Showing posts with label 1920. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1920. Show all posts

3 January 2019

Renato Carosone – singer-songwriter

Composer revived popularity of the traditional Neapolitan song


Renato Carosone wrote such classic songs as  Tu vuo' fa' l'Americano and Mambo Italiano
Renato Carosone wrote such classic songs as
 Tu vuo' fa' l'Americano and Mambo Italiano
Renato Carosone, who became famous for writing and performing Neapolitan songs in modern times, was born Renato Carusone on this day in 1920 in Naples.

His 1956 song Tu vuo’ fa’ l’Americano - 'You want to be American' - has been used in films and performed by many famous singers right up to the present day.

Torero, a song released by him in 1957, was translated into 12 languages and was at the top of the US pop charts for 14 weeks.

Carosone studied the piano at the Naples Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella and obtained his diploma in 1937, when he was just 17. He went to work as a pianist in Addis Ababa and then served in the army on the Italian Somali front. He did not return to Italy until 1946, after the end of the Second World War.

Back home, he had to start his career afresh and moved to Rome, where he played the piano for small bands.

Carosone's Tu vuo' fa' l'Americano featured in a 1958 movie starring Totò
Carosone's Tu vuo' fa' l'Americano featured
in a 1958 movie starring Totò
He was asked to put together a group for the opening of a new club and signed Dutch guitarist, Peter van Houten and Neapolitan drummer, Gegè di Giacomo, with whom he launched the Trio Carosone.

When Van Houten left to pursue a solo career, Di Giacomo remained with Carosone and they recruited more musicians to form a new band.

The band was popular both in Italy and abroad during the 1950s and the songs Carosone composed, many inspired by his native city, achieved high sales after being recorded.

In 1957, Carosone and his band started off a US tour with a concert in Cuba and finished off with a triumphant performance at Carnegie Hall in New York.

In 1960, Carosone made the shock announcement that he was retiring. He was at the height of his career and his decision caused uproar. It was even suggested that he had received criminal threats, but nothing was ever proved. Away from the music business, Carosone took up painting.

He made a comeback in 1975 in a televised concert. He then performed in live concerts and at the Sanremo Music Festival, continuing to make TV appearances until the late 1990s.

Carosone retired from the music scene in 1960 but made a comeback at the 1975 Sanremo Music Festival
Carosone retired from the music scene in 1960 but made
a comeback at the 1975 Sanremo Music Festival
His biggest hits, such as Tu vuo’ fa’ l’Americano, Mambo Italiano and Torero were written in collaboration with the Neapolitan lyricist Nicola Salerno, who was known as Nisa. They developed a perfect understanding and it was said that after just a few words from Carosone, Nisa could write a funny story based on them.

Carosone's original version of Tu vuo' fa' l'Americano was performed by him in the film Totò, Peppino e le fanatiche (directed by Mario Mattoli, 1958). The song was featured in the 1960 Melville Shavelson film It Started in Naples, in which it was sung by Sophia Loren. It was also performed by Rosario Fiorello in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley.

The melodies of Carosone, influenced by jazz and swing, helped revive the popularity of Neapolitan songs, which he presented in a modern manner.

Carosone died in 2001 in Rome at the age of 81 and was buried in the Flaminio Cemetery in the city.

Carosone's boyhood home in Naples was in a street close to the historic square, Piazza Mercato
Carosone's boyhood home in Naples was in a street close
to the historic square, the vast Piazza Mercato
Travel tip:

Carosone lived as a child in Vico dei Tornieri, in the historic centre of Naples near Piazza Mercato, which is now a lively commercial area, but was once the setting for the city’s important executions. He studied the piano at the Naples Conservatory, which has been housed in a monastery next to the Church of San Pietro a Majella since 1826. The church and monastery are in Via San Pietro a Majella, which leads off the top of Via dei Tribunali.

The Cimitero Flaminio in Rome, where Carosone was buried, is the largest cemetery in the city
The Cimitero Flaminio in Rome, where Carosone was
buried, is the largest cemetery in the city


Travel tip:

Carosone was laid to rest in the Cimitero Flaminio in Via Flaminio in Rome, which is also known as Cimitero di Prima Porta, and is the largest cemetery in the city. Prima Porta is a suburb of Rome on the right bank of the Tiber. An important marble statue of Augustus Caesar was discovered in the area in 1863.

More reading:

The classic songs of Cesare Andrea Bixio

Giambattista De Curtis - the man behind Torna a Surriento

Why Totò is still regarded as Italy's finest funny man

Also on this day:

1698: The birth of poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio

1929: The birth of film director Sergio Leone

1952: The birth of politician Gianfranco Fini

Watch Renato Carosone and his musicians perform Tu vuo' fa' l'Americano





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11 September 2018

Manrico Ducceschi - partisan

Brave freedom fighter whose death is unsolved mystery


Manrico Ducceschi operated under the codename Pippo as he fought as an Italian partisan
Manrico Ducceschi operated under the codename
Pippo as he fought as an Italian partisan
Manrico ‘Pippo’ Ducceschi, who led one of the most successful brigades of Italian partisans fighting against the Fascists and the Nazis in the Second World War, was born on this day in 1920 in Capua, a town in Campania about 25km (16 miles) north of Naples.

