Mauro Giuliani – virtuoso guitarist

Maestro who perfected his technique so that his instrument seemed to sing

Mauri Giuliani was a 19th century
pioneer of guitar music

Leading 19th century guitarist and composer Mauro Giuliani was born on this day in 1781 in Bisceglie, a small town on the Adriatic coast near Bari in Puglia.

Growing up to become an accomplished cellist, singer and composer, Giuliani toured Europe playing in concerts and he became a musical celebrity while he was living in Vienna. He was  invited to play in chamber concerts in the botanical gardens of Schönbrunn Palace - the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers - with other top musicians.

Giuliani moved to live in Barletta, also on the Adriatic coast when he was very young, where he learnt to play the cello, an instrument he never completely abandoned. But he began to devote himself to learning the six-string guitar, becoming a skilled performer on it very quickly.

Although he married Maria Guiseppe del Monaco and they had a son while he was living in Barletta, Giuliani moved abroad and settled in Vienna without his family, where he learnt the classical instrumental style and began to publish his own compositions. He went on to play in concerts all over Europe, defining a new role for the guitar in music.

He got to know Rossini and Beethoven and in 1814 he was appointed guitar virtuoso di camera to Empress Marie Louise, Napoleon’s second wife. In 1815, Giuliani appeared alongside a famous violinist and cellist in a series of concerts in the botanical gardens of Schönbrunn Palace, which were named the Dukaten Concerte, reflecting the price of the tickets, which was one ducat. He was also the official concert artist for the celebrations of the congress of Vienna in the same year.

The Schönbrunn Palace, summer residence of the
Habsburgs in Vienna, where Giuliani performed

Giuliani played the cello in the orchestra that gave the first performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. He had many of his compositions published in Vienna, which all showed a marked Italian influence, in particular, that of the music of Rossini. Giuliani also developed a teaching career while he was in the city. 

During his time in Vienna, he had a relationship with Anna Wiesenberger, with whom he had four daughters. After he left Vienna in 1819, he went on a concert tour of Bohemia and Bavaria before returning to Italy. He spent time in Venice and Trieste but finally settled in Rome.

In 1822, he brought one of his daughters, Emilia, over from Vienna to live with him, and she was educated in a nunnery in Rome. 

Giuliani travelled to Naples regularly to be with his father, who by then was seriously ill. In Naples there was a good reception for his artistry on the guitar and he was able to publish some of his compositions with Neapolitan publishers.

Giuliani's solo pieces are
still widely performed today

In 1826, he performed in Portici in Naples before Francesco I and the Bourbon court. He frequently appeared on stage playing duets with his daughter, Emilia, who had also become a skilled performer on the guitar.  

Guliani died in Naples in 1829. According to contemporary accounts, people who had heard Giuliani play the guitar were said to have found his expression and tone astonishing, and felt that he made the instrument seem to sing. Some said the sound he produced called to mind the lute players that had gone before.

Giuliani produced 150 compositions for the guitar and he also composed music for the guitar with an orchestra, and for guitar duets with a violin, or flute.

His concertos and solo pieces are still widely performed by professional guitarists today. Although, he did not publish a Method, the studies and exercises he left behind are still used in the training for a guitarist.

The bust of Giuliani
in central Bisceglie

Travel tip: 

Bisceglie, where Giuliani was born, is in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani in Puglia, in southern Italy. The city looks out over the Adriatic and lies between Trani and Molfetta. A centre for agriculture and textiles, it dates back to prehistoric times and there are Bronze Age remains to be seen.  Its name is thought likely to be a derivation from the Latin word vigilae, meaning watchtowers. It was awarded Blue Flag beach certification in 2001 for high environmental and quality standards. An historic old city and a pleasant harbour area have made it a destination for tourists. There is a bronze bust of Mauro Giuliani, in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. There is also a small museum celebrating his life and achievements in Via Cardinale Dell'Olio.

