Nunzia De Girolamo - politician and television presenter

Lawyer who moved from debating to dancing

De Girolamo served in prime minister
Enrico Letta's cabinet from 2013 to 2014

Politician and lawyer Nunzia De Girolamo, who served as Minister of Agriculture in the government of Enrico Letta from 2013 to 2014, was born on this day in 1975 in Benevento in Campania.

Nunzia became a member of the Italian parliament, representing Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, in 2008, and she was re-elected to parliament in 2013. She went on to become the youngest member of the Letta cabinet and one of just seven female politicians appointed.

While growing up, Nunzia attended the Liceo Classico Pietro Giannone in Benevento and then entered the faculty of jurisprudence to study law at the University of Rome La Sapienza. After graduating, she went into the legal profession.

Nunzia worked in the fields of civil law, employment law, and commercial law before going into politics.

She became a member of Forza Italia, but left the party in 2009. Voters chose her as an individual member of the People of Freedom party, when she stood for parliament for the second time.

In 2011, she married Francesco Boccia, the Minister for Regional Affairs and Autonomy. They had a daughter, who they named Gea.

After leaving the People of Freedom party in November 2013, Nunzia joined Angelino Alfano’s New Centre Right party.

However, she resigned from office in 2014, after claims were made that she had conducted herself improperly. Nunzia denied any wrongdoing, saying she had left her ministerial post in order to defend herself against the allegations made against her. After Prime Minister Letta accepted her resignation, Nunzia became the second minister to resign from the cabinet in the nine months since the elections.

With dancer Raimondo Todaro, De Girolamo
 reached the finals of Ballando con le Stelle

She subsequently served as House whip for the New Centre Right party, but she failed to be re-elected to the Chamber in the 2018 elections.

In 2019, Nunzia took part in the 14th series of the programme, Ballando con le Stelle, Italy’s version of the BBC's popular programme, Strictly Come Dancing and America's Dancing with the Stars. 

She was partnered by professional dancer Raimondo Todaro and the couple enjoyed some lively exchanges with the programme’s panel of judges at the end of their dances each week, yet were popular enough with the public to be one of six couples voted through to the finals show. 

The former politician’s Ballando con le Stelle appearances have since been followed by regular television work presenting programmes for Rai Uno.

Benevento's Arch of Trajan
echoes the city's Roman past

Travel tip: 

Benevento, Nunzia De Girolamo's birthplace, is a city built on a hill some 50km (31 miles) northeast of Naples in Campania. As Beneventum, it was an important Roman trading station along the Via Appia route between Rome and Brindisi and its Roman remains are a particular attraction to visitors. An outdoor theatre built by Hadrian to seat 10,000 spectators has been preserved in relatively good condition, as has the city's marble Trajan's Arch, built during the second century to mark the opening of the Via Traiano trade route. The arch had ornate decorative carvings of exceptional detail, which celebrate the life and times of Emperor Trajan. Benevento suffered extensive damage from bombing in World War Two and several major buildings, including the city's Duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria de Episcopio - had to undergo restoration or complete rebuilding work. The church of Saint Sophia, a circular building with Byzantine touches consecrated in around 760, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

The palace housing the Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza
church, which was bought with a tax on wine

Travel tip: 

The University of Rome - often referred to as the Sapienza University of Rome or simply La Sapienza, meaning 'knowledge' - was founded in 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII, as a place for  ecclesiastical studies over which he could exert greater control than the already established universities of Bologna and Padua. The first pontifical university, it expanded in the 15th century to include schools of Law, Medicine, Philosophy and Theology. Money raised from a new tax on wine enabled the university to buy a palace, which later housed the Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza church. The university was closed during the sack of Rome in 1527 but reopened by Pope Paul III in 1534. In 1870, La Sapienza ceased to be the papal university and as the university of the capital of Italy became recognised as the country's most prestigious seat of learning. A new modern campus was built in 1935 under the guidance of the architect Marcello Piacentini. 

Also on this day:

1881: The death of missionary Saint Daniele Comboni

1891: The birth of Mafia boss Stefano Maggadino

1921: The birth of poet Andrea Zanzotto

Home

Giorgia Meloni - politician

Italy’s first female prime minister 

Giorgia Meloni, the first woman to be elected Italy's
PM, on the day she was asked to form a government

Politician Giorgia Meloni, who was elected as Italy’s first female prime minister in October 2022, was born on this day in 1977 in Rome.

Meloni, head of the Fratelli d’Italia party of which she is a co-founder, is a controversial figure in that her political roots are in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the party formed by supporters of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after World War Two. In the past, she has described Mussolini as a “good politician” but one who “made mistakes”. 

Yet she rejects accusations that Fratelli d’Italia - Brothers of Italy - is a far-right party, despite adopting the fascist slogan ‘God, family, fatherland’ and incorporating the tricolore flame from the MSI logo within FdI’s own branding.

Meloni came from a fractured family background. Her Sardinian father, Francesco, left her Sicilian mother, Anna, when she was a year old and she and her older sister, Arianna, were brought up largely by her mother in the working class Garbatella area of Rome.

She studied languages at the Istituto Amerigo Vespucci, a high school about 50 minutes across Rome from where she lived, and today describes herself as able to speak Spanish, English and French as well as her native tongue.

A teenaged Meloni unfurls a banner
for the Youth Action movement

It was while she was at high school that she became politically active, joining Azione Giovani, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement, before switching to the once neo-fascist Alleanza Nazionale (AN), itself an MSI offshoot. 

