Showing posts with label Udine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Udine. Show all posts

3 August 2023

Omero Antonutti - actor and voice dubber

Narrator of Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful enjoyed long and successul career

Omero Antonutti had success on screen and as a stage actor
Omero Antonutti had success on
screen and as a stage actor
The actor Omero Antonutti, who acted in around 60 films and was the Italian voice of many international stars, was born on this day in 1935 in Basiliano, a village about 13km (eight miles) west of the city of Udine in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy.

His most acclaimed performance came in Padre padrone, a 1977 film directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, a Palme d’Or winner at Cannes that was considered by many critics to be the co-directing brothers’ finest work.

Antonutti worked with the Taviani brothers again on La notte di San Lorenzo (1982), which won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes, and Kaos (1984) in which he took the part of the playwright Luigi Pirandello in a film based on some of Pirandello’s own short stories.

He was often asked to portray significant figures in dramatisations of real-life events. For example, he took the part of Roberto Calvi, the ill-fated chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano in the Giuseppe Ferrara’s 2002 feature The Bankers of God: The Calvi Affair, and played the shady Sicilian banker Michele Sindona in Michele Placido’s 1995 film Un eroe borghese - A Bourgeois Hero. In Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy, directed by Marco Tullio Giordano in 2012, Antonutti was cast as the Italian president, Giuseppe Saragat.

At the same time, his strong, deep voice meant his skills were in big demand as a voice dubber, with Italian cinema and television audiences preferring international productions to be voiced over by Italian actors, rather than have the visual experience spoiled by subtitles.

Antonutti was the Italian voice of Christopher Lee in the Lord of the Rings series, Sleepy Hollow, The Hobbit and other films. He voiced over Michael Gambon in The King’s Speech, Christopher Plummer in The Mystery of the Templars - National Treasure and Millennium - The Girl with the Hatred, and John Hurt in V for Vendetta. Omar Sharif, Robert Duvall, Donald Sutherland and Rutger Hauer were others whose words were interpreted by Antonutti.

Antonutti's voice can be heard as the narrator in Life is Beautiful
Antonutti's voice can be heard as
the narrator in Life is Beautiful
Robert Benigni chose him to narrate Life is Beautiful in 1997, the film going on to win Oscars for Best Foreign Film, Best Leading Actor for Benigni himself and Best Soundtrack for Nicola Piovani.

As a young man, Antonutti lived in Trieste, the port city on the border of Italy and Slovenia. He found work in the shipyards but acted in his spare time, in the late 1950s appearing in the shows of the Silvio D’Amico Acting School before joining the company of the Teatro Stabile di Trieste.

His first film part came in 1966, when he appeared in Le piacevoli notte - Pleasant Nights, a trilogy of comedic tales set in the Middle Ages directed by Luciano Lucignani, acting in the illustrious company of Ugo Tognazzi, Gina Lollobrigida and Vittorio Gassman.

But it was not until the 1970s that his big screen career began in earnest. After landing a part in La donna della domenica (1975), the dramatisation of a popular murder mystery starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jacqueline Bisset and directed by Luigi Comencini, it was only two years before the Taviani brothers cast him as Efisio Ledda, the despotic father of Gavino Ledda in Padre Padrone, based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same title by Gavino Ledda, which describes the way Efisio refused to let his son attend elementary school in the 1940s and forced him instead to work on the family sheep farm in Sardinia, which meant he grew up illiterate.

The acclaim Antonutti received for the dramatic intensity of his portrayal of Efisio set him up for a long career in the cinema, part of which he spent in Spain, where his life is commemorated at the Valencia Film Festival.

Antonutti (left) played opposite Saverio Marconi in the Taviani brothers' Padre Padrone
Antonutti (left) played opposite Saverio Marconi
in the Taviani brothers' Padre Padrone
The last important movie in which he appeared was Gianna Amelio’s Hammamet, released in 2020, a story about the last years in Tunisia of the controversial former prime minister, Bettino Craxi, who went into voluntary exile there to escape jail after being prosecuted as part of the Tangentopoli bribes scandal that rocked Italian politics in the 1990s. Antonutti, by then in his 80s, played Craxi’s father.

