Daguerreotype portrait of a group of Italian shepherd musicians known as Pifferari photographed by French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey in Rome, the Papal States, 1842.
Daguerreotype view of a crowd in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City taken by an unidentified Italian photographer in Rome, the Papal States, c. 1845. One of the earliest photographs of Vatican City.
Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli once hatched a plan to reverse the current of the river Arno into landlocked Florence from Pisa (which at the time was one of their chief rivals). They planned to do so through a series of canals, redirecting the flow of the river Arno into Florence in order to provide farmers with irrigation and to free Florence from its commercial dependency on Pisa, which used to charge Florentine merchants for the ships that went through it. However, the plan didn’t work out, and eventually the two parted ways. Machiavelli continued on to write “The Prince”, and da Vinci continued to pursue his other endeavours.
Sources: Masters, Roger D. Fortune is a river: Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavellis magnificent dream to change the course of Florentine history. Plume, 1999. Bramly, Serge, and Sian Reynolds. Leonardo: the Artist and the Man. Penguin, 1994.
Gorla, Italy was the scene of a dramatic bombing by the Allies. The bombing was allegedly intended to strike industrial structures in Milan, but the bombing group went off course, even though the weather was exceptionally clear that day. Their commander, upon realizing the mistake, decided to release the bombs on the town anyway. Most of the 614 victims were innocent civilians, and one of the bombs hit a school, killing 184 children. The victims are now known as “the little martyrs of Gorla”, but they still remain mostly ignored. No president has ever visited Gorla, and no school text speaks of the massacre. For the last 70 years the family members of the 184 dead children gather to pray at the memorial every 20 October where the words of a suffering Christ are carved in gold: “And I told you to love one another as brothers.”
23 years ago, on this day, the judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and three men of Falcones’ security guard, Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo, and Antonio Montinaro, were assassinated by Cosa Nostra near Palermo.
Following the verdict of life-long sentences for many mafiosi in the Maxi-trial of January 1992 (led by Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in the picture above, among others), 0,2 tons of explosive material were put under the highway A29 near the exit for Capaci, where the cars of judge Falcone and his security guard were to pass.
The car of the security guard was thrown out of the highway by the explosion, while the car driven by the judge hit the wall of concrete that had been raised by the explosion.
Elisabetta Gonzaga was the daughter of the lord of Mantua and her early education led her to a life of companionship with some of the greatest minds of fifteenth-century Italy. She married Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the duke of Urbino, in 1488, and thereafter her court attracted writers, artists, and scholars. She was also the sister-in-law of Isabella d’Este, the influential Renaissance patron and political figure. Elisabetta Gonzaga was immortalized by the writer Baldassare Castiglione, whose famous work, The Courtier, was based on his interactions and conversations with her.
She married Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the duke of Urbino, in 1489. Guidobaldo was sickly and impotent, and they had no children, but Elisabetta refused to divorce him and nursed him through his illnesses. After his death, Elisabetta refused to marry.
Her court attracted writers, artists, and scholars. Her nobility gave her contact and involvement in the power politics of 16th century Italy. She was the sister-in-law of Isabella d'Este, an influential Renaissance patron and political figure. Despite having poor health, Elisabetta was known to be a great horsewoman and would frequently attend hunts in the countryside around Urbino.
In 1502 Elisabetta reluctantly accompanied Lucrezia Borgia on her journey to Ferrara, where Lucrezia was married to Alfonso I d'Este. An eyewitness described her at the wedding thus:
“On entering Ferrara she rode a black mule caparisoned in black velvet embroidered with woven gold, and wore a mantle of black velvet strewn with triangles of beaten gold; another day indoors she wore a mantle of brown velvet slashed, and caught up with chains of massive gold; another day a gown of black velvet striped with gold, with a jewelled necklace and diadem; and still another day, a black velvet robe embroidered with ciphers.”
The Florentine Republic is well-documented to have been essential in the formation and proliferation of Renaissance ideas throughout Europe. Peaking in the 15th century CE under Medici proxy rule, Florence set the standard for what/how a “modern” city should look and behave at the time. From 1434 to 1494, the Medici family ruled jointly with (but ranking higher than) the Council of Florence through the signoria system which had replaced free commune systems. The Florentine Republic briefly shook off the chains of Medici rule between 1494 and 1512 before being replaced by Papal proxy leaders in the form of cardinals. To the shock of no one, these cardinals were of the Medici family appointed to Florentine control by Pope Leo X (born as Giovanni di Lorenzo de’Medici, depicted in the Raphael painting below housed in the Uffizi).