Ducceschi’s battalion, known as the XI Zona Patrioti, are credited with killing 140 enemy soldiers and capturing more than 8,000. They operated essentially in the western Tuscan Apennines, between the Garfagnana area north of Lucca, the Valdinievole southwest of Pistoia, and the Pistoiese mountains.

He operated under the name of Pippo in honour of his hero, the patriot and revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini.

Ducceschi's success in partisan operations led to him being placed at the top of the Germans' ‘most wanted’ list. Even his relatives were forced to go into hiding.

After the war, he was honoured by the Allies for the help he provided in the Italian campaign but oddly his deeds were never recognised by the post-war Italian government, nor even by his own comrades in the National Association of Italian Partisans (Anpi).

Moreover, he died in mysterious circumstances in 1948 when he was found hanged in his house in Lucca. His family refused to accept the official verdict of suicide delivered by magistrates investigating his death, believing he was murdered, although a new inquiry opened in the 1970s could not find any evidence to contradict the original verdict.

Manrico Ducceschi's battalion is credited with killing more than 140 enemy soldiers
Manrico Ducceschi's battalion is credited with
killing more than 140 enemy soldiers
Although born in Capua after his mother went into premature labour while travelling, Ducceschi was brought up in Pistoia, where the family lived. He went to high school there and after attending a liceo classico in Lucca he enrolled to study literature and philosophy at the University of Florence, although the outbreak of war meant he never graduated.

He was serving with the Alpini Corps of the Italian Army in Tarquinia in Lazio when Italy formally surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943, but managed to evade capture by the Germans and made his way back to Pistoia - a distance of 250km (155 miles) - mainly on foot.

There he became involved with resistance groups. His organisational skills and training with the Alpini saw him quickly assume leadership roles and by March 1944 he was head of the XI Zona Patrioti. Many of his fellow freedom fighters were political activists but Ducceschi insisted that his group was not aligned with any particular party.

In addition to regular engagements with the enemy, the group scored a major success when they intercepted, at the Abetone Pass in the mountains above Pistoia, a Rear Admiral of the Japanese navy. They seized documents that proved highly useful for the subsequent war operations of the Allies in the Pacific.

This led to closer ties with the Allies, who supplied them with uniforms and equipment, and entrusted them with a 40km (25 miles) stretch of the Gothic Line, the line of German defensive positions from the Tuscan coast to the Adriatic for control of which the Allies fought between October 1944 and the following spring. Ducceschi’s partisans participated in the liberation of Modena, Reggio Emilia, Parma, Piacenza and Lodi, and were among the first soldiers to arrive in Milan on April 25, 1945.

The terrain around the Abetone Pass. north of Pistoia, where Duccesci's brigade made a noteworthy capture
The terrain around the Abetone Pass. north of Pistoia,
where Duccesci's brigade made a noteworthy capture
At the end of the war, Ducceschi was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for military valour by the Allies, but had no recognition either from the partisan organisations or from the Italian State.

Family members have since offered a number of hypotheses as to why this might have been and why they believed his death in 1948 was not suicide, but rather a murder made to look like one, with several potential suspects.

These include fellow partisans who opposed his continuing co-operation with the Americans after the war, mainly because he supplied them with information about their political activities. The Americans were concerned about the growth of the Italian Communist Party and Ducceschi, having helped achieve the fall of one dictator in Benito Mussolini, feared an Italy run by the Communists would simply be another dictatorship.

Others they believed had a motive to kill him were those who he discovered to be secretly selling impounded weapons to foreign regimes, including the newly formed state of Israel. They included Franco Corelli, a former partisan colleague and a neighbour in Lucca, who he also suspected of having romantic designs on his wife, Renata.

The inquiry into Ducceschi’s death discovered that Corelli visited him at his home in Lucca shortly before his body was discovered, as did his former right-hand man in XI Zona Patrioti, Giuliano Brancolini.  Both men left Italy before the investigation into the death was concluded, Corelli fleeing to Brazil.

At the time of his death, Renata and the couple’s baby daughter, Roberta, were staying at the family’s holiday home in the mountains. When Ducceschi failed to join them at an appointed time, his father, Fernando, went to the house in Lucca and discovered his body.

In his testimony, Fernando said he heard footsteps on the stairs in the house soon after he found his son’s body. He also claimed that his son’s clothes were soiled in a way that suggested his body had been dragged from somewhere else. Yet the investigation, conducted jointly by Italian, British and American authorities, still reached a verdict of suicide.

The octagonal Baptistry of San Giovanni in Corte in
Pistoia's Piazza del Duomo
Travel tip:

Pistoia, where Manrico Ducceschi grew up, is a pretty medieval walled city in Tuscany, about 40km (25 miles) northwest of Florence. The city developed a reputation for intrigue in the 13th century and assassinations in the narrow alleyways were common, using a tiny dagger called the pistole, made by the city’s ironworkers, who also specialised in manufacturing surgical instruments. At the centre of the town is the Piazza del Duomo, where the Cathedral of San Zeno, which has a silver altar, adjoins the octagonal Battistero di San Giovanni in Corte baptistery. On the same square is the 11th century Palazzo dei Vescovi.

