Tag: rome

Piero Pompili

 

The Black and White Photography of Piero Pompili

Born in the Roman borgata of Borghesiana in June of 1967, Piero Pompili is an Italian photographer whose work explores working class people and the landscape of Italy’s major cities. A significant part of his oeuvre is the portraiture of local boxers, those epic heroes from central and southern Italy who fight daily in the cities. A project that has covered a twenty-year period, Pompili’s series establishes the boxers’ identities through their bodies, discipline and skill, as well as their fears and ambitions.

Fascinated by the social and urban landscapes of the inner Italian cities since his childhood, Piero Pompili developed a deep attachment to the energy and passion of the common people. His approach to photography is realistic, not idealized, and presents real people who struggle with doubt but accept discipline and sacrifice through commitment. Pompili focused his images not on the battle itself but rather the strenuous routine of daily workouts and the rituals practiced by the boxers before their entry into the ring.

In April of 2017, Pompili published his “Gladiatori Moderni”, a collection of photographs printed through media company Salzgeber’s book division Bruno Gmuender. The photographs of these modern gladiators  were taken in the borgatas of Rome and Naples, within both the gyms and the catacombs where ancient gladiators prepared for their battles. 

Pompili’s work was featured in 2023 at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (MART). In conjunction with the exhibition, MART published the exhibition catalogue “Piero Pompili: Pugili”. 

Note: The April 2nd 2017 edition of The Advocate has a short biographical article on Piero Pompili and a collection of images from the “Gladiatori Moderni” at its online site: https://www.advocate.com/books/2017/4/02/modern-gladiators#rebelltitem1

Top Insert Image: Piero Ppmpili, “Self Portrait”, May 2025, Instagram

Bottom Insert Image: Piero Pompili, “Lukaska”, 2018, “Gladiatori Moderni” Series, Gelatin Silver Print

 

Aldo Pagliacci

Paintings by Aldo Pagliacci

Born in 1931 in San Benedetto del Tronto on the coast of  the Adriatic Sea, Aldo Pagliacci was an Italian painter and self-taught violin craftsman whose artistic talent was evident from an early age. At the age of twenty, he had already exhibited paintings at the Biennale of Venice and the Rome Quadrennial. After these exhibitions, Pagliacci relocated to Rome circa 1930.

In the 1890s, Italy had claimed Ethiopia was an Italian protectorate and tried to conquer the country unsuccessfully. In 1934, Ethiopia was one of the few independent states in a European-dominated Africa. After a border incident in December of 1934 between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland, Benito Mussolini rejected all attempts at arbitration and, in October of 1935, invaded Ethiopia. In 1936, Pagliacci volunteered for military service as part of the invasion. 

During the second World War, Aldo Pagliacci served as a magazine correspondent but was captured by the British in 1941. Pagliacci was taken to a Rhodesian prisoner of war camp where he was assigned to decorate the camp church’s interior. He claimed he accomplished the task in four months fueled by the cognac and whiskey provided by two Franciscan friars. Sometime after his return to Italy in 1946, Aldo Pagliacci began a  twenty-year travel period in Central and South America. He lived and worked for extended periods in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela. 

In 1971, Pagliacci established a studio in Rome and began a period of studio work and travel throughout northern Europe, specifically Germany, Sweden, Holland and Norway. It is known that he began his career as a maker of violins and cellos in Rome at this time. A Pagliacci violin, dated 1973 with a production number of fifty, was auctioned by Tarisio Fine Instruments & Bows in 2021.

No specific information exists as to where Pagliacci learned his skills at crafting musical instruments. Due to the very long and swinging f-shaped openings on the sides of the violin’s body, his violins are believed to be based on those of the Marches region of central Italy. Pagliacci’s models differ from the Landolfi violins of the Madrid area in that they are wider and rounder. The corners of Pagliacci’s violins are short and the arching is flat which produces a more powerful soloist tone. There is no specific knowledge on the number of music instruments he actually created; however it is speculated it was more than one hundred.

In about 1980, Aldo Pagliacci settled on Forio d’Ischia, an island southwest of the city of Naples. He would remain on Forio d’Ischia until his death in 1991. Pagliacci’s paintings are housed in the major museums of Central and South America as well as many private collections, including the collections  of Nelson Rockefeller and film actor Clifton Webb.

Notes: Musical instruments created by Pagliacci occasionally appear at auction sites. A violin, numbered eighty-five and dated 1985, sold through the privately owned London auction house Bonhams for £12,500 (14,542 Euros).

Top Insert Image: Aldo Pagliacci, “Fire in Santa Maria in Montesanto”, 1970, Oil on Canvas, 70 x 50 cm, Private Collection

Second Insert Image: Aldo Pagliacci, “In the Bakery”, 1954, Oil on Plywood, 55 x 41 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Aldo Pagliacci, “View of Rome, Ponte Mazzini”, 1948, Oil on Canvas, 75 x 65 cm, Private Collection

Calendar: January 14

Year: Day to Day Men: January 14

Shades of Black and Green

The fourteenth of January in 83 BC marks the birth date of Marcus Antonius who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire. 