As an AN candidate, she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 2006, standing in the Lazio 1 constituency, the boundaries of which correspond to those of the Metropolitan City of Rome.

Re-elected in 2008 on the list of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, which brought together the AN and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, Meloni became the youngest cabinet minister in the history of the Italian Republic when Berlusconi made her Minister for Youth at the age of 31.

Her membership of People of Freedom ended in 2012, however, after a disagreement over the party’s support for technocrat prime minister Mario Monti. With Ignazio LaRussa, Guido Crosetto and others, she formed Fratelli d’Italia, of which she became president in 2014.

Under Meloni’s leadership, Fdl grew from winning just four per cent of the vote at the 2018 general elections to 26 per cent in the snap election of 2022, which made Fratelli d’Italia the biggest single party in the Italian parliament.

Although both Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration Lega saw their share of the vote fall, they joined with Fratelli d’Italia in a coalition worth around 44 per cent of votes in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, enough to outvote the centre-left Democratic Party and the populist Five Star Movement even if they were to join forces.

The FdI's logo incorporates
the tricolore flame of the MSI

Meloni describes herself as mainstream conservative and a Christian, although her political position is less forgiving in many areas than other European politicians who would identify themselves similarly.

For example, she is opposed to abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and LGBT parenting, and supports a naval blockade to stop boats carrying immigrants across the Mediterranean. While committed to NATO, she was generally lukewarm about the European Union until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, after which she distanced herself from previous comments on forging better relations with Vladimir Putin and pledged to keep sending Italian arms to Ukraine.

Meloni’s opponents frequently cite her approval for Mussolini and coalition with Salvini as a warning that Italy may lurch to the right under her premiership, yet Fratelli d’Italia have gone on record as condemning both the suppression of democracy and the introduction of the Italian racial laws by Mussolini’s regime. Meloni herself insists that there is no place for fascist nostalgia in her party and that her own links with it are in the past.

Although not married, Meloni shares a home with Andrea Giambruno, a journalist for TGcom24, a news channel within Berlusconi’s Mediaset group. They have a daughter, Ginevra, who was born in 2016.

The Art Nouveau design of the Teatro Palladio,
a well-known feature of the Garbatella district

Travel tip:

Although traditionally working class, the Garbatella neighbourhood of Rome, where Giorgia Meloni grew up, is becoming increasingly trendy among young Romans, drawn to it having the feeling of a village within the metropolis.  Situated in Municipio VIII district south of the city centre near the Ostiense railway station, Garbatella was built in the 1920s, inspired by the English garden city, largely made up of single-family houses grouped around communal garden courtyards. It has some interesting architectural styles, including the Teatro Palladio in Piazza Bartolomeo Romano, an example of Art Nouveau style designed by Innocenzo Sabbatini in 1927. Garbatella today has a population of more than 45,000.

The Palazzo Monticitorio was chosen as the home
of the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1871

Travel tip:

The Italian Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian parliament, sits at the Palazzo Montecitorio, which can be found between the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps. The Palazzo Chigi, official residence of Italian prime ministers, is nearby. Palazzo Montecitorio was originally designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Ludovico Ludovisi, the nephew of Pope Gregory XV. Following Italian unification, the palace was chosen as the seat of the Chamber of Deputies in 1871 but the building proved inadequate for their needs, with poor acoustics and a tendency to become overheated in summer and inhospitably cold in winter. After extensive renovations had been carried out, with many Stile Liberty touches introduced by the architect Ernesto Basile, the chamber returned to the palace in 1918.

Also on this day: 

1623: The death of writer and statesman Paolo Sarpi

1926: The death of songwriter and sculptor Giambattista De Curtis

1935: The birth of football coach Gigi Radice

1971: The birth of rugby player Paolo Vaccari

Home

Adriano Galliani - entrepreneur, politician and football executive

Businessman was CEO of AC Milan in golden era 

Adriano Galliani was AC Milan's chief
executive for 21 mostly successful years

The entrepreneur Adriano Galliani, who was chief executive of AC Milan for 21 years, was born on this day in 1944 in Monza, the Lombardy city a little under 20km (12 miles) north of Milan.

With Galliani at the helm, Milan won the Serie A title eight times and were five-times winners of the Champions League in what was a golden era for the club.

Galliani became CEO at the club in 1986 when the ownership transferred to Silvio Berlusconi, the businessman and future prime minister with whom he had created the commercial TV company Mediaset.

He was responsible for some of the club’s most spectacular player signings, persuading such global stars as Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, George Weah, Andriy Shevchenko and Kaka to sign for the club.

All five won the Ballon D’Or, the annual award given to the player judged to the best player in all the European leagues, during their time with the club.

Since 2018, Galliani has held a seat in the Senate of the Italian parliament as a representative of Forza Italia, the political party founded by Berlusconi.

Galliani (left) and Silvio Berlusconi were business
partners before they took charge at AC Milan

Galliani hailed from a middle class family in Monza. His father was an official on the local council, his mother the owner of a small transport company. She died when he was only 15 years old, a loss he has described in interviews as devastating.

He trained as a surveyor and worked on various projects in Monza for eight years but had an entrepreneurial spirit which he claims he inherited from his mother and made his first commercial investment in a bathing establishment at Vieste on the Adriatic coast, near Foggia, some 810km (503 miles) from his hometown.

