25 February

Carlo Goldoni – playwright

Greatest Venetian dramatist whose work still entertains audiences today

Carlo Goldoni, the author of The Servant of Two Masters, one of Italy’s most famous and best-loved plays, was born on this day in 1707 in Venice.  Goldoni became a prolific dramatist who reinvigorated the commedia dell’arte dramatic form by replacing its masked, stock figures with more realistic characters. He produced tightly constructed plots with a new spirit of spontaneity and is considered the founder of Italian realistic comedy.  The son of a physician, Goldoni read comedies from his father’s library when he was young and ran away from his school at Rimini with a company of strolling players when he was just 14.  Later, while studying at the papal college in Pavia, Goldoni read comedies by Plautus, Terence and Aristophanes and learnt French so he could read plays by Molière.  He was eventually expelled for writing a satire about the ladies of Pavia and was sent to study law.  Although he practised law in Venice and Pisa and held diplomatic appointments, his real passion was writing plays for the theatres in Venice.  In 1748 he began writing for the Teatro Sant’Angelo company and dispensed with masked characters altogether for his play, La Pamela, a serious drama based on Samuel Richardson’s novel.  Read more…

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Benedetto Croce – philosopher and historian

Prolific writer opposed the Fascists and supported democracy

Benedetto Croce, one of the most important figures in Italian life and culture in the first half of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1866 in Pescasseroli in the region of Abruzzo.  Croce was an idealist philosopher, historian and erudite literary scholar whose approach to literature influenced future generations of writers and literary critics. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 16 times.  He became a Senator in 1910 and was Minister for Education from 1920 to 1921 in the last pre-Fascist government of the so-called Giolitti era. He is also remembered for his major contribution to the rebirth of Italian democracy after World War II.  Croce was born into a wealthy family and raised in a strict Catholic environment.  However, from the age of 16 he gave up Catholicism and developed a personal philosophy of spiritual life.  In 1883, while he was still a teenager, he was on holiday with his family on the island of Ischia when an earthquake struck Casamicciola and destroyed the house they were staying in. His mother, father and sister were all killed, but although he was buried for a long time, he managed to survive.  Read more…

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Alberto Sordi - actor

Comic genius who appeared in 190 films

Alberto Sordi, remembered by lovers of Italian cinema as one of its most outstanding comedy actors, died on this day in 2003 in Rome, the city of his birth.  He was 82 and had suffered a heart attack.  Italy reacted with an outpouring of grief and the decision was taken for his body to lie in state at Rome's town hall, the Campidoglio.  Streams of his fans took the opportunity to file past his coffin and when his funeral took place at the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano it was estimated that the crowds outside the church and in nearby streets numbered one million people.  Only the funeral of Pope John Paul II, who died two years later, is thought to have attracted a bigger crowd.  Sordi was the Italian voice of Oliver Hardy in the early days of his career, when he worked on the dubbing of the Laurel and Hardy movies.  He made the first of his 190 films in 1937 but it was not until the 1950s that he found international fame.  He appeared in two movies directed by Federico Fellini - The White Sheik and I vitelloni.  In the latter, he played an oafish layabout, something of a simpleton but an effeminate and vulnerable character to whom audiences responded with warmth and affection due to Sordi's interpretation.  Read more…

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Enrico Caruso – opera singer

Tenor's voice still regarded as greatest of all time 

Operatic tenor Enrico Caruso was born on this day in 1873 in Naples.  Believed by many opera experts to be the greatest tenor of all time, Caruso had a brilliant 25-year singing career, appearing at many of the major opera houses in Europe and America.  He made more than 200 recordings of his beautiful voice, some made as early as 1902.  Caruso was born in Via San Giovanello agli Ottocalli in Naples and baptised the next day in the nearby church of San Giovanni e Paolo.  At the age of 11 he was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer and also worked alongside his father in a factory.  At the same time he was singing in his church choir and was told his voice showed enough promise for him to consider becoming a professional singer.  Until she died in 1888, he was encouraged by his mother. To earn money, he started to work as a street singer in Naples, progressing to singing Neapolitan songs as entertainment in cafes. Having decided to become an opera singer, Caruso took singing lessons, keeping up with them even during his compulsory military service.  He made his stage debut in 1895 at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples.  Read more...

