Arrigo Boito – writer and composer

Death of a patriot who fought for Venice

Arrigo Boito met Verdi in Paris

Arrigo Boito, who wrote both the music and libretto for his opera, Mefistofele, died on this day in 1918 in Milan.

Of all the operas based on Goethe’s Faust, Boito’s Mefistofele is considered the most faithful to the play and his libretto is regarded as being of particularly high quality.

Boito was born in Padua in 1842, the son of an Italian painter of miniatures and a Polish countess. He attended the Milan Conservatory and travelled to Paris on a scholarship.

It was there he met Giuseppe Verdi, for whom he wrote the text of the Hymn of the Nations in 1862.

He fought under the direction of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1866 in the seven weeks of the Third Italian War of Independence, against Austria, after which Venice was ceded to Italy.

While working on Mefistofele, Boito published articles, influenced by the composer Richard Wagner, in which he vigorously attacked Italian music and musicians.

Verdi was deeply offended by his words and by 1868, when Mefistofele was produced in Milan, Boito’s opinions had provoked so much hostility there was nearly a riot.

The opera was withdrawn after two performances, but a revised version, produced in 1875, still survives.

Boito and Verdi in 1892

Influenced by Beethoven and Wagner, the opera was unconventional. Boito’s second opera, Nerone, was completed after his death by Vincenzo Tommasini and Arturo Toscanini and produced in Milan in 1924.

Boito and Verdi were reconciled in 1873 and Boito revised the libretto for Simon Boccanegra. He also produced a libretto for both Otello and Falstaff.

He wrote the libretto for Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Giocondo in 1876 and also produced a volume of poetry and several novels. 

Boito received the honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Cambridge in 1893.

After his death in 1918, he was interred at the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan.

A memorial concert was given in his honour at La Scala in 1948 when the orchestra was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. This concert has since been issued on CD.

The Scrovegni Chapel features the brilliant frescoes by Giotto

Travel tip:

Padua in the Veneto, where Boito was born, is one of the most important centres for art in Italy and home to the country’s second oldest university. Padua has become acknowledged as the birthplace of modern art because of the Scrovegni Chapel, the inside of which is covered with frescoes by Giotto, an artistic genius who was the first to paint people with realistic facial expressions showing emotion. His scenes depicting the lives of Mary and Joseph, painted between 1303 and 1305, are considered his greatest achievement. At Palazzo Bo, where Padua’s university was founded in 1222, you can still see the original lectern used by Galileo and the world’s first anatomy theatre, where dissections were secretly carried out from 1594.

Travel tip:

La Scala in Milan has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza della Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days when it is closed in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30 pm.

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The Maestà of Duccio

Masterpiece influenced the course of Italian art history

Duccio's altarpiece in the Duomo di Siena, the Maestà

A magnificent altarpiece by the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna was unveiled in the cathedral in Siena on this day in 1311.

Duccio’s Maestà was to set Italian painting on a new course, leading away from Byzantine art towards using more realistic representations of people in pictures.

The altarpiece was commissioned by the city of Siena from the artist and was composed of many individual paintings.

The front panels made up a large picture of an enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels.

At the base of the panels was an inscription, which translated into English means: ‘Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and life to Duccio because he painted thee thus.’

Duccio's Madonna col bambino, which is housed
 in the Metropolitan Museum in New York

When the painting was installed in the cathedral on June 9, 1311, one witness to the event wrote: ‘…on that day when it was brought into the cathedral, all workshops remained closed and the bishop commanded a great host of devoted priests and monks to file past in solemn procession.

‘This was accompanied by all the high officers of the commune and by all the people; all honourable citizens of Siena surrounded said panel with candles held in their hands, and women and children followed humbly behind.

‘They accompanied the panel amidst the glorious pealing of bells after a solemn procession on the Piazza del Campo into the very cathedral; and all this out of reverence for the costly panel… the poor received many alms, and we prayed to the holy mother of God, our patron saint, that she might in her infinite mercy preserve this our city of Siena from every misfortune, traitor or enemy.’

The altarpiece remained in place until 1711, when it was dismantled in order to distribute the pieces between two altars. The five-metre high construction was sawn up and some of the paintings were damaged in the process. Some pieces went astray and are unaccounted for, while some pieces are now in museums.

