Carlo Cattaneo - philosopher and writer

Intellectual who became a key figure in Milan uprising

Carlo Cattaneo was an intellectual who
led the Five Days of Milan uprising

Carlo Cattaneo, the philosopher and political writer who emerged as a leader in the so-called Five Days of Milan, the 1848 rebellion against the harsh rule of Austria, was born on this day in 1801 in Milan.

An influential figure in academic and intellectual circles in Milan, whose ideas helped shape the Risorgimento, Cattaneo was fundamentally against violence as a means to achieve change.

Yet when large-scale rioting broke out in the city in March 1848 he joined other intellectuals bringing organisation to the insurrection and succeeded in driving out Austrian’s occupying army, at least temporarily.

The uprising happened against a backcloth of social reform in other parts of the peninsula, in Rome and further south in Salerno, Naples and Sicily. 

By contrast, the Austrians, who ruled most of northern Italy, sought to strengthen their grip by imposing harsh tax increases on the citizens and sent out tax collectors, supported by the army, to ensure that everybody paid.

Cattaneo, who published his philosophical and political ideas in a journal entitled Il Politecnico, considered negotiation was the best way to represent the grievances of Milanese citizens and obtained some concessions from Austria’s deputy governer in the city.

Cattaneo was a republican who refused
to swear an oath to the monarchy

But when these were immediately cancelled by Josef Radetzky, the veteran general and highly accomplished military leader in charge of the Milan garrison, he changed his mind, realising that it was unlikely that any dialogue could take place with the Lombard nobility or the Vienna court.

So when trouble erupted on March 18, Cattaneo joined with Enrico Cernuschi, Giulio Terzaghi and Giorgio Clerici, who were three political progressives of his acquaintance, in forming a council of war.

Based at the Palazzo Taverna in Via Bigli, they organised the insurgents to fight tactical battles and harnessed the passion of the Milanese so effectively, persuading even priests to join the street battles and mobilising farmers from the surrounding countryside to come to the city to give their support, that the Austrians, weakened after Radetzky was forced to send some of his troops to Vienna, to quell a simultaneous revolt there, sought an armistice.

Cattaneo rejected the request, and in the evening of March 22, after five days of fighting, Radetzky decided to minimise his losses and began a withdrawal to the Quadrilatero, an area between Milan and Venice protected by four fortresses.

Despite King Charles Albert, whom Cattaneo disliked, sending his Piedmontese army to war with the Austrians the following day at the start of the First Italian War of Independence, Radetzky marched back into Milan within five months and Cattaneo, who had been at the head of a temporary government in Milan, fled to Switzerland.

The monument to Carlo Cattaneo in
Via Santa Margherita in Milan

He settled in Lugano, where he wrote his Storia della Rivoluzione del 1848 (History of the 1848 Revolution) and other historical works. In 1860, he relaunched Politecnico, in which he expressed his vision of Italy as a progressive federalist republic.

He opposed Cavour for his unitarian views and when Garibaldi invited him to be part of the government of the Neapolitan provinces, he would not agree to the union with Piedmont. In the unified Italy he was frequently asked to stand for parliament, but always ruled himself out because he felt he could not swear an oath of allegiance to the monarchy.

He died in Castagnolo, a village on the north shore of Lake Lugano.

The plaque outside Cattaneo's headquarters in Via Bigli

Travel tip:

Palazzo Taverna in Via Bigli in Milan, which acquired its name after it passed into the possession of Count Francesco Taverna in 1502, is celebrated for its role in the Five Days of Milan, when it became the headquarters of the insurgents after they were forced to abandon the nearby Palazzo Vidiserti. There is a plaque on the facade of the building bearing the inscription: “In this house while the people combated in the five days of March 1848 the central committee of the insurrection rejected the armistice offered by General Radetzky."

The Castelvecchio in Verona was one
of the fortresses in the Quadrilatero

Travel tip:

The Quadrilatero, often called the Quadrilateral Fortresses in English, is the traditional name of a defensive system of the Austrian Empire in the Lombardy-Venetia region of Italy, which was defended by the fortresses of Peschiera, Mantua, Legnago and Verona, between the Mincio, the Po and Adige Rivers, all of which are well preserved.

More reading:

The Five Days of Milan

Venice 1849: History's first air raid

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour - Italy's first prime minister

Also on this day:

1479: The birth of Lisa del Giocondo, Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa'

1927: The birth of comic book artist Hugo Pratt

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Salvatore Quasimodo - Nobel Prize winner

Civil engineer wrote poetry in his spare time

Salvatore Quasimodo is one of six Italians to win
the Nobel Prize in Literature

Salvatore Quasimodo, who was one of six Italians to have won a Nobel Prize in Literature, died on this day in 1968 in Naples.

The former civil engineer, who was working for the Italian government in Reggio Calabria when he published his first collection of poems and won the coveted and historic Nobel Prize in 1959, suffered a cerebral haemorrhage in Amalfi, in Campania, where he had gone to preside over a poetry prize.

He was taken by car to Naples but died in hospital a few hours later, at the age of 66.  He had suffered a heart attack previously during a visit to the Soviet Union.

