12 July

Amedeo Modigliani – artist

Illness marred short life of creative genius 

Painter and sculptor Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was born on this day in 1884 in Livorno in Tuscany.  The artist went on to become famous for his portraits and his paintings of nudes, which were characterised by their elongated faces and figures.  Modigliani did not receive much acclaim during his lifetime, but after his death his work became popular and achieved high prices.  He was born into a Jewish family and suffered health problems as a child, but began drawing and painting from an early age and begged his family to take him to see the paintings in the Uffizi in Florence.  His mother enrolled him at the art school of Guglielmo Micheli in Livorno where he received artistic instruction influenced by the style and themes of 19th century Italian art.  In 1902 Modigliani enrolled in the school of nude studies at the Accademia di Belle Art in Florence and then moved on to Venice to continue his studies.  Read more…

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Stefano della Bella – printmaker

Artist sketched important events preserving them for posterity

Stefano della Bella, who produced hundreds of sketches of court festivities held by the Medici, as well as visual records of important public occasions, died on this day in 1664 in Florence.  Della Bella was a draughtsman and printmaker known for his etchings of military and court scenes. He left more than 1,000 prints and several thousand drawings, but only one known painting.  He was born into a family of artists in Florence in 1610 and was apprenticed to a goldsmith. However he went on to become an engraver and studied etching.  Thanks to the patronage of the Medici family, della Bella was able to study for six years in Rome living in the Medici Palace in the Villa Borghese area.  Della Bella produced views of Rome, drawings of antiquities and sketches of crowded public occasions in a series of sketchbooks, many of which were later turned into prints.  Read more…

Carla Fendi - fashion executive

Turned family business into global giant

Carla Fendi, whose flair for marketing helped propel her mother and father’s small fur and leather business into a worldwide fashion giant, was born on this day in 1937 in Rome.  Under Fendi’s guidance, the business became so successful that at one point it had 215 stores worldwide and generated more than $1.2 billion in annual sales.  She also helped turn a young Paris-based German designer named Karl Lagerfeld into a household name, having taken up a friend’s recommendation to give him a try when the firm needed some fresh ideas in the 1960s.  Carla Fendi was one of five sisters who grew up in the leather workshop and fur boutique run by Edoardo and Adele Fendi in the Via del Plebiscito, near Rome’s Piazza Venezia. The family lived in rooms above the shop.  When Edoardo died in 1954, the sisters began to help the mother with the business, gradually taking on more responsibility.  Read more…

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Agostino Codazzi - soldier and map-maker

Italian who mapped first route for Panama Canal

Agostino Codazzi, a soldier, scientist, geographer and cartographer who became a national hero in Venezuela and plotted the route for the Panama Canal on behalf of the British government, was born on this day in 1793 in the town of Lugo in Emilia-Romagna.  When the canal was eventually built by United States engineers, they followed the precise route that Codazzi had recommended, although the Italian has not been credited in the history of the project.  Known in Latin America as Agustín Codazzi, he was born Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi.  As a young man, he was excited about the French Revolution and the idea of the ruling classes being overthrown by the people in pursuit of a more equitable society.  After attending the Scuola di Artiglieria military academy in Pavia, he joined Napoleon’s army and served with them until the Napoleonic empire collapsed in 1815.  It was then that he decided to travel further afield, finally settling in Venezuela.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Amedeo Modigliani, by Klaus H Carl and Jane Rogoyska 

Equally famous for his masterful canvasses and tumultuous mental health, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was, in many ways, the prototypical tortured artist. A lifelong sufferer of painfully degenerative tuberculosis, Modigliani was famous for denying his disease with a frenzied bohemian lifestyle of hard drinking, drug abuse and passionate love affairs. But at the same time, he managed to produce some of the modern movement’s most enduring masterpieces, and today his work sells for record-breaking sums whenever it comes up for auction. In this fascinating examination of Modigliani’s life and works, Klaus H Carl and Jane Rogoyska turn their penetrating gaze on this most enigmatic of artistic geniuses. Their insightful text is accompanied by extracts from D H Lawrence’s highly sensual novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, chosen to complement Modigliani’s art and to give a new perspective to it.