But the gamble that would change his life came in 1975, when he bought Elettronica Industriale, a company based near Monza at Lissone, which made the equipment needed to send and receive television signals.

The owner, Ottorino Barbuti, was one of many businessmen in Italy at that time who were worried about the rise of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), fearful that they if they were successful enough in parliamentary elections to form a government they would take the opportunity to seize private businesses and put them in public ownership.

Galliani, a Christian Democrat supporter, had more faith in the status quo being maintained and Elettronica Industriale prospered, becoming a supplier to Telemontecarlo, at the time the most successful private TV channel in Italy.

Galliani, with Dutch players Michael Reiziger (left)
and Edgar Davids, was responsible for recruitment 

Meanwhile, Berlusconi had launched Italy’s first private television network, TeleMilano, serving the new town of Milano Due he had built with his property company, Edilnord, and had ambitions to launch a nationwide network to challenge the national public broadcaster, Rai.

The two met for the first time in November, 1979, when Berlusconi invited him for dinner at Villa San Martino, his house at Arcore in the province of Monza and Brianza. Berlusconi spelled out his ambition to launch three national commercial channels to rival the three state channels that came under the Rai umbrella and Galliani put forward the proposition to create a national network of antennae to broadcast Berlusconi’s channels.  

Berlusconi bought 50 per cent of Elettronica Industriale and together he and Galliani changed the face of Italian television, adding Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4 to the choice of channels available to Italian viewers.

When Berlusconi bought AC Milan in 1986 it was natural he would turn to Galliani, a football enthusiast, to help him fulfil his dream of winning major titles with the rossoneri.  Working together, they would enjoy unparalleled success.

Galliani is now CEO at his
home town club, AC Monza

Coached by Arrigo Sacchi, Fabio Capello, Carlo Ancelotti and Massimiliano Allegri, AC Milan won eight Serie A titles and were European champions five times, although their run of success ended in 2011 with the power in Italian football shifting to Juventus.

Galliani’s judgment in the transfer market came under scrutiny, with his decision to allow midfielder Andrea Pirlo to leave Milan on a free transfer in 2011 seen as a symbolic mistake, the World Cup winner signing for Juventus and going on to have some of the best years of his career.

Berlusconi sold AC Milan in 2017, at which point Galliani ceased to be CEO, although he remained involved in the Berlusconi business empire as a director of Berlusconi’s Fininvest company and president of Mediaset Premium.

He returned to football in 2018 as CEO of his hometown club, Monza, which had been bought by Berlusconi and was soon promoted to Serie B of the championship.

In February, 2021, Galliani contracted Covid-19 and spent 10 days in intensive care in the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. On discharge, he admitted he feared he would die from the disease and that, after being confined to a windowless ICU, being back on a normal ward felt like being in the best room in a five-star hotel.

Married three times, Galliani has a grandson, Adrian, who was born in New York in 2001 and currently plays as a midfielder for the Greek club Olympiacos, having had a brief spell in England with Nottingham Forest.

The beautiful town of Vieste sits at the tip of
the Gargano peninsula in Puglia

Travel tip:

Vieste, where Galliani invested in a bathing facility in the early part of his business career, is a beautiful fishing port and tourist resort at the tip of the Gargano peninsula in Puglia, a little over 90km (55 miles) east of the city of Foggia. Part of the Gargano National Park, it sits on a stretch of coastline unusual for its combination of long, sandy beaches and rocky coves. At the end of one stretch of beach is the Pizzomunno, a 25m (82ft) limestone monolith separated by erosion from the adjacent cliffs. The town, which was regularly attacked by pirates, Saracens and other enemies of the Kingdom of Naples in medieval times, also has an attractive historic centre in which the milky white stone of the buildings contrasts with the emerald green of the sea.

Monza's Duomo has an attractive
facade in white and green marble 

Travel tip:

Monza, where Galliani was born, is about 15km (9 miles) to the north east of Milan. It is famous for its Grand Prix motor racing circuit, the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, which hosts the Formula One Italian Grand Prix. The city is also home to the Iron Crown of Lombardy, a circlet of gold with a central iron band, which according to legend, was beaten out of a nail from Christ’s true cross and was found by Saint Helena in the Holy Land. The crown is believed to have been given to the city of Monza in the sixth century and is kept in a chapel in the Cathedral of Saint John. When Napoleon Bonaparte was declared King of Italy in 1805, he was crowned in the Duomo in Milan and the Iron Crown had to be fetched from Monza before the ceremony. During his coronation, Napoleon is reported to have picked up the precious relic, announced that God had given it to him, and placed it on his own head.

Also on this day:

1626: Naples earthquake and tsunami kills 70,000 people

1909: The birth of chemist Vittorio Erspamer

2006: The death of film director Michelangelo Antonio

Home

Nanni Moretti –film director

Award winning filmmaker helped shape politics

Giovanni 'Nanni' Moretti was an outspoken
opponent of Silvio Berlusconi's politics

Giovanni ‘Nanni’ Moretti, film director, producer, screen writer and actor, was born on this day in 1953 in Brunico in the South Tyrol.

Moretti has been a prominent opponent to Silvio Berlusconi’s governments and policies in Italy. In his 2006 film, Il Caimano, a comedy drama focusing on allegations about Berlusconi’s lifestyle, he played the role of Berlusconi himself.

Moretti’s parents, who were both teachers, were from Rome but he was born while they were on holiday in Trentino-Alto Adige. His father, Luigi Moretti, taught Greek at Sapienza University in Rome.

