Showing posts with label 1908. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1908. Show all posts

6 February 2018

Amintore Fanfani - politician

Former prime minister who proposed "third way"


Amintore Fanfani was prime minister of Italy six times
Amintore Fanfani was prime
minister of Italy six times
Amintore Fanfani, a long-serving politician who was six times Italy’s prime minister and had a vision of an Italy run by a powerful centre-left alliance of his own Christian Democrat party and the socialists, was born on this day in 1908.

A controversial figure in that he began his political career as a member of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party, he went on to be regarded as a formidable force in Italian politics, in which he was active for more than 60 years, admired for his longevity and his energy but also for his principles.

Throughout his career, or at least the post-War part of it, he was committed to finding a “third way” between collective communism and the free market and became a major influence on centre-left politicians not only in Italy but in other parts of the world.

The American president John F Kennedy, whose friendship he valued, told colleagues that it was reading Fanfani’s book, Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism, that persuaded him to dedicate his life to politics. They last met in Washington in November 1963, just two weeks before Kennedy was assassinated. 

Although he opposed communism, Fanfani’s position was generally in favour of socio-economic intervention by the state and against unfettered free-market capitalism.

Fanfani (left) meets US president John F Kennedy at the White House in Washington
Fanfani (left) meets US president John F Kennedy at
the White House in Washington
He even went as far as to write that Catholicism and capitalism were incompatible, with an “unbridgeable gulf” between them.

"Capitalism requires such a dread of loss," he wrote, "such a forgetfulness of human brotherhood, such a certainty that a man's neighbour is merely a customer to be gained or a rival to be overthrown, and all these are inconceivable in the Catholic conception.”

His key contribution to post-War Italian politics was to reform the Christian Democrats, ending its dependence on the Vatican, creating a support base in industrial centres in addition to its rural strongholds, where parish churches served as party offices. He rebuilt the party as one of traditional values, but not hostile towards change.

Fanfani would later admit that his pre-War support for Fascism was wrong, an “aberration”. But he saw the value in the vast public sector developed by Mussolini in the 1930s, realising it could be harnessed as a powerful instrument of political rule, one that would provide employment for the masses when the private sector fell short, as well as jobs to keep friends sweet and to keep would-be opponents on his side.

Fanfani admitted his support for the Fascists had been a mistake
Fanfani admitted his support for
the Fascists had been a mistake
It was this that enabled the Christian Democrats to establish an almost unbreakable hold on government in Italy that collapsed only when the party became consumed by corruption in the 1990s and was broken up.

Born in Pieve Santo Stefano in the province of Arezzo in Tuscany, Fanfani hailed from a large family with strong Catholic beliefs. He graduated in economics and business from the Università Cattolica in Milan before becoming a member of the National Fascist Party, drawn by the corporatist idea of state control for the benefit of working people, which he believed would eventually take hold across Europe.

However, after Mussolini's fall in 1943, he fled to Switzerland, returning at the end of the War to join the newly-formed Christian Democrats, becoming vice-secretary. Under the post-War prime minister Alcide de Gasperi, he had several ministries. Notably, as Minister of Labour, he introduced policies to build homes for workers and put 200,000 of the country’s unemployed to work on reforestation programmes.

During his terms as prime minister, the first of which came in 1954 and the last in 1987, he introduced reforms in health, education, housing and social security. He improved the state pension and established links to wages.

Fanfani consistently pushed for a centre-left agenda
Fanfani consistently pushed for a centre-left agenda
From the late 1950s onwards, Fanfani persuaded the party of the need to establish closer ties with the socialists, partly because of his own centre-left policies, partly because he felt it would help isolate the Italian Communist Party.

He was one of the instigators, along with Aldo Moro, of the coalition with the socialists formed in 1962-63.  When Moro was kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades in 1978, Fanfani was the only Christian Democrat leader allowed by Moro’s family to participate in his funeral.

Yet Fanfani, though a brilliant politician, could never achieve the popularity he craved within the party, his own downfall eventually coming about through the factionalism that was inevitable in a party the size of the Christian Democrats.

Partially as a result, he never achieved his ambition of being elected President of the Republic, although he did occupy virtually every other prestigious office to which a politician could aspire, including president of the UN assembly and president of the Senate.

He died in Rome in 1999, aged 91, survived by his second wife, Maria Pia Tavazzini, and his two sons and five daughters, all by his first wife, Bianca Rosa.

The Archivio Diaristico Nazionale is in the Piazza Pretoria in the centre of Pieve Santo Stefano
The Archivio Diaristico Nazionale is in the Piazza
Pretoria in the centre of Pieve Santo Stefano
Travel tip:

Pieve Santo Stefano, where Fanfani was born, is situated in the east of Tuscany, close to the border with Emilia-Romagna, about 50km (31 miles) northeast of Arezzo.  A small town of about 3,500 residents, it sits on the bank of the Tiber river. It enjoyed a golden age in the 15th century when it was a favourite retreat for Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence, who brought paintings by Girolamo della Robbia, Piero della Francesca and Ghirlandaio with him. Although the Della Robbia – his Jesus and the Samaritan at the well – can still be appreciated inside the Palazzo Comunale, most of Lorenzo’s art treasures were lost in a flood in 1855.  The town is now notable as the home of the Archivio Diaristico Nazionale, an archive of diaries, memorial documents and epistolary texts established by the journalist Saverio Tutino in 1984.

