Johann Maria Farina - perfumier

Emigrant to Germany who invented Eau de Cologne

Johann Maria Farina gave his new
fragrance the name Eau de Cologne

Johann Maria Farina, the Italian perfumier said to have created the world’s first Eau de Cologne, was born on this day in 1685 in the small town of Santa Maria Maggiore in Piedmont.

Farina’s family were masters in the art of distilling alcohol to carry fragrances, which involves different techniques to those used to distil alcohol to drink.

The method was developed in northern Africa, exported to Sicily and then on to the Italian mainland.  Farina’s antecedents brought it with them to Piedmont, where his grandmother established the family workshop in Santa Maria Maggiore, which is located about 130km (81 miles) northeast of Turin, not far from the border with Switzerland.

In his early 20s, Farina emigrated to Germany. Taking the name Johann Maria Farina - his given Italian name was Giovanni - he initially worked for an uncle who had moved to Cologne (Köln) some years earlier.

Feeling homesick, Farina began to dabble in experiments using the distilling techniques he had inherited. 

One day in 1708 he excitedly wrote a letter to his brother, Giovanni Battista Farina, exclaiming that he had produced a scent so pleasing to his nostrils that it was almost dreamlike in its qualities.

He wrote: “I have made a perfume reminiscent of an Italian spring morning, accompanied by a gentle freshness, where the scents of wild narcissus combine with sweet orange blossoms. The fragrance is refreshing and stimulative for my senses and imagination.”

Giovanni Paolo Feminis asked Farina to
market his Aqua Mirabilis

There have been suggestions that the recipe was not actually his but belonged to another product, Aqua Mirabilis, a medicinal mix that was the creation of Giovanni Paolo Feminis, a friend of the Farina family from Santa Maria Maggiore, which Farina had offered to market in Cologne.

Whatever the true story – and it is possible Farina used his distilling skills to give the formula his own twist - Farina was taken with the fragrance and gave it the name “Eau de Cologne” in honour of his adopted city.

In the summer of 1709, Giovanni Battista Farina arrived in Cologne, registered as a new resident at Cologne town hall, under the name of Johann Baptist Farina, and in August 1 of the same year signed a 12-year contract to rent a building opposite the Julichplatz in the street now known as Unter Goldschmeid.

With his brother-in-law, Franz Balthasar Borgnis, he founded Farina & Compagnie, which evolved into Gebrüder Farina & Compagnie - Farina Brothers and Co – after Johann Maria and another brother, Carlo Girolamo, joined the board.

The company is still operating more than 300 years later, from the same premises at the corner of Obenmarspforten, with the red tulip logo that was adopted at the very start.  It is the world’s oldest perfume factory. The current owners are the eighth generation of Giovanni’s family.

The perfume was originally sold in long,
slender bottles called rosali

The business initially sold a wide range of luxury items, such as lace, handkerchiefs, silk stockings, wigs, feathers, tobacco boxes, sealing wax and face powder.  After some wobbles at the start, resulting in the departures of Carlo Girolamo and Giovanni Battista’s brother-in-law and a renaming of the company to Fratelli Farina (Farina Brothers), business began to grow.

It was after the death of Giovanni Battista in 1924 that Johann Maria’s perfume became its focus.

In those days, when personal hygiene standards were a long way removed from those of today, it was normal for women and men to douse themselves liberally in scent and, once word of it spread, Farina’s fragrance became a sensation.

The exact recipe was a closely-guarded secret, naturally, and remains so. It contained a blend of the oils of many citrus fruits and flower essences, but most noticeable was the scent of Bergamot, the exotic citrus the size and shape of an orange with the colour of lime, grown in particular areas of southern Italy, Turkey and southern France.

The company was renamed again, this time simply as Johann Maria Farina, which has remained unchanged since.

From a small start – the first delivery of Eau de Cologne was for just 12 bottles in 1716 – Farina’s list of customers expanded rapidly. Between 1730 and 1739, around 3,700 of its distinctive long, slender bottles – named rosali - were delivered.

