Palma Bucarelli - art historian and curator

Iconic figure who transformed major Rome gallery

Palma Bucarelli, who was the dynamic director of
Rome's major modern art gallery for more than 30 years

Palma Bucarelli, an art historian who for more than 30 years was director and superintendent of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (GNAM) in Rome, was born on this day in 1910 in the Italian capital.

Under Bucarelli’s dynamic leadership, GNAM was transformed into a major centre in Italy’s cultural life, staging groundbreaking exhibitions featuring some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art, such as Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.   

A champion of abstract and avant-garde art, for which she was a powerful advocate, she also worked hard on behalf of Italian artists to showcase their work alongside their international counterparts.

Turning GNAM into an active space for public engagement and encouraging debate that challenged traditional perceptions of modern art, she helped position Italy as a significant player in the contemporary art scene during the mid-20th century.

As a powerful woman in a male-dominated world, who at the same time cut an elegantly stylish figure, Bucarelli also became something of an icon of female emancipation.

Bucarelli’s father, Giuseppe, was a high-ranking official in the Italian government who would eventually be appointed vice-prefect of Rome. It was from her mother, Ester Loteta Clori, that Palma and her sister, Anna, inherited a taste for culture, both becoming passionate about music, theatre, fashion and art.

Bucarelli, elegantly stylish, was regarded by some
as a trailblazer for female emancipation

Palma Bucarelli was educated at the Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti, the oldest classical high school in Rome and one of the most prestigious in Italy. From there, she progressed to the Sapienza University of Rome, where she graduated in literature. 

Already keen to forge a career in the arts world, she successfully entered a competition run by the Ministry of National Education for the post of Inspector of Antiquities and Fine Arts, after which she was assigned to Rome’s Galleria Borghese art museum at the age of just 23.

After working briefly in Naples, where she became acquainted with the philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce, Bucarelli returned to Rome and took over the direction of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna soon after turning 31. It was unusual, perhaps unprecedented, for a woman to be appointed to such a prestigious role.

By this time, Italy had entered World War Two and one of Bucarelli’s first major tasks was to move works of art away from the gallery to places of safety, a process that needed to be carried out amid secrecy. Some were concealed within hiding places in Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, others taken to Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola, well away from the capital in northern Lazio.

After the liberation of Rome in 1944, the gallery was gradually reopened and Bucarelli, who had a clear vision of how she wanted it to evolve under her leadership, began to develop her plans.

A portrait of Bucarelli by Giulio
Turcato, an abstract impressionist

The proposed function of the gallery when it was opened in 1883 was to be a home and a historical archive for Italian and foreign art from the 19th century onwards. When Bucarelli became director, it proudly represented the history of the artistic trends in that time, from neoclassicism and impressionism to the avant-gardes of the early 20th century through futurism, surrealism, the Novecento movement and the Roman School that was at its height between the late 1920s and mid 1940s. 

Bucarelli’s ambition was to preserve that core purpose and to enhance it. She wanted the gallery to exist not just as a repository for important works of art but to be at the heart of Italian culture and, though she clashed at times with traditionalists in her desire to be at the cutting edge as artists explored new boundaries, her transformative work generally met with approval.

In her time, GNAM moved on from simply housing works of art, becoming a meeting and information point for artists, art critics and the public. She also equipped the gallery for the modern world, adding functions that would in time be seen as standard in a modern museum, such as educational services, a library, cafeteria and bookshop. She also took steps to increase footfall by offering book presentations, meetings with artists and important exhibitions, showing off the museum’s vast existing collections but also offering the public the opportunity to appreciate new artists.

The gallery hosted fashion shows, too, which in part reflected her own interest in stylish clothes. Bucarelli was a much-photographed woman. Alongside a personal collection of artworks, she preserved many elegant items from her wardrobe, some of which were donated to the Boncompagni Ludovisi Museum in Rome, which specialises in decorative arts, costume and Italian fashion.

Married in 1963 to the journalist Paolo Monelli, whom she had known for 30 years, she stepped down as GNAM’s director in 1975. She died in Rome in 1998 at the age of 88.  One of the approach roads to the gallery, linking Viale delle Belle Arti and Viale Antonio Gramsci, was renamed Via Palma Bucarelli in remembrance.