While growing up Moretti developed a passion for the cinema and water polo. He started making films for a hobby and played in the junior national water polo team in 1970.

His first feature film, Io sono un autarchico - I am Self-sufficient, was released in 1976.

Two years later he wrote, directed and starred in the film Ecce Bombo, which was screened at the Cannes film festival. This is still a cult film for many Italians.

His film Sogni d’Oro won the Silver Lion at the 38th Venice International film festival.

The publicity poster for
Moretti's film Il Caimano

He is perhaps best known for the films Caro Diario - Dear Diary, in 1993 and La stanza del figlio - The Son’s Room, in 2001, which won the Palme D’Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

Moretti used certain actors many times in his films. His father, Luigi, appeared in six of them and the actor Silvio Orlando appeared in five.

His experience playing water polo in the B division of the Italian championship inspired his film Palombella Rossa. Palombella, which literally means little pigeon refers to a type of lob shot.

Known to Italians as a maker of humorous, slightly eccentric films often featuring himself, his most recent role was in the 2015 film Mia Madre - My Mother.

In 2002 Moretti organised street protests against Berlusconi and his 2006 film, Il Caimano, has been credited with influencing the result of the election the same year, which Berlusconi lost.

Brunico, in the Sudtirol province of Trentino-Alto Adige,
is largely a German-speaking town

Travel tip:

Brunico, where Nanni Moretti was born, is a town in the Sudtirol province in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige near the Austrian border. It is known as Bruneck in German and Branecium in Latin. According to the 2011 census 82.47 per cent of the population speak German, 15.24 per cent speak Italian and 2.29 per cent speak Ladin, a Romance language mainly spoken in the Dolomites and the provinces of South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno. Brunico has a castle dating back to the 13th century. The lovely Church of the Assumption of Mary originated as a small chapel in the 14th century.

The Cinema Nuovo Sacher, in the Trastevere district, is
co-owned by Moretti, who lives in Rome

Travel tip:

Nanni Moretti still lives in Rome, the city where he grew up, and he is the co-owner of a small cinema, Cinema Nuovo Sacher, which is named after his favourite cake, Sacher Torte. The cinema is housed in a 1930s building that was once a variety theatre in Largo Ascianghi in the Trastevere district.

More reading:

Giuseppe Tornatore, the director behind Cinema Paradiso

The actor dubbed 'Italy's Olivier'

The genius of Michelangelo Antonioni

Also on this day:

1570: The birth of composer and violinist Salomone Rossi

1580: The death of architect Andrea Palladio

1957: The birth of football coach Cesare Prandelli


Home

Agostino Depretis – politician

Premier stayed in power by creating coalitions

Agostino Depretis served three terms as
Italy's premier in the last 19th century

One of the longest serving Prime Ministers in the history of Italy, Agostino Depretis, died on this day in 1887 in Stradella in the Lombardy region.

He had been the founder and main proponent of trasformismo, a method of making a flexible centrist coalition that isolated the extremists on the right and the left.

Depretis served as Prime Minister three times between 1876 and his death.

He was born in 1813 in Mezzana Corti, a hamlet that is now part of Cava Manara, a comune in the province of Pavia.  After graduating from law school in Pavia, Depretis ran his family’s estate.

In 1848, the year of revolutions in Europe, he was elected as a member of the first parliament in Piedmont.  He consistently opposed Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont Sardinia.

A disciple of the pro-unification activist Giuseppe Mazzini, Depretis was nearly captured by the Austrians while smuggling arms into Milan, but he did not take part in the 1853 uprising planned by Mazzini in Milan. It is thought he predicted it would fail.

Depretis briefly served as Governor of Brescia in Lombardy after Cavour’s resignation in 1859.

Depretis was a master at making
coalitions from the Right and Left

After Italian unification, Depretis was elected to the country’s parliament and served successively as minister of public works, minister of the navy and minister of finance.

He became leader of the Left after the death of Urbano Rattazzi in 1873 and he was invited to become premier for the first time in 1876.

For the next 11 years he was the dominant force in Italian politics. A scandal in March 1878 brought down his first Government before he could introduce liberal reforms, but he returned to power later in 1878 and formed a Government that lasted for the next eight months.

In 1881 he formed another Government that lasted for more than six years. The main reform he achieved was the extension of suffrage from two per cent to seven per cent of the population of Italy.

Depretis managed to stay in office by perfecting the art of trasformismo, taking ministers from both the right and the left to form coalitions.

In 1882 Depretis signed the Triple Alliance, which allied Italy with Austria-Hungary and Germany. He was then persuaded to colonise Africa, but when 500 Italian soldiers were killed by Ethiopians at the Battle of Dogali in January 1887, his Government resigned.

Depretis was chosen as Prime Minister again in April but, because he was suffering badly from gout, he moved to live in Stradella, near Pavia. He died there while still in office on 29 July, making him the fourth longest-serving Prime Minister in Italian history after Benito Mussolini, Giovanni Giolitti and Silvio Berlusconi.

The church of San Lorenzo Martire
in Mezzana Corti

Travel tip:

Mezzana Corti, where Agostino Depretis was born, is a small village - a  frazione - that is now part of the municipality of Cava Manara in the province of Pavia. Cava Manara was originally known as Cava Taverna, but was renamed Cava Manara in 1863 in honour of Luciano Manara, an Italian patriot who was killed in battle at the age of 24.