Klaus H Carl is a German author and photographer of nature who has written or co-written numerous books on art. Jane Rogoyska has written or co-written many art books for Parkstone International.

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11 July

NEW - The founding of Fiat

The investors and aristocrats who created giant of car industry

A group of nine Italian investors and aristocrats met at the Palazzo Cacherano di Bricherasio in Turin on July 11, 1899 to found the automobile company Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino - Fiat, as it would become known.  The group were brought together by Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, a wealthy nobleman and entrepreneur, and his fellow entrepreneur Cesare Goria Gatti, who were founder members of the Automobile Club of Italy.  In addition to Bricherasio and Gatti, the nine consisted of two other nobleman, Count Roberto Biscaretti di Ruffia and the Marquis Alfonso Ferrero de Gubernatis Ventimiglia, the banker and silk industrialist Michele Ceriana Mayneri, the lawyer Carlo Racca, the landowner Lodovico Scarfiotti, the stockbroker Luigi Damevino and the wax industrialist Michele Lanza. Read more…

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Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo - noblewoman

The shocking fate of Medici wife

The beautiful wife of Don Pietro de' Medici, Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, was strangled to death with a dog lead on July 11, 1576 in a villa near Barberino di Mugello in Tuscany.  The murder was carried out by her husband, Pietro, but he was never brought to justice. His brother, Francesco, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, gave out as the official line that his sister-in-law had died as a result of an accident.  Eleonora, who was more often referred to as Leonora, was born in Florence in 1553, the daughter of Garcia Alvarez di Toledo and Vittoria d’Ascanio Colonna. Her father and mother were living in Florence at the time because Garcia was in charge of the castles of Valdichiana.  When her mother died a few months later, Leonora, was left in the care of her aunt, Eleonora, Duchess of Florence, and her husband, the Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici. Read more… 

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Giuseppe Arcimboldo – painter

Portraits were considered unique in the history of art

The artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who created imaginative portrait heads made up entirely of objects such as fruit, vegetables, flowers and fish, died on this day in 1593 in Milan.  Unique at the time, Arcimboldo’s work was greatly admired in the 20th century by artists such as Salvador Dali and his fellow Surrealist painters.  Giuseppe’s father, Biagio Arcimboldo, was also an artist and Giuseppe followed in his footsteps designing stained glass and frescoes for churches.  Arcimboldo (sometimes also known as Arcimboldi) at first painted entirely in the style of the time. His beautiful fresco of the Tree of Jesse can still be seen in the Duomo of Monza.  But in 1562 he abruptly changed his style after moving to Prague. He began to create human heads, which could be considered as portraits, made up of pieces of fruit and vegetable and other objects. Read more… 

Antoninus Pius - Roman Emperor

Hadrian’s adopted son presided over 23 years of peace

Antoninus Pius, the fourth of the so-called Five Good Emperors who ruled the Roman Empire between 96 and 180 AD, assumed power on this day in 138 following the death of Hadrian at his villa outside Naples the previous day.  As well as being notable for peace and stability, his reign was one of well-run administration, support for education and public works projects including expanded free access to drinking water in all parts of the empire. He was seen as a wise and benevolent ruler who made the well-being of his subjects a priority, an example being the attention he gave to ensuring freed slaves were given the full rights of citizenship.  Antoninus instigated legal reforms, built temples and theatres, was an active promoter of the arts and sciences, and rewarded the teachers of rhetoric and philosophy in particular with honours and financial incentives.  Read more…

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Giorgio Armani – designer

Former army medic forged brilliant career in fashion

Giorgio Armani, who is considered by many to be Italy's greatest fashion designer, was born on this day in 1934 in Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.  Known for his menswear and the clean, tailored lines of his collections for women, Armani has become a multi-billionaire.  His original career plan was to become a doctor and he enrolled in the Department of Medicine at the University of Milan but after three years left to join the army. Due to his medical background he was assigned to the military hospital in Verona.  After he left the army, Armani decided to have a complete career change and got a job as a window dresser for La Rinascente, a Milan department store.  He progressed to become a sales assistant in the menswear department and then moved on to work for Nino Cerruti as a menswear designer.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Agnelli and the Network of Italian Power, by Alan Friedman  

