9 March

NEW - Nabucco premieres in Milan

Verdi opera that became a symbol of the Risorgimento

The opera Nabucco, with music by Giuseppe Verdi and a libretto by Temistocle Solera, was first performed on this day in 1842 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.  The opera contains the famous chorus Va, pensiero, a lament for a lost homeland that many Italians now regard as their unofficial national anthem.  The opera and Verdi himself have become synonymous with the Risorgimento, the period in the 19th century when people worked to free the Italian states of foreign domination and unite them under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy.  It is said that during the last years of the Austrian occupation of Lombardia and the Veneto, for example, that Italian patriots adopted Viva Verdi as a slogan and rallying call, using the composer’s name as an acronym for 'Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia' - 'Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy'.  On the day of the composer’s funeral in Milan in 1901, a crowd of 300,000 people filled the streets and sang Va, pensiero, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, a moving event that showed how Verdi’s music had helped unite the Italian nation.  But Verdi nearly didn’t take up the offer to compose the music for Nabucco.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Amerigo Vespucci – explorer

Medici clerk who discovered a new world

Explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci was born on this day in 1454 in Florence.  Vespucci was the first to discover the ‘new world’, which later came to be called the Americas, taking the Latin version of his first name.  He was the son of a notary in Florence and a cousin of the husband of the beautiful artist’s model, Simonetta Vespucci. He was educated by his uncle, Fra Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar, and he was later hired as a clerk by the Medici family.  He acquired the favour of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who sent him to the Medici office in Cadiz in Spain to investigate the managers, who were under suspicion.  Later, as the executor of an Italian merchant who had died in Seville, Vespucci fulfilled the deceased’s contract with Castile to provide 12 vessels to sail to the Indies. He then continued supplying provisions for expeditions to the Indies and was invited by the King of Portugal to participate as an observer on several voyages of exploration.  Although letters have been forged and fraudulent claims have been made about his discoveries, Vespucci is known to have taken an active part in at least two real voyages of exploration.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Bettino Ricasoli - statesman and winemaker

Prime minister and inventor of modern Chianti wine

The politician and winemaker Barone Bettino Ricasoli was born on this day in 1809 in Florence.  Ricasoli, who is considered one of the driving forces of the Risorgimento alongside Giuseppe Mazzini, Count Camillo Benso of Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi and others, succeeded Cavour as prime minister in 1861, the second person to hold the office in the new Kingdom of Italy.  After withdrawing from politics, he concentrated on the family vineyards around the Castello di Brolio in the Tuscan hills between Siena and Arezzo, seat of the Ricasoli family since the early 12th century.  It was there in 1872, seeking to create a wine with universal appeal, that he developed the formula for Chianti wine that is still used today, made up of 70 per cent Sangiovese grapes, 15 per cent Canaiolo and 15 per cent Malvasia bianca.  Today Barone Ricasoli - the oldest wine producer in Italy and the second oldest in the world - is the largest winery in the Chianti Classico area, with 235 hectares of vines and 26 hectares of olive groves in the area around Gaiole and Castelnuovo Berardenga.  Bettino was the son of Baron Luigi Ricasolo and Elisabetta Peruzzi, who came from a family of Tuscan bankers.   Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Internazionale - football superpower

Famous club that broke away from rivals AC Milan

Internazionale, one of Italy's most successful football clubs, came into being on this day in 1908.  The winner 18 times of lo scudetto - the Italian championship - the club known often as Inter or Inter-Milan was born after a split within the membership of the Milan Cricket and Football Club, forerunner of the club known now as A C Milan.  The original club was established by expatriate British football enthusiasts with a membership restricted to Italian and British players. It was after a dispute over whether foreign players should be signed that a breakaway group formed.  Plans for a new club were drawn up at a meeting at the Ristorante L'Orologio in Via Giuseppe Mengoni in Milan, a short distance from the opera house, Teatro alla Scala.  It was a restaurant popular with theatregoers and artists, among them Giorgio Muggiani, a painter who would become renowned for his work in advertising, where he designed iconic posters for such clients as Pirelli, Cinzano, Martini and Moto Guzzi.  Muggiani, who had developed an enthusiasm for football while studying in Switzerland, was the driving force behind the new club.  Read more…

