Gian Paolo Lomazzo - artist

Painter became leading art historian and critic of the 16th century

Lomazzo's Madonna and the Saints
in the church of San Marco, Milan)

Gian Paolo Lomazzo, a talented painter who went blind when he was 33 and turned to writing instead, was born on this day in Milan in 1538.

He became an expert on the work of Leonardo da Vinci and was given unique access to the artist’s own written work.

Lomazzo, whose first name is sometimes given as Giovan or Giovanni, was born into a family who had just moved to Milan from the town of Lomazzo in the province of Como in Lombardy.

He began training as a painter early in his life with the artists Gaudenzio Ferrari and Giovan Battista della Cerva in Milan.

By 1567 Lomazzo had painted a large Allegory of the Lenten Feast for the Church of Sant’ Agostino in Piacenza. Other notable works by him include an elaborate fresco of a dome with Glory of Angels and a painting depicting The Fall of Simon Magus for the Cappella Foppa in the Church of San Marco in Milan.

Lomazzo was so admired as an artist that the sculptor and medallist Annibale Fontana depicted him on a medallion in 1562.

But by 1571 Lomazzo had become blind and could no longer paint. He adapted to writing about art instead and produced two complex treatises that are regarded as milestones in the development of art criticism.

His first work, completed in 1584, Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scultura e architettura, is in part a guide to decorum, contemporary concepts of good taste, which the Renaissance inherited in part from Antiquity. It has been described as the Bible of Mannerism and Lomazzo’s writing made him a central figure in the development of Italian Mannerist theories.

His 1590 work, Idea del tempio della pittura, explained the role of individuality in judgment and artistic invention.

Lomazzo's self-portrait, painted in about 
1568, is in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan

Lomazzo took into account three aspects of art criticism: doctrina, the discoveries made my artists in the course of history; prattica, the personal preferences of the artist; and iconography, the literary element in art. He systematically extracted abstract concepts from art, rather than just recounting the marvels of the works of famous artists in the manner of Giorgio Vasari. He is regarded by historians as a very reliable chronicler of the period and he gave detailed practical instruction on the creation of art.

He is reputed to have had a large collection of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and he spent years amassing every fact that was known about Leonardo.

He wrote about Leonardo: ‘Whenever he began to paint, it seemed that Leonardo trembled, and he never finished any of the works he commenced because, so sublime was his idea of art, he saw faults even in the things that to others seemed miracles.’

Leonardo’s protégé and heir, Francesco Melzi, gave Lomazzo access to the maestro’s own writings.

Scholars have taken from what Lomazzo wrote about the creation of the picture of Mona Lisa, that Leonardo painted two almost identical portraits of the subject, one called Mona Lisa and the other called La Gioconda.

Lomazzo also wrote poetry and had a number of pupil painters during his career, including the artists Giovanni Ambrogio Figino and Cristoforo and Girolamo Ciocca.

Lomazzo died in 1592, at the age of 53, in Milan. His self-portrait, painted in about 1568, is in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

The Arch of Peace
in the town of Lomazzo

Travel tip:

Lomazzo in Lombardy, where Gian Paolo Lomazzo’s family originated, is about halfway between Como and Milan. The historic centre of the town was built upon a hill. The Church of San Siro, built in 1732 in the town, houses a 16th century panel by Morazzone depicting the Adoration of the Magi. In 1286, the town witnessed the signing of one of several peace treaties between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, not all of them successful, and this one was marked by the construction of an Arch of Peace in front of the Church of San Siro.

The Church of San Marco in Milan,
which has frescoes by Lomazzo

Travel tip:

The Church of San Marco in Milan, which has frescoes by Gian Paolo Lomazzo, dates back to the 13th century. It was dedicated to Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice, after the help given by the city in the war against Frederick Barbarossa in the 12th century. The building was modified in the Baroque style during the 17th century and became the largest church in Milan after the Duomo.  In early 1770, the young Mozart resided in the monastery of San Marco for three months and in 1874, the Milanese poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni was commemorated in the church by the first performance of Verdi's Requiem, written in his honour.

