Sandro Pertini - popular president

Man of the people who fought Fascism

Sandro Pertini (right) congratulates coach Enzo Bearzot
after Italy won the World Cup in Spain in 1982

Sandro Pertini, the respected and well-liked socialist politician who served as Italy's President between 1978 and 1985, died on this day in 1990, aged 93.

Pertini, a staunch opponent of Fascism who was twice imprisoned by Mussolini and again by the Nazis, passed away at the apartment near the Trevi Fountain in Rome that he shared with his wife, Carla.

After his death was announced, a large crowd gathered in the street near his apartment, with some of his supporters in tears.  Francesco Cossiga, who had succeeded him as President, visited the apartment to offer condolences to Pertini's widow, 30 years his junior.  They had met towards the end of the Second World War, when they were both fighting with the Italian resistance movement.

Pertini's popularity stemmed both from his strong sense of morality and his unwavering good humour.  He had the charm and wit to win over most people he met and was blessed with the common touch.

Sandro Pertini with his
customary pipe

He would make a point whenever it was possible of appearing in person to greet parties of schoolchildren visiting the presidential palace, sometimes joined the staff for lunch and endeared himself to the nation with his passionate support for Italy's football team at the 1982 World Cup final in Spain.

Pertini's life story was extraordinary.  Born in Stella, in Liguria, in the province of Savona, he was the son of a wealthy landowner and was given an expensive education, culminating in a Law degree from the University of Genoa.

He was patriotic inasmuch as he enlisted to fight in the Italian army in the First World War even though he opposed Italy's involvement, but his politics leaned towards the left.  After the war he joined the Unitary Socialist Party (PSU) and settled in Florence.

Already openly opposed to the Fascists, whose squads of paramilitary thugs beat him up more than once, his attitude hardened considerably when Giacomo Matteotti, the PSU leader, was murdered soon after accusing Mussolini's party of using violence and fraud to influence the 1924 elections.

He was arrested for the first time in 1925 for 'inciting hatred' after attacking the Fascists in print for their "barbarous domination" and sentenced to eight months' jail.  He managed to escape and fled to France.

Sandro Pertini made a point whenever possible of meeting
children in person when they visited the presidential palace

Pertini kept his head down at first, working as a taxi driver in Paris, but after moving to Nice to work as a bricklayer he was twice prosecuted for his role in political disturbances.  Back in Italy, where he felt compelled to return to join the anti-Fascist underground, he was arrested in connection with a failed plot assassinate Mussolini.

Exiled to Santo Stefano, an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, he was released with the arrest of Mussolini in 1943. Recaptured by the occupying Nazi forces and sentenced to death, he was freed by partisans and joined the anti-Nazi resistance movement.

By then the PSU had rejoined the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) from which it had broken away previously, and after being part of the Constituent Assembly charged with designing the constitution for the new Italian Republic, Pertini was elected to the Chamber of Deputies under the PSI flag.

In 1968 he became president of the Chamber of Deputies and in 1978 President of the Republic, elected as a compromise candidate respected by politicians of the left and right.

Although by then he was 72, the pipe-smoking Pertini did much to restore the credibility of the political system in Italy at a time when the country was demoralised by internal terrorism, corruption scandals and a weak economy. He denounced the violence of the Red Brigades, spoke out against organized crime and expressed his disgust with South African apartheid, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and other dictatorial regimes. He also criticised the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Pertini was pictured playing cards with Dino Zoff, Franco
 Causio, and Enzo Bearzot on the plane home from Spain

By the time he left office in 1985, corruption was still a problem but the Anni di piombo - the Years of Lead - had been left behind, the economy was recovering well... and Italy had won the World Cup.

Always his own man, Pertini declined the opportunity to live in the Quirinale Palace, preferring his own apartment, and rather than be ferried around in state-owned limousines he had his wife drive him around Rome in a red Fiat 500.  Despite being an atheist, he had a close friendship with Pope John Paul II. He rushed to the Gemelli Hospital in Rome as soon as news reached him of the assassination attempt against John Paul II in 1981 and refused to go home until doctors assured him the pontiff was out of danger.

