in contemporary Italy, it examines the afterlife and reception of the Fascist era legacy in the longue durée.  Many urban projects realised during the 20th century remain part of the Italian landscape and, together with architectural monuments and works of art, create a constellation of surviving images of Fascist visual culture in contemporary Italy. As part of the national cultural heritage, these artefacts are protected by preservation laws. However, in the ambiguous process whereby Italy confronts its Fascist and colonial past, they have also become a nexus of critical debate and political struggle.  Probing the theoretical concept of ‘difficult heritage’ in relation to the peculiarities of the Italian case, and from a comparative perspective with other nations, A Difficult Heritage: Fascist-Era Art and Architecture Out of its Time addresses issues of restoration, display, and critical preservation of Fascist-era artefacts located in public and institutional spaces.  Texts by: Mia Fuller, Giuliana Pieri, Hannah Malone, Joshua Arthurs, Dell Upton, Liza Candidi and Davide Grasso1, Franco Baldasso, Adachiara Zevi, Rosalia Vittorini, Lucy Maulsby, Pippo Ciorra, Luca Acquarelli, and Alessandro Gallicchio.

Carmen Belmonte is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History at Roma Tre University. Her research focuses on the visual culture and legacy of Italian colonialism and fascism, as well as on cultural heritage in contemporary Italy.

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7 December

Gian Lorenzo Bernini – sculptor and architect

Italy's last universal genius

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who was considered the greatest sculptor of the 17th century, was born on this day in 1598 in Naples.  Bernini developed the Baroque style, leading the way for many other artists that came after him. He was also an outstanding architect and was responsible for much of the important work on St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  Bernini began his career working for his father, Pietro Bernini, a Florentine who moved to live and work in Rome.  The young Bernini earned praise from the painter Annibale Carracci and patronage from Pope Paul V and soon established himself as an independent sculptor.  His early works in marble show his amazing ability to depict realistic facial expressions.  Pope Urban VIII became his patron and urged Bernini to paint and also to practise architecture. His first major commission was to remodel the Church of Santa Bibiana in Rome.  Bernini was then asked to build a symbolic structure over the tomb of Saint Peter in Rome. The result was the immense gilt-bronze baldachin executed between 1624 and 1633, an unprecedented fusion of sculpture and architecture and the first truly Baroque monument.  Read more…

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Marcus Tullius Cicero – statesman, scholar and writer

The brutal beheading of a great Roman politician and orator

Cicero, the last defender of the Roman Republic, was assassinated on this day in 43BC in Formia in southern Italy.  Marcus Tullius Cicero had been a lawyer, philosopher and orator who had written extensively during the turbulent political times that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire.  In the months following Julius Caesar's assassination in 44BC, Cicero had delivered several speeches urging the Roman Senate to support Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son, in his struggle against Mark Antony.  Cicero attacked Antony in a series of powerful addresses and urged the Roman senate to name Antony as an enemy of the state. Antony responded by issuing an order for Cicero to be hunted down and killed.  He was the most doggedly pursued of all the enemies of Antony whose deaths had been ordered. Cicero was finally caught on 7 December 43BC leaving his villa in Formia in a litter - a kind of Sedan chair - heading to the seaside.  Cicero is reported to have said: “I can go no further: approach, veteran soldier, and, if you can do at least do so much properly, sever this neck.”  He leaned his head out of the litter and bowed to his captors who cut off his head.  Read more…

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Azzone Visconti - ruler of Milan

