5 November

NEW - Giovanni Battista Belzoni – archaeologist

The Great Belzoni’s powerful physique helped him remove Egyptian treasures

Explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, was born on this day in 1778 in Padua, which was then part of the Republic of Venice.  He became famous for his height and strength and his discovery and removal to England of the seven-ton bust of Ramesses II. Belzoni was born into a poor family. At the age of 16 he went to find work in Rome and studied hydraulics. He was planning to take monastic vows but in 1798 French troops occupied the city and he moved to the Batavian Republic, now the Netherlands, where he earned his living as a barber.  He moved to England in 1803, allegedly to escape going to prison. He was six feet seven inches tall and had a powerful physique. For a while he earned his living as a circus strongman under the name, The Great Belzoni.  He also exhibited his models of hydraulic engines and went to Cairo in 1815 to offer hydraulic engines for use in irrigation to Muhammad Ali Pasha, the founder of modern Egypt.  But two years later he embarked on another new career, excavating Egyptian tombs and temples for their treasures. It was said he damaged other less valuable objects in the process, which was later frowned upon.  Read more…

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Francesco Chiarello - survivor of two World Wars

Calabrian veteran lived to be 109 years old

Francesco Domenico Chiarello, who would live to be one of the world's longest surviving veterans to serve in both World Wars, was born on this day in 1898.  Chiarello was 109 years old when he died in June 2008.  Of soldiers anywhere on the planet who were active in the 1914-18 conflict and were called up again after 1939, only the Frenchman Fernand Goux outlived him.  Goux, from the Loiret department of central northern France, died just five months later, aged 108.  Chiarello also died as one of the last two surviving Italian soldiers from the First World War, outlived only by Delfino Borroni, from just outside Pavia in Lombardy, who was a tram driver during the Second World War.  Borroni recovered from serious injuries sustained in an Allied bombing raid to be 110 years old when he died four months after Chiarello.  Chiarello, a farmer from Umbriatico in the province of Crotone in Calabria,  joined the Italian army in 1918 as a member of the 19th infantry regiment from Cosenza.  He was sent to the northern front at Trento where he took part in the final Battle of Vittorio Veneto, a seminal moment in the history of the conflict and of Italy.  Read more…

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Pietro Longhi - painter

Painter who allowed us to see inside 18th century Venice

The painter Pietro Longhi, who was renowned for his accurate scenes of everyday life in Venice in the 18th century, was born on this day in 1702.  Longhi was originally called Pietro Falca and was the son of a silversmith in Venice, but he changed his name after he began painting.  He started with historical and religious scenes but his work evolved after a stay in Bologna where he encountered Giuseppe Maria Crespi, who was considered one of the greatest Italian painters at the time.  Longhi’s son Alessandro later wrote that his father had a ‘brilliant and bizarre spirit’, which led him to accurately paint people in conversation and show us the love and jealousy going on in the background.  His paintings vividly depict Venetian life and show wonderful details of the clothes and possessions of the upper and middle classes.  For example, Longhi’s painting of The Hairdresser and the Lady, which is in the Correr Museum in Venice, shows a wealthy Venetian lady having her hair dressed by a man, while a maid stands to one side holding a child. Longhi faithfully shows us how the clothing of each subject reflects the rank of the person wearing it and allows us to see the various objects scattered on the lady’s dressing table.  Read more…

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Attilio Ariosti – composer

Musical friar was once a rival of Handel

Baroque composer Attilio Malachia Ariosti, who in later life became a rival of Handel in London musical circles, was born on this day in 1666 in Bologna.  He became a Servite Friar, known as Frate Ottavio, when he was 22, but he quickly obtained permission to leave the order and become a composer at the court of the Duke of Mantua and Monferrato.  During his life, Ariosti composed more than 30 operas and oratorios as well as many cantatas and instrumental works.  Ariosti became a Deacon in 1692 and then obtained the post of organist at the Church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Bologna.  His first opera, Tirsi, was performed in Venice in 1697 and that same year he was invited to travel to Berlin by Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, the Queen of Prussia. She was a great-granddaughter of James I of England and the daughter of the Electress Sophia of Hanover, a committed patron of the arts with a keen interest in music.  The Electress Sophia had been heir presumptive to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain and was waiting for the death of her first cousin once removed, Queen Anne, before travelling to Britain to claim her title.  Read more…

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Alessandro Malaspina - explorer