Enea Salmeggia – artist

Painter was dubbed the Raphael of Bergamo

Prolific painter Enea Salmeggia, who was active during the late Renaissance period and left a rich legacy of art in northern Italy, died on this day in 1626 in Bergamo in the region of Lombardy.  Salmeggia, also known as Il Talpino, or Salmezza, went to Rome as a young man, where he studied the works of Raphael. His style has often been likened to that of Raphael and he has even been called the Bergamo Raphael by some art lovers. A drawing formerly attributed to Raphael, now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, of two figures seated with some architectural studies, has subsequently been ascribed to Enea Salmeggia.  The artist was born at Salmezza, a frazione of Nembro, a comune - municipality - in the province of Bergamo, between 1565 and 1570. It is known that he grew up in Borgo San Leonardo in Bergamo, where his father, Antonio, was a tailor.  He learnt the art of painting from other Bergamo painters and is also believed to have studied under the Bergamo artist Simone Peterzano in Milan. Caravaggio was one of Peterzano’s most famous pupils and it has been suggested that Salmeggia could have been studying with Peterzano at the same time as Caravaggio.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Morgagni - anatomist

The father of modern pathological anatomy

Anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni, who is credited with turning pathology into a science, was born on this day in 1682 in Forlì in Emilia-Romagna.  Morgagni was professor of anatomy at the University of Padua for 56 years and taught thousands of medical students during his time there.  He was sent by his parents to study philosophy and medicine at the University of Bologna when he was 18 and he graduated as a doctor from both faculties.  In 1706 he published his work, Adversaria anatomica, which was to be the first volume of a series and helped him become known throughout Europe as an accurate anatomist.  He succeeded to the chair of theoretical medicine at the University of Padua in 1712 and was to teach medicine there until his death in 1771.  Morgagni was promoted to the chair of anatomy after his first three years in Padua, following in the footsteps of many illustrious scholars. He brought out five more volumes of his Adversaria anatomica during his early years in Padua.  In 1761, when he was nearly 80, he brought out the work that was to make pathological anatomy into a science – De Sedibus et causis morborum per anotomem indagatis (Of the seats and cause of diseases investigated through anatomy). Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Servant of Two Masters, by Carlo Goldoni. Translated by Stephen Mulrine

An edition that includes the full text, plus a short introduction that takes in the life of the playwright, the plot and subplot and themes of the play.  Disguising herself as her dead brother, Beatrice travels to Venice to find Florindo, the man responsible for his death. However her servant, Truffaldino, enters into the pay of Florindo and struggles to keep his two lives and masters apart.  Over 250 years since it was written, this classic Italian comedy remains blisteringly hilarious and relevant. The plight of Truffaldino trying to keep two jobs afloat is still delighting audiences today in the hit adaptation One Man, Two Guvnors. Translated by Stephen Mulrine this is the original and a masterpiece of comic absurdity.

Stephen Mulrine was a Glasgow-born poet and playwright who wrote extensively for radio and television, and published many translations, including works by Ibsen, Chekhov, Pushkin, Gogol and Turgenev. He was a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

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24 February

NEW - Coronation of Emperor Charles V

Imperial ceremony in Bologna staged on birthday

Charles V was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna by Pope Clement VII on this day in 1530.  Considered the greatest of all the Habsburg emperors, Charles V was also King Carlos 1 of Spain. By the time he was 19, his grandfather and his father were both dead and he had become master of more parts of Europe than anyone since the emperors of ancient Rome.  He chose the day for his coronation because it was his birthday. Although he had been Holy Roman Emperor for more than ten years, Charles decided to receive his crown on his 30th birthday and elected to hold his coronation in the cathedral in Bologna because Rome was still in ruins, having been sacked by his own troops.  He was crowned by the same Pope he had held prisoner during his attack on Rome, Clement VII, who was formerly Giulio de’ Medici.  Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned by a Pope for almost 300 years, until the Emperor Napoleon forced another Pope to crown him as King of Italy in the Duomo in Milan.  Charles and Clement VII had agreed to the imperial coronation as a means of healing the political and religious conflicts that had been dividing Italy and Europe.  Read more…

