1 December

Lorenzo Ghiberti – sculptor

Goldsmith renowned for 'Gates of Paradise'

Sculptor, goldsmith and architect Lorenzo Ghiberti died on this day in 1455 in Florence.  Part of his legacy were the magnificent doors he created for the Baptistery of the Florence Duomo that have become known as the Gates of Paradise.  Ghiberti had become a man of learning, living up to the image of the early 15th century artist as a student of antiquity, who was investigative, ambitious and highly creative.  His Commentaries - I Commentarii - which he started to write in 1447, include judgements on the great contemporary and 14th century masters as well as his scientific theories on optics and anatomy.  Ghiberti was born in 1378 in Pelago near Florence and was trained as a goldsmith by Bartolo di Michele, whom his mother had married in 1406.  Ghiberti took his name from his mother’s first husband, Cione Ghiberti, although he later claimed that Di Michele was his real father.  Read more…

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Alberto Cova - Olympic champion

Los Angeles gold completed 10k hat-trick

Alberto Cova, the athlete who won the 10,000 metres gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, was born on this day in 1958 in Inverigo, a small town not far from Lake Como and a little under 40km (25 miles) north of Milan.  Cova's triumph at the 1984 Los Angeles Games completed a golden hat-trick of 10,000m titles, following on from his gold medals over the distance at the 1982 European Championships in Athens and the 1983 World Championships in Helsinki.  He was not able to maintain that form, however.  He was run out of the gold on the final lap of the 10,000m by fellow Italian Stefano Mai at the European Championships in Stuttgart in 1986 and failed to qualify for the final at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, which proved to be his last international competition.  Cova's chief asset was his devastating sprint finish, which could be nullified in a race run at a strong pace throughout but often was not.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Sarti – composer

Musician and teacher whose work inspired Mozart 

Giuseppe Sarti, who composed more than 50 operas and a large quantity of liturgical music, was baptised on this day in 1729 in Faenza, in what used to be the Papal States, but is now part of the region of Emilia-Romagna.  Sometimes referred to as Il Domenichino, Sarti was playing the organ in Faenza by the time he was 13, but he then went to Bologna to study the organ and composition. He returned to Faenza to become organist at the cathedral and the director of the theatre there and began writing operas.  He was successful with his first opera, Pompeo in Armenia, which is believed to have been first performed in 1752. It was seen as establishing his musical capabilities while he was still in his early 20s.  After his second opera, Il re pastore, was well received in Venice in 1753, Sarti spent the next 20 years in Copenhagen.  Read more… 

Eugenio Monti - bobsleigh champion

Olympic winner who was honoured for sportsmanship

The double Olympic bobsleigh champion Eugenio Monti, who became the first athlete to be awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for sportsmanship, died on this day in 2003 in Belluno.  Monti was recognised with the award after the 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck, during which he twice made gestures of selfless generosity towards opponents, both of which arguably cost him the chance of a gold medal.  The preeminent bobsleigh driver in the world going into the 1964 Games and an eight-time world champion in two and four-man events, Monti was desperate to add Olympic golds to his medal collection.  He had won silver in both his specialisations when Italy hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956 and was denied the opportunity to improve on that four years later when the 1960 Games at Squaw Valley in California went ahead with no bobsleigh events. Read more…

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Salvatore 'Toto' Schillaci - footballer

Golden boy of Italia ‘90 went on to coach future players

The star of Italy’s 1990 World Cup campaign, Salvatore 'Toto' Schillaci was born on this day in Palermo in Sicily in 1964.  Schillaci was born into a struggling, working class household. He began his football career with Messina in Sicily, playing in Serie B, but his goals earned him a move to Serie A giants Juventus in 1989.  He hit  21 goals in his first season for Juventus, earning a call-up to the national team. He made his debut in a friendly in March, just three months before the World Cup finals began.  Despite his status as a novice in terms of international football, coach Azeglio Vicini named him for the Italy squad seeking to win the World Cup as hosts.  Schillaci was the sensation of the tournament, coming off the bench to score the only goal in Italy's opening match against Austria.  He made his first start against Czechoslovakia in the third of their group games and scored again. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece, by Gary M Radke

In 1452, Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti unveiled a masterpiece that had been a quarter-century in the making: ten bronze panels depicting intricate scenes from the Old Testament. The monumental gilded bronze doors (each more than 15 feet tall) were designed for the Baptistery in the Piazza del Duomo in Florence. Michelangelo proclaimed them suitable to serve as the “Gates of Paradise” and centuries of admirers have considered the doors one of the great masterworks of Western art. This extensively illustrated book displays the full glory and elaborate details of many of the newly restored bronze panels, and the extraordinary work of the conservators and restorers who cleaned them. In a series of fascinating chapters, expert contributors capture Ghiberti’s world, his remarkable talent at representing human emotion in rich illusionistic settings, the relationships between Renaissance patrons and artists, and the collaborations and rivalries among artists. The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece also explores the challenging craft of bronze sculpture, Ghiberti’s casting and finishing techniques, and the painstaking process involved in documenting and restoring the treasured doors.  