Mapped Pacific on four-year epic journey

Alessandro Malaspina, an explorer not so well known as his compatriots, Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Colombus, but whose contribution to mankind’s knowledge of the globe was no less important, was born on this day in 1754 in Mulazzo, a village now in the province of Massa-Carrara, about 120km (75 miles) northwest of Florence.  Like Vespucci and Columbus, Malaspina sailed under the flag of Spain, whose king, Charles III, was an enthusiastic supporter of scientific research and exploration.  He spent much of his life as an officer in the Spanish navy, and it was after completing an 18-month circumnavigation of the world on behalf of the Royal Philippines Company between September 1786 and May 1788 that he proposed to the Spanish government that he make an expedition to the Pacific similar to those undertaken by the British explorer James Cook and the Frenchman Comte de la Pèrouse.  His proposal was accepted in part after word reached Spain that a Russian expedition was being prepared with the objective of claiming territory on the northwest coast of North America that had already been claimed by Spain.  Read more…

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Filippo Taglioni - dancer and choreographer

Father of star ballerina was pioneer of Romantic ballet

The dancer and choreographer Filippo Taglioni, who choreographed the original version of the ballet classic La Sylphide for his ballerina daughter Marie Taglioni, was born on this day in 1777 in Milan.  La Sylphide was one of the earliest works to represent a new ballet genre, which became known as Romantic ballet, that gained popularity in the 19th century as an alternative to traditional classical ballet.  Romantic ballet was different in that the characters were recognisable as real people rather than the gods and goddesses and strange creatures from Roman and Greek mythology that populated classical ballet.  The work, which premiered at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra in 1832, cemented Marie Taglioni’s status as a star, the prima ballerina of the Romantic movement, although the version performed today - the only version to have survived - was choreographed by the Danish ballet master August Bournonville in 1836.  Filippo was part of an Italian dancing dynasty of the 18th and 19th centuries. His father and mother, Carlo Taglioni and Maria Petracchi, were both dancers. Carlo, who was born in Turin, worked in Venice, Rome, Siena and Udine.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Belzoni – archaeologist

The Great Belzoni’s powerful physique helped him remove Egyptian treasures

A portrait of Giovanni Belzoni during
his time as an archaeologist in Egypt

Explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, was born on this day in 1778 in Padua, which was then part of the Republic of Venice.

He became famous for his height and strength and his discovery and removal to England of the seven-ton bust of Ramesses II.

Belzoni was born into a poor family. At the age of 16 he went to find work in Rome and studied hydraulics. He was planning to take monastic vows but in 1798 French troops occupied the city and he moved to the Batavian Republic, now the Netherlands, where he earned his living as a barber.

He moved to England in 1803, allegedly to escape going to prison. He was six feet seven inches tall and had a powerful physique. For a while he earned his living as a circus strongman under the name, The Great Belzoni.

He also exhibited his models of hydraulic engines and went to Cairo in 1815 to offer hydraulic engines for use in irrigation to Muhammad Ali Pasha, the founder of modern Egypt.

But two years later he embarked on another new career, excavating Egyptian tombs and temples for their treasures. It was said he damaged other less valuable objects in the process, which was later frowned upon.

The 6ft 7ins Belzoni pictured
as a circus strongman in England

At Thebes he obtained the colossal sculpture of the head of Ramesses II for the British Museum. It took him 17 days and he had to use 130 men to help him tow it to the river where it was loaded on to a boat bound for England. In the nearby Valley of the Tombs of Kings, he discovered the tomb of Seti I and removed the aragonite sarcophagus for the Sir John Soane Museum in London. This became known as Belzoni’s Tomb.

While he was in the process of removing an obelisk from the Nile island of Philae, it was taken from him at gunpoint by men working for the French.

He explored an island in the Nile, known as Elephantine, and the temple of Edfu. He also cleared the entrance to the great temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. He was the first to penetrate the pyramid of Khafre at Giza and he identified the ruins of the city of Berenice on the Red Sea.

Belzoni returned to England in 1819 and published an account of his adventure – Narratives of the Operations and Recent Discoveries Within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia. It was a two-volume work published in 1820.

The explorer and archaeologist died in 1823 at the age of 45 in Gwato, now called Ughoton, in Nigeria on his way to Timbuktu. In 1825 Belzoni’s widow exhibited his drawings and models of the Royal tombs of Thebes in London and Paris.