________________________________________________________________

Emma Bonino – politician

Leading Radical learnt Arabic to understand Middle East press

Veteran politician Emma Bonino, who most recently served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of Enrico Letta, was born on this day in 1948 in Bra in Piedmont.  A leading member of the Italian Radicals, Bonino has throughout her career been an activist for reform policies and a campaigner for women's and human rights.  Bonino graduated in modern languages and literature from Bocconi University in Milan in 1972. She founded the Information Centre on Sterilisation and Abortion in 1975 and promoted the referendum that led to the legalisation of abortion in Italy.  She was first elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1976 and was re-elected six times afterwards.  In 1986 Bonino was among the promoters of a referendum against nuclear energy, which led to the rejection of a civil nuclear energy programme in Italy.  She was appointed minister for international trade in the cabinet of Romano Prodi in 2006 but resigned her post in 2008 after being elected a vice president of the Senate. She had previously been elected to a seat in the Senate on the list of the Democratic party for the Piedmont Constituency.  Read more…


Home

Nabucco premieres in Milan

Verdi opera that became a symbol of the Risorgimento

The bill advertising the first staging
of Nabucco at La Scala in Milan

The opera Nabucco, with music by Giuseppe Verdi and a libretto by Temistocle Solera, was first performed on this day in 1842 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

The opera contains the famous chorus Va, pensiero, a lament for a lost homeland that many Italians now regard as their unofficial national anthem.

The opera and Verdi himself have become synonymous with the Risorgimento, the period in the 19th century when people worked to free the Italian states of foreign domination and unite them under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy.

It is said that during the last years of the Austrian occupation of Lombardia and the Veneto, for example, that Italian patriots adopted Viva Verdi as a slogan and rallying call, using the composer’s name as an acronym for 'Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia' - 'Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy'.

On the day of the composer’s funeral in Milan in 1901, a crowd of 300,000 people filled the streets and sang Va, pensiero, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, a moving event that showed how Verdi’s music had helped unite the Italian nation.

But Verdi nearly didn’t take up the offer to compose the music for Nabucco.

Verdi took up the offer to write the
music for Nabucco with reluctance

After a terrible two-year period, during which his young wife and two children had all died as a result of illnesses, Verdi had vowed never to compose music again.

During a chance meeting with Bartolomeo Merelli, La Scala’s impresario, Verdi was given a copy of Solera’s libretto, which had been rejected by another composer.

Verdi later recalled in his memoirs how he took the libretto home, threw it on the table with a violent gesture and it opened up in front of him. Verdi’‘s eye fell on the phrase, ‘Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate’  - 'Fly, thought, on golden wings'.

He tried to ignore the libretto but eventually found himself sitting at the piano and setting the words to music.

It is claimed he was still reluctant about working on the score and tried to take the manuscript back to Merelli, but the impresario stuffed the libretto back in Verdi’s pocket, threw him out of his office and locked the door.

Verdi went home and continued to work on the music and by the autumn of 1841 the opera was complete.

The opening performance at La Scala on 9 March 1842 was an immediate success, establishing Verdi as a major composer. The opera is still regularly performed all over the world today.

Verdi's future wife, Giuseppina Strepponi,
was a member of the original cast

The original cast included the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, who would later become Verdi's second wife.

Nabucco is named after King Nebuchadnezzar, who featured in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel in the Bible, and the opera follows the plight of the Jews he conquered and exiled. The chorus Va, pensiero - also known as the 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' - captured the feeling of national pride among Italians at the time who were still living under Austrian domination.

In 1981 a journalist proposed replacing Italy’s official national anthem with Va, persiero. This never happened, but the political party Lega Nord - now La Lega - adopted it as its official hymn and the chorus is now sung at all party meetings.

In 2011, after conducting Va, pensiero at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the conductor Riccardo Muti made a speech protesting about cuts in Italy’s arts budget and then invited the audience to sing along in support of culture and patriotism.

Milan's Teatro alla Scala, one of the world's most prestigious
opera houses, is right in the centre of the city

Travel tip:

Teatro alla Scala is in Piazza della Scala in the centre of Milan across the road from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an elegant arcade lined with cafes, shops and restaurants which was built to link Piazza della Scala with Piazza del Duomo, Milan’s cathedral square. La Scala has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli. 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.

