17 December

NEW - Ettore Tito - painter

Artist who captured life in Venice

The painter Ettore Tito, whose landscapes and scenes from contemporary life in Venice earned him a substantial following in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1859 in Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples.  Despite his southern roots, Tito spent most of his life in Venice. His Campanian father captained merchant ships but his mother was Venetian and they moved to Venice when Ettore was still a child.  His prodigious talent for art emerged at an early age. He was taken under the wing of the Dutch artist Cecil van Haanen and was accepted by the Accademia di Belle Arti at the age of 12, graduating at 17 after studying under Pompeo Marino Molmenti, a distinguished professor.  Tito appreciated the beauty of Venice but wanted his paintings to capture the character of the city and its people. He earned the first important recognition of the quality of his work when his 1887 painting Pescheria vecchia a Venezia, a busy scene of traders and customers at the fish market by the Rialto bridge, won great praise at the Esposizione Nazionale Artistica in Venice and was subsequently bought by the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome.  Read more…

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Pope Paul III excommunicates Henry VIII

The day a pontiff finally lost patience with the Tudor king

Pope Paul III announced the excommunication of King Henry VIII of England from the Catholic Church on this day in 1538 in Rome.  Henry had been threatened with excommunication by the previous pope, Clement VII, in 1533 after he married Anne Boleyn. However, Clement did not act on his threat straight away, hoping Henry might come to his senses.  Henry had been awarded the title of Defender of the Faith by a previous pope because he had written a defence of the seven sacraments of the Catholic church against the protestant leader Martin Luther.  But Clement died the following year and a new pope had to be elected.  Pope Paul III, who was born Alessandro Farnese, became pontiff in 1534 and took on the job of organising the Counter Reformation as well as using nepotism to advance the power and fortunes of the Farnese family.  When it became clear Henry was intent on demolishing the Catholic Church in England, Paul III issued the original papal bull - edict - drawn up by Clement VII.  He lost patience with Henry after he declared himself head of the Church of England and started ordering the execution of anyone who stood in his way.  Read more…

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NATO boss seized by Red Brigades

Brigadier-General James L Dozier held for 42 days

Three years after the kidnap and murder of the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro shocked Italy and the wider world, terrorists representing the ultra-left group Brigate rosse - the Red Brigades - returned to the headlines on this day in 1981 with the abduction of the high-ranking United States Army officer James L Dozier.  Brigadier-General Dozier, who was serving in Italy as deputy Chief of Staff of NATO's Southern European land forces, was seized and taken from his apartment in Verona and held for 42 days before being rescued by Italian special forces. The kidnap took place at between 5.30 and 6pm when four men turned up at the door of the apartment posing as plumbers.  The general was overpowered and then struck over the head before his wife, Judith, who was initially held at gunpoint, was tied up with chains and plastic tape.  According to his wife, 50-year-old General Dozier was then bundled into what she described as a "steamship trunk", which the men carried out to a waiting van.  Mrs Dozier was left in the apartment, alerting neighbours later by banging on the walls.  It was the first time the Red Brigades had held a member of the American military, or any foreign national.  Read more…

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Domenico Cimarosa – opera composer

Musician who developed the model for ‘comic opera’

A prolific composer of operas, Domenico Cimarosa was born on this day in 1749 in Aversa, between Naples and Caserta in Campania.  Cimarosa wrote more than 80 operas during his lifetime, including Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage), which is considered to be his finest work.  Other composers judge it to be among the greatest examples of opera buffa, the Italian term for comic opera and Verdi considered it to be the model for the genre.  Cimarosa attended a free school connected to a monastery in Naples where the organist taught him music and as a result obtained a scholarship to attend a musical institute in the city for 11 years. He wrote his first opera at the age of 23 and, after several successes in theatres in Naples, he was invited to Rome where he produced another comic opera, L’Italiano in Londra.  He travelled throughout Italy, writing operas for theatres in Naples, Rome and Florence until he was invited to St Petersburg by Empress Catherine II. He remained at her court for four years composing music for important occasions.  He then went to Vienna at the invitation of Leopold II where he produced his masterpiece, Il matrimonio segreto.  Read more…

