3 December

Matilde Malenchini – painter

The tempestuous life of a talented Tuscan artist

The painter Matilde Malenchini was born on this day in 1779 in Livorno in Tuscany. She was well-known for her paintings of church interiors but turned to portrait painting later in life to make money to help her survive after her long relationship with Belgian writer Louis de Potter ended. Matilde was born into the Meoni family and married the painter and musician Vincenzo Francesco Malenchini at the age of 16. Although they soon separated, she kept his name for the rest of her life.  In 1807 she went to study at the Accademia di Belle Arte in Florence under the guidance of Pietro Benvenuti. To earn money and practise her art, she copied the works of old Italian and Dutch masters in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  After being given a four-year annual stipend by Elisa Bonaparte, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, in 1811, Matilde went to Rome to study at the Pontificia Accademia romana delle belle arti di San Luca.  Read more…

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Nino Martoglio - writer and film director

Journalist and playwright whose films inspired post-war neorealism 

The journalist, playwright and theatre and film director Nino Martoglio was born in Belpasso, a town in the foothills of volcanic Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, on this day in 1870.  Martoglio is widely considered to be Sicily’s finest dialect playwright and by some to be the founder of Sicilian theatre.  He was also an acclaimed poet, basing a good deal of his verse on the everyday conversations of working class Sicilians, written to amuse. His collection, Centona, is still sold today.  Later in a career that was ended abruptly by his death in an accident, Martoglio directed a number of silent films, the style of some of which prompted critics to describe them as forerunners of the post-war neorealism movement.  The son of a journalist and a school teacher, Martoglio studied sailing as a young man and obtained a captain’s licence.  Read more…

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Carlo Oriani - cyclist and soldier

Giro winner died in World War One

The champion cyclist Carlo Oriani, winner of the 1913 Giro d’Italia, died on this day in 1917 in the aftermath of the Battle of Caporetto in the First World War.  The battle was a disastrous one for the Italian forces under the command of General Luigi Cadorna, with 13,000 soldiers killed, 30,000 wounded and 250,000 captured by the victorious army of Austria-Hungary. Countless other Italian troops fled as it became clear that defeat was inevitable.  Oriani, who had previously served his country in the Italo-Turkish War in 1912, was a member of the Bersaglieri, the highly mobile elite force used by the Italian army as a rapid response unit. He had joined in part because of his skill on a bicycle, which had replaced horses as one of the means by which the Bersaglieri were able to be mobile.  The Battle of Caporetto took place from October 24 to November 19, near the town of Kobarid on the Austro-Italian front. Read more…

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Nino Rota – composer

Musician and teacher composed soundtrack for The Godfather 

Giovanni ‘Nino’ Rota, composer, conductor and pianist, was born on this day in 1911 in Milan.  Part of a musical family, he started composing with an oratorio based on a religious subject at the age of 11, but he was to go on to produce some of the best-known and iconic music for the cinema of the 20th century.  Rota studied at the Milan Conservatory and then in Rome before he was encouraged by the conductor, Arturo Toscanini, to move to America, where he studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.  When he returned to Milan he took a degree in Literature and then began a teaching career. He became a director of the Liceo Musicale in Bari in 1950 and kept this post until his death. Orchestra conductor Riccardo Muti was one of his students.  Rota wrote film scores from the 1940s onwards for all the noted directors of the time, including Franco Zeffirelli and Luchino Visconti. Read more…

Nicolò Amati - violin maker

Grandson of Andrea Amati produced some of world's finest instruments

Nicolò Amati, who is acknowledged as the greatest in the line of Amati violin makers in the 16th and 17th centuries, was born on this day in 1596 in Cremona.  The grandson of Andrea Amati, who is credited by most experts with being the inventor of the violin in its four-stringed form, Nicolò followed his father, Girolamo, and uncle, Antonio, into the family business.  Girolamo and Antonio went their separate ways in around 1590, Antonio setting up a different workshop, which was thought to specialize in lutes.  Initially, Nicolò made instruments that were very similar to those created by Girolamo but later began to add refinements of his own, the most significant of which came between 1630 and 1640 when he created the Grand Amati design.  This model, slightly wider and longer than the violins his father had produced, yielded greater power of tone. Read more…

