23 May

Girolamo Savonarola executed

Death of the friar who was to inspire best-selling novel by Tom Wolfe

The hellfire preacher Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned on this day in 1498 in Piazza della Signoria in Florence.  By sheer force of personality, Savonarola had convinced rich people to burn their worldly goods in spectacular bonfires in Florence during 1497, but within a year it was Savonarola’s burning corpse that the crowds turned out to see.  Savonarola had become famous for his outspoken sermons against vice and corruption in the Catholic Church in Italy and he encouraged wealthy people to burn their valuable goods, paintings and books in what have become known as ‘bonfires of the vanities.’  This phrase inspired Tom Wolfe to write The Bonfire of the Vanities, a novel about ambition and politics in 1980s New York.  Savonarola was born in 1452 in Ferrara. He became a Dominican friar and entered the convent of Saint Mark in Florence in 1482. He began preaching against corruption and vice and prophesied that a leader would arrive from the north to punish Italy and reform the church.  When Emperor Charles VIII invaded from the north many people thought Savonarola’s prediction was being fulfilled.  Read more…

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Ferdinando II de’ Medici – Grand Duke of Tuscany

Technology fan who supported scientist Galileo

Inventor and patron of science Ferdinando II de’ Medici died on this day in 1670 in Florence.  Like his grandmother, the dowager Grand Duchess Christina, Ferdinando II was a loyal friend to Galileo and he welcomed the scientist back to Florence after the prison sentence imposed on him for ‘vehement suspicion of heresy’ was commuted to house arrest.  Ferdinando II was reputed to be obsessed with new technology and had hygrometers, barometers, thermometers and telescopes installed at his home in the Pitti Palace.  He has also been credited with the invention of the sealed glass thermometer in 1654.  Ferdinando II was born in 1610, the eldest son of Cosimo II de’ Medici and Maria Maddalena of Austria.  He became Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1621 when he was just 10 years old after the death of his father.  His mother, Maddalena, and paternal grandmother, Christina, acted as joint regents for him. Christina is said to have been the power behind the throne until her death in 1636.  Ferdinando II was patron and friend to Galileo, who dedicated his work, Dialogue Concerning the two Chief World Systems, to him.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Parini – writer

Satirist avenged bad treatment though his poetry

Poet and satirist Giuseppe Parini was born on this day in 1729 in Bosisio in Lombardy.  A writer associated with the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, he is remembered for his series of Horatian odes and for Il giorno - The Day - a satirical poem in four books about the selfishness and superficiality of the aristocracy in Milan.  The son of a silk trader, Parini was sent to Milan to study under the religious order, the Barnabites. In 1752 his first volume of verse introduced him to literary circles and the following year he joined the Milanese Accademia dei Trasformati - Academy of the Transformed - which was located at the Palazzo Imbonati in the Porta Nuova district.  He was ordained a priest in 1754 - a condition of a legacy made to him by a great aunt - and entered the household of Duke Gabrio Serbelloni at Tremezzo on Lake Como to be tutor to his eldest son.  Parini was unhappy there and felt he was badly treated, but he twice got his revenge on his employer through his writing. In 1757 he wrote his Dialogo sopra la nobilità, a discussion between the corpse of a nobleman and the corpse of a poet about the true nature of nobility.   Read more…

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Sergio Gonella - football referee

First Italian to referee a World Cup final

Sergio Gonella, the first Italian football referee to take charge of a World Cup final, was born on this day in 1933 in Asti, a city in Piedmont best known for its wine production.  Gonella was appointed to officiate in the 1978 final between the Netherlands and the hosts Argentina in Buenos Aires and although he was criticised by many journalists and football historians for what they perceived as a weak performance lacking authority, few matches in the history of the competition can have presented a tougher challenge.  Against a backcloth of political turmoil in a country that had suffered a military coup only two years earlier and where opponents of the regime were routinely kidnapped and tortured, or simply disappeared, this was Argentina’s chance to build prestige by winning the biggest sporting event in the world, outside the Olympics.  Rumours of subterfuge surrounded most of Argentina’s matches and when the final arrived the atmosphere in the stadium was as intimidating as anything Gonella would have experienced in his whole 13-year professional career.  The match began with an unprecedented delay, caused first by the Argentine team’s deliberate late arrival on the field. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Burning of the Vanities: Savonarola and the Borgia Pope, by Desmond Seward

'The city will no longer be a place of flowers, but an abode of robbery, of evil doing, of bloodshed.' This is the dramatic story of Girolamo Savonarola, the visionary friar who terrified Renaissance Florence by his uncannily accurate prophecies of doom - especially of a new barbarian invasion from Charles VIII - and denounced Lorenzo the Magnificent as a tyrant and the Borgia Alexander VI as an unworthy pope. He became virtual ruler of Florence, restoring republican government, and burning 'profane art' in public bonfires, most notably in the famous 'Bonfire of the Vanities' in 1497. The years when he dominated the city are among the most dramatic and tragic in Florentine history, and his supporters included: Michelangelo, Botticelli and Machiavelli. But, in the end, Alexander VI turned the Florentines against Savonarola and destroyed him. They stormed his friary, and after a mockery of a trial during which he was tortured and condemned as a heretic, he went to the stake. In The Burning of the Vanities, Desmond Seward tells the extraordinary story of the man who, even after his death, became a cult figure.

Desmond Seward was born in Paris and educated at Cambridge University. He is the author of numerous books, including biographies of Henry IV of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Marie Antoinette, Empress Eugenie and Napoleon's Family.