The Cathedral of St Mary of the Assumption in Siena

Travel tip:

Siena’s Duomo, the Cathedral of St Mary of the Assumption, was designed and completed between 1215 and 1263 on the site of an earlier structure. It has a beautiful façade built in Tuscan Romanesque style using polychrome marble. In the attached Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Duccio’s Maestà can be seen in a first floor room.

Travel tip:

The shell-shaped Piazza del Campo in Siena, where the Palio di Siena takes place twice each year, was established in the 13th century as an open marketplace. It is now regarded as one of the finest medieval squares in Europe. The red brick paving, fanning out from the centre in nine sections, was put down in 1349.

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Giuseppe Fiorelli - archaeologist

The man whose painstaking work saved Pompeii

Giuseppe Fiorelli was in charge of the
Pompeii excavations from 1860-75

Giuseppe Fiorelli, the archaeologist largely responsible for preserving the ruins of Pompeii, was born on this day in 1823, in Naples.

It was due to Fiorelli’s painstaking excavation techniques that much of the lost Roman city on the Neapolitan coast was preserved as it had looked when, in 79 AD, it was totally submerged under volcanic ash following the eruption of Vesuvius.

He also hit upon the idea of filling the cavities in the hardened lava and solidified ash left behind by long-rotted bodies and vegetation with plaster to create a model of the person or plant that had been engulfed.  This became known as the Fiorelli process.

Little is known of Fiorelli’s early life apart from some details of his academic career, which clearly show him to be precociously clever.  He studied law from the age of 11 and obtained a degree in legal studies at the age of 18. He was also a student of italic languages, numismatics – the study of coins, paper money and medals - and epigraphy – the study and interpretation of ancient inscriptions.

Having chosen to pursue his interest in archaeology and the study of ancient civilisations, he wrote an article on numismatics for an erudite archaeological journal that won him membership of a number of academies at the age of 20, including the Accademia Ercolanese and the prestigious Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica.

One of the main streets in Pompeii

In 1844, still only 21, he was appointed an inspector in the Soprintendenza Generale degli Scavi – the body responsible for all excavations in the Naples region – and in 1847 inspector specifically for the Pompeii site.  His role at that stage was essentially to supervise other archaeologists to ensure their work was carried out in accordance with standards set down by the Soprintendenza.

In a bizarre twist to his story, in 1848 Fiorelli was arrested and imprisoned, in part as a result of malicious accusations made by rival archaeologists.

One was Carlo Bonucci, who had been demoted from his position as Architect-Director in charge of Pompeii after being found guilty of dishonesty but had been restored to his position when his successor fell ill.  Bonucci, an established archaeologist of twice Fiorelli’s age, resented his techniques being questioned by someone he regarded as a young upstart, and when the riots that erupted in Italy in 1848 prompted a collapse of government and a crackdown on political activists, he reported Fiorelli as nationalist republican.

Fiorelli was arrested and held in prison from April to June 1849, at which point he was released only to be re-arrested, this time after a member of the Accademia Ercolanese made a similar complaint.  It was January the following year before the case against him was dropped.

Fiorelli's techniques enabled models of the victims of the
eruption to be created exactly as they were buried

The episode set back his career but in 1853 he was offered a job as personal secretary to Leopold, Count of Syracuse, brother of the Bourbon King Ferdinand II, who used his influence to put Fiorelli in charge of the excavations at Cumae, another archaeological site in the Naples area.

Unrest in Italy continued, and as Leopold’s secretary, Fiorelli was able to use his influence with him in 1860, when Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand set its sights on Naples, seeking to unify Italy under the King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II. Fiorelli drafted a letter for Leopold to deliver to Ferdinand’s successor, King Francis, urging him to abdicate gracefully rather than be defeated.

Later in the year, Fiorelli returned to Pompeii as Inspector-Director of Excavations and began the work that was to make him famous.

Fiorelli introduced new excavation techniques. Where other archaeologists would attempt to dig out streets and uncover adjoining buildings from the bottom upwards, Fiorelli would work at all times from the surface downwards, carefully removing the covering layers of soil and volcanic materials, which took longer but, he felt, reduced the risk of damaging precious artefacts as they were uncovered.

