Tag: italy

Calendar: April 26

A Year: Day to Day Men: 26th of April

Hanging at the Park

On April 26, 1478  the Pazzi Conspiracy occurred in Florence, Italy.

The Pazzi conspiracy was a plot by members of the Pazzi family and others to displace the de’ Medici family as rulers of Renaissance Florence, Italy. The Salviati, Papal bankers in Florence, were at the center of the conspiracy. Pope Sixtus IV was an enemy of the Medici family. He had purchased from Milan the lordship of Imola, a trade route stronghold on the border between Papal and Tuscan territory. Lorenzo de’ Medici also wanted this stronghold for the city of Florence. The purchase was financed by the Pazzi bank, even though Francesco de’ Pazzi had promised Lorenzo they would not aid the Pope.

Girolamo Riario, Francesco Salviati and Francesco de’ Pazzi put together a plan to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici. Pope Sixtus was approached for his support. He made a very carefully worded statement in which he said that in the terms of his holy office he was unable to sanction killing. He made it clear that it would be of great benefit to the papacy to have the Medici removed from their position of power in Florence, and that he would deal kindly with anyone who did this. He instructed the men to do what they deemed necessary to achieve this aim, and said that he would give them whatever support he could.

On Sunday, 26 April 1478, during High Mass at the Duomo before a crowd of 10,000, the Medici brothers were assaulted. Giuliano de’ Medici was stabbed 19 times by Bernardo Bandini dei Baroncelli and Francesco de’ Pazzi. As Giuliano bled to death on the cathedral floor, his brother Lorenzo escaped with serious, but not life-threatening, wounds. Lorenzo was locked safely in the sacristy and the coup d’etat failed.

Most of the conspirators were soon caught and summarily executed; five, including Francesco de’ Pazzi and Salviati, were hanged from the windows of the Palazzo della Signoria. Jacopo de’ Pazzi, head of the family, escaped from Florence but was caught and brought back. He was tortured, then hanged from the Palazzo della Signoria next to the decomposing corpse of Salviati. He was buried at Santa Croce, but the body was dug up and thrown into a ditch.

Although Lorenzo appealed to the crowd not to exact summary justice, many of the conspirators, as well as many people accused of being conspirators, were killed. Between 26 April, the day of the attack, and 20 October 1478, a total of eighty people were executed. The Pazzi were banished from Florence, and their lands and property confiscated. Their name and their coat of arms were perpetually suppressed. The name Pazzi was erased from public registers, all buildings and streets.

The Canal

Photographer Unknown, Venice Canal

“In winter you wake up in this city, especially on Sundays, to the chiming of its innumerable bells, as though behind your gauze curtains a gigantic china teaset were vibrating on a silver tray in the pearl-gray sky. You fling the window open and the room is instantly flooded with this outer, peal-laden haze, which is part damp oxygen, part coffee and prayers. No matter what sort of pills, and how many, you’ve got to swallow this morning, you feel it’s not over for you yet.

No matter, by the same token, how autonomous you are, how much you’ve been betrayed, how thorough and dispiriting in your self-knowledge, you assume there is still hope for you, or at least a future. (Hope, said Francis Bacon, is a good breakfast but bad supper.) This optimism derives from the haze, from the prayer part of it, especially if it’s time for breakfast. On days like this, the city indeed acquires a porcelain aspect, what with all its zinc-covered cupolas resembling teapots or upturned cups, and the tilted profile of campaniles clinking like abandoned spoons and melting in the sky. Not to mention the seagulls and pigeons, now sharpening into focus, now melting into air.”

-Joseph Brodsky

 

Ubaldo Gandolfi

Ubaldo Gandolfi, “Mercury About to Behead Argus”, 1770-1775, Oil on Canvas, 218.8 x 136.8 cm, North Carolina Museum of Art

The Gandolfi family—Ubaldo, his brother Gaetano, and his nephew Mauro—were the last great painters of the Bolognese school, which rose to international prominence at the end of the sixteenth century. The confident understanding of human anatomy demonstrated in these paintings reveals Ubaldo’s debt to the Bolognese tradition, which was firmly based on drawing from live models.

Commissioned to adorn the walls of the Marescalchi family’s palace in Bologna, this and a companion painting in the North Carolina Museum of Art collection originally formed part of a series of six works illustrating classical myths. Io was a beautiful princess seduced by Jupiter, king of the gods. To conceal his infidelity from his wife, Juno, Jupiter changed Io into a white heifer. Suspicious, Juno cunningly asked for the heifer as a gift, a request that Jupiter could not very well refuse. His wife placed the heifer under the guard of the hundred-eyed giant Argus (whom Gandolfi wisely decided to depict with only two eyes). Sent by Jupiter to recover Io, Mercury lulled Argus to sleep with music and then cut off the giant’s head.

The two paintings illustrate consecutive moments in the story. In the companion painting, Mercury, wearing a winged cap and winged ankle bracelets, puts Argus to sleep by playing his flute. Here, Gandolfi represents the imminent dispatch of Argus with a touch of humor, as Mercury gestures for the viewer to be quiet so as not to wake the sleeping giant.

Palazzo Davia Bargellini

Palazzo Davia Bargellini, Bologna, italy

Construction of the palace was commissioned in 1638 by Camillo Bargellini of a Bolognese Senatorial family. The architect was Bartolomeo Provaglia, and building was directed byAntonio Uri. A notable feature of the palace entrance are the two flanking telamons, locally called giganti or giants. These were sculpted in 1658 by Gabriele Brunelli and francesco Agnesini.

San Michele at Str. Maggiore

Chas, Piazza San Michele at Str. Maggiore, Bologna, Italy

Bologna’s porticos were built because of the city’s early growth when eager students rushed to the world’s first university. Bologna simply needed more room. Porticos created more liveable space higher above ground level, with shops and shop owners underneath them, and arches of at least seven feet tall meant men riding their horses could easily pass through. Even artists and craftsmen could work outside, sheltered from the elements.

The historical city of Bologna has the most porticos in the world with nearly 40 kilometres of long walkways and tall arches you can stroll through. The covered walkways give Bologna its unique character dating back to the 1200s. Since then, there have been medieval, gothic, and renaissance influences in their design.  Each one is very different, from its structure to its shadows, and the different perspective they offer.

Wooden Shutters

Wooden Shutters on Merchants’ Stores, Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy

The Ponte Vecchio is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge  over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy, noted for still having shops built along it, as was once common. Butchers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. The bridge is mentioned in the aria  “O Mio Babbino Caro” by Giacomo Puccini.

Gaetano Pesce

Gaetano Pesce, “Up” Chair, 1969

Gaetano Peace is an Italian architect and a leading figure in contemporary industrial design. Mr. Pesce was born in La Pezia in 1939, and he grew up in Padua and Florence.  During his 50-year career, Mr. Pesce has worked as an architect, urban planner, and industrial designer. His outlook is considered broad and humanistic, and his work is characterized by an inventive use of color and materials, asserting connections between the individual and society, through art, architecture, and design.