The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna's current
headquarters was completed in 1915

Travel tip:

The Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, home to almost 20,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures, was founded in 1883 on the initiative of the Minister of Education in the young Italy’s government, Guido Beccali. The gallery’s main building on Via delle Belle Arti, within the Villa Borghese park just north of Rome’s city centre, was designed by Cesare Bazzani and built between 1911 and 1915.  Bazzani returned to double its size in 1934. Around 1100 items from its collection are on display at any one time. Artists whose work can be admired there include Italian greats Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Antonio Canova, Giorgio de Chirico, Amedeo Modigliani, Giacomo Manzù and Giorgio Morandi. The museum also holds some works by foreign artists, among them Cézanne, Degas, Duchamp, Mondrian, Monet, Jackson Pollock, Rodin, and Van Gogh.  The gallery is open everyday except Mondays from 9am to 7pm. Entry costs €15.00.

The Palazzo Farnese, with its hexagonal shape,
was built by the future Pope Paul III

Travel tip:

Caprarola is a small town in northern Lazio, situated about 20km (12 miles) southeast of Viterbo, not far from the picturesque Lago di Vico. The town is dominated by the imposing pentagonal Palazzo Farnese, built in the 16th century. With its well preserved frescoed interiors, a magnificent helicoidal staircase, the Sala del Mappamondo, the Sala degli Angeli and its splendid Italian garden, the palace is a unique architectural jewel well worth visiting. To enhance the view from the villa, architect Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola built the Via Dritta, today known as Via Filippo Nicolai, a long sloping street that stretches out from its main entrance almost for half a mile without deviating from the straight. The road divided the village neatly into two districts, named Corsica and Sardinia. The Villa Farnese, originally the home of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III, is said to have been the inspiration for the design of the Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Defense Department in Washington. It has no occupant today but a smaller building, known as the Casino, within the villa’s extensive gardens, is one of the properties at the disposal of the President of the Italian Republic.

Also on this day:

37: The death of Roman emperor Tiberius

1820: The birth of tenor Enrico Tamberlik

1886: The birth of athlete Emilio Lunghi

1940: The birth of film director Bernardo Bertolucci

1978:  The kidnapping of ex-PM Aldo Moro

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15 March

Cesare Beccaria - jurist and criminologist

Enlightened philosopher seen as father of criminal justice

The jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria, who is regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, and whose writings had a profound influence on justice systems all over the world, was born on this day in 1738 in Milan.  As the author of a treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which was a ground-breaking work in the field of criminal law and the approach to punishing offenders, Beccaria is considered by many academics to be the father of criminal justice.  The treatise, which Beccaria compiled when he was only 26 years old, condemned the death penalty on the grounds that the state does not possess the right to take lives and declared torture to be a barbaric practice with no place in a civilised, measured society.  It outlined five principles for an effective system of criminal justice: that punishment should have had a preventive deterrent function as opposed to being retributive; that punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed; that the probability of punishment should be seen as a more effective deterrent than its severity.  Read more…

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Salvator Rosa – artist

Exciting Baroque painter inspired others

Salvator Rosa, a fiery and flamboyant character who was a poet and actor as well as an artist, died on this day in 1673 in Rome.  One of the least conventional artists of 17th century Italy, he was adopted as a hero by painters of the Romantic movement in the 18th and 19th centuries.  He mainly painted landscapes, but also depicted scenes of witchcraft, revealing his interest in the less conventional ideas of his age. These scenes were also sometimes the background for his etchings and the satires he wrote.  Rosa was born in Arenella on the outskirts of Naples. His father, a land surveyor, wanted him to become a lawyer or priest and entered him in the convent of the Somaschi Fathers.  Rosa was interested in art and secretly learnt about painting with his uncle and his brother-in-law, Francesco Fracanzano, who was a pupil of Jose de Ribera. Rosa later became an apprentice to Aniello Falcone, working with him on his battle scenes.  His own paintings featured landscapes overgrown with vegetation and beach scenes with caves, peopled with shepherds, seamen, soldiers and bandits.  Read more…