Palazzo Madama in Rome, the seat of the Italian Senate
Palazzo Madama in Rome, the seat of the Italian Senate
Travel tip:

Fanfani’s home in Rome was a short distance from the headquarters of the Senate in the Palazzo Madama, which was built on the site of the ancient baths of Nero, adjoining Piazza Navona.  The palace was completed in 1505 for the Medici family, who had it built as a home for Giovani and Giulio, two Medici cardinals who would go on to become Popes Leo X and Clement VII respectively.  After the Medici era ended in the 18th century, the palace became the seat of the Papal Government. In 1871, after the capture of Rome by the Kingdom of Italy, it was designated as the seat of the Senate.





16 October 2017

Dorando Pietri - marathon runner

Athlete who made his fortune from famous disqualification


Dorando Pietri with the silver cup presented to him by Queen Alexandra
Dorando Pietri with the silver cup
presented to him by Queen Alexandra
The athlete Dorando Pietri, who found fame and fortune after being disqualified in the 1908 Olympic marathon, was born on this day in 1885 in Mandrio, a hamlet near Carpi, in Emilia-Romagna.

In an extraordinary finish to the 1908 race in London, staged on an exceptionally warm July day, Pietri entered the White City Stadium in first place, urged on by a crowd of more than 75,000 who were there to witness the finish, only for his legs to buckle beneath him.

He was helped to his feet by two officials only to fall down four more times before he crossed the finish line.  Each time, officials hauled him to his feet and walked alongside him, urging him on and ready to catch him if he fell.  The final 350 yards (320m) of the event accounted for 10 minutes of the two hours, 54 minutes and 46 seconds recorded as his official time.

Eventually, a second athlete entered the stadium, the American Johnny Hayes, but Pietri had staggered over the line before he could complete the final lap.

The American team was already unpopular with the British crowd, partly because of a row about a flag at the opening ceremony. They lost even more support after they lodged an objection to the result. 

Pietri, a small man of 5ft 2ins who looked older than his 22 years, was hailed for his pluckiness by the White City crowd, who felt he deserved the gold medal.  But the Games organisers were obliged to uphold the American complaint, on the grounds that the Italian had received assistance.

Pietri races ahead of the field in the 2008 Olympic Marathon
Pietri races ahead of the field in
the 1908 Olympic Marathon
The outrage at this decision extended even as far as the British Royal Family.  Queen Alexandra had taken a particular interest in the race, even arranging for the start line, originally set for a street outside Windsor Castle, to be moved inside the castle grounds so that her children could watch. This extended the distance to 26 miles 385 yards, which has remained the official distance for marathons ever since.

Inside the stadium, with the finishing line placed directly in front of the Royal Box, Queen Alexandra is said to have been so thrilled to see Pietri stagger across the line and be acclaimed the winner that she joined the applause of the crowd by banging her umbrella on the floor of the box.

When she learned he had been disqualified, the story goes that she was so disappointed on his behalf that she insisted his efforts be recognised and arranged for a silver and gilt cup to be inscribed, which she presented to him during the closing ceremony.

This gesture caught the public imagination to such a degree that the Daily Mail began a fund for him, which the celebrated author Arthur Conan Doyle, who had been commissioned by the newspaper to write a report of the race, launched by donating five pounds.

The Mail told its readers that money raised would help Pietri, a pastry chef by trade, to open a bakery in Carpi. In the event, the appeal realised £300, which in 1908 was a sum comparable with more than £28,000 today.

Pietri is helped across the line at the finish of the race
Pietri is helped across the line at the finish of the race
With that money and his subsequent earnings as a professional – he was invited to compete in lucrative races all over the world, including a 22-race tour of the United States – he was able eventually to open an hotel.

Apart from making his fortune, cashing in on celebrity status that extended even to having a song written about him by Irving Berlin, Pietri was able to use his American tour to remove any doubt that he was a worthy winner in London.

In a rematch staged over 262 laps of a special track built at Madison Square Garden in New York in November, 2008, in front of a 20,000 crowd, Pietri defeated Johnny Hayes, repeating the win four months later.  In all the Italian won 17 of the 22 races on the tour.

Pietri retired from competition in 1911, after a career lasting just seven years, which had been interrupted by two years of national service.

Sadly, the Grand Hotel Dorando in Carpi was not a success and in time was closed, after which Pietri moved to the Ligurian resort of San Remo, where he ran a taxi business until he died in 1942, having suffered a heart attack.