The Monument to Agostino
Depretis in Stradella

Travel tip:

Stradella, where Agostino Depretis died, is part of the Oltrepò Pavese in the province of Pavia, an area to the south of the River Pò and therefore oltre - beyond - the Pò. Stradella was once an important centre for the production of accordions and there is still a museum in the town dedicated to the instrument, Il Civico Museo della Fisarmonica Mariano Dallapè di Stradella.  There is a monument to Deprestis in Piazza Vittorio Veneto.

More reading:

Giuseppe Mazzini, the thinking man's revolutionary who is seen as a hero of the Risorgimento

How Cavour became the first Prime Minister of a united Italy

The Five Days of Milan

Also on this day:

1644: The death of Pope Urban VIII, whose extravagance led to disgrace

1883: The birth of Benito Mussolini

1900: The birth of Teresa Noce, the partisan who became a campaigner for the rights of working women


Home

Raimondo Vianello - actor and TV host

Big-screen star who conquered television too

For many years, Raimondo Vianello was
host of Sunday night sports show Pressing

Raimondo Vianello, who enjoyed a career that brought success on the big screen and small screen in equal measure, was born on this day in 1922 in Rome. 

Vianello first rose to fame in the 1950s through a satirical TV show in which he starred with the great commedia all’Italiana actor Ugo Tognazzi, which was eventually banned.

From television he moved into movies, appearing in no fewer than 79 films in the space of just 21 years, between 1947 and 1968, some with Tognazzi, but also alongside other stars such as Totò and Virna Lisi.

His notable successes included his portrayal alongside Raffaella Carrà of a hopeless secret agent in Mariano Laurenti’s 1966 film Il vostro superagente Flit - a parody of Our Man Flint, an American production that was in itself a parody of the James Bond movies - and Michele Lupo’s comedy Sette volte sette (Seven Times Seven) in 1968, in which he portrayed an inmate in a London prison.

Vianello’s ban from television in 1954 followed a sketch on he and Tognazzi’s popular show Un due tre, broadcast by the Italian state network Rai, in which they sent up an incident at La Scala opera house in Milan the night before, when the Italian president Giovanni Gronchi suffered an unfortunate accident, lowering himself to sit in a chair next to the French president Charles de Gaulle without noticing the chair had been moved.

Vianello (left) with Ugo Tognazzi in a sketch from their
1950s satirical TV show Un due tre

Gronchi was not amused, however, and ordered the show to be cancelled. All was forgiven in time, though, and by the late 1960s Vianello was back on the small screen, this time in the company of his wife, the actress Sandra Mondaini.

Together, they hosted a series of Saturday shows on Rai which made them an extremely popular couple.

The next time Vianello left Rai, it was of his own volition, lured away to work on the commercial networks, which had become major players with the involvement of entrepreneur and future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Vianello and Mondaini fronted quiz shows such as Zig Zag and Il gioco del 9 on Canale 5, and for eight years Raimondo was the host of Pressing, a Sunday night sports talk show on Italia 1. He also hosted the 1998 edition of the Sanremo Music Festival alongside Eva Herzigová and Veronica Pivetti.

But it was his best-known and longest-lasting TV programme, Casa Vianello, a sitcom which aired from 1988 to 2008 in Canale 5 and later Rete 4 in which he and Mondaini performed as fictionalised versions of themselves, based on light and never-vulgar humour. It became a show beloved among Italians of all ages.

Vianello and his wife Sandra Mondaini presented many
different shows together, including a long-running sitcom

Born in Rome, the son of Guido Vianello, an Admiral in the Italian Navy of Venetian heritage, he was brought up in Pula in what is now Croatia but which then was in Italian-controlled Istria.

As a young man he joined Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic, the Fascist state established in northern Italy after the country’s surrender to the Allies in 1943. He served as a non-commissioned officer in the Bersaglieri corps. In 1945, he was captured by American troops and detained in the Coltano prison camp near Pisa.

After his long career, he died in 2010, a month short of what would have been his 88th birthday. His funeral took place at the in the Chiesa di Dio Padre in Milano Due, the new town within the Milan suburb of Segrate built by Berlusconi. After the funeral the body was transferred to Rome, to be buried in the family tomb at the Verano cemetery.

Pula's first century Colosseum is one of many Roman
 relics in the former Italian city in Istria

Travel tip:

Pula is a seafront city on the tip of Croatia’s Istrian Peninsula, known for its protected harbour, beach-lined coast and some of the most impressive Roman ruins outside Italy, including a first-century Roman amphitheatre, whose imposing outer walls are the best preserved after Rome’s Colosseum, and the Temple of Augustus. The Colosseum hosts the centrepiece of Pula’s annual calendar, the glitzy two-week film festival. The streets of Pula’s historic centre contain a historical jumble of Byzantine chapels, weather-beaten Venetian townhouses and grand Hapsburg palaces.

Waterways are a feature of the environment created at
Silvio Berlusconi's Milano Due complex

Travel tip:

The town of Milano Due was the project that launched Silvio Berlusconi as a media magnate. Built by Berlusconi's construction company Edilnord in the 1970s, it is a residential centre close to the Segrate area of suburban Milan conceived by Berlusconi as a place for families to live in a safe environment, a system of walkways ensuring that its residents could reach any part of the community without encountering any vehicular traffic.  The town features many parks and waterways and every house or apartment was connected to a cable television system run by another Berlusconi company,  TeleMilano, Italy's first private television channel. TeleMilano was the project from which the tycoon would eventually grow his national TV company, Mediaset.