Also on this day:

1575: The birth of Maria de’ Medici, Queen of France

1925: The birth of Michele Ferrero, the chocolatier who invented Nutella spread

1977: The birth of astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti

(Picture credits: Arch of Peace by Alberto Monti; Church of San Marco by MarkusMark via Wikimedia Commons)

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25 April

Giovanni Caselli - inventor

Priest and physicist who created world’s first ‘fax' machine

Giovanni Caselli, a physics professor who invented the pantelegraph, the forerunner of the modern fax machine, was born on this day in 1815 in Siena.  Caselli developed a prototype pantelegraph, which was capable of transmitting handwriting and images over long distances via wire telegraph lines, in 1856, some 20 years ahead of the patenting of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in the United States. It entered commercial service in France in 1865.  The technology was patented in Europe and the United States in the 1860s, when it was also trialled in Great Britain and Russia, but ultimately it proved too unreliable to achieve universal acceptance and virtually disappeared from popular use until midway through the 20th century.  Caselli spent his early years in Florence studying physics, science, history and religion and was ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church when he was 21.  In 1841 he was appointed tutor to the sons of Count Marquis Sanvitale of Modena in Parma, where he spent eight years before his time there was abruptly ended by expulsion from the city as a result of his participation in an uprising against the ruling House of Austria-Este.  Read more…

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Ferruccio Ranza - World War One flying ace

Fighter pilot survived 57 aerial dogfights

Ferruccio Ranza, a World War One pilot who survived 465 combat sorties and scored 17 verified victories, died on this day in 1973 in Bologna, at the age of 80.  Ranza, who also saw service in the Second World War, when he rose to the rank of Brigadier General, was jointly the seventh most successful of Italy’s aviators in the 1914-18 conflict, and would be placed third if his eight unconfirmed victories had been proven.  In all, he engaged with enemy aeroplanes in 57 dogfights.  The most successful Italian flying ace from the First World War was Francesco Baracca, who chalked up 34 verified victories before he was killed in action in 1918.  Ranza served alongside Baracca in the 91st Fighter Squadron of the Italian air force, the so-called ‘squadron of aces’.  Ranza was born in Fiorenzuolo d’Arda, a medium-sized town in the province of Piacenza in what is now Emilia-Romagna, in 1892. Both his parents, Paolo and Maria, were teachers.  After attending the Istituto Tecnico ‘Romagnosi’ in Piacenza, he joined the Italian army in December 1913. He was a second lieutenant in the 1st Regiment of Engineers when the First World War began in 1914.  Read more…

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Leon Battista Alberti - Renaissance polymath

Architect with multiple artistic talents

The polymath Leon Battista Alberti, who was one of the 15th century’s most significant architects but possessed an intellect that was much more wide ranging, died on this day in 1472 in Rome.  In his 68 years, Alberti became well known for his work on palaces and churches in Florence, Rimini and Mantua in particular, but he also made major contributions to the study of mathematics, astronomy, language and cryptography, wrote poetry in Latin and works of philosophy and was ordained as a priest.  He was one of those multi-talented figures of his era, along with Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and, a little later, Galileo Galilei, for whom the description Renaissance Man was coined.  Alberti was born in Genoa in 1404, although his family were wealthy Florentine bankers. It just happened that at the time of his birth his father, Lorenzo, was in exile, having been expelled by the powerful Albizzi family.  Leon and his brother, Carlo, were born out of wedlock, the product of their father’s relationship with a Bolognese widow, but as Lorenzo’s only offspring they were given a privileged upbringing.  Read more…

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Festa della Liberazione

Date of radio broadcast chosen for annual celebration

Today is a public holiday in Italy, one which in normal circumstances would see the whole country join together to celebrate the anniversary of the end of the Fascist regime with la Festa della Liberazione.  Every year on this day, the end of the Nazi occupation of Italy is commemorated with parades and parties and many public buildings are closed.  The Festa della Liberazione (Liberation Day) marks the day when Allied troops were finally able to liberate Italy.  The date for the national holiday was chosen in 1946. It was decided to hold the Festa on 25 April, the date the news of the liberation was officially announced to the country on the radio.  The marches and events customarily held on the day provide an opportunity for Italians to remember their fallen soldiers, in particular the partisans of the Italian resistance who fought the Nazis, as well as Mussolini’s troops, throughout the second world war. A ceremony is usually held at the war memorial in each city and town.  It is also a festive occasion for many Italians, who enjoy the food festivals, open air concerts and parties taking place.  Read more…

