Antipope John XXIII
Papacy began	1410
Papacy ended	1415
Predecessor	Alexander V (Pisa claimant)
Successor	Martin V
Opposed to	Gregory XII (Rome claimant) Benedict XIII (Avignon claimant)
Personal details
Born	1370 Procida (or Ischia), Kingdom of Naples
Died	21 December 1418 (aged 47–48) Florence, Republic of Florence

Baldassarre Cossa (c. 1370 – 21 December 1418) was Pope John XXIII (1410–1415) during the Western Schism. The Catholic Church regards him as an antipope.

Biography[link]

Baldassarre Cossa was born on the island of Procida or Ischia in the Kingdom of Naples into a noble but impoverished family. Initially he followed a military career, taking part in the Angevin-Neapolitan war. His two brothers were sentenced to death for piracy by Ladislaus of Naples.^[1]

He studied law at the University of Bologna and obtained a doctorate. In 1392 he entered the service of Pope Boniface IX, first working in Bologna and then in Rome. (The Western Schism had begun in 1378 and there were two competing popes at the time, one in Avignon supported by France and Spain, and one in Rome supported by most of Italy, Germany and England.) Still a member of the laity, he became Cardinal deacon in 1402 and Papal legate in Forlì in 1403.

He was one of the seven cardinals who, in May 1408, deserted Pope Gregory XII, and, with those following Antipope Benedict XIII from Avignon, convened the Council of Pisa, of which Cossa became the leader. The aim of the council was to end the schism; to this end they deposed Gregory XII and Benedict XIII and elected the new pope Alexander V in 1409. Gregory and Benedict ignored this decision however, so that there were now three simultaneous claimants to the Papacy.

Alexander V died soon after, and on 25 May 1410 Cossa was consecrated pope, taking the name John XXIII. He had been ordained priest only one day earlier. John XXIII was acknowledged as pope by France, England, Bohemia, Prussia, Portugal, parts of the Holy Roman Empire, and numerous Northern Italian city states, including Florence and Venice; however, the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII was regarded as pope by the Kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, and Scotland and Gregory XII was still favored by Ladislaus of Naples, Carlo I Malatesta, the princes of Bavaria, Louis III, Elector Palatine, and parts of Germany and Poland.^[2]

The Medicis had supported Cossa in his campaign to become cardinal and pope. Once in office, John XXIII made the Medici Bank the bank of the papacy, contributing considerably to the family's wealth and prestige.

John had his officials sell indulgences, a controversial practice that was protested in various parts of Europe, for instance by the followers of Jan Hus in Prague.

The main enemy of John was Ladislaus of Naples, who protected Gregory XII in Rome. Following his election as pope, John spent a year in Bologna and then joined forces with Louis II of Anjou to march against Ladislaus. An initial victory proved short-lived and Ladislaus retook Rome in 1413, forcing John to flee to Florence.

Tomb of Antipope John XXIII.

In Florence he met Sigismund, who had just been crowned King of Germany and who had ambitions to become emperor. Sigismund wanted to end the schism and urged John to call a general council. John did so with hesitation, afraid that he might be deposed at the council. The Council of Constance was convened on 30 October 1413. During the third session, rival Pope Gregory XII authorized the council as well. The council resolved that all three popes should abdicate and a new pope be elected. Gregory agreed and John initially did as well, but then he fled the council, hoping that without him it would lose its authority. Instead, the council deposed him and tried him for heresy, simony, schism and immorality, finding him guilty on all counts. The last remaining claimant in Avignon, Benedict XIII, refused to resign and was excommunicated. Martin V was elected as new pope in 1417.

Cossa, as he was again, was imprisoned in Germany. He was freed in 1418 after a heavy ransom had been paid by the Medicis. In Rome he submitted to Martin V who made him cardinal bishop of Tusculum. He went to Florence and died only a few months later.

The Medicis oversaw the construction of his magnificent tomb by Donatello and Michelozzo in the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence. Pope Martin V protested in vain against the inscription on the sarcophagus: "John the former pope".