More reading:

How Ugo Tognazzi became a star of commedia all'Italiana

Virna Lisi, the screen siren who turned her back on glamour roles

Pippo Baudo, the TV presenter who became the record-breaking face of Sanremo

Also on this day:

1917: The birth of Sistine Chapel Choir director Domenico Bartolucci

1976: The birth of rugby star Andrea lo Cicero

1983: The birth of Olympic archery champion Marco Galiazzo



Home

Paolo Vaccari - rugby player

Italy’s second all-time highest try scorer

Paolo Vaccari played 64 times for the Italian
national rugby team, scoring 22 tries

The rugby player Paolo Vaccari, who scored 22 tries for the Italian national team in a 64-cap career, was born on this day in 1971 in Calvisano, a town in Lombardy about 30km (19 miles) southeast of Brescia.

A versatile back equally adept at wing, centre or full-back, Vaccari was regarded as a strong defender and an intelligent and technically-sound back who frequently created scoring opportunities for players around him.

Although he was good enough to be selected for the renowned Barbarians invitational XV against Leicester Tigers in 1998, he played all his domestic rugby in Italy, enjoying great success.

He won the double of Italian Championship and Cup with Milan Rugby in 1994-95 and was a title-winner for the second time with his home club Calvisano 10 years later, during a run in which Calvisano reached the Championship final six years in a row, from 2001-06.

Vaccari had won his second Italian Cup medal with Calvisano in 2003-04.

In international rugby, his proudest moment was undoubtedly scoring Italy’s fourth try in their historic 40-32 victory over reigning Five Nations champions France in the final of the FIRA Cup in Grenoble in 1997.

Vaccari's father was one of the founders
of Calvisano's rugby club

It was the first time the azzurri had beaten France and was a significant result in their bid to be admitted to the top table of international rugby in the northern hemisphere, a campaign that bore fruit in 2000 when they were admitted to the expanded Six Nations Championships.

He had also participated in Italy’s first victory over a British team, in a warm-up match for the 1995 World Cup, when the azzurri defeated Ireland in Treviso.

Injury caused him to miss Italy’s first match in the Six Nations, against Scotland in Rome in 2000, but he was present to contribute to another historic victory against Wales - their first against the Dragons - in Rome in the 2003 tournament.  He retired from international rugby the same year. Only Marcello Cuttitta, another winger, has scored more tries for Italy.

As a native of Calvisano, Vaccari was destined to become a rugby player.  The agricultural town in the flat Po plain has become a stronghold of Italian rugby, their team winning the Italian Championship six times.

His father was Gianluigi Vaccari, who along with Alfredo Gavazzi and Tonino Montanari founded the Calvisano club in 1970.

Paolo began to play with the oval ball virtually as soon as he could walk, dreaming of wearing the yellow and black jersey of the Calvisano team.

Vaccari scored in Italy's historic victory over France in
the 1997 FIRA Cup in Grenoble

He became adept so quickly that his coach pitched him into a competitive junior match a year before he reached 13 years old - the minimum legal age - by picking him under the name of another player who was the correct age.  Vaccari’s first-team debut came in February 1987 - two weeks after his 16th birthday.

He made his international debut in the summer of 1991 as Italy toured Namibia and was selected for the first of his three Rugby World Cups the same year, scoring a try in a 30-9 victory over the United States and playing at historic Twickenham for the first time as Italy lost 36-6 to a strong England team, before taking part in a creditable azzurri performance against the formidable New Zealand All Blacks, who came out 31-21 winners.

In 1993, after six years in Calvisano’s first XV, Vaccari joined Amatori Milano - then owned by media magnate, AC Milan owner and future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and playing as Milan Rugby.

The attraction was to play alongside the likes of Italy’s Argentina-born fly half Diego Dominguez, the twins Massimo and Marcello Cuttitta, Franco Properzi and Massimo Giovanelli in a star-studded line-up. It was a testament to Vaccari’s standing in the game by that time that he was hired as a replacement for the great Australian David Campese.

Vaccari helped Calvisano win the Italian
Championship for the first time in 2005

Milan were beaten by L’Aquila in the Championship final in Vaccari’s first season but the following year, further strengthened by the arrival of another great Australian in Michael Lynagh, won the Championship-Cup double.

Vaccari subsequently received offers to play club rugby in South Africa but declined, partially because by then he was studying at the Politecnico di Milano and did not want to abandon his studies.

Instead, he returned in 1995 to his home club, Calvisano, where he would play for the remainder of his career.

As a member of the team that won Calvisano’s first Italian Championship in 2004-05 on their fourth consecutive appearance in the final, defeating Benetton Treviso, he remains a club legend.

Nowadays, a qualified architect, Vaccari is a member of the council of the Italian Rugby Federation.

Married to Azzurra and the father of two children - Martina and Leonardo - Vaccari is a vintage car enthusiast. In fact, he took part in the 2011 edition of the Mille Miglia, once a major endurance event in motor racing but now a festival of classic and vintage cars.

One of the gates that remain from Calvisano's
historic military fortifications

Travel tip:

Calvisano, a town of around 8,500 residents which has roots in Roman times, was something of a military stronghold in the 14th century, when it figured in the struggle between the warring Guelphs and the Ghibellines, who took shelter from their enemies in the town’s castle. In the first half of the 15th century, it became drawn into another fight between rival families as the Visconti and Serenissima battled for the control of the territory corresponding to the current province of Brescia.  Parts of the original fortification remain, including two gates, one to the north and the other to the south. The latter, adjoining Piazza Caduti, is surmounted by the Torre Civica.