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22 May

Trevi Fountain inaugurated

Famous fountain now helps raise money for the poor

Rome’s iconic Trevi Fountain - Fontana di Trevi - was officially opened by Pope Clement XIII on this day in 1762.  Standing at more than 26m (85ft) high and 49m (161ft) wide it is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome and probably the most famous fountain in the world.  It has featured in films such as La dolce vita and Three Coins in the Fountain.  For more than 400 years a fountain served Rome at the junction of three roads, tre vie, using water from one of Ancient Rome’s aqueducts.  In 1629 Pope Urban VIII asked Gian Lorenzo Bernini to draw up possible renovations but the project was abandoned when the pope died.  In 1730 Pope Clement XII organised a contest to design a new fountain. The Florentine Alessandro Galilei originally won but there was such an outcry in Rome that the commission was eventually awarded to a Roman, Nicola Salvi.  Work on the fountain began in 1732 but Salvi died in 1751 when it was only half finished. Made from Travertine stone quarried in Tivoli near Rome, the fountain was completed by Giuseppe Pannini, with Oceanus (god of all water), designed by Pietro Bracci, set in the central niche.  Read more…

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José João Altafini - footballer who made history

Forward tamed Eusebio to give Italy first European Cup

Supporters of AC Milan took to the streets to celebrate on this day in 1963 after José João Altafini's goals secured an historic victory in the European Cup.  Milan beat Benfica at Wembley Stadium in London to become the first Italian team to win the trophy.  Until then the European Cup had been dominated by Real Madrid, who were champions for five years in a row after the competition was launched in 1955-56, with the great Eusebio's Benfica winning in 1961 and 1962.  At half-time at Wembley in 1963, Milan looked set to provide another near-miss story for Italy, trailing to a Eusebio goal as Benfica closed on a third successive title.  The rossoneri had lost to Real Madrid five years earlier, 12 months after the Spanish giants brushed aside Fiorentina in the final.  But 24-year-old Altafini, who became one of Serie A’s most prolific all-time goalscorers, refused to be cowed.  He netted in the 58th and 66th minutes, sparking joyous scenes in Milan and starting a period of European dominance for the city, with AC’s rivals Internazionale winning the next two tournaments.  The Milan team that night in London boasted two future Italy managers in Cesare Maldini and Giovanni Trapattoni, as well as the great Gianni Rivera, but Altafini was the star.  Read more…

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Giulia Grisi - operatic soprano

Officer’s daughter became a star on three continents

The opera singer Giulia Grisi, one of the leading sopranos of the 19th century, was born on this day in 1811 in Milan.  Renowned for the smooth sweetness of her voice, Grisi sang to full houses in Europe, the United States and South America during a career spanning 30 years in which composers such as Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti created roles especially for her.  These included Elvira in Bellini’s final opera, I puritani, in which Grisi appeared alongside the great tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, the bass Luigi Lablache and the baritone Antonio Tamburini when the work premiered in Paris in 1835.  The opera was such a success that whenever the four singers performed together subsequently they were known as the “Puritani quartet”.  Grisi was also the first soprano cast in the role of Adalgisa in Bellini’s Norma in Milan in 1831, playing opposite Giuditta Pasta in the title role.  Donizetti wrote the parts of Norina and Ernesto in his 1843 work Don Pasquale for Grisi and her future husband, the tenor Giovanni Matteo De Candia, usually known by his stage name of Giovanni Mario. Lablache and Tamburini again starred with her in the Paris premiere.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Rome Through the Mist: Walks Among the Fountains of the Eternal City, by Joe Gartman with photographs by Patricia Gartman

Join Joe Gartman, culture columnist for Italia! Magazine, on a journey among 80 of Rome's celebrated fountains, and find a more intimate way of experiencing the Eternal City. On foot with book in hand, or simply in imagination, each chapter of Rome Through the Mist takes readers on a vivid walk, enhanced with colourful, revealing photographs of Roman life. Every fountain in Rome tells a story and every story is about Rome: her history, her legends, and her extraordinary people - poets and popes, artists and models, architects and emperors, saints and sinners. Every street, piazza, wall and garden that contains a fountain has a past worth knowing. Discover the paths in this book, with 15 different turn-by-turn walking tours, 17 maps, and 181 full-color photos. Journey from Trevi's torrents to the Naiad's naughty nymphs and from the quiet basins in Piazza San Simeone to Bernini's mighty Four Rivers in Piazza Navona; or perhaps find a secret fountain where tourists rarely go, and listen to the voices of the waters.

For nine years, as Italia! Magazine’s “resident historian and storyteller”, Joe Gartman has written a column called “Fast Culture” as well as many articles on travel, art, and history.  His work also appears in the Italia! Guides series, German Life Magazine, and online at italytravelandlife.com.  A librarian and teacher by profession, Patricia Gartman found a new vocation when she began to publish photos to illustrate Joe’s magazine articles.

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21 May

Propaganda Due suspects named

Italy horrified as list reveals alleged members of ‘secret state’ 

Ordinary Italians were stunned and the country’s elite rocked to the core on this day in 1981 when a list was made public of alleged members of Propaganda Due, a secret Masonic lodge which sought to run the country as a ‘state within the state’.  A staggering 962 names were on the list, including 44 members of parliament, three of whom were cabinet ministers, 49 bankers, numerous industrialists, a number of newspaper editors and other high-profile journalists, the heads of all three of Italy’s secret services and more than 200 military and police officers, including 12 generals of the Carabinieri, five of the Guardia di Finanza, 22 of the army and four from the air force.  The existence of the illegal, underground lodge, known as P2, had been rumoured for several years but there had been little concrete evidence until magistrates investigating the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in Milan raided the home in Tuscany of Licio Gelli, the former Fascist financier who turned out to be the Grandmaster.  The list of alleged members, which was made public by Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani on the advice of the prosecuting team, was found among paperwork seized in the raid.  Read more…

