Andrea Sacchi – artist

Painter preferred the classical style with an uncrowded canvas

The French engraver Guillaume
Vallet's portrait of Andrea Sacchi

Andrea Sacchi, one of the leading artists of his time in Italy, was born on this day - Saint Andrew’s Day - in 1599 in or near Rome.

Sacchi became the chief exponent of the style of art referred to as High Baroque Classicism, having been inspired by the work of Raphael when he was growing up.

His masterpiece is considered to be a fresco in Palazzo Barberini in Rome, Allegory of Divine Wisdom, which was an homage to Pope Urban VIII, who compared himself to King Solomon, who was assisted by divine wisdom. 

The work was also inspired by Raphael’s Parnassus, a painting that is now in the Vatican.

Sacchi’s father, Benedetto, was also a painter, but he found another master for his son, Andrea, when he realised that he was very talented. According to Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Sacchi’s friend and biographer, when Benedetto realised his son was becoming a better painter than himself, he ‘wisely found him a master who could provide him with better education.’

Benedetto enrolled his son with Giuseppe Cesari, also known as Il Giuseppino, who after being made a Knight of the Supreme Order of Christ by his patron, Pope Clement VIII, was subsequently referred to as Cavaliere d’Arpino.

One of Cesari’s earlier pupils had been Caravaggio, who had spent time painting flowers and fruit in the Cavaliere’s workshop.

Later, Sacchi entered the workshop of Francesco Albani, a Baroque painter who was born and worked in Bologna. Sacchi is now considered to be one of Albani’s most famous pupils and it was the influence of Albani that inspired Sacchi’s interest in Classicism and his taste for colour.

Sacchi’s early career in Rome was helped by the patronage of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who commissioned work from him for his own church, Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, and for Palazzo Barberini.

Between 1627 and 1629, Sacchi painted frescoes at Villa Sacchetti near Ostia Antica under the direction of the Baroque artist and architect, Pietro da Cortona.

Sacchi's masterpiece, the fresco Allegory of the
Divine Wisdom, can be seen in Palazzo Barberini

Five years later, Cortona was elected as director of the Academy of St Luke, the painter’s guild in Rome.

In 1636, the two artists became involved in a series of debates at the Academy, during which Sacchi criticised Cortona’s exuberant style of painting.

Sacchi put forward the theory that paintings should include only a few figures because if a picture is too crowded the figures are deprived of individuality and cloud the meaning of the piece.

Cortona, on the other hand, argued the case that large paintings with many figures were like an epic, and could develop multiple sub themes.

Among Sacchi’s supporters in the argument were his friends, the High Baroque sculptor Alessandro Algardi, and the Classical Baroque French painter, Nicolas Poussin. 

There was a big following for Sacchi’s style of painting by artists who came after him, and the style remained pre-eminent in Roman circles for many decades to follow.

Two of Sacchi’s major works, St Gregory and the Corporal, and Vision of St Romuald, are in the Pinacoteca Vaticana in Rome.

Other paintings by Sacchi can be seen in San Carlo ai Catinari, Palazzo Quirinale, and Palazzo Barberini in Rome. There are also paintings by the artist in Perugia, Foligno, and Camerino, in Italy, and in the Prado Museum in Madrid.

Sadly, Sacchi outlived his illegitimate son, Giuseppe, who had shown early promise as a painter, but died young. Sacchi himself died at the age of 61 in Rome in 1661. 

Some accounts of his life say he was both born and died in Nettuno, a coastal town about 60km (37 miles) south of the capital. The British historian Ann Sutherland Harris has established that, according to the artist’s will, which is kept in the State Archives, Sacchi died in Rome.

The Villa Sacchetti, later Castello
Chigi, has frescoes by Sacchi

Travel tip:

The Villa Sacchetti, where Andrea Sacchi worked on frescoes under the direction of Pietro da Cortona, is a 17th century villa at Castel Fusano near Ostia Antica in Lazio. It was built between 1624 and 1629 for the Sacchetti family, who were close associates of Pope Urban VIII, and it was the first architectural work by Pietro da Cortona. The villa has a fortified appearance and a belvedere terrace at the top because there were occasional raids by pirates along that coast at the time. On the third floor, there is a gallery spanning the length of the building with frescoes by both Pietro da Cortona and Andrea Sacchi. The villa is now known as Castello Chigi because it was bought by the Chigi family in the 18th century.