In his 50-plus years as a movie and television actor, Antonutti never forgot his theatrical roots. He often returned to the Teatro Stabile in Trieste, taking part whenever a milestone was celebrated in the theatre’s history and occasionally even accepting a part in a play, such was his love of acting in its purest form, on stage in front of a live audience.

Sadly, he did not live long enough to witness the release of his final film. In declining health for a number of years, he died from cancer in November 2019 at the Ospedale Civile in Udine where he was receiving treatment.

Antonutti had spent the final 10 years of his life with his wife, Graziella, whom he married in 2009. His funeral took place at the Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Nuovo in Trieste.

The Loggia del Lionello is one of the architectural features of Udine's Piazza della Libertà
The Loggia del Lionello is one of the architectural
features of Udine's Piazza della Libertà
Travel tip:

Udine, the nearest city to Antonutti’s home village of Basiliano, is an attractive and wealthy provincial city, known as the gastronomic capital of Friuli. Udine's most attractive area lies within the mediaeval centre, which has Venetian, Greek and Roman influences. The main square, Piazza della Libertà, features the town hall, the Loggia del Lionello, built in 1448–1457 in the Venetian-Gothic style, and a clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio, which is similar to the clock tower in Piazza San Marco - St Mark's Square - in Venice. Long regarded as something of a hidden gem, Udine does not attract the tourist traffic of other, better-known Italian cities, yet with its upmarket coffee shops, artisan boutiques and warm, traditional eating places in an elegant setting, it has much to commend it.



Trieste's Canal Grande is overlooked by the  Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Nuovo
Trieste's Canal Grande is overlooked by the 
Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Nuovo
Travel tip:

The port of Trieste, tucked away in a bay at the top of the Adriatic sea, is the capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Within only a few kilometres of the border with Slovenia to its east and south and less than 30km (19 miles) from the northern border of Croatia, Trieste had been disputed territory for thousands of years and officially became part of the Italian Republic only as recently as 1954. Previously it had been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and then Yugoslavia, who disputed the border until the Treaty of Osimo in 1975.  The area today is one of the most prosperous in Italy and Trieste is a lively, cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building.  The city has a coffee house culture that dates back to the Hapsburg era.  Caffè Tommaseo, in Piazza Nicolò Tommaseo, near the grand open space of the Piazza Unità d’Italia, is the oldest in the city, dating back to 1830.

Also on this day:

1486: The birth of celebrated courtesan Imperia Cognati

1530: The death of Florentine military leader Francesco Ferruccio

1546: The death of architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger

1778: The inauguration of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala


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26 October 2018

Primo Carnera - boxer

Heavyweight’s career dogged by ‘fix’ rumours


Primo Carnera became world heavyweight champion in New York in 1933
Primo Carnera became world heavyweight
champion in New York in 1933
The boxer Primo Carnera, who was world heavyweight champion between 1933 and 1934, was born on this day in 1906 in a village in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

After launching his professional career in Paris in 1928, Carnera moved to the United States in 1930 and spent many years there, returning from time to time to Italy, where he had a house built for himself and his family, but not permanently until he was in declining health and decided he would like to spend his final years in his home country.

He won 89 of his 103 fights, 72 by a knockout, although there were suspicions that many of his fights were fixed by the New York mobsters who made up his management team, even including the victory over the American Jack Sharkey that earned him the world title.

Physically, he was a freak.  Said to have weighed 22lbs at birth he had grown to the size of an adult man by the time he was eight. By adulthood, he was a veritable giant, by Italian standards, standing 6ft 6ins tall when the average Italian man was 5ft 5ins.  His fighting weight was as high at times as 275lb (125kg).

Born into a peasant family in the village of Sequals, around 45km (28 miles) west of Udine, at the northern edge of a plain bordering the Friulian preAlps, Carnera had little option but to leave the area as soon as he was strong enough to work.

Primo Carnera, who stood 6ft 6ins tall, towered above the average man of his day, as this news cutting shows
Primo Carnera, who stood 6ft 6ins tall, towered above
the average man of his day, as this news cutting shows
In the aftermath of the First World War, Sequals was a place of devastation and deprivation, with no prospect of finding employment.