Agnelli and the Network of Italian Power is a controversial study of the life of Gianni Agnelli in which American writer Alan Friedman makes a series of startling allegations about Europe's most glamorous businessman and uncrowned king of Italy. It is the story of a remarkable Italian dynasty, of intrigue and alleged improprieties at the pinnacles of international finance and politics; of dealings with prime ministers, with the White House, and the Pentagon and Moscow; and of the unholy alliances Agnelli has made with dictators such as Colonel Gadaffi of Libya. Above all, it is the story of a relentless drive to expand and crush the opposition. Agnelli's empire has been accused of skirting the edges of the law but some examples have never been documented. No Italian has dared to call into question Italy's "de facto" royal family, and Friedman suggests that many foreign journalists have been charmed and "sweetened" by Agnelli's people into silence.

Alan Friedman is a journalist, bestselling author and documentary producer who has been an award-winning foreign correspondent and commentator with the Financial Times of London, the International Herald Tribune/New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He is presently an opinion columnist for Italy’s La Stampa newspaper.

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The founding of Fiat

The investors and aristocrats who created giant of car industry

Lorenzo Delleani's painting of the founding of Fiat shows 
Bricherasio in the cream jacket, with Agnelli third from the right.

A group of nine Italian investors and aristocrats met at the Palazzo Cacherano di Bricherasio in Turin on this day in 1899 to found the automobile company Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino - Fiat, as it would become known.

The group were brought together by Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, a wealthy nobleman and entrepreneur, and his fellow entrepreneur Cesare Goria Gatti, who were founder members of the Automobile Club of Italy. The two had already enjoyed some success in the fledgling world of car manufacture as part of the Ceirano GB & C partnership the previous year and saw the potential of producing vehicles on a much bigger scale.

In addition to Bricherasio and Gatti, the nine consisted of two other nobleman, Count Roberto Biscaretti di Ruffia and the Marquis Alfonso Ferrero de Gubernatis Ventimiglia, the banker and silk industrialist Michele Ceriana Mayneri, the lawyer Carlo Racca, the landowner Lodovico Scarfiotti, the stockbroker Luigi Damevino and the wax industrialist Michele Lanza.

Giovanni Agnelli, who became known as the founder of Fiat and whose descendants ensured kept the family at the heart of the business for 115 years, was not part of the original group but after Lanza dropped out was approached by Scarfiotti, his fellow landowner, to come on board.

After a number of meetings at the Caffè Burello on Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Turin, the group secured the financial support of the Banco di Sconto e Sete of Turin and met in Palazzo Bricherasio to sign the deeds drawn up by Dr Ernesto Torretta, patrimonial notary of the Royal House of Savoy.

The first Fiat off the production line at the Corso
Dante factory was the two-seater 3½ HP

The members paid a capital of 800,000 lire in return for 4,000 shares and entrusted the presidency to Ludovico Scarfiotti. 

The new company’s first outlay was to pay 30,000 lire for the Ceirano business, including all its expertise and workforce. Ceirano had already produced a small car known as the Welleyes - so called because English names had commercial appeal at the time - designed by the engineer Aristide Faccioli and handcrafted by Giovanni Battista Ceirano.

The first car built by Fiat  - the 3½ HP, a modest two-seater with a top speed of just 22mph (35kph) - was a copy of the Welleyes. Eight were built in total in 1899. The first factory was located on Corso Dante, in the southeast of the city, a short distance from the sweep of the Po river that gives the city a natural border. It opened in 1900, producing 24 cars, and remained the company’s production headquarters until the famous Lingotto plant went online in 1923.

Although Giovanni Agnelli quickly became the central figure of Fiat’s expansion and development, he was considered a junior member of the business at first, serving as secretary to the board.