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Gianluca Festa - footballer

Sardinian became a favourite in England

The footballer and coach Gianluca Festa, who played 177 matches in Italy’s Serie A but is best remembered as the first Italian defender to sign for a club in England’s Premier League, was born on this day in 1969 in Cagliari.  Festa joined Middlesbrough in January 1997 after manager Bryan Robson agreed to pay Inter-Milan £2.7million for the centre-back, who joined his Italian compatriot Fabrizio Ravanelli at the northeast England club.  Ravanelli had arrived in England the previous summer as one of a number of Italian stars to move from Serie A, a sign that the Premier League was beginning to challenge Serie A for the right to be called Europe’s top league.  Chelsea had signed Gianluca Vialli from Juventus and Roberto Di Matteo from Lazio, to be joined by Parma’s Gianfranco Zola later in the autumn, and Sheffield Wednesday had bought Festa’s former Inter teammate Benito Carbone.  Four of those five were forwards - Di Matteo operated in midfield - and Middlesbrough, who had been promoted in 1995 but were finding their second season difficult, broke new ground by tapping into Italy’s reputation for producing top-quality defenders.  Read more…

The murder of Julius Caesar

He came, saw, conquered... and was assassinated

Statesman and soldier Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered on this day in 44 BC in Rome.  His death made the Ides of March, the day on the Roman calendar devised by Caesar that corresponds to 15 March, a turning point in Roman history, one of the events that marked the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.  Caesar had made his mark as a soldier in Asia Minor and Spain and established himself as a politician, making useful allies.  But his invasion of Gaul took several years and was the most costly and destructive campaign ever undertaken by a Roman commander. Afterwards, Caesar crossed the Rubicon - a river that formed a northern border of Italy - with a legion of troops, entered Rome illegally, and established himself as a dictator dressed in royal robes.  On the Ides of March, Caesar was stabbed to death by a group of rebellious senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus.  His adopted heir, Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power afterwards and the Roman Empire began.  Far from sealing his reputation as a vainglorious tyrant, his assassins, Brutus, Cassius and the others, succeeded only in clinching Caesar’s historical immortality.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Mezzofanti - hyperpolyglot

Roman Catholic Cardinal could speak 38 languages

The death occurred in Rome on this day in 1849 of Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, a prodigiously talented academic renowned for his command of multiple foreign languages.  Defined as a hyperpolyglot - someone who is fluent in six languages or more - Mezzofanti is said to have full command of at least 38.  The majority were European, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern languages - mainstream and regional - but he was also said to be fluent in Chinese languages, Russian, plus Hindi and Gujarati.  His fame was such that he became something of an international celebrity, although he never actually left Italy, living the early part of his life in his home city of Bologna, before moving to Rome.  Visiting dignitaries from all over the world would ask to be introduced to him, ready to be awestruck as he slipped effortlessly into their native tongue.  There is an abundance of stories illustrating his extraordinary gift.  As a boy, working in the workshop in Bologna of his father, Francis, a carpenter, he is said to have overheard from a neighbouring building a priest giving lessons in Latin and Greek and later recalled every word, despite never having seen a Latin or Greek book.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Cesare Beccaria: The Genius of 'On Crimes and Punishments', by John Hostettler

In 18th century continental Europe, penal law was barbaric. In Cesare Beccaria: The Genius of 'On Crimes and Punishment', John Hostettler explains how gallows were a regular feature of the landscape, branding and mutilation common and there existed the ghastly spectacle of men being broken on the wheel. To make matters worse, people were often tortured or put to death (sometimes both) for minor crimes and often without any trial at all. Like a bombshell a book entitled On Crimes and Punishments exploded onto the scene in 1764 with shattering effect. Its author was a young nobleman named Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794). A central message of that-now classic-work was that such punishments belonged to 'a war of nations against their citizens' and should be abolished. It was a cri de coeur for thorough reform of the law affecting punishments and it swept across the continent of Europe like wildfire, being adopted by one ruler after another. It even crossed the Atlantic to the new United States of America into the hands of President Thomas Jefferson. In a wonderful sentence which concludes Beccaria's book, he sums up matters as follows: " In order that every punishment may not be an act of violence, committed by one man or by many against a single individual, it ought to be above all things public, speedy, necessary, the least possible in the given circumstances, proportioned to its crime [and] dictated by the laws." Civilising penal law remains a topical issue but it began with Cesare Beccaria.