Carnera left at the age of 12, finding his way to France where he did labourer's work, carrying bags of cement, laying bricks or cutting stones. At 17, he joined a travelling circus, where he was variously paraded as a freakshow giant, a strongman, and a wrestler.

He entered the fight business after a journeyman French heavyweight came across him in a park and recommended him to a boxing manager called Leon See.  Within two weeks, he was in the ring and within less than 18 months had a wins to losses record of 16-2.

Even then, given Carnera’s lack of technique, there were suspicions that See’s underworld connections were playing a big part in his success. His physical size made him a money-spinner in terms of tickets sales and it was in the interests of both his own camp and his opponents’ for his reputation to grow.

Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll, an Irish villain who was part of Carnera's management team
Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll, an Irish villain who
was part of Carnera's management team
See took him to the United States, where it was not long before his management team was populated by characters with such dubious names as Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll and Owney ‘The Killer’ Madden, both of whom were involved in organised crime.

In his United States debut at Madison Square Garden, Carnera’s opponent fell in unlikely fashion only a minute into the fight and over the next four years Carnera’s bouts followed a similar pattern.

The press nicknamed him ‘the Ambling Alp’ because of his slow movement around the ring and his poor technique yet he remained a major draw. It has been suggested that he even believed his own publicity, convincing himself that his fists somehow packed superpowers.

His winning of the world title came as a major surprise because Sharkey had beaten him comprehensively only a year before.  However, when it was not in the interests of his mobster connections for him to win, Carnera often took a heavy beating.

For example, when he defended his world title against Max Baer in June 1934 he was knocked to the canvas 13 times before losing on a technical knock-out.

Yet he was allowed to continue his career and retired only when a combination of kidney failure and diabetes made it impossible for him to continue.

Carnera ahead of his 1935 fight with future world champion Joe Louis, who knocked him out
Carnera ahead of his 1935 fight with future
world champion Joe Louis, who knocked him out
His post-retirement life was carefully planned, Carnera announcing in 1930 that he wanted to build a luxurious house in Sequals to which he intended to retire.  The project was completed in 1932, when architect Mariano Pittana unveiled a cutting edge design featuring Anglo-Saxon and Art Nouveau features. Carnera remained in the United States but returned to Italy for holidays.

Carnera holds the second-most victories of all heavyweight champions with 88. His 71 career knockouts is the most of any world heavyweight champion, yet his legacy will be forever tarnished by the accusation that many of his fights had pre-arranged outcomes.

In addition to boxing, Carnera enjoyed an acting career in which he appeared in more than 10 films, and wrestled professionally as well.

His story entered popular culture in several ways, with his life depicted in a number of books and films, notably Budd Schulberg’s 1947 novel, The Harder They Fall, which was about a giant boxer whose fights are fixed.

It was made into a film by the Canadian producer and director Mark Robson in 1956, starring Humphrey Bogart.  Controversially, it featured Max Baer, playing a fighter the mob could not fix, who destroys the giant in his first fair fight.

There were obvious parallels with the real-life Baer-Carnera fight two decades before. In response, Carnera sued the film company, but was unsuccessful.

Married since 1939 to Giuseppina Kovačič, a post office clerk from Gorizia, Carnera became an American citizen in 1953, when he and his wife opened a restaurant in Los Angeles. They had two children, Umberto and Giovanna Maria.

Carnera died in 1967 in Sequals from a combination of liver disease and diabetes. He was 60 years old.

The Villa Carnera in Sequals is open to visitors
The Villa Carnera in Sequals is open to visitors
Travel tip:

The Villa Carnera in the pleasant village of Sequals can be found in the Via Roma, set back from the road near the junction with Via San Giovanni.  In what was then a relatively poor community, with simple houses built from local stone, Carnera’s large art Nouveau house, equipped with running water, electric light and heating, seemed like a fantasy palace.  Since 2012, the villa, which was sold by the Carnera family to a private individual in 1972, has been open to the public on Sunday afternoons from May to the end of October, displaying an exhibition about Carnera’s life.

The Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in Pordenone
The Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in Pordenone
Travel tip:

Pordenone, in whose province Sequals falls, is an attractive small city of around 50,000 people with a rich history reflected in many beautiful palaces, churches, frescoes and monuments. The city centre has many elegant pedestrianised streets, including the historical Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, linking Piazza Cavour with the Gothic-Romanesque cathedral, which contains among other artworks a painting attributed to the Venetian artist Tintoretto.

More reading:

Vito Antuofermo, the farmer's son who became world champion

How Giuseppe Curreri became Johnny Dundee

The Sicilian boxer whose son was the legendary Frank Sinatra

Also on this day:

1797: The birth of mezzo-soprano Guiditta Pasta

1954: Trieste becomes part of Italy


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29 December 2017

Luigi Olivari – flying ace

First World War pilot claimed 19 victories


Luigi Olivari was only 25 when he was killed in a crash near Udine
Luigi Olivari was only 25 when he was killed
in a crash near Udine
Lieutenant Luigi Olivari, a pilot in the military aviation corps of the Royal Italian Army who was decorated with a string of awards for valour in action, was born on this day in 1891 in La Spezia, the maritime city on the coast of what is now Liguria.

Olivari became a proficient aerial duellist, claiming to have downed 19 enemy aircraft as Italian planes took on Austro-Hungarian opponents after Italy had joined the war on the side of the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia.

Only eight of these were confirmed, yet Olivari was awarded four silver and two bronze medals for valour by the Italian government, as well as the French Croix de guerre and the Serbian Order of the Star of Karadorde.

The last of his silver medals was awarded posthumously after he was killed on October 13, 1917 when his Spad VII aircraft stalled and crashed during take-off at the Santa Caterina airfield just outside Udine in northwest Italy.

Born to middle-class parents in La Spezia, as a boy he moved with his family to Turin.

A Spad VII similar to the one flown by Luigi Olivari
A Spad VII similar to the one flown by Luigi Olivari
A good all-round sportsman and an accomplished motorcyclist, Olivari entered the school for civil pilots at Mirafiori, just outside Turin, and obtained his Aero Club’s pilots licence on November 27, 1914.

In May 1915, the week before Italy entered the war, Olivari applied for military pilot's training. He qualified in June and in January 2016 was assigned to fly in the 1a Squadriglia (later redesignated as 70a Squadriglia). 

He scored his first confirmed aerial victory on April 7 - only the second success in the air for Italy – having claimed an earlier success that went unconfirmed.

In September 1916, Olivari was commissioned as a Sottotenente - sub-lieutenant. By April 1917, he was specifically assigned two aircraft—a Spad VII and a Nieuport 17 ser. no. 3127.

In May 1917, he was transferred to the newly formed fighter squadron 91a Squadriglia and than loaned to 77a Squadriglia for about a month. He was subsequently promoted to Tenente and assigned as an Ansaldo SVA.5 test pilot for the Technical Directorate.

Olivari won many awards for valour and claimed to have shot down 19 enemy aircraft
Olivari won many awards for valour and claimed to have
shot down 19 enemy aircraft
In February 1919, some 16 months after his death, the Bongiovanni military intelligence commission issued its final determination of Italian aerial victories during the First World War. Olivari's score was cut to eight confirmed victories. Notable for their exclusion were some victories that were noted in Olivari's award citations.

The Ghedi Air Force base, near Brescia, home of the Regia Aeronautica 6th Stormo (6th Wing) was named in his memory after the war.

There are streets named after Luigi Olivari in San Maurizio Canavese, near Turin’s airport, and in the Ligurian city of Genoa.

Piazza Garibaldi in La Spezia
Piazza Garibaldi in La Spezia
Travel tip:

Overshadowed by its chic neighbours in the Cinque Terre, the port town of La Spezia, home to Italy's largest naval base, tends to be overlooked as a travel destination but offers an affordable alternative base for touring the area, although it is worth inclusion anyway. Nowadays, it is one of Italy’s busiest ports, yet the narrow streets of the old city are deeply atmospheric and have plenty to interest visitors, with a wealth of good restaurants showing off the best Ligurian cuisine.