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Cesare “Caesar” Cardini – restaurateur

Italian emigrant who invented Caesar salad

The restaurateur who history credits with inventing the Caesar salad was born on this day in 1896 in Baveno, a small town on the shore of Lake Maggiore.  Cesare Cardini was one of a large family, with four brothers and two sisters.  In common with many Italians in the early part of the 20th century, his brothers Nereo, Alessandro and Gaudenzio emigrated to the United States, hoping there would be more opportunities to make a living.  Nereo is said to have opened a small hotel in Santa Cruz, California, south of San Francisco, while Alessandro and Guadenzio went to Mexico City.  Cesare left Italy for America in 1913. Records indicate he disembarked at Ellis Island, New York on May 1, having endured the transatlantic voyage as a steerage passenger, sleeping in a cargo hold equipped with dozens of bunk beds, which was the cheapest way to travel but came with few comforts.  He is thought then to have returned to Italy for a few years, working in restaurants in Milan, but ventured back to the United States in 1919.  This time he settled, first in Sacramento, then in San Diego, on the Pacific Ocean and close to the border with Mexico.  Read more…

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Bettino Craxi - prime minister

The Socialist who broke the grip of the Christian Democrats

Bettino Craxi, the politician who in 1983 became the first member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) to be appointed prime minister, was born on this day in 1934 in Milan.  He was not the first socialist to hold the office - Ivanoe Bonomi had been prime minister for six months in 1920 on an Italian Reformist Socialist Party ticket and succeeded Marshal Pietro Badoglio as leader of the war-torn nation’s post-Mussolini government in 1944. However, Craxi broke the hold of the Christian Democrats, who had been in power continuously since the first postwar elections in 1946.  Craxi was a moderniser who moved his party away from traditional forms of socialism in a way that was replicated elsewhere in Europe, such as in Britain under the New Labour prime minister Tony Blair. Craxi replaced the party’s hammer-and-sickle symbol with a red carnation.  His reputation was ultimately wrecked by a corruption scandal, but during his tenure as prime minister, Italy became the fifth largest industrial nation and gained entry into the G7 Group.  His fiscal policies saw him clash with the powerful trade unions over the abolition of the wage-price escalator.  Read more…

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L’Orfeo – an early opera

The lasting appeal of Monteverdi’s first attempt at opera

L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, the earliest opera still being regularly staged, had its first performance on this day in 1607 in Mantua.  Two letters, both dated 23 February, 1607, refer to the opera due to be performed the next day in the Ducal Palace as part of the annual carnival in Mantua in Lombardy.  In one of them a palace official writes: ‘… it should be most unusual as all the actors are to sing their parts.’  Francesco Gonzaga, the brother of the Duke, wrote in a letter dated 1 March, 1607, that the performance had been to the ‘great satisfaction of all who heard it.’  L’Orfeo, or La favola d’Orfeo as it is sometimes called, is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus. It tells the story of the hero’s descent to Hades and his unsuccessful attempt to bring his dead bride, Eurydice, back to the living world.  While it is recognised that L’Orfeo is not the first opera, it is the earliest opera that is still regularly performed in theatres today and it established the basic form that European opera was to take for the next 300 years.  The composer, Claudio Monteverdi, was born in Cremona in Lombardy in 1567.  Read more…