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24 April

Luigi Lavazza - coffee maker

From a grocery store in Turin to Italy's market leader

Luigi Lavazza, the Turin grocer who founded the Lavazza Coffee Company, was born on this day in 1859 in the small town of Murisengo in Piedmont.  He had lived as a peasant farmer in Murisengo but times were hard and after a couple of poor harvests he decided to abandon the countryside and head for the city, moving to Turin and finding work as a shop assistant.  The Lavazza brand began when Luigi had saved enough money to buy his own shop in Via San Tommaso, in the centre of Turin, in 1895.  He sold groceries and provisions and where other stores simply sold coffee beans, he had a workshop in the rear of the store where he experimented by grinding the beans and mixing them into different blends according to the tastes of his customers.  He travelled to Brazil to improve his knowledge of coffee and his blends became an important part of the business, after which he moved into wholesale as well as retail as a coffee merchant.  When the first automatic roasting machines went into production in the 1920s, he was one of the first in Italy to buy one.  The economic climate in Italy improved after the First World War.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Panza - art collector

Businessman amassed more than 2,500 pieces

The art collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, whose fascination with postwar art, particularly American, led him to build up one of the world’s most important collections, died on this day in 2010 in Milan.  A businessman who succeeded his father in making money from wine and property, Panza acquired more than 2,500 pieces in his lifetime, many of which he sold or donated to museums and art galleries.  Some he parted with for millions of dollars, although he always insisted that his motivation was never financial gain but the love of art.  Approximately 10 per cent of his collection remains in the 18th-century Villa Menafoglio Litta, his family home at Varese, north of Milan, where he created 50,000 square feet (4,600 sq m) of exhibition space.  He had an astute eye for talent, often identifying unknown artists who would go on to become collectible long before their works commanded premium prices.  For example, he anticipated the popularity of Minimalism in the 1960s, snapping up works by Donald Judd and Dan Flavin well before their careers had really taken off.  Born in 1923 in Milan, Panza had a comfortable background. His father, Ernesto, was a wine distributor.  Read more…

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Alessandro Costacurta - champion of football longevity

AC Milan defender played in Serie A until 41 years old

Former Italy and AC Milan defender Alessandro Costacurta was born on this day in 1966 in the town of Orago, near Varese.  Costacurta retired in May 2007, 25 days after his 41st birthday, having played more than 660 matches for AC Milan over the course of 21 seasons.  He is the oldest outfield player to appear in a Serie A match.  Milan lost his final game 3-2 at home to Udinese but Costacurta marked the occasion with a goal, from the penalty spot.  It was only his third goal in 458 Serie A appearances for the rossoneri, but made him Serie A's oldest goalscorer.  He could look back on a career laden with honours, including seven Serie A titles and five European Cups, two in its traditional knock-out format and three more after the inception of the Champions League.  He also won 59 caps for Italy and was a member of the team that finished runners-up in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, although he had to sit out the final because of suspension.  Costacurta made his Milan debut in the Coppa Italia in 1986 before being sent away to gain experience with Monza in Serie C.  His first Serie A appearance came for Milan in October 1987.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Marc’Antonio Baretti – author

Dramatic life of the ‘scourge’ of writers

Literary critic, poet, writer, translator and linguist Giuseppe Baretti was born on this day in 1719 in Turin, the capital city of Piedmont.  His life was often marred by controversies and he eventually had to leave Italy for England, where the drama in his life continued and he was tried at the Old Bailey for murder in 1769.  Baretti’s father had intended him to enter the legal profession but when he was 16 he fled from Turin to Guastalla in Emilia-Romagna where he worked in the import and export business.  His main interest was studying literature and criticism but, after he became an expert in the field himself, his writing was so controversial that he eventually had to move abroad.  Many students of Italian Literature are familiar with the name of Giuseppe Baretti as the writer, editor and proprietor of the fearlessly sarcastic periodical La frusta letteraria, which means Literary Scourge, in which he castigated bad authors.  For a few years Baretti wandered from country to country supporting himself by writing.  He was the author of two influential dictionaries, a Dictionary and Grammar of the Italian Language and a Dictionary of the Spanish Language.  Read more…