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Pandolfo Petrucci – ruler of Siena

Ruthless tyrant who encouraged art

Pandolfo Petrucci, who during his time ruling Siena was one of the most powerful men in Italy, died on this day in 1512 in San Quirico d’Orcia in Tuscany.  Although he had been a tyrannical ruler, Petrucci had also done a great deal to increase the artistic splendour of his native city.  Petrucci was born into an aristocratic family in Siena in 1452. He had to go into exile in 1483 for being a member of the Noveschi political faction, which had fallen out of favour with the rulers of Siena.  After he returned to Siena in 1487, he began to take advantage of the struggles between the different political factions.  He married Aurelia Borghese, who was the daughter of Niccolò Borghese, an important figure in Siena at the time. After entering public office himself, Petrucci acquired so much authority and wealth that he became the ruling despot of Siena with the title of signore - lord.  His rapid rise to power alienated his father-in-law, who conspired with other influential citizens in Siena to assassinate him. However, Petrucci uncovered the plot and in 1500 had Borghese murdered. This act terrified his other enemies, which left Petrucci in complete control.  Read more…

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Angelo Bruno - Mafia boss

Sicilian head of Philadelphia mob known as 'the Gentle Don'

Angelo Bruno, a mobster who ran the Philadelphia Mafia for two decades, was born Angelo Annaloro in Villalba, in the province of Caltanissetta, in Sicily, on this day in 1910.  Bruno was known as “the Gentle Don” because he preferred to solve problems and consolidate his power through non-violent means, such as bribery, and commissioned murders only as a last resort.  The son of a grocer, he emigrated to the United States in his teens and settled in Philadelphia. He became a close associate of New York crime family boss Carlo Gambino. Bruno dropped the name Annaloro and replaced it with his paternal grandmother's maiden name, Bruno.  Bruno’s dislike of violence was not driven by any compassion for his fellow man.  During his early days in Philadelphia, he worked for a series of bosses and did not shirk the tasks he had to perform in order to rise through the ranks, which included carrying out killings himself.  But in 1959, when he succeeded Joseph Ida as boss of the Philadelphia crime family, he decided it was in his interests and those of his criminal organisation to operate in a way that avoided attracting unwanted attention.  Read more…

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Michelangelo’s Pietà damaged

Work of art deliberately vandalised

Michelangelo’s beautiful Pietà, a marble sculpture of the Virgin Mary with the dead body of Jesus lying across her knees, was damaged by a man wielding a hammer on this day in 1972 in Rome.  A mentally disturbed man walked into St Peter’s Basilica and attacked the sculpture in an act of deliberate vandalism.  He struck it 15 times, removing Mary’s arm at the elbow, knocking off a chunk of her nose and chipping one of her eyelids.  Some of the pieces of marble that flew off were taken by some of the people who were in the church at the time and Mary’s nose had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back.  The man who carried out the attack was said to be suffering from a delusion that he was Jesus Christ risen from the dead. He was not charged with any crime but spent two years in a psychiatric hospital.  After the restoration work was completed the sculpture was returned to its place in St Peter’s, just to the right of the entrance, and it is now protected by a bulletproof acrylic glass panel.  Michelangelo carved this sculpture from a single piece of Carrara marble in 1499 when he was only 24 and it is the only work he ever signed.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Brotherhood: The Explosive Exposé of the Secret World of the Freemasons, by Stephen Knight, with an introduction by Martin Short

A classic and highly controversial exposé of the secret world of the Freemasons reissued with a new introduction by Martin Short, author of ‘Inside the Brotherhood’.  The Freemasons have long fascinated outsiders. This secret and exclusive society remains a mystery to the many excluded from its ranks. One would never know if a father or brother was a member due to the mandatory vow of secrecy.  In this classic, controversial exposé, Stephen Knight talks to the men on the inside – those who have broken their vow of secrecy to reveal the darker side of the ‘brotherhood’. Do they influence the law? Is the KGB involved? And is there a secret group of Masons running the country today, perhaps influencing every move we make?  Fully updated, The Brotherhood is the unmissable, true story of an ancient and mysterious collective operating in our midst.

Stephen Knight, who died in 1985, was a British journalist and author. He is best remembered for the books Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution and The Brotherhood .  Martin Short is a writer and TV documentary producer, whose book on the Freemasons, Inside the Brotherhood, sold more than 100,000 copies and spawned a six-part ITV documentary series.

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20 May

Pietro Bembo – poet and scholar

Lucrezia Borgia’s lover helped with the development of modern Italian

Pietro Bembo, a writer who was influential in the development of the Italian language, was born on this day in 1470 in Venice.  He is probably most remembered for having an affair with Lucrezia Borgia while she was married to the Duke of Ferrara and he was living at the Este Court with them. His love letters to her were described by the English poet, Lord Byron, centuries later, as ‘the prettiest love letters in the world.’  As a boy, Bembo visited Florence with his father where he acquired a love for the Tuscan form of Italian which he was later to use as his literary medium. He later learnt Greek and went to study at the University of Padua.  He spent two years at the Este Court in Ferrara where he wrote poetry that was reminiscent of Boccaccio and Petrarch.  It was when he returned to the court at Ferrara a few years later that he had an affair with Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, who was at that time the wife of Alfonso I d’Este. The love letters between the pair to which Byron referred are now in the collection of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.  Byron greatly admired them when he saw them there in 1816.  Read more…

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Ondina Valla - ground-breaking athlete

Italy’s first female Olympic champion

Trebisonda ‘Ondina’ Valla, the first Italian woman to win an Olympic gold medal, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.  Known as Ondina reputedly after a journalist misspelled her unusual name, Valla won the 80m at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where she also set a world record time in the semi-final.  The victory established Valla as an icon for Italy’s Fascist regime and as a heroine for Italian girls with sporting ambitions, her success breaking new ground for women in the face of considerable opposition to female participation in sport.  The Catholic Church’s attitude was that sport was not compatible with the standards of morality, modesty and domesticity they expected of women, while the view of Italy’s medical profession was that women should take only basic physical exercise if they wanted to maintain the level of health required for motherhood.  Benito Mussolini initially saw women as occupying a traditional role in the society he envisaged for the fascist ideal, supporting their husbands and caring for their children within the family unit.  But he seized upon Valla’s success as a political opportunity, keen to portray her as an example of Italian Fascism’s dynamism and the potential for Italians to make their mark internationally.  Read more...