But it soon became clear through his ideas that he had the strategic mindset required to build a profitable enterprise and his status was quickly elevated. By 1902, he was made managing director.

Fiat’s early years were not straightforward. There were various recapitalisations and changes in the composition of the share capital, but Agnelli steered the business through this period and by 1920, having become effectively the owner, he had risen to chairman.

By that time, Fiat had become the dominant player in Italy’s car industry with global expansion under way. Having become profitable by 1903, when it produced 135 cars, by 1906, that number had jumped to 1,149. It produced its first truck in 1903 and its first aircraft engine in 1908.  By 1910, as Italy’s largest car manufacturer, it entered the US market with a plant in New York. 

A rare picture of a young Gianni Agnelli (left) in
conversation with his grandfather, Giovanni

Giovanni Agnelli remained involved with the company until his death in 1945 at the age of 79, although for many years the man at the helm had been Vittorio Valletta, his trusted lieutenant, who had assumed control when Giovanni’s future was compromised by his close ties with the Fascist regime. 

Control would probably have passed to Giovanni’s only son, Edoardo, but he was killed in a plane crash in 1935. In the event, Valletta became president with Giovanni’s death and remained in that role until 1966, when at the age of 83 he finally handed over to Gianni Agnelli, the founder’s grandson.

The Agnelli family's direct operational control of Fiat ended in 2004, a year after the death of Gianni. The last Agnelli to lead Fiat as CEO was Umberto Agnelli, who passed away in May 2004, although the family remains involved, through John Elkann, Gianni Agnelli’s grandson.

Elkann took on a key leadership role and stayed in a prominent management position after the 2014 merger with Chrysler created Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Fiat as an independent family business ceased to be.

Fiat Chrysler evolved in 2021 into Stellantis, of which Elkann is chairman. Elkann is also CEO of Exor, the Agnelli family’s investment company, which owns major stakes in Stellantis as well as Ferrari, Juventus FC, and The Economist.

The company name still sits proudly above the
original factory in Corso Dante, which opened in 1900

Travel tip:

The original Fiat factory on Corso Dante in Turin still exists today and is open to the public as a museum, the Centro Storico Fiat, which has a large number of exhibits, including cars and aeroplanes, outlining the company’s history up to about 1970. The Fiat exhibits are part of the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile. Tickets cost €10 for adults, with opening times from 10am until 6pm. The factory opened in 1900 and was active for 22 years before the massive Lingotto plant came into use, and became associated with the Fiat Brevetti car.  The museum can be found at the junction of Corso Dante and Via Gabriele Chiabrera about 5km (3 miles) from the centre of Turin, near the southern end of the Parco del Valentino and a few streets from where the Ponte Isabella crosses the Po river.

The Palazzo Cacherano di Bicherasio, which
dates back to 1636, now houses a bank

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Cacherano di Bricherasio, located on Via Lagrange in central Turin, between Via Giovanni Giolitti and Via Cavour, was built in 1636 as a noble residence in the Contrada dei Conciai. It became the home of the now-extinct Cacherano di Bricherasio family in 1855, known for their military honours and cultural patronage. Count Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, a key figure in Italy’s early automotive industry, hosted the founding meeting of Fiat in his study, making the palace a cradle of industrial history. His sister Sofia, a painter and patron, transformed the residence into a vibrant cultural salon, welcoming artists such as Lorenzo Delleani and Arturo Toscanini. After World War Two, the palace housed a school and then an exhibition venue for the Palazzo Bricherasio Foundation, following its restoration in 1994. Since 2010, it has housed Banca Patrimoni Sella & C, preserving its architectural elegance and historical significance while remaining partially open to the public for guided visits.