The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia remarks that "Undeniably secular and ambitious, his moral life was not above reproach, and his unscrupulous methods in no wise accorded with the requirements of his high office ... the heinous crimes of which his opponents in the council accused him were certainly gravely exaggerated."^[3] One of his secretaries concluded that John was "a great man in temporal things, but a complete failure and worthless in spiritual things."^[1]

Numbering issues[link]

He should not be confused with Pope John XXIII of the twentieth century. When Angelo Cardinal Roncalli was elected and became Pope John, there was some confusion as to whether he would be John XXIII or John XXIV; he then declared that he was John XXIII to put this question to rest. There was no John XX; for example, Gibbon refers to the antipope John as John XXII.

See also[link]

Papal styles of Antipope John XXIII
Reference style	His Holiness
Spoken style	Your Holiness
Religious style	Holy Father
Posthumous style	Unknown

• Tomb of Antipope John XXIII

Notes and references[link]

In 1983 politic al satirist/novelist Richard Condon ("The Manchurian Candidate") wrote "A Trembling Upon Rome," a novel of historical fiction about the life of Baldssare Cossa.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Antipope John XXIII

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St. Sebastian (1525). Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Il Sodoma (1477 – February 14, 1549) was the name given to the Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Antonio Bazzi.^[1] Il Sodoma painted in a manner that superimposed the High Renaissance style of early 16th-century Rome onto the traditions of the provincial Sienese school; he spent the bulk of his professional life in Siena, with two periods in Rome.

Biography[link]

Giovanni Bazzi was of the family de Bazis, and born at Vercelli in Piedmont in 1477. His first master was the "archaic" Martino Spanzotti^[2] he also appears to have been a student of the painter Giovenone. After acquiring the strong coloring and other distinctive stylistic features of the Lombard school and— though he is not known to have travelled to Milan—^[3] somehow absorbing the superficial mannerisms of Leonardo (Freedberg 1993:117), he traveled to Siena before 1503, perhaps at the behest of agents of the Spannocchi family, and began with fresco cycles for Olivetan monks and a series of small Ovidian ceiling panels and a frieze depicting the career of Julius Caesar for Sigismondo Chigi at Palazzo Chigi.^[4]

Along with Pinturicchio, Sodoma was one of the first to practice in Siena the style of the High Renaissance. His first important works were seventeen frescoes in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, on the road from Siena to Rome, illustrating the life of St Benedict in continuation of the series that Luca Signorelli had begun in 1498. Gaining fluency in the prevailing popular style of Pinturicchio, Sodoma completed the set in 1502 and included a self portrait with badgers.^[5]

Sodoma was invited to Rome in 1508 by the celebrated Sienese merchant Agostino Chigi and was employed there by Pope Julius II in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. He executed two great compositions and various ornaments and grotesques in vaulted ceilings divided in feigned compartments in the antique manner that Pinturrichio had recently revived, working at the same time as Raphael. Vasari's rhetorical story that Sodoma's larger works did not satisfy the pope, who engaged Raphael to substitute a program of Justice, Poetry, and Theology is not borne out by the documents.^[6]

Before October 1510 he was in Siena, where he painted the exterior of Palazzo Chigi in monochrome chiaroscuro with scenes from the Bible and from Antiquity, the first such work seen in Siena (Bartalini 2001:553). His painting at this time began to show distinct Florentine inluences,^[7] especially of Fra Bartolommeo. His exterior frescoed stucco

Called again to Rome by Chigi, in the Villa Chigi (now the Villa Farnesina), working alongside Baldassarre Peruzzi, Sodoma painted subjects from the life of Alexander the Great: Alexander in the Tent of Darius and the Nuptials of the Conqueror with Roxanne, which some people consider his masterpiece. When Leo X became pope (1513), Sodoma presented him with a picture of the Death of Lucretia (or of Cleopatra, according to some accounts). Leo gave him a large sum of money as a reward and created him a cavaliere.

Sodoma returned to Siena and, at a later date, sought work in Pisa, Volterra, and Lucca. From Lucca he returned to Siena not long before his death on 14 February 1549 (older narratives say 1554). He had supposedly squandered his property and is said, without documentary support, to have died in penury in the great hospital of Siena.

In his youth, Sodoma had married, but he and his wife soon separated. A daughter married Bartolomeo Neroni, called also Riccio Sanese or Maestro Riccio, one of Sodoma's principal pupils.