The company's Eau di Cologne - Acqua di
Colonia - as packaged today

Vitally, the fragrance soon became a royal and imperial favourite.  Frederick William I of Prussia, Clemens August of Bavaria, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, Maria Theresa of Austria and Louis XV of France were all taken with the unique scent and by 1740 it was being sold in cities all over Europe.

It was the favoured perfume of royal families through the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries. Diana, Princess of Wales, enjoyed its delicate notes and deliveries were regularly made to her home in London. 

Other fans over the centuries included the composers Mozart and Beethoven, British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, the writers Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde, the Indian prime minister Indira Gandi and the actresses Marlene Dietrich and Romy Schneider.

Other manufacturers attempted to copy Farina’s formula, some with greater success than others.  The most famous imitation is undoubtedly 4711, named after its location at Glockengasse No. 4711.

The French fragrance manufacturer Roger & Gallet produces a fragrance called Johann Maria Farina, having bought the rights to Eau de Cologne extra vieille when Jean Marie Joseph Farina, a grand grand nephew of Johann, sold the company’s Paris store in 1806.

Johann Maria Farina died in Cologne in 1766.

A wall plaque identifies Farina's
birthplace in Santa Maria Maggiore 

Travel tip:

Visitors to Santa Maria Maggiore, a small town of around 1,200 residents 25km (16 miles) north of Verbania, can look round the Casa del Profumo in Piazza Risorgimento, a new museum set up to celebrate the lives of both Giovanni Paolo Feminis and Johann Maria Farina. The museum has developed a relationship with the perfume museum at the original Farina headquarters in Cologne.

Verbania is the largest town on Lake Maggiore

Travel tip:

Verbania is the largest town on Lake Maggiore, with a population of a little more than 30,000.  It was formed in 1939 by the merger of three smaller towns – Intra, Pallanza and Suna.  Pallanza, the middle of the three, has a pretty harbour. Attractions include the Villa Taranto, which has a magnificent botanical garden, and the Isolino di San Giovanni, a small islet separated from the mainland by a stretch of water no more than 15 metres wide, which was for many years the home of the great conductor and musical director, Arturo Toscanini.

Home

Azzone Visconti - ruler of Milan

Nobleman who used family power to bring prosperity to the city

Azzone Visconti's rule saw Milan prosper and
expand in the early 14th century

Azzone Visconti, a nobleman sometimes described as the founder of the state of Milan and who brought prosperity to the city in the 14^th century, was born on this day in 1302 in Ferrara.

The Visconti family ruled Lombardy and Milan from 1277 to 1457 before the family line ended and, after a brief period as a republic, the Sforza family took control.

Azzone was the son of Galeazzo I Visconti and Beatrice d’Este, the daughter of the Marquis of Ferrara.

Galeazzo was descendant from Ottone Visconti, who had first taken control of Milan for the family in 1277, when he was made Archbishop of Milan by Pope Urban IV but found himself opposed by the Della Torre family, who had expected Martino della Torre to be given the title.

Ottone was barred from entering the city until he defeated Napoleone della Torre in a battle and, apart from a brief period in which forces loyal to Guido della Torre drove out Galeazzo’s father, Matteo, the Visconti family held power for the next 170 years.

Ambrogio Ficino's 1590 painting of the apparition
 of St Ambrose at the Battle of Parabiago

A crisis faced the Visconti rule in 1328 when Louis IV, the Holy Roman Emperor – known in Italian as Ludovico il Bavaro – had Galeazzo and other members of the family arrested following the death of Galeazzo’s younger brother, Stefano, in a suspected assassination.  Azzone’s uncle, Marco, was said to have betrayed Galeazzo by passing on information that implicated his brother at the heart of the plot.

Ludovico confiscated the Visconti territories, handing control of the smaller cities in Lombardy to local families. It proved the end of Galeazzo, who died later in the year.  On their release, Azzone was involved in a power struggle with Marco for control of Milan.