The people of Florence were exhausted by decades of politicking and not-so-subtle Medici intervention in literally every aspect of life. To complicate matters, Florence had embroiled itself officially in the Italian Wars of 1494-1498, 1508-1516, and the war for Urbino in 1517. The Florentine economy was already suffering from prolonged warfare and it only got worse when, in 1526, Florence once again entered into the arena with the War of the League of Cognac on the side of France. Moreover, Italy was thrown right into chaos when Rome was sacked and Pope Clement VII (another Medici, crazy huh?) was captured in 1527.
Italy wasn’t looking too good and rival families to the Medici in Florence decided to once again throw off their chains. The rebellion succeeded and the Medici were exiled, but Florence continued to fight with the French. This was causing the Florentine economy to hemorrhage money. So bad was the state of the economy that, as Maurizio Arfaioli explains in The Black Bands of Giovanni, by 1528 the Florentine Republic was spending 30,000 ducatimonthly. Churches had been stripped of their silver, heavy taxes placed on the people, and most state assets had been pawned. Florence had put all of its eggs in one basket and, when the League’s army collapsed and was destroyed outside Naples in 1528, the Republic suffered a tremendous blow to its power. Pope Clement VII hadn’t been sitting idly either. Furious with the removal of his family from the city, a treaty was signed with Emperor Charles V to seize Florence and restore his family’s control. The result was a prolonged siege and utter destruction of the Florentine Republic in 1530. Imperial German troops were stationed in Florence and Alessandro de’Medici (pictured below in a painting housed at the Uffizi) was made Duke of the Florentine Republic, establishing hereditary dynastic rule officially.
Despite his decent rule, Alessandro didn’t last long and neither did the Duchy of Florence. He was assassinated seven years into his uneasy, but distinctly authoritarian reign and was replaced by Cosimo I de’Medici (pictured below in a portrait from the MET).
Cosimo immediately clamped down control and fought intensely in the last of the Italian wars, going so far as to invade the Republic of Siena and establish the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Thus ended the Florentine Republic, first in violent death throes and then in exhausted subservience. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany would remain in Medici hands until the early 18th century, growing ever irrelevant in European grand politics.
Notable Holy Roman Commanders in the War of the League of Cognac (1526-1530)
The Italians Wars as a whole mark some of the most chaotic times the region has experienced. The Italian states at the time were ravaged by consistent infighting, French and Holy Roman incursion, Papal attempts at dominance, and eventually Ottoman Turkish interference. This maelstrom of war lasted nearly 70 years and was characterised by intense bursts of conflict that devastated the region. Powerful commanders, however, were forged in the unforgiving crucible that was war-torn Italy and today I will be highlighting some from just this small segment in the entire overarching conflict.
The conflict began as a direct result of the French loss in the previous war (lasting from 1521-1525). The French had decisively lost at Pavia and Lombardy as a whole which prompted Pope Clement VIII to arrange a formal league led by the pride-damaged French but which also included the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, and the Republic of Genoa. The Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Navarre played a small, but present role as well. Opposing this League was the Holy Roman Empire and its holdings in Spain and Sicily.
Here are some of the Holy Roman/Imperial German leaders in the War of the League of Cognac.
Alfonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto. Painted by Titian in very early 1533. Housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Alfonso d’Avalos fought on the Imperial German side under Emperor Charles V and was appointed governor of Milan after it was seized from the Sforza family on the League’s side. He was commanded by Imperial Lieutenant of Naples, Don Hugo de Moncad, and was instrumental in the utter defeat of League forces outside of Naples in 1528. Further, for his actions he was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. Painted by Battista Dossi (the sibling of Dosso Dossi) between 1534-1536. Housed in the Gallerie Estensi. Alfonso I d’Este had a very poor relationship with the Papacy even before this war. In 1510, Pope Julius II had excommunicated d’Este to annex his territories into Papal control. d’Este had then gone on to fight against the Papacy in the previous wars and eventually sided with Emperor Charles V as the French wanted to validate Papal claims on Ferrara.