The Piazza dell'Antifeatro, on the site of a former  amphitheatre, is part of the charm of Lucca
The Piazza dell'Antifeatro, on the site of a former
amphitheatre, is part of the charm of Lucca
Travel tip:

Lucca, where Ducceschi settled at the end of the Second World War, is situated in western Tuscany, just 20km (12 miles) from Pisa, and 80km (50 miles) from Florence. Its majestic Renaissance walls are still intact, providing a complete 4.2km (2.6 miles) circuit of the city popular with walkers and cyclists.  The city has many charming cobbled streets and a number of beautiful squares, plus a wealth of churches, museums and galleries and a notable musical tradition, being the home of composers Alfredo Catalani, Luigi Boccherini and the opera giant, Giacomo Puccini.

More reading:

How trade union leader Teresa Noce led a secret partisan unit in France

Mysterious death of partisan who helped capture Mussolini

Alcide de Gasperi - prime minister who rebuilt Italy

Also on this day:

1555: The birth of naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi

1871: The birth of adventurer Scipione Borghese



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8 August 2018

Leo Chiosso – songwriter

Writer of lyrics and scripts was inspired by crime fiction

Leo Chiosso's hit Love in Portofino was the inspiration for an album by Andrea Bocelli
Leo Chiosso's hit Love in Portofino was the
inspiration for an album by Andrea Bocelli
Prolific songwriter Leo Chiosso was born on this day in 1920 in Chieri, a town to the south of Turin in Piedmont.

He became well known for the songs he wrote in partnership with Fred Buscaglione, a singer and musician, but Chiosso also wrote many scripts for television and cinema.

Chiosso met Buscaglione in 1938 in the nightclubs of Turin, where Buscaglione was working as a jazz singer. The formed a songwriting duo that went on to produce more than 40 songs.

However, their friendship was interrupted by the Second World War.  Chiosso was taken prisoner and deported to Poland, where he became friends with the writer Giovanni Guareschi, while Buscaglione was sent to a US internment camp in Sardinia.

It was only when Chiosso heard Buscaglione playing in a musical broadcast by the allied radio station in Cagliari that he knew his friend was still alive.

They were reunited in Turin after the war and continued to write songs together. Chiosso was an avid reader of American crime fiction, which inspired his lyrics and also suited Buscaglione’s amiable gangster image.

Chiosso's songwriting partner Fred Buscaglione used to favour an 'American gangster' look
Chiosso's songwriting partner Fred Buscaglione
used to favour an 'American gangster' look
Their first hit was Che bambola in 1956, which turned humorous tough guy Buscaglione into a celebrity.

A subsequent hit was Love in Portofino, recently recorded by Andrea Bocelli and also the inspiration for one of his albums.

The last time the pair worked together was on the 1960 film Noi duri, which featured Buscaglione and the famous Italian comic actor, Totò. Chiosso wrote both the story and the script for the film as well as the lyrics for the songs. But while they were making the film, Buscaglione was killed in a car crash.

Chiosso’s career continued to be successful without his friend and he wrote the lyrics for many famous songs. He was involved with the making of the popular television music show, Canzonissima and he wrote stories and scripts for cinema. He wrote his last song in 2003, Quando piove sulla spiaggia - When it rains on the beach.

After having lived for more than 30 years in Rome, Chiosso returned to his home town in the province of Turin.

Chiosso died in Chieri in 2006 at the age of 86. After his death, Mondadori published a book he had been working on towards the end of his life, which was entitled simply, Fred Buscaglione.

In 2008 the Leo Chiosso Festival della Canzone was initiated.

Chieri's Duomo, the church of Santa Maria della Scala
Chieri's Duomo, the church of Santa Maria della Scala
Travel tip:

Chieri, where Leo Chiosso was born and died, is a small town about 11km (7 miles) southeast of Turin. One of the main sights is the Gothic-style Duomo built in 1037 and reconstructed in 1405, which is the largest in Piedmont and has a 13th century octagonal Baptistery. In 2002 Chieri experienced Italy’s worst civilian gun massacre when an unemployed gun enthusiast with a history of mental illness killed seven people and then shot himself in Via Parini in the town.


Piazza Castello is at the heart of 'royal' Turin
Piazza Castello is at the heart of 'royal' Turin
Travel tip:

Turin, the capital city of the region of Piedmont, has some fine architecture that illustrates its rich history as the home of the Savoy kings of Italy. The beautiful square Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library and Palazzo Madama, which used to house the Italian senate, is at the heart of ‘royal’ Turin.

More reading:

How Andrea Bocelli conquered the worlds of opera and pop

The enduring talent of Adriano Celentano

Domenico Modugno - writer of the iconic hit Volare

Also on this day:

1173: Work begins on what would become the Leaning Tower of Pisa

1988: The birth of NBA basketball player Danilo Gallinari


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7 January 2017

Vincent Gardenia - TV and film actor

US sitcom star with Neapolitan roots


Vincent Gardenia in Moonstruck, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award
Vincent Gardenia in Moonstruck, for which he
was nominated for an Academy Award
The actor Vincent Gardenia, one of the most recognisable faces on American television in the 1960s and 1970s and twice nominated for an Oscar for his film roles, was born on this day in 1920 in what is now Ercolano, a town that forms part of the Naples metropolitan area.