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The Palazzo Barberini in Rome, for which
Sacchi painted his Allegory of Divine Wisdom

Travel tip:

Palazzo Barberini, which houses the work considered to be Andrea Sacchi’s masterpiece, Allegory of Divine Wisdom, is just off Piazza Barberini in the centre of Rome. The palazzo was completed in 1633 as a home for Cardinal Francesco Barberini and was the work of three great architects, Carlo Maderno, Francesco Borromini, and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The palazzo now houses part of the collection of Italy’s National Gallery of Ancient Art, with works by Caravaggio, Raphael, Tintoretto, Hans Holbein, Guido Reni, Bronzino, and Bernini. The palace, which stands in Via delle Quattro Fontane, facing Piazza Barberini, was designed by Maderno with most of the construction supervised by Bernini. Borromini made a number of notable contributions, notably the famous helical staircase. Pietro da Cortona’s Trionfo della Divina Provvidenza (Triumph of Divine Providence), which covers the ceiling of the palace’s grand salon, is one of the most celebrated Baroque frescoes in Rome.

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More reading:

Domenichino, the Baroque master whose talents rivalled Raphael

How Francesco Solimena became one of the Europe’s wealthiest painters

Francesco Barberini, the cardinal who built the Palazzo Barberini

Also on this day:

1466: The birth of military commander Andrea Doria

1485: The birth of writer and stateswoman Veronica Gambara

1831: The birth of writer and patriot Ippolito Nievo

1954: The birth of actress Simonetta Stefanelli

1957: The death of tenor Beniamino Gigli

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29 November

Agostino Chigi - banker and arts patron

Nobleman from Siena became one of Europe’s richest men

The banker Agostino Chigi, who was a major sponsor of artists during the Renaissance, was born on this day in 1466 in Siena.  At its height, Chigi’s bank in Rome was the biggest in Europe, employing up to 20,000 people, with branches throughout Italy and abroad, as far apart as London and Cairo.  Chigi invested a good deal of his wealth in supporting the arts, notably providing financial backing to almost all the main figures of the early 16th century, including Perugino, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Giulio Romano, Il Sodoma (Giovanni Bazzi) and Raphael.  Perugino painted The Chigi Altarpiece, which hangs in the Chigi family chapel in the church of Sant'Agostino in Siena.  Chigi’s legacy to Rome included a chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Pace; his mortuary chapel, the Chigi Chapel, in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo; and the superb Villa Farnesina in Trastevere. Read more…

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Agostino Richelmy – Cardinal

Former soldier sent priests to say mass for troops

Cardinal Agostino Richelmy, who fought for Garibaldi as a teenager, was born on this day in 1850 in Turin.  He joined the Garibaldi Volunteers during the war of 1866 and is said to have worn his red shirt under his cassock for years afterwards.  When Italy entered the First World War in 1915, Richelmy organised priests to serve as army chaplains in the mountains of Trentino, where they had to carve altars out of snow and say mass in temperatures below zero.  Richelmy was born into an ancient, noble family and his father, Prospero was a hydraulic engineer.  He was educated at the Liceo Classico Cavour and the Archiepiscopal Seminary in Turin and gained a doctorate in theology in 1876. He became a professor of moral and dogmatic theology and then a professor in the faculty of canon law.  Richelmy was elected Bishop of Ivrea in 1886. Read more…

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Luigi ‘Gigi’ Peronace - football agent

Calabrian facilitated string of transfers to Italy

The football agent Luigi ‘Gigi’ Peronace, who brokered the transfer deals that saw leading British stars from John Charles to Liam Brady play in Italy’s Serie A, was born in the Calabrian seaside town of Soverato on this day in 1925.  Agents are commonplace in football today but they were an almost unknown phenomenon when Peronace set up in business in the 1950s and he is widely accepted as the first of his kind, certainly in terms of building a ‘stable’ of clients.  The charismatic Peronace’s ability to charm all parties in transfer deals - buyer, seller and player - led to him becoming an influential figure in football in both Italy and the United Kingdom over a 25-year period.  Charles, the Welsh giant whose talents persuaded Juventus to almost double the British transfer fee record when they paid Leeds United £65,000 for his services in 1957, remains Peronace’s most famous deal.  Read more…

