Enrico Piaggio - industrialist

Former aircraft manufacturer famed for Italy's iconic Vespa motor scooter

The Vespa is still among the most
popular scooters in the world

Enrico Piaggio, born on this day in 1905 in the Pegli area of Genoa, was destined to be an industrialist, although he cannot have envisaged the way in which his company would become a world leader.

Charged with rebuilding the family business after Allied bombers destroyed the company's major factories during World War II, Enrico Piaggio decided to switch from manufacturing aircraft to building motorcycles, an initiative from which emerged one of Italy's most famous symbols, the Vespa scooter.

The original Piaggio business, set up by his father, Rinaldo in 1884, in the Sestri Ponente district of Genoa, provided fittings for luxury ships built in the thriving port. As the business grew, Rinaldo moved into building locomotives and rolling stock for the railways, diversifying again with the outbreak of World War I, when the company began producing aircraft.

In 1917 the company bought a new plant in Pisa and in 1921 another in nearby Pontedera, which became a major centre for the production of aircraft engines and is still the headquarters of Piaggio today.   Aeroplanes remained the focus of the business, which Enrico and his brother, Armando, inherited with the death of their father in 1938, and the Pisa and Pontedera plants again became important production centres with the outbreak of World War II.

But their vital role in the manufacture of war planes made them a major target for Allied bombing and both were flattened during sustained raids on August 31, 1943.

Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn rode around Rome on
 a Vespa motor scooter in the 1953 film, Roman Holiday

Italy suffered enormous damage to its cities and the country's efforts to get back on its feet after the War ended were hampered in particular by the terrible state of the roads.  It was this that prompted Enrico, who had responsibility for rebuilding the Pisa and Pontedera factories, to take the bold decision to switch from producing aircraft to motorcycles.

He had been impressed by the agility of the tiny American-built military motorcycles that were dropped by parachute to be used by Allied troops on the ground as they fought against the Germans in Milan and Turin and asked his designers to come up with something similar for civilian use.

It was Corradino D'Ascanio, an aeronautical engineer, whose design ultimately met with his approval. As it happened, D'Ascanio was no fan of motorcycles, which he thought were dirty and difficult both to ride and to maintain, so he set about eliminating all the elements he disliked.

His prototype featured small wheels, a large, well-padded seat, a completely enclosed engine and a tall shield at the front, protecting the rider's clothes from dust and mud.  Crucially, he moved the engine from its traditional central position, which required the rider to straddle the machine when mounting, to a position alongside the rear wheel.  This created a gap between the handlebars and the seat that facilitated easy, step-through mounting even for skirt-wearing women.

D'Ascanio (left) and Piaggio with the machine
that made both their names

Enrico looked at the distinctive body shape, listened to the buzz of the engine, and immediately commented that it reminded him of una vespa, a wasp.  The name stuck, and an icon was born.

The Vespa was immediately popular.  In the first year of production, in 1946, Piaggio produced just under 2,500 machines. By June 1956, one million Vespas had rolled off the production line.

As Italy embraced the freedom and optimism that came with peace, the Vespa became a symbol of the nation, almost a fashion accessory for handsome men and beautiful girls, its image as likely to adorn the cover of a style journal as a motorcycle magazine.

Its popularity spread around the world, particularly after Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck rode around Rome on one in the 1953 film, Roman Holiday.  As well as Italy, Piaggio found another huge market for the machine in Britain, where it became the conveyance of choice for the style-conscious Mod movement in the 1960s.

Enrico Piaggio, who lost a kidney when he suffered gunshot wounds in Florence in 1943, died in 1965, aged only 60. The company had by then passed into the control of the FIAT empire and has changed hands several times since but remains a major player in the motorcycle industry, with an annual turnover in the region of €1,200 million.

Travel tip:

The seafront at Pegli, near Genoa, the largely
residential area where Enrico Piaggio was born

Pegli, where Enrico Piaggio was born, is a mainly residential area of Genoa but boasts a lively seafront promenade and a number of hotels. There are good links by road, rail and boat to the central area of Genoa, which is a city founded on its status as a busy port, but which offers many historic attractions, the most notable of which is probably the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, with its striking black slate and white marble exterior, originally built in the sixth century.

Hotels in Genoa by Booking.com

The Piaggio Museum has examples of railway
engines and aircraft as well as the Vespa scooter

Travel tip:

The town of Pontedera in Tuscany, situated about 30km from Pisa in the direction of Florence, is home to the Piaggio Museum, which was opened in 2000 and occupies 3,000 square metres of the complex where Piaggio started production in the 1920s. Visitors can see examples of Piaggio railway engines and aircraft as well as a large area devoted to the Vespa motor scooter, which celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2016.  For more information, visit www.museopiaggio.it.