John Hostettler was an English writer of legal histories and biographies. He was a practising solicitor in London for 35 years as well as undertaking political and civil liberties cases in Nigeria, Germany and Aden. His earlier books include A History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales and, with Richard Braby, a biography of the 18th century barrister and judge Sir William Garrow.

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14 March

NEW - Umberto I - King of Italy

Assassination attempts overshadow the reign of unpopular monarch

The second king of the newly-unified Italy, Umberto I, was born on this day in 1844 in Turin, in the region of Piemonte, which was then in the Kingdom of Sardinia.  As king, Umberto I led Italy into the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, and his support for nationalistic and imperialist policies during his reign led to disaster for his country and helped to create the atmosphere in which he was eventually assassinated. The son of King Victor Emmanuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, Umberto was brought up with no love or affection from his parents, but was instead taught to be obedient and loyal.  His father, whose 24th birthday fell on the day Umberto was born, gave him no training in politics or government and entrusted Umberto’s education to some of his statesmen. Umberto went into the Royal Sardinian Army as a captain and took part in the Italian Wars of Independence. He was present at the Battle of Solferino when he was still only 14. Seven years later, in the Third Italian War of Independence, he commanded a division.  At the age of 24, Umberto married his first cousin, Margherita Teresa Giovanna, Princess of Savoy. Read more…

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Giuseppe Maria Crespi - painter

Artist from Baroque period who excelled in genre painting

The painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi, one of the first Italian exponents of genre painting, which depicts ordinary people in scenes from everyday life, was born on this day in 1665 in Bologna.  Crespi also painted portraits and caricatures as well as religious paintings, especially at the beginning and end of his career. Even in his religious work, the scenes would include ordinary people, such as his acclaimed series, the The Seven Sacraments, originally commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome, which now hangs in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister - the Old Masters’ Gallery - in Dresden.  Growing up in Bologna, he learned the basics of drawing and painting from Angelo Michele Toni, to whom he was apprenticed at the age of 12. His taste in clothes - he favoured the tight garments characteristic of Spanish fashion - earned him the nickname Lo Spagnuolo - the Spaniard.  After leaving Toni, he spent much time studying and copying the work around the city of the Carracci brothers - Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico - whose fresco decorations adorned the cloister of San Michele in Bosco and the Palazzo Magnani and Palazzo Fava. Their work proved to be a lasting influence.  Read more…

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Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – publisher

Accidental death of an aristocratic activist

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a leading European publisher and one of Italy’s richest men, died on this day in 1972 after being blown up while trying to ignite a terrorist bomb on an electricity pylon at Segrate near Milan.  It was a bizarre end to the life and career of a man who had helped revolutionise Italian book publishing. He became famous for his decision to translate and publish Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago after the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union, where it had been banned on the grounds of being anti-Soviet.  This was an event that shook the Soviet empire and led to Pasternak winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Feltrinelli also started the first chain of book shops in Italy, which still bear his name.   He was born in 1926 into a wealthy, monarchist family. At the instigation of his mother, Feltrinelli was created Marquess of Gargnano when he was 12 by Benito Mussolini.  During the Second World War, the family left their home, Villa Feltrinelli, north of Salò on Lake Garda to make way for Mussolini to live there. But in the later stages of the war, Feltrinelli enrolled in the Italian Communist Party and fought against the Germans and the remnants of Mussolini’s regime.  From 1949 onwards, Feltrinelli collected documents for the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Library in Milan.  Read more…