The Colossus
of Barletta

Travel tip:

Barletta, where Giuliani grew up and learnt to play the cello, is a city with around 95,000 inhabitants on the Adriatic coast to the north of Trani. The area includes part of the battlefield of Cannae, an important archaeological site famous for the battle in 216 BC between the Romans and the Carthaginians, won by Hannibal. Barletta is home to the Colossus of Barletta, a bronze statue representing a Roman Emperor - thought to be Theodosius II - which stands at about 4m (13 feet) tall and is the largest surviving statue from the late Roman Empire.  According to folklore, the statue - known as Eraclio - once saved the city from a Saracen attack by convincing the Saracens that Barletta’s inhabitants were giants.  Barletta was recognised as Città d’Arte of Puglia in 2005 because of its beautiful architecture. 

Also on this day:

1835: The birth of Nobel Prize-winning poet Giosuè Carducci

1915: The birth of tenor Mario Del Monaco

1922: The birth of actor and director Adolfo Celi

1939: The birth of singer Peppino di Capri

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26 July

Constantino Brumidi - painter

Rome-born artist responsible for murals in US Capitol Building

Constantino Brumidi, an artist whose work provides the backcloth to the daily business of government in the United States Capitol Building in Washington, was born on this day in 1805 in Rome.  Brumidi’s major work is the allegorical fresco The Apotheosis of Washington, painted in 1865, which covers the interior of the dome in the Rotunda.  Encircling the base of the dome, below the windows, is the Frieze of American History, in which Brumidi painted scenes depicting significant events of American history, although the second half of the work, which he began in 1878, had to be completed by another painter, Filippo Costaggini, as Brumidi died in 1880.  Previously, between 1855 and about 1870, Brumidi had decorated the walls of eight important rooms in the Capitol Building, including the Hall of the House of Representatives, the Senate Library and the President’s Room.  His Liberty and Union paintings are mounted near the ceiling of the White House entrance hall and the first-floor corridors of the Senate part of the Capitol Building are known as the Brumidi Corridors.  Brumidi arrived in the United States in 1852, having spent 13 months in jail in Rome.  Read more… 

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Pope Paul II

Flamboyant pope who helped make books available to ordinary people

Pietro Barbo, who became Pope Paul II, died on this day in 1471 in Rome at the age of 54.  He is remembered for enjoying dressing up in sumptuous, ecclesiastical finery and having a papal tiara made for himself, which was studded with diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, topaz, large pearls and many other precious gems.  Barbo was born in Venice and was a nephew of Pope Eugenius IV through his mother and a member of the noble Barbo family through his father.  He adopted a spiritual career after his uncle was elected as pope and made rapid progress. He became a cardinal in 1440 and promised that if he was elected pope one day he would buy each cardinal a villa to escape the summer heat. He then became archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica.  It was reported that Pope Pius II suggested he should have been called Maria Pietissima (Our Lady of Pity) as he would use tears to help him obtain things he wanted. Some historians have suggested the nickname may have been an allusion to his enjoyment of dressing up or, possibly, to his lack of masculinity.  Barbo was elected to succeed Pope Pius II in the first ballot of the papal conclave of 1464.  Read more…

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Francesco Cossiga - Italy's 8th President

Political career overshadowed by Moro murder

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga was born on this day in 1928 in the Sardinian city of Sassari.  Cossiga, a Christian Democrat who had briefly served as Prime Minister under his predecessor, Sandro Pertini, held the office for seven years from 1985 to 1992. He was the eighth President of the Republic.  His presidency was unexceptional until the last two years, when he gained a reputation for controversial comments about the Italian political system and former colleagues.  It was during this time that another heavyweight of the Italian political scene, Giulio Andreotti, revealed the existence during the Cold War years of Gladio, a clandestine network sponsored by the American secret services and NATO that was set up amid fears that Italy would fall into the hands of Communists, either through military invasion from the East or, within Italy, via the ballot box.  Cossiga, said to have been obsessed with espionage, admitted to having been involved with the creation of Gladio in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War.  This led to renewed speculation surrounding the kidnap and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: The Lost History of the Capitol: The Hidden and Tumultuous Saga of Congress and the Capitol Building, by Edward P Moser