After Italy's World Cup victory, he invited the team to a reception at the Quirinale, telling striker Paolo Rossi, whose goals had been vital to the Azzurri triumph, that the chance to congratulate the players made it his "best day as President."

Stella San Giovanni nestles on a hillside overlooking
the coast of Liguria, not far from the port of Savona

Travel tip:

Sandro Pertini was born in Stella San Giovanni, one of five frazioni that make up an area collectively known as Stella, situated about 15 minutes inland from the Ligurian coastline not far from the sea port of Savona, which is notable for having been a major centre in the Italian iron industry and also as the one-time home of the explorer Christopher Columbus.  Its medieval centre is interesting for the Cathedral of Assunta and the adjoining Cistine Chapel and for the Priamar Fortress, built in 1542 after the Genoese had captured Savona. It later became a prison, where the revolutionary politician Giuseppe Mazzini was once held for being a member of a banned political organisation.

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The Trevi Fountain is the largest Baroque
 fountain in Rome 

Travel tip:

The Trevi Fountain, which takes its name from the Trevi district in Rome, was commissioned by Pope Clement XII and designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi in slightly controversial circumstances. The Pope had organised a contest for the best design, which Salvi lost to Alessandro Galilei, but awarding the commission to a Florentine caused a public outcry in Rome and to curb unrest it was eventually given to Salvi by default. Standing 26.3 metres (86 ft) high and 49.15 metres (161.3 ft) wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world, playing a starring role in Federico Fellini's film, La Dolce Vita.  Work began in 1732 and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Salvi's death, with Pietro Bracci - who was responsible for setting Oceanus - the god of all water - in the central niche, taking over.

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More reading:

How the murder of Aldo Moro cast a shadow over Francesco Cossiga

Paying the price for his bravery - the tragedy of Giacomo Matteotti

John Paul II forgives the man who tried to kill him

Also on this day:

1607: The first performance of Monteverdi's opera, L'Orfeo

1896: The birth of restaurateur Cesare Cardini

1934: The birth of politician Bettino Craxi

1934: The birth of soprano Renata Scotto

(Picture credits: all Pertini pictures from Quirinale.it; Stella San Giovanni panorama by Davide Papalini; Trevi Fountain by Paul Vlaar; all via Wikemedia Commons)

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Gentile Bellini - Renaissance painter

Bellini family were Venice's leading 15th century artists

A self-portrait of Gentile Bellini which he is
thought to have drawn in 1496

Gentile Bellini, a member of Venice's leading family of painters in the 15th century, died in Venice on this day in 1507.  He was believed to be in his late 70s, although the exact date of his birth was not recorded.

The son of Jacopo Bellini, who had been a pioneer in the use of oil paint in art, he was the brother of Giovanni Bellini and the brother-in-law of Andrea Mantegna.  Together, they were the founding family of the Venetian school of Renaissance art.

Although history tends to place Gentile in their shadow, he was considered in his time to be one of the greatest living painters in Venice and from 1454 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice.

He also served Venice as a cultural ambassador in Constantinople, where he was sent to work for Sultan Mehmed II as part of a peace settlement between Venice and Turkey.

Gentile learned painting in his father's studio.  Once established, he had no shortage of commissions, for portraits, views of the city, and for large paintings for public buildings, often characterised by multiple figures.

Gentile Bellini's Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of
San Lorenzo can be found at the Galleria dell'Accademia 

He was one of the artists hired by the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista to paint a 10-painting cycle known as the The Miracle of the Relics of the Cross.  His contribution included the Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco (1496) and the Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo (1500), which includes a self-portrait and a portrait of his brother, Giovanni.

Gentile was despatched by the Venetian senate to Turkey in 1479. Mehmed II had been interested for many years in the art and culture of Italy and one of his life's wishes was to have his portrait painted by an Italian.  It is certain that Gentile would have executed at least one, possibly more.  The portrait of Mehmed in the National Gallery has for many years been attributed to Gentile, although there are some who question that assumption.