Find a hotel in Calvisano with tripadvisor

Treviso is a city of canals, although on a
somewhat smaller scale than Venice

Travel tip:

Treviso, another major centre for rugby in Italy, is known to many visitors to Italy as the ‘second’ airport of Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast.


More reading:

Andrea lo Cicero - rugby star turned TV presenter

Flavio Briatore - the entrepreneur behind the Benetton brand

Brescia's finest sportsman? - the AC Milan and Italy great Franco Baresi

Also on this day:

1623: The death of Venetian historian and statesman Paolo Sarpi

1926: The death of classic Neapolitan songwriter Giambattista De Curtis

1935: The birth of football coach Gigi Radice


Home

Norberto Bobbio - political philosopher

Intellectual regarded as foremost 20th century commentator

Norberto Bobbio was a university professor
and a forthright political commentator

Norberto Bobbio, a philosopher of law and political sciences who came to be seen as one of Italy’s most respected political commentators in the 20th century, died on this day in 2004 in Turin, the city of his birth.

He was 94 and had been in hospital suffering from respiratory problems. His funeral was attended by political and cultural leaders including the then-president of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.  He had been writing essays well into his 90s, despite for much of his life suffering from bouts of what was described as “fatigue and melancholy”.

His extensive catalogue of work spanned almost seven decades of Italian political life and societal change from the rise of Fascism in the 1930s to the second premiership of Silvio Berlusconi, of whom he was an outspoken critic.

For much of his career, Bobbio was a professor at the University of Turin, where he was chair of philosophy of law from 1948 and, from 1972, of the faculties of legal and political philosophy and political science.

He was made a Life Senator in 1984, although he stayed away from playing an active role in Italian politics after failing to gain election to the parliament of the new Republic in 1946, standing on a liberal-socialist ticket.  Later he confessed that he was much relieved when a move to make him President in the 1990s did not succeed.

Bobbio was part of a famous group of Turin
intellectuals who opposed Fascism in the 1930s

Many of his books and collections of essays are regarded as seminal works, but among them The Future of Democracy: A Defence Of The Rules Of The Game (1984), State, Government and Society (1985), The Age of Rights (1990) and Right and Left (1994) are considered to have particular importance.

Right and Left was an analysis of left-right political distinctions, in which he argued that the incompatibility of the two poles boiled down to the Left's belief in attempting to eradicate social inequality, set against the Right regarding most social inequality to be the result of inherent natural inequalities, and seeing attempts to enforce social equality as utopian or authoritarian.

Bobbio was born into a middle-class Turin family, the son of a doctor  whose attitude to Fascism was that, set against Bolshevism, which was gathering pace in Italy at the time, it was the lesser of two evils.

His own political thinking was influenced by the group of friends he made at the Liceo Classico Massimo d'Azeglio in Turin, where he became part of the intellectual movement that included the novelists Cesare Pavese and Carlo Levi, his future publisher Giulio Einaudi, the critic Leone Ginsburg and the radical politician Vittorio Foa. 

Bobbio argued in favour of the 'historic compromise' between
the Communists and the Christian Democrats in the 1970s

They were all involved with the anti-Fascist magazine Riforma Sociale - Social Reform - published by Einaudi’s father, Luigi, a future President of Italy - that Mussolini had closed down and spent several weeks in jail as a result.

He was imprisoned again in 1943, this time by the Germans, after the illegal political party of which he was a member, the Partito d’Azione - the Action Party - became involved in resistance activity. Arrested in Padua, he was released after three months.

The party - for a while the main non-Communist opposition group - lacked popular support, however, and Bobbio failed in his bid for election to the assembly of the new Republic in 1946, after which he devoted himself to his academic life, taking positions at various universities teaching the philosophy of law.

Throughout his intellectual life, he was a strong advocate of the rule of law, and although by nature a socialist, he was opposed to what he perceived as the anti-democratic, authoritarian elements in most of Marxism. He was a strong supporter of the so-called 'historic compromise' - the proposed coalition of the Italian Communist Party and the Christian Democrats in the strife-torn 1970s - and a fierce critic of Silvio Berlusconi, whom he accused of presiding over a moribund political system that lacked idealism and hope.

Turin is famous for its beautiful royal palaces

Travel tip:

Turin was once the capital of Italy. It has a wealth of elegant streets and beautiful architecture, yet over the years has tended to be promoted less as a tourist attraction than cities such as Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice, possibly because of its long association with the Savoy family and subsequently the Italian royal family, who were expelled from Italy in disgrace when Italy became a republic at the end of the Second World War, their long-term unpopularity with some sections of Italian society compounded by their collaboration with Mussolini’s Fascists. Yet there is much to like about a stay in Turin. Aside from the splendour of the royal palaces, it has an historic café culture, 12 miles of arcaded streets and some of the finest restaurants in northern Italy.

Rivalta di Torino, looking towards the castle

Travel tip:

Norberto Bobbio was laid to rest at the cemetery in Rivalta di Torino, a small town in Piedmont, located about 14km (9 miles) southwest of Turin in the Sangone valley.  It is home to a medieval castle, which formed the heart of what was then a village in the 11th century. The castle and the village were owned by the Orsini family - long-standing Italian nobility dating back to medieval times - until 1823. In 1836, the French writer Honoré de Balzac was guest at the castle of its new owner, Count Cesare Benevello, as is recorded in an inscription on the wall.


