Recanati
—  Comune  —
Città di Recanati
Civic Tower.
Recanati Location of Recanati in Italy
Coordinates: 43°24′N 13°33′E / 43.4°N 13.55°E / 43.4; 13.55
Country	Italy
Region	Marche
Province	Macerata (MC)
Frazioni	Bagnolo, Castelnuovo, Chiarino, Le Grazie, Montefiore, Santa Lucia
Government
• Mayor	Francesco Fiordomo (Democratic Party)
Area
• Total	102 km2 (39 sq mi)
Elevation	296 m (971 ft)
Population (31 December 2010)
• Total	21,830
• Density	210/km2 (550/sq mi)
Demonym	Recanatesi
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	62019
Dialing code	071
Patron saint	St. Vitus
Saint day	June 15
Website	Official website

Recanati is a town and comune in the Province of Macerata, Marche region of Italy. Recanati was founded around 1150 AD from three pre-existing castles. In 1290 it proclaimed itself an independent republic and, in the 15th century, was famous for its international fair. In the March 1798 it was conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte.

It is the hometown of tenor Beniamino Gigli and poet Giacomo Leopardi, which is why the town is known to some as "the city of poetry". It contains the Teatro Persiani named after the composer of operas in the first part of the 19th Century, Giuseppe Persiani, who was born in the town in 1799.

Main sights[link]

• Church of Santa Maria di Castelnuovo (12th century). It has a portal with a Byzantine style lunette, signed and dated 1253, depicting the Madonna Enthroned with Sts. Michael and Gabriel. The interior has a fresco by Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano
• Montefiore Castle, dating to the late Middle Ages. It has a polygonal plan with a high tower with merlons.
• Church and cloister of Sant'Agostino (13th century), remade one century later together with the cathedral. In has a portal in Istrian stone by Giuliano da Maiano. The interior was remade in the 18th century under design by Ferdinando Galli da Bibbiena, with canvasses by Pomarancio, Pier Simone Fanelli, Felice Damiani.
• Carabinieri barracks (14th century)
• Church of St. Vitus, built over a pre-existing Romanesque-Byzantine edifice. It was given the current appearance in the mid-17th century, only the apse and the bell tower remaining of the former structure. The façade was remade after an earthquake in 1741 according to a design by Luigi Vanvitelli. Artworks in the interior include canvasses by Pomarancio, Fanelli, Felice Damiano da Gubbio (1582), Giuseppe Valeriani (1550) and Paolo de Matteis (1727).
• Co-Cathedral of St. Flavian (14th century), with the annexed Bishop's Palace and the Diocesan Museum. Pope Gregory XII is buried here.
• Church of San Domenico (15th century), with a 1481 portal by Giuliano da Maiano. It houses the Glory of St. Vincent Ferrer by Lorenzo Lotto.
• Church of San Pietrino (14th century), with an 18th-century façade attributed to Vanvitelli.
• Church of Madonna delle Grazie (1465)
• Palazzo Venieri, designed by Giuliano da Maiano.
• Palazzo Mazzagalli, designed by Giuliano da Maiano or Luciano Laurana.
• Neolithic necropolises of Fontenoce and Cava Kock (4th millennium BC).
• Town Museum of Villa Colloredo Mels, housing, among the other, Lorenzo Lotto's Recanati Polyptych.

Jewish population[link]

The city of Recanati had a fairly large Jewish population for hundreds of years. Among the scholars produced by the city were Rabbi Menachem Recanati (A.D. 1223-1290) author of the Kabbalistic work The reasons of the Mitzvot. He was a student of Rabbi Elazar Rokeiach (1165–1238) from Worms, Germany who was one of the Chassidei Ashkenaz, a group of German pietists. His work, Sefer HaRokeiach, is a guide to ethics and halacha. wrote a mystical commentary on the Torah. Rabbi Elazar Rokeiach was also the teacher of Nachmanides, whom Rabbi Recanati quotes frequently in his work. Last names have been derived and changed to Recanati, i.e. Agostino Recanati

External links[link]