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23 April

Stefano Bontade - Mafia supremo

Well-connected Cosa Nostra boss had links to ex-premier Andreotti

Stefano Bontade, one of the most powerful and well connected figures in the Sicilian Mafia in the 1960s and 1970s, was born on this day in 1939 in Palermo, where he was murdered exactly 42 years later in a birthday execution that sparked a two-year war between the island’s rival clans.  Known as Il Falco – the Falcon – he was said to have close links with a number of important politicians in Sicily and with the former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti.  He was strongly suspected of being a key figure in the 1962 murder of Enrico Mattei, the president of Italy’s state-owned oil and gas conglomerate ENI, and in the bogus kidnapping of Michele Sindona, the disgraced banker who used the Vatican Bank to launder the proceeds of Cosa Nostra heroin trafficking.  Born into a Mafia family, Bontade controlled the Villagrazia area in the south-west of Palermo and became head of the Santa Maria di Gesù crime family at the age of 25 when his father, Francesco Paolo Bontade, a major Cosa Nostra boss known as Don Paolino, stepped down in failing health.  He was banished to the mainland, specifically Qualiano in Campania, following his arrest in 1972.  Read more…

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Ruggero Leoncavallo – opera composer

Writer and musician created one of the most popular operas of all time

Ruggero Leoncavallo, the composer of the opera, Pagliacci, was born on this day in 1857 in Naples.  Pagliacci - which means 'clowns' - is one of the most popular operas ever written and is still regularly performed all over the world.  Leoncavallo also wrote the song, Mattinata, often performed by Enrico Caruso and still recorded by today’s tenors.  Leoncavallo was the son of a judge and moved with his father from Naples to live in the town of Montalto Uffugo in Calabria when he was a child.  He later returned to Naples to be educated and then studied literature at the University of Bologna under the poet Giosuè Carducci.  Leoncavallo initially worked as a piano teacher in Egypt but then moved to Paris where he found work as an accompanist for artists singing in cafes.  He then moved to Milan where he taught the piano and started to compose operas.  After the success of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, Leoncavallo produced his own verismo work, Pagliacci. Verismo was a post-romantic operatic tradition, often featuring true stories about the lives of poor people.  Leoncavallo claimed he had derived the plot for Pagliacci from a real-life murder trial.  Read more…

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Gaspara Stampa – poet

Beautiful sonnets were inspired by unrequited love

Gaspara Stampa, the greatest female poet of the Italian Renaissance, died on this day in 1554 in Venice at the age of 31.  She is regarded by many as the greatest Italian female poet of any age, despite having had such a brief life.  Gaspara was born in Padua and lived in the city until she was eight years old. Her father, Bartolomeo, had been a jewel and gold merchant, but after he died, Gaspara’s mother, Cecilia, took her three children to live in Venice. They were accommodated in the house of Geronimo Morosini, who was descended from a noble Venetian family, in the parish of Santi Gervasio and Protasio, now known as San Trovaso.  Along with her sister, Cassandra, and brother, Baldassare, Gaspara was educated in literature, music, history and painting. She excelled at singing and playing the lute and her home became a cultural hub as it was visited by many Venetian writers, painters and musicians, among them Francesco Sansovino, a poet and writer who was the son of the great Florentine architect, Jacopo Sansovino.  Gaspara dedicated most of her poems to Count Collatino di Collalto of Treviso, with whom she had an affair.  Read more…

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Gianandrea Noseda - conductor

Milanese musician has achieved worldwide acclaim

Gianandrea Noseda, who is recognised as one of the leading orchestra conductors of his generation, was born on this day in 1964 in Milan.  He holds the title of Cavaliere Ufficiale al Merito della Repubblica Italiana for his contribution to the artistic life of Italy.  Noseda studied piano and composition in Milan and began studying conducting at the age of 27.  He made his debut as a conductor in 1994 with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. He won the Cadaques International Conducting Competition for young conductors in Spain the same year.  In 1997 he became principal guest conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and during his time there became fluent in Russian.  In 2002 he became principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and in this role led live performances in Manchester of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. In 2006 his title was changed to chief conductor.  The London Symphony Orchestra announced the appointment of Noseda as its new principal guest conductor in 2016.  Noseda has been Music Director of the Teatro Regio Torino since 2007, taking their orchestra to the Edinburgh Festival in 2017.  Read more… 