The Scrovegni Chapel is one of the many
attractions of the city of Padua

Travel tip:

Padua in the Veneto is one of the most important centres for art in Italy and home to the country’s second oldest university. Padua has become acknowledged as the birthplace of modern art because of the Scrovegni Chapel, the inside of which is covered with frescoes by Giotto, an artistic genius who was the first to paint people with realistic facial expressions showing emotion. His scenes depicting the lives of Mary and Joseph, painted between 1303 and 1305, are considered his greatest achievement and one of the world’s most important works of art. At Palazzo Bo, where Padua’s university was founded in 1222, you can still see the original lectern used by Galileo and the world’s first anatomy theatre, where dissections were secretly carried out from 1594.

The Prato della Valle square in Padua was
built on the site of a Roman theatre

Travel tip:

The elliptical Prato della Valle, one of Padua's principal squares, is built on the site of the Zairo theatre on land which fell into disuse and became flooded following the fall of the Roman Empire.  The land was drained in the 18th century and a canal crossed by four bridges was created around an island planted with trees and lawns, which was later lined by statues of 78 eminent citizens of Padua. Nearby is a restaurant, the Ristorante Zairo, which contains statues and wall decorations that recall the chariot races and other activities that would have taken place in the theatre. Diners can also see a 17th century fresco that came to light when renovations uncovered part of the structure of a former church.

Also on this day:

1666: The birth of composer Attilio Ariosti

1702: The birth of painter Pietro Longhi

1754: The birth explorer Alessandro Malaspina

1777: The birth of dancer Filippo Taglioni

1898: The birth of Francesco Domenico Chiarello, who would become one of the longest surviving victims of both world wars

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4 November

Florence's catastrophic floods

Tuscan capital devastated on same day six centuries apart

More than 3,000 people were believed to have been killed when the River Arno flooded the streets of Florence on this day in 1333.  More than six centuries later, 101 people died when the city was flooded on the same day in 1966. The 50th anniversary of the most recent catastrophe, which took a staggering toll of priceless books and works of art in the Cradle of the Renaissance, was commemorated in the city on November 4, 2016.  The 1333 disaster - the first recorded flood of the Arno - was chronicled for posterity by Giovanni Villani, a diplomat and banker living in the city.  A plaque in Via San Remigio records the level the water allegedly reached in 1333 and another plaque commemorates the level the water reached after the river flooded in 1966, exactly 633 years later.  Villani wrote in his Nuova Cronica (New Chronicle), ‘By noon on Thursday, 4 November, 1333, a flood along the Arno River spread across the entire plain of San Salvi.’  By nightfall, the flood waters had filled the city streets and Villani claimed the water rose above the altar in Florence’s Baptistery, reaching halfway up the porphyry columns.  Read more…

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Sandrone Dazieri – crime writer

Best-selling novelist in Italy now published in English

Sandrone Dazieri, an Italian author and screenwriter whose first novel published in English received enthusiastic reviews, was born in Cremona on this day in 1964.  A former chef, Dazieri became a best-selling novelist in his mid-30s with Attenti al Gorilla (Beware of the Gorilla), which introduced a complex character, based on himself and even named Sandrone, who suffers from a personality disorder that makes his behaviour unpredictable yet who solves crimes and tackles injustices.  The book spawned a series featuring the same character that not only gained Dazieri enormous popularity among Italian readers but helped him get work as a screenwriter, especially in the area of TV crime dramas.  He is the main writer on the hugely popular Canale 5 series Squadra Antimafia, to which he contributed for seven seasons.  Now, for the first time, with the help of an American translator, Dazieri has moved into the English language market with Kill the Father, published by Simon & Schuster in London in January 2017.  Already a top-selling title in Italy, the dark crime thriller received good reviews in the literary sections of English newspapers and magazines.  Read more…

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Guido Reni - painter

Bolognese artist who idealised Raphael

The leading Baroque painter, Guido Reni, was born on this day in 1575 in Bologna, then part of the Papal States.  He was to become a dominant figure in the Bolognese school of painting, which emerged under the influence of the Carracci, a family of painters in Bologna. He was held in high regard because of the classical idealism of his portrayals of mythological and religious subjects.  Although his father, Daniele, wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a musician, Guido Reni passionately wanted to become an artist and was apprenticed to the Flemish painter Denis Calvaert when he was 10 years old. He focused on studying the works of Raphael, who, for the rest of his life, remained his ideal.  Reni went on to enter the academy led by Ludovico Carracci, the Accademia degli Incamminati - The academy of the newly-embarked - in Bologna. He was received into the guild of painters in the city in 1599 when he was nearly 24. After this he divided his time between his studios in Bologna and Rome.  One of his most famous works, Crucifixion of St Peter, which is now in the Vatican Museum in Rome, was painted for Cardinal Aldobrandini in 1605.  Read more…