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Giovanni Paolo Cavagna – artist

Prolific painter left a rich legacy of religious canvases

Late Renaissance painter Giovanni Paolo Cavagna, who became famous for his religious scenes, died on this day in 1627 in his native city of Bergamo.  Cavagna was mainly active in Bergamo and Brescia, another historic city in the Lombardy region, for most of his career, although he is believed to have spent some time training in Venice in the studio of Titian. The artist was born in Borgo di San Leonardo in Bergamo’s Città Bassa in about 1550. The painter Cristoforo Baschenis Il Vecchio is believed to have taken him as an apprentice from the age of 12. Cavagna is also thought to have spent time as a pupil of the famous Bergamo portrait painter Giovanni Battista Moroni.  Cavagna’s work can still be seen in many churches in Bergamo and villages in the surrounding area. In the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo’s Città Alta there are paintings by him of the Assumption of the Virgin, the Nativity, and Esther and Ahasuerus.  In the Church of Santa Spirito in Bergamo’s Città Bassa, there are his paintings of Santa Lucia and the Crucifixion with Saints. He painted a Coronation of the Virgin for the Church of San Giovanni Battista in the province of Casnigo. Read more…

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Albano Carrisi - singer

Performer best known as Al Bano has sold 165 million records

The singer Albano Carrisi, better known as Al Bano, was born on this day in 1943 in Cellino San Marco, a town in Puglia about 30km (19 miles) from Lecce.  He enjoyed considerable success as a solo artist in the late 1960s but became more famous still in Italy and across mainland Europe for his collaboration with the American singer Romina Power – daughter of the actor Tyrone Power.  They met during the shooting of a film - one of several, mainly romantic comedies and a vehicle for his songs, in which he starred during the 1970s.  They not only formed a professional partnership but were married for almost 30 years.  They twice performed as Italy’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, finishing seventh on both occasions, and appeared several times at Italy’s prestigious Sanremo Music Festival, winning the top prize in 1984.  They divorced in 1999 but reunited on a professional basis in 2013 and when they performed at the Arena di Verona in 2015 before a sell-out crowd of 11,000 the show was broadcast by the Italian TV network Rai and shown in seven other countries, with a combined audience estimated at 51 million.  Read more…

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Gabriele Muccino - film director

Enjoyed box office success in US after partnering with Will Smith

The film director Gabriele Muccino, whose best-known work so far has been the Oscar-nominated 2006 Will Smith movie The Pursuit of Happyness, was born on this day in 1967 in Rome.  He is the older brother of the actor, Silvio Muccino.  Muccino, who also directed Smith in Seven Pounds (2008), spent several years in Hollywood following his success in Italy with L’ultimo bacio (The Last Kiss), which won him a David Di Donatello award as Best Director and for Best Screenplay.  His most recent work has been in Italy, with his latest film, Gli anni più belli (The Most Beautiful Years) released in February 2020.  The son of Luigi Muccino, an executive at the state television company Rai, and painter and costume designer Antonella Cappuccio, Gabriele enrolled at Rome’s Sapienza University to study literature, but was already fascinated with the cinema. Indeed, he abandoned his studies soon after he began them, choosing instead to attend Rome’s renowned Centro sperimentale di cinematografia, where he worked unpaid as a director’s assistant, working with the highly-regarded Pupi Avati and Marco Risi.  Read more…

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Hieronymus Fabricius - anatomist and surgeon

Research pioneer known as “Father of Embryology”

The pioneering anatomist and physiologist known in academic history as Hieronymus Fabricius, whose Italian name was Girolamo Fabrizio, was born on this day in 1537 in Acquapendente, in Lazio.  Fabrizio, who designed the first permanent theatre for public anatomical dissections, advanced the knowledge of the make-up of the human body in many areas, including the digestive system, the eyes and ears, and the veins.  But his most significant discoveries were in embryology.  He investigated the foetal development of many animals and humans and produced the first detailed description of the placenta. For this he became known as the "Father of Embryology".  Fabrizio spent most of his life at the University of Padua, where he was a student under the guidance of Gabriele Falloppio, who discovered the tube connecting the ovaries with the uterus that became known as the Fallopian tube.  He succeeded Falloppio as chair of surgery and anatomy, holding the post from 1562 to 1613 and building a reputation that attracted students from all of Europe.  Among his pupils were the English anatomist William Harvey, as well as Giulio Casseri and Adriaan van den Spiegel, both of whom went on to become significant anatomists.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Pietro Bembo: A Life in Laurels and Scarlet, by Marco Faini