Born in Rome, Marcus Antonius was the son of Marcus Antonius Creticus and Julia, the daughter of Consul Lucius Julius Caesar and the third-cousin of Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator of the Empire until his assassination in 44 BC. Antonius was a relative and supporter of Julius Caesar and served as a general during the conquest of Gaul and the Civil War of the late Roman Republic. He was appointed administrator to Italy while Caesar eliminated his political opponents in Spain, North Africa and Greece. 

There is little reliable information on his younger years. It is known, however, that he was an associate of Publius Clodius Pulcher, a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the First Triumvirate. By the age of twenty, Antonius had accumulated enormous debt and fled to Greece to escape his creditors; during his stay in Greece, he studied philosophy and rhetoric at Athens. Antonius began his military career in 57 BC by joining the military staff of the Proconsul of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, as commander of the calvary. He achieved his first military honors after securing important victories at Alexandrium and Machaerus, both in Jordan.

Antonius’s association with Publius Clodius Pulcher enabled him to achieve prominence in his career. Clodius secured Antonius a position on Caesar’s military staff in 54 BC. Demonstrating military leadership under Caesar, Antonius and Caesar developed a friendship that would last until Caesar’s assassination. It was Antonius who persuaded Proconsul Aulus Gabinius to restore the Ptolemaic pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes to the throne of Egypt after Ptolemy’s defeat in a rebellion. With Ptolemy restored as Rome’s client king, Rome exercised considerable power over the kingdom’s affairs. It was during this campaign that Antonius met Ptolemy’s then fourteen year-old daughter Cleopatra.

After a year of military service in Gaul, Caesar sent Antonius to Rome to formally begin his political career as a quaester, or public official, in 52 BC. After a year in office, Antonius was promoted by Caesar to the rank of Legate and was given command of two legions, about seventy-five hundred soldiers. After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, Antonius joined with General Marcus Aemilius  Lepidus and Galus Octavius, Caesar’s great-nephew, to form the three-man dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. This group defeated Caesar’s killers in 42 BC and divided the Republic’s government between themselves. Antonius was assigned Rome’s eastern provinces which included the kingdom of Egypt, ruled then by Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator.

As the members of the Triumvirate sought individual power, relations became strained. Octavius and Antonius averted war in 40 BC when Antonius married Octavia, Octavius’s sister. However despite this marriage, relations were further strained as Antonius continued his love affair with Cleopatra. In 36 BC, Lepidus was expelled from the Triumvirate and a split developed between Antonius and Octavius. This hostility erupted into civil war in 31 BC as the Roman Senate under Octavius declared war on Egypt and proclaimed Antonius a traitor. Later that year, Octavius’s forces defeated Antonius at the Battle of Actium. Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius fled to Egypt where, after losing the Battle at Alexandria in 30 BC, these two historic figures committed suicide. 

Roman statesman and orator Cicero Minor, a leading figure of the Roman Republic, announced Antonius’s death to the Senate. Antonius’s honors were revoked and his statues removed; however he was not subject to a complete condemnation of memory, damnatio memoriae. A decree was made that no member of the Antonii family would ever bear the name of Marcus again. Married four times, Marcus Antonius had many descendants and was ancestor to several famous Roman statesmen. Through his lover, Cleopatra VII, he had two sons and a daughter Cleopatra Selene II through whom Antonius was ancestor to the royal family of Mauretania, another Roman client kingdom. 

Notes:Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC and its last active ruler. She was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. The Ptolemaic pharaohs, crowned by the Egyptian high priest of Ptah at Memphis, resided in the multicultural and largely Greek city of Alexandria founded by Alexander the Great. Previous Ptolemaic pharaohs spoke only Greek and ruled as Hellenistic monarchs. Cleopatra could speak multiple languages by adulthood and was the first Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language. Contrary to popular belief, Cleopatra VII did not commit suicide by a bite from an asp but rather through poison. 

The Marble Boxer

Boxer, Marble, Stadio dei Marmi, Rome, Italy

Located in the Foro Italico, an Italian sports complex that was created under the direction of Benito Mussolini, the Stadio dei Marmi is covered in faux Greco-Roman statues that owe more to fascism than to the classical period.

Construction of the open air stadium was completed in 1928 as a training center for the students of the nearby Academy of Physical Education. The central grass field is ringed by a short stack of cascading stadium seats on the top level of which is a corresponding row of classical athletic statues holding modern sports equipment.

As was the classical style the figures stand naked and posed each one holding an implement of their sport, from a cricket bat, to a soccer ball, to a tennis racket, to the more traditional discus. Fifty-nine figures in all stand around the top of the playing field giving the overall appearance of a contemporary Greek stadium. Up close however, the figures belie the angular features and severe facial characteristics of more traditional brutalist fascist statuary.