Gary M Radke is Dean’s Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University in New York. He is editor of a book on Verrocchio’s David and co-author of Art, Power, and Patronage in Renaissance  Florence, among many other publications on Italian Renaissance art.

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30 November

NEW - Andrea Sacchi – artist

Painter preferred the classical style with an uncrowded canvas

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, also a painter, realised Andrea was very talented, and according to Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Sacchi’s friend and biographer, ‘wisely found him a master who could provide him with better education.’ Read more…

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Andrea Doria – admiral

Military commander with outstanding tactical talent

Andrea Doria, the most important naval leader of his time, was born on this day in 1466 in Oneglia in Liguria.  Because of his successes on both land and sea he was able to free Genoa from domination by foreign powers and reorganise its government to be more stable and effective.  Doria was part of an ancient aristocratic family but he was orphaned while still young and grew up to become a condottiero, or soldier of fortune.  He served Pope Innocent VIII, King Ferdinand I and his son Alfonso II of Naples, and other Italian princes.  Between 1503 and 1506 he helped his uncle, Domenico, crush the Corsican revolt against the rule of Genoa.  Attracted to the sea, Doria fitted out eight galleys and patrolled the Mediterranean, fighting the Ottoman Turks and Barbary pirates, adding to his wealth and reputation along the way.  Read more… 

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Veronica Gambara – writer and stateswoman

Politically astute poet wrote an ode to Emperor Charles V

Veronica Gambara, a lyric poet who was also ruler of the state of Correggio for 32 years, was born on this day in 1485 in Pralboino in the province of Brescia.  Under her rule, the court of Correggio became an important literary salon visited by many writers and artists.  Gambara signed a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, which guaranteed Correggio would not be besieged and in her political poems she expressed Italy as an entity centuries before unification.  Gambara came from an accomplished family, one of the seven children of Count Gianfrancesco da Gambara and Alda Pio da Carpi.  The humanist poets Ginevre and Isotta Noarola were her great aunts and Emilia Pia, the principal female interlocutor of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il cortegiano, was her aunt.  Gambara studied Latin, Greek, philosophy and theology.  Read more…

Beniamino Gigli - opera singer

Tenor’s beautiful voice can still be appreciated today

One of the greatest tenors of the 20th century, Beniamino Gigli, died on this day in Rome in 1957.  Gigli is remembered for the beauty of his voice, which was powerful as well as mellow and smooth. He made many recordings, which have since been converted to CD and can still be enjoyed by opera lovers today. He also made some film appearances.  Gigli was born in Recanati near Ancona in the Marche in 1890. He sang in the choir at Recanati Cathedral as a boy and then went on to study music in Rome.  He won his first singing competition in Parma in 1914 and made his operatic debut in Rovigo in the same year, playing the role of Enzo in Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera, La Gioconda.  Gigli made his debut on the stage of La Scala in Milan in 1918 singing Faust in Boito’s Mefistofele. The orchestra was conducted by Arturo Toscanini.  Read more…

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Ippolito Nievo - writer and patriot

Risorgimento novel now seen as an overlooked classic

The writer Ippolito Nievo, whose posthumously published Confessions of an Italian is now considered the most important novel about the Risorgimento in Italian literature, was born on this day in 1831 in Padua.  Nievo, who was a passionate supporter of the move to unify Italy in the 19th century, drew inspiration from his participation in Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Spedizione dei Mille - the Expedition of the Thousand - which sought to achieve that goal.  He died for the cause at the age of just 29, perishing in a shipwreck while transporting important documents from Palermo to Naples.  His legacy was preserved in his most famous novel, in which the central character and narrator shares Nievo’s passions. Nievo completed the work in 1858 but it was not until 1867, six years after his death, that it found a publisher.  Nievo was born into comfortable circumstances.  Read more…

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Simonetta Stefanelli – actress

Godfather star went on to design bags and shoes

Simonetta Stefanelli, the actress and fashion designer, was born on this day in 1954 in Rome.  Stefanelli is perhaps best-known for her performance as Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone in the 1972 film The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.  She also made several films with her former husband, the actor and director Michele Placido.  The couple had three children together, Michelangelo, Brenno and Violante Placido, who is also an actress.  They divorced in 1994 and Stefanelli and her three children went to live in London for a short time.  Before appearing in The Godfather, Stefanelli had small roles in films guided by some of the top Italian directors, such as Gian Luigi Polidoro, Giulio Petroni, Marco Vicario and Dino Risi.  In 1972 she appeared in a German film for television. Then came her role in The Godfather.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600–1750; Volume 2: The High Baroque, 1625–1675, by Rudolf Wittkower

Part of the Yale University Press Pelican History of Art Series, this classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every center between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however, lies in the architecture and sculpture of the exhilarating years of Roman High Baroque, when Bernini, Borromini, and Cortona were all at work under a series of enlightened popes. The second book of a three-volume survey, Wittkower’s The High Baroque is accompanied by a critical introduction, a substantial new bibliography and includes colour illustrations for the first time.

Rudolf Wittkower was a British art historian specialising in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the United States.

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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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