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Leopoldo Eleuteri - flying ace

World War I pilot claimed eight aerial victories

First World War pilot Leopoldo Eleuteri, who was credited with seven of the eight combat victories he claimed, was born in Castel Ritaldi, a small town in Umbria about 60km (37 miles) by road southeast of Perugia, on this day in 1894.  Eleuteri did not begin flying active combat sorties as a fighter pilot until February 1918 but progressed rapidly with the 70th Squadron of the Corpo Aeronautico Militare, the airborne arm of the Royal Italian Army.  He went on to fly more than 150 sorties and between April 1918 and October 1918 claimed eight enemy planes shot down, being eventually credited with seven successes in his own right.  Passionate about all forms of mechanised flight since he was a boy, Eleuteri volunteered for aeronautical service as soon as he was old enough.  He was a student in a technical school until he was conscripted in 1915. At first, he was assigned to duty in ordnance factories before being sent to join the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the Royal Italian Army.  There, he was allowed to begin aviation training. In October 1916, he qualified as a pilot at Gabardini's flying school at Cameri in Piedmont.  Read more…

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Rome falls to the Ostrogoths

Sacking in 546 left city a shadow of its former self

The Ostrogoths, the Germanic tribe that took over large parts of the Italian peninsula with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, achieved a symbolic victory on this day in 546 when an army under the leadership of King Totila captured and sacked Rome following a year-long siege of the Eternal City.  The event was part of the Gothic War between the Ostrogoths, who had originated on the Black Sea in the area now known as Crimea, and the Byzantine (Eastern) Empire, between 535 and 554.  Totila led a fightback by the Ostrogoths after the fall of the Gothic capital at Ravenna in 540 signalled the apparent reconquest of Italy by the Byzantines.  He had swept south with his forces and was based at Tivoli, east of Rome, as he plotted how he would recapture the region of Latium. In 545, he laid siege to the city.  Bessas, the commander of the imperial garrison charged with protecting the city, was stubborn but cruel to the Roman citizens.  Although he had a stock of grain, he would not let it be used to feed the population unless they paid for it, while at the same time refusing requests from citizens to leave the city.  Read more…

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Ettore Tito - painter

Artist who captured life in Venice

Though born in Campania, Tito
was an adopted Venetian

The painter Ettore Tito, whose landscapes and scenes from contemporary life in Venice earned him a substantial following in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1859 in Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples.

Despite his southern roots, Tito spent most of his life in Venice. His Campanian father captained merchant ships but his mother was Venetian and they moved to Venice when Ettore was still a child.

His prodigious talent for art emerged at an early age. He was taken under the wing of the Dutch artist Cecil van Haanen and was accepted by the Accademia di Belle Arti at the age of 12, graduating at 17 after studying under Pompeo Marino Molmenti, a distinguished professor.

Tito appreciated the beauty of Venice but wanted his paintings to capture the character of the city and its people. He earned the first important recognition of the quality of his work when his 1887 painting Pescheria vecchia a Venezia, a busy scene of traders and customers at the fish market by the Rialto bridge, won great praise at the Esposizione Nazionale Artistica in Venice and was subsequently bought by the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome.

He exhibited at the Biennale in Venice every year from in 1895 until 1914 and again in 1920 when the Biennale resumed after World War I. He won the 1897 Premio Città di Venezia and the 1903 Grande Medaglia d'Oro. Several later Biennale exhibitions featured entire rooms devoted to his work. 

Tito made a breakthrough with his 1887 painting of
the Rialto fish market, Pescheria vecchia a Venezia

Tito’s work gained such a following that he featured in exhibitions all over the world, winning prizes in Paris, Brussels, San Francisco and Los Angeles. His interest in 18th century Venetian painting inspired him to branch out into mythology and symbolic subjects, which earned him commissions to paint murals at the Villa Berlinghieri in Rome and the Palazzo Martinengo in Venice. He also found a market for his drawings and sketches, particularly with British and American magazines such as The Graphic and Punch in London, and Scribner's in New York.