Gardenia starred as the father of Cher's character in the film Moonstruck, was the detective Frank Ochoa alongside Charles Bronson in Death Wish and was Mr Mushnik in the musical film adaptation of Little Shop of Horrors.

On television, he portrayed J Edgar Hoover in the mini-series Kennedy, starring Martin Sheen as the murdered former president, but was perhaps best known as Archie Bunker's neighbour Frank Lorenzo in the 70s comedy hit All in the Family, which was the American version of the iconic British comedy Till Death Us Do Part.

Born Vincenzo Scognamiglio, he spent only the first two years of his life in Italy before his family took the decision to emigrate to the United States, settling in New York in the borough of Brooklyn.

Vincent Gardenia (right) with Rue McClanahan starred with Jean Stapleton (left) and Caroll O'Connor in All in the Family
Vincent Gardenia (right) with Rue McClanahan starred with
Jean Stapleton (left) and Caroll O'Connor in All in the Family
His father, Gennaro, had worked as an actor and theatre manager in Naples and soon after arriving in New York established an Italian-language acting troupe that specialized in melodramas, giving performances in the city's many Italian neighbourhoods.

Vincenzo made his debut at the age of five, playing a shoeshine boy.  He began playing character roles while still a teenager.

The troupe continued to provide him with a living into adulthood, when his acting ability began to attract interest from further afield.

He became known as Vincent Gardenia after deciding to adopt his father's middle name as his stage second name.  From the early 1950s he began to take roles away from the family troupe and made his Broadway debut in 1955, when he took an English-speaking part for the first time, portraying a pirate in the play In April Once.

The following year he appeared as Piggy in The Man With the Golden Arm, followed by roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and Stalag 17.  His talent for comedy came to the fore in the 1970s, when he starred in the in the Neil Simon plays God's Favorite, California Suite and The Prisoner of Second Avenue.

Gardenia as detective Frank  Ochoa in Death Wish
Gardenia as detective Frank
Ochoa in Death Wish
He won a Tony Award for his performance as Peter Falk's brother in The Prisoner of Second Avenue in 1971.  At the awards ceremony, he gave his acceptance speech in Italian as a tribute to his late father, without whose encouragement, he said, his career might never have happened.

Gardenia's film career, which had begun in 1945 with a bit part in The House on 92nd Street but did not begin in earnest until the 1960s, included roles in the Paul Newman movie The Hustler and director Alan Arkin's debut film Little Murders. 

He was nominated for an Oscar in 1973 for best supporting actor for his role as Dutch, the baseball manager in Bang the Drum Slowly, which starred a then little-known Robert de Niro. Subsequently, he appeared in The Front Page, Heaven Can Wait and Little Shop of Horrors before being nominated for an Academy Award for the second time for Moonstruck in 1987.

Gardenia was working right up until his death in December 1992.  A passionate supporter of the pure acting of the theatre, he was in Philadelphia, preparing for a three-week run as restaurant owner Lou Garziano in the Tom Dulack comedy Breaking Legs, when he suffered a heart attack.

He had retired to his hotel room in good spirits following the final preview performance but was found dead the following morning.  He was 72.

The Scognamiglio grave at Saint Charles Cemetery on Long Island
The Scognamiglio grave at Saint Charles
Cemetery on Long Island
The director and cast agreed that Gardenia would have insisted 'the show must go on' in best theatrical traditions and his part was taken by Harry Guardino in a performance dedicated by the cast to their colleague.

Gardenia was buried at Saint Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, alongside his parents, both of whom had died in the 1960s. A section of 16th Avenue in the Bensonhurst neighbourhood of Brooklyn, where Gardenia lived, was renamed Vincent Gardenia Boulevard in his memory.

Travel tip:

Until 1969, the town now called Ercolano was known as Resina, the name given to the medieval settlement that built on top of the volcanic material left by the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius that also destroyed nearby Pompeii.  The existence of Ercolano - the Roman city of Herculaneum - was not known until the early 18th century, when a farmer sinking a well came across ancient marble columns.  Herculaneum was smaller and less prestigious than Pompeii but is better preserved due to the different volcanic materials that covered the town.

The ruins at Ercolano are better preserved than at its more famous neighbour Pompeii
The ruins at Ercolano are better preserved than at its
more famous neighbour Pompeii
Travel tip:

The ruins at Pompeii and Ercolano can both be reached by using the Circumvesuviana railway, which encompasses a number of routes including the oldest piece of railway line in Italy, that which links Naples and Portici, which was opened in 1839.  A steam train service to Ottoviano was launched in 1891 and the first decade of the 20th century saw the line extended to Pompeii along the coast, with an additional line built to encircle Mount Vesuvius.  The coastal line was electrified and stretched to Castellammare di Stabia by 1934. The Second World War and the Vesuvius eruption of 1944 interrupted work on the line but after the war a tunnel of 10km was created to link Castellammare with Vico Equense and the line extended to Sorrento by 1948.