Pietro Bembo was both witness and participant at the centre of the Italian Renaissance. A celebrated writer, an antiquarian, a man of exquisite taste, and a lover of women and beauty, he was to win both the laurels of a poet and the scarlet robes of a Cardinal. Born in Venice, he travelled to and resided in nearly all the Italian courts, from Lorenzo il Magnifico’s Florence to Ferrara, Urbino and Rome. As Latin secretary to Pope Leo X and a lover of Lucrezia Borgia, with whom he exchanged passionate letters in great secrecy, he was an intimate of both the Medicis and the Borgias. His public writing set the style of Italian literary language, and his appreciations of Dante and Petrarch were influential across the whole of Europe. A patron and friend of many of the most refined artists of the Renaissance, from Raphael to Cellini, Bembo also lived through an age of scientific enquiry — as a boy, he was fascinated with the volcanic processes of Mount Etna — and the dawn of print culture, in which he also played a role as one of the first contemporary writers to be printed in movable type.  A Life in Laurels and Scarlet, commissioned by the Fondation Barbier-Mueller pour l’étude de la poésie italienne de la Renaissance, aims to recapture, for a general readership, Bembo’s unique experience during the most glorious and tormented years of the Italian Renaissance.

Marco Faini is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). He is the co-editor of A Companion to Pietro Aretino (with Paola Ugolini) and the author of Standing at the Crossroads. Stories of Doubt in Renaissance Italy.

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19 May

NEW - Baccio d’Agnolo - architect and woodcarver

Florentine who influenced the look of his home city

The woodcarver, sculptor and architect Baccio d'Agnolo, whose work significantly influenced the architectural landscape of his home city in the Renaissance period, was born in Florence on this day in 1462.  His birth name was Bartolomeo Baglioni but he came to be referred to as d’Agnolo in a reference to the name of his father, Angelo, while Baccio was a popular short form for Bartolomeo. His father was also a woodcarver, which explains the direction of his early career.  Between 1491 and 1502, Baccio executed much of the decorative carving in the church of Santa Maria Novella and the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence before turning to architecture.  He worked alongside Simone del Pollaiolo in restoring the Palazzo Vecchio, and in 1506 was commissioned to complete the drum of the cupola of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, although the project was ultimately abandoned after criticism from Michelangelo.  Among the notable buildings attributed to Baccio d’Agnolo are the Palazzo Borgherini-Rosselli del Turco and the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, while his design for the campanile of the church of Santo Spirito has also been praised.  Read more…

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Pompeo Coppini - sculptor

Italian emigrant famous for Texas monument

The sculptor Pompeo Coppini, best known for the Alamo Cenotaph in San Antonio, Texas, was born on this day in 1870 in Moglia, a village in Lombardy a few kilometres south of the city of Mantua.  Coppini emigrated to the United States at the age of 26 and after initially working in New York moved to Texas, where the majority of his work can be found.  The Alamo Cenotaph, also known as The Spirit of Sacrifice, consists of a 60ft high sloping shaft of grey Georgia marble resting on a base of pink Texas granite. Carved into the sides of the monument, erected near the scene of the siege of the Alamo Mission during the Texas Revolution in 1836, are images of the Alamo defenders including William B Travis, Jim Bowie, David Crockett and James Bonham, while the names of those who died at the Alamo were etched along the base.  It was commissioned to commemorate the centenary of the siege and took two years to complete. It is now the centrepiece of a square known as the Alamo Plaza.  The son of a musician, Pompeo moved with his family from Moglia to Florence in 1880 at the age of 10. Read more…

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Michele Placido – actor and director

Role of anti-Mafia police inspector turned actor into a TV star

Actor and director Michele Placido was born on this day in 1946 in Ascoli Satriano in Apulia.  Placido is best known for his portrayal of the character, Corrado Cattani, in the Italian television series, La piovra.  Cattani, a police inspector investigating the Mafia, was the lead character in the first four series of La piovra (meaning The Octopus, a name that referred to the Mafia). It was popular on television in the 1980s and the first three series were shown in the UK on Channel Four.  Placido’s family were originally from Rionero in Vulture in Basilicata and he is a descendant of the folk hero, Carmine Crocco, sometimes also known as Donatello. Crocco had fought in the service of Garibaldi but, after Italian unification, he became disappointed with the new Government and formed his own army to fight on behalf of the deposed King of the Two Sicilies, Francis II.  Placido moved to Rome to study acting and then began working in films. His first success came with his portrayal of soldier Paolo Passeri in Marcia Trionfale in 1976, directed by Marco Bellocchio, a role for which Placido won an award.  Read more…

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Andrea Pirlo - footballer

Midfielder who won multiple honours with AC Milan and Juventus

The footballer Andrea Pirlo, who some commentators bracket with Roberto Baggio as one of the two best Italian footballers of the last 25 years, was born on this day in 1979.  The midfielder, who left Italy to play for the Major League Soccer team New York City, has been part of six Italian championship-winning teams and is a double winner of the Champions League among a host of honours as a club player.  In international football he has a World Cup winner’s medal as a member of the 2006 Italian national team that lifted the trophy in Germany.  The fulcrum of the Azzurri midfield, he scored one goal and was credited with the assist for three other goals during the tournament.  One of those assists resulted in the crucial opening goal for Italy scored by Fabio Grosso in the classic semi-final against the host nation.  He was also one of Italy's successful penalty takers during the shoot-out that decided the final against France.  He was named man of the match three times in the tournament, more than any other player.  He matched that achievement six years later at Euro 2012, when Italy were beaten in the final.  Read more…

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Vittorio Orlando - politician