The Piazza Martiri is Italy's third largest square
The Piazza Martiri is Italy's third largest square
Travel tip:

Carpi, situated 18km (11 miles) north of Modena in the Padana plain, became a wealthy town during the era of industrial development in Italy as a centre for textiles and mechanical engineering. Its historic centre, which features a town hall housed in a former castle, is based around the Renaissance square, the Piazza Martiri, the third largest square in Italy. Italy’s national marathon has finished in Carpi in 1988 in honour of Dorando Pietri, who is also commemorated with a bronze statue by the sculptor Bernardino Morsani, erected in 2008 on the 100th anniversary of the London Olympic marathon, at the junction of Via Ugo da Carpi and Via Cattani, about 2.5km (1.5 miles) from the centre of the town.

Luxury yachts in the harbour at San Remo
Luxury yachts in the harbour at San Remo
Travel tip:

San Remo, the main resort along Liguria’s Riviera dei Fiori – Riviera of Flowers – is a town steeped in old-fashioned grandeur with echoes of its heyday as a health resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with broad streets lined with palm trees and luxury villas.  The harbour is still filled with expensive yachts and the casinos attract wealthy clientele. San Remo also has an old town of narrow streets and alleyways and is famous as the home of an annual pop music contest, the Sanremo Festival, where winning is still a considerable career advantage for up-and-coming Italian performers.








9 September 2017

Cesare Pavese - writer and translator

Author introduced great American writers to Fascist Italy


Cesare Pizzardo translated the works of many American novelists
Cesare Pavese translated the works
of many American novelists
Cesare Pavese, the writer and literary critic who, through his work as a translator, introduced Italy to the Irish novelist James Joyce and a host of great American authors of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1908 in Santo Stefano Belbo, a town in Piedmont about 60km from Turin.

Pavese would become an acclaimed novelist after the Second World War but was frustrated for many years by the strict censorship policies of Italy’s Fascist government.

It is thought he devoted himself to translating progressive English-language writers into Italian as the best way by which he could promote the principles of freedom in which he believed.

Pavese’s translations would have given most Italians they first opportunity to read writers such as Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos and Daniel Defoe, as well as Joyce, who would ultimately spend many years living in Italy.

The son of Eugenio Pavese, an officer of the law courts in Turin, Cesare had a fractured childhood. His father died when he was only six and his mother, Consolina, is said to have shown him little affection, as a result of which he grew up learning how to fend for himself.

He was born in Santo Stefano Belbo, situated in a picturesque vine-growing area east of Alba in southern Piedmont, because his parents were staying at their holiday home there when his mother went into Labour.  As soon as he was old enough, he moved to Turin and attended the lyceum – the Licio Classico Massimo d’Azeglio – where he was taken under the wing of the Italian anti-Fascist intellectual Augusto Monti.

Pavese hid in the hills outside Turin during the Second World War occupation of the city by German soldiers
Pavese hid in the hills outside Turin during the Second
World War occupation of the city by German soldiers
Monti was later imprisoned by the regime for his vociferous opposition, a fate that would befall Pavese not long after he had left the University of Turin, where he was mentored by Leone Ginzburg, husband of the author Natalia Ginzburg.

He had begun an affair with Tina Pizzardo, a young Communist he met at the sparsely-attended anti-Fascist meetings he used to frequent, and agreed for her to use his address as somewhere to which she could have correspondence delivered because her own movements were under surveillance.

However, when the authorities intercepted letters from Altiero Spinelli, a jailed anti-Fascist dissident, and found they were addressed to Pavese’s apartment, he was arrested and sent to a prison at Brancaleone in Calabria, almost 1,400km (870 miles) from Turin.

Pavese later wrote a book about his ordeal, although for many years his work remained unpublished by his own choice, rather than it be censored.  When a volume of his poetry was published during his incarceration, a number of poems were deleted by the Fascist authorities.

On his return to Turin after a little more than a year in jail, he found that Pizzardo had begun another relationship and countered his sadness by throwing himself into his work, again mainly in translating.  He became a close associate of Giulio Einaudi – father of the pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi and son of the politician Luigi Einaudi – with whom he helped establish the Einaudi publishing house. Natalia Ginzburg also worked there.

The young communist Tina Pizzardo, with whom Pavese had an affair
The young communist Tina Pizzardo,
with whom Pavese had an affair
Pavese was conscripted to fight in Mussolini’s Fascist army but avoided front-line action because he suffered from asthma. Instead, he was confined to a military hospital for six months.

In his absence, German troops occupied Turin and on returning to civilian life when he was discharged on health grounds Pavese went into hiding in the hills around Serralunga di Crea, near Casale Monferrato, where he remained between 1943 and 1945.

Most of Pavese’s work, mainly short stories and novellas, was published by Einaudi, appearing between the end of the Second World War and his death. In that time he was a member of the Italian Communist Party and worked on the party’s newspaper L’Unità.