Azzone gained the upper hand when, with the help of another uncle, he raised the sum of 60,000 florins which he paid Ludovico for the title of Imperial Vicar of Milan, which effectively made him the ruler of the city.  When Marco was killed soon afterwards, Azzone was named as the chief suspect, although he was never prosecuted.

This development angered Pope John XXII, who excommunicated Azzone. As a solution, Azzone was forced to submit to the Pope and renounce his Imperial Vicariate, reaching a compromise under which he retained political power under the title of Lord of Milan.

Azzone’s rule lasted only nine years until his death in 1339 from gout, but during that time he enhanced the wealth and power of the city.

By joining the League of Castelbaldo, he brought the Lombardy cities of Bergamo, Novara, Cremona, Como, Lodi, Piacenza and Brescia back under the rule of Milan, establishing the city’s predominance in the region.

The bell tower of the church of San
Gottardo in Corte in Milan

He also defeated a plot to unseat him by his uncle, Lodrisio, who escaped a crackdown that saw several accomplices arrested and locked up in prison in the Castle of Monza but suffered defeat in the Battle of Parabiago, where a Milanese army led by another uncle, Luchino, was said to have been facing defeat but was saved by the divine intervention in the form of an apparition of St Ambrose on horseback, which caused the enemy army to flee.

Away from the battlefield, Azzone Visconti is credited with beginning an artistic renewal of Milan.

He rebuilt the Palazzo del Broletto Vecchio, opposite the Duomo, formerly the municipal seat, as Visconti palace - later the Royal Palace - and moved the town hall to the Palazzo della Ragione.

Azzone commissioned the Cremonese architect Francesco Pecorari to construct the church of San Gottardo in Corte, with an octagonal bell tower, which remains today, that was probably inspired by the drawings Giotto made for the bell tower of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

He hired Giotto himself to execute a number of frescoes in the Visconti palace, although none remain today.  His commitment to the architectural embellishment of Milan continued under his successors, notably with work beginning on the magnificent Duomo in 1386 under the rule of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.

Azzone was also credited with rebuilding the city of Lecco, at the southern end of the eastern fork of Lago di Como, known as Lago di Lecco. The city had been destroyed by his grandfather, Matteo, in 1296.

The monumental tomb of Azzone Visconti

Travel tip:

The church of San Gottardo in Corte can be found in Via Francesco Pecorari, just a few yards from the Duomo. Built as a ducal chapel, it was originally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin but Azzone, who had gout, later changed the dedication to St. Gotthard of Hildesheim, patron of those with gout. The interior has been partially restored but in the original church part of the a fresco of the Crucifixion, thought to have been painted by a pupil of Giotto remains, along with the monumental tomb sculpted for Azzone by the Pisan sculptor Giovanni di Balduccio.

The Palazzo della Ragione in Piazza Mercanti

Travel tip:

The Palazzo della Ragione (Palace of Reason), which Azzone established as Milan’s town hall, is located in Piazza Mercanti, just off Piazza del Duomo, facing the Loggia degli Osii. It also served as a judicial seat. Built between 1228 and 1233 for the podestà (chief magistrate) of Milan, Oldrado da Tresseno. It maintained a central role in the administrative and public life of the city Milan until 1773, when it was enlarged to accommodate legal archives.  Between 1866 and 1870, the building hosted the headquarters of the Banca Popolare di Milano, a major Milanese bank, but returned to its function as house of legal archives until 1970.

Home

Luigi Lablache – opera star

19^th century giant was Queen Victoria’s singing coach

Luigi Lablache appeared in his first
major role at the age of 18

The singer Luigi Lablache, whose powerful but agile bass-baritone voice and wide-ranging acting skills made him a superstar of 19^th century opera, was born in Naples on this day in 1794.

Lablache was considered one of the greatest singers of his generation; for his interpretation of characters such as Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Geronimo in Domenico Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, Gottardo the Podestà in Gioachino Rossini’s La gazza ladra, Henry VIII in Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and Oroveso in Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma he had few peers.

Donizetti created the role of Don Pasquale in his comic opera of the same name specifically for Lablache.