More reading:



Triumph and tragedy: the short life of Rudolph Valentino

How Rossano Brazzi quit his legal career to become a Hollywood heartbreaker

Also on this day:


1797: Italy's 'tricolore' raised for the first time




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9 December 2016

Bruno Ruffo - motorcycle racer

Italy's first world champion on two wheels


Bruno Ruffo in action on the track
Bruno Ruffo in action on the track
Motorcycle racer Bruno Ruffo, winner of the inaugural 250cc World Champion- ship in 1949, was born on this day in 1920 in Colognola ai Colli, a village in the province of Verona.

He shares with Nello Pagani the distinction of being Italy's first world champion motorcyclist, Pagani having won the first world title in the 125cc class in the same year.

Ruffo wanted to race from the age of eight, having become fascinated with the motorcycles and cars that his rather repaired in his workshop.

He was able to drive a car at the age of 10 and was given his first motorcycle by his father as a 16th birthday present.  He entered a race for the first time the following year at Montagnana near Padua and won. The minimum age for participants was 18 and it later transpired he had falsified his identity papers to take part.

The Second World War interrupted his progress.  Drafted into the Italian Army, Ruffo served for 20 months on the Russian front.

After the war, he bought a Moto Guzzi 250, which he raced privately, enjoying considerable success in 1946, when he won nine of the 11 races he entered in the cadet class.

He was Italian champion in the senior 250cc class in both 1947 and 1948, his victory in the Grand Prix of Nations at Faenza in the second of those years earning an invitation to join Moto Guzzi's official team when the Grand Prix World Championship was launched in 1949.

Giacomo Agostini
Giacomo Agostini
Ruffo won the very first race in the 250cc category in Switzerland.  A second place in the Ulster GP and fourth in the GP of Nations at Monza gave him enough points from the six eligible events to finish top of the points classification.

Moto Guzzi dropped out of the 1950 championship in the 250cc class but gave Ruffo permission to race for Mondial in the 125cc class, in which he claimed his second world title.

Victories in the French and Ulster GPs in a championship expanded to eight races in 1951 enabled him to clinch his second 250cc world title and he was hot favourite to land a third in 1952 only for a crash in Stuttgart in July to rule him out of the last three events.

Injuries sustained in another crash in 1953 persuaded him to retire from racing on two wheels but he continued his career in motorsport, switching to cars.  Driving for Alfa Romeo and Maserati, he had several podium finishes.

He quit racing for good in 1958 after a miraculous escape when his Maserati overturned at 200kph in an uphill time trial. He had to be cut from the wreckage but recovered from his injuries and decided not to push his luck any further.

Cars remained central to his life after his racing career ended with the establishment of a successful vehicle rental business in Verona.

The bronze monument to Bruno Ruffo in Verona
The bronze monument to Bruno Ruffo in Verona
Already honoured in 1955 when he was made a Knight of Merit of the Italian Republic, in 2003 the title of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic was conferred upon him by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

The award put him in the company of Giacomo Agostini, Pier Paolo Bianchi, Eugenio Lazzarini and Carlo Ubbiali as recipients of the award for their success in motorcycle racing.

Ruffo died in 2007, aged 86.  His life is commemorated in Verona with a monument in bronze depicting a human figure crouched over a speeding motorcycle, and in Colognola ai Colli with a sports hall named in his honour.

Travel tip:

The monument to Bruno Ruffo, created by the artist Marco da Ronco, can be found a short distance from Verona's central Piazza Bra, in a small garden at the junction of Via Roma and Via Morette.  Piazza Bra adjoins the Arena di Verona, the Roman amphitheatre nowadays used as a venue for music concerts and in particular opera, for which it is among the most famous outdoor settings in the world.


Montagnana's medieval city walls are still intact
Montagnana's medieval city walls are still intact
Travel tip:

Montagnana, where Ruffo won his first race on a dirt track, is best known for having one of the best preserved medieval city walls in Europe, as well as two castles, the Rocca degli Alberi and the Castle of San Zeno.  Andrea Palladio's Villa Pisani is another nearby tourist attraction.







More reading:

Giacomo Agostini, Italy's 15 times World Motorcycling Champion

Enrico Piaggio - creator of Italy's iconic Vespa scooter

Luigi Fagioli - Formula One's oldest winning driver

Also on this day:

1920: The birth of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the minister who took Italy into the Euro

(Picture credits: Montagana walls by Zavijavah; Giacomo Agostini by Gede; both via Wikimedia Commons)



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19 October 2016

Fiorenzo Magni - cycling champion

Rider from Tuscany won Giro d'Italia three times


Fiorenzo Magni
Fiorenzo Magni
Italy lost one of its finest professional riders and its last link with the so-called golden age of Italian cycle racing when Fiorenzo Magni died on this day in 2012.

Tuscan-born Magni was a multiple champion, winning the Giro d'Italia three times, as well as three Italian Road Race Championships.  He had seven stage wins in the Tour de France, in which he wore the yellow jersey as race leader for a total of nine days.

His other major victories were in the demanding Tour of Flanders, in which he became only the second non-Belgian winner in 1949 and went on to win three times in a row, a feat yet to be matched.

Magni might have been even more successful had his career not coincided with those of two greats of Italian cycling, the five-times Giro champion Fausto Coppi, who was twice winner of the Tour de France, and Gino Bartali, who won three Giros and one Tour de France.

His reputation for toughness, however, was unrivalled.  He relished racing in harsh, wintry weather, as often prevailed in the Tour de Flanders, and refused to give in to injuries if he happened to have a fall.