Charles III, Duke of Bourbon. Painted sometime in the 16th century by an unknown artist. Housed in the Parc & Château de Beauregard. Charles had fought for the French for most of his career as Constable, but had severe disagreements with his treatment by King Francis I. For this, Charles conspired against Francis and defected to the Imperial German forces in 1523. Charles received a very diverse army of Italians, Germans, and Spaniards but faced grave issues regarding payment of troops (many of whom were mercenaries) and issues around food supply. His failure to control his forces resulted in the marching to Rome where he was shot and killed outside the walls which then triggered the impromptu Sack of Rome in 1527.
Ferrante I Gonzaga. Painted sometime in the 16th century by an unknown artist. I could not locate where it is housed. Gonzaga succeeded Charles III de Bourbon and was promoted to commander-in-chief of the Imperial German forces in Italy. Further, he was captain-general of the Imperial light cavalry with which he ruthlessly harassed and ambushed League forces successfully for the entire campaign. His creative and bold use of light cavalry as a critical instrument of this new mobile warfare led to him becoming a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1531 and eventually governor of the Duchy of Milan. Gonzaga was part of the forces with the Prince of Orange that crushed League forces outside of Naples in 1528.
May 17th 1198. A 4 years-old Federico II Hohenstaufen is crowned King of Sicily
Soon after the death of the Emperor Henry, Constance had the child fetched from Foligno by an Apulian count and brought to Sicily. Dressed in widow’s weeds she awaited her son in Palermo. There were grave accusatory rumours against the Empress current at the time: some said she had poisoned her husband, and it was a matter of common knowledge that she had no love for Germans. The suspicion of murder was unjust, but the hatred for Germans ascribed to her was genuine enough; she shared it with her Sicilian fellow-countrymen and with the Italians oppressed by the Roman Curia. The foundations of this hate were the same then as they have always been: the arrogance “allied with unwisdom” of the Germans alienated the Mediterranean peoples, as did their “obstinacy and self-assertiveness.”
Their physical strength and their savagery moreover terrified the Southerners, the discords prevailing amongst themselves brought them scorn and contempt. For rulers of the world they appeared “crude, coarse and uncivilised,” while their yet unpolished language seemed to the Romans “like the barking of dogs and the croaking of frogs.” But the main factor in this hate was fear; fear of the inrush “of the winter and the storm into the rose-gardens of Sicily.” This fear was not allayed by the savagely cruel treatment meted out to the Sicilians by Henry VI. Perhaps Innocent with his biblical phraseology hit on the right description of the German visitation of those days when he wrote: “Because the people of Sicily and the other inhabitants of this kingdom have grown effeminate in sloth, and undisciplined through too much peace, and, boasting themselves of their wealth, have given themselves over to the unbridled lusts of the body, their stink has gone up to heaven and the multitude of their sins has delivered them into the hands of the oppressor.”
Innocent spoke thus out of no friendliness to the Germans. The hate of Germans that flamed up throughout Italy on the death of the Emperor had been carefully nurtured beforehand by the Curia, had been given the air of a national pan-Italian movement and utilised as a means to shake off the imperial yoke in the south in favour of a papal Italy. In resonant periods Innocent III had taken pains to stir up and foster this hate: “The wrath of the North wind whistles through the mountains with a new quaking of the earth, it drives through the level plains of Apulia, whirling dust into the eyes of wanderers and country-dwellers.” Thus he wrote about the German,Henry VI, whom Dante also designated “that loud blast which blew the second over Swabia’s realm.” A reaction of this sort against the tyranny of Henry VI was of course inevitable. The importance of the movement in Sicily was enhanced by the fact that the Empress Constance took part in it. Her motives were probably personal, for Henry had made a terrific clearance amongst all related to the old Norman royal house and had banished the survivors to Germany. On his death Constance immediately resumed the sovereignty of her hereditary domain, in accordance both with the Emperor’s instructions and with the right she herself possessed as Norman Queen. But the new ruler of Sicily was Norman Queen only: not widowed Empress; and the first act of her reign was to banish from her kingdom the Emperor’s interpreter, Markward of Anweiler, and with him all other German notables, a considerable number of whom held fief and office in the Norman territory. The pretext was that they might prove dangerous to the peace and quiet of the kingdom,especially Markward, who had not been slow to propose himself as vicegerent. Her next step was to imprison the Sicilian Chancellor, Walter of Palear, Bishop of Troia, who had been from of old an opponent of the Norman dynasty and a willing tool of the German Emperor. The intervention of the Pope was necessary to effect the liberation of the Bishop Chancellor and his re-instatement in his former offices. AntiGerman feeling in the south was so acute that the first German crusaders who were returning, all unsuspecting, from the Holy Land were surprised and plundered by the excited Sicilians, and after that the home-coming pilgrims had to avoid the har bours of this dangerously inhospitable kingdom. Curiously, the German princes who were on the Crusade, when they received in Acre the news of their Emperor’s death, reconfirmed the choice of Frederick as King of the Romans.