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First night at Teatro San Carlo 

Oldest opera house in the world opens its doors in Naples

Teatro di San Carlo in Naples was officially opened on this day in 1737, way ahead of La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice.  Built in Via San Carlo, close to Piazza Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo quickly became one of the most important opera houses in Europe and renowned for its excellent productions. The theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and took just eight months to build.  The official inauguration was on the King’s saint’s day, the festival of San Carlo, on the evening of 4 November. There was a performance of Achille in Sciro by Pietro Metastasio with music by Domenico Sarro, who also conducted the orchestra for the music for two ballets.  This was 41 years before La Scala and 55 years before La Fenice opened. San Carlo is now believed to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, remaining opera houses in the world.  Both Rossini and Donizetti served as artistic directors at San Carlo and the world premieres of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini’s Mosè were performed there. In the magnificent auditorium, the focal point is the royal box surmounted by the crown of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.   Read more…

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3 November

Monica Vitti - actress

Star of Antonioni classics also excelled in comedy roles

The actress Monica Vitti, who became famous as the star of several films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni during the early 1960s, was born on this day in 1931 in Rome.  Antonioni, with whom she had a romantic relationship that lasted a decade, cast her as his female lead in L'avventura (1960), La notte (1961), and L'eclisse (1962), three enigmatically moody films once described as a "trilogy on modernity and its discontents".  She also starred for him in his first colour film, Il deserto rosso (1964), which continued in a similar vein.  Her performance earned her a second of four Golden Grail awards. Vitti was also honoured with five David di Donatello awards as Best Actress from the Italian Film Academy.  After splitting with Antonioni, Vitti excelled in comedy, working with directors such as Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Alberto Sordi and Ettore Scola.  Her performances in movies such as Monicelli’s The Girl With the Pistol (1968) and I Know That You Know That I Know (1982) saw her spoken of as one of the great actors of the commedia all’Italiana genre alongside Sordi himself, Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman and Nino Manfredi.  Read more…

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Vincenzo Bellini - opera composer

Short but successful career of Sicilian musical genius

The talented composer of the celebrated opera, Norma, was born Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini on this day in 1801 in Catania in Sicily. Bellini became known for his long, flowing, melodic lines, which earned him the nickname, ‘The Swan of Catania’. He enjoyed great success during the bel canto era of Italian opera in the early part of the 19th century and many of his operas are still regularly performed today.  Born into a musical family, Bellini showed early talent. It was claimed he could sing an aria at 18 months and could play the piano by the age of five. Although some writers have said these are exaggerations, Bellini is known to have already begun composing music by his teens.  He was given financial support by the city of Catania to study music at a college in Naples and while he was there he was profoundly influenced by meeting the composer Gaetano Donizetti, having heard his opera, La zingara, performed at Teatro di San Carlo.  Bellini then wrote his first opera, Adelson e Salvini, which his fellow students performed to great acclaim.  In 1825, Bellini began work on what was to be his first professionally-produced opera, Bianca e Fernando. Read more…

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Annibale Carracci - painter

Bolognese master produced his most influential work in Rome

The Baroque painter Annibale Carracci was born on this day in 1560 in Bologna.  Annibale and his followers were to become highly influential in the development of Roman painting, bringing back the classical tradition of the High Renaissance.  He was probably apprenticed as a painter with members of his own family in Bologna. But his talents began to develop during a tour of northern Italy in the 1580s. He lodged in Venice with the painter Jacopo Bassano, whose style of painting influenced him for a time.  Annibale has been credited with rediscovering the early 16th century painter Correggio, who had almost been forgotten outside Parma. Annibale’s Baptism of Christ, painted in 1585 for the Church of San Gregorio in Bologna, is a brilliant tribute to him.  In 1582 Annibale opened a studio in Bologna with his brother, Agostino Carraci, and his older cousin, Ludovico Carracci. While working there, Annibale painted The Enthroned Madonna with St Matthew in 1588 for the Church of San Prospero in Reggio.  Annibale collaborated with the other two Carracci on frescoes in the Palazzo Magnani (now the Palazzo Salem) and two other noble houses in Bologna.  Read more…