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Angela Luce – actress

Film star and singer was born in Spaccanapoli

Neapolitan actress and singer Angela Luce was born Angela Savino on this day in 1937 in Naples.  She has worked for the theatre, cinema and television, is well-known for singing Neapolitan songs, and has written poetry and song lyrics.  At 14 years old, Angela took her first steps towards stardom when she took part in the annual music festival held at Piedigrotta in the Chiaia district of Naples, singing the Neapolitan song, Zi Carmeli.  Her cinema career began in 1956, when she was only 19, when she appeared in Ricordati di Napoli, directed by Pino Mercanti. Since then she has appeared in more than 80 films and has worked for directors including Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mario Amendola, Luigi Zampa and Pupi Avati.  Angela won a David Donatello award for L’amore molesto directed by Mario Martone. Read more…

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Mario Borghezio – controversial politician

Lega Nord MEP renowned for extremist views

Mario Borghezio, one of Italy’s most controversial political figures whose extreme right-wing views have repeatedly landed him in trouble, was born on this day in 1947 in Turin.  Borghezio was a member of Lega Nord, the party led by Umberto Bossi that was set up originally to campaign for Italy to be broken up so that the wealthy north of the country would sever its political and economic ties with the poorer south.  He has been a Member of the European Parliament since 1999 and has served on several committees, including Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Petitions.  He was even undersecretary to the Ministry of Justice from 1994-95.  Yet he had regularly espoused extremist and racist views, to the extent that even the right-wing British party UKIP, with whom he developed strong links, moved to distance themselves from him. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Ottocento: Romanticism and Revolution in 19th Century Italian Painting, by Roberta J M Olson

The Ottocento (literally "eight hundred"), or the 19th century, witnessed the creation of a united Italy. This century, which was the age of nationalism throughout Europe, gave birth to modern Italy as a definable political entity after a long period of regional fragmentation and foreign domination. The political struggle for unification was known as the Risorgimento, meaning to rise up again (evoking similar powerful alliterative like renaissance and resurrection). The term was chosen because Italians hoped that their land might overcome internal political divisions and regionalism to regain the prominent place in Western Civilization it had enjoyed during the Roman and Renaissance times. The Ottocento was an epoch of major upheavals and drastic changes, or revolutions, in the fabric of Italian thought and society, not least in the area of the arts, especially painting. Ottocento:  Romanticism and Revolution in 19th Century Italian Painting, originally published to accompany an exhibition of the same name, is a landmark study covering Italian painting from 1797 to 1900, which places Italian art within the broader European context and highlights lesser‑known Italian masters.

Roberta Olson is an American historian of art. She is the author of many books on art history and is known for her work on Italian art. She taught at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts for 25 years; after retiring as professor emerita, she became curator of drawings at the New-York Historical Society.

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2 December

Roberto Capucci - fashion designer

'Sculptor in cloth' who rejected ready-to-wear

The fashion designer Roberto Capucci, whose clothes were famous for their strikingly voluminous, geometric shapes and use of unusual materials, was born on this day in 1930 in Rome.  Precociously talented, Capucci opened his first studio in Rome at the age of 19 and by his mid-20s was regarded as the best designer in Italy, particularly admired by Christian Dior, the rising star of French haute-couture.  It was during this period, towards the end of the 1950s, that Capucci revolutionised fashion by inventing the Linea a Scatola – the box-line or box look – in which he created angular shapes for dresses and introduced the concept of volume and architectural elements of design into clothing, so that his dresses, which often featured enormous quantities of material, were almost like sculpted pieces of modern art, to be not so much worn as occupied by the wearer.  Read more…