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More reading:

Corrado D'Ascanio - aeronautical genius behind unique Vespa design

The eye for style of car designer Battista 'Finin' Farina

The Italian behind the sports classic Triumph Spitfire

Also on this day:

1876: The birth of opera singer and director Giovanni Zenatello

1914: The birth of Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Renato Dulbecco

1921: The birth of actress Giulietta Masina

1990: The death of Autogrill pioneer Mario Pavesi

(Picture credits: Vespa by Yaniv Ben-Arie; Pegli seafront by Twice25; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Death of Pope Julius II

Pope who commissioned Michelangelo for Sistine Chapel

Raphael's portrait of Pope Julius II, which
is housed in the National Gallery in London

Pope Julius II, who was nicknamed ‘the Warrior Pope’, died on this day in 1513 in Rome.

As well as conducting military campaigns during his papacy he was responsible for the destruction and rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica and commissioning Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

He is also remembered by students of British history as being the Pope who gave Henry VIII dispensation to marry Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow.

Born Giuliano della Rovere, he was the nephew of Francesco della Rovere, who became Pope Sixtus IV.

His uncle sent him to be educated by the Franciscans and he was made a Bishop soon after his Uncle became Pope.

He later became Cardinal Priest of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome and was very influential in the College of Cardinals.

One of his major rivals was Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who was elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492. After accusing him of corruption, Della Rovere retreated from Rome until Alexander died in 1503.

He was succeeded by Pope Pius III who died less than a month after becoming Pope and Della Rovere was finally elected as Pope Julius II in November 1503.

Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Julius ordered all traces of the Borgias to be removed or covered up and their apartments remained sealed till the 19th century.

He fought to rid the Romagna of the Republic of Venice and freed Perugia and Bologna from the despots that were ruling them.

He also founded the Swiss Guard to provide a constant supply of soldiers to protect the Pope.

Julius joined in the Italian Wars in league with France and Spain to take territory back from Venice but his allies later switched sides and little was gained from his efforts.

Julius II remained Pope for nine years until he died of fever in 1513.

When Henry VIII later asked for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to be annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, he claimed that Pope Julius II should never have issued the dispensation to allow him to marry his sister in law. But the Pope at the time, Clement VII, refused to annul the marriage so Henry VIII divorced the Catholic Church instead, leading to the English Reformation.

During his time as Pope, Julius II had ordered the old St Peter’s Basilica to be demolished and commissioned the building of the new church that was to replace it. He was also a patron of Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo.

The remains of Pope Julius II lie with those of his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, under the floor in St Peter’s Basilica.

The chains said to have bound St Peter are on
display in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli

Travel tip:

The Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, St Peter in Chains, near the Colosseum in Rome, was the church where Julius was Cardinal. The Church is a shrine for the chains that are believed to have bound St Peter during his imprisonment. It is also the home of Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses, completed in 1515. This was originally intended to be part of a funeral monument for Pope Julius II, but his remains were interred in St Peter’s Basilica instead.


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. Between 1508 and 1512 Michelangelo painted the ceiling at the request of Pope Julius II. His amazing masterpiece, created by the artist lying on his back, depicts scenes from Genesis in bright colours that are easily visible from the floor and cover more than 400 square metres.


More reading: 

Alexander VI, the scheming Borgia pope

The death of Michelangelo

The precocious genius of Raphael

Also on this day:

1609: The birth of military leader Raimondo Montecuccoli

1817: The birth of chocolatier Domenico Ghirardelli

1868: The death of painter and revolutionary Giuseppe Abbati

(Picture credits: Michelangelo portrait painted by Jacopino del Conte; San Pietro chains by Raja Patnaik; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Laura Bassi – scientist

Ground-breaking academic paved the way for women

A portrait of the physicist Laura Bassi,
thought to have been painted in 1732

Brilliant physicist Laura Bassi died on this day in 1778 in Bologna.

She had enjoyed a remarkable career, becoming the first woman to earn a Chair in Science at a university anywhere in the world.

When she was just 13 her family’s physician had recognised her potential and took charge of her education.

When she was 20 he invited philosophers from the University of Bologna along with the Archbishop of Bologna, who later became Pope Benedict XIV, to examine her progress.

They were all impressed and Bassi was admitted to the Bologna Academy of Sciences as an honorary member, the first female ever to be allowed to join.

Her theses at the university showed influences of Isaac Newton’s work on optics and light. She was a key figure in introducing his ideas about physics to Italy.