Rome's Teatro dell'Opera, rebuilt in the 1920s by the
architect Marcello Piacentini, seats 1600 spectators

Travel tip:

The Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, where conductor Riccardo Muti invited the audience to join in the chorus Va, pensiero in 2011, is a 1600-seat opera house in Piazza Beniamino Gigli. It was originally opened in 1880 as the Costanzi Theatre and has undergone several changes of name and many improvements over the years.

Rome hotels by Booking.com

Also on this day:

1454: The birth of explorer Amerigo Vespucci

1809: The birth of statesman and winemaker Bettino Ricasoli

1908: The founding of the Milan football club Internazionale

1948: The birth of politician Emma Bonino


Home






Home

8 March

La Festa della Donna – Women’s Day

Bright fragrant mimosa signals respect

La Festa della Donna - Women’s Day - is celebrated in Italy on this day every year and is an occasion for men to show their appreciation for the women in their lives.  In many parts of Italy today, men will be seen carrying bunches of prettily wrapped mimosa to give to women who are special to them.  The flowers might be for their wives, girlfriends, mothers, friends or even employees and are meant as a sign of respect for womanhood.  The custom of men giving mimosa to their ladies began in the 1940s after the date 8 March was chosen as the Festa della Donna in Italy.  The date, which coincides with International Women's Day, has a political significance for campaigners for women's rights in Italy, marking the anniversary of a strike by female textile workers in New York in 1857 and the so-called 'bread and peace' strike by women in Russia in 1917, but has more recently become a celebration similar to Mothering Sunday or St Valentine's Day.  Yellow mimosa was chosen as the flower to give because it is in bloom at the beginning of March, it is relatively inexpensive,and the scent of it in the atmosphere is a sign that primavera (spring) is near.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Carlo Gesualdo – composer

Madrigal writer was also a murderer

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, who composed highly experimental music for his time, was born on this day in 1566 in the principality of Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples.  He was to become known both for his extraordinary music and for the brutal killing of his first wife and her aristocratic lover after he caught them together.  Gesualdo was the nephew of Carlo Borromeo, who later became Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother, Geronima Borromeo, was the niece of Pope Pius IV.  Although Gesualdo was sent to Rome to begin an ecclesiastical career, he became heir to the principality after his older brother died. He married his cousin, Donna Maria D’Avalos, and they had a son, Emanuele.  Gesualdo was devoted to music from an early age and mixed with musicians and composers, learning to play the lute, harpsichord and guitar.  Donna Maria began an affair with Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria and Count of Ruova, and one night in 1590 Gesualdo caught them in flagrante at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples. He killed them both on the spot.  A delegation of officials from Naples inspected the room where they were killed and found the corpses were mutilated.  Read more…

_______________________________________________________________

Antonello Venditti - enduring music star

Roman singer-songwriter's career spans almost 50 years

Singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti, one of Italy's most popular and enduring stars of contemporary music, was born on this day in 1949 in Rome.   Famous in the 1970s for the strong political and social content of many of his songs, Venditti can look back on a career spanning almost half a century, in which he has sold more than 30 million records.  Taking into account singles, studio and live albums and compilations, Venditti has released more than 100 recordings.  His biggest success came with the 1988 album In questo mondo di ladri - In this world of thieves - which sold 1.5 million copies, making it jointly the eighth best-selling album in Italian music history.  Venditti's music ranges from folk to soft rock, often with classical overtones. He enjoyed sustained success in the 1980s and 90s, when Cuore - Heart - Benvenuti in Paradiso - Welcome to Paradise - and Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro - Take this bitter fruit - all sold well.  His versatility as a singer was demonstrated with the 1979 album Buona Domenica, which contained several ballads including one, Modena, which was regarded as among his finest songs.  Read more…