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Paolo Tosti - composer

How a poor boy from Abruzzo became an English knight

Paolo Tosti, the composer of the popular Neapolitan song, Marechiare, died on this day in 1916 in Rome.  Many of the light, sentimental songs he composed were performed by the top opera singers of the time and are still regularly recorded by the stars of today.  At the height of his career, Tosti was singing professor to Princess Margherita of Savoy, who later became the Queen of Italy. He then went to live in England, where his popularity grew even more.  He was appointed singing master to the British Royal Family and was eventually knighted by King Edward VII, who had become one of his personal friends.  Born Francesco Paolo Tosti in Ortona in the Abruzzo region, the composer received an early musical education in his home town and then moved on to study at the Naples Conservatory.  His teachers there were so impressed with him that they appointed him a student teacher, which earned him a small salary.  Read more…

Gianni Versace – designer

Meteoric rise of the talented son of a dressmaker

Gianni Versace, the founder of the international fashion house Versace, was born on this day in 1946 in Reggio di Calabria in the south of Italy. He went on to start a highly successful clothing label and also designed costumes for the theatre and films. He was a personal friend of the late Princess Diana and numerous celebrities, including Elton John and Madonna.  Christened Giovanni Maria Versace, the designer literally learnt his trade at his mother’s knee as she was herself a dressmaker and employed him as an apprentice in her business from an early age.  He moved north to Milan to work in the fashion industry for other designers and, after presenting his own first signature collection in the city, opened a boutique in Via della Spiga in 1978. His career immediately took off and his exclusive designs were highly sought after.  Read more…

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Maria Bricca - war hero

Humble cook whose actions helped end siege of Turin in 1706

The unlikely war hero Maria Bricca, whose actions would precipitate a major victory for the Duchy of Savoy in the War of the Spanish Succession, was born on this day in 1684 in Pianezza, then a village about 12km (7 miles) northwest of the city of Turin.  Maria became an important figure in the ending of the four-month siege of Turin by the French in 1706.  She hated the French, who had sacked Pianezza in 1693 when she was just eight years old, killing villagers and looting property before her eyes. In 1706, when they took control of the castle at Pianezza- where she had worked as a cook - it brought back memories of the scenes she had witnessed as a child.  When Maria heard that Prince Eugene of Savoy had dispatched a force of 9,000 Prussian soldiers led by his ally, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, to try to take control of the castle, she knew she had information that could help them. Read more…

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Ferdinando Galiani - economist and philosopher

Leading figure in the Neapolitan Enlightenment

The economist and philosopher Ferdinando Galiani, whose theories on market economics are considered to be years ahead of his time, was born on this day in 1728 in Chieti, now in Abruzzo but then part of the Kingdom of Naples.  Galiani spent much of his life in the service of the Naples government, spending 10 years as secretary to the Neapolitan ambassador in Paris before returning to Naples in the role of councillor of the tribunal of commerce, being appointed administrator of the royal domains in 1777.  A fine writer and wit as well as a talented economist, Galiani wrote a number of humorous works as well as two significant treatises, the first of which, Della Moneta, was written while he was still a student, at the age of 22.  Initially published anonymously, Della Moneta (On Money) - was ostensibly a work about the history of money and the monetary system. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Robert Capucci, by Roberto Capucci with Antonio Marras and Sylvia Ferino-Pagden

Fashion designer Antonio Marras, in his introduction to Roberto Capucci, says: "In the Olympus of fashion designers, Roberto Capucci is Zeus. But even that is not enough, because Roberto Capucci cannot fit into just one category. To call him a fashion designer is insufficient. Might the term créateur, to use a French word, be better suited to him? There is no definition for what is exceptional." Capucci's clothes are immediately recognizable: architectural structures where color is the protagonist and almost seems to sculpt the material into creations. Some 32 years ago, in 1993, the fabric creations were given to publisher Franco Maria Ricci for a volume in the series Luxe, calme et volupté. This anniversary was the catalyst for organizing the exhibition and breathing new life into the texts of the volume, which is enriched by an updated text by Sylvia Ferino, which offers a glimpse into the Maestro's most recent works, together with Marras' introduction.  The text is in English and Italian.

Sylvia Ferino-Pagden is an Austrian art historian and curator, born in 1949, best known for her work on Renaissance painting and her leadership at major European museums.

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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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