Prime minister humiliated at First World War peace talks

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, the Italian prime minister best known for being humiliated by his supposed allies at the Paris peace talks following the First World War, was born on this day in 1860 in Palermo.  Elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 1897, Orlando had held a number of positions in government and became prime minister in 1917 following Italy’s disastrous defeat to the Austro-Hungarian army at Caporetto, which saw 40,000 Italian soldiers killed or wounded and 265,000 captured. The government of Orlando’s predecessor, Paolo Boselli, collapsed as a result.  Orlando, who had been a supporter of Italy’s entry into the war on the side of the Allies, rebuilt shattered Italian morale and the military victory at Vittorio Veneto, which ended the war on the Italian front and contributed to the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire, saw him hailed as Italy’s ‘premier of victory’.  However, his reputation was left in tatters when he and Sidney Sonnino, his half-Welsh foreign secretary, when to Paris to participate in peace talks but left humiliated after the territorial gains they were promised in return for entering the war on the side of Britain, France and the United States were not delivered.  Read more…

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Book of the day: The Lives of the Artists, by Giorgio Vasari

Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, 16th century painter and architect Giorgio Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art.   Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, in The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, to give the book its full, original title, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, before discussing the mature period of perfection, dominated by the titanic figures of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo.  The Lives of the Artists is a specially commissioned translation - by Peter Bondanella and Julia Conaway Bondanella - that contains 36 of the most important lives as well as an introduction and explanatory notes.

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian Renaissance painter in the Mannerist style and architect and sculptor of renown, whose works included the design for Tomb of Michelangelo in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, the loggia of the Palazzo degli Uffizi and the so-called Vasari Corridor, which connects the Uffizi with the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the Arno river.

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Baccio d’Agnolo - architect and woodcarver

Florentine who influenced the look of his home city

Baccio d'Agnolo was a significant
influence on Florentine architecture

The woodcarver, sculptor and architect Baccio D'Agnolo, whose work significantly influenced the architectural landscape of his home city in the Renaissance period, was born in Florence on this day in 1462.

His birth name was Bartolomeo Baglioni but he came to be referred to as d’Agnolo in a reference to the name of his father, Angelo, while Baccio was a popular short form for Bartolomeo. His father was also a woodcarver, which explains the direction of his early career.

Between 1491 and 1502, Baccio executed much of the decorative carving in the church of Santa Maria Novella and the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence before turning to architecture. 

He worked alongside Simone del Pollaiolo in restoring the Palazzo Vecchio, and in 1506 was commissioned to complete the drum of the cupola of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, although the project was ultimately abandoned after criticism from Michelangelo.

Among the notable buildings attributed to Baccio d’Agnolo are the Palazzo Borgherini-Rosselli del Turco and the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, while his design for the campanile of the church of Santo Spirito has also been praised.

Baccio had five children, three of whom - Giuliano, Filippo and Domenico - also became architects. 

It was through studying the best work of contemporaries such as Bernardo della Cecca, Giuliano da Maiano and Francione that he acquired such a high level of skill in working with wood.

An example of Baccio d'Agnolo's
early work with wood carving

The art historian Giorgio Vasari, who was a contemporary of so many of the great names of the Renaissance and was a talented architect in his own right, described Baccio as unsurpassed in the art of working wood. At the height of his fame, Baccio’s workshop became a meeting place for the most famous artists of the time, such as Michelangelo Buonarrotti, Raphael, del Pollaiolo, Giuliano and Antono da Sangallo the Elder, and Benedetto da Maiano. 

Many of Baccio’s original wood works were lost. The best remaining evidence of his carpentry is the choir of the church of Santa Maria Novella and the 16th-century choir of the church of Sant'Agostino in Perugia, on which his sons are said to have collaborated.

In a second period of his life, Baccio dedicated himself almost exclusively to architecture. He collaborated with Del Pollaiolo and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder on the construction of the Great Hall in the Palazzo della Signoria.

He established himself as an architect in his own right in 1503-04, building the Palazzo Taddei in Via dei Ginori, which was influenced by Del Pollaiolo’s Palazzo Guadagni and became a template for the typical noble Florentine residence of the first half of the 16th century. 

His commission to build an eighth part of the gallery around the huge dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, left unfinished by Filippo Brunelleschi, was continued due to the harsh criticism of Michelangelo, who defined it as a "cricket cage". 

The Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni palace in the Piazza di Santa Trinita (1517-20) is considered by some to be Baccio's masterpiece, bringing together all the qualities of his art, the windows surmounted by the pediment and interposed by niches and excavations having a genuine originality. 

Executed in the High Renaissance style that Baccio admired during a period in which he worked in Rome, it became a model for civil constructions of the 16th century. 

Baccio d’Agnolo died in Florence in 1543, at the age of 80.

The Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni
is one of Baccio's notable works

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni is in Piazza di Santa Trinita on Via de' Tornabuoni in central Florence. It was built on the site of a former residence of the Soldanieri and Dati families, which was bought by Bartolomeo Bartolini-Salimbeni, who paid Baccio d'Agnolo two florins per month for his work. The Bartolini-Salimbeni family lived in the palace until the early 19th century, after which, in 1839, it became the Hotel du Nord, where figures such as the American writer Herman Melville stayed. The palace was restored in 1961 and it is now a private property. It once housed the San Romano Battle paintings by Paolo Uccello, which were commissioned by a member of the Bartolini Salimbeni family. The paintings are now distributed between the Uffizi, the National Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris.

Palazzo Vecchio, which
Baccio helped restore

Travel tip:

Florence’s imposing Palazzo Vecchio, formerly Palazzo della Signoria, a cubical building of four storeys made of solid rusticated stonework, crowned with projecting crenellated battlements and a clock tower rising to 94m (308ft), became home of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici moved his official seat from the Medici palazzo in via Larga in May 1540. When Cosimo later removed to Palazzo Pitti, he officially renamed his former palace the Palazzo Vecchio, the "Old Palace", although the adjacent town square, the Piazza della Signoria, still bears the original name. Cosimo commissioned the painter and architect Giorgio Vasari to build an above-ground walkway, the Vasari corridor, from the Palazzo Vecchio, through the Uffizi, over the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti. Cosimo I also moved the seat of government to the Uffizi, which translated literally, simply means ‘offices’. Today, of course, the Uffizi, is known the world over for its collection of art treasures.