Travel tip:

Santa Caterina near Udine is best known as the original site of one of the oldest fairs in Italy, which began in 1380 to honour Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who was supposedly beheaded by the Romans for not sacrificing animals to the gods.  Since 1485 the fair has been held within the city walls, in Piazza I Maggio in the municipality of Pasian di Prato.  It is held every year from around November 25 with an array of stalls, although the fairground rides that accompanied it from the mid-1980s have now been moved to the Friuli stadium.






24 December 2017

Lazzaro Ponticelli – war veteran

Wounded soldier survived to set records for longevity


Lazzaro Ponticelli as a young soldier in the First World War
Lazzaro Ponticelli as a young
soldier in the First World War
Lazzaro Ponticelli, who became the oldest living man of Italian birth and the oldest man living in France, was born on this day in 1897 in a frazione of Bettola in Emilia-Romagna.

Before his death at the age of 110 years and 79 days, Ponticelli was the last surviving officially recognised veteran of the First World War from France and the last infantry man from its trenches to die.

He had moved to France at the age of eight to join his family who had gone there to find work. At the age of 16, he lied about his age to join the French army in 1914.

Ponticelli was transferred against his will to the Italian army when Italy entered the war the following year. He enlisted in the 3rd Alpini regiment and saw service against the Austro-Hungarian army at Mount Pal Piccolo on the Italian border with Austria.

At one stage he was wounded by a shell but continued firing his machine gun although blood was running into his eyes.

He spoke of a period when fighting ceased for three weeks and the two armies swapped loaves of bread for tobacco and took photographs of each other, as many of them could speak each other's language.

The Ponticelli Brothers' headquarters in a Paris suburb
The Ponticelli Brothers' headquarters in a Paris suburb
After the war Ponticelli founded a piping and metal work company with his brothers. As of 2017, Ponticelli Brothers was still in business.

They produced supplies for the war effort during the First World War and Ponticelli also worked with the French Resistance against the Nazis. He managed the company until his retirement in 1960.

Every Armistice Day until 2007 Ponticelli attended ceremonies honouring deceased veterans. But in his later years he also criticised war.

He said he felt unworthy of the state funeral the French Government offered him, but eventually accepted it. He asked for the occasion to focus on the many ordinary soldiers who died on the battlefield.

Ponticelli pictured in 2007, aged 109
Ponticelli pictured in
2007, aged 109
He died in France on 12 March 2008 at the age of 110 years and 79 days, at the home he shared with his daughter in Kremlin-Bicetre, a suburb of Paris.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy honoured Ponticelli’s wish and dedicated a plaque to the soldiers who had been killed in battle during the super centurion’s funeral.

On the first Armistice Day after his death, the street where he had lived was renamed Rue de Verdun-Lazare-Ponticelli in his honour.

Travel tip:

Lazzaro Ponticelli was born in Cordani, a frazione - the Italian equivalent of a ward or parishof Bettola in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna. It is claimed that the explorer Christopher Columbus was born in the nearby frazione of Pradello and the main square of Bettola is named Piazza Colombo.

Remains still exist of military positions built on Mount Pal Piccolo during the First World War
Remains still exist of military positions built on
Mount Pal Piccolo during the First World War
Travel tip:

During the First World War, Lazzaro Ponticelli fought in a series of furious battles against the Austro-Hungarian army at Mount Pal Piccolo in the region of Udine. An open air museum has been created on Mount Pal Piccolo where you can visit Italian and Austro-Hungarian military installations. For more information visit www.itinerarigrandeguerra.com.



6 July 2017

Cesare Mori - Mafia buster

'Iron Prefect' who 'eliminated' the Cosa Nostra


Cesare Mori was well known for his hard-line methods
Cesare Mori was well known for
his hard-line methods
Cesare Mori, the prefect of police credited with crushing the Sicilian Mafia during the inter-War years, died on this day in 1942 at the age of 70.

At the time of his death he was living in retirement in Udine, in some respects a forgotten figure in a country in the grip of the Second World War.

Yet during his police career his reputation as a hard-line law enforcer was such that the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini personally appointed him as prefect of Palermo, charged with breaking the Mafia’s hold over Sicily and re-establishing the authority of the State by any means necessary.

