GIOACHINO ROSSINI: LOOK HERE

Rossini was born in Pesaro in 1792. His father and his mother were musicians. In 1807 the young Rossini was admitted at the Conservatorio of Bologna.  His first opera, La cambiale di matrimonio,  was produced in Venice when he was only eighteen.

Between 1810 and 1813, in Bologna, Rome, Venice and Milan, Rossini produced operas of varying  degrees of success. The memory of these works is eclipsed by the enormous success of his operaTancredi. Rossini continued to write operas in Venice and Milan. In 1815 he signed  a contract with an impresario of Naples to take on the musical direction of the Teatro San Carlo. 

The Barbiere di Siviglia, produced in Rome, was so successful that it is still considered one of the masterpieces in the whole opera history.  Between 1815 and 1823 Rossini produced twenty works.  In 1822 in Vienna he directed his Cenerentola (that was as successful as Barbiere), then he returned to Bologna.  In 1823 he went to England and in 1824 he became the musical director of the Théatre des Italien in Paris.  The production of his GuglielmoTell in 1829 brought his career as opera writer at its height. 

After living in Florence for a while, he settled in Paris in 1855, and his house, where he died in 1868, was a cultural centre for the contemporary society.

In his compositions, Rossini copied more from himself than from other musicians, and only a few of his operas drew on other composers’ arias or overtures. A distinctive mannerism in his music writing ascribed him the nickname "Monsieur Crescendo." (Crescendo –abbreviated cresc.-  shows gradual changes in volume,  and can be translated as "gradually becoming louder").  

Working in Paris was the highest ambition for all the musicians of the time and Rossini, Director of the Théâtre des Italiens, helped many of them such as Bellini, Donizetti (he conducted the premiere of Rossini's Stabat Mater and Meyerbeer. 

After his death, Rossini left all his properties to the Comune of Pesaro.  The inheritance was invested to open a Liceo Musicale in the town. In 1940 the Liceo was put under the control of the state and turned into Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Gioachino Rossini", organised as a foundation under the name “Fondazione G. Rossini”. The aims of the institution, which is still fully active, are to support the Conservatorio activities and events and  promote the study and the knowledge of the composer, his memory, and his works. The foundation has co-operated with the Rossini Opera Festival since the beginning.

"THE IDEAL CITY": LOOK HERE

 "The Ideal City" is a painting exhibited in the National Gallery of Marche at Urbino

The Ideal City is one of the most fascinating enigmas of the Italian Renaissance. It provides a complete overview of the civilization, culture and education in Urbino and the surrounding region under the learned and enlightened Federico da Montefeltro, who ruled the area during the second half of the 15th century.

The work was attributed to several painters but the true author of "La Città Ideale" still remains unknown.  Some art critics believe that the author was Piero della Francesca or a disciple of his school, while others think the author was an architect : Leon Battista Alberti or Luciano Laurana.

The painting contains elements of great architectural and engineering purity. Mathematics and philosophy lie behind the perfection of the perspective. It is the image of a perfect city, apparently desolate with no human figures.

The Ideal City celebrates the values in a well-ordered society where architecture is a metaphor for good government. The illusion of space is achieved though a mathematical perspective system developed in Florence. The lines that establish spatial relationships converge at a central point, located in the middle of the city gate.

The "ideal" nature of such a city may refer to  moral, spiritual and juridical qualities of citizenship. These values are achieved through urban structures including buildings, street layout, squares, harmonious volumes, well-balanced open spaces.

The ground plans of ideal cities are often based on grids (in imitation of Roman town planning) or other geometrical patterns.  The ideal city is often an attempt to explain Utopian ideals.  The concept of the ideal city dates back to the period of the philosopher Plato, and it is widely described in his “Republic”.

There were several attempts to develop ideal city plans in the Renaissance period, from the second half of the fifteenth century. The nobility of the Renaissance, trying imitate the qualities of Classical civilisation, sometimes constructed ideal cities either in reality (Pienza in Tuscany or Urbino in Marche region) or notionally,  through a reformation of manners and culture.