It is said that Sodoma jeered at Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists and that Vasari repaid him by presenting a negative account of Sodoma's morals and demeanour and withholding praise of his work. According to Vasari, the name by which Bazzi was known was "Il Mattaccio" (the Madcap, the Maniac), this epithet having been bestowed upon him by the monks of Monte Oliveto. He dressed gaudily, like a mountebank, and his house was a Noah's ark, owing to the strange miscellany of animals he kept there. He was a cracker of jokes, fond of music, and he sang poems composed by himself on indecorous subjects.

Vasari alleges that Sodoma was always a negligent artist, his early success in Siena, where he painted many portraits, being partly due to lack of competition, a judgment in which Sidney Freedberg concurs. Vasari asserts that as he aged, he became too "lazy" to make cartoons for his frescoes but daubed them straight onto the wall. Vasari nevertheless admits that Sodoma produced some works of very fine quality and that during his lifetime his reputation was high.

Some of his works, including the Holy Family now in the Pinacoteca, Siena have been mistaken for works of Leonardo da Vinci. His easel pictures are rare; there are two in the National Gallery, London.

Some critics see in Sodoma's Madonna in the Pinacoteca di Brera (if it really is by him) the direct influence of this master. Modern criticism tends not to follow Morelli in supposing that Raphael painted Sodoma's portrait next to himself in The School of Athens,^[8] while a drawing at Christ Church is supposed to be a portrait of Raphael by Sodoma.

Among his masterpieces are the frescoes, completed in 1526, in the chapel of St. Catherine of Siena painted for the church of San Domenico (Siena), depicting the saint in ecstasy, fainting as she receives the Eucharist from an angel. In the oratory of S. Bernardino, are scenes from the history of the Virgin, painted in conjunction with Pacchia and Beccafumi (1536–1538) — the Visitation and the Assumption. In San Francesco are the Deposition from the Cross (1513) and Christ Scourged. Many critics regard one or the other of these paintings as Sodoma's masterpiece. In the choir of the Pisa Cathedral is the Sacrifice of Abraham, and in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence a St. Sebastian.

Partial anthology of works[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sodoma

• Cinuzzi Deposition (before 1513) - Pinacoteca, Siena
• The Death of Lucretia (1513) - Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
• Saint George and Dragon[1] (1518) - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• The Marriage of Alexander and Roxanne - Fresco, Villa Farnesina, Rome
• Allegory of Celestial Love (Chigi-Saracini Collection, Siena)
• The Road to Calvary (1510) - Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
• Flagellation of Christ (1510) - Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
• Rape of the Sabine Women[2] (1525) - Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome
• Three Fates[3] (1525) -Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica Rome
• St. Sebastian (1525) - Oil on canvas, 206 x 154 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
• Ordination of Saint Alfonso (1530) - Santo Spirito, Siena
• Adoration of the Magi (c. 1530) - Sant'Agostino, Siena^[9]
• The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine[4] (1539–1540) - Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome
• Leda Galleria Borghese, Rome
• Pietà (private collection), Rome
• Maddalena coll. Pandolfini, Florence
• Pietà (1540) - Galleria Borghese, Rome
• Sacra Conversazione (1542) - Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa
• Saint Sebastian with Madonna and Angels (1542) - Museo Nazioanle di San Matteo, Pisa

References[link]

• Cust, Robert H. Hobart (1906). Giovanni Antonio Bazzi. London: John Murray. http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924016778940#page/n9/mode/2up. 
• Hayum, A. (1976). Giovanni Antonio Bazzi 'Il Sodoma'. New York: New York University. 
• Carli, Enzo (1950). Sodoma. 
• Marciano-Agostinelli Tozzi, Maria Teresa (1951). Sodoma. Messina: Tipografia ditta d'Amico. 
• Freedberg, Sidney J. (1993). Painting in Italy 1500-1600. Penguin Books. pp. 117–119 et passim. 
• Radini Tedeschi, Daniele (2008). Sodoma. 
• Radini Tedeschi, Daniele (2010). Sodoma , la vita le opere e gli allievi di uno dei massimi artisti del Rinascimento. 

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Artist/Painter: Sodoma
•  "Sodoma". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

Federico or Federigo Zuccari
Self-portrait, after 1588
Born	1540-1541 Sant'Angelo in Vado
Died	July 20, 1609
Nationality	Italian
Field	Painting and Architecture
Movement	Renaissance and Mannerism

Detail of Last Judgment by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari.

Federico Zuccari, also known as Federigo Zuccaro (c. 1540/1541 – July 20, 1609), was an Italian Mannerist painter and architect, active both in Italy and abroad.