When she received her degree from the university there was a public celebration in Bologna.

Another of her theses about the property of water led to her being awarded the post of Professor of Physics at the university.

As a woman, she was not allowed to teach at the university so she gave lessons and did experiments in her own home.

She was appointed to the Chair of experimental physics at Bologna University in 1776.

She died two years later, having made physics a lifelong career and broken new ground for women in academic circles.

A street in Bologna and a crater on Venus are named after her.

The Basilica of San Petronio in the centre of
Bologna, where Laura Bassi married

Travel tip:

Laura Bassi married Giovanni Giuseppe Veratti, a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Bologna  in 1738 at the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna. A street in the city to the south of the university is now named Via Laura Bassi Veratti in honour of her.

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Travel Tip:

The Basilica di San Petronio, where Laura Bassi was married, is the main church of Bologna, located in Piazza Maggiore in the centre of the city. It is the largest brick-built Gothic church in the world. Building work began on the church in 1390 and it was dedicated to San Petronio, who had been the Bishop of Bologna in the fifth century. The facade was designed by Domenico da Varignana and started in 1538 by Giacomo Ranuzzi but was never finished. Despite being Bologna’s most important church, San Petronio is not the city’s cathedral. This is the Duomo di San Pietro, which stands nearby on Via Indipendenza. In the 16th century, the basilica staged the coronation of Charles V to Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII.

More reading:

How astronomer Caterina Scarpellini discovered a new comet

The particle physicist who scored a first for women in science

Margherita Hack, the astrophysicist who tried to make science fun

Also on this day:

1339: Visconti v Visconti in the Battle of Parabiago

1549: The birth of  Francesco Maria II della Rovere, the last Duke of Urbino

1816: Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville premieres in Rome

1993: The death of car maker Ferruccio Lamborghini

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Luigi Boccherini – musician

Composer gave the cello prominence in his charming quintets

Boccherini playing the cello, thought to
have been painted between 1764 and
1767 by Pompeo Batoni

Cellist and composer Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was born on this day in 1743 in Lucca in Tuscany.

Boccherini is particularly known for a minuet from his String Quintet in E, which became popular after its use by characters posing as musicians in the 1955 film, The Ladykillers, which starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.

Though his works became neglected after his death in 1805 they enjoyed a revival after the Boccherini Quintet was formed in Rome, who started performing them in the 1950s.

Boccherini’s father was himself a cellist and double bass player and sent the young Luigi to study in Rome.

In 1757 they went to Vienna together where the court employed them both as musicians in the Imperial Theatre orchestra.

Listen to Boccherini's String Quintet in E, which featured in The Ladykillers

In 1764 Luigi obtained a permanent position back in Lucca, playing in both the church and theatre orchestras.

But after the death of his father he moved to Paris where some of his early compositions were published.

Boccherini later moved to Spain, where for a time he enjoyed the patronage of the Royal family. But one day King Charles III of Spain ordered him to change a passage of his music. Boccherini doubled the passage instead and was immediately dismissed from the King’s service.

Movie poster from The Ladykillers

He went to live in a small town in the mountains in Spain, where he wrote many of his most famous works.

He still enjoyed patronage from the King of Spain’s younger brother, the Infante, from the French ambassador to Spain, Lucien Bonaparte, and from King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Towards the end of Boccherini’s life it is believed he fell on hard times. He had lost both his first and second wives and four of his daughters.

He died in Madrid in 1805 and was survived by two sons. He was buried in Madrid but his remains were brought back to Italy a century later and he was reburied in the Church of San Francesco in Lucca.

Boccherini was a brilliant cellist who received much praise for his performances and he brought the cello to prominence with the music he composed, rather than just using it for accompaniment.

His Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid  became popular after it was used in the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World in 2003.

The Boccherini Quintet was founded after two of its members discovered a complete collection of Luigi Boccherini string quintets in Paris. They performed the long-neglected music all over the world and made many recordings.

Boccherini's home town of Lucca in Tuscany
is famous for its Renaissance walls

Travel tip:

Lucca, where Boccherini was born, is famous for its Renaissance walls, which have remained intact over the centuries. A promenade now runs along the top of the walls, providing a popular place to walk round the city enjoying the views. The Luigi Boccherini Musical Institute in Piazza del Suffragio in Lucca was founded in 1842 to provide a musical education up to the standard adopted by the famous 
Conservatories of Milan and Paris.