His success brought prestige and wealth, which enabled the family to own homes in Venice and on the Brenta river, where he had a villa. In Venice, the Palazzo Tito became a meeting place for artists from Europe and the United States. His circle of friends included the American painter John Singer Sargent, the philanthropist collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, European artists such as Anders Zorn, Ludwig Passini and Mariano Fortuny, the composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, the art historian Corrado Ricci and the journalist Luigi Albertini, editor of the Milan daily Corriere della Sera.

In 1894, he was invited to succeed his mentor, Pompeo Molmenti, as the professor of painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, a post he held until 1927. 

His standing was emphasised in 1929, when at the age of 70 he was asked to produce a painting for the vault of the Chiesa di Santa Maria di Nazareth in Venice to replace the one by Tiepolo destroyed in the First World War.

Tito continued to work well into his seventies. In 1937, his last major work, I maestri veneziani - The Venetian Masters - was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1940. The painting depicts Venice personified as a young woman surrounded by the city's greatest artists, Tiepolo, Veronese, Titian and Tintoretto.

He died in Venice in 1941 at the age of 81. His son, Luigi, inherited his ability as a painter, while his grandson, Pietro Giuseppe, is a noted sculptor. 

The medieval castle from which the town of
Castellammare di Stabia takes its name

Travel tip:

Castellammare di Stabia, which is still associated with shipyards but was once a thriving resort, was built over the ruins of the ancient Stabiae, a Roman village destroyed in 79 AD by the violent eruption of the Vesuvius volcano, which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum.  Some of the ruins are being excavated.  The name of the town is said to derive from the medieval castle that overlooks the Gulf of Naples, which can be found alongside the road from Castellammare to Sorrento, Castello a Mare meaning Castle on the Sea.  The town was the birthplace of Pliny the Elder, who was a philosopher and author as well as a military commander of the early Roman empire.

Venice's Rialto fish market has been trading
by the Grand Canal since the 14th century

Travel tip:

The Rialto fish market can be found near the Rialto Bridge, in the same location it has occupied since the 14th century.  The present market structure is a neo-gothic porticoed building built in 1907 following designs by Domenico Rupolo and Cesare Laurenti, whose bronze statue of St Peter faces the Grand Canal. A building close to the market carries an historic plaque indicating the smallest length of various fish allowed for sale, which is still followed today. The rules help preserve fish stocks during the breeding season, ensuring that sufficient fish remain to produce a new supply for the following year.

Also on this day:

546: Rome falls to the Ostrogoths

1538: Pope Paul III excommunicates King Henry VIII of England

1749: The birth of composer Domenico Cimarosa

1894: The birth of First World War pilot Leopoldo Eleuteri

1981: United States Army officer James L Dozier kidnapped by Red Brigades terrorists

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16 December

Giovanni Agnelli – entrepreneur

Founder of Fiat had keen eye for a good investment

Giovanni Agnelli, the businessman who founded the Fiat car manufacturing company, died on this day in 1945 in Turin.  As soon as Agnelli heard about the idea of a ‘horseless carriage’, he recognised it as a business opportunity and in 1898 met up with an inventor looking for investors for his project.  In 1899 he became part of a group who founded the Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino. Within a year he had become managing director of the company and by 1903 the business was making a small profit.  Giovanni had been born in Villar Perosa, a small town near Pinerolo in Piemonte, in 1866.  He embarked on a military career after finishing his studies but returned to his home town to follow in his father’s footsteps and become Mayor.  Fiat continued to grow and went public before the start of the First World War. After the war the first Fiat car dealership was established in the United States and the company continued to expand internationally.  Although Giovanni Agnelli had many other business interests he remained actively involved with Fiat until his death on 16 December 1945 at the age of 79.  Read more…