His painting Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria, which was completed by Giovanni after Gentile's death, has an Oriental flavour influenced by his time there. Saint Mark, the patron of Venice, was from Alexandria.

Gentile Bellini's painting Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria

Back in Venice, Gentile Bellini was an early teacher of Titian, although they were said to have had a difficult relationship and Titian found his adherence to conventions somewhat restricting.  He is said to have preferred to learn from Giovanni, although soon afterwards he went to work with Giorgione.

Some 70 years after his death, a large fire at the Doge's Palace in Venice destroyed some of Gentile's most notable work, although there are several examples preserved in galleries around the world, notably in the United States and in London as well as Italy.

Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria is in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, while the Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco and the Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo can both be found in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.

Two of his portraits of the Doges - of Giovanni Mocenigo and Leonardo Loredan - are housed in the Museo Correr in Venice. Another in the series, of Pasquale Malipiero, is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  The Frick Collection in New York has another portrait of Giovanni Mocenigo; another of Leonardo Loredan can be seen in the Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco.

The entrance to the Galleria dell'Accademia in Campo
della Carità in the Dorsoduro district of Venice

Travel tip:

The Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice is housed in the Scuola della Carità on the south bank of the Grand Canal, in the Dorsoduro district. It evolved from the gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, from which it became independent in 1879.  The church of Santa Maria and the monastery of the Canonici Lateranensi, built by Andrea Palladio, are integral parts of the Accademia. As well as works by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, its collection includes paintings by Canaletto, Carpaccio, Guardi, Giorgione, Longhi, Lotto, Mantegna, Tiepolo, Tintoretto, Titian, Veronese, Vasari and Leonardo da Vinci.  Opening hours are 8.15am to 2pm on Mondays, 8.15am to 7.15pm on Tuesday to Sunday.

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The Museo Correr in St Mark's Square has a substantial
collection of Venetian works of art

Travel tip:

Venice's Museo Correr is located on the south side of Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square) on the upper floors of the Procuratorie Nuove.  The museum originated with the collection bequeathed to the city of Venice in 1830 by Teodoro Correr, a member of a prestigious Venetian family who dedicated most of his life to the collection of works of art, documents and objects that reflected the history of Venice, which he donated to the city after his death. Museo Correr is open from 10am to 5pm from November 1 to March 31 and from 10am to 7pm from April 1 to October 31.


More reading:

Why Titian was a giant of Renaissance art in Venice

How Andrea Mantegna pioneered use of perspective

The boundless energy of Tintoretto

Also on this day:

1806: The birth of military general Manfredo Fanti

1821: The death in Rome of the poet John Keats

1822: The birth of archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi

1834: The birth of Sicilian banker Emanuele Notarbartolo

1910: The birth of painter Corrado Cagli

Selected books:

Venetian Painting in the 15th Century

Canaletto and the Venetian Vedutisti

(Picture credit: Accademia by Didier Descouens; Museo Correr by Sailko;  via Wikimedia Commons)

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Giulietta Masina - actress

Married to Fellini and excelled in his films

Giulietta Masina in a picture taken
in about 1960

The actress Giulietta Masina, who was married for 50 years to the film director Federico Fellini, was born on this day in 1921 in San Giorgio di Piano, a small town in Emilia-Romagna, about 20km (12 miles) north of Bologna.

She appeared in 22 films, six of them directed by her husband, who gave her the lead female role opposition Anthony Quinn in La Strada (1954) and enabled her to win international acclaim when he cast her as a prostitute in the 1957 film Nights of Cabiria, which built on a small role she had played in an earlier Fellini movie, The White Sheik.

Masina's performance in what was a controversial film at the time earned her best actress awards at the film festivals of Cannes and San Sebastián and from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists (SNGCI).

Both La Strada and Nights of Cabiria won Oscars for best foreign film at the Academy Awards.

Masina also won best actress in the David di Donatello awards for the title role in Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits (1965) and a second SNGCI best actress award for his 1986 film Ginger and Fred.

Although born in northern Italy, one of four children, her parents sent her to live with a widowed aunt in Via Lutezia in the Parioli area of Rome. They hoped it would improve her prospects by obtaining a better education.  Ultimately, she graduated from the Sapienza University of Rome with a degree in Literature.