Fiorenzo Magni finished second in the 1956 Giro d'Italia by  using a tyre inner tube gripped in his teeth to steer
Fiorenzo Magni finished second in the 1956 Giro d'Italia by
using a tyre inner tube gripped in his teeth to steer
The classic example of this came in the 1956 Giro d'Italia, his final ride in Italy's foremost event, when an accident left with a broken left collarbone only halfway through the race.

He was taken to hospital but refused a plaster cast and continued the race with his shoulder wrapped in an elastic bandage. Unable to apply force with his left arm, he effectively steered the bike using his teeth, with which he pulled on a piece of rubber inner tube attached to his handlebar.

However, unable to brake with his left hand, he crashed again after hitting a ditch by the road during a descent.  This time he broke his left elbow, while the pain from landing on his already broken collarbone caused him to pass out.

Yet even then he refused to retire, screaming for the driver to stop when he regained his senses in the ambulance.

Amazingly he finished second, although his cause had been helped by 60 competitors abandoning the race because of treacherous snow and ice in Trento.

Magni pictured in his army uniform in 1943
Magni pictured in his army uniform in 1943
Given his reputation as one of the hardest cyclists in the history of the sport, it was somewhat ironic that when, in 1954, he became the first rider to be sponsored by a commercial backer outside the sport, his contract was with Nivea, who manufactured cosmetics for women.

Controversy haunted his life away from cycling.  His wartime service with the Italian Army began with four years based with the 19th Regiment in Florence but in 1944 he was enlisted to the Italian Voluntary Militia for National Security, which was originally the paramilitary wing of the National Fascist Party, commonly known as the Blackshirts.  Its members had to swear allegiance to Mussolini.

His unit was involved into a violent confrontation with Calenzano partisans in the Apennines, which became known as Battle of Valibona. After the war, identified by a cycling fan among the partisans who claimed Magni stood over him with a gun, he appeared in court, facing a possible 30 years in prison if found guilty of taking part.

In the end he was cleared, testimony from a fellow cyclist supporting his claim to have arrived at the scene of the incident after it had ended.  Later, evidence emerged of Magni fighting on the side of the partisans near Monza, but many Italians remained sceptical and his reputation suffered, even at the height of his career in the saddle.

The Church of the Madonna del Ghisallo
The Church of the Madonna del Ghisallo
Born in Vaiano, a small town in Tuscany about 25km from Florence and 10km north of Prato, in 1920, Magni settled in Monza towards the end of his career, opening a motorcycle dealership and then a car dealership.  He was still working into his mid-80s.

He retained an interest in cycling, helping to establish and maintain a museum and cyclists' chapel at the top of the climb at Madonna del Ghisallo, above Bellagio on Lake Como.

In his later years, he lived in Monticello Brianza, a small community north of Monza, close to the road linking Bergamo with Como in Lombardy.  He died there aged 91.  His funeral took place at the Duomo in Monza.

The Abbey of San Salvatore at Vaiano
The Abbey of San Salvatore at Vaiano
Travel tip:

The town of Vaiano in the northern hills of Tuscany, just above Prato, is notable for the Abbey of San Salvatore, built in the ninth of 10th century, which is at the heart of the medieval village around which the town grew.  The bell tower was built in 1258.  Vaiano prides itself on its tortelli, a form of stuffed pasta, and holds a Tortello Festival every June.

Travel tip:

The Madonna del Ghisallo, the name given to an apparition of the Virgin Mary the medieval Count Ghisallo claimed saved him when he was being attacked by bandits, became the patroness of cyclists at the suggestion of a local priest after the hill upon which a shrine to the Madonna was built was included in the Giro di Lombardia and later the Giro d'Italia.  The Church of the Madonna del Ghisallo honours cyclists who have died in competition and an adjoining museum contains many bikes and shirts worn by riders down the years.

More reading:

The first Giro d'Italia

Attilio Pavesi - Italy's first Olympic road race champion



(Photo of Church of the Madonna del Ghisallo by Marco Bonavoglia CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Abbey of San Salvatore by Massimilianogalardi CC BY-SA 3.0)

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14 April 2016

Lamberto Dalla Costa - Olympic bobsleigh champion

Fighter pilot who became first Italian to win a Gold medal


Lamberto dalla Costa is carried by members of  the Italian team after his victory in 1956
Lamberto Dalla Costa is carried by members of
the Italian team after his victory in 1956
Lamberto Dalla Costa, part of the team that brought Italy its first gold medal for Olympic bobsleigh, was born on this day in 1920 in Crespano del Grappa, a small town in the Treviso province of the Veneto situated where the Venetian plain meets the foothills of the Alps at its northern edge.

Dalla Costa was an adventurous individual with a passion for flying. He joined the Italian Air Force as a volunteer during World War Two and subsequently became a combat pilot who rose eventually to the rank of air marshall.  His exploits in action earned him a silver medal for valour.

When Italy was chosen to host the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo they were determined to have a successful Games and were looking for improvement in bobsleigh in particular, having competed in all six previous Olympics without reaching the podium.

There was a tradition of looking towards the military to provide the crews for the bobsleigh events and Dalla Costa was selected, even though he had never been involved with high-level competitive sport, after demonstrating the right level of skill and discipline.