Biography[link]

Zuccari was born at Sant'Angelo in Vado, near Urbino (Marche).

His documented career as a painter began in 1550, when he moved to Rome to work under Taddeo, his elder brother. He went on to complete decorations for Pius IV, and help complete the fresco decorations at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. He was involved in the following fresco projects:

• Decoration of the Casina Pio IV, Rome
• Grimani Chapel, San Francesco della Vigna, Venice
• Pucci Chapel in the church of Trinità dei Monti, Rome
• San Marcello al Corso, Rome
• Cathedral of Orvieto (1570)
• Oratorio del Gonfalone, Rome (1573)
• Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence (previously started by Vasari)

Another picture in the same collection appears to be a replica of his painting of the "Allegory of Calumny", as suggested by Lucian's description of a celebrated work by Apelles; the satire in the original painting, directed against some of his courtier enemies, was the immediate cause of Zuccari's temporary exile from Rome. Zuccari was recalled to Rome by Pope Gregory XIII to continue in the Pauline chapel of the Vatican. He visited Brussels, and there made a series of cartoons for the tapestry-weavers. In 1574 he passed over to England, where he received commission from Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester to portray himself and Queen Elizabeth.^[1] He also painted Mary, Queen of Scots, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Francis Walsingham, Lord High Admiral Howard.

Last Judgment (detail ). Dome of Florence Cathedral.

He painted a portrait of a Man with Two Dogs, in the Pitti Palace (Florence), and the Dead Christ and Angels in the Galleria Borghese (Rome). In 1585, he accepted an offer by Philip II of Spain to decorate the new Escorial at a yearly salary of 2,000 crowns. He worked at the palace from January 1586 to end of 1588, when he returned to Rome. His paintings (like those of El Greco before him) were disliked by Philip II and many were painted over. However the parting was amicable:"We must not blame him, but those who sent him to us", said Philip.^[2] He was succeeded by Pellegrino Tibaldi. He there founded in 1595, under a charter confirmed by Pope Sixtus V, the Accademia di San Luca, of which he was the first president. Bartolomeo Carducci is said to have studied with him.

Like his Giorgio Vasari a generation before, Zuccari aimed at being an art critic and historian. His chief book, L'idea de' Pittori, Scultori, ed Architetti (1607), was far less popular.

Zuccari was raised to the rank of cavaliere not long before his death, which took place at Ancona in 1609.

Zuccari's famed sketch of Queen Elizabeth I.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Federico Zuccari

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). Pelican History of Art. ed. Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. enguin Books Ltd. 

External links[link]

•  "Zuccaro, Federigo". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
• The Zuccaro Scholarship
• Getty Museum Exhibition Taddeo and Federico Zuccari: Artist Brothers in Rome

Angelo Branduardi (born February 12, 1950), is an Italian folk singer and composer who scored relevant success in Italy and European countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Biography[link]

Branduardi was born in Cuggiono, a small town in the province of Milan, but early moved with the family to Genoa. He was educated as a classical violinist in the local school of music. At the age of 18, he composed the music for the Confessioni di un malandrino (Hooligan's Confession) by Sergei Yesenin.

He is married to Luisa Zappa, who wrote the lyrics for many of his songs. They have two daughters, Sarah and Maddalena, both musicians.

Works[link]

The beginnings[link]

Branduardi's first album was never released, and resulted from a co-operation with Maurizio Fabrizio, composer and gifted performer. The first released album, Angelo Branduardi '74 was arranged with Paul Buckmaster.

The minstrel[link]

La Luna ("The Moon"), including "Hooligan's Confession" (translation of a poem by Esenin) and the fine, delicate song giving the LP its name, was a prelude to the success of the following works. Alla fiera dell'Est (English edition: Highdown Fair, 1976) was Branduardi's first vastly popular album, followed by La Pulce d'Acqua (English version, Fables and Fantasies 1978) and Cogli la prima mela (English edition, Life is the Only Teacher, 1979). Lyrics for the English versions of Branduardi's albums were written by Peter Sinfield, also lyricist for King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

In those albums, Branduardi exploited themes and patterns from ancient music, mostly Renaissance and early Baroque. The very song "Alla fiera dell'Est" ("At the Eastern Fair") is still popular among Italians of every age, who test themselves to send in memory all the fable-like, repetition-based lyrics. It is based on an old Jewish song in Aramaic ("Chad Gadya" - One Kid Goat) sung at the end of the Passover Seder night service. In 2007 "Alla fiera dell'Est" was covered by Israeli singer Shlomi Shabat for a Passover time commercial for cellphone company Pelephone.