Home

7 March

Alessandro Manzoni – novelist

Writer who produced the greatest novel in Italian literature

Italy’s most famous novelist, Alessandro Manzoni, was born on this day in 1785 in Milan.  Manzoni was the author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), the first novel to be written in modern Italian, a language that could be understood by everyone.  The novel caused a sensation when it was first published in 1825. It looked at Italian history through the eyes of the ordinary citizen and sparked pro-unification feelings in many Italians who read it, becoming a symbol of the Risorgimento movement.  I promessi sposi is now considered to be the most important novel in Italian literature and is still required reading for many Italian schoolchildren.  Manzoni spent a lot of his childhood in Lecco, on Lago di Lecco, where his father’s family originated, and he chose to set his great work there.  Lago di Lecco is an arm of Lago di Como and is surrounded by dramatic mountain scenery that is so stunning it is said to have inspired Leonardo da Vinci for settings for his paintings.   More than two centuries later, fans of Manzoni’s novel continue to visit Lecco to see the places he described and the buildings featured in the book that remain.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Baldassare Peruzzi - architect and painter

Pupil of Bramante who left mark on Rome

The architect and painter Baldassare Peruzzi, who trained under Donato Bramante and was a contemporary of Raphael, was born on this day in 1481 in a small town near Siena.   Peruzzi worked in his home city and in Rome, where he spent many years as one of the architects of the St Peter’s Basilica project but where he was also responsible for two outstanding buildings in his own right - the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne.  The Villa Farnesina, a summer house commissioned by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere district, is unusual for its U-shaped floor plan, with a five-bay loggia between the arms.  Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo were among those who helped decorate the villa with frescoes, but Peruzzi is acknowledged as the chief designer, possibly aided by Giuliano da Sangallo. Some of the frescoed paintings on the walls of the interior rooms are also by Peruzzi. One example is the Sala delle Prospettive, in which the walls are painted to create the illusion of standing in an open-air terrace, lined by pillars, looking out over a continuous landscape.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Saint Thomas Aquinas - philosopher

Theologian who synthesised Aristotle’s ideas with principles of Christianity

Saint Thomas Aquinas, known in Italian as Tommaso d’Aquino, died on this day in 1274 at Fossanova near Terracina in Lazio.  A Dominican friar who became a respected theologian and philosopher, D’Aquino was canonised in 1323, less than 50 years after his death.  He was responsible for two masterpieces of theology, Summa theologiae and Summa contra gentiles. The first sought to explain the Christian faith to students setting out to study theology, the second to explain the Christian faith and defend it in the face of hostile attacks.  As a poet, D'Aquino wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in the church’s liturgy, which are still sung today.  D’Aquino is recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost philosopher and theologian and he had a considerable influence on the development of Western thought and ideas. His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle are an important part of his legacy and he is still regarded as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood.  D’Aquino was born in Roccasecca in the province of Frosinone in about 1225 in the castle owned by his father, who was count of Aquino.  Read more…

________________________________________________________________

Filippo Juvarra – architect

Baroque designer influenced the look of ‘royal Turin’

Architect and stage set designer Filippo Juvarra was born on this day in 1678 in Messina in Sicily.  Some of his best work can be seen in Turin today as he worked for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy from 1714 onwards. The buildings Juvarra designed for Turin made him famous and he was subsequently invited to work in Portugal, Spain, London and Paris.  Juvarra was born into a family of goldsmiths and engravers but moved to Rome in 1704 to study architecture with Carlo and Francesco Fontana.  He was commissioned to design stage sets to begin with, but in 1706 he won a contest to design the new sacristy at St Peter’s Basilica.  He then designed the small Antamoro Chapel for the church of San Girolamo della Carità with his friend, the French sculptor, Pierre Le Gros. He was later to design the main altar for the Duomo in Bergamo in Lombardy.   One of his masterpieces was the Basilica of Superga, built in 1731 on a mountain overlooking the city of Turin, which later became a mausoleum for the Savoy family.  It was said to have taken 14 years to flatten the mountain top.  Read more…