It was an advantage when the Games came round that Dalla Costa and his colleagues were able to practise on the Cortina d'Ampezzo track, gaining familiarity with every quirk.  Partnered with another air force recruit, Major Giacomo Conti, from Palermo in Sicily, Dalla Costa registered the fastest times in all four heats and won the two-man bob event by more than a second from the second Italian crew of Eugenio Monti and Renzo Alvera.

Evening in Cortina d'Ampezzo looking towards the Campanile Filippo e Giacomo,
Evening in Cortina d'Ampezzo, looking
towards Campanile Filippo and Giacomo
It turned out to be Italy's only gold at the Games.  Monti won silver in both the two and four-man events and went on to become one of Italy's most successful Winter Olympians, winning six medals in total, including two golds at the 1968 Games in Grenoble.

Dalla Costa and Conti's success inspired a new surge of interest in bobsleigh in Italy and for the four winter Games Italy was the dominant country, collecting nine medals in the two events.

Already approaching his 36th birthday, Dalla Costa competed for another year but retired after the 1957 World Championships.  He was awarded the gold medal by the Italian Olympic Committee in 1965. He died in 1982 at the age of 62 in Bergamo.

Travel tip:

Known as the Queen of the Dolomites, Cortina d'Ampezzo began to attract visitors from Germany and Britain as early as the late 19th century but it was thanks to the 1956 Winter Olympics that Cortina d'Ampezzo took off as a favourite destination for winter holidays. It became popular with the rich and famous, with Sophia Loren, Clark Gable, David Niven, Ingrid Bergman, Brigitte Bardot, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton and Alberto Sordi among the celebrity regulars. During the winter months, the population soars from 6,000 to 50,000. The 50th anniversary of the 1956 Games was celebrated this year with a two-day festival called Cortinissima 56.

The military monument on the summit of Monte Grappa
The military monument on the summit of Monte Grappa
(Photo: Nikmilano CC BY-SA 3.0)
Travel tip:

Crespano del Grappa is a small town situated in the shadow of Monte Grappa, part of what is known as the pre-Alps, to the north of the Venetian plain, rising to 1,175 metres above sea level.  Monte Grappa was the setting for decisive battles during World War One and is now the site of a vast military cemetery, Cimo Grappa.  At the highest point is a monument, opened in 1935, in which are housed the remains of some 12,615 soldiers, with as many as 10,332 unknown.  The monument is composed of five concentric rings positioned one above the other so as to form a pyramid. At the top is the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Grappa.

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13 April 2016

Roberto Calvi – banker

Mystery remains over bizarre death of bank chairman


Roberto Calvi came to be known as God's Banker
God's Banker: Roberto Calvi
Roberto Calvi, dubbed God’s Banker by the Press because of his close association with the Vatican, was born on this day in 1920 in Milan.

In 1982 his body was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge close to London’s financial district. His death is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily solved and it has been made the subject of many books and films.

Calvi was the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano in Milan, which had direct links to Pope John Paul II through his bodyguard, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was also was head of the Vatican Bank, which had shares in Ambrosiano.

Calvi had been missing for nine days before his body was found by a passer-by in London. At first police treated his death as suicide but a year later a second inquest overturned this and delivered an open verdict.

In October 2002, forensic experts commissioned by an Italian court finally concluded Calvi had been murdered.

Calvi had become chairman of Ambrosiano, Italy’s largest private bank, in 1975 and had built up a vast financial empire.

But three years later the Bank of Italy issued a report claiming Ambrosiano had illegally exported several million lire.

Calvi was arrested, found guilty and sentenced to four years' imprisonment but was then released pending an appeal.

During his short time in prison he had attempted suicide. But he disappeared after his release before he could appear in court to appeal against his conviction.

He was also due to be tried on charges of fraud involving property deals with a Sicilian banker, who was at the time in prison in America following the collapse of a bank in New York.

Calvi is known to have fled to Venice and hired a private plane to take him to London but nothing is known about the time he spent in the city.

Roberto Calvi was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in 1982
Blackfriars Bridge in London, where Calvi's body was found
(Photo: Peter Trimming CC BY-SA  3.0)

The day before his body was found hanging under the bridge, his secretary had jumped off the fourth floor of Ambrosiano’s headquarters in Milan.

When Calvi was found he had bricks in his pockets and in the fly of his trousers, but forensic tests later revealed that his hands had never touched them. He was also carrying large sums of money in different currencies, which seemed to rule out robbery as a motive.

The tests also concluded that the injuries to Calvi’s neck were inconsistent with hanging and it was revealed that at the time of his death the level of the river had been high enough for someone to have tied his body to the bridge while standing up in a boat below it. There was no evidence from Calvi’s hands or feet that he had climbed over the parapet and fixed the rope himself.

Five people were tried for Calvi’s murder in Rome in 2005 but after proceedings lasting almost two years they were all acquitted, the judge citing "insufficient evidence." Marcinkus was granted immunity from questioning as a Vatican employee and has since retired and died.

Calvi’s death remains a mystery but claims have been made about it at various times in books and newspapers that involve the Vatican Bank, the Mafia, and Propaganda Due (P2), a clandestine Masonic Lodge, of which Calvi was a member.

