“She had a voice that was like the pipes of life. She could take any melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator, and you would’ve still understood every single syllable of every single word she sang. Every single melody she sang she made hers. Once she put her soulful trademark on a song, she owned it and it was never the same.” - Quincy Jones on Dinah Washington pictured above in 1959
By Anne Leader and Ioannis Tzortzakakis
Giorgio Vasari died on 27 June 1574 in Florence. The painter, architect, collector, and influential author was born on 30 July 1511 in Arezzo. Acclaimed for his work in the service of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’Medici (1519 – 1574), Vasari is better known for his invaluable volume of selected biographies, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects).
Often referred to simply as the Vite or Lives of Artists, the book was dedicated to his friend and patron, the Grand Duke, and it chronicled the evolution of Italy’s art from Cimabue through the greatest artists to Vasari himself. The text was divided into three distinct periods, which still today impact the way in which we still approach Renaissance art and beyond. The same book had two editions in his lifetime, the Torrentiniana of 1550 and the Giuntina of 1568.
The corpus of his published work also includes a second book Ragionamenti del sig. cavaliere Giorgio Vasari, pittore et architetto aretino, sopra le inuentioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel palazzo di Loro Altezze serenissime (Reasoning of signor cavalier Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect from Arezzo over the Inventions which he depicted in Florence in the Palazzo Vecchio), which appeared from Vasari’s hand, yet after his death in 1588, a book – catalogue of the allegorical compositions in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Further reading:
David J. Cast (ed.) (2014) The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, London: Ashgate Publishing.
Patricia Lee Rubin (1995) Giorgio Vasari: Art and History, Yale University Press.
Self-Portrait, 1550-67, Oil on canvas, 101 x 80 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
Martyrdom of St Stephen, 1560s, Oil on canvas, 300 x 163 cm, Pinacoteca, Vatican
Perseus and Andromeda, 1570-72, Oil on slate, 117 x 100 cm, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
Paul III Farnese Directing the Continuance of St Peter’s, 1546, Fresco, Palazzo della Cancellaria, Rome
The Birth of Venus, 1550s, Fresco, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
The Studio of the Painter, c. 1563, Fresco, Casa Vasari, Florence
Façade on the Lungarno, 1560, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
Palazzo delle Logge, 1573, Arezzo
July 30
- 1523 - The Spanish composer Juan de Anchieta, who had been in the service of Queen Isabella, died in Azpeitia.
- 1704 - Reinhard Keiser’s opera Almira, Königin von Castilien, with a libretto by Friedrich Christian Feustking after Giulio Pancieri’s Almira, was premiered at the Neu-Augustusburg Theater in Weißenfels, though originally planned for the Hamburg opera. The libretto was passed on to the 19-year-old Handel, who would then compose his first opera from it in less than half a year.
- 1751 (July 30/31) - Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia “Nannerl” Mozart, considered by her father “one of the most skillful pianists in Europe” (letter to Lorenz Hagenauer from London on June 8, 1764), was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart.
Literary history that happened on 30 July
Together, You Can Redeem The Soul of Our Nation
Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.
While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language, and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.
That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.
Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.
Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key.
Having faced serious criticism for his ethics, actual US Supreme Court member Samuel Alito has recently insisted that Congress has "no authority" to impose ethics or other regulations on the Supreme Court.
To which I retort, Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constituton: "the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
Samuel Alito is an actual sitting Justice on the US Supreme Court, a position he has held for almost 18 years. He is termed a "pragmatic textualist originalist" in his approach. Apparently he cannot read. Which explains a lot about his rulings.
Then today, I got to see this little treasure with my friend.
Maria Theresia (Czech: Marie Terezie) is a 2017 Austrian-Czech historical miniseries. It was a coproduction of the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. Its first two episodes were broadcast in 2017, with two more in 2019 and a fifth and final part premiered on streaming at the end of 2021 before being broadcast in 2022.
What shocked me were the scenes of Maria Theresa being crowned Queen of Hungary and recognized it from screen captures here on tumblr!
Once again, absolutely worth watching. Keep in mind that it is a historical dramatization and takes some liberties with history.
Staying at a friend's house last night, I have become ENGROSSED by Deborah Davis's dramatization, and cannot recommend it strongly enough to you all.
The maze framing device populated by the shadows of her enemies is such a devastatingly apt visual metaphor that I gasped the first time I saw it.
It's a stellar collaboration between the BBC and Canal+.
The thing I find so jarring is the British accents even when characters speak words and phrases en français.
One of cinema’s greatest charming sophisticates, William Powell was #botd in 1892
An ad launched by Progress Action Fund launched, showing an elderly Republican congressman interrupting a couple in the bedroom, has now been banned on X, formerly known as Twitter.
According to the Progress Action Fund, which aims to defeat Republicans in red states, the platform “has censored” its account as well as the ad, called “Keep Republicans Out Of Your Bedroom.” In addition, the platform has “placed a ‘Search Ban’ and a ‘Search Suggestion Ban’ on the account.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, the account did not show up on the social media platform, yet the ad could still be seen on X through retweets from other accounts.
The Progress Action Fund said it contacted the platform’s legal department and “appealed the decision, which was denied.”
Joe Jacobson, Founder and Executive Director of Progress Action Fund, took a stab at X’s owner: “Elon Musk loves free speech, but only when it’s convenient for him and his far-right political agenda.”
By Anne Leader
Italian sculptor Giovanni Battista Maini died on 29 July 1752 in Rome at age 62. Born in the Lombard town of Cassano Magnano, Maini arrived in Rome around 1708, making a name for himself and even earning a caricature from Pier Leone Ghezzi in 1749. Maini made a number of sculptures for major Roman churches, including S. Agnese in Agone, New St. Peter’s, S. Maria Maggiore, and S. Giovanni in Laterano. He also designed the Oceanus group for the Trevi Fountain, making the drawings and full-scale stucco models, which were realized in marble by Pietro Bracci (d. 1773).
For more on Maini, see: Flavia Ormond. “Maini, Giovanni Battista.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web.[http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T053248] and Jennifer Montagu in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 67, who gives his death date as July 23.
Tomb of Cardinal Neri Corsini, 1733-1734, S. John Lateran, Rome
Oceanus, Pietro Bracci after design by Maini, 1760-65, Fontana di Trevi, Rome
Trevi Fountain, Rome. Photo by David Iliff. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
Pier Leone Ghezzi, Portrait of Giovanni Battista Maini, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund, 72.93