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The founding of AC Milan

English roots of one of Italy’s football giants

The football club that would eventually become known as AC Milan was founded on this day in 1899.  Although Juventus have won twice as many domestic Serie A titles - 36 to their 18 - AC Milan have been Italy’s most successful club in international club football, winning 18 trophies, including the European Cup/Champions League on seven occasions.  Yet the club owes its existence largely to five expatriate Englishmen, who conceived the idea of forming a football club - a cricket and football club, to be more accurate - during an evening at the Fiaschetteria Toscana bar, a few steps from the Duomo in the centre of Milan, where they would meet frequently to socialise.  The group comprised Alfred Edwards, a businessman from Shropshire, players Samuel Davies, from Manchester, David Allison and Edward Nathan Berra, both English but born in France, and Herbert Kilpin, who is remembered as the club’s driving force.  Kilpin, a butcher’s son from Nottingham, was both a footballer and a businessman. He had been a founder-member of the Garibaldi Reds, the amateur team in which Nottingham Forest has its roots.  Read more…

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Santo Versace - businessman and politician

Entrepreneurial brain behind Versace fashion empire

Santo Versace, sometime politician and the business brain behind Italy's world famous luxury fashion label, was born on this day in 1944 in Reggio Calabria.  Along with his brother and sister, Gianni and Donatella, Santo grew up in Italy's southernmost major city, which is situated right on the "toe" of the Italian peninsula and separated from the island of Sicily by barely 10km of the Strait of Messina.  Unlike his younger siblings, who were inspired by their mother, Francesca, a dressmaker who owned a small clothes shop, to become designers, Santo took after their father, Antonio, a coal merchant who in time became an interior decorator, in wishing to become a business entrepreneur.  He helped his father hump sacks of coal while still a child and learned the basics of running a business as a teenager before attending the University of Messina, from which he graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.  At first, Santo worked in banking for Credito Italiano in Reggio Calabria before switching to teaching economics and geography to high school students. In 1972, after completing his military service, he set up as an accountant and management consultant in Reggio Calabria.  Read more…

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Francesco Graziani - World Cup winner

Forward injured seven minutes into 1982 final

The footballer Francesco Graziani, who played in all of Italy’s matches in the 1982 World Cup in Spain but had the misfortune to be reduced to the status of a spectator when injury struck just seven minutes into the final, was born on this day in 1952 in Subiaco, in Lazio.  Graziani, a striker with Fiorentina who had made his name with Torino, scored a vital goal in Italy’s final match of the opening group phase against Cameroon, securing the draw that was enough to take the azzurri through to the second stage of the competition.  He played in Italy’s epic victories over Argentina and Brazil in the second group phase and in the thumping semi-final win over Poland but was replaced by Alessandro Altobelli after damaging a shoulder in the opening moments of the final against West Germany.  Altobelli went on to score Italy’s third goal as they overcame the Germans 3-1 to lift the trophy for a third time.  With 23 goals in 64 appearances for the national team, Graziani - nicknamed ‘Ciccio’ - achieved a strike rate in international football similar to his goals-per-game ratio in his career at domestic level, which brought him 142 goals in 413 league appearances.  Read more…

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Ivana Spagna – singer-songwriter

Dance track made 30 years ago still holds record

The singer and songwriter Ivana Spagna, whose single Call Me achieved the highest placing by an Italian artist in UK chart history when it reached number two in 1987, was born on this day in 1954 in the town of Valeggio sul Mincio, in the Veneto.  Often performing as simply Spagna, she has sold more than 10 million copies of her singles and albums in a career spanning 46 years, having released her first single in 1971 at the age of 16.  She began to sing professionally in the early 1980s, when she provided the vocals for a number of disco tracks lip-synched by other artists, and when she relaunched her recording career in her own right she met with immediate success.  The single Easy Lady, recorded in 1986 and which she tends to regard as her debut single as a professional artist, sold more than two million copies, as did Call Me, which was released the following year.  Spagna defied the expectations of her record company, who had misgivings about promoting an Italian singing in English under the stage name “Spain” but were pleasantly surprised by her popularity.  Call Me topped the European singles chart and reached No 13 in the Billboard dance chart in the United States.  Read more…

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15 December

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Spaghetti western has steadily gained critical acclaim