His idea to fill cavities with plaster allowed the archaeologists to recreate the position and look of a body at the time of death.

Fiorelli directed the excavation of Pompeii from 1860 to 1875.  He was appointed director of the Naples National Archaeological Museum in 1863. In 1875 he was appointed as the director general of Italian Antiquities and Fine Arts. 

Fiorelli died in January 1896 in Naples. The cause of his death is unknown.

The Greek remains at Cumae

Travel tip:

Before Pompeii, Fiorelli was assigned to the ruins of the Greek city of Cumae, an ancient city of Magna Graecia on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy. The ruins of the city lie near the modern village of Cuma. In Roman mythology, there is an entrance to the underworld located at Avernus, a crater lake near Cumae. 

Travel tip:

Pompeii is believed to have grown on the site of a seventh or sixth century BC settlement by the Oscans that came under the domination of Rome in the fourth century BC, and became a Roman colony in 80 BC after soldiers of the Roman Republic crushed a rebellion there. By the time it was destroyed, its population as a port city was put at around 11,000 people. Evidence of its fate in the 79 AD eruption was first found in a surviving letter by Pliny the Younger, who described the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, an admiral of the Roman fleet, as he tried to rescue citizens.

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Gaetano Berenstadt – operatic castrato

Italian-born performer who specialised in roles created by Handel

Gaetano Berenstadt (right) in a caricatured impression
of his performance in Handel's Flavio

Gaetano Berenstadt, an alto castrato who sang many roles in George Frideric Handel’s operas, was born on this day in 1687 in Florence.

His parents were German and his father played the timpani - kettle drums - for the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Berenstadt was sent to be a pupil of Francesco Pistocchi, a singer, composer and librettist who founded a singing school in Bologna.

After performing in Bologna and Naples, Berenstadt visited London where he performed the role of Argante in a revival of Handel’s Rinaldo. The composer created three new arias especially for Berenstadt’s voice.

George Frideric Handel created many
roles for Gaetano Berenstadt

On a later visit to London, Berenstadt sang for the composers of the Royal Academy of Music. On this visit he created the roles of Tolomeo in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, the title role in Flavio, and the role of Adalberto in Ottone.

Back in Italy, he sang music by Italian composers and in two new compositions by Johann Adolph Hasse. He usually took on the role of a villainous tyrant and, despite the quality of his voice, he never portrayed a female character.

His final appearances on stage were in his native Florence. In retirement he published some music of his own until his death in Florence in 1734.

Letters that he wrote, which describe his love of books and art, are still in existence and he built up an extensive library of old books and pamphlets.

Travel tip:

The Grand Dukes of Tuscany lived in Palazzo Pitti in Florence from the 16th century to the 18th century when the last Medici Duke died without a male heir. The Pitti Palace is on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance away from Ponte Vecchio. It is now the largest museum complex in Florence with eight museums and galleries.

The entrance to Teatro alla Pergola

Travel Tip:

Berenstadt would have probably sung at Teatro della Pergola in Florence in the centre of Florence on Via della Pergola. The theatre was built in 1656 to designs by architect Ferdinando Tacca, the son of the sculptor, Pietro Tacca. The interior was finished in time to celebrate the wedding of the future Grand Duke Cosimo III de Medici with a special production for the court.  It was opened to the public after 1718 and the theatre presented operas by Mozart for the first time in Italy.

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Maria Theresa - the last Holy Roman Empress

Italian noblewoman was first Empress of Austria

Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily

Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily, the last Holy Roman Empress and the first Empress of Austria, was born at the Royal Palace of Portici in Naples on this day in 1772.

She was the eldest daughter of Ferdinand IV & III of Naples and Sicily (later Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies) and his wife, Marie Caroline of Austria, through whom she was a niece of the last Queen of France, Marie Antoinette.

Named after her maternal grandmother, Maria Theresa of Austria, she was the eldest of 17 children. Her father was a son of Charles III of Spain and through her father she was a niece of Maria Luisa of Spain and Charles IV of Spain.

Although she had a reputation for pursuing a somewhat frivolous lifestyle, which revolved around balls, carnivals, parties and masquerades, she did have some political influence, advising her husband about the make-up of his government and encouraging him to go to war with Napoleon, whom she detested.