Sandro Pertini - popular president

Man of the people who fought Fascism

Sandro Pertini, the respected and well-liked socialist politician who served as Italy's President between 1978 and 1985, died on this day in 1990, aged 93.  Pertini, a staunch opponent of Fascism who was twice imprisoned by Mussolini and again by the Nazis, passed away at the apartment near the Trevi Fountain in Rome that he shared with his wife, Carla.  After his death was announced, a large crowd gathered in the street near his apartment, with some of his supporters in tears.  Francesco Cossiga, who had succeeded him as President, visited the apartment to offer condolences to Pertini's widow, 30 years his junior.  They had met towards the end of the Second World War, when they were both fighting with the Italian resistance movement.  Pertini's popularity stemmed both from his strong sense of morality and his unwavering good humour.  He had the charm and wit to win over most people he met and was blessed with the common touch.  He would make a point whenever it was possible of appearing in person to greet parties of schoolchildren visiting the presidential palace, sometimes joining the staff for lunch and endearing himself to the nation with his passionate support for Italy's football team at the 1982 World Cup.  Read more…

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Renata Scotto - soprano and opera director

Singer who stood in for Callas became an international star

Opera singer Renata Scotto, who was one of the leading sopranos in the world at the height of her career, was born on this day in 1934 in Savona in Liguria.  Admired for her musicality and acting ability, Scotto was one of the most popular singers during the bel canto revival of the 1960s, performing throughout Italy, and in the UK, America, Russia, Japan, Spain, France and Germany.  She sang opposite great tenors such as Mario del Monaco, Alfredo Kraus and Luciano Pavarotti.  Scotto made her stage debut on Christmas Eve 1952 at the age of 18 as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata, singing to a sold-out house in Savona, her home town. The next day she made her official debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan as Violetta. Shortly afterwards, she performed in Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in Savona.  In 1953 she appeared at Teatro alla Scala in Milan as Walter in Alfredo Catalani's La Wally alongside Renata Tebaldi and Mario del Monaco and, on the opening night, was called back for 15 curtain calls.  At the Edinburgh Festival in 1957 she stood in for Maria Callas, who had refused to appear saying she was ill, as Amina in La Scala’s production of Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Emperor: A New Life of Charles V, by Geoffrey Parker

The life of Emperor Charles V, 16th century ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers. But the elusive nature of the man (despite an abundance of documentation), his relentless travel and the control of his own image, together with the complexity of governing the world’s first transatlantic empire, complicate the task.  Geoffrey Parker, one of the world’s leading historians of early modern Europe, has examined the surviving written sources in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, as well as visual and material evidence. He explores the crucial decisions that created and preserved this vast empire, analyzes Charles’s achievements within the context of both personal and structural factors, and scrutinizes the intimate details of the ruler’s life for clues to his character and inclinations. The result is a unique biography that interrogates every dimension of Charles’s reign and views the world through the emperor’s own eyes.  Drawing on vital new evidence, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V dramatically reinterprets the life of ruler of the world’s first transatlantic empire.

Geoffrey Parker is Andreas Dorpalen Professor of European History at Ohio State University. He has published 40 books, including Global Crisis and Imprudent King.

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Coronation of Emperor Charles V

Imperial ceremony in Bologna staged on birthday

Spanish artist Juan de la Corte's 17th century painting
of the procession that followed the ceremony

Charles V was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna by Pope Clement VII on this day in 1530.

Considered the greatest of all the Habsburg emperors, Charles V was also King Carlos 1 of Spain. By the time he was 19, his grandfather and his father were both dead and he had become master of more parts of Europe than anyone since the emperors of ancient Rome.

He chose the day for his coronation because it was his birthday. Although he had been Holy Roman Emperor for more than ten years, Charles decided to receive his crown on his 30th birthday and elected to hold his coronation in the cathedral in Bologna because Rome was still in ruins, having been sacked by his own troops.

He was crowned by the same Pope he had held prisoner during his attack on Rome, Clement VII, who was formerly Giulio de’ Medici.

Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned by a Pope for almost 300 years, until the Emperor Napoleon forced another Pope to crown him as King of Italy in the Duomo in Milan.

Charles and Clement VII had agreed to the imperial coronation as a means of healing the political and religious conflicts that had been dividing Italy and Europe.