Home

6 March

NEW -

Giovanni Battista Bugatti - executioner

‘Mastro Titta’ ended 516 lives in long career

Giovanni Battista Bugatti, who served as the official executioner for the Papal States from 1796 to 1864, was born on this day in 1779 in Senigallia, a port town on the Adriatic coast about 30km (19 miles) northwest of the city of Ancona.  Bugatti, who became known by the nickname Mastro Titta - a corruption of the Italian maestro di giustizia - master of justice - in Roman dialect, carried out 516 executions in his 68-year career.  He was the longest-serving executioner in the history of the Papal States.  The circumstances of him being granted such an important role in Roman life at the age of just 17 are not known.  What is documented is that while not carrying out his grim official duties he kept a shop selling painted umbrellas and other souvenirs next to his home in the Borgo district, in Vicolo del Campanile, a short distance from Castel Sant’Angelo, which served as a prison during the time of the Papal States.  It seemed an incongruous day job for someone whose very name struck a chill among Rome’s criminal fraternity. Yet he treated his responsibilities with the utmost solemnity, leaving his home early in the morning on the days an execution was to take place, dressed in his scarlet executioner’s coat.  Read more…

________________________________________________________________

Augusto Odone – medical pioneer

Father who invented ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’ for sick son

Augusto Odone, the father who invented a medicine to treat his incurably ill son despite having no medical training, was born on this day in 1933 in Rome.  Odone’s son, Lorenzo, was diagnosed with the rare metabolic condition ALD (Adrenoleukodystrophy) at the age of six. Augusto and his American-born wife, Michaela, were told that little could be done and that Lorenzo would suffer from increasing paralysis and probably die within two years.  Refusing simply to do nothing, the Odones, who lived in Washington, where Augusto was an economist working for the World Bank, threw themselves into discovering everything that was known about the condition and the biochemistry of the nervous system, contacting every doctor, biologist and researcher they could find who had researched the condition and assembled them for a symposium.  Drawing on this pooled knowledge, and with the help of Hugo Moser, a Swiss-born professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, they eventually came up with the idea of combining extracts of olive oil and rapeseed oil in a medicine that would break down the long-chain fatty acids in the human body that were considered a major cause of the nerve damage suffered by people with ALD.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

La traviata - the world's favourite opera

Verdi's masterpiece performed for the first time

Giuseppe Verdi's opera, La traviata, was performed in front of a paying audience for the first time on this day in 1853.  The premiere took place at Teatro La Fenice, the opera house in Venice with which Verdi had a long relationship, one that saw him establish his fame as a composer.  La traviata would ultimately cement his reputation as a master of opera after the success of Rigoletto and Il trovatore.  La traviata has become the world's favourite opera, inasmuch as no work has been performed more often, yet the reception for the opening performance was mixed, to say the least.  Reportedly there was applause and cheering at the end of the first act but a much changed atmosphere in the theatre in the second act, during which some members of the audience jeered.  Their displeasure was said to be aimed in part at the two male principals, the baritone Felice Varesi and the tenor Lodovico Graziani, neither of whom was at his best.  There was also criticism of the soprano Fanny Salvini-Donatelli, the first to be given the role of Violetta, the opera's heroine.   Although an acclaimed singer, Salvini-Donatelli was 38 years old and somewhat overweight.  Read more…

___________________________________________________________________

Francesco Guicciardini - writer and diplomat

Friend of Machiavelli among first to record history in context

The historian and statesman Francesco Guicciardini, best known for writing Storia d'Italia, a book that came to be regarded as a classic history of Italy, was born on this day in 1483 in Florence.  Along with his contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli, Guicciardini is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance.  Guicciardini was an adviser and confidant to three popes, the governor of several central Italian states, ambassador, administrator and military captain.  He had a long association with the Medici family, rulers of Florence.  Storia d'Italia - originally titled 'La Historia di Italia' - was notable for Guicciardini's skilful analysis of interrelating political movements in different states and his ability to set in context and with objectivity events in which sometimes he was a direct participant.  Born into a prominent Florentine family who were influential in politics and long-standing supporters of the Medici, Giucciardini was educated in the classics before being sent to study law at a number of universities, including Padua, Ferrara and Pisa.  He was interested in pursuing a career in the priesthood but his father, Piero, considered the church to have become decadent.  Read more…


Home

Giovanni Battista Bugatti - executioner

An 18th century woodcut shows Mastro
Titta showing off the head of a victim

‘Mastro Titta’ ended 516 lives in long career

Giovanni Battista Bugatti, who served as the official executioner for the Papal States from 1796 to 1864, was born on this day in 1779 in Senigallia, a port town on the Adriatic coast about 30km (19 miles) northwest of the city of Ancona.