She assumed her titles after she married her double first cousin Archduke Francis of Austria on September 15, 1790.

Francis became Holy Roman Emperor at age 24 in 1792 after the two-year reign of his father Leopold. Francis feared that Napoleon could take over his personal lands within the Holy Roman Empire, so in 1804 he proclaimed himself Emperor Franz I of Austria.

Maria Theresa's husband, Francis, after
he became Emperor Franz I of Austria

Two years later, after Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved. Therefore, Maria Theresa was the last Holy Roman Empress and the first Empress of Austria.

She and Francis were quite different personalities, Francis a serious statesman compared with Maria Theresa, who was regarded as a sensuous beauty with an easy-going manner.

The marriage lasted 17 years until Maria Theresa’s death and it said that the union was happy one, yet some accounts suggest this was not quite the case.

In a diary entry during a visit to Vienna, Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp described Maria Theresa as a jealous woman:

“The Empress is reputed to be so jealous that she does not allow him to take part in social life or meet other women. Vicious tongues accuse her of being so passionate that she exhausts her consort and never leaves him alone even for a moment. Although the people of Vienna cannot deny that she is gifted, charitable and carries herself beautifully, she is disliked for her intolerance and for forcing the Emperor to live isolated from everyone.”

Maria-Theresa was also accused of indifference towards the fate of her parents when French revolutionaries swept into Naples in 1799, forcing her father to flee to Sicily aboard the British admiral Horatio Nelson’s ship, HMS Vanguard.

Maria Theresa's father, Ferdinand I

Yet in her life of self-indulgence in Vienna, she was an important patron of Viennese music.

She commissioned many compositions for official and private use. Joseph Haydn wrote his Te Deum for chorus and orchestra at her request and composed numerous masses to celebrate her reign. She also helped further the careers of Paul Wranitzky and Joseph Leopold Eybler, a composer of sacred music.

Maria Theresa died after giving birth to her 12th child. Towards the end of the pregnancy, she fell ill with pleurisy. Her doctor induced premature labour. The child was delivered but died after only one day. Maria Theresa did not recover and passed away aged just 34.

She was buried in the Imperial Crypt in the Franzensgruft, where she rests today alongside her husband and his three other wives.

The Royal Palace at Portici, where Maria Theresa was born

Travel tip:

Maria Theresa was said to have been born at the Royal Palace at Portici, one of four palaces used by the Bourbon royal family during their rule of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the others being at Capodimonte, Caserta and in the centre of Naples, overlooking Piazza del Plebiscito.  The Portici palace, near the remains of the Roman city of Herculaneum, was built in 1738 as a private residence and a palace to receive foreign officials. Today it is the home of Botanic Gardens operated by the University of Naples Federico II and Accademia Ercolanese, a museum of objects found on the Herculaneum archaeological site.

The Roman city of Herculaneum is very well preserved

Travel tip:

Herculaneum – locally Ercolano – like Pompeii was an ancient Roman town destroyed by 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. It is one of the best preserved ancient cities. Unlike Pompeii, the deep pyroclastic material which covered Herculaneum preserved wooden and other organic-based objects such as roofs, beds, doors and food. It had been thought that the town was evacuated before the eruption but in recent years some 300 skeletons have been discovered nearby.

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Ludovico III Gonzaga – Marquis of Mantua

Condottiero fought to improve the town of his birth

Ludovico Gonzaga in a detail from a
painting by Andrea Mantegna

Ludovico Gonzaga, who ruled his native city for 34 years, was born on this day in 1412 in Mantua.

He grew up to fight as a condottiero - a military leader for hire - and in 1433 he married Barbara of Brandenburg, the niece of the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund.

After Ludovico entered the service of the Visconti family in Milan, he and his wife were exiled from Mantua by his father, Gianfrancesco I.

But father and son were later reconciled and Ludovico became Marquis of Mantua in 1444, inheriting territory that had been reduced in size and was impoverished after years of war.

He continued to serve as a condottiero, switching his allegiance between Milan, Florence, Venice and Naples, to gain territory and secure peace for Mantua.