Constance, however, deliberately shut her eyes to all this. Her hate of Germany reinforced the maternal anxiety which heroes’ mothers are wont to suffer from: in the German crown she saw a never-ending series of future perils and struggles for her son. She would as far as possible ward off such a danger from him. Frederick should be king of the wealthy Sicily, and in the southern Land of Dreams he would quietly forget the imperial dignity of his fathers. A few months after the boy’s arrival in Palermo she had him crowned King of Sicily. The solemn rite was celebrated on Whit Sunday 1198, with a pomp and ceremony borrowed from the Byzantine court, while in accordance with ancient custom the people greeted their newly crowned king with the cry which may still be read on every crucifix in southern Italy “Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.” It is significant to note that this is also the motto engraved on Frederick’s early seals. From that day Constance omitted from all official documents of the young king the title that had previously figured there: Rex Romanorum. From henceforth Frederick of Hohenstaufen was to content himself with the many titles borne by the reges felices of Norman stock. He was to be, body and soul, the son of the Sicilian Constance only, and to be kept aloof from all the fatal, unknown consequences in which the dangerous Hohenstaufen blood of his father might involve him. One is reminded of the childhood of Achilles or of Parzival.
Kantorowicz Ernst,Frederick II. 1198-1250, p. 13-16
Today marks the first anniversary of the collapse of the Ponte Morandi in Genoa.
On August 14th, 2018, on the eve of the Italian holiday of Ferragosto, the road viaduct that connected different areas of the city of Genoa partially collapsed, killing 43 people. The bridge has been demolished last July and now the city and the region have started the works to build a new bridge where the old one was.
(Warning: the last video can be quite upsetting to watch)
Today marks the second anniversary of the collapse of the bridge. A new bridge, called Genova San Giorgio (as the patron saint of the city) has been built in its place and was inaugurated on August 3, 2020.
Today the families of the victims met the representatives of the states to commemorate the tragedy and to ask once again for an answer about the causes and the responsibilities of the collapse.
On the morning of 2 August 1980, at 10:25 a time bomb hidden in an unattended suitcase detonated in an air-conditioned waiting room at the Bologna station, which was full of people seeking relief from the August heat. The explosion collapsed the roof of the waiting room, destroyed most of the main building, and hit the Ancona–Chiasso train which was waiting at the first platform. The bomb killed 85 people and wounded over 200.
The attack has been attributed to the NAR (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei), a neo-fascist terrorist organization and several of their members were sentenced for the bombing, along with some members of the Italian secret services who had tried to derail the investigations.
Theclock at Bologna Centrale railway station was permanently fixed at 10:25 to commemorate the massacre. It became a symbol of the bombing, as well as Bus 37, which was used (along other buses and taxis) to carry all the wounded and the dead to the hospitals.
When built, the Vajont dam was the tallest of its kind in the world, harnessing the waters of a small mountain torrent to create a lake meant to generate hydroelectric power for northern Italy’s postwar economic miracle. But the engineers and geologists had ignored the warnings of locals that the land was unstable and that their work had triggered worrying seismic movements.
Late on the evening of 9 October 1963, a vast chunk of the mountainside, the size of a small town and 400m (1,312ft) deep, sheared off.
Forty-five seconds later, travelling at 100km/h (62mph), it plunged into the new artificial lake, creating an inland tsunami that rose more than 200m above the dam before plunging headlong towards Longarone, directly in its path.
The wall of water pushed an air pocket before it. It was more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. So strong, in fact, that almost all the victims were found naked, their clothes blown off by the blast.
The dam survived but 80% of the inhabitants of Longarone and its satellite villages did not. In all, almost 2,000 people are known to have died - but the final death toll will never be known. (x)
An Italian Maquis freedom fighter braves the hazardous conditions of the Alps at Little St Bernard Pass, 4th January 1945. The Italian Maquis were a resistance movement which fought against German Nazis and Italian fascists before and during World War 2. Formerly a school teacher, this woman chose to fight alongside her husband as part of the Maquis ‘White Patrol’.