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Villa Giusti armistice

Talks held at villa in Padova ended First World War in Italy

An armistice signed between Italy and Austria-Hungary at Villa Giusti near Padua ended World War I on the Italian front on this day in 1918.  After the Allied troops were victorious in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, the Austria-Hungary commanding officers asked for a ceasefire and for peace talks. They were invited to Villa Giusti at Mandria just outside Padua, which was owned by Count Giusti del Giardino, a former mayor of Padua and an Italian senator. The principal signatories on the Italian side were Tenente Generale Pietro Badoglio and Maggior Generale Scipione Scipioni. Leading the Austria-Hungary delegation was General Viktor Weber Edler von Webenau. During the war, the Villa Giusti had been the temporary residence of King Victor Emmanuel III when he was away from the front. The armistice signed on 3 November ended the fighting and was seen by many Italians as the final phase of the Risorgimento, the movement started in 1815 to unify Italy. The bells of a nearby church rang out when news came from the villa that the armistice had been agreed.  Read more…

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Giovanni Leone - controversial politician

First president to resign over a scandal

The politician Giovanni Leone, who served both as prime minister of Italy and president during a career that spanned seven decades but which was ultimately overshadowed by scandal, was born on this day in 1908 in Naples.  A co-founder, with his father, Mauro, of the Christian Democracy in 1943, Leone was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1948, served as prime minister for brief periods in 1963 and 1968 and was elected president in 1971.  He occupied the Palazzo Quirinale, the main Rome residence of the president, for seven years but was forced to resign after being implicated in the Lockheed bribery scandal, the first president to step down over such an impropriety.  The accusation levelled at him was that he accepted payment from the American aircraft manufacturer in connection with the purchase of Hercules military transport planes. The allegations originated from the United States and were published in Italy by the news magazine L’Espresso.  Other politicians were said also to have accepted bribes but Leone was accused directly after documents unearthed in the US referenced an Italian prime minister given the codename Antelope Gobbler, which was taken to mean Leone - lion.  Read more…

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2 November

Luchino Visconti – director and writer

The aristocrat of Italian cinema

Luchino Visconti, who most aficionados of Italian cinema would place among the top five directors of all time, was born in Milan on this day in 1906.  Visconti’s movies include Ossessione, Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard, Death in Venice and The Innocent.  One of the pioneers of neorealism – arguably the first to make a movie that could be so defined – Visconti was also known as the aristocrat of Italian cinema, figuratively but also literally.   He was born Count Don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, the seventh child of a family descendant from a branch of the House of Visconti, the family that ruled Milan from the late 13th century until the early Renaissance.  Paradoxically, although he maintained a lavish lifestyle, Visconti’s politics were of the left. During the First World War he joined the Italian Communist Party, and many of his films reflected his political leanings, featuring poor or working class people struggling for their rights.  He enraged Mussolini with his grim portrayal of Italy's poverty in Ossessione (1943), based on James M Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.  Read more…

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Bartolomeo Colleoni - soldier

Death of an ‘honourable’ Italian military leader

Bergamo soldier Bartolomeo Colleoni,who became known for using his wealth to benefit people, died on this day in 1475.  Colleoni spent most of his life in the pay of the republic of Venice defending the city of Bergamo against invaders.  But he is remembered as one of the most decent condottieri of his era, carrying out charitable works and agricultural improvements in Bergamo and the surrounding area when he was not involved in military campaigns.  Condottieri were the leaders of troops, who worked for the powerful ruling factions, often for high payments.   Bergamo’s Bartolomeo Colleoni was unusual because he remained steadfast to one employer, the republic of Venice, for most of his career.  During a period of peace between Venice and Milan he worked briefly for Milan but the rulers never fully trusted him and eventually he was arrested and imprisoned. On his release, he returned to work for Venice and subsequently stayed faithful to them.  Towards the end of his life he lived with his family at his castle in Malpaga, to the south of Bergamo and turned his attention to designing a building to house his own tomb.   Read more…

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Battista 'Pinin' Farina - car designer