• Comune di Recanati
• Tourist Information Center

Patty Pravo
Background information
Birth name	Nicoletta Strambelli
Born	(1948-04-09) 9 April 1948 (age 64) Venice, Italy
Genres	Pop
Occupations	Singer
Instruments	piano
Years active	1966–present
Labels	Sony Music Entertainment
Website	www.coltempo.it

Patty Pravo (born Nicoletta Strambelli, 9 April 1948 Venice, Italy) is an Italian pop singer whose career has spanned more than four decades. Her first single "Ragazzo triste", released in 1966, was the first pop song aired on Vatican Radio. In 2011 she participated - for the eighth time - in the Italian song contest, the Sanremo Music Festival.

Biography[link]

Strambelli studied at the conservatory institute of Benedetto Marcello and was acquainted with American poet Ezra Pound and with Angelo Roncalli (Pope John XXIII). At the age of fifteen, she left home to live in London and then Rome where she began her career singing in the Piper Club. In 1966 she made her first single, "Ragazzo triste" ("Sad Boy"), the Italian version of the song "But You're Mine" by Sonny & Cher. It was the first pop song broadcast on Vatican Radio.

Pravo followed that by recording numerous songs, the most popular being "Qui e là" ("Here and There"), "Se perdo te" ("If I Lose You", 1967, written by English songwriter Paul Korda), "La bambola" ("The Doll", 1968, "Sentimento" ("Feeling", 1968), "Il paradiso" ("Heaven", 1969, written by Lucio Battisti), "La solitudine" ("The Loneliness", with Robert Charlebois) "Pazza idea" ("Crazy Idea", 1973) and "Pensiero stupendo" ("Stupendous Thought", 1978). "La bambola" sold over one million copies by the end of 1968 and was awarded a gold disc.^[1]

She has been featured on many Italian television shows. In 1970 Pravo hosted her own show called Bravo Pravo, broadcast on French television, and in 1978 appeared in a highly controversial Italian TV show, Stryx, where she wore provocative clothing which attracted much attention. She became a symbol for women of the 1960s, exemplifying their evolution from more established conservative roles.

In 1994 she traveled to China to record her album Ideogrammi. In 1995 returned to Italy and re-emerged in 1997 with the number 1 hit "E dimmi che non vuoi morire" ("And Tell Me That You Don't Want to Die"), written by Vasco Rossi.

Her last Italian top 10 album was in 2002 Radio Station. In 2004 Pravo released four albums, including Nic-Unic. In 2007 she released a tribute album to Dalida entitled Spero che ti piaccia... Pour toi ("I Hope You Like It... For You"). Pravo has participated in the Sanremo Music Festival seven times. In 2009 she was at Sanremo with the song Ed io verrò un giorno là, accompanied by Dave Weckl, Todd Rundgren and Nathan East. In 2011 she releases the album "Nella terra dei pinguini" ("In the Land of the Penguins") recorded with young producer Diego Calvetti.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The official website
• Patty Pravo at MySpace
• Review of 'Nella terra dei Pinguini' (English)

Lorenzo Lotto
Self-portrait
Birth name	Lorenzo Lotto
Born	c. 1480 Venice, Italy
Died	1557 Loreto, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Field	Painting
Movement	High Renaissance
Works	Polyptych of Saint Domenico

Portrait of Andrea Odoni, 1527

The Alms of St. Anthony, oil on wood, 1542. Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. An example of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting.

Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480 – 1556) was a Northern Italian painter, draughtsman and illustrator, traditionally placed in the Venetian school. He painted mainly altarpieces, religious subjects and portraits. While he was active during the High Renaissance, he already constitutes, through his nervous and eccentric posings and distortions, a transitional stage to the first Florentine and Roman Mannerists of the 16th century.

Biography[link]

Born in Venice, he worked in Treviso (1503–1506), in the Marche (1506–1508), in Rome (1508–1510), Bergamo (1513–1525), in Venice (1525–1549), Ancona (1549) and finally as a Franciscan lay brother in Loreto (1549–1556).