Mori was born in Pavia in Lombardy, by then part of the new Kingdom of Italy, in 1871.  His upbringing was difficult.  His first years were spent living in an orphanage, although his parents were not dead and looked after him after he had turned seven.

He attended the Military Academy in Turin and was set on a career in the army but after marrying Angelina Salvi in 1897 he quit and joined the police, taking up a posting in Ravenna.

His first experience of Sicily came with a brief posting to Castelvetrano, near Trapani, where he captured a notorious bandit, Paolo Grisalfi, before moving to Florence in 1915.

Mori was sent back to Sicily after the First World War, at which time the island was becoming virtually lawless, with gangs of bandits able to operate almost with impunity. He was placed in charge of a special force created to tackle brigandage.

Mori was uneasy about the Fascists but agreed to become a blackshirt to carry out his job
Mori was uneasy about the Fascists but agreed
to become a blackshirt to carry out his job
He soon became known for taking a somewhat radical approach to the job, pushing acceptable policing methods to their limits and sometimes beyond. But they worked. In Caltabellotta, a town in rugged, mountainous territory between Agrigento and Palermo, he arrested more than 300 suspected bandits in just one night.

The press hailed the arrests as a "lethal blow to the Mafia", but Mori was aware that these gangs of brigands were not the Mafia, whose presence in Sicilian society was much less visible but far more dangerous, with a sphere of influence that extended into business and local government and even the local police forces.

Mori was actually uneasy about the rise of Fascism.  Back on the mainland, as prefect of Bologna he was one of the few policemen who opposed the suppression of opponents by thuggery that was becoming part of the Fascist culture.  This led him to be posted to Bari, well away from the major centres of Fascist activity. After Mussolini took power following the 1922 March on Rome, Mori took it as his cue to retire, moving with his wife to Florence.

Yet the prospect of eliminating the so-called Cosa Nostra in Sicily continued to interest him and when Mussolini’s Minister of the Interior, Luigi Federzoni, approached him to return to policing in 1924, he accepted the requirement to join the Fascist party as a condition of the job and took up the post of prefect of Trapani.

Just over a year later, having determined that eliminating the Mafia would bring him huge public support, Mussolini made contact with Mori in person, asking him to become prefect of Palermo with 'carte blanche' to re-establish the authority of the Italian government, promising to draw up any new laws he required to carry out the task.

In a four-year campaign, Mori became known as ‘the Iron Prefect’, employing methods that included violence and intimidation on a scale almost the equal of the tactics used by the Mafia themselves.

Joseph Bonanno left Sicily to escape Mori's purge
Joseph Bonanno left Sicily
to escape Mori's purge
His men laid siege to entire towns, humiliating Mafia bosses by dragging them out of their beds in the early hours, and countering the code of silence – omertà – that all members were supposed to follow by using torture to obtain information, even threatening harm to their families if they refused to co-operate.

More than 11,000 arrests were made during his time in charge. Mussolini rewarded him by making him a Senator and retiring him in 1929, his propaganda machine announcing to Italy that the Mafia had been eradicated.

Whether that was true has been the subject of many arguments.  The murder rate on the island dropped sharply in the 1930s as some Mafiosi chose to give evidence to police in return for their own lives and others, such as Joseph Bonanno, relocated to the United States and built crime empires there.

But, according to some historians, too many of Mori’s arrests were of minor figures and a substantial number of bosses simply went to ground, content to lie low in the expectation that the Fascists would eventually fall from power.

This was to come about, of course, with the Allied invasion of 1943, which began in Sicily.  Mafia figures still on the island and in the US took the opportunity to offer their help, both in encouraging Sicilians to turn against the Fascists and in passing on their knowledge of the difficult terrain and often treacherous coastline.

As cities and towns fell and new local administrations were appointed, Mafia figures manoeuvred themselves into key positions and, slowly but surely, their power was restored.

Mori’s story has been the subject of several books and films, notably the 1977 movie, Il prefetto di ferro – the Iron Prefect – directed by Pasquale Squitieri and starring Giuliano Gemma and Claudia Cardinale, with music by Ennio Morricone.