Giovanni Schiaparelli - astronomer

Discoveries sparked belief there was life on Mars

The astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, whose observations in the late 19th century gave rise to decades of popular speculation about possible life on Mars, was born on this day in 1835 in Savigliano, about 60km (37 miles) south of Turin.  Schiaparelli worked for more than 40 years at the Brera Observatory in Milan, most of that time as its director.  It was in 1877 that he made the observations that were to cause so much excitement, a year notable for a particularly favourable 'opposition' of Mars, when Mars, Earth and the Sun all line up so that Mars and the Sun are on directly opposite sides of Earth, making the surface of Mars easier to see.  Oppositions occur every two years or so but because the orbit of Mars is more elliptical than Earth's there are points at which it is much closer to the Sun than at others.  An opposition that coincides with one of these points is much rarer, probably taking place only once in a lifetime, if that.  Schiaparelli was deeply fascinated with Mars and knew that this opposition gave him the opportunity of his lifetime to make a detailed survey of the red planet and made every effort to ensure his vision and his senses were as sharp as they could be when he put his eye to the telescope.  Read more…

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Victor Emmanuel II

The first king to rule over a united Italy

King Victor Emmanuel II was born Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso on this day in 1820 in Turin.  He was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy in 1861 by the country’s new parliament and in 1870, after the French withdrew, he entered the city of Rome and set up the new Italian capital there. The Italian people called him Padre della Patria - Father of the Fatherland.  Born Prince Victor Emmanuel of Savoy, he was the eldest son of Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, and Maria Theresa of Austria. His father succeeded a distant cousin as King of Sardinia- Piedmont in 1831.  In 1842 Victor Emmanuel married his cousin Adelaide of Austria and was styled as the Duke of Savoy before becoming King of Sardinia-Piedmont after his father abdicated the throne following a humiliating military defeat by the Austrians at the Battle of Novara.  In 1852 Victor Emmanuel appointed Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, who turned out to be a shrewd politician and masterminded his campaign to rule over a united Italy.   Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italy and its Monarchy, by Denis Mack Smith

Written by one of the world's leading historians of Italy, Mack Smith’s Italy and its Monarchy is a provocative and highly readable book - the first major study of the Italian monarchy and its impact on Italy's history, from unification in 1861 to the foundation of the Italian republic after the Second World War. The New York Review of Books described the book as 'a study of the Italian Monarchy that subjects the four kings of united Italy to a debunking treatment… showing how indispensable the monarchy was for the working of the Italian political system, but also how it was ultimately disastrous.' The Sunday Times said it is ‘brilliant, remarkable, highly entertaining’ and that ‘only Mack Smith could have told what is finally so shabby a story with this combination of learning and bravura.' Italy and its Monarchy was nominated for a 1990 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the History category. 

Denis Mack Smith was an English historian who specialised in the history of Italy from the Risorgimento onwards. He is best known for his biographies of Garibaldi, Cavour and Mussolini, and for his single-volume Modern Italy: A Political History. He was named Grand Official of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1996.

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Umberto I - King of Italy

Assassination attempts overshadow the reign of unpopular monarch

A portrait photograph, of unknown
origin, of a young Umberto I

The second king of the newly-unified Italy, Umberto I, was born on this day in 1844 in Turin, in the region of Piemonte, which was then in the Kingdom of Sardinia.

As king, Umberto I led Italy into the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, and his support for nationalistic and imperialist policies during his reign led to disaster for his country and helped to create the atmosphere in which he was eventually assassinated.

The son of King Victor Emmanuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, Umberto was brought up with no love or affection from his parents, but was instead taught to be obedient and loyal.

His father, whose 24th birthday fell on the day Umberto was born, gave him no training in politics or government and entrusted Umberto’s education to some of his statesmen.

Umberto went into the Royal Sardinian Army as a captain and took part in the Italian Wars of Independence. He was present at the Battle of Solferino when he was still only 14. Seven years later, in the Third Italian War of Independence, he commanded a division.

At the age of 24, Umberto married his first cousin, Margherita Teresa Giovanna, Princess of Savoy. They had only one son, Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples.  

After the death of his father in 1878, when Umberto became king, he styled himself as Umberto I of Italy, rather than Umberto IV of Savoy, ignoring his three ancestral namesakes. This was even though his father, who had been the first king of Italy, had called himself Victor Emmanuel II, acknowledging his ancestor, Victor Emmanuel 1, King of Sardinia.