Apprenticeship[link]

There is almost no information about his training. As a Venetian he was influenced by Giovanni Bellini as he had a good knowledge of contemporary Venetian painting. Though Bellini was doubtless not his teacher,the influence is clear in his early painting Virgin and Child with St. Jerome (1506) (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh). However, in his portraits and in his early painting Allegory of Virtue and Vice (1505) (National Gallery of Art, Washington) he shows the influence of Giorgione's Naturalism. As he grew older his style changed, perhaps evolving, from a detached Giorgionesque classicism, to a more vibrant dramatic setpiece, more reminiscent of his contemporary from Parma, Correggio.

Allegory of Virtue and Vice.

Treviso (1503-1506)[link]

Lotto soon left Venice. The competition for a young painter would have been too great with established names such as Giorgione, Palma the Elder and certainly with Titian. Nevertheless, Giorgio Vasari mentions in the third part of his book Vite that Lotto was a friend of Palma the Elder.

In Treviso, a prospering town within the domain of the republic of Venice, he came under the patronage of bishop Bernardo de' Rossi. The already mentioned painting Allegory of Virtue and Vice was intended as an allegorical cover of his portrait (1505) of the bishop (now in National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples), who had survived an assassination attempt. The painting St. Jerome in the Desert (1500 or 1506) (Louvre, Paris) shows his youthful inexperience as a draughtsman, however the dramatic rocky landscape is accentuated by the red garment of the saint. At the same time he gives an early impression of his skill as a miniaturist.

He painted his first altarpieces for the parish church San Cristina al Tiverone (1505) and the baptistery of the Cathedral of Asolo (1506), both still on display in those churches.

Recanati (1506-1508) and Rome (1508-1510)[link]

In 1508 he began the Recanati Polyptych altarpiece for the church of San Domenico. This two-tiered, rather conventional painted polyptych consists of six panels. His portrait Young Man against a White Curtain (c. 1506) is a painting from this period (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

The Transfiguration.

As he became a respected painter, he came to the attention of Bramante, the papal architect, who was passing through Loreto (a pilgrimage site near Recanati). Lorenzo Lotto was invited to Rome to decorate to papal apartments. Nothing however survives of his work, as they were destroyed a few years later. This was probably because he had imitated the style of Raphael, a rapidly rising star in the papal court. He had done this before in the Transfiguration in the Recanati polyptych.

The Marche (1511-1513) and Bergamo (1513-1525)[link]

In 1511 he was at work for the confraternity of the Buon Gesù in Jesi, painting an Entombment (Pinacoteca Civica, Jesi). Soon after, he was painting altarpieces in Recanati, a Transfiguration (c. 1512, now in the Pinacoteca Comunale, Recanati) and a fresco St Vincent Ferrer for the church San Domenico.

His work in Bergamo, the westernmost town of the Venetian republic, and surrounding areas was to prove his best and most productive artistic period. He received many commissions from wealthy merchants, well-educated professionals and local aristocrats. He had become a rich colourist and an experienced draughtsman. He developed the concept of the psychological portrait, revealing the thoughts and emotions of his subjects. In this he was continuing the tradition started by Antonello da Messina. A good example is his Portrait of a Young Man with a Book (now in the Accademia, Venice).

He started in 1513 with a monumental altarpiece Pala Martinengo in the Dominican church of S Stefano in Bergamo. This altarpiece was commissioned by Count Alessandro Martinengo-Coleoni, grandson of the famous condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni. It would be finished in 1516. This altarpiece shows us the influence of Bramante and Giorgione. His next assignment was the decoration of the churches S Bernardino and S Alessandro in Colonna with frescoes and distemper paintings. He would finish five more altarpieces between 1521 and 1523.

In 1523 he went for a brief stay in the Marches, obtaining several commissions for altarpieces. He would paint these during his stay in Venice.

Martyrdom of St. Claire.

His next paintings are mostly wall paintings. In 1524 he painted a series of frescoes with the lives of saints (such as St. Clare) in the Suardi chapel in Trescore (near Bergamo). In the details he depicts scenes of every life, such as in the fresco Martyrdom of St. Claire. In the same fresco he portrays Christ with vines sprouting from his hands, illustrating the words of the New Testament: "I am the vine, you are the branches"^[1].