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22 April

Vittorio Jano - motor racing engineer

Genius behind the success of Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Ferrari

Born on this day in 1891, Vittorio Jano was among the greatest engine designers in motor racing history.  Jano's engines powered cars for Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Ferrari during a career that spanned four decades, winning numerous Grand Prix races.  The legendary Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio won the fourth of his five Formula One world championships in Jano's Lancia-Ferrari D50, in 1956.  Almost 30 years earlier, Jano's Alfa Romeo P2 won the very first Grand Prix world championship in 1925, while its successor, the P3, scored a staggering 46 race wins between 1932 and 1935.  He worked for Ferrari from the mid-50s onwards, where his greatest legacy was the V-8 Dino engine, which was the staple of Ferrari cars on the track and the road between 1966 and 2004.  Jano's parents were from Hungary, but settled in Italy, where his father worked as a mechanical engineer in Turin.  He was born in the small town of San Giorgio Canavese in Piedmont, about 35 kilometres north of Turin, and was originally called Viktor János.  Following his father into engineering, he joined Fiat at the age of just 20.  Read more…

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Alida Valli - actress

Scandal dogged star admired by Mussolini

The actress Alida Valli, who was once described by Benito Mussolini as the most beautiful woman in the world after Greta Garbo, died on this day in 2006 at the age of 84.  One of the biggest stars in Italian cinema in the late 1930s and 40s, when she starred in numerous romantic dramas and comedies, she was best known outside Italy for playing Anna Schmidt, the actress girlfriend of Harry Lime in Carol Reed’s Oscar-winning 1949 classic The Third Man.  She was cast in the role by the producer David O Selznick, who shared the Fascist leader’s appreciation for her looks, and who billed her simply as Valli, hoping it would create for her a Garboesque enigmatic allure.  Later, however, she complained that having one name made her “feel silly”.  Valli was born in Pola, Istria, then part of Italy (now Pula, Croatia), in 1921. She was christened Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg, on account of a noble line to her paternal grandfather, Baron Luigi Altenburger, an Austrian-Italian from Trento and a descendant of the Counts d’Arco.  Her father was a journalist and professor. The family moved to Como when she was young.  Read more…

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Fiorenza Cossotto - operatic mezzo-soprano

Career overshadowed by story of ‘row’ with Maria Callas

Fiorenza Cossotto, a singer considered one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1935 in Crescentino in Piedmont.  Cossotto was hailed for her interpretations of the major mezzo and contralto roles from mid-19th-century Italian operas, particularly those of Giuseppe Verdi such as Aida, Il trovatore and Don Carlos, but also Gaetano Donizetti, Amilcare Ponchielli, Vincenzo Bellini and the other important composers of the day.  Yet she is often remembered for a supposed spat with Maria Callas that led the Greek-American soprano to walk off the stage during her final performance at the Opéra in Paris of her signature role in Bellini’s Norma in 1965.  The incident in question took place immediately after Callas, as Norma, and Cossotto, as Adalgisa, had joined in their duet ‘Mira, o Norma’.  Callas, by that stage a little below her prime, was notoriously temperamental and within moments onlookers were imagining a row, theorising that Cossotto had tried to sabotage Callas’s performance by holding her own high notes longer and singing over Callas.  Read more…

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21 April

NEW - Alessandro Moreschi - the last castrato

Only singer of his type to make solo recordings

Alessandro Moreschi, the singer generally recognised as the last castrato, and the only castrato of whom solo recordings were made, died on this day in 1922 in his apartment in Rome.  Suffering from pneumonia, Moreschi passed away in his apartment in Via Plinio, just a few minutes walk from the Vatican, where he sang for 30 years as a member of the Sistine Chapel choir.  Castrati were male classical singers with voices that were the equivalent of the female soprano, mezzo-soprano or contralto, but which carried much greater power. As the name suggests, these vocal qualities in men were produced through castration, which had to take place before puberty to prevent normal development.  The procedure both impaired the development of the larynx so that the pre-pubescent vocal range was retained and altered the way in which the subject’s bones developed, which resulted often in unusually long limbs and, more significantly, very long ribs, which gave the castrato’s lungs unrivalled capacity.  It was a barbaric practice and many boys did not survive it, but the rewards for those who did were potentially huge.   Read more…