The film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, was released on this day in Italy in 1966.  It was the third and final instalment in the Dollars Trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More.  Despite mixed reviews to begin with, it was a financial success, grossing more than $25 million at the box office.  The film has gained respect over the years and is now seen as a highly influential example of the Western film genre and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest films of all time.  Directed by Sergio Leone, the film, known in Italian as Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, was made partly at the Cinecittà studio in Rome and partly on location.  It became categorised as a 'spaghetti western' and was distinctive because of Leone’s film–making style, which involved juxtaposing close-ups with lengthy long shots.  Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach star in the title roles. They are three gunslingers out to find buried gold against the backdrop of the violence of the American Civil War.  The score for the film was composed by Ennio Morricone and the iconic main theme for the film became a popular hit in 1968.  Read more…

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John Paul Getty III released

Heir to world’s biggest fortune held by kidnappers for 158 days

A story that dominated the Italian press and newspapers around the world ended on this day in 1973 when police responding to a tip-off found a shivering, malnourished and deeply traumatised American teenager inside a disused motorway service area in a remote part of southern Italy.  John Paul Getty III, grandson of the richest man in the world, the oil tycoon John Paul Getty, had been held in captivity for more than five months by a kidnap gang who had demanded $17 million for his safe return.  The boy’s 80-year-old grandfather, whose personal fortune would equate today to almost $9 billion but who was notoriously mean, at first refused to pay a penny and stuck to that position until late November, when a letter containing a lock of hair and a human ear arrived at the offices of a daily newspaper in Rome.  After a further letter arrived containing a photograph of John Paul Getty III minus one ear, the octogenarian’s representatives made contact with the kidnappers and negotiated his release for $3 million.  Even then, John Paul Getty Senior refused to pay more than $2.2 million, which his lawyers allegedly told him was the maximum he could claim as a tax-deductible expense.  Read more…

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Frankie Dettori - champion jockey

Milan-born horseman among all-time greats

Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori, the three-times British champion jockey, was born on this day in 1970 in Milan.  As well as winning the UK jockeys' title in 1994 and 1995 and again in 2004, Dettori has won more than 500 Group Races around the world, including 20 British Classics.  He won his first Classic in 1994 on Balanchine in the Oaks. He won his first St Leger in 1995 on Classic Cliche, his first 2,000 Guineas in 1996 on Mark of Esteem and his first 1,000 Guineas in 1998 on Cape Verdi, finally completing the set at the 15th attempt when Authorized won the Derby at Epsom in 2007. Dettori won the Derby for a second time in 2015 on Golden Horn, which he rates as the best horse he has ever ridden.  English-bred and owned by the diamond dealer Anthony Oppenheimer, Golden Horn won the Derby, the Eclipse Stakes, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe for Wiltshire trainer John Gosden during the 2015 season, each time with Dettori in the saddle.  Apart from his big-race successes, which also include 24 Group Race wins in Italy and all of the Irish Classics, Dettori is best known for his unprecedented and so-far unequalled achievement of riding the winners of all seven races on a single day at Ascot in 1996.  Read more…

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Comunardo Niccolai - footballer

‘King of own goals’ was also a champion

The footballer Comunardo Niccolai, a central defender with a propensity for scoring calamitous own goals, was born on this day in 1946 in Uzzano, a beautiful hill town in Tuscany.  Niccolai scored six own goals in his Serie A career, which contributed to his standing as something of a cult figure in Italian football.  He was actually an exceptionally talented player - good enough to be picked for the Italian squad for the World Cup in 1970, where the azzurri finished runners-up, as well as a key figure in the Cagliari team that won the Serie A title in 1970.  But he seemed unable to avoid moments of freakish bad luck and he acquired such unwanted notoriety as a result that people outside the game still reference his name when describing someone doing something to their own disadvantage.  For example, during the course of one of the regular political crises in Italy in the late 1990s, the right-wing politician Francesco Storace said of a policy decision taken by prime minister Massimo D’Alema, “Ha fatto un autogol alla Niccolai” - meaning that he had “scored an own goal Niccolai-style”.  Read more…