The Lost History of the Capitol is an account of the many bizarre, tragic, and violent episodes that have occurred in and around the Capitol Building, from the founding of the federal capital city in 1790 up to contemporary times, including the events of January 6, 2021. In this 230-year span, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the neighbourhoods nearby have witnessed dozens of high-profile scandals, trials, riots, bombings, and personal assaults, along with some inspiring events as well. This is a popular work about the US Capitol Building and its environs.  Among the many incidents the book chronicles are a duel-to-the-death between congressmen, the terror bombings of the Senate, the first assassination attempt on a US president, moving tributes to war heroes and heroines, vicious brawls between senators and congressmen, protest marches both uplifting and illicit, public hangings near the Capitol steps, a gun battle in the House, bloody ethnic broils quelled by a famous father and son, and the citywide and Capitol Building riots of 2020–21.

Edward P Moser is an historian, tour guide and author. A former speechwriter for President George H W Bush, and a former Editor of Time-Life Books, he is the author, co-author, or editor of books on such subjects as history, politics, humour and science.

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25 July

Agostino Steffani – composer

Baroque musician and cleric who features in modern literature

A priest and diplomat as well as a singer and composer, Agostino Steffani was born on this day in 1654 in Castelfranco Veneto near Venice.  Details of his life and works have recently been brought to the attention of readers of contemporary crime novels because they were used by the American novelist, Donna Leon, as background for her 2012 mystery The Jewels of Paradise.  Steffani was admitted as a chorister at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice while he was still young and in 1667 the beauty of his voice attracted the attention of Count Georg Ignaz von Tattenbach, who took him to Munich.  Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria, paid for Steffani’s education and granted him a salary, in return for his singing.  In 1673 Steffani was sent to study in Rome, where he composed six motets. The original manuscripts for these are now in a museum in Cambridge.  On his return to Munich Steffani was appointed court organist. He was also ordained a priest and given the title of Abbate of Lepsing. His first opera, Marco Aurelia, was written for the carnival and produced at Munich in 1681. The only manuscript score of it known to exist is in the Royal Library at Buckingham Palace.  Read more…

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Battle of Molinella

First time artillery played a major part in warfare

An important battle in Italy’s history was fought on this day in 1467 at Molinella, near Bologna.  On one side were infantry and cavalry representing Venice and on the other side there was an army serving Florence.  It was the first battle in Italy in which artillery and firearms were used extensively, the main weapons being cannons fired by gunpowder that could launch heavy stone or metal balls.  The barrels were 10 to 12 feet in length and had to be cleaned following each discharge, a process that took up to two hours.  Leading the 14,000 soldiers fighting for Venice was the Bergamo condottiero Bartolomeo Colleoni. He was working jointly with Ercole I d’Este from Ferrara and noblemen from Pesaro and Forlì. Another condottiero, Federico da Montefeltro, led the army of 13,000 soldiers serving Florence in an alliance with Galeazzo Maria Sforza, ruler of the Duchy of Milan, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Giovanni II Bentivoglio, the ruler of Bologna.  Condottieri were professional military leaders hired by the Italian city-states to lead armies on their behalf.  The fighting took place between the villages of Riccardina and Molinella and so the event is also sometimes referred to as the Battle of Riccardina.  Read more…

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Alfredo Casella – composer

Musician credited with reviving popularity of Vivaldi

Pianist and conductor Alfredo Casella, a prolific composer of early 20th century neoclassical music, was born on this day in 1883 in Turin.  Casella is credited as being the person responsible for the resurrection of Antonio Vivaldi’s work, following a 'Vivaldi Week' that he organised in 1939.  Casella was born into a musical family. His grandfather had been first cello in the San Carlo Theatre in Lisbon and he later became a soloist at the Royal Chapel in Turin.  His father, Carlo, and his brothers, Cesare and Gioacchino, were professional cellists. His mother, Maria, was a pianist and she gave the young Alfredo his first piano lessons. Their home was in Via Cavour, where it is marked with a plaque.  Casella entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1896 to study piano under Louis Diemer and to study composition under Gabriel Fauré.  Ravel was one of his fellow students and Casella also got to know Debussy, Stravinsky, Mahler and Strauss while he was in Paris.  He admired Debussy, but he was also influenced by Strauss and Mahler when he wrote his first symphony in 1905.  Read more…