More reading:

How Cesare Pavese introduced Italian readers to the great American novelists

Why the murder of Aldo Moro ended hopes for a 'historic compromise'

Giulio Einaudi - the publisher who defied Mussolini

Also on this day:

1878: The death of King Victor Emmanuel II

1878: Umberto I succeeds Victor Emmanuel II

1944: The birth of architect Massimiliano Fuksas


Home

Mara Carfagna - politician

Former glamour model now important voice in Italian parliament

Mara Carfagna has defied detractors to
become a powerful politician

The politician Mara Carfagna, a one-time glamour model and TV hostess who is now vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian parliament, was born on this day in 1975 in Salerno.

Originally named Maria Rosaria Carfagna, she left high school to study dance at the school of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, obtaining a diploma before going on to study acting and the piano.

In 1997 she won a beauty contest as Miss 1997 and participated in the finals of Miss Italia. She had her first experience in television as one of the co-presenters during the 1997-98 season of the Rai variety show, Domenica In, with Fabrizio Frizzi.

Carfagna found herself in demand as a model and posed for some magazine and calendar shoots, but at the same time was studying law at the University of Salerno, graduating with honours in 2001.

More television work came her ways as a glamourous co-presenter of the Mediaset show La domenica del villaggio alongside Davide Mengacci, moving on to present another entertainment show Piazza grande together with Giancarlo Magalli.

Former premier Silvio Berlusconi
made Mara Carfagna a minister

At the same time she was developing a career in politics. She began to take an interest in women’s rights issues and in 2004 joined Forza Italia, the party led by the then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

In 2006 she was nominated as a candidate in Campania and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. She soon attracted the attention of Berlusconi, who was also owner of the Mediaset TV channels for which she worked, who made a tongue-in-cheek but demeaning suggestion that his party should practise the ancient law of primae noctis, which allowed feudal lords to select any female subject of his choice for his sexual gratification.

Carfagna ignored the comment and gained a reputation as a hard-working parliamentarian.  Berlusconi lost his position as prime minister at the 2006 election but won it back two years later.

When the controversial leader named Carfagna in his new cabinet as Minister for Equal Opportunity, she attracted a new wave of publicity.

The magazine Maxim, for whom she had appeared as a cover model, ran some of her pictures again, ranking her at No 1 in a feature entitled “World’s hottest politicians.”

Carfagna (right) greets former president Giorgio Napolitano
on the occasion of International Women's Day in 2009

It was also recalled that a year before winning back power, Berlusconi had said of Carfagna: "If I was not already married I would have married her immediately".  The comment led Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, to demand an apology, although Carfagna dismissed it as "gallant and harmless."

As a minister, she has been an outspoken campaigner in a number of areas, from the level of crime in her home city of Salerno to the management of waste disposal in Campania, as well as prostitution, homophobia and violence against women.

In 2008, a few months after taking office, she attracted some ironic comments from political writers and opposition politicians when she proposed a law making street prostitution a crime, with fines for both clients and prostitutes, over and above existing laws forbidding the exploitation of prostitutes by pimps. The bill was her first major initiative as a minister.

Carfagna has clashed with Italy's controversial
deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini

Her remarks condemning “women who sell their bodies for money” was seized upon in particular by the Italian Committee for the Rights of Prostitutes, who claimed to represent an estimated 70,000 prostitutes working in the country.  But Catholic charities praised her.

In 2009 she became the first political promoter of the law against stalking, later included in the penal code thanks to the Maroni decree.

Also in 2009 she launched the first campaign against homophobia and against violence based on sexual orientation to be carried out by an Italian government.

Carfagna has continued to build her reputation as a politician determined to bring about change and in March this year was elected vice president of the Chamber of Deputies as a reflection of the respect she has gained.  Recently, she has been an outspoken critic of Italy's controversial current deputy prime minister, the Lega politician Matteo Salvini.

Via Botteghelle, typical of the narrow streets
to be found in Salerno's historic old town

Travel tip:

Salerno, situated some 55km (34 miles) south of Naples with a population of about 133,000, is a city with a reputation as an industrial port and is often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento. Yet it has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt is the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist. It is also a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are also cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts.

Hotels in Salerno by TripAdvisor

Amalfi occupies a spectacularly beautiful setting on the
Campania coast between Naples and Salerno

Travel tip:

Amalfi, just 25km (16 miles) along the coast from Salerno, occupies a dramatic natural setting at the foot of steep cliffs along the stretch of spectacular Campania coastline that takes its name from the town and is one of Italy’s best-known tourist attractions. The town itself attracts huge numbers of visitors each year.  Its ninth-century Duomo dominates the town's central piazza, sitting at the top of a wide flight of steps. The cloister (Chiostro del Paradiso) and museum close by house sculptures, mosaics and other relics.  Radiating away from the cathedral, narrow streets offer many souvenir shops and cafes for visitors.  Amalfi is accessible by bus from Sorrento and Salerno and there are boat services that run along the coast.

More reading:

Silvio Berlusconi - the entrepreneur who became Italy's most controversial prime minister

How Irene Pavetti swapped political office for television

The political campaigner Emma Bonino

Also on this day:

1737: The death of violin maker Antonio Stradivari

1957: The death of entrepreneur Camillo Castiglioni

1966: The birth of record-breaking goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca


Home