Pietro Cavallini

Cavallini, Pietro (active 1273-1308). Italian painter and mosaic designer, active mainly in Rome, where he must have been the leading artist of his day. His two major surviving works are mosaics of the Life of the Virgin (Sta Maria in Trastevere, signed and dated 1291) and a fragmentary fresco cycle, the most important part of which is a Last Judge ...

Luciano Pavarotti

On the occasion of the birth of his son, Luciano, Fernando Pavarotti obtained a five-day leave. It was the 12th of October 1935 and the young father did not even have time to change out of his uniform: he rushed to the hospital in Modena to embrace his child and his adored wife Adele. "Lucianino" immediately revealed his vocal talents: he shrieked ...

Enrico Caruso

IT APPEARS TO HAVE CHANGED LITTLE in the past eighty years. Far from being a national monument, there is not so much as a plaque to tell you that here is the birthplace of the greatest singer of his time, perhaps of all time. The neighborhood is not the most ancient part of Naples. Compared with the jungle of right angles in the old quarter, thr ...

Filippo Brunelleschi

The world having for so long been without artists of lofty soul or inspired talent, heaven ordained that it should receive from the hand of Filippo the greatest, the tallest, and the finest edifice of ancient and modern times, demonstrating that Tuscan genius, although moribund, was not yet dead. ...

Sandro Botticelli

"Italian painter. Botticelli was Florentine and extremely successful at the peak of his career, with a highly individual and graceful style founded on the rhythmic capabilities of outline. With the emergence of the High Renaissance style at the turn of the 16th century, he fell out of fashion, died in obscurity and was only returned to his position ...