Giulietta Masina as Cabiria in the Fellini film Nights of
Cabiria, for which she won a string of awards

Having earlier studied music and dance, she turned to acting while at university, appearing in productions at the university's own Ateneo Theatre and the Compagnia del Teatro Comico Musicale.  It was there in 1942 that she was spotted by Fellini, who cast her in his radio serial, Terziglio.

The two hit it off immediately and married after only one year, in October 1943.  Masina continued to work on stage, in some productions alongside Marcello Mastroianni, who would become Fellini's leading man, before her husband helped her make the transition to the big screen, where she excelled in the portrayal of innocent, pathetic and troubled outcasts.

She was renowned for being able to use her expressive face to convey a range of emotions from sorrow and pathos to happiness and love. Many critics described her as a female Charlie Chaplin.  In her private life, she was noted for her impish sense of humour.

The original movie poster for
Fellini's film Nights of Cabiria

As well as movie work, towards the end of her career Masina worked successfully in radio, hosting Lettere aperte, a show in which she responded to listeners' correspondence, and acted in television dramas.

Her marriage to Fellini was not blessed with children. Her first pregnancy ended after she suffered a miscarriage following a fall on a flight of stairs. She became pregnant again but her son, Pierfederico, to whom she gave birth in March 1945, tragically died from encephalitis at a month old.

Despite her husband's frequent infidelities, most of which he confessed, Masina stuck by Fellini.  They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in October 1993, a day before he died.

Onlookers noted how frail she looked at his funeral and it was only five months later that she passed away herself at the age of 73, having been diagnosed with lung cancer.  She and her husband are buried together at Rimini cemetery in a tomb marked by a prow-shaped monument, the work of sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro.

San Giorgio di Piano's parish church of
San Giorgio Martire (St George the Martyr)

Travel tip:

San Giorgio di Piano is a pleasant town within greater Bologna in an area with an economy based on the production of hemp and wheat.  It grew in the 14th century around a castle, the Castello di San Giorgio.  The Via della Libertà is an elegant porticoed street typical of the architecture in Bologna and Ferrara.  The parish church of St George the Martyr was renovated during the 19th century, as was the adjoining bell tower, which was added in the 18th century.  The church contains important paintings by Antonio Randa and Mario Roversi. In June each year, the town hosts a festival, the Corso dei Fiori, which is celebrated in the manner of a carnival with a parade of floats and a tradition of wearing decorative masks. 

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The Parioli district of Rome, where Masina grew up,
is a well-to-do area notable for its tree-lined streets

Travel tip:

Parioli, where Masina grew up, is now one of Rome's wealthiest residential areas. Located between two of the city's largest parks - the gardens of the Villa Borghese and the Villa Ada - it is notable for tree-lined streets and elegant houses, and is also home to some of Rome's best restaurants, while its bars attract a sophisticated clientele. Many luxury apartments to rent make it popular with well-heeled visitors to the capital.

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More reading:

The cinematic legacy of Federico Fellini

Otto e mezzo - Fellini's masterpiece

Oscar-winning talent of Anna Magnani

Also on this day:

1876: The birth of opera singer and director Giovanni Zenatello

1905: The birth of industrialist Enrico Piaggio

1914: The birth of Nobel Prize winner Renato Dulbecco

1990: The death of Autogrill pioneer Mario Pavesi

(Picture credits: Main picture by Wim van Rossem; Church of San Giorgio Martire by threecharlie; Parioli street by Lalupa; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Giuseppe Abbati - painter and revolutionary

Early death robbed Italian art of bright new talent

Giovanni Boldini's portrait of
Giuseppe Abbati in 1865

Italy lost a great artistic talent tragically young when the painter and patriot Giuseppe Abbati died on this day in 1868.

Only 32 years old, Abbati passed away in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, having contracted rabies as a result of being bitten by a dog.

Abbati was a leading figure in the Macchiaioli movement, a school of painting advanced by a small group of artists who began to meet at the Caffè Michelangiolo in Florence in the late 1850s.