Cardinal Andrea della Valle – antiquities collector

Restoration and conservation techniques set example to others

Andrea della Valle, remembered for amassing one of the earliest known collections of Roman antiquities, was born into a noble family on this day in 1463 in Rome.  He was the son of Filippo della Valle and Girolama Margani, and was the second of their four children.  After entering the Church, he was elected Bishop of Crotone in 1496. He was chosen to direct the Apostolic Chancery between 1503 and 1505 and served as Apostolic secretary during the reign of Pope Julius II.  Della Valle was transferred to the titular diocese of Miletus in 1508, but resigned from it to give way to his nephew, Quinzio Rustici, in 1523.  He was created cardinal priest in 1517 and participated in the papal conclaves of 1521 and 1523.  As archpriest of the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, Della Valle ceremonially opened and closed the holy door in the Jubilee year of 1525. Read more…

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Gaetano Donizetti - opera composer

Birthplace of musical genius has been declared a national monument

Gaetano Donizetti, a prolific composer of operas in the 19th century, was born on this day in 1797 in Bergamo in northern Italy.  Donizetti came into the world in the basement of a house in Borgo Canale just outside the walls of the Città Alta, Bergamo’s upper town. He was the fifth of six children born to a textile worker and his wife.  He once wrote about his birthplace: “…I was born underground in Borgo Canale. One descended the stairs to the basement, where no ray of sunlight had ever been seen. And like an owl I flew forth…”  Donizetti developed a love for music and, despite the poverty of his family, benefited from early tuition in Bergamo. He went on to become a brilliant composer of operas in the early part of the 19th century and is considered to have been a major influence on Verdi, Puccini and many other composers who came after him.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Renaissance in Rome, by Loren Partridge

Rome as we know it is largely a creation of the Renaissance, restructured and risen anew from a neglected medieval town. This book traces the extraordinary works of painting, sculpture and architecture commissioned by Rome's church and civic nobility as part of their rival bids for power and prestige. With the aid of The Renaissance in Rome’s 118 illustrations, most of them in colour, Loren Partridge charts the course of Rome's transformation into the most magnificent showpiece of the Catholic world.

Loren Partridge is Professor Emeritus of Art History and Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books on the arts of Renaissance Rome and Florence.

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28 November

Alberto Moravia - journalist and writer

Italian novelist recognised as major 20th century literary figure

The novelist Alberto Moravia was born Alberto Pincherle on this day in 1907 in Rome.  He adopted Moravia, the maiden name of his paternal grandmother, as a pen name and became a prolific writer of short stories and novels. Much of his work has been made into films.  Before the Second World War, he had difficulties with the Fascist regime, which banned the publication of one of his novels. But his anti-Fascist novel Il conformista later became the basis for the film The Conformist directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.  In 1941 he married the novelist Elsa Morante and they went to live first on Capri, and then in the Ciociaria area of Lazio before returning to Rome after it was liberated in 1944.  Moravia was once quoted as comparing a childhood illness, which confined him to bed for a long period, with Fascism. He said they had both made him suffer. Read more…

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Alessandro Altobelli - World Cup Winner

Scored Italy’s third goal in 1982 Final

Alessandro Altobelli, one of only four players to score in a World Cup final after starting on the substitutes’ bench, was born on this day in 1955 in Sonnino, a small medieval town in mountainous southern Lazio.  At the age of 26, Altobelli was part of Enzo Bearzot’s squad for the 1982 World Cup finals in Spain, in which Italy triumphed for the first time since their two tournament victories under Vittorio Pozzo in the 1930s.  A striker with Internazionale of Milan, Altobelli did not start a single game in the 1982 finals and had played only a few minutes during Italy’s progress to the knock-out stages.  But he was called on after just seven minutes of the Final against West Germany, replacing Francesco Graziani, stricken with a shoulder injury, and his patience waiting for his chance was rewarded when he finished an Italian counter-attack with their third goal in the second half. Read more…

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Laura Antonelli - actress

Pin-up star of 1970s sex comedies

The actress Laura Antonelli, whose career was at its peak while Italian cinema audiences were indulging a taste for sex comedies during the 1970s, was born on this day in 1941 in Pula, a port city now part of Croatia but then known as Pola, capital of the Italian territory of Istria.  A curvaceous brunette who posed for Playboy magazine in the early 1980s, Antonelli was mostly remembered for appearing scantily clad opposite male stars such as Marcello Mastroianni and Michele Placido, yet she was a talented actress, winning a Nastro d’Argento - awarded by Italian film journalists - as best actress in Salvatore Samperi’s 1974 comedy-drama Malizia (Malice).  She also worked on several occasions for Luchino Visconti, one of Italy’s greatest directors. Indeed, she starred in 1976 as the wife of a 19th century Roman aristocrat in Visconti’s last film, L’Innocente (The Innocent). Read more…

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Umberto Veronesi - oncologist