In 1524 he also painted the cartoons with Old Testament stories as models for the intarsia panels for the choir stalls of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.

More than twenty private paintings date from the same period. They are mostly of religious and pious subjects such as Madonnas or a Deposition, used for worship at home. They are painted in the Classical tradition, but Lotto adds a personal touch to the intense emotions. Using contrasting poses and opposing movement, he breaks the traditional symmetry of the Virgin surrounded by angels and saints.

Venice (1525-1532)[link]

Portrait of a Young Man (1526)

In Venice, Lotto first resided at the Dominican monastery of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, but he was forced to leave after a few months after a conflict with friar Damiano Zambelli, the intaglia artist. To cope with the many commissions he started to receive, he founded a workshop. He shipped five altarpieces for churches in the Marches and another one for the church S Maria Assunta in Celano (near Bergamo). Another altarpiece was for the Venetian church of S Maria dei Carmini, portraying St. Nicholas of Bari in Glory.

As Venice was a city of great wealth and as popularity increased, he received many orders for private paintings, including ten portraits, including Portrait of a Young Man (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). His portrait of Andrea Odoni (Royal Art Collection, Hampton Court) (1527) would later influence the portrait of Jacopo Strada by Titian (1568) (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). But in Venice he was overshadowed by his rival Titian, who dominated the artistic scene.

Venice, the Veneto and the Marche (1532-1556)[link]

In this last period of his life, Lorenzo Lotto would frequently move from town to town, searching for patrons and commissions. In 1532 he went to Treviso. Next he spent about seven years in the Marche (Ancona, Macerata and Jesi), before returning to Venice in 1540. He moved again to Treviso in 1542 and back to Venice in 1545. Finally he went back to Ancona in 1549.

This was a productive period in his life, during which he painted several altarpieces and portraits.

Venetian Woman in the Guise of Lucretia (1533).

At the end of his life, Lotto met increasing difficulties to earn a living. Furthermore, in 1550 one of his works had an unsuccessful auction in Ancona. As recorded in his personal account book, this deeply disillusioned him. As he had always been a deeply religious man, he entered in 1552 the Holy Sanctuary at Loreto, becoming a lay brother. During that time he decorated the basilica of S Maria and painted a Presentation in the Temple for the Palazzo Apostolico in Loreto. He died in 1556 and was buried, at his request, in a Dominican habit.

Giorgio Vasari included Lotto's biography in the third volume of his book Vite. Lorenzo Lotto himself left many letters and a detailed notebook (Libro di spese diverse, 1538–1556), giving a certain insight in his life and work. His influence was felt by many painters, including probably Giovanni Busi.

Overview[link]

During his lifetime, Lorenzo Lotto was a well-respected painter and certainly popular in Northern Italy. He is traditionally included in the Venetian School, but his independent career actually places him outside the Venetian art scene. He was certainly not as highly regarded in Venice as in the other towns were he worked. He had an own stylistic individuality, even an idiosyncratic style. After his death, he gradually became neglected and then almost forgotten. This could be attributed to the fact that his oeuvre now remains in lesser known churches or in provincial museums.

Thanks to the work of the art historian Bernard Berenson, he was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century. Since then, many monographs and several exhibitions have been dedicated to Lorenzo Lotto, such as the exhibition in Venice in 1953 and one in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA, in 1998.

Selected works[link]