They were hoping for a universal peace in the Christian world that would enable countries to provide a more effective defence against Turkish aggression.

German painter Barthel Beham's
portrait of Charles V, executed in 1535

But preparations for the coronation encountered delays, because the Pope was reluctant to agree to some of Charles’s plans.

Clement VII would have preferred Rome as the location for the coronation, but Charles had chosen Bologna because he knew that many Romans blamed him for the damage to their city which had been carried out by his troops three years earlier.

There was a lot of activity in 1529 ahead of the ceremony in Bologna. Clement VII travelled through Italy to arrive in Bologna in October 1529, where he received a splendid reception. Charles travelled by sea from Barcelona to Genoa and then made his way over land to reach Bologna in November the same year.

Pope Clement and Charles V both stayed in rooms in a palazzo in Bologna, that is known now as Palazzo d’Accursio, or Palazzo Comunale (Municipal Palace).

They agreed that on February 24, the date of the Emperor’s birthday, the coronation would take place in the Basilica di San Petronio, the biggest religious building in the city.

Two days before the coronation, Charles received the Iron Crown of Lombardy, crowning him King of Italy, from the Pope, in a chapel in the palace, which is now called the Farnese Chapel.

Ahead of the coronation ceremony, a 250-feet long bridgeway was erected to connect the palace with San Petronio.

After a long Mass in San Petronio, Charles knelt before the Pope and received the imperial golden crown, watched by aristocrats and representatives from all the Italian States.

A 17th century depiction of a scene from the
coronation by Il Perugino (Luigi Scaramuccia)

At the end of the ceremony there was a procession on horseback through the streets of Bologna. Afterwards the Pope and his retinue returned to Palazzo d’Accursio, while Charles and his supporters continued to Basilica San Domenico in the city, where the Emperor removed his new crown and prayed.

Five years earlier, on Charles’s 25th birthday, the date February 24 had acquired even more significance for him, when a French army of about 30,000 men, commanded by King Francois I of France, was besieging the town of Pavia.

To the relief of residents of Pavia, a smaller Habsburg army arrived on February 24 to relieve the garrison and launch a counter attack, firing on the French cavalry, and annihilating the rest of the French army. Francois I was himself captured and had to spend more than a year as a prisoner in Madrid.

From that date onwards, Spain was to dominate the Italian peninsula, paving the way for Charles V to be crowned King of Italy on February 22, and Holy Roman Emperor two days later.

The Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna with
its unfinished marble facade

Travel tip:

San Petronio Basilica is the main church of Bologna, located in Piazza Maggiore in the centre of the city. It is the largest brick-built Gothic church in the world. Building work began on the church in 1390 and it was dedicated to San Petronio, who had been the Bishop of Bologna in the fifth century. The marble facade was designed by Domenico da Varignana and started in 1538 by Giacomo Ranuzzi. However, it remains unfinished to this day. This was because the construction was largely financed by the citizens of Bologna, and not by the Catholic Church, and the project became too costly to complete. The main doorway, the Porta Magna, was decorated by Jacopo della Quercia of Siena. Above this, the facade is of unadorned brick. Despite being Bologna’s most important church, San Petronio is not the city’s cathedral. This is the Duomo di San Pietro, which stands nearby on Via Indipendenza.

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The Palazzo d'Accursio, where both
Charles V and Pope Clement VII stayed

Travel tip: 

Palazzo d’Accursio, also known as Palazzo Comunale or the Municipal Palace, is also in Piazza Maggiore. It began life in the 13th century as the residence of the jurist Accursius. Over time, it was expanded and attached to adjacent buildings to house civic offices. In 1336 it became the seat of the Anziani - Elders - the highest magistrates of the city, and then it became the city's seat of government. In the 15th century it was refurbished under the designs of the architect Fioravante Fioravanti, who added the clock tower, Torre d'Accursio. The bell in the tower was installed by Gaspare Nadi, a builder who became famous for the diaries he kept, which have enabled historians to learn about life in Bologna in the 15th century.