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14 December

NEW - Guarino da Verona – Renaissance scholar

Humanist who lost Greek manuscripts went grey overnight

Professor of ancient Greek, Guarino da Verona, who dedicated his life to learning the language and educating others to follow in his footsteps, died on this day in 1460 in Ferrara.  Da Verona studied ancient Greek in Constantinople for more than five years and returned to Italy with two cases full of rare Greek manuscripts that he had collected. It is said that when he lost one of the cases during  a shipwreck, he was so distraught that his hair turned grey in a single night.  Da Verona, who was also sometimes known as Guarino Veronese, was born in 1374 in Verona. He studied in Italy and established his first school in the 1390s before going to Constantinople.  After returning to Italy, he earned his living by teaching Greek in Verona, Venice and Florence.  Da Verona taught the philosophy of humanism to Leonello, Marquis of Este, who then became his patron and employed him to teach Greek in Ferrara. Da Verona’s method of teaching became renowned and he attracted students from all over Italy and Europe, even from as far away as England. He supported poor students using his own money and many of them became well known scholars themselves.  Read more…

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Errico Malatesta - anarchist

Middle-class boy who became notorious revolutionary

Errico Malatesta, one of the most prominent figures in the anarchist movement that flourished in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in the province of Caserta, in what is now Campania.  A committed revolutionary who was arrested for the first time at the age of 14, he spent more than 10 years of his life in prison and about 35 years in exile.  Apart from his activity in his own country, Malatesta helped organize anarchist revolutionary groups in several European countries, as well as in Egypt, and in North and South America, including Argentina, where he helped bakers form the country's first militant workers' union.  Born into a family of middle-class landowners in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in what was then the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Malatesta was arrested aged 14 for sending an "insolent and threatening letter" to King Victor Emmanuel II.  Although he would become closely associated with the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, Malatesta drew his first inspiration from Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary who was a driving force in the Risorgimento movement.  Read more…

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Fabrizio Giovanardi – racing driver

Touring car specialist has won 10 titles

One of the most successful touring car racers in history, the former Alfa Romeo and Vauxhall driver Fabrizio Giovanardi, was born in Sassuolo, not far from Modena, on this day in 1966.  Giovanardi has won the European Championship twice, the European Cup twice, the British Championship twice, the Italian Championship three times and the Spanish touring car title once.  His best season in the World Championship came in 2005, when he finished third behind the British driver Andy Priaulx.  At the peak of his success, Giovanardi won a title each season for six consecutive years. Like many drivers across the motor racing spectrum, Giovanardi had his first experience of competition in karting, winning Italian and World titles in 125cc karts in 1986, before graduating to Formula Three and Formula 3000.  He was hoping from there to step up to Formula One but although he won a number of races the opportunity to drive competitively for an F1 team did not come about.  It was during the 1991 season that he tried his luck in touring cars and met with immediate success.  Read more…

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Luciano Bianciardi - novelist and translator

Writer who brought contemporary American literature to Italian audiences

The journalist, novelist and translator Luciano Bianciardi, who was responsible for putting the work of most of the outstanding American authors of the 20th century into Italian, was born on this day in 1922 in Grosseto in Tuscany.  Bianciardi translated novels by such writers as Saul Bellow, Henry Miller, William Faulkner and Norman Mailer, who were read in the Italian language for the first time thanks to his understanding of the nuances of their style.  He also wrote novels of his own, the most successful of which was La vita agra (1962; published in English as It’s a Hard Life), which was made into a film, directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Ugo Tognazzi.  Bianciardi, whose father, Atide, was a bank cashier, developed an appreciation for learning from his mother, Adele, who was an elementary school teacher.  At the same time he acquired a lifelong fascination with Garibaldi and the Risorgimento, after his father gave him a book by a local author, Giuseppe Bandi, about Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand.  Bianciardi’s university education was interrupted by the Second World War.   Read more…

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Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily

Sad, short life of a Neapolitan princess

The youngest daughter of Ferdinand, King of Naples and Sicily, Princess Maria Antonia, was born on this day in 1784 at the Royal Palace in Caserta.  Princess Maria Antonia was named after her aunt, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who was executed by guillotine in Paris in 1793.  Marie Antoinette was the favourite sister of the Princess’s mother, Maria Carolina of Austria, who became opposed to the military expansion of the new French republic as a result of her sister’s horrific death.  Princess Maria Antonia’s own fate was sealed when she became engaged to Infante Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, who later became King Ferdinand VII of Spain.  She married him in Barcelona in 1802.  When she failed to provide Ferdinand with an heir, suffering two miscarriages, there were rumours that Maria Antonia, whose title was now Princess of Asturias, was plotting to poison both her mother in law, the Queen of Spain, and the Spanish Prime Minister. This was allegedly to avenge her aunt, Marie Antoinette, because Spain was becoming increasingly dominated by Napoleon.  Read more…

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Guarino da Verona – Renaissance scholar

Humanist who lost Greek manuscripts went grey overnight

Guarino da Verona was a
humanist philosopher

Professor of ancient Greek, Guarino da Verona, who dedicated his life to learning the language and educating others to follow in his footsteps, died on this day in 1460 in Ferrara.

Da Verona studied ancient Greek in Constantinople for more than five years and returned to Italy with two cases full of rare Greek manuscripts that he had collected. It is said that when he lost one of the cases during  a shipwreck, he was so distraught that his hair turned grey in a single night.

Da Verona, who was also sometimes known as Guarino Veronese, was born in 1374 in Verona. He studied in Italy and established his first school in the 1390s before going to Constantinople.

After returning to Italy, he earned his living by teaching Greek in Verona, Venice and Florence.

Da Verona taught the philosophy of humanism to Leonello, Marquis of Este, who then became his patron and employed him to teach Greek in Ferrara. Da Verona’s method of teaching became renowned and he attracted students from all over Italy and Europe, even from as far away as England. He supported poor students using his own money and many of them became well known scholars themselves.

He was particularly influenced by the philosopher Georgiu Gemistus Pletho, one of the most famous Greek scholars during the late Byzantine era and a pioneer of reviving Greek scholarship in Western Europe.

Da Verona's Latin grammar
Regulae Grammaticales

Da Verona is remembered for his translations of works by the Greek historian, geographer and philosopher, Strabo, and the Greek biographer, essayist and historian, Plutarch.

He also compiled Regulae Grammaticales, the first Renaissance Latin grammar, which was used well into the 17th century.

The layout of Leonello d’Este’s Studiolo in the Palazzo Belfiore was believed to have been the work of Da Verona. He is also said to have corresponded with the writer and humanist Isotta Nogarola, the first female humanist, who was considered to be one of the most important humanists of the Italian Renaissance and who was also from Verona.

Da Verona died in Ferrara at the age of 86.

The Castello Estense
dominates Ferrara

Travel tip:

The city of Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna, about 50km (31 miles) northeast of Bologna, was ruled by the Este family between 1240 and 1598 and is dominated by the magnificent Castello Estense (Este Castle)  in the centre of the city began, originally built in 1385 and added to and improved by successive rulers of Ferrara until the Este line ended with the death of Alfonso II d’Este.  It was constructed originally as a defensive shield to protect the palace of the Marquis Niccolò II d'Este following a revolt of the Ferrarese population against high taxes at a time when catastrophic floods had left many local people destitute.

A private residence now stands on the site of
the former church of Santa Maria degli Angeli

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Belfiore in Ferrara, of which Leonello d'Este's Studiolo was a feature, was destroyed by a fire in 1683, having suffered extensive damage 200 years earlier at the hands of a Venetian army. It is known that it was situated near the Corso Ercole I d'Este, approximately 1km (0.62 miles) north of the Castello Estense. The palace was one of the so-called delizie of the Este dynasty, which were palaces where members of the family could find pleasurable diversions from daily life.  These included pursuits that were intellectually stimulating and the Studiolo was a study designed by Da Verona and lined with paintings of the so-called Muses of Greek religion and mythology, nine inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. The nearby church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, also destroyed, once was one of the main burial sites for the Este family. The site of the church is now occupied by a private residence.