Pioneered new techniques for treating breast cancer

Umberto Veronesi, an oncologist whose work in finding new methods to treat breast cancer spared many women faced with a full mastectomy, was born on this day in 1925 in Milan.  Along with many other contributions to the knowledge of breast cancer and breast cancer prevention over a 50-year career, Veronese was a pioneer of breast-conserving surgery in early breast cancer as an alternative to a radical mastectomy.  He developed the technique of quadrantectomy, which limits surgical resection to the affected quarter of the breast. This more limited resection became standard practice for the treatment of breast cancer detected early after Veronesi led the first prospective randomised trial of breast-conserving surgery, which compared outcomes from radical mastectomy against his quadrantectomy over a 20-year period.  Read more…

Fabio Grosso - World Cup hero

Unspectacular career illuminated by unforgettable goal

Fabio Grosso, the unlikely hero of Italy's victory in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, was born on this day in 1977 in Rome.  Selected for Marcello Lippi's squad for the Finals as cover for first-choice left-back Gianluca Zambrotta, Grosso eventually secured a place in Lippi's team and went on to score one of the most important goals in Italy's World Cup history as they beat the hosts, Germany, to reach the final.  He then secured his place in azzurri folklore by scoring the winning penalty in the final against France as Italy lifted the trophy for the fourth time, equalling Brazil's record.  Yet Grosso arrived at the finals as a player who, if not an unknown, seldom attracted attention and had enjoyed a career that was respectable but certainly not eye-catching.  Five years before 2006,  he was playing in Serie C for Chieti, in the town in Abruzzo where he grew up. Read more…

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Mario Nascimbene - film music composer

First Italian to score for Hollywood

The composer Mario Nascimbene, most famous for creating the music for more than 150 films, was born on this day in 1913 in Milan.  Nascimbene’s legacy in the history of Italian cinema is inevitably overshadowed by the work of Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota, two composers universally acknowledged as giants of Italian film music.  Yet the trailblazer for the great Italian composers of movie soundtracks was arguably Nascimbene, whose engagement to score Joseph L Mankiewicz’s 1954 drama The Barefoot Contessa won him the distinction of becoming the first Italian to write the music for a Hollywood production.  It was such an unexpected commission that Nascimbene confessed in an interview in 1986 that when he was first contacted about the film by Mankiewicz’s secretary he shouted down the phone and hung up, suspecting a hoax perpetrated by a friend. Read more…

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Caterina Scarpellini – astronomer and meteorologist

Female ‘assistant’ remembered for her important discoveries

The astronomer Caterina Scarpellini, who discovered a comet in 1854 and was later awarded a medal by the Italian government for her contribution to the understanding of astronomy and other areas of science, died on this day in 1873 in Rome.  Caterina had moved from her native Foligno in Umbria to Rome at the age of 18 to work as an assistant to her uncle, Abbe Feliciano Scarpellini, who was the director of the Roman Campidoglio Observatory. He had been appointed in 1816 by Pope Pius VI to a new chair of sacred physics in the Roman College of the Campidoglio, marking a turning point in the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to science.  From 1847 onwards, Caterina edited Corrispondenza Scientifica in Rome, a bulletin publishing scientific discoveries. She carried out her observations six times a day and reported on her findings.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Conformist: A Novel, by Alberto Moravia. Translated by Tami Calliope

Secrecy and silence are second nature to Marcello Clerici, the hero of The Conformist, a book which made Alberto Moravia one of the world's most read postwar writers. Clerici is a man with everything under control - a wife who loves him, colleagues who respect him, the hidden power that comes with his secret work for the Italian political police during the Mussolini years. But then he is assigned to kill his former professor, now in exile, to demonstrate his loyalty to the Fascist state, and falls in love with a strange, compelling woman; his life is torn open - and with it the corrupt heart of Fascism. Moravia equates the rise of Italian Fascism with the psychological needs of his protagonist for whom conformity becomes an obsession in a life that has included parental neglect, an oddly self-conscious desire to engage in cruel acts, and a type of male beauty which, to Clerici's great distress, other men find attractive.

Alberto Moravia was the nom de plume of Alberto Pincherle, an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism.