The Church of San Francesco in Lucca, where
Boccherini was reburied

Travel tip:

Luigi Boccherini was reburied in the Church of San Francesco in Lucca in the 1920s after his remains were brought back from Spain.  The Gothic church and monastery in Piazza San Francesco in the historic centre of the city was built out of gravel in the 14th century, not far from Lucca’s historic Piazza dell’Anfiteatro.


More reading:

The cellist who found 'accidental' fame in Yugoslavia

The composer credited with the 'revival' that shot Vivaldi to 20th century popularity

How soprano Cecilia Bartoli put spotlight on 'forgotten' composers

Also on this day:

1953: The birth of comic actor and writer Massimo Troisi

1977: The birth of operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo

(Picture credits: Lucca walls by Notafly; Church of San Francesco by Sailko; via Wikimedia Commons)


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Michelangelo – Renaissance painter and sculptor

‘Greatest artist of all time’ left amazing legacy of work

The Rondanini Pietà, which the death of
Michelangelo left incomplete
Photo: Paolo da Reggio (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni died on this day in 1564 in Rome.

His death came three weeks before his 89th birthday while he was still working on his last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà, a version of the Virgin Mary with the body of the dead Christ.

Michelangelo had been a sculptor, painter, architect and poet who had exerted an enormous influence on the development of art.

During his lifetime he was considered to be the greatest living artist and he is now considered to be one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- artists of all time.

Michelangelo was born in 1475 in the small town of Caprese near Arezzo in Tuscany, which is now known as Caprese Michelangelo.
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He was sent to Florence to be educated but preferred to spend his time with painters, trying to copy the pictures in the churches, rather than be at school.
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At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to the artist Ghirlandaio and was asked to produce sculptures for Lorenzo dè Medici.
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Eventually he moved to Rome where he was commissioned to carve his first Pietà, a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the dead body of Jesus.

Michelangelo was 24 when he finished what soon came to be regarded as a masterpiece. The sculpture is located inside St Peter’s Basilica.

On his return to Florence he was commissioned to produce a statue in Carrara marble portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom. He completed the statue of David, perhaps his most famous work, in 1504 before he reached the age of 30.

Michelangelo's David in the Accademia
in Florence. Photo: Jorg Bittner Unna
(CC BY-SA 3.0)

It was decided at the time to place the statue in Piazza della Signoria in front of Palazzo Vecchio. It is now in the Accademia in Florence and a replica occupies its place in the Piazza.

Although painting was not his favourite art form, Michelangelo completed two of the most famous frescoes in the history of art. He painted the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in Rome and the Last Judgment on its altar wall.

At the age of 74 he was asked to take over the designs for the new St Peter’s Basilica and he transformed the original plan.

The western end was finished to Michelangelo’s design and the Dome was completed after his death.

His artistic output throughout his whole life was prolific and much of his work has had an impact on the course of art history. He was the first artist to have his biography published while he was still alive. Giorgio Vasari said Michelangelo’s work was ‘the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance.’

Michelangelo was referred to as ‘Il Divino’, (the divine one) even while he was still alive.

After Michelangelo’s death, his body was taken from Rome for interment at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the great artist’s last request to be buried in his beloved Florence.

Travel tip:

Arezzo, the nearest town to Michelangelo’s birthplace, Caprese Michelangelo, is an interesting old town in eastern Tuscany. The 13th century Basilica of San Francesco in the centre of the town is famous for containing Piero della Francesco’s cycle of frescoes, The Legend of the True Cross, painted between 1452 and 1466.

Travel tip:

Michelangelo’s last sculpture, the unfinished Rondanini Pietà, which he was working on during the last days of his life, can be seen in the museum named after it in the Sforza Castle in Milan. There is free entrance to the 15th century castle in Piazza Castello, but entrance to the Museo Pietà Rondanini-Michelangelo inside the castle is by ticket. For more details visit www.milanocastello.it


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Arcangelo Corelli – musician

Baroque composer had a major influence on the development of music

 

The composer Arcangelo Corelli

Violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli was born on this day in 1653 at Fusignano, a small town near Ravenna.

He is remembered for his influence on the development of violin style and for his use of the genres of sonata and concerto. Corelli’s 12 Concerti Grossi established the concerto grosso as a popular medium of composition.

Named Arcangelo after his father, who died a few weeks before his birth, he studied music with the curate of a neighbouring village before going to the nearby towns of Faenza and Lugo to learn musical theory.

Corelli later studied with Giovanni Benvenuti, who was a violinist at the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna and in 1670 he started at the Philharmonic Academy in Bologna.

He moved on to Rome where to begin with he played the violin at a theatre. It is known that by 1677 he had written his first composition, a Sonata for Violin and Lute.