Also on this day:

1784: The birth of Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily

1853: The birth of anarchist Errico Malatesta

1922: The birth of novelist and translator Luciano Bianciardi

1966: The birth of racing driver Fabrizio Giovanardi

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13 December

Donatello – Renaissance sculptor

Work by prolific artist still on display for all to see

Early Renaissance sculptor Donatello died on this day in Florence in 1466.  Generally acknowledged as the greatest sculptor of the 15th century, Donatello left a legacy of wonderful statues in marble and bronze, some still out in the open and delighting visitors to Italy free of charge today.  He was born Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi in Florence in about 1386. He studied classical sculpture, which later influenced his style, and then worked in a goldsmith’s workshop and in the studio of artist Lorenzo Ghiberti.  One of his most famous early works is a statue of David, originally intended for the Cathedral, but which stood instead for many years in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.  Donatello’s work also shows influences of the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, a friend with whom he often travelled to Rome.  Brunelleschi’s style can be seen in Donatello’s statues of St Mark and St George, executed for the exterior of the Church of Orsanmichele in Florence, which represent the first translation into sculpture of the architect’s laws on perspective.  Donatello was invited to Padua in 1443, where he was to produce one of his greatest works, the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata.  Read more…

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Carlo Gozzi – playwright

Noble Venetian who fought to preserve commedia dell’arte

Count Carlo Gozzi, the poet and playwright, was born on this day in 1720 in Venice.  He was a staunch defender of the traditional Italian commedia dell’arte form of drama and his plays were admired throughout Europe.  Commedia dell’arte was a theatrical form that used improvised dialogue and a cast of masked, colourful stock characters such as Arlecchino, Colombina and Pulcinella.  Gozzi was against the dramatic innovations made by writers such as Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni. He attacked Goldoni in a satirical poem and then wrote a play, L’amore delle tre melarance - The Love of Three Oranges - in which he portrayed Goldoni as a magician and Chiari as a wicked fairy.  The play was first performed by commedia dell’arte actors, who had been out of work due to the dwindling interest in the genre following the innovations of Goldoni and Chiari. It was a great success and revived the fortunes of the company of actors.  Having been born into a noble but poor family, Gozzi initially had to go into the army to make a living because his parents could not support him.  Read more…

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Pope Sixtus V

Pontiff who cleaned up and rebuilt Rome and reformed church

Pope Sixtus V, whose five-year reign was one of the most effective of any pontiff in history, was born Felice Peretti on this day in 1521 in Grottammare, a coastal resort in the Marche region that was then part of the Papal States.  Succeeding Pope Gregory XIII in 1585, Sixtus V inherited an administration that was riddled with corruption and a city of Rome that to a large extent fallen into the hands of thieves and criminal gangs.  He responded with a series of measures that brought about profound change with far-reaching consequences for the city and the wider country, making his mark on a scale that few pontiffs had matched before or since.  As well as tackling crime with brutal ruthlessness, he introduced significant reforms in the administration of the Catholic Church and commissioned lavish building projects that changed Rome from a medieval city to one of Baroque grandeur.  The son of a poor farm hand in Grottammare, the future pope entered a monastery when he was nine years old and joined the Order of Friars Minor three years later. His familiarity with adversity made him resourceful and strong.  Read more…

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La Festa di Santa Lucia

Much loved saint was immortalised in song

La festa di Santa Lucia - St Lucy’s Day - will be celebrated all over Italy today.  According to tradition, Santa Lucia comes down from the sky with a cart and a donkey and distributes gifts to all the children who have been good, while all the naughty children receive only a piece of coal.  Santa Lucia is the patron saint of the city of Syracuse in Sicily. Today, a silver statue of the saint containing her relics will be paraded through the streets before being returned to the Cathedral.  In Sicilian folklore there is a legend that a famine ended on Santa Lucia’s feast day when ships loaded with grain entered the harbour.  Santa Lucia is also popular with children in parts of northern Italy. In Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lodi and Mantua in Lombardy, and also parts of the Veneto, Trentino, Friuli and Emilia-Romagna, the children will have been expecting the saint to arrive with presents during the night.  According to tradition she arrives with her donkey and her escort, Castaldo. Children leave coffee for Santa Lucia, a carrot for the donkey and a glass of wine for Castaldo and they believe they must not watch the saint delivering her gifts.  Read more…

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