Umberto I and Queen Margherita
on a visit to Venice in 1895

While Umberto I was on a tour of Italy accompanied by Queen Margherita and the prime minister at the time, an anarchist tried to attack him in Naples. The prime minister, Benedetto Cairoli, was stabbed in the thigh while attempting to defend the king, but Umberto I was not injured himself.

The anarchist, Giovanni Passannante, was initially condemned to death, but his sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment because the monarch was not killed.

However, this sentence was served by Passannante in a cell less than one and a half metres high, without any sanitation, while being weighed down with heavy chains. Passannante was to die 30 years later in a psychiatric institution.

Umberto’s admiration for German military aggression and keenness on Italian colonial expansion into Africa outraged some Italians and, after a government crackdown on civil liberties, protesters again took to the streets. This led to an unemployed man trying, but failing, to stab Umberto when he was seen out in the street in Rome in 1897.

Italians became even more outraged after Umberto I sent a telegram to congratulate General Bava Beccaris for using artillery against rioters protesting about the cost of bread in Milan in 1897. There were claims afterwards that 400 people had been killed and 2000 people had been wounded because of the heavy-handed tactics of the general.

Finally, in July 1900, anarchist Gaetano Bresci shot Umberto I four times while he was out and about in Monza and killed him. Afterwards Bresci said he had wanted to avenge the people who had been killed by the army while protesting two years earlier in Milan.

Umberto's body was taken to Rome and buried in the Pantheon, by the side of his father. They were the last Savoys to be laid to rest at the Pantheon. A monumental chapel was built in Monza close to the place where the assassination occurred. 

The Pizza Margherita, with tomato, mozzarella and basil,
was supposedly created in honour of Queen Margherita

Travel tip:

Unlike her husband, Umberto I’s queen, Margherita of Savoy, to whom he had been married in Turin in 1868, was immensely popular. In another contrast with Umberto, she was a highly educated woman who was equally at home in the company of ordinary people as she was with aristocrats or intellectuals. Her salon became one of the most exclusive and famous in contemporary Europe yet during her many tours of Italy in her official role she made a point of wearing local folk costumes and showing enthusiasm for local customs, traditions and culture. She was particularly loved in Naples, where she visited schools and hospitals and organised collections of toys and clothes for the children of poor families. She was seen to hold the hands of cholera victims without wearing gloves. Although the story is disputed, it is said that the Pizza Margherita, a staple of most pizza restaurants across the world, was originally created in her honour by Neapolitan pizza maker, Raffaele Esposito, with its tomatoes, basil and mozzarella representing the colours of the Italian flag. Esposito and his wife, Giovanna Brandi, were the original proprietors of the Naples institution, Pizzeria Brandi.

The Cappella Espiatoria was built
close to the spot Umberto was killed

Travel tip:

The Cappella Espiatoria in Monza is a monumental chapel built in an act of atonement or expiation for the assassination of Umberto I by Gaetano Bresci. It was erected on Via Matteo da Campione, close to the entrance to the Royal Villa of Monza on Viale Regina Margherita, where Umberto was killed. The murdered monarch’s son, Vittorio Emanuele III, commissioned the architect Giuseppe Sacconi, and the work was completed by his pupil Guido Cirilli in 1910. Obelisk-like crosses emerge from a stone chapel, and are surmounted by bronze crown and royal symbols of the House of Savoy.  The city of Monza - famous for its Grand Prix motor racing circuit - is also home to the Iron Crown of Lombardy - the Corona Ferrea - a circlet of gold with a central iron band, which according to legend, was beaten out of a nail from Christ’s true cross and was found by Saint Helena in the Holy Land. The crown is believed to have been given to the city of Monza in the sixth century and is kept in a chapel in the 13th century Basilica of San Giovanni Battista, the city’s cathedral. During the ceremony to crown Napoleon Bonaparte as King of Italy in 1805, in the Duomo in Milan, Napoleon is reported to have picked up the Iron Crown, which he had ordered to be fetched from Monza beforehand, placed it on his own head and announced that God had given it to him. 

Also on this day:

1665: The birth of painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi

1820: The birth of future king Victor Emmanuel II

1835: The birth of astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli

1972: The death of publisher and political activist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

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