Lablache performed in all of Italy’s major opera houses and was a star too in Vienna, London, St Petersburg and Paris, which he adopted as his home in later life, having acquired a beautiful country house at Maisons-Laffitte, just outside the French capital. 

Lablache was a man of not
inconsiderable girth

He was approached to give singing lessons to the future Queen Victoria a year before she inherited the English throne, in 1836.  He found the future queen to have a clear soprano voice and a keen interest in music and opera and they developed a close bond, establishing an arrangement that would continue every summer for 20 years, coming to an end only when Lablache’s health began to decline.

Lablache’s father was a French merchant, Nicolas Lablache, who had fled Marseille during the Revolution.  His mother was an Irish woman.  They were well connected, and when his father died Luigi and his mother were helped by Joseph Bonaparte, a French diplomat whose elder brother, Napoleon, would eventually make King of Naples.

Luigi was sent to the Conservatorio della Pietà de’ Turchini in Naples, where he was taught singing and became proficient at playing the violin and cello.  His burning ambition at the time was to act and several times he ran away from the conservatory, hoping to join a theatre troupe, but each time was brought back, not least because he had revealed himself to have a wonderful voice, at that time a contralto.

Before it broke, he sang the solos in Mozart’s Requiem at the funeral of Joseph Haydn.  Later in life, he would sing at the funerals of Beethoven, Chopin and Bellini.

Once it had broken, his voice developed rapidly. In 1812, at just 18 years of age, he was engaged at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, and appeared in Valentino Fioravanti's La Molinara.

Lablache in Donizetti's Don Pasquale

He sang in Palermo from 1812 to 1817, when he moved to Teatro alla Scala in Milan to take the part of Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola.

His reputation spread throughout Europe.  From Milan he went to Turin, back to Milan in 1822 and then to Vienna via Venice. Returning to Naples after 20 years away, he gave a sensational performance as Assur in Rossini's Semiramide. In March 1830 he was first heard in London as Geronimo in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and from that year forward he would visit London annually.

Despite his physical size and the natural power of his voice, Lablache had the dexterity to produce comic, humorous, tender or sorrowful effects when requred and was versatile enough as an actor to be equally convincing in comic and dramatic parts.

While his size was arguably an asset to his vocal power, he was naturally of a lazy disposition and it is said he would have been content had he been nothing more than a provincial singer.

He was cajoled and encouraged to realise his potential largely by his wife, the singer Teresa Pinotti, whom he married when he was just 18 and who bore him 13 children.  Several of his children became singers themselves.  His descendants include the English-born Hollywood actor, Stewart Granger, who was his great-great-grandson.

His health began to deteriorate in around 1857 and he returned to Naples, taking a house in Posillipo in the hope that the warm southern Italian climate might reduce his tendency to develop chest infections.  The relief was only temporary, however, and he died in Naples in 1858 at the age of 64.

His body was returned to France and he was buried at Maisons-Laffitte in accordance with his wishes.

Villa Donn'Anna was built right on the sea's edge

Travel tip:

Posillipo is a residential quarter of Naples that has been associated with wealth in the city since Roman times. Built on a hillside that descends gradually towards the sea, it offers panoramic views across the Bay of Naples towards Vesuvius and has been a popular place to build summer villas. Some houses were built right on the sea’s edge, such as the historic Villa Donn’Anna, which can be found at the start of the Posillipo coast near the harbour at Mergellina.

Teatro San Carlo has been open for business since 1737

Travel tip:

The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, where Lablache made his debut at the age of 18, is the oldest continually active venue for public opera performances in the world, having opened in 1737, more than 40 years ahead of both La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice.  It was also, when it opened, the largest opera venue in the world, with the capacity to accommodate 3,000 spectators, a large number of whom would be standing but of whom 1,379 would have seats, including those occupying the 184 boxes, arranged in a six-tier horseshoe around the stage.