Lyrics had a broad spectrum of inspiration: a Danse macabre, the theme of Satan's mistress, Chinese, Native American and Druidic tradition, the apocryphal Gospels. Concertation owes much to the talents of Maurizio Fabrizio, and exploits unusual instruments for pop music: dulcimer, Pan flute, lute, clarinet, among others - mixed with more standard guitar-bass-and-drums.

Experimentation and crisis[link]

Subsequent albums showed an increasing desire towards experimentation and differentiation. Branduardi (1981) had a more intimate tone, Cercando l'oro ("Searching for Gold", 1983) had very sophisticated and delicate arrangements (starts with a String Quartet), Branduardi canta Yeats ("Branduardi sings Yeats", 1985) was a tribute to William Butler Yeats. Pane e rose ("Bread and Roses", 1988) was a still inspired, but increasingly dark picture of life and death. Il Ladro ("The Thief", 1991) marked a very delicate point of Branduardi's life, edging on depression, echoed in a dark, almost cemeterial, style of singing.

The album Si può fare ("It Can Be Done", 1993) brought back Branduardi to normality, but the artist is now struggling to evade the minstrel character which was now too tight for him. In 1994, he published Domenica e lunedì ("Sunday and Monday"), dedicated to the Italian poet Franco Fortini.

New directions[link]

In 1996, during the celebrations for the restoration of the Duomo of Spilimbergo after the catastrophic 1976 earthquake, he recorded the album Futuro antico ("Ancient Future"), in which he, as an early Baroque musician, keeps reusing, mixing, wording pre-existing material along with his own. This experience, accomplished with the aid of musicians and musicologists, continued with Futuro antico II and Futuro antico III. The same year he performed "Te vojo 'bbene assaje" ("I love you so much" in Neapolitan) with Italian pop singer Eugenio Finardi.

In 1998, Branduardi teamed up with Italian stand-up comedian and writer Giorgio Faletti for Il dito e la luna ("The Finger and the Moon").

He subsequently reworked earlier musical themes with writings of and about St. Francis to produce L'infinitamente piccolo ("The Infinitely Small"); he wrote a musical on the same topic (Francesco).

In 2003, a new album, Altro ed altrove ("Other and Elsewhere"), in a time period marked by a rise of racism and intolerance, brought together (mainly) love stories from several cultures.

Discography[link]

• Angelo Branduardi (1974)
• La luna (1975 - French edition: Confession d'un malandrin, 1981)
• Alla fiera dell'est (1976, Italian Music Critics's Award - French edition: A la foire de l'est - English edition: Highdown Fair, 1978)
• La pulce d'acqua (1977 - English edition: Fables and fantasies, 1980)
• Cogli la prima mela (1979 - French Edition: La demoiselle)
• (1980 - French Edition: va ou le vent te mene avec Maurizio Fabrizio)
• Gulliver,la luna e altri disegni (1980)
• Branduardi '81 (1981)
• Cercando l'oro (1983 - French edition: Tout l'or du monde)
• State buoni se potete (1983, soundtrack for the movie with the same name)
• Branduardi canta Yeats (1986)
• Pane e rose (1988 - French edition: Du pain et des roses)
• Il ladro (1990)
• Musiche da film (1992)
• Si può fare (1992 - French edition: Ça se fait)
• Domenica e lunedì (1994 - French edition: La menace, 1995)
• Camminando camminando (1996, live collection)
• Futuro antico I (1996)
• Il dito e la luna (1998, lyrics by Giorgio Faletti)
• Studio Collection (1998, collection)
• Futuro antico II (1999)
• L'infinitamente piccolo (2000)
• Futuro antico III (2002)
• Altro ed altrove (2003)
• The Platinum Collection (2005, collection)
• Futuro antico IV (2007)
• Senza Spina (2009)

External links[link]

• Official website
• Branduardi.info
• Branduardi-ans Official Mailing List
• Videos of Angelo
• La Locanda del Malandrino - reportages, photos, videos
• Si può fare - Official web radio with complete discography and artist's commentary

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Angelo Branduardi