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27 November

Jacopo Sansovino – architect

Death of the designer praised by Palladio

Jacopo d’Antonio Sansovino, the sculptor and architect renowned for his works around Piazza San Marco, died on this day in 1570 in Venice.  He designed the Libreria Sansoviniana - also known as the Biblioteca Marciana - in the Piazzetta, which was later praised by the architect Andrea Palladio as ‘the finest building erected since antiquity’.  Sansovino had been born Jacopo Tatti in 1486 in Florence and was apprenticed to the sculptor Andrea Sansovino, whose surname he subsequently adopted.  He was commissioned to make a marble sculpture of St James for the Duomo and a Bacchus, which is now in the Bargello in Florence.  However, his designs for sculptures to adorn the façade of the Church of San Lorenzo were rejected by Michelangelo, who was in charge of the scheme.  In 1529 Sansovino became chief architect to the Procurators of San Marco. Read more…

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Roberto Mancini - footballer and manager

Skilful player now highly successful coach

Roberto Mancini, a former Italy player who went on to become head coach of the Italian national team, was born on this day in 1964 in Iesi in Marche. Roberto Mancini enjoyed huge success with Internazionale in Italy and Manchester City in England.  Mancini, an elegant and creative forward, was capped 36 times by Italy between 1984 and 1994.  After a highly successful playing career, in which he was part of title-winning teams at Sampdoria and Lazio, he enjoyed immediate success as a manager, winning the Coppa Italia in his first season as Fiorentina boss in 2000. He repeated the feat in his second season at his next club, Lazio.  Mancini then made his mark emphatically at Internazionale, guiding the Milan club to a club record three consecutive Serie A titles, as well as winning the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa. Read more…

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Senesino - operatic castrato

Sienese singer who worked with composer Handel

The acclaimed contralto castrato singer Senesino, who enjoyed a long professional relationship with the composer George Frideric Handel, died on this day in 1758 in Siena.  During the 18th century, when opera’s popularity was at its height, the castrati singers - male singers castrated as boys to preserve their prepubescent vocal range - were the highest paid members of the cast and the likes of Carlo Broschi, who sang under the stage name Farinelli, Giovanni Carestini (“Cusanino”), Gaetano Majorano ("Caffarelli") and Gaspare Pacchierotti were the genre’s first superstars.  Senesino could be added to that list.  When he made his first appearance for Handel in his three-act opera Radamisto in 1720 his salary was reported as between 2000 and 3000 guineas, which today would be worth around £250,000 to £365,000 (€280,000-€400,000).  Read more…

Horace - Roman poet

Writer who ‘seized the day’ and left his vivid account of it

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, better known as Horace, died on this day in 8 BC in Rome.  He had become a leading poet during the reign of the Emperor Augustus and acquired a farm near Rome which he made famous through his poetry.  His Odes and his more informal Satires and verse Epistles vividly portrayed contemporary Roman society, with the background themes of love, friendship and philosophy.  Horace’s career coincided with Rome’s momentous change from a republic to an empire and he became a spokesman for the new regime.  He is said to have revealed far more about himself and his way of life in his writings than any other poet in antiquity. His most famous two words are ‘carpe diem’ – taken from his first book of Odes – which are usually translated as ‘seize the day’.  Horace was born in 65 BC in Venusia in southern Italy. Read more… 

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Gianni Vernetti – politician and writer

Ecologist who now provides support for emerging economies

Former centre-left politician Gianni Vernetti was born on this day in 1960 in Turin, the capital city of the Piedmont region of Italy.  While serving in the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament he promoted initiatives on renewable energies and, after he was elected to the Senate, he served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Romano Prodi’s government between 2006 and 2008.  Vernetti is married to the television journalist Laura De Donato and they have four children.  In 1985, Vernetti graduated in architecture from the University of Turin and in 1989 obtained a PhD in urban ecology at the University of Milan. For 10 years, between 1985 and 1995, he worked as an architect and urban planner.  Vernetti’s father, a philosophy professor and ex-partisan and his mother, an architect, were both former members of the Italian Communist Party.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Architectural History of Venice, by Deborah Howard

Deborah Howard’s The Architectural History of Venice has been described as the indispensable guide to the history of architecture in Venice, encompassing the city's fascinating variety of buildings from ancient times to the present day. Completely updated and filled with splendid new illustrations, this edition invites all visitors to Venice, armchair travelers, and students of Renaissance art and architecture to a fuller appreciation of the buildings of this uniquely beautiful city. The Times Literary Supplement called it: "The best concise introduction to Venetian architecture in English" while the Society of Architectural Historians said it is: "Compact and manageable . . . an excellent introduction to the novice preparing for a first Venetian experience."

Deborah Howard is a British art historian and academic. Her principal research interests are the art and architecture of Venice and the Veneto; the relationship between Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean; and music and architecture in the Renaissance. She is Professor Emerita of Architectural History in the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, University of Cambridge. 

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