Also in this day:

138: Antoninus Pius becomes Roman Emperor following the death of Hadrian

1576: The murder of noblewoman Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, wife of Don Pietro de’ Medici

1593: The death of painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo

1934: The birth of fashion designer Giorgio Armani

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10 July

The death of Hadrian

Legacy of emperor famous for wall across Britain

The Roman emperor Hadrian, famous for ordering the construction of a wall to keep barbarians from entering Roman Britain, died on this day in 138 AD.  Aged about 62, he is thought to have been suffering from heart failure and passed away at his villa at Baiae – now Baia – on the northern shore of the Bay of Naples.  Hadrian was regarded as the third of the five so-called "Good Emperors", a term coined by the political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, who noted that while most emperors to succeed to the throne by birth were “bad” in his view, there was a run of five - Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius – who all succeeded by adoption, who enjoyed the reputation as benevolent dictators. They governed by earning the good will of their subjects.  It is accepted that Hadrian came from a family with its roots in Hispania.  Read more… 

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Calogero Vizzini - Mafia chieftain

‘Man of Honour’ installed as Mayor by Allies

The Sicilian Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini, known as Don Calò, died on this day in 1954 in Villalba, a small town in the centre of the island about 100km (62 miles) southeast of the capital, Palermo.  He was 76 and had been in declining health. He was in an ambulance that was taking him home from a clinic in Palermo and was just entering the town when he passed away.  His funeral was attended by thousands of peasants dressed in black and a number of politicians as well as priests played active roles in the service. One of his pallbearers was Don Francesco Paolo Bontade, a powerful mafioso from Palermo.  Although he had a criminal past, Don Calò acquired the reputation as an old-fashioned ‘man of honour’, whose position became that of community leader, a man to whom people looked to settle disputes and to maintain order and peace through his power.  Read more… 

Caterina Cornaro – Queen of Cyprus

Monarch lived out her last years in 'sweet idleness'

The last ruler of the Kingdom of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, died on this day in 1510 in Venice.  She had been living out her life in a castle in Asolo, a pretty town in the Veneto, after the Venetian Government persuaded her to abdicate as Queen of Cyprus.  Her court at the castle became a centre of literary and artistic excellence as she spent her days in what has been described as ‘sweet idleness,’ a translation of the verb asolare, invented by the poet Pietro Bembo to describe her daily life in the town.  Caterina was born in 1406 into the noble Cornaro family, which had produced four Doges, and she grew up in the family palace on the Grand Canal. The family had a long trading and business association with Cyprus.  Caterina was married by proxy to King James II of Cyprus in 1468, securing commercial rights and privileges for Venice in Cyprus.  Read more… 

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Ludovico Chigi – Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Roman with many titles had powerful ancestors

Ludovico Chigi Albani della Rovere was born on this day in 1866 in Ariccia, a town in the Alban Hills to the southeast of Rome.  Chigi was the son of Imperial Prince Mario Chigi della Rovere-Albani and his wife, Princess Antoinette zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn. His father’s family, the Chigi, was one of the most prominent noble Roman families and they were descended from wealthy Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi.  Another of their ancestors was Pope Alexander VII, who in the 17th century had conferred upon his nephew, Agostino Chigi, the hereditary princedoms of Farnese and Campagnano and the dukedoms of Ariccia and Formello. Chigi was a wealthy banker from Siena, who had gone to live in Rome, taking his money with him, and he had lent considerable sums of money to his uncle, the Pope.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome, by Anthony Everitt 

Born in 76, Hadrian lived through and ruled during a tempestuous era, a time when the Colosseum was opened to the public and Pompeii was buried under a mountain of lava and ash. In Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome, acclaimed author Anthony Everitt vividly recounts Hadrian's thrilling life, in which the emperor brings a century of disorder and costly warfare to a peaceful conclusion while demonstrating how a monarchy can be compatible with good governance. What distinguished Hadrian's rule, according to Everitt, were two insights that inevitably ensured the empire's long and prosperous future: He ended Rome's territorial expansion, which had become strategically and economically untenable, by fortifying her boundaries (the many famed Walls of Hadrian), and anointing Athens the empire's cultural centre, thereby making Greek learning and art vastly more prominent in Roman life.  

Anthony Everitt, visiting professor in the visual and performing arts at Nottingham Trent University, has written extensively on European culture, and is the author of Cicero and Augustus. He has served as secretary general of the Arts Council of Great Britain. 

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