The main character in many of Pavese’s stories was often a loner, whose relationships with both men and women tended to be short-lived. The stories are often bleak yet he was admired for the tautness of his prose, which was favourably compared to that of Ernest Hemingway.

They tended to draw comparison with his own life. As well as his affair with Pizzardo, whom he felt deserted him, he had a brief relationship after the war with Constance Dowling, an American actress, but that too failed and is seen to have been a contributory factor in his death at the age of only 41.

It came at a moment when he appeared to be at the height of his career, hailed as one of Italy’s greatest living writers.

Works such as La casa in collina (The House on the Hill) and Il carcere (The Prison), which were published as a two-novella volume entitled Prima che il gallo canti (Before the Cock Crows) and based in his experiences in prison, were regarded as confirming his genius, as were Il Compagno (The Comrade), Dialoghi con Leucò (Dialogues with Leucò) - philosophical dialogues between classical Greek characters – and La luna e i falò (The Moon and the Bonfires), which he dedicated to Dowling.  

In 1950, he won the prestigious Strega Prize but two months after receiving the honour he was found dead in an hotel room in Turin, having swallowed an overdose of barbiturates.  Entries in his diary indicated that he had been profoundly depressed following his break-up with Dowling, which he took as a sign that he would never find happiness in marriage, or with other people.

The village of Santo Stefano Belbo
The village of Santo Stefano Belbo
Travel tip:

Pavese’s life is commemorated in several ways in Santo Stefano Belbo, where there is a museum housed in the house his parents owned in what is now Via Cesare Pavese, while the Cesare Pavese Foundation, which was established in 1973 and has its headquarters in Piazza Confraternita off Via Cavour, promotes not only the work of Pavese but encourages and supports other writers.

A plaque marks where Cesare Pavese lived in Turin
A plaque marks where Cesare Pavese lived in Turin
Travel tip:

In Turin, Pavese lived in the same building for 20 years on the Via Alfonso Lamarmora, one of the elegant residential streets in the grid of criss-crossing thoroughfares that characterises the centre of the city.  Via Lamarmora links Corso Stati Uniti with Via Sebastiano Caboto, bisecting the busy Corso Luigi Einaudi. There is a wall plaque marking the building that contained his apartment.


28 December 2016

Italy's worst earthquake

Catastrophic tremor of 1908 may have killed up to 200,000


A devastated street in Messina with the remains of the Chiesa delle Anime del Purgatorio in the distance
A devastated street in Messina with the remains of the Chiesa
delle Anime del Purgatorio in the distance
The most destructive earthquake ever to strike Europe brought devastation to the cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria on this day in 1908.

With its epicentre beneath the Strait of Messina, which separates Sicily from the Italian mainland, the quake had a magnitude of 7.1 and caused the ground to shake for between 30 and 40 seconds.

It was enough to cause such catastrophic damage that Messina, on the Sicilian side, and Reggio Calabria, on the mainland side, were almost completely destroyed.

The loss of life was huge because the earthquake happened at 5.21am, when most residents were still in bed.

An unknown number were swept away by the tsunami that struck both cities 10 minutes after the major tremor had stopped, when the sea on both sides of the Strait receded up to 70 metres and then rushed back towards the land, generating three massive waves, each taller than the one that preceded it, up to a height of 12 metres (39 feet).

At least 75,000 people were killed in Messina alone, where 91 per cent of buildings were either destroyed or damaged beyond repair.  The Norman cathedral, which had withstood a series of five quakes in 1783, was reduced this time to a partial shell.

Ruined buildings on the waterfront at Reggio Calabria
Ruined buildings on the waterfront at Reggio Calabria
The death toll amounted to half the population of the city.  Among the dead were the American consul Arthur S Cheney and his wife, Laura.  The French consul and his children were killed, as was Ethel Ogston, the wife of the British Consul, Alfred, who survived.

Notable Italian casualties included both the chief of police and the attorney general of Messina and the operatic tenor Angelo Gamba, who had been in the city to perform in the Giuseppe Verdi opera, Aida, and perished with his family when his hotel collapsed.

In Reggio Calabria almost the whole of the historic centre was destroyed, wiping out much of the city's Greek heritage.  Initial estimates were that around 25,000 people lost their lives, around a quarter of the population, but many more probably died.

The tsunami destroyed the waterfront in both cities, drowning thousands of residents who had sought refuge close to the beach, away from buildings.

Once calm had returned, there were virtually no doctors or hospital facilities to tend the injured, while the bodies of victims buried beneath the rubble were often not recovered until months later, or in some cases not at all.  The final death toll is unknown, with the estimate of 200,000 based on comparing the numbers of residents recorded in census documents before and after the disaster.

Even based on the more conservative estimates, the loss of life was the largest in a single earthquake in Italian history, eclipsing even the Naples earthquake in 1626, which was said to have killed 70,000 people.

In the aftermath of the 1908 event, Europe witnessed one of the first major international rescue operations as Russia and the United States joined European nations in providing assistance.