The old part of Trapani sits on a promontory
The old part of Trapani sits on a promontory 
Travel tip:

Situated on the western coast of Sicily, Trapani is a fishing and ferry port notable for a curving harbour, where Peter of Aragon landed in 1282 to begin the Spanish occupation of Sicily. Well placed strategically to trade with Africa as well as the Italian mainland, Trapani was once the hub of a commercial network that stretched from Carthage in what is now Tunisia to Venice. Nowadays, the port is used by ferries serving Tunisia and the smaller islands, as well as other Italian ports.  The older part of the town, on a promontory with the sea on either side, has some crumbling palaces and others that have been well restored, as well as a number of military fortifications and notable churches.

The Certosa di Pavia is notable for its lavish Gothic and Renaissance architecture
The Certosa di Pavia is notable for its lavish
Gothic and Renaissance architecture
Travel tip:

Once a Roman military garrison, Pavia has a well preserved historic centre and, 8km (5 miles) to the north side if the city, the impressive Certosa di Pavia, a monastery complex built between 1396 and 1495. It is the largest monastery in Italian and is renowned for its extravagant Gothic and Renaissance style, a contrast to the plain, austere architecture normally associated with Carthusian religious buildings. Pavia is also home to one of Italy’s best universities, the alumni of which include explorer Christopher Columbus, physicist Alessandro Volta and poet and revolutionary Ugo Foscolo.



26 February 2017

Angelo Mangiarotti - architect and designer

Iconic glass church among legacy to city of Milan 


Angelo Mangiarotti, pictured at a conference in 2007
Angelo Mangiarotti, pictured at a conference in 2007
Angelo Mangiarotti, regarded by his peers as one of the greats of modern Italian architecture and design, was born on this day in 1921 in Milan.

Many notable examples of his work in urban design can be found in his home city, including the Repubblica and Venezia underground stations, the iconic glass church of Nostra Signora della Misericordia in the Baranzate suburb and several unique residential properties, including the distinctive Casa a tre cilindri - composed of a trio of cylindrical blocks - in Via Gavirate in the San Siro district of the city.

He also worked extensively in furniture design with major companies such as Vistosi, Fontana Arte, Danese, Artemide, Skipper and the kitchen producer Snaidero.

Inside the glass Chiesa di Nostra Signora della Misericordia
Inside the glass Chiesa di Nostra Signora della Misericordia
Mangiarotti graduated from the Architecture School of the Politecnico di Milano in 1948. He moved to the United States in 1953 and worked in Chicago as a visiting professor for the Illinois Institute of Technology. While in Illinois, he met internationally renowned architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Konrad Wachsmann, all of whom were substantial influences.

He returned to Italy in 1950 and opened his own architectural firm in Milan with fellow architect Bruno Morassutti, a partnership which was active until 1960.

It was with Morasutti and another Milan-based designer and engineer, Aldo Favini, that Mangiarotti collaborated on the Chiesa di Nostra Signora della Misericordia, which signalled a massive change in the design features and construction techniques of Italian churches.

The church, in the Baranzate suburb to the north-west of Milan, was constructed of concrete, steel and glass - chosen as the materials that fuelled the rebirth of Italy after the devastation of the Second World War.

The Case a tre cilindri in the San Siro district of Milan
The Case a tre cilindri in the San Siro district of Milan
Mangiarotti's original designs helped create a timeless building that has recently been restored and continues to be an impressive example of modern, progressive design even 60 years after its original construction.

The church is very near the Fiera Milano metro station, which was Mangiarotti's last architectural project before his death in 2012.

Mangiarotti's designs for furniture, lighting, decorative objects, ceramics and glassware remain highly collectible and sell for high prices.  He also created a famous collection of Murano glass Giogali Lighting produced by Vistosi.

His partnership with Rino Snaidero, which began in 1960, helped establish Snaidero's position as a leader in kitchen design.