P2 members sometimes referred to themselves as frati neri, black friars, which led to suggestions Calvi might have been murdered and left hanging below that particular bridge as some kind of Masonic warning.


Palazzo Mezzanotte, home to the Milan Stock Exchange
(Photo: Goldmund 100 CC BY-SA 3.0)
Travel tip:

Milan is the main industrial, commercial and financial centre of Italy. The business district is home to the Borsa Italiana (stock exchange) and the headquarters of the main national banks. The Borsa is located in Palazzo Mezzanotte in Piazza Affari (Business Square). 

Travel tip:

The Vatican Bank in Vatican City is also known as the Institute for the Works of Religion and was founded by Pope Pius XII in 1942. In June 2013, Pope Francis appointed a commission to review the Institute’s activities and in October of the same year the first ever annual report was published and made available for download from the Institute’s new website, www.ior.va.

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20 January 2016

Federico Fellini – film director

The cinematic legacy of Rimini’s most famous son


Federico Fellini, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, was born on this day in Rimini in 1920.

Fellini was one of Italy's greatest film directors
Federico Fellini
He had a career lasting almost 50 years and his films were nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won four Oscars, each for Best Foreign Language Film, with La strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8½ and Amarcord.

Fellini went to Rome to study Law at University but ended up working as a journalist instead.

His assignments for a magazine gave him the opportunity to meet people involved in show business and he eventually got work as a script writer for films and radio.

Fellini worked as both a screenwriter and assistant director on Roberto Rossellini films as well as producing and directing for other filmmakers.

He began work on his first solo film, The White Sheik, in 1951. It received mixed reviews but in 1953 his film, I vitelloni, pleased both the public and the critics.

He won his first Academy Award with Nights of Cabiria, starring his wife, Giulietta Masini, in 1953.  Based on a story by Fellini, the film is about a prostitute who searches in vain for true love.


Watch the scene in La dolce vita in which Anita Ekberg bathes in the Trevi Fountain




Fellini’s film La dolce vita, starring Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni and set in Rome, broke all box office records in 1960 and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival. It is one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time.

Amarcord was based on his own memories of growing up in Rimini and features a group of adolescents living in a provincial town in Italy in the 1930s.
Mastroianni starred in Fellini's iconic movie La Dolce Vita
Fellini's La Dolce Vita starred
Marcello Mastroianni

It was Fellini’s second biggest commercial success after La dolce vita and won him his fourth Oscar. 

In 1985 he received an award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale and he was also awarded an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1993.

Fellini died in Rome in October of the same year after suffering a stroke. At the request of his wife, “Improvviso dell’Angelo by Nino Rota, who had written the music for all of films, was played during his funeral.

The airport at Rimini has since been named the Federico Fellini airport in his honour.

Travel tip:

With wide sandy beaches, and plenty of hotels and restaurants, Rimini is one of the most popular seaside resorts in Europe, but it is also a historic town with many interesting things to see. The Tempio Maletestiano is a 13th century Gothic church,originally built for the Franciscans, that was transformed on the outside in the 15th century and decorated inside with frescoes by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto and many other artists.



The Tempio Maletestiano houses works by Piero della Francesca and others
The Tempio Maletestiano in Rimini
Travel tip:

The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs (Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri) where Fellini’s funeral was held, is inside the former baths of Diocletian in Piazza della Repubblica in Rome. It was built on the orders of Pope Pius IV in 1561 to be dedicated to all Christian martyrs, known and unknown. Michelangelo and Vanvitelli both contributed to the design of the church.


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9 December 2015

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi - prime minister and president

The politician who took Italy into the euro


The politician and banker, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was born on this day in 1920 in Livorno.
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Photo: Presidency of the Italian Republic


He was the 49th Prime Minister of Italy between 1993 and 1994 and the tenth president, in office from 1999 to 2006.

Ciampi studied ancient Greek literature in Pisa, before being called up to do military duty, but in 1943 he refused to stay with the Fascists and took refuge in Abruzzo.

He managed to get to Bari, where he joined the Italian resistance movement.

After the war, he gained a doctorate in law from Pisa University and began working at the Banca d’Italia. He went on to become Governor of the bank and then President of the National Bureau de Change.

Ciampi was the first-non parliamentarian prime minister of Italy for more than 100 years, appointed by the President, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, to oversee a technical government.

Later, as the treasury minister under Romano Prodi and Massimo d’Alema, Ciampi, a staunch supporter of the EU, adopted the euro currency for Italy.

When he was elected president, he had a broad majority and was only the second president ever to be elected at the first ballot. He was held in high regard by all the political groups in parliament.
Rome's Palazzo Quirinale, official residence of
the Italian President


He was succeeded by Giorgio Napoletano and is currently a senator for life in the Italian senate.

Travel tip:

Livorno is a port on the western coast of Tuscany, which deals with thousands of cruise ship passengers. The city used to be known as Leghorn in English and there is an English cemetery in Via Giuseppe Verdi, with the graves of many former British residents, including the novelist. Tobias Smollett.

Travel tip:

Abruzzo is a region on the Adriatic coast, bordered by Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and Molise to the south. One third of its territory is made up of national parks and nature reserves that are home to protected species, such as the brown bear.

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