• Madonna with Child, St. Peter of Verona and Donor (1503). National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples
• Santa Cristina al Tiverone Altarpiece (c. 1504-1506). Church of Santa Cristina al Tiverone, Quinto di Treviso, Veneto
• Allegory of Virtue and Vice (1505). National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA
• Allegory of Chastity (c. 1505). National Gallery of Art, Washington
• Madonna with Child and Saints (c. 1505). National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
• Asolo Altarpiece (1506). Cathedral of Asolo, Veneto.
• Recanati Polyptych (1506-1508). Civic Museum Villa Colloredo Mels, Recanati
• Young Man against a White Curtain (c. 1506). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
• Madonna with Child and Saints Flavian and Onuphrius (1508). Borghese Gallery, Rome
• Transfiguration (1510-1512). Civic Museum Villa Colloredo Mels, Recanati
• Martinengo Altarpiece (1513-1516), Church of San Bartolomeo e Stefano, Bergamo
• Susanna and the Elders (1517), Uffizi Gallery, Florence
• Portrait of Lucina Brembati (c. 1518). Accademia Carrara, Bergamo
• Madonna with Child between Sts. Roch and Sebastian (c. 1518). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• Santo Spirito Altarpiece (1521). Church of Santo Spirito, Bergamo
• Adoration of the Child (1523). National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA
• Christ Carrying the Cross (1526). Louvre, Paris
• Portrait of Andrea Odoni (1527). Royal Collection, London
• Portrait of a Gentleman with Lion Paw (c. 1527). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
• Triumph of Chastity (c. 1530). Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi, Rome
• Venus and Cupid (c. 1530). Metropolitan Museum, New York
• St. Lucy before the Judge (1532). Jesi, Pinacoteca comunale
• The Sleeping Child Jesus with the Madonna, St. Joseph and St. Catherine of Alexandria (1533). Accademia Carrara, Bergamo
• Portrait of a Lady as Lucretia (1533). National Gallery, London.
• Madonna with Child and Two Donors (c. 1533-1535). Getty Center, Los Angeles, USA
• Recanati Annunciation (c. 1534). Civic Museum Villa Colloredo Mels, Recanati
• Holy Family with SS Jerome, Anna and Joachim (1534). Uffizi, Florence
• Holy Family with St. John the Baptist (c. 1536). Louvre, Paris
• Pietà (1538-1545). Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
• Portrait of a Young Man, Uffizi, Florence
• Crucifixion, Church of Santa Maria in Telusiano, Monte San Giusto
• Rosary Madonna (1539). Church of San Nicolò, Cingoli
• Altarpiece of the Halberd (c. 1539). Ancona, Pinacoteca Civica Francesco Podesti
• Portrait of a Man (1541) National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• Bust of a Bearded Man (1541, ascribed). Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco
• The Alms of Saint Anthony (1542). Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice
• Portrait of Laura da Pola (1543-1544). Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
• Portrait of an Old Man with Gloves (c. 1543). Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
• Madonna and four Saints (1546). Church of San Giacomo dall’Orio, Venice
• Portrait of fra' Gregorio Belo da Vicenza (1548). Metropolitan Museum, New York
• Assumption (1550). church of San Francesco alle Scale, Ancona
• The Crossbowman (1551). Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome
• Portrait of an Old man (c. 1552, ascribed). Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
• Presentation in the Temple (1552-1556). Palazzo Apostolico, Loreto

Sources[link]

Jesus and the Adulterous Woman (1528). Louvre, Paris.

• Benezit E. Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs; Librairie Gründ, Paris, 1976; ISBN 2-7000-0156-7 (in French)
• Turner J. Grove Dictionary of Art; MacMIlllan Publishers Ltd, 1990; ISBN 1-884446-00-0
• Ricketts Melissa - Maestros del Renacimiento (in Dutch Translation : Grote meesters uit de Renaissance; Rebo International BV, 2005 ISBN 90-5841-089-7)
• Benesch, Otto (December 1957). "New Contributions to Lorenzo Lotto". Burlington Magazine 99 (657): 410–413. 
• Berenson, Bernard - Lorenzo Lotto; The Phaidon Press
• Lorenzo Lotto: Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance, by David Alan Brown, Peter Humfrey, and Mauro Lucco, with contributions by Augusto Gentili et al. Washington, D.C.: Catalogue of the exhibition in the National Gallery of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
• Humfrey, Peter - Lorenzo Lotto; New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997; ISBN 0-300-06905-7 (the first full-length study of Lorenzo Lotto since the monograph of Bernard Berenson)

References[link]

See also[link]

• Lotto carpet

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lorenzo Lotto

• Lotto's paintings in various museums of the world
• Lorenzo Lotto: rediscovered master of the Renaissance