By 1675 Corelli was third violinist in the orchestra of the chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi and by the following year he had become second violinist.In 1681 his 12 Trio Sonatas for two violins and a cello were published and the following year he became first violinist in the San Luigi dei Francesi orchestra.

In 1687 Corelli became musical director at the Palazzo Pamphili, where he performed, conducted and organised important musical occasions.

On one occasion he conducted a large orchestra of stringed instruments to entertain the British ambassador, who had been sent to Rome by King James II of England to attend the coronation of Pope Innocent XII.

Corelli was also a brilliant teacher and among his many students was the young Antonio Vivaldi.

Considered to be the best violinist of his time, Corelli was invited to Naples in 1702 to perform a composition by Alessandro Scarlatti in the presence of the King.

Corelli died in Rome in 1713 and his 12 Concerti Grossi were published the following year in Amsterdam. Both Bach and Handel are said to have studied his work and been influenced by him.

The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna
Photo: 0mente0 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Travel tip:

Fusignano, where Corelli was born, is a comune (municipality) in the province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region. Ravenna was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 402 until its collapse in 406. The city’s Basilica of San Vitale is famous for its wealth of Byzantine mosaics, the largest and best preserved outside Turkey, and the church is on the Unesco World Heritage list. Arguably, Fusignano's most famous citizen is football manager Arrigo Sacchi, who won two European Cups as manager of AC Milan.

Find a hotel in Ravenna with Booking.com

Travel tip:

Corelli is buried in the Pantheon in Piazza della Rotonda in Rome . Considered to be Rome’s best preserved ancient building, the Pantheon was built in AD 118 on the site of a previous building dating back to 27 BC. It was consecrated as a church in the seventh century and many important people, including Victor Emanuel II, Umberto I and his wife, Queen Margherita, are buried there, along with the painters Raphael and Annibale Carracci, the architect Baldassare Peruzzi and the writers Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Émile Zola.

Search Booking.com for accommodation in Rome

More reading:

Why Alessandro Scarlatti was ahead of his time

The Baroque composer who enjoyed the patronage of a Swedish queen

The Venetian musician who inspired the spread of the Baroque style

Also on this day:

1600: The death of Bruno Giordano, 'martyr of science'

1796: The birth of opera composer Giovanni Pacini

1916: The birth of actor Raf Vallone

(Picture credits: Basilica of San Vitale by 0mente0; Pantheon by Roberta Dragan; via Wikimedia commons)

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Giambattista Bodoni - type designer

 Celebrity printer whose name lives on in type

A portrait of Giambattista Bodoni
by Giuseppe Lucatelli circa 1805

Typographer, printer and publisher Giambattista Bodoni was born on this day in 1740 in Saluzzo in the region of Piedmont.

At the height of his career he became internationally famous and was complimented by the Pope and paid a pension by Napoleon.

Bodoni designed a modern typeface that was named after him and is still in use today.

His father and grandfather were both printers and as a child he played with their leftover equipment. He learnt the printing trade at his father’s side and at the age of 17 travelled to Rome to further his career.

Bodoni served an apprenticeship at the press of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the missionary arm of the Catholic Church.

In 1768 he was asked to assume management of the Duke of Parma’s Royal Press, where he produced Italian, Greek and Latin books.

He started using modern typefaces of his own design and came up with the typeface that retained the Bodoni name in 1790.

He became well known and important travellers visited his press to see him at work. Bodoni produced fine editions of the writings of Horace and Virgil in 1791 and 1793 respectively and Homer’s Iliad in 1808.

He died in 1813 in Parma , but his widow, Margherita, completed his work on a series of classics for his new patron, Joachim Murat.

Five years after his death she published a manual of all his typefaces.

Travel tip:

Saluzzo, the birthplace of Bodoni, is a town in the province of Cuneo in the region of Piedmont. Once named Saluces and part of France, it was ceded to the House of Savoy in 1601 and eventually became part of Piedmont . As well as a 15th century Cathedral, which has a Baroque high altar, the town has a 14th century church, dedicated to San Giovanni, which has a striking Gothic façade and Cloister.

Parma's baptistery, one of many historic
sights in city in Emilia-Romagna
Photo: Philip Schafer (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Parma, where Bodoni worked and eventually died, is an historic city in the Emilia-Romagna region, famous for its ham (Prosciutto di Parma) and cheese (Parmigiano-Reggiano), the true ‘parmesan’. In 1545 the city was given as a duchy to the illegitimate son of Pope Paul III, whose descendants ruled Parma till 1731. The composer, Verdi, was born near Parma at Bussetto and the city has a prestigious opera house, the Teatro Regia. 

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