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Cosimo I de' Medici

The grand designs of a powerful archduke

The second duke of Florence and first grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I, died on this day in 1574 at the Villa di Castello near Florence.  Cosimo had proved to be both shrewd and unscrupulous, bringing Florence under his despotic control and increasing its territories.  He was the first to have the idea of uniting all public services in a single building. He commissioned the Uffizi - offices - a beautiful building that is now an art gallery in the centre of Florence.  Cosimo was the great-great-grandson of Lorenzo the Elder, whose brother was Cosimo the Elder but played no part in politics until he heard of the assassination of his distant cousin, Alessandro.  He immediately travelled to Florence and was elected head of the republic in 1537 with the approval of the city’s senate, assembly and council.  He also had the support of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. The Emperor’s general defeated an army raised against Cosimo, who then had the principal rebels beheaded in public in Florence.  Cosimo began to style himself as a duke and sidelined the other Government bodies in the city.  As the Emperor’s protégée, he remained safe from the hostility of Pope Paul II and King Francis I of France.  Read more…

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Silvana Mangano - actress

Star who married the producer Dino De Laurentiis

The actress Silvana Mangano, who was decried as a mere sex symbol and later hailed as a fine character actress during a quite restricted career, was born on this day in 1930 in Rome.  She found fame through Giuseppe De Santis’s neorealist film Bitter Rice, in which she played a female worker in the rice fields in the Po Valley who becomes involved with a petty criminal Walter, played by Vittorio Gassman.  Mangano’s character was a sensual, lustful young woman and the actress, a former beauty queen, carried it off so well that she was hailed by one critic as “Ingrid Bergmann with a Latin disposition” and likened also to the American glamour queen Rita Hayworth.  She went on to work with many of Italy's leading directors, including Alberto Lattuada, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Luchino Visconti, but she made only 30 films, in part because she preferred to spend time with her family but also because Dino De Laurentiis, the producer of Bitter Rice who soon became her husband, controlled her career.  It is said that she was offered the important part of Maddalena in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita but that De Laurentiis prevented her from taking it.  Read more…

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The birth of Rome

City said to have been founded on April 21, 753BC

Three days of celebrations would normally begin in Rome today to mark the annual Natale di Roma Festival, which commemorates the founding of the city in 753BC.  The traditional celebrations would take place largely in the large open public space of Circus Maximus, which hosts many historical re-enactments.  In previous years a costumed parade would tour the city, featuring more than 2,000 gladiators, senators, vestal virgins and priestesses.  City museums traditionally offer free entry and many of the city’s restaurants have special Natale di Roma menus.  After dark, many public places are lit up, torches illuminate the Aventine Hill, and firework displays take place by the Tiber river.  According to legend, Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, founded Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants.  They were said to be the sons of Rhea Silvia, the daughter of King Numitor of Alba Longa, a city located in the nearby Alban Hills southeast of what would become Rome.  Before they were born, Numitor was deposed by his younger brother Amulius, who murdered his existing son and forced Rhea to become a vestal virgin so that she would not give birth to rival claimants to his title.  Read more…

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Alessandro Moreschi - the last castrato

Only singer of his type to make solo recordings

Alessandro Moreschi sang in the Sistine
Chapel choir for 30 years

Alessandro Moreschi, the singer generally recognised as the last castrato, and the only castrato of whom solo recordings were made, died on this day in 1922 in his apartment in Rome.

Suffering from pneumonia, Moreschi passed away in his apartment in Via Plinio, just a few minutes walk from the Vatican, where he sang for 30 years as a member of the Sistine Chapel choir.

Castrati were male classical singers with voices that were the equivalent of the female soprano, mezzo-soprano or contralto, but which carried much greater power. As the name suggests, these vocal qualities in men were produced through castration, which had to take place before puberty to prevent normal development.