All lines of communication from the area were cut off and news of the disaster did not reach the rest of Italy until the end of the day, when an Italian naval vessel docked at Nicotera, 80km up the coast from Reggio Calabria, and the captain sent a message via telegraph lines to Giovanni Giolitti, the Italian prime minister.

Rescuers dig through the rubble in Messina
Rescuers dig through the rubble in Messina 
The Italian navy and army responded and began searching, treating the injured, providing food and water, and evacuating refugees.  The rescue effort was then joined by a fleet of Russian warships on the morning of December 29 and the following day British ships started arriving from Malta.

French and German ships followed suit. When news of the disaster reached the United States, where many emigrants from southern Italy had already settled, President Roosevelt offered to help and four ships were dispatched immediately to provide humanitarian aid and provisions.

In the meantime, Giolitti imposed martial law, ordering that all looters be shot. King Victor Emmanuel III and Queen Elena arrived two days after the earthquake to assist the victims and survivors, many of whom had to be relocated to other parts of Sicily or Italy, or took the option of starting a new life in America.

Both cities were rebuilt along the lines of modern urban areas, architect Luigi Borzi designing the new Messina, with the reconstruction of Reggio Calabria placed in the hands of the engineer Pietro De Nava, although as late as the 1950s, some families were still living in the wooden barracks that were erected as temporary housing.

Travel tip:

Messina's cathedral, which still contains the remains of King Conrad, ruler of Germany and Sicily in the 13th century, had to be almost entirely rebuilt following the earthquake, and again in 1943, after a fire triggered by Allied bombings. The original Norman structure can be recognised in the apsidal area and the façade has three late Gothic portals, dating back to the early 15th century. The tympanum dates back to 1468.

Hotels in Messina by Expedia

The Palazzo Spinelli is an example of the Liberty style buildings characteristic of the rebuilt Reggio Calabria
The Palazzo Spinelli is an example of the Liberty style
buildings characteristic of the rebuilt Reggio Calabria
Travel tip:

Reggio Calabria is the oldest city in Calabria, the most important in what became known as Magna Graecia - Great Greece - after settlers began to arrive in the eighth century BC.  Much of its heritage was destroyed in the earthquake and the rebuilt city is notable now for its fine Liberty buildings and its linear plan.  The best of what could be salvaged of the Greek remains can be seen in the National Archaeological Museum of Magna Graecia, housed in Palazzo Piacentini.

Hotels in Reggio Calabria by Hotels.com


More reading:


The devastating Naples earthquake of 1626

How the wrath of Vesuvius wiped Pompei from the map

The Vajont dam - a man-made disaster


Also on this day:




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22 December 2016

Giacomo Manzù – sculptor

Shoemaker’s son who became internationally acclaimed sculptor


Giacomo Manzù, pictured in 1966 at his studio in Ardea, near Rome
Giacomo Manzù, pictured in 1966 at his
studio in Ardea, near Rome
Sculptor Giacomo Manzù was born Giacomo Manzoni on this day in 1908 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

The son of a shoemaker, he taught himself to be a sculptor, helped only by a few evening classes in art, and went on to achieve international acclaim.

Manzoni changed his name to Manzù and started working in wood while he was doing his military service in the Veneto in 1928.

After moving to Milan, he was commissioned by the architect, Giovanni Muzio, to decorate the Chapel of the Sacred Heart Catholic University.

But he achieved national recognition after he exhibited a series of busts at the Triennale di Milano.

The following year he held a personal exhibition with the painter, Aligi Sassu, with whom he shared a studio.

He attracted controversy in 1942 when a series of bronze bas reliefs about the death of Christ were exhibited in Rome. They were criticised by the Fascist Government after they were interpreted as an indictment of Nazi-Fascist violence and Manzù had to go into hiding for a while, fearful of arrest.

Manzu's Monument to the Partisan in his home city of Bergamo
Manzù's Monument to the Partisan in his
home city of Bergamo
Manzù had started teaching at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, but during the war he went back north to live in Clusone, to the north of Bergamo, in Val Seriana. He returned to teach in Milan at the end of the war.

He then moved to Salzburg, where he met his wife, Inge Schabel, who became the model for several of his sculptures.

One of his most striking works is his Monument to the Partisan, which he completed in 1977 and gave to his home city of Bergamo as a gift.

He built an 11-foot high sculpture, Passo di Danza, in Detroit and his last great work was a six-metre tall sculpture in New York in 1989, representing a woman holding a child.

During his long career he also built stage sets for the composer Igor Stravinsky and he eventually designed his tomb in Venice.

A devout Catholic, Manzù was a personal friend of Pope John XXIII, who was also from Bergamo, and he completed some important commissions for the Vatican and St Peter’s Basilica.

While in Rome he lived in Ardea, south of the capital and close to the sea, in a locality that has since been renamed Colle Manzù in his honour.  Ardea has a museum dedicated to his work.