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Also on this day:

1607: Monteverdi’s opera. L’Orfeo, premieres in Mantua

1896: The birth of restaurateur Cesare ‘Caesar’ Cardini

1934: The birth of soprano Renata Scotto

1934: The birth of politician Bettino Craxi

1990: The death of Italian president Sandro Pertini

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23 February

Giovanni Battista de Rossi - archaeologist

Excavations unearthed massive Catacomb of St Callixtus

Giovanni Battista de Rossi, the archaeologist who revealed the whereabouts of lost Christian catacombs beneath Rome, was born on this day in 1822 in the Italian capital.  De Rossi’s most famous discovery – or rediscovery, to be accurate – of the Catacomb of St Callixtus, thought to have been created in the 2nd century by the future Pope Callixtus I, at that time a deacon of Rome, under the direction of Pope Zephyrinus, established him as the greatest archaeologist of the 19th century.  The vast underground cemetery, located beneath the Appian Way about 7km (4.3 miles) south of the centre of Rome, is estimated to have covered an area of 15 hectares on five levels, with around 20km (12.5 miles) of passageways.  It may have contained up to half a million corpses, including those of 16 popes and 50 Christian martyrs, from Pope Anicetus, who died in 166, to Damasus I, who was pontiff until 384. Nine of the popes were buried in a papal crypt.  The complex steadily fell into disuse thereafter and the most important relics were removed over the centuries and relocated to churches around Rome.  Read more…

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Manfredo Fanti - military general

Risorgimento hero who founded Royal Italian Army

The Italian general Manfredo Fanti, a key figure in the Italian Wars of Independence in the mid-19th century and the founder of the Royal Italian Army, was born on this day in 1806 in Carpi, a town about 20km (13 miles) northwest of Modena in what is now Emilia-Romagna.  Although he ultimately had a disagreement with Giuseppe Garibaldi, the figurehead of the Italian Unification movement, Fanti is still regarded as one of the heroes of the Risorgimento, as a result of the military victories he engineered against the Austrians in the second war of independence, which liberated Lombardy from foreign control, and in the final push for unification in 1860.  Between the second and third wars of independence, after he had been appointed Minister of War in the Cavour government, Fanti organised the absorption of the army of the League of Central Italy into the Royal Sardinian Army, which he was later able to decree would take the name of the Royal Italian Army.  He also played a key role in the final push for unification.  As Garibaldi was leading his Expedition of the Thousand in the conquest of Sicily, Fanti led the simultaneous campaign in central Italy. Read more…

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Gentile Bellini - Renaissance painter

Bellini family were Venice's leading 15th century artists

Gentile Bellini, a member of Venice's leading family of painters in the 15th century, died in Venice on this day in 1507.  He was believed to be in his late 70s, although the exact date of his birth was not recorded.  The son of Jacopo Bellini, who had been a pioneer in the use of oil paint in art, he was the brother of Giovanni Bellini and the brother-in-law of Andrea Mantegna.  Together, they were the founding family of the Venetian school of Renaissance art.  Although history tends to place Gentile in their shadow, he was considered in his time to be one of the greatest living painters in Venice and from 1454 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice.  He also served Venice as a cultural ambassador in Constantinople, where he was sent to work for Sultan Mehmed II as part of a peace settlement between Venice and Turkey.  Gentile learned painting in his father's studio.  Once established, he had no shortage of commissions, for portraits, views of the city, and for large paintings for public buildings, often characterised by multiple figures.  He was one of the artists hired by the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista to paint a 10-painting cycle known as The Miracle of the Relics of the Cross.   Read more…