Family's 'smallest brother' became giant of automobile history

Battista 'Pinin' Farina,arguably the greatest of Italy's long roll call of outstanding automobile designers, was born on this day in 1893 in the village of Cortanze in Piedmont.  His coachbuilding company Carrozzeria Pininfarina became synonymous with Italian sports cars and influenced the design of countless luxury and family cars thanks to the partnerships he forged with Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Nash, Peugeot, Rolls Royce and others - most notably Ferrari, with whom his company has had a continuous relationship since 1951.  Among the many iconic marques that Pinin and his designers created are the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the Ferrari Dino 206 and the Cisitalia 202.  Battista was the 10th of 11 children raised by his parents in Cortanze, a small community in the province of Asti, situated about 30km (19 miles) east of Turin.  He was always known as 'Pinin', a word from Piemontese dialect meaning 'smallest brother'.  In 1961, he had his name legally changed to Pininfarina.  He acquired his love of cars at a young age and from 12 years old he spent every spare moment working at his brother Giovanni’s body shop, Stabilimenti Industriali Farina, learning about bodywork and design.  Read more…

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Gaspare Nadi - builder and diarist

Craftsmen kept chronicle for 50 years

Gaspare Nadi,a builder who became famous for the insight into life in 15th century Italy provided by a diary he maintained for half a century, was born on this day in 1418 in Bologna.  Nadi worked on several important buildings in Bologna, including the bell tower of the Palazzo d’Accursio and several churches. He built the library of the Basilica of San Domenico.  He attained the position of Master Mason in the local guild of bricklayers, whom he also served for many terms as guild manager and other official positions.  Yet it was the diary he began to compile in 1452 that became his legacy. Written in idiomatic Bolognese, it proved to be an extraordinary document, a source for historians seeking to understand how families and society functioned in the Italy of Nadi’s lifetime.  As well as detailing family issues,the diary explained much about the construction industry of the time, with entries about clients and remuneration, injuries suffered by workers, the times demanded to turn around projects and the workings of the guilds, even down to the taverns in which members met and the vineyards that supplied their wine.  Read more…

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San Giusto of Trieste - martyr

Patron saint of maritime city 

San Giusto of Trieste- also known as Saint Justus of Trieste - died on this day in 293 after being found guilty of being a Christian, which was illegal under Roman law at the time.  His death occurred during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, who was notable for his persecution of Christians.  After his trial, he was given the opportunity to renounce his faith and make a sacrifice to the Roman gods.  He refused to do so and was condemned to death by drowning. The story handed down over the centuries was that weights were attached to his ankles before he was thrown from a small boat into the Gulf of Trieste, off the shore of the area known today as Sant'Andrea.  The legend has it that on the night of San Giusto’s death, his friend Sebastian, said to have been a bishop or priest,was told in a dream that the body had broken free of the weights and been washed ashore.  When he woke from his sleep, Sebastian assembled a group of fellow Christians to search for the body, which they discovered near what is now the Riva Grumula, less than a kilometre from Piazza Unità d’Italia, Trieste’s elegant sea-facing main square.   Read more…

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1 November

NEW - Annibale Bergonzoli - soldier

Commander who was both decorated and imprisoned by the British

The military commander Annibale Bergonzoli, who served the Italian army in both world wars and led an Italian expeditionary force supporting General Francisco Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, was born on this day in 1884 in Cannobio, a town on the shore of Lago Maggiore. Bergonzoli had the distinction of being awarded a medal for bravery by the British during World War One only to be held by them as a prisoner of war after being captured during World War Two. As a boy, Bergonzoli always had a taste for adventure. He completed a 1.5 mile (2.4km) swim across Lago Maggiore at the age of seven. He enrolled at the Military Academy of Modena, graduating with the rank of sub-lieutenant in 1907. He joined the Royal Italian Army in 1911 and was immediately sent to take part in the Italo-Turkish War, helping to take control of the areas of the Ottoman Empire in Libya that became known as Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, as well as some islands in the Aegean Sea.  He remained in Libya for some years after the conflict. Read more…

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Sistine Chapel ceiling revealed

All Saints’ Day chosen to show off Michelangelo’s work

Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel were unveiled for public viewing for the first time on this day in 1512.  The date of All Saints’ Day was chosen by Pope Julius II, who had commissioned Michelangelo, because he felt it appropriate to show off the frescoes on a significant festival in the Catholic Church year.  The frescoes, the central nine panels of which depict stories from the Book of Genesis, has become one of the most famous works of art in the world, the image of  The Creation of Adam rivalled only perhaps by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa for iconic status.  Yet Michelangelo was reluctant initially to take on the project, which was first mooted in 1506 as part of a general programme of rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica being undertaken by Julius II, who felt that the Sistine Chapel, which had restored by his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, ought to have a ceiling that carried more meaningful decoration than the gold stars on a blue background of his uncle’s design.  Michelangelo, only 31 or 32 at the time, regarded himself as a sculptor rather than a painter.  Read more…