His son, Pio, was a car designer who is credited with the design for the groundbreaking Fiat 127, the 'people's car' of the 1970s, although he never saw the project completed. Pio died tragically young in a road accident at the age of just 30 in 1969.

Manzù died in Ardea in 1991. The New York Times described him in an obituary as ‘one of Italy’s leading sculptors whose work often mixed religious, allegorical and sexual imagery’.

Piazza Vecchia, in Bergamo's Città Alta, has been described as the most beautiful square in Italy
Piazza Vecchia, in Bergamo's Città Alta, has been
described as the most beautiful square in Italy
Travel tip:

Bergamo in Lombardy, where Giacomo Manzù was born, is a fascinating, historic city with two distinct centres. The Città Alta, upper town, is a beautiful, walled city with buildings that date back to medieval times. The elegant Città Bassa, lower town, still has some buildings that date back to the 15th century, but more imposing and elaborate architecture was added in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Hotels in Bergamo by Hotels.com

Travel tip:

Piazza Matteotti, in the Città Bassa in Bergamo, is the site of Manzù’s remarkable work, Monument to the Partisan, which the sculptor dedicated to the Italian partisans who fought against the Germans to liberate their country during the Second World War.

More reading:


26 November 2016

Charles Forte - businessman and hotelier

Multi-billion pound empire started with a single café


Baron Forte of Ripley
Baron Forte of Ripley
Businessman Charles Forte - later Sir Charles and then Baron Forte of Ripley - was born Carmine Forte in the hamlet of Mortale in the Frosinone province of southern Lazio on this day in 1908.

Forte was most famous for his hotels empire, which once numbered more than 800 properties ranging from Travelodge motels to the high-end luxury of the Grosvenor House in London and the George V in Paris.

Starting with a single milk bar in London, opened in 1935, he grew a business that became so vast that, when it changed hands 61 years later, it was valued at £3.9 billion.

Charles Forte was brought up largely in Scotland, where his family emigrated in 1911 after his father, Rocco, decided to follow the lead of his brother by abandoning farming in his impoverished homeland to try his luck in the catering business abroad.

Rocco ran a café and ice cream parlour in Alloa, a town in central Scotland about an hour's drive north-east of Glasgow and a similar distance to the north-west of Edinburgh.

Charles went to school in Alloa and nearby Dumfries before completing his education at the Mamiani High School in Rome.  When he returned, the family had relocated to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.

The famous Forte logo
The famous Forte logo
He cut his catering teeth managing The Venetian Lounge, a café in Brighton owned by a cousin, before setting up a first business of his own, the Meadow Milk Bar, in Upper Regent Street, in central London, in 1935.  Forte broke new ground by serving meals as well as the usual coffee bar fare,.

Ambitious to expand, his fledgling company Strand Milk Bars had seven outlets by the outbreak of the Second World War, which presented Forte with a problem when Italy joined in on the side of Germany.  Although he had applied to become a British citizen, the process had not been completed and he found himself arrested and taken to an internment camp in the Isle of Man as a foreign national.

Happily, he was released after only three months and was co-opted on to a Ministry of Food committee to advise on rationing.

His cafés remained open throughout the War, during which he married Irene Chierico, an English girl with Venetian roots who would be his partner for life.  They had a son, Rocco, in 1945, and went on to have six children, all girls apart from the first.

The Café Royal in London's Regent Street was acquired by Charles Forte in the 1950s
The Café Royal in London's Regent Street
was acquired by Charles Forte in the 1950s
Adding more properties to his café-restaurant chain, including the Rainbow Corner, a former US servicemen's centre in Shaftesbury Avenue, and the Criterion in Piccadilly Circus, Forte became so successful he was able to buy two adjoining houses in Hampstead in the early 1950s, which enabled his extended family to join him in London.

The business was now operating as Forte Holdings Ltd and seemed to be moving in an upmarket direction when he added the prestigious Café Royal and Quaglino's to his portfolio.

But he saw more opportunities in diversifying his interests, acquiring the rights to open the first catering facility at Heathrow Airport and giving Britain its first motorway service station at Newport Pagnall on the M1 in 1959.

In the meantime, he had moved into the luxury hotel market by buying the historic Waldorf Hotel in London's Aldwych, the first of more than 800 hotels his business would own over the next 30 years, including the exclusive Hôtel George V, just off the Champs Élysees in Paris.

It was the merger of Forte Holdings with the Trust Houses Group in 1970 that turned Forte's business empire into a multi-million pound concern, creating the Trust House Forte brand, which owned the Little Chef and Happy Eater roadside restaurants, the Crest, Forte Grand, Travelodge and Posthouse hotels and numerous other retail and leisure concerns.

London's iconic Waldorf Hotel in Aldwych was the first of more than 800 hotels ultimately owned by Forte
London's iconic Waldorf Hotel in Aldwych was the first
of more than 800 hotels ultimately owned by Forte
Forte had a self-deprecating sense of humour, joking that he should be called "the shortest Knight of the year" when he became Sir Charles Forte in 1970, making reference to his diminutive stature - he was only 5ft 4ins tall.