John Keats – poet

Writer spent his final days in the Eternal City

English Romantic poet John Keats died on this day in Rome in 1821.  He had been a published writer for five years and had written some of his greatest work before leaving England.  Ode to a Nightingale, one of his most famous poems, was written in the spring of 1819 while he was sitting under a plum tree in an English garden.  Keats was just starting to be appreciated by the literary critics when tuberculosis took hold of him and he was advised by doctors to move to a warmer climate.  He arrived in Rome with his friend, Joseph Severn, in November 1820 after a long, gruelling journey.  Another friend had found them rooms in a house in Piazza di Spagna in the centre of Rome and they went past the Colosseum as they made their way there.  Keats slept in a room overlooking the Piazza and could hear the sound of the fountain outside, which may have inspired the words he later asked to be put on his tombstone.  To begin with he was well enough to go for walks along the Via del Corso and he enjoyed sitting on the Spanish Steps, but he was advised by his doctor against visiting the city’s main attractions.  Read more…

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Corrado Cagli - painter

Jewish artist who fought in World War II as a US soldier

The painter Corrado Cagli, one of the outstanding figures in the New Roman school that emerged in the early part of the 20th century, was born in Ancona on this day in 1910.  He moved with his family to Rome in 1915 at the age of five and by the age of 17 had created his first significant work, a mural painted on a building in Via Sistina, the street that links Piazza Barberini with the Spanish Steps in the historic centre of the city.  The following year he painted another mural inside a palazzo on the Via del Vantaggio, not far from Piazza del Popolo.  In 1932, he held his first personal exhibition at Rome’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna.  At this stage, despite being both Jewish and gay, Cagli had the support of the Fascist government, who commissioned him and others to produce mosaics and murals for public buildings.  Although he would go on to experiment in Neo-Cubist style and metaphysical styles, the aim of the Scuola Romana he sought to establish with fellow artists such as Giuseppe Capogrossi and Emanuele Cavalli was to reaffirm the principles of classical and Renaissance art.  Read more…

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Emanuele Notarbartolo - banker and politician

First major figure to be assassinated by Mafia

The banker and politician Emanuele Notarbartolo, whose determination to end corrupt banking practices in Sicily in the late 19th century would cost him his life, was born on this day in 1834 in Palermo.  Notarbartolo served as a conservative Mayor of Palermo from 1873 to 1876 and director of the Banco di Sicilia from 1876 to 1890.  He saved the bank from going bust by stamping down on the practice of doling out large and effectively unsecured loans to favoured individuals but in doing so made many enemies.  Having survived being kidnapped in 1882, Notarbartolo was stabbed to death in his first-class compartment on a train just outside Palermo, his body thrown out of the carriage on to the track side.  Although ultimately they were set free as the legal process broke down, Raffaele Palizzolo, a rival politician with Mafia connections as well as a fellow member of the Banco di Sicilia board, and a boss of the Villabate mafia clan, Giuseppe Fontana, were identified as being responsible for his death. Each was sentenced to 30 years in prison.  Murders involving members of the Cosa Nostra were commonplace but the victims were generally other mafiosi or associates.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Art of the Roman Catacombs: Themes of Deliverance in the Age of Persecution, by Gregory S Athnos

Every story in catacomb art is a tale of deliverance, a tale of the powerlessness of death and the certainty of the resurrection. Looking back through 1500 years of Christian art, it appears the crucifixion of Jesus holds the highest place. Yet perhaps we haven’t looked back far enough. Go back to the first three centuries after Jesus walked among us and walk the dark corridors of those subterranean burial chambers of the persecuted Christians. There we find a much different theology at work: a theology with resurrection hope and power at the center. If catacomb art were all we had of Christian theology and practice from the first three centuries AD - no Scriptures - we would have no choice but to conclude that the first message of the Christian faith was the Easter gospel.  Athnos honors those who lost their lives as martyrs and were buried in the catacomb by trying to understand the theology reflected in their art depicted in frescoes, etchings and carvings. The Art of the Roman Catacombs is a beautiful book.

Gregory S Athnos was associate professor of music at North Park University in Chicago for 32 years, serving the institution as conductor and lecturer in music history and literature. His books include The Easter Jesus and the Good Friday Church (2011), and his autobiography, Eat In Harmony (2016).

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