The procedure both impaired the development of the larynx so that the pre-pubescent vocal range was retained and altered the way in which the subject’s bones developed, which resulted often in unusually long limbs and, more significantly, very long ribs, which gave the castrato’s lungs unrivalled capacity.

It was a barbaric practice and many boys did not survive it, but the rewards for those who did were potentially huge. At the height of the castrato voice’s popularity in opera, in the 18th century, singers such as Farinelli, Cafarelli and Senesino enjoyed the status of pop stars, commanding substantial appearances fees and enjoying rich lifestyles.

Moreschi was spotted singing
in a chapel choir near his home

But fashions changed. Where composers such as Rossini, Handel and Gluck had written many pieces for castrato singers, after about 1840 castrati were no longer in vogue and later composers such as Verdi and Wagner had no interest in them.

By the time Moreschi joined the Vatican Choir, castrati were employed only by the church, as they had been before Italy’s wealthy ducal courts and then the opera gave them opportunities. The castrato voices were essentially to compensate for the absence of women, who were not allowed to sing in church.

If Moreschi, born in 1858 in Monte Compatri, one of the group of towns southeast of Rome known as the Castelli Romani, was castrated on account of his vocal potential, he would have been one of the last to have undergone the procedure, which was outlawed in 1870.  Some accounts of his life suggest he was castrated for medical reasons, having been born with an inguinal hernia.

However, his castration came about, the quality of his singing soon stood out. He joined the choir of the chapel of the Madonna del Castagno, near his home town, where his talent was spotted by Nazareno Rosati, formerly a member of the Sistine Chapel choir, who took him to Rome and enrolled him at the Scuola di San Salvatore in Lauro. His teacher there, Gaetano Capocci, was maestro di cappella of the Papal basilica of St John Lateran, where Moreschi was appointed primo soprano in the choir at the age of only 15.

It was his performance in the demanding coloratura role of the Seraph in Beethoven’s oratorio Christus am Ölberge that in 1883 earned him the primo soprano position at the Sistine Chapel, where he would stay for 30 years, occupying many different roles.

In August 1900, at the request of the Italian royal family, he sang at the funeral of the king, Umberto I, and in 1902 he made the first of his 17 recordings for the Gramophone & Typewriter Company of London.

Moreschi’s voice began to decline as he entered his fifties and he retired in around 1914.

His recordings have been preserved and are available today on CD or vinyl. They include two songs by Tosti, the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria, Mozart's Ave verum and two versions of the Crucifixus from Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle.  In the later recordings, Moreschi’s voice is said to be clear and penetrating.

Monte Compatri is one of the Castelli Romani
towns to the southeast of Rome

Travel tip:

Monte Compatri, where Moreschi was born, is a hill town located about 20km (12 miles) southeast of Rome. It is one of the Castelli Romani, the so-called Roman Castles, a group of 16 municipalities located at the foot of the Colli Albani - the Alban Hills. The area was formerly one of volcanic activity, in which the lakes Nemi and Albano formed in the extinct crater.  Frascati is the best known of the Castelli Romani, while Castel Gandolfo is home to the summer residence of the popes.  Monte Compatri’s parish church, dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo,  (1630–33), was erected by will of Scipione Borghese, an Italian Cardinal, art collector and patron of the arts who was the patron of the painter Caravaggio and the artist Bernini.

Detail from Michelangelo's fresco, The Last
Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel

Travel tip:

The Sistine Chapel is in the Apostolic Palace, where the Pope lives, in Vatican City. The chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, the uncle of Pope Julius II, who had it restored during his papacy. It is famous for the ceiling painted by Michelangelo, who also painted the fresco The Last Judgment, on the altar wall of the chapel, which was not finished until 25 years after he completed work on the ceiling. The work was controversial for its depiction of nudity, some of which the Council of Trent, the ecumenical council that took place in Trento between 1545 and 1563, declared to be obscene and ordered Mannerist painted Daniele da Volterra to cover up.

Also on this day:

753BC: The founding of the city of Rome

1574: The death of Cosimo I de’ Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany

1930: The birth of actress Silvana Mangano

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