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Carlo Bergonzi – operatic tenor

Singer whose style was called the epitome of Italian vocal art

Carlo Bergonzi, one of the great Italian opera singers of the 20th century, died on this day in 2014 in Milan.  He specialised in singing roles from the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, helping to revive some of the composer’s lesser-known works.  Between the 1950s and 1980s he sang more than 300 times with the Metropolitan Opera of New York and the New York Times, in its obituary, described his voice as ‘an instrument of velvety beauty and nearly unrivalled subtlety’.  Bergonzi was born in Polesine Parmense near Parma in Emilia-Romagna in 1924. He claimed to have seen his first opera, Verdi’s Il trovatore, at the age of six.  He sang in his local church and soon began to appear in children’s roles in operas in Busseto, a town near where he lived.  He left school at the age of 11 and started to work in the same cheese factory as his father in Parma.  At the age of 16 he began vocal studies as a baritone at the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Parma.  During World War II, Bergonzi became involved in anti-Fascist activities and was sent to a German prisoner of war camp. After two years he was freed by the Russians and walked 106km (66 miles) to reach an American camp.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Jewels of Paradise, by Donna Leon

Donna Leon has won heaps of critical praise and legions of fans for her best-selling mystery series featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. With The Jewels of Paradise, Leon takes readers beyond the world of the Venetian Questura for the first time.  Caterina Pellegrini is a native Venetian, and like so many of them, she’s had to leave home to pursue her career. With a doctorate in Baroque opera from Vienna, she lands in Manchester, England. Manchester, however, is no Venice. When Caterina gets word of a position back home, she jumps at the opportunity.  The job is an unusual one. After nearly three centuries, two locked trunks, believed to contain the papers of a Baroque composer have been discovered. Deeply-connected in religious and political circles, the composer died childless; now two Venetians, descendants of his cousins, each claim inheritance. Caterina’s job is to examine any enclosed papers to discover the “testamentary disposition” of the composer. But when her research takes her in unexpected directions she begins to wonder just what secrets these trunks may hold. From a masterful writer, The Jewels of Paradise is a superb novel, a gripping tale of intrigue, music, history and greed.

Donna Leon is the author of 32 novels featuring Guido Brunetti, the latest of which, A Refiner’s Fire, was published only a week ago. The ninth in the series, Friends in High Places, won the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 2000. Born in New Jersey, she lived in Venice for 30 years but since 2015 has been resident mainly in Switzerland, where she was granted citizenship in 2020.

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24 July

Giuseppe Di Stefano – tenor

Singer from Sicily who made sweet music with Callas

The opera singer Giuseppe Di Stefano, whose beautiful voice led people to refer to him as ‘the true successor to Beniamino Gigli’, was born on this day in 1921 in Motta Sant’Anastasia, a town near Catania in Sicily.  Di Stefano also became known for his many performances and recordings with the soprano, Maria Callas, with whom he had a brief romance.  The only son of a Carabinieri officer, who later became a cobbler, and his dressmaker wife, Di Stefano was educated at a Jesuit seminary and for a short while contemplated becoming a priest.  But after serving in the Italian army he took singing lessons from the Swiss tenor, Hugues Cuenod. Di Stefano made his operatic debut in Reggio Emilia in 1946 when he was in his mid-20s, singing the role of Des Grieux in Massenet’s Manon. The following year he made his debut at La Scala in Milan in the same role.  Di Stefano made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1948 as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto. After his performance in Manon a month later, a journalist wrote in Musical America that Di Stefano had ‘the rich velvety sound we have seldom heard since the days of Gigli.’  Read more…