Yet he was sensitive about how British society viewed him.  Sir Hugh Wontner, who held firm against Forte's long battle to buy the Savoy Hotel in the 1980s, publicly cast doubt on his suitability to run such an institution and the City never stopped referring to him as "the milk bar king." The restaurant guru Egon Ronay lambasted him for the quality of the food at his motorway service areas.

However, the string of high-end hotels his Forte Group ran under the Forte Grand and Exclusive Hotels by Forte brands meant he could play host to the richest and best-connected clients and he was delighted to accept a peerage offered to him in 1982 by prime minister Margaret Thatcher, whom he idolised.

With a house in Belgravia, London and a mansion at Ripley in Surrey, Forte retired in 1993 and was dismayed when his son, Rocco, whom he placed in control of his company, was unable to resist a £3.9 billion hostile takeover bid from the media and leisure company Granada, which effectively meant his life's work had been lost.

However, he lived to see Rocco build up a new luxury hotel business with the help of his sister Olga - Charles and Irene's second child - who is known as Olga Polizzi, having been married to the late Count Alessandro Polizzi.  She is now married to the author William Shawcross.

Charles Forte would periodically return to his roots in Mortale, which was subsequently renamed Monforte in his family's honour, and restored the house where his family once lived. He died in 2007 at his Belgravia home, aged 98, and was laid to rest in West Hampstead Cemetery.

The landscape around Forte's home village of Monforte
The landscape around Forte's home village of Monforte
Travel tip:

Casalattico, the municipality of which Monforte is part, is home to an Irish festival each summer, celebrating the significant number of local families that moved to Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is thought that up to 8,000 Irish-Italians have ancestors from Casalattico and nearby Picinisco.


Travel tip:

Frosinone is part of the area known as Ciociaria, which took its name from the primitive footwear - cioce - once favoured by local people, which consisted of a large leather sole and long straps that were tied around the legs up to the knee.  It first appeared on maps at the time of the Papal States.  Today it stages numerous food fairs, entertainment and music events and celebrates many rural, religious and country traditions.

More reading:


How Ferrero and Nutella grew from a small bakery in Alba

Salvatore Ferragamo - the humble Neapolitan shoemaker who became the favourite of the stars

Battista Pininfarina - the 'smallest brother' who became Italy's greatest car designer


Also on this day:


1963: The death of coloratura soprano Amelita Galli-Curci


(Pictures: Café Royal by Christine Matthews; Waldorf Hotel by Edward; Area around Monforte by Andicat; all via Wikimedia Commons)


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1 May 2016

Giovanni Guareschi – writer

Satirical magazine editor first used Don Camillo to fill a gap



Photo of Giovanni Guareschi
Giovanni Guareschi created the character of
Don Camillo for the satirical magazine he ran
Author Giovanni Guareschi, the creator of the fictional character, Don Camillo, was born on this day in 1908 in Roccabianca in Emilia-Romagna.

The popular stories featuring his famous comic creations, the stalwart Italian priest, Don Camillo, and the Communist mayor, Peppone, have since been made into many radio and television programmes and films.

Guareschi, who was christened Giovannino, started his career writing for the Gazzetta di Parma and then became a magazine editor.

He was called up to serve in the army in 1943 but was quickly taken prisoner, along with other Italian soldiers, by the Germans. He wrote a secret diary while he was in the prison camp, Diario Clandestino.

After the war Guareschi founded a weekly satirical magazine, Candido, where his Don Camillo stories first appeared. He had written the introductory story for another publication but lifted it to fill a gap in Candido at the last minute.

His magazine criticised and satirised the Communists but after they were beaten in the 1948 elections he turned his attentions to the Christian Democrats instead.

The magazine published a satirical cartoon poking fun at the president, Luigi Einaudi, which was judged by a court to be 'contempt of the president' and after Guareschi had subsequently been charged with libelling a former prime minister, Alcide de Gasperi, he was sent to prison.

When Guareschi was released, his health started to deteriorate and he had to spend time in Switzerland recuperating. He retired from editing Candido, although he remained a contributor until he died in 1968 after a heart attack.



Photo of Castello di Roccabianca
The Castello di Roccabianca, built in 1450
Travel tip:

Roccabianca, where Guareschi was born, is a comune to the northwest of Parma, which takes its name from the castle (rocca) built there in the 1450s by Pier Maria Rossi, which has been restored and is now open to the public.


Travel tip:

Guareschi is buried in the graveyard of the church of San Michele in Le Roncole, the village near Bussetto in Emilia-Romagna where the composer Giuseppe Verdi was born.

(Photo of the Castello di Roccabianca by Antonio Pedroni CC BY-SA 2.0)

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9 March 2016

Internazionale - football superpower

Famous club that broke away from rivals AC Milan


Internazionale's famous logo was designed by Giorgio Muggiani
Internazionale's famous logo, designed
by club founder Giorgio Muggiani
Internazionale, one of Italy's most successful football clubs, came into being on this day in 1908.