Nobleman who used family power to bring prosperity to the city

Azzone Visconti, a nobleman sometimes described as the founder of the state of Milan and who brought prosperity to the city in the 14th century, was born on this day in 1302 in Ferrara.  The Visconti family ruled Lombardy and Milan from 1277 to 1457 before the family line ended and, after a brief period as a republic, the Sforza family took control.  Azzone was the son of Galeazzo I Visconti and Beatrice d’Este, the daughter of the Marquis of Ferrara.  Galeazzo was descendant from Ottone Visconti, who had first taken control of Milan for the family in 1277, when he was made Archbishop of Milan by Pope Urban IV but found himself opposed by the Della Torre family, who had expected Martino della Torre to be given the title.  Ottone was barred from entering the city until he defeated Napoleone della Torre in a battle and, apart from a brief period in which forces loyal to Guido della Torre drove out Galeazzo’s father, Matteo, the Visconti family held power for the next 170 years.  A crisis faced the Visconti rule in 1328 when Louis IV, the Holy Roman Emperor – known in Italian as Ludovico il Bavaro – had Galeazzo and other members of the family arrested.  Read more…

Giovanni Battista Falda - engraver

Printmaker who found market among Grand Tourists

The engraver and printmaker Giovanni Battista Falda, who turned his artistic talent into commercial success as 17th century Rome welcomed the first waves of Europe’s Grand Tourists, was born on this day in 1643 in Valduggia in Piedmont.  Falda created engravings depicting the great buildings, gardens and fountains of Rome, as well as maps and representations of ceremonial events, which soon became popular with visitors keen to take back pictorial souvenirs of their stay, to remind them of what they had seen and to show their friends.  He took commissions to make illustrations of favourite views and of specific buildings and squares, and because the early Grand Tourists were mainly young men from wealthy families in Britain and other parts of Europe he was able to charge premium prices.  Falda showed artistic talent at an early age and was apprenticed to the painter Francesco Ferrari as a child, before moving to Rome when he was 14 to be mentored by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the sculptor and architect who had such a huge influence on the look of Rome.  His early draughtsmanship caught the eye of the printmaker and publisher Giovan Giacomo De Rossi.  Read more…

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Feast of St Ambrose in Milan

Celebrating the life of a clever and fearless Bishop

The feast day of Milan’s patron saint, St Ambrose (Sant’Ambrogio), is celebrated in the city on this day every year.  A service is held in the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio to mark the saint's day on December 7.  The day is an official public holiday in Milan. Banks, government offices and schools are closed along with some shops. Public transport may also be restricted.  A service is held in the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio, the church built by Ambrose himself. The date also marks the opening of the traditional 'Oh Bej! Oh Bej!' street market, with stalls selling local food, wine and crafts.  Aurelius Ambrosius was born in the year 340. He trained as a lawyer and was a great orator before becoming Bishop of Milan in response to popular demand.  After his ordination he wrote about religion, composed hymns and music and was generous to the poor.  He stood up to the supporters of the alternative Arian religion, who wanted to take over some of Milan’s churches, and he also told a Roman Emperor what he had done wrong and how to atone for his sins.  A famous piece of advice that he gave to his congregation was to follow local liturgical custom rather than to argue against it.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Bernini – His Life and His Rome, by Franco Mormando

Sculptor, architect, painter, playwright, and scenographer, Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the last of the universal artistic geniuses of early modern Italy, placed by both contemporaries and posterity in the same exalted company as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. His artistic vision remains palpably present today, through the countless statues, fountains, and buildings that transformed Rome into the Baroque theatre that continues to enthrall tourists. It is perhaps not surprising that this artist who defined the Baroque should have a personal life that itself was defined by flamboyance and complexity. As Franco Mormando's dazzling biography reveals, Bernini was a man driven by many passions, possessed of an explosive temper and a hearty sex drive, and he lived a life as dramatic as any of his creations. Drawing on archival sources, letters, diaries, and - with a suitable scepticism - a hagiographic account written by Bernini's son (who portrays his father as a paragon of virtue and piety), Bernini - His Life and His Rome leads us through the artist’s feuds and love affairs, scandals and sins. He sets Bernini's raucous life against a vivid backdrop of Baroque Rome, bustling and wealthy, and peopled by churchmen and bureaucrats, popes and politicians, schemes and secrets. The result is a seductively readable biography, stuffed with stories and teeming with life - as wild and unforgettable as Bernini's art. 

Franco Mormando is Professor of Italian and History (affiliate faculty) as well as chairperson of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Boston College, the Catholic Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

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