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Pietro da Cortona – painter and architect

Outstanding exponent of Baroque style

Artist Pietro da Cortona was born Pietro Berrettini on this day in 1596 in Cortona in Tuscany.  Widely known by the name of his birthplace, Cortona became the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and contributed to the emergence of Baroque architecture in Rome.  Having been born into a family of artisans and masons, Cortona went to Florence to train as a painter before moving to Rome, where he was involved in painting frescoes at the Palazzo Mattei by 1622.  His talent was recognised and he was encouraged by prominent people in Rome at the time. He was commissioned to paint a fresco in the church of Santa Bibiana that was being renovated under the direction of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1624.  Then, in 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned Cortona to paint a large fresco on the ceiling of the Grand Salon at Palazzo Barberini, his family’s palace. Cortona’s huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marked a watershed in Baroque painting as he created an illusion of an open, airy architectural framework against which figures were situated, creating spatial extension through the medium of paint.  Read more…

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Antonio Canova - sculptor

Genius who could bring marble to life 

Sculptor Antonio Canova was born on this day in 1757 in Possagno in the hills near Asolo in the Veneto.  He became famous for creating lifelike figures, possessing the ability to make the marble he worked with resemble nude flesh. One of his masterpieces is the group, The Three Graces, now in the Victoria and Albert museum in London.  Canova’s father and grandfather were both stone cutters and his grandfather taught him to draw at an early age.  The noble Falier family of Venice took an interest in Canova’s talent and brought him to the city to learn his trade in the workshop of Giuseppe Bernardi.  Canova also studied anatomy, history and languages and later moved to work in Rome. His first big success was his funerary monument to Clement XIV, which was inaugurated in the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli.  The sculptor travelled to France and England and when he returned to Italy was made Marquis of Ischia and given an annual pension.  He died in Venice at the age of 64 and was buried in Tempio Canova in Possagno, the town of his birth.  Canova’s heart was interred in a marble pyramid he had designed as a mausoleum for the painter, Titian, in the Frari church in Venice.  Read more…

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Giulio Romano – artist and architect

Painter from Rome left his mark on Mantua

Giulio Romano, who was the principal heir to the artist Raphael and one of the most important initiators of the Mannerist style of painting, died on this day in 1546 in Mantua.  He is most remembered for his masterpiece, the Palazzo del Te, built on the outskirts of Mantua as a pleasure palace for the Gonzaga family, which was designed, constructed and decorated entirely by him and his pupils.  The artist had been born in Rome some time in the 1490s and was given the name Giulio di Pietro di Filippo de’ Gianuzzi. He was known originally as Giulio Pippi, but later was referred to as Giulio Romano because of where he was born.  Giulio was apprenticed to Raphael when still a child and worked on the frescos in the Vatican loggias to designs by Raphael. He also collaborated with him on the decoration of the ceiling in the Villa Farnesina.  He became so important in the workshop that on Raphael’s death in 1520 he was named as one of the master’s chief heirs and he also became his principal artistic executor, completing a number of Raphael’s works, including the Transfiguration.  His own works from this time, such as the Madonna and Saints and the Stoning of St Stephen, both completed in 1523, show he had developed a highly personal style of painting.  Read more…

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Annibale Bergonzoli - soldier

Commander who was both decorated and imprisoned by the British

Bergonzoli's beard made him an instantly
recognisable figure among Italian generals

The military commander Annibale Bergonzoli, who served the Italian army in both world wars and led an Italian expeditionary force supporting General Francisco Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, was born on this day in 1884 in Cannobio, a town on the shore of Lago Maggiore.

Bergonzoli had the distinction of being awarded a medal for bravery by the British during World War One only to be held by them as a prisoner of war after being captured during World War Two.

As a boy, Bergonzoli always had a taste for adventure. He completed a 1.5 mile (2.4km) swim across Lago Maggiore at the age of seven. He enrolled at the Military Academy of Modena, graduating with the rank of sub-lieutenant in 1907.

He joined the Royal Italian Army in 1911 and was immediately sent to take part in the Italo-Turkish War, helping to take control of the areas of the Ottoman Empire in Libya that became known as Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, as well as some islands in the Aegean Sea.  He remained in Libya for some years after the conflict.

In the First World War, after initially declaring neutrality, Italy sided with Britain, France and Russia against Germany and Austria-Hungary and Bergonzoli was awarded the British Military Cross for bravery for his defence of Monte Rovegno in Liguria. He had a prominent role in the Salonika Campaign in the Balkans, in which he became part of the Allied High Command as a combined force of Austria, Germany and Bulgaria was defeated.