Bugatti, who became known by the nickname Mastro Titta - a corruption of the Italian maestro di giustizia - master of justice - in Roman dialect, carried out 516 executions in his 68-year career.  He was the longest-serving executioner in the history of the Papal States.

The circumstances of him being granted such an important role in Roman life at the age of just 17 are not known.  What is documented is that while not carrying out his grim official duties he kept a shop selling painted umbrellas and other souvenirs next to his home in the Borgo district, in Vicolo del Campanile, a short distance from Castel Sant’Angelo, which served as a prison during the time of the Papal States.

It seemed an incongruous day job for someone whose very name struck a chill among Rome’s criminal fraternity. Yet he treated his responsibilities with the utmost solemnity, leaving his home early in the morning on the days an execution was to take place, dressed in his scarlet executioner’s coat, stopping off first at the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina for confession.

Bugatti would often offer the condemned
man or woman a pinch of snuff

For his own safety, he was not permitted to enter the central part of Rome except to carry out his official duties.  When Mastro Titta was spotted crossing the bridge it became a signal to Romans that an execution was due and crowds would gather.

Executions did not take place solely in Rome. Bugatti was required to travel to all parts of the Papal States to fulfil the terms of his service. Indeed, his first execution took place more than 150km (93 miles) north of the capital in the city of Foligno in Umbria. His first victim, on 22 March, 1796, was Nicola Gentilucci, who had been convicted of strangling and killing a priest, a coachman and of robbing two friars.

In Rome, many of the executions took place in Piazza del Popolo, in the shadow of the famous Egyptian obelisk, others on the Ponte Sant’Angelo, which links Castel Sant’Angelo with central Rome.  Both Lord Byron and Charles Dickens witnessed Bugatti’s work during visits to Rome and wrote about it for their English readers.

Bugatti himself called the executions justices and referred to the condemned as patients.  He bore no personal animosity towards his victims and would often offer them a pinch of snuff as a last experience of earthly pleasure. He was skilled in what he did, whether it was execution by hanging, beheading by axe, the administering of a fatal blow with a mallet or, latterly, with the guillotine, and prided himself on being both neat and quick.

Notices of impending executions were posted in churches, asking for prayers for the condemned, and so crowds would assemble. Fathers would bring their children so that they learned at an early age what fate might befall them as adults if they disobeyed the law.

Remarkably, Bugatti is said to have maintained his strength and the precision into his work even into old age and he was 85 when at last he agreed to retire, accepting a pension from Pope Pius IX.  He returned to Senigallia and lived a further five years.

Today, his blood-stained scarlet coat, plus a selection of axes and guillotines, are on display at Rome’s Museo Criminologico - Museum of Criminology - in Via del Gonfalone.

The Ponte Sant'Angelo, which connects Castel Sant'Angelo
with the centre of Rome across the Tiber river 

Travel tip:

Castel Sant’Angelo, the towering cylindrical building in Parco Adriano, on the banks of the Tiber, was originally commissioned by the Roman emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. It was later used by the popes as a fortress, castle and prison, and is now a museum. It was once the tallest building in Rome.  Hadrian also built the Pons Aelius – now Ponte Sant’Angelo – which provides a scenic approach to the mausoleum from the centre of Rome across the Tiber. Baroque statues of angels were later added, lining each side of the bridge.

Find a hotel in Rome with Booking.com

The beach at Senigallia, with its art nouveau pier and
pavilion, the Rotonda al Mare

Travel tip:

Badly damaged in both world wars and by an earthquake in between, the Adriatic port of Senigallia has a modern look today but has a long history. It takes its name from a third century Roman settlement Sena Gallica.  Captured and recaptured many times by opposing sides during the Guelph and Ghibelline war, it was the scene of a bloodbath early in the 16th century as Cesare Borgia routed some of his disloyal supporters. It became the property of both the Medici and Della Rovere families before the Papal States took charge.  In more recent years, it has become an important holiday resort but retains some historic attractions, such as the well-preserved Gothic Rocca Roveresca, which was restored in the 15the century.