The high point of his reign came when Pope Pius II held a Council in Mantua between 1459 and 1460 to plan a crusade against the Ottoman Turks. Although the Pope was unimpressed with Mantua and criticised the food and wine afterwards, the event earned prestige for Ludovico, whose son, Francesco, was made a Cardinal.

The Torre dell'Orologio Gonzaga built for Mantua

During Ludovico’s reign, he paved the streets of Mantua, built a clock tower and reorganised the city centre. He also appointed Andrea Mantegna to be court artist to the Gonzaga family.

Ludovico died in 1478 in Goito, to the north of Mantua, during an outbreak of plague and was subsequently buried in Mantua Cathedral.

Having fathered 14 legitimate children, Ludovico was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, who became Federico I of Mantua.

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric old city in Lombardy, to the south east of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707. The Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna, depicting the life of Ludovico Gonzaga and his family. The beautiful backgrounds of imaginary cities and ruins reflect Mantegna’s love of classical architecture.

The Cathedral of St Peter in Mantua

Travel tip:

Ludovico III was buried in the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Mantua, where his ancestor, Ludovico I, the founder of the Gonzaga family, is also buried. There was a church on the site from early Christian times, followed by a later building that was destroyed by fire. The current church was built between 1395 and 1401. It was given a baroque façade made from Carrara marble during the 18th century.

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Deborah Compagnoni - Olympic skiing champion

Alpine ace won gold medals in 1992, 1994 and 1998

Deborah Compagnoni on the podium after
winning gold at Lillehammer in 1994

The three-times Olympic skiing champion Deborah Compagnoni was born on this day in 1970 in Bormio, northern Lombardy.

Regarded as the greatest Italian female skier of all-time, she won gold medals at the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics.

Despite suffering two serious cruciate ligament injuries, she also won multiple events at the Alpine Skiing World Cup between 1992 and 1998.

Born in Bormio but raised in Santa Caterina di Valfurva, in Valtellina, Compagnoni’s talent became obvious at a young age but she began suffering injuries also at an early age.

At just 16 years old she won the bronze medal in the downhill at the World junior championships in 1987, and the following year won the junior title in giant slalom and achieved her first podium in the World Cup.

However, shortly afterwards she broke her right knee at Val d'Isére downhill, the first of a number of major injuries, but for which she could have attained even greater success.

Compagnoni in downhill action

Compagnoni won her first race in the World Cup in 1992, in the super-G. She also won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics of the same year, again in the super-G, at Albertville in France. A day later, while racing the giant slalom, she shattered her left knee.

Nonetheless, she still achieved 16 race victories in World Cup events in addition to the giant slalom at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, a feat she repeated four years later in Nagano. In 1998 she won also a silver medal in the slalom, finishing second by only 0.06 seconds.

Her record is so impressive that she is considered the equal of Italy’s most decorated male skiers, such as Gustav Thöni and Alberto Tomba. The World Cup skiing track in her native Santa Caterina Valfurva has been named after her.

She is married to Alessandro Benetton, the son of Benetton co-founder Luciano Benetton.

Benetton is a winter sports coach and former chairman of the Benetton Group and of Benetton Formula One as well as one of the pioneers of private equity in Italy.

He and Compagnoni have three children - Agnese, Tobias and Luce. They live in Ponzano Veneto, about six kilometres ( 3.7 miles) north-west of Treviso and about 30km (19 miles) north of Venice.

The Villa Minelli in Ponzano Veneto

Travel tip:

Ponzano Veneto is a community of some 12,500 residents that essentially brings together three villages. The area is known for its elegant villas, including the Villa Minelli, which has been the main headquarters of the Benetton Group since the 1980s, having been in the family since 1969. There are a number of churches containing works of art by Sebastiano Santi and Antonio Zanchi, while the Villa Corner has frescoes by Giovan Battista Tiepolo.

The mountain backdrop to Santa Caterina

Travel tip:

Santa Caterina, where Compagnoni was brought up, is a ski resort in Valtellina, about 13km (8 milles) from Bornio in the northern part of Lombardy, less than 30km from the border with Switzerland. It is also the home town of Achille Compagnoni, a cousin of Deborah Compagnoni, the mountaineer who was the first to conquer K2, the mountain on the Pakistan-China border that is the second highest in the world.

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