The group, in which Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega and Cristiano Banti were other prominent members, were also for the most part revolutionaries, many of whom had taken part in the uprisings that occurred at different places in the still-to-be-united Italian peninsula in 1848.

Abbati, born in Naples, had joined Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand, losing his right eye in the Battle of the Volturno in 1860, when around 24,000 partisans were confronted by a 50,000-strong Bourbon army at Capua, north of Naples.

The son of Vincenzo Abbati, also a painter, Abbati was taken to live in Florence when he was six and to Venice before he was 10.  The family stayed in Venice for 12 years, Abbati attending the Accademia di Belle Arti, where he met future Macchiaioli painters Vito D'Ancona and Telemaco Signorini.

Abbati's painting Il lattaio di Piagentina, which was
completed in Florence in 1864 (Museo Civico, Naples)

It was there that he witnessed the uprising against the Austrians led by Daniele Manin, future president of the short-lived Republic of San Marco.

Abbati returned to Naples in 1858, exhibiting at the Royal Bourbon Museum, before moving again to Florence in 1860 and making the acquaintance at the Caffè Michelangiolo of the Macchiaioli group.

They were a group who favoured political renewal but wanted also to establish a new Italian national pictorial culture, breaking away from the conventions taught by the established academies.  They believed that spots - macchie, in Italian - of light and shade were the chief components of works of art and were also advocates of painting outdoors - often referred to by the French expression en plein air - in order to capture the way scenes appeared at the time of execution, and how they are affected by light and weather conditions.

Abbati's La Fenestra, which is housed
in the Pitti Palace in Florence

Comparisons were made with the Impressionist movement in France but the Macchiaioli were less bold in their pursuit of optical effects and their outlines and figures were generally more sharply defined.

Abbati was seen as one of the most talented in the group and enjoyed a period of high productivity between 1860 and 1866 with a series of street or countryside scenes, sometimes painting a scene through the frame of a window or an archway, emphasising the contrasts of light and shade.

He tasted military action again in 1866, joining up to fight in the Third Italian War of Independence on the side of the new Kingdom of Italy against the Austrians.  He was captured during the Battle of Custoza and imprisoned in Croatia.

On his return to Italy, he lived on the estate owned by Diego Martelli, a patron and critic he met in Florence, in Castelnuovo della Misericordia, in the hills above Livorno, on the Tuscan coast.

It was there, however, that Abbati was bitten by one of Martelli's dogs, which turned out to be rabid.  He was treated in hospital for almost six weeks before the disease finally took him.

The facade of the 11th century Basilica of Sant'
Angelo in Formis was built over a Roman temple 

Travel tip:

Capua, where Abbati fought alongside Garibaldi in the Expedition of the Thousand, developed as a town around the point at which the Volturno river crosses the Via Appia, the Roman road linking Rome with Brindisi, and therefore was always strategically important.  There are many Roman relics including the remains of the second largest amphitheatre of the Roman empire.  Only the Colosseum in Rome has larger dimensions.  The 11th century Basilica of Sant'Angelo in Formis and the Cathedral of Capua, some of which dates back to the ninth century and which contains painting by Domenico Vaccaro, are also worth visiting.

The plaque outside 21 Via Cavour in Florence marks
the site of the Caffè Michelangiolo 

Travel tip:

The Caffè Michelangiolo was a literary cafe that could be found in what was then Via Largo (now Via Cavour) in Florence, a short distance from the centre of the city going towards the university.  The building at 21 Via Cavour has a plaque to commemorate its history as a meeting place of the Macchiaioli artists. Today it is a centre for events and exhibitions celebrating their work.


More reading:

How Carlo Carra and the Futurists turned their art into a political movement

Marcello Piacentini: designer whose buildings symbolised Fascist ideals

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

Also on this day:

1513: The death of Pope Julius II

1609: The birth of military leader Raimondo Montecuccoli

1817: The birth of chocolatier Domenico Ghirardelli

(Picture credit: Caffè Michelangelo plaque by Sailko via Wikimedia Commons)

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