Mangiarotti designed the Cruscotto kitchen and Sistema lines for Snaidero, both of which were notable for the exceptionally refined materials used.  The Cruscotto design was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The distinctive Snaidero headquarters building
The distinctive Snaidero headquarters building
The relationship between Snaidero and Mangiarotti reached its peak when the architect was given the job of designing the new building to house Snaidero's offices and central headquarters in Majano in the province of Udine, for which he created a mushroom-shaped main building with a fibreglass facade secured to a reinforced concrete structure, supported by four columns.

It had rounded corners and slightly protruding elliptical windows reminiscent of a ship or an aeroplane.

Mangiarotti, who died in 2012 aged 91, passed on his ideas as a lecturer at universities and technical institutes in Venice, Palermo, Florence and Milan in Italy, as well as Lausanne in Switzerland, Hawaii and Adelaide, Australia.   His work won numerous awards.

Travel tip:

The San Siro district of Milan originated as a small settlement in the 19th century in the area now known as Piazzale Lotto. The area developed in the 20th century and has since become a very diverse district, with a mix of green space and congested residential neighbourhoods, combining villas and apartment blocks serving different income groups, and a concentration of sports facilities, most notably the Giuseppe Meazza football stadium, home of AC Milan and Internazionale, the Milanese hippodrome horse racing track and the Palasport di San Siro arena, which is mainly used for basketball and volleyball.

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The Piazza della Libertà in Udine
The Piazza della Libertà in Udine
Travel tip:

Majano, the base of the Snaidero company headquarters that Mangiarotti designed, is a short distance from the city of Udine, an attractive and wealthy provincial city which is the gastronomic capital of Friuli. Udine's most attractive area lies within the medieval centre, which has Venetian, Greek and Roman influences. The main square, Piazza della Libertà, features the town hall, the Loggia del Lionello, built in 1448–1457 in the Venetian-Gothic style, and a clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio, which is similar to the clock tower in Piazza San Marco - St Mark's Square - in Venice.


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25 January 2016

Friuli earthquake


First of two disasters to rock Italy in the same year


Tolmezzo in Friuli Venezia Giulia was said to have been close to the epicentre of the 1348 earthquake
Tolmezzo in Friuli Venezia Giulia was said to have
been close to the epicentre of the 1348 earthquake
A devastating earthquake hit the area now known as Friuli Venezia Giulia on this day in 1348.

With a seismic intensity believed to be the equivalent of 6.9 on the Richter scale, the effects of the quake were felt right across Europe.

According to contemporary sources, houses and churches collapsed and there were numerous casualties. It was recorded that even as far away as Rome, buildings had been damaged.

The epicentre is believed to have been north of Udine to the east of the small towns of Tolmezzo, Venzone and Gemona.

The earthquake happened on 25 January early in the afternoon and its effects were immediately felt in Udine, where the castle and cathedral were both damaged.

In Austria the town of Villach was later hit by a landslide caused by the earthquake. Buildings in Carniola, part of present day Slovenia, and in Vicenza, Verona and Venice were also damaged.

It was recorded that the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome was damaged by the earthquake and an ancient tower nearby developed a permanent tilt. Aftershocks were felt in different parts of Italy for several weeks.

Later in the same year, the Black Death, or bubonic plague, swept through Italy and was reported to have killed off large numbers of the populations of Florence, Venice, Pisa and Naples.


The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome was damaged by the earthquake
The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome
was damaged by the earthquake
At the time the two disasters were believed to be connected and people interpreted them as Acts of God, sent to punish them for their sins and over indulgence.

Travel tip:

Udine, the main city in Friuli, is not far from Italy’s border with Slovenia but has some distinct Venetian influences. In the principal square, Piazza della Libertà, there are beautiful 15th century Venetian-style buildings, such as the candy striped town hall, Loggia del Lionello and the clock tower, Torre dell’Orologio, which resembles the one in Piazza San Marco in Venice. 


Travel tip:

Tolmezzo, to the north of Udine, is an historic town at the foot of a mountain. It had been a settlement even before it was taken over by the Romans but it did not become part of the Kingdom of Italy till 1866. There are interesting old streets to explore and the 18th century Duomo di San Martino contains 16th century art treasures. The town’s Museo delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari has a collection illustrating the life, traditions and early farming methods of the area.

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