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Eugene de Blaas - painter

Austro-Italian famous for Venetian beauties

Eugene de Blaas, a painter whose animated depictions of day-to-day life among ordinary Venetians - especially young Venetian women - were his most popular works, was born on this day in 1843 in Albano Laziale, just outside Rome.  Sometimes known as Eugenio Blaas, or Eugene von Blaas, he was of Austrian parentage. His father, Karl, also a painter, was a teacher at the Accademia di Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts) in Rome. His brother, Julius, likewise born in Albano, was also a painter.  In 1856, the family moved to Venice after his father was offered a similar position at the Venetian Academy. At that time, Venice attracted artists from all over Europe and the young De Blaas grew up in a social circle that was largely populated by painters and poets.  Like his father, he became interested in the school known as Academic Classicism, a style which seeks to adhere to the principles of Romanticism and Neoclassicism.  He exhibited at the Venice Academy when he was only 17 years old.  Religious painting was still in demand and one of his earliest important commissions, in 1863, was an altarpiece for the parish church of San Valentino di Merano.  Read more…

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Ermanno Olmi - film director

Won most prestigious awards at Cannes and Venice festivals

The film director Ermanno Olmi, who won both the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Venice Film Festival’s equivalent Golden Lion with two of his most memorable films, was born on this day in 1931 in the Lombardy city of Bergamo.  His 1978 film L'albero degli zoccoli - The Tree of Wooden Clogs - a story about Lombard peasant life in the 19th century that had echoes of postwar neorealism in the way it was shot, won the Palme d’Or - one of the most prestigious of film awards - at the Cannes Film Festival of the same year.  A decade later, Olmi won the Golden Lion, the top award at the Venice Film Festival, with La leggenda del santo bevitore - The Legend of the Holy Drinker - a story adapted from a novella by the Austrian author Joseph Roth about a homeless drunk in Paris, who is handed a 200-francs lifeline by a complete stranger and vows to find a way to pay it back as a donation to a local church.  He also won three David di Donatello awards  - the Italian equivalent of the Oscars - as Best Director, for Il posto - The Job - his first full length feature film, in 1962, for The Legend of the Holy Drinker, and for Il mestiere delle armi - The Profession of Arms - in 2002. Read more…

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Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia

The first king to be called Victor Emmanuel

The King of Sardinia between 1802 and 1821, Victor Emmanuel I was born on this day in 1759 in the Royal Palace in Turin.  He was the second son of King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and was known from birth as the Duke of Aosta.  When the King died in 1796, Victor Emmanuel’s older brother succeeded as King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia.  Within two years the royal family was forced to leave Turin because their territory in the north was occupied by French troops.  After his wife died, Charles Emmanuel abdicated the throne in favour of his brother, Victor Emmanuel, because he had no heir.  The Duke of Aosta became Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia in June 1802 and ruled from Cagliari for the next 12 years until he was able to return to Turin.  During his reign he formed the Carabinieri, which is still one of the primary forces of law and order in Italy.  On the death of his older brother in 1819, he became the heir general of the Jacobite succession as Victor Emmanuel I of England, Scotland and Ireland, but he never made any public claims to the British throne.  He abdicated in favour of his brother, Charles Felix, in 1821 and died three years later at the Castle of Moncalieri in Turin.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography, by Sophia Lambton

Coating opera's roles in opulence, Maria Callas is a lyrical enigma. Seductress, villainess, and victor, queen and crouching slave, she is a gallery of guises instrumentalists would kill to engineer… made by a single voice.  But while her craftsmanship has stood the test of time, Callas’ image has contested defamation at the hands of dirt-diggers and opportunists: saboteurs of beauty.  Twelve years in the making, The Callas Imprint is a voluminous labour of love that explores the singer with the reverence she dealt her heroines. The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography reaps never-before-seen correspondence and archival documents worldwide to illustrate the complex of their multifaceted creator - closing in on her self-contradictions, self-descriptions, attitudes and habits with empathic scrutiny. It swivels readers through the singer's on- and offstage scenes and flux of fears and dreams... the double life of all performers.  In unveiling of the everyday it rolls a vivid film reel starring friends and foes and nobodies: vignettes that make up life.  

Sophia Lambton became a professional classical music critic at the age of 17 when she began writing for Musical Opinion, Britain's oldest music magazine. Since then she has contributed to The Guardian, Bachtrack, musicOMH, BroadwayWorld, BBC Music Magazine and OperaWire. She conducted research around the world for The Callas Imprint: A Centennial Biography, which was published to coincide with what would have been the soprano's 100th birthday in December 2023.

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