The winner 18 times of lo scudetto - the Italian championship - the club known often as Inter or Inter-Milan was born after a split within the membership of the Milan Cricket and Football Club, forerunner of the club known now as A C Milan.

The original club was established by expatriate British football enthusiasts with a membership restricted to Italian and British players. It was after a dispute over whether foreign players should be signed that a breakaway group formed.

Plans for a new club were drawn up at a meeting at the Ristorante L'Orologio in Via Giuseppe Mengoni in Milan, a short distance from the opera house, Teatro alla Scala.  It was a restaurant popular with theatregoers and artists, among them Giorgio Muggiani, a painter who would become renowned for his work in advertising, where he designed iconic posters for such clients as Pirelli, Cinzano, Martini and Moto Guzzi.

Muggiani, who had developed an enthusiasm for football while studying in Switzerland, was the driving force behind the new club and it was he who designed the club's famous logo, featuring the colours blue, black and gold.  He was appointed the club's first secretary.

A statement issued to announce the birth of the new club romantically proclaimed:

Giorgio Muggiani (second left) pictured in 1912 with some of his fellow founding members of Internazionale
Giorgio Muggiani (second left) pictured in 1912 with
some of his fellow founding members of Internazionale
"This wonderful night will give us the colours for our crest: black and blue against a backdrop of gold stars. It will be called Internazionale because we are brothers of the world."

The new club had to wait only two years to win their first scudetto in 1910.  Their total of 18 titles is the same as that of the city rivals from whom they broke free and with whom they share the colossal Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, which holds 80,000 spectators.  Only Juventus (31 titles) have been champions more often.

Also known as San Siro, after the district of Milan in which it is situated, the stadium was named in honour of Giuseppe Meazza, the inside forward who is Internazionale's all-time record goalscorer with 241 league goals and who was captain of the Italian national team that won the World Cup in 1934 and 1938.

Inter's history features two peaks of dominance in Italian football, the first in the 1960s, when they won three Serie A titles in four years as well as two consecutive European Cups, and the years between 2005 and 2010, when a record-equalling run of five consecutive titles culminated in an unprecedented treble in 2010. They are also the only Italian club that has never been relegated from the top division.

The inside forward Giuseppe Meazza scored 241 league goals for Inter
The inside forward Giuseppe Meazza
scored 241 league goals for Inter
The Argentine coach Hellenio Herrera, famous for his belief in the catenaccio tactical system, with its strong emphasis on defence, was behind the first golden era.

The more recent one was started by the current manager, Roberto Mancini, after he was appointed for the first time in 2004, and continued by Jose Mourinho, who steered the team to a domestic double of Serie A and Coppa Italia in 2010 as well as winning the European Cup for Inter for the first time in 45 years.

Inter benefited during that period from the penalties imposed on Juventus and AC Milan following the calciopoli corruption scandal.  They were given the 2005-06 title by default, having actually finished third, and by the time their two rivals recovered -- Juventus were punished with relegation to Serie B, AC Milan with a points deduction -- they had developed a winning momentum that remained with them until Mourinho left, bound for Real Madrid.

Inter's fortunes have dipped in more recent times, failing to qualify for the Champions League for four seasons in a row.  With Mancini back in charge they have improved this year but having led the Serie A table in the first week of January they have slipped back to fifth, 13 points behind current leaders Juventus.

The Arena Civica in Milan as it originally looked
The Arena Civica in Milan as it originally looked
Travel tip:

For many years, Internazionale's home ground was the Arena Civica, in the heart of Milan. Opened in 1807 in the city's Parco Semp-ione, behind the Castello Sforzesco, the arena is one of Milan's main examples of neoclassical architecture, an elliptical amphitheatre commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte soon after he became King of Italy in 1805.  Napoleon wanted it to be Milan's equivalent of the Colosseum in Rome, although there are Greek influences too.  The structure was built using stone reclaimed from the destruction of the Spanish fortifications at the Castello Sforzesco and from the castle at Trezzo sull'Adda. The first event to be staged there, fittingly, was a chariot race.  It was adapted for football in the early part of the 20th century and was Inter's permanent home until the move to San Siro in 1947, although they continued to play some matches there until 1958.

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Milan's Piazza del Duomo is near Via Giuseppe Mengoni, where Inter's founders met in a restaurant
Milan's Piazza del Duomo is near Via Giuseppe Mengoni,
where Inter's founders met in a restaurant
Travel tip:

Although the Ristorante L'Orologio in Via Giuseppe Mengoni no longer exists, the street is at the centre of Milan, running parallel with the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and opening out into the cathedral square Piazza del Duomo.  The Castello Sforzesco and Parco Sempione are a 15-minute walk or two stops on Metro Linea 1 from the Duomo.