Also on this day:

1860: The birth of politician Vittorio Orlando

1870: The birth of sculptor Pompeo Coppini

1946: The birth of actor Michele Placido

1979: The birth of footballer Andrea Pirlo

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18 May

Giovanni Falcone - anti-Mafia crusader

Sicilian lawyer made life's work of taking on Cosa Nostra 

Giovanni Falcone, who would become known as an anti-Mafia crusader during his career as a judge and prosecuting magistrate, was born on this day in 1939 in Palermo.  The son of a state clerk, he was raised in a poor district of the Sicilian city. Some of the boys with whom he played football in the street would go on to become Mafiosi but Falcone was determined from an early age that he would not be drawn into their world.  Educated at the local high school, he studied law at Palermo University. In 1966, at the age of 27, he was appointed a judge in Trapani, a crime-ridden port on the west coast of Sicily and began his lifelong quest to defeat the criminal organisation.  In time, Falcone became the Mafia's most feared enemy and by 1987, when he was the chief prosecutor at the so-called Maxi Trial in Palermo which convicted 342 members of the so-called Cosa Nostra, the likelihood he would be murdered meant he could not leave home without a heavily armed police escort.  He worked in a bomb-proof bunker underneath the city's law courts. His home was similarly protected and when he travelled between the two it was with a convoy of armoured police cars.  Read more…

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Ezio Pinza - opera and Broadway star

Poor boy from Rome who made his home at the Met

The opera star Ezio Pinza, who had 22 seasons at the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1926 to 1948 and sang to great acclaim at many other of the world’s most famous opera houses, was born on this day in 1892 in Rome.  Pinza, a bass who was blessed with a smooth and rich bass voice and matinee idol looks, also had a successful career in musical theatre on Broadway and appeared in a number of Hollywood films.  Born Fortunio Pinza in relative poverty in Rome, he was the seventh child born to his parents Cesare and Clelia but the first to survive.  He was brought up many miles away in Ravenna, which is close to the Adriatic coast, about 85km (53 miles) from Bologna and 144km (90 miles) from Venice.  He dropped out of Ravenna University but studied singing at Bologna’s Conservatorio Martini and made his opera debut at Cremona in 1914 in Bellini’s Norma.  Pinza signed up to fight for his country in the First World War, after which he resumed his career in 1919. Within a short time he was invited to perform at Italy’s most prestigious opera house, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he came under the baton of the brilliant but demanding conductor, Arturo Toscanini.  Read more…

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Domenico di Pace Beccafumi – artist

Painter from Siena experimented with rich colour 

Considered one of the last true representatives of the Sienese school of painting, Domenico di Pace Beccafumi died on this day in 1551 in Siena.  He is remembered for his direction of the paving of the Duomo - cathedral - of Siena between 1517 and 1544, when he made ingenious improvements to the technical processes employed for this task, which in the end took more than 150 years to complete.  Domenico was born in Montaperti near Siena in about 1486. His father, Giacomo di Pace, worked on the estate of Lorenzo Beccafumi, whose surname he eventually took.  Seeing his talent for drawing, Lorenzo had taken an interest in him and recommended that he learn painting from the Sienese artist, Mechero.  In 1509 Di Pace Beccafumi travelled to Rome for a short period, where he learnt from artists working on the Vatican.  Back in Siena, he painted religious pieces for churches and was only mildly influenced by the trends dominating the neighbouring Florentine school.  He designed scenes from the Old Testament to decorate the floor of the cathedral and also painted frescoes for Palazzo Pubblico in the city.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Ayala – politician and magistrate

Judge who was part of struggle against the Mafia

Anti-Mafia prosecutor Giuseppe Ayala was born on this day in 1945 in Caltanissetta in Sicily.  Ayala became well known as an anti-Mafia magistrate and anti-Mafia judge. He was a prosecutor at the so-called Maxi Trial in Palermo in 1987, which resulted in the conviction of 342 Mafiosi.  He has continually raised doubts about whether it was the Mafia working alone who were responsible for the killing of his fellow anti-Mafia investigator Giovanni Falcone in 1992.  The deaths of Falcone and another prominent anti-Mafia magistrate, Paolo Borsellino, also murdered by the Mafia, came a few months after the killing of Christian Democrat politician, Salvatore Lima, who was thought to be the Mafia’s man on the inside in Rome and had close links with Italy’s three-times prime minister, Giulio Andreotti.  There was speculation that it suited senior figures in the Italian government that the two magistrates were killed because they knew too much about corruption at the highest level.  Ayala studied at the University of Palermo and obtained a degree in jurisprudence. Afterwards he worked as a public prosecutor.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Vendetta: The Mafia, Judge Falcone and the Quest for Justice, by John Follain

On May 23, 1992 the Mafia assassinated its 'Number One Enemy', the legendary prosecutor Judge Falcone, with a motorway bomb that also killed his wife Francesca and three bodyguards. Fifty-seven days later, the Mafia killed Falcone's friend and colleague, Judge Paolo Borsellino, with a car bomb outside his mother's home that also killed five bodyguards. These two murders changed forever how Italy viewed the Mafia. Vendetta tells the inside story of the assassination plots and the investigation that followed. Follain reveals Borsellino's desperate race against time to find out who killed his friend while knowing he was next on the list and reveals the daring undercover police mission which unmasked the killers.  Based on new and exclusive interviews and the testimony of investigators, Mafia supergrasses, survivors, relatives and friends, Vendetta recounts the events hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute as the Mafiosi plan and carry out the murders, and as the police hunt them down.