Some of the 30,000 Italians taken prisoner 
following the damaging defeat at Bardia

By the time the First World War ended, Bergonzoli had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was Chief of Staff of the XXV Division. Promotion to Colonel soon followed.  Red-haired, he had also grown an extravagant and striking beard that gained him the nickname barba elettrica - ‘electric whiskers’.

When the Fascists took control of Italy in 1922 and reformed the army, Bergonzoli retained his rank and was put in control of three regiments.

Elevated to Brigadier General in 1935, he participated in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, playing a major role in the capture of the city of Neghelli as Italy annexed the country to the Kingdom of Italy.

Commended by Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader who was by then ruling Italy as a dictator, he was then sent to Spain as the head of an infantry division of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie, an expeditionary force sent to support Franco in the Spanish Civil War. He was awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valour by Mussolini for leading the capture of Santander on behalf of Franco’s nationalists. 

Further promoted to Major General and then Lieutenant General, Bergonzoli, he was put in charge of the XXIII Italian Army Corps as an Italian invasion of Egypt was attempted in World War Two, in which the British were now his enemies.

He fared less well this time. He was commander of the Italian garrison in Bardia, a strongly defended seaport in the east of Libya, close to the border with Egypt, that fell in January 1941 following an assault by a combined force of British and Australian troops.

The captive Bergonzoli with other Italian officers
after disembarking at Cairo in February, 1941

It was a serious defeat for the Italians, who lost almost 5,500 personnel killed or wounded, with a further 30,000 taken prisoner along with a considerable quantity of armaments and vehicles. Bergonzoli managed to avoid being captured and escaped with other soldiers to Tobruk, crossing some 120km of desert on foot.

As the Allies advanced into Libya, he left Tobruk before the town was captured, retreating further to the west, but as the Italians prepared to evacuate they were engaged again at Beda Fomm on the Gulf of Sirte. This time, Bergonzoli was taken prisoner by Australian troops among 25,000 more Italian personnel. 

As a prisoner of war, Bergonzoli was taken first to Yol, a British camp in India, in the far north of the country towards the Himalayan mountain range, and then transferred to the United States, to be held first in Monticello, Arkansas and later Hereford, Texas.

After the Italian surrender and the armistice of September 1943, Bergonzoli refused any form of collaboration with the Anglo-Americans, who in turn refused to allow him to return to Italy, declaring him mad and holding him for a further two and a half years in the psychiatric ward of the Long Island military hospital, New York.

Finally released in March 1946, he was reinstated to the army of the new Italian Republic and given the rank of lieutenant general in 1947 before being permanently discharged later that year at the age of 62.

In retirement, Bergonzoli returned to live in Cannobio until his death in May, 1973. He is buried in a modest tomb at the town’s cemetery.

Cannobio is a pretty town on the western shore
of Lago Maggiore, not far from the Swiss border

Travel tip:

Cannobio, where Bergonzoli was born and died, can be found on the western shore of Lago Maggiore towards the northern end of the lake, only a few kilometres from the border between Italy and Switzerland. It is regarded as one of the prettiest towns on the western side of the lake, with a long waterfront, the centrepiece of which is the lakeside Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, which was refurbished in 2004 and completely relaid in cobblestones and granite slabs.  In history, the people of Cannobio are remembered for their bravery in repelling an Austrian attack in 1859, while fighting on the side of Giuseppe Garibaldi during the struggle for unification, and for rising up against the Nazi and Fascist regime in 1944.

The Baroque 17th century Ducal Palace, which
dominates the skyline of the city of Modena

Travel tip:

The military academy where Bergonzoli enrolled as a young would-be soldier is today Italy's national military academy. It is housed within Modena’s huge, Baroque Ducal Palace, the prominent feature of the city’s skyline, which was built in the 17th century by the architect Luigi Bartolomeo Avanzini on behalf of Francesco I on the site of a former castle in 1635. Modena, on the south side of the Po Valley in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, is known for its car industry - Ferrari, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati have all been located there - and for producing balsamic vinegar. Operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti and soprano Mirella Freni were both born in Modena.

Also on this day:

1512: The first public viewing of Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel

1546: The death of painter and architect Giulio Romano

1596: The birth of painter and architect Pietro da Cortona

1757: The birth of sculptor Antonio Canova

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