Also on this day:

1483: The birth of Florentine historian and diplomat Francesco Guicciardini

1853: Verdi’s opera La Traviata is performed for the first time

1933: The birth of Augusto Adone, the father who famously invented Lorenzo’s Oil as a medicine for his sick son


Home

5 March

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo – artist

Painter’s decorative work can be seen all over Venice

Painter and printmaker Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born on this day in 1696 in Venice.  Also sometimes known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo, his output was prolific and he enjoyed success not only in Italy, but in Germany and Spain as well.  Highly regarded right from the beginning of his career, he has been described by experts as the greatest decorative artist of 18th century Europe. Although much of his work was painted directly on to the walls and ceilings of churches and palaces in his native Venice, many of Tiepolo’s paintings on canvas are now in art galleries all over the world.  Tiepolo was the youngest child of a Venetian shipping merchant who died a year after his birth leaving his mother to struggle to bring up her six children alone.  In 1710 he became a pupil of Gregorio Lazzarini, a successful established painter, but Tiepolo quickly developed a style of his own.  His earliest known works are depictions of the apostles, which form part of the decoration of the interior of the Church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti at Ospedaletto in Venice , painted in 1717.  Tiepolo was commissioned to produce portraits for the Doge and he started painting frescoes directly on to the walls of churches in 1717.  Read more…

________________________________________________________________

Pier Paolo Pasolini - writer and film director

Controversial figure who met violent death

The novelist, writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini was born on this day in 1922 in Bologna.  Pasolini's best-known work included his portrayal of Jesus Christ in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), his bawdy adaptations of such literary classics as Boccaccio’s Decameron (1971) and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1972), and and his brutal satire on Fascism entitled Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).   He also wrote novels and poetry, made documentaries, directed for the theatre and was an outspoken columnist for the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, expressing political views that would regularly spark heated debate.  A former member of the Communist Party and openly homosexual, Pasolini died in violent circumstances in Ostia, near Rome, in November 1975, supposedly murdered by a young man he had picked up at the city’s Termini railway station, although there was some mystery around the incident and speculation over motives continues to this day.  The son of an army lieutenant, Pasolini lived in various northern Italian towns in his childhood, determined by his father’s postings. Family life was somewhat turbulent.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Alessandro Volta – scientist

Invention sparked wave of electrical experiments

Alessandro Volta, who invented the first electric battery, died on this day in 1827 in Como.  His electric battery had provided the first source of continuous current and the volt, a unit of the electromotive force that drives current, was named in his honour in 1881.  Volta was born Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta in 1745 in Como.  He became professor of physics at the Royal School of Como in 1774. His interest in electricity led him to improve the electrophorus, a device that had been created to generate static electricity. He discovered and isolated methane gas in 1776, after finding it at Lake Maggiore and was then appointed to the chair of physics at the University of Pavia.  Volta was a friend of the scientist Luigi Galvani, a professor at Bologna University, whose experiments led him to announce in 1791 that the contact of two different metals with the muscle of a frog resulted in the generation of an electric current.  Galvani interpreted that as a new form of electricity found in living tissue, which he called animal electricity.  Volta felt that the frog merely conducted a current that flowed between the two metals, which he called metallic electricity.  Read more…

_________________________________________________________________

Marietta Piccolomini – soprano

Popular star who found fame as Violetta

The operatic soprano Marietta Piccolomini, who was most famous for her performances as Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata, was born on this day in 1834 in Siena.   Her career was relatively brief, spanning just 11 years. Yet she managed to achieve unprecedented popularity, to the extent that crowds of fans would gather outside her hotel and men would volunteer to take the place of horses in pulling her carriage through the streets.  Some critics said that the adulation she enjoyed was more to do with her youthful good looks and her acting ability than her voice, who they argued was weak and limited.  Nonetheless, she was seldom short of work and she was the first Violetta to be seen by opera goers in both Paris and London.  She had a particularly enthusiastic following in England, where she undertook several tours of provincial theatres as well as appearing in the capital.  Born Maria Teresa Violante Piccolomini Clementini, she came from a noble Tuscan family. Her musical mother, a talented amateur, would sing duets with her. However, while her family were happy to arrange lessons for her with Pietro Romani, one of Italy’s first professional singing teachers, her father was reluctant to allow her to make opera singing a career.  Read more…


Home