John Follain is an editor for European government news at Bloomberg. He was previously a reporter for Bloomberg, and a correspondent for the Sunday Times based in Paris and in Rome, covering events across Europe. He was also a correspondent for Reuters based in Paris and Rome. As well as Vendetta, he has written eight non-fiction books including the award-winning Zoya's Story, an international bestseller, and Death in Perugia: The Definitive Account of the Meredith Kercher Case.

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17 May

Sandro Botticelli – painter

Renaissance master was forgotten until the 19th century

Early Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli died on this day in 1510 in Florence.  Years before his death he had asked to be buried in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence at the feet of a woman for whom it is believed he suffered unrequited love.   She was Simonetta Vespucci, a married noblewoman, who had died in 1476. She is thought to have been the model for Botticelli’s major work, The Birth of Venus, which was painted years later in 1485, and that she also appeared in many of his other paintings.  After his death, Botticelli was quickly forgotten and his paintings remained in the churches and villas for which they had been created until the late 19th century, when people started to appreciate his work again.  Botticelli was born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi in 1445. He was active during the golden age of painting in Florence under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici and was for a time apprenticed to both Fra Filippo Lippi and Verrocchio.  In 1481 Botticelli was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to paint three frescoes for the Sistine Chapel.  Read more…

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Giovanna Trillini - fencing champion

Four-times Olympic champion in foil

The Olympic fencing champion Giovanna Trillini, one of Italy’s most successful female athletes, was born on this day in 1970 in Jesi, a mediaeval town in the Marche region.  Trillini won the individual gold medal in the foil event at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and was part of Italy’s gold-medal winning group in the team foil at Barcelona in 1992 as well as at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000.  She competed at five consecutive summer Olympics between 1996 and 2008 and her total medal haul of eight, including one silver and two bronze medals in the individual foil, makes her Italy’s fifth most successful Olympian and the third most successful female competitor.  After winning individual gold in Barcelona, she was honoured by being asked to be the flag bearer for the azzurri team at the opening ceremony for the Games in Atlanta four years later.  Trillini’s career also encompassed 19 medals in world championship events, including nine golds, and six in the European championships.  Born into a sporting family, Trillini was encouraged to take up fencing by her two brothers, Ezio and Roberto, who were both regular competitors in the sport, in which Italy has a long tradition.  Read more…

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Luca Cadalora - motorcycle world champion

Modena rider won titles in 125cc and 250cc categories

Luca Cadalora, the motorcycle racer who was three times a world champion, was born on this day in 1963 in Modena, Emilia-Romagna.  Later employed as a coach to Italy’s seven-times world champion Valentino Rossi, Cadalora began his professional motorcycle racing career in 1984, riding an MBA in the 125cc world championship.  He picked up a respectable 27 points to finish eighth in his debut season, his best performance a second place in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, but had a very disappointing second season, finishing only three races to collect a meagre four points.  His switch to the Garelli team, the dominant force at the time in the 125cc class, catapulted him to fame.  Cadalora and team-mate Fausto Gresini, his fellow Italian, battled it out for the title through the season, each finishing with four wins. Cadalora took the upper hand by winning four of the first seven races and it was his consistency over the campaign that clinched the title. He failed to complete only one of 11 races and finished in the top four in the other 10, finishing runner-up in his last three to pip Gresini by 114 points to 109.  Read more…

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Federico II Gonzaga – Duke of Mantua

Ruler received a valuable education at the papal court

Federico Gonzaga, who became the ruler of Mantua and Montferrat, was born on this day in 1500 in Mantua.  He spent his childhood living as a political hostage, first at the court of Pope Julius II in Rome and then at the court of Francis I of France.  It wasn’t perhaps an ideal start in life, but historians believe the political, social and cultural education he received in the company of popes, cardinals, and kings helped shape him as a future ruler.  Federico was the son of Francesco II Gonzaga and Isabella d’Este. His godfather was Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli’s model for the ideal Renaissance Prince.  His father, Francesco, was captured by the Venetians during battle and held hostage for several months. While he was absent, his wife, Isabella, ruled Mantua.  Francesco managed to secure his own release only by agreeing to send his son, Federico, to be a hostage at the papal court.  After the death of Pope Julius II in 1513, Federico was sent to the court of the new King of France, Francis I, where he became a favourite, as he had interests in common with the King.  After the death of his father in 1519, Federico returned to rule Mantua and established Isabella Boschetti as his mistress there.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Botticelli, by Frank Zöllner

Now available in a new edition, this celebration of the life and art of the Renaissance genius presents Sandro Botticelli’s complete paintings and offers a comprehensive and thoroughly up-to-date study of his work.  Botticelli is one of the most admired artists of the Renaissance period and his seductive Venus and graceful Primavera are among the world’s most recognisable works of art. This catalogue raisonné of Botticelli’s paintings offers more than two hundred full-colour illustrations and meticulous scholarship by the distinguished Renaissance art historian Frank Zöllner, described by The Financial Times, when reviewing this book s previous edition, as a fabulous, accessible scholar; his book has luscious reproductions and exquisite detail. Presented in chronological order, the facts of Botticelli’s life and career are insightfully discussed against the background of the artistic upheaval that marked the Renaissance period. The artist’s reinterpretations of ancient myths as well as his religious paintings are thoughtfully explored in this sumptuously illustrated volume. Botticelli will please scholars and delight lovers of fine art books everywhere.

Frank Zöllner is Professor of Art History at the University of Leipzig and an acclaimed expert on Renaissance art.

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