Home

Francesco Gemianini - composer and violinist

Tuscan played alongside Handel in court of George I

Francesco Geminiani moved to London in
1714 and settled there

The violinist, composer and music theorist Francesco Saverio Geminiani, who worked alongside George Frideric Handel in the English royal court in the early 18^th century and became closely associated with the music of the Italian Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli, was baptised on this day in 1687 in Lucca, Tuscany.

Although he composed many works and at his peak was renowned as a virtuoso violinist, he is regarded as a significant figure in the history of music more for his writings, in particular his 1751 treatise Art of Playing on the Violin, which explained the 18th-century Italian method of violin playing and is still acknowledged as an invaluable source for the study of performance practice in the late Baroque period.

Geminiani himself was taught to play the violin by his father, and after showing considerable talent at an early age he went to study the violin under Carlo Ambrogio Lonati in Milan, later moving to Rome to be tutored by the aforementioned Corelli.

Returning to Lucca, he played the violin in the orchestra at the Cappella Palatina for three years, after which he moved to Naples to take up a position as Leader of the Opera Orchestra and concertmaster.

He was by that time recognised as a brilliant violin virtuoso, although his tendency to improvise off the cuff posed problems at times for the orchestra, who had difficulty in following him.  He acquired the nickname Il Furibondo – the Madman. Some of his violin sonatas were so challenging that only a few of his contemporary violinists dared to play them in public.

The cover from a French edition of Gemianini's
treatise on how to play the violin

By the time Geminiani was in his mid-20s, London had become a major centre for music, not least because Handel, the German-born Baroque maestro, had chosen to base himself there.

Handel, like Geminiani, had studied under Corelli and had introduced London to Italian musical style and. In 1714 Geminiani decided he would try his luck there too.

His accomplished performances soon attracted patronage, including that of William Capel, the third Earl of Essex, who would become a regular sponsor and whom he taught to play. Capel at one time had to rescue Geminiani from prison, the consequence of debts run up through art dealing and collecting.  

It was through the Earl of Essex that Geminiani was invited to play his violin concerti in front of George I, with Handel accompanying him on harpsichord.

He established himself in London as the leading master of violin-playing, making a good living through his concerts, his published compositions and his theoretical treatises.  He also taught music and many of his students went on to have successful careers.

Gemianini is best known for his concerti grossi – a form of Baroque music that involves an orchestra and a small group of soloists, as opposed to the single soloist of a solo concerto – of which there were 42. He also reworked some of Corelli’s pieces as concerti grossi.

Geminiani spent time in Paris and Dublin but preferred to make his permanent home in London rather than return to Italy. It was  during a visit to Dublin that he died in 1762 at the age of 74.  He was buried in the Irish capital but his remains were later reburied in the church of San Francesco in Lucca.  

Lucca's oval Piazza dell'Amfiteatro

Travel tip:

Lucca is situated in western Tuscany, just 30km (19 miles) inland from Viareggio on the coast and barely 20km (12 miles) from Pisa, with its international airport.  It is often overlooked by travellers to the area in favour of the Leaning Tower and the art treasures of Florence, 80km (50 miles) to the east, yet has much to recommend within its majestic walls, where visitors can stroll along narrow cobbled streets into a number of beautiful squares, with lots of cafes and restaurants for those content to soak up the ambiance but also a wealth of churches, museums and galleries for those seeking a fix of history and culture.   The Renaissance walls, still intact, are an attraction in their own right, providing a complete 4.2km (2.6 miles) circuit of the city popular with walkers and cyclists.

A bronze statue of Giacomo Puccini sits
outside his birthplace museum

Travel tip:

Lucca has a rich musical tradition of which Francesco Geminiani is just part. The city’s main claim to musical fame is as the home of the great opera composer Giacomo Puccini, who was born there in 1858. Visitors can look around the house where the composer was born in Corte San Lorenzo, off Via di Poggio in the city centre, which is now a museum, or his villa on the shores of nearby Lago di Massaciuccoli, on the way to Viareggio, while there are daily Puccini concerts throughout the summer in Lucca at the church of Santi Giovanni e Raparata in Piazza San Giovanni. The composers Alfredo Catalani and Luigi Boccherini were also from Lucca.

Home