The committee of the Swedish Academy, who meet to decide each year’s Nobel laureates, cited Quasimodo’s “lyrical poetics, which with ardent classicism expresses the tragic experiences of the life of our times".

The formative experiences that shaped his literary life began when he was a child when his father, a station master in Modica, the small city in the province of Ragusa in Sicily, where Salvatore was born in 1901, was transferred in January 1909 to Messina, at the tip of the island closest to the mainland, to supervise the reorganisation of train services in the wake of the devastating earthquake of December 1908.

Much of the city had been destroyed in the quake, as had Reggio Calabria, just across the Straits of Messina, and Quasimodo’s family lived in a freight wagon in an abandoned station. The physical devastation all around them had a profound effect on Salvatore, as did his daily contact with survivors in their struggle to come to terms with the destruction of their surroundings and the catastrophic loss of human lives, with perhaps as many as 120,000 killed in the areas worst hit.

Quasimodo worked as a civil engineer before
turning to writing full time

Quasimodo attended college in Palermo and, later, the rebuilt Messina, where he was able to publish his poetry for the first time in a journal he founded with a couple of fellow students.

He graduated in maths and physics and moved to Rome, hoping to continue his studies with a view to becoming an engineer.  But he had little money and had to abandon his studies in order to earn a living, taking a number of short-term jobs. In time he moved to Florence, where he got to know a number of poets and developed an interest in the hermetic movement, a form of poetry in which the sounds of the words are as important as their meaning.

Eventually in 1926 he handed a position with the Ministry of Public Works in Reggio Calabria, working with civil engineers as a surveyor.  He continued to write and to study Greek and Latin, making friends both in literary and political circles, including an anti-fascist group in the city. He also married for the first time. His published his first collection of poetry, called Acque e terre (Waters and Lands) in 1930.

He was transferred a number of times with his job, to Imperia, Genoa and Milan, before he quit to write full time from 1938.  In 1941 he was appointed professor of Italian literature at the "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory of Music in Milan, a position he held until his death.

After the Second World War, in which he was an outspoken critic of Mussolini but did not join the Italian resistance movement, his poetry shifted from the hermetic movement to a style that reflected his increasing engagement with social criticism.

The area of the Sicilian town of Modica in which
Salvatore Quasimodo was born in 1901

Among his best-known volumes were Giorno dopo giorno (Day After Day), La vita non è sogno (Life Is Not a Dream), Il falso e il vero verde (The False and True Green) and La terra impareggiabile (The Incomparable Land).

He won numerous prizes in addition to the Nobel Prize, in which he joined Giosuè Carducci (1906), Grazia Deledda (1926) and Luigi Pirandello (1934) as Italian winners of the Literature award. Eugenio Montale (1975) and Dario Fo (1997) followed him.

After his first wife had died in 1948, he was married for a second time to the film actress and dancer, Maria Cumani, with whom he had a tumultuous relationship that produced a son, Alessandro, before they were legally separated in 1960.

After his death in Naples, he was buried in the Monumental Cemetery in Milan in the Famedio - a place reserved for the tombs of famous people - alongside another great writer, novelist, poet and playwright, Alessando Manzoni.

Modica's spectacular cathedral of San Giorgio

Travel tip:

Built amid the dramatic landscape of the Monti Iblei, with its hills and deep valleys, the steep streets and stairways of the medieval centre combined with many examples of more recent Baroque architecture, including a spectacular cathedral, make UNESCO-listed Modica is one of southern Sicily's most atmospheric towns, with numerous things to see in its two parts, Modica Alta, the older, upper town, and Modica Bassa, which is the more modern but still historic lower town. Famous in Sicily for its chocolate, it has the reputation of a warm and welcoming city with an authentic Sicilian character.

Part of the dramatic cityscape of Ragusa

Travel tip:

Nearby Ragusa, the principal city of the province and just 15km (9 miles) from Modica, is arguably even more picturesque. Set in the same rugged landscape with a similar mix of medieval and Baroque architecture. again it has two parts - Ragusa Ibla, a town on top of a hill rebuilt on the site of the original settlement destroyed in a major earthquake in 1693, and Ragusa Superiore, which was built on flatter ground nearby in the wake of the earthquake.  A spectacular sight in its own right and affording wonderful views as well, Ragusa Ibla may seem familiar to viewers of the TV detective series Inspector Montalbano as the dramatic hillside city in the title sequence. The city streets also feature regular in location filming for the series, based on the books of Andrea Camilleri.

More reading:

Giosuè Carducci - Italy's first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Dario Fo - the outspoken genius whose work put spotlight on corruption

The playwright born in a village called Chaos

Also on this day:

1800: Napoleon defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo

1837: The death of the poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi

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Giovanni Antonio Magini – astronomer and cartographer

Scientist laboured to produce a comprehensive atlas of Italy

The cover of Magini's great work, which
was published by his son in 1620

Giovanni Antonio Magini, who dedicated his life to producing a detailed atlas of Italy, was born on this day in 1555 in Padua.

He also devised his own planetary theory consisting of 11 rotating spheres and invented calculating devices to help him work on the geometry of the sphere.

Magini was born in Padua and went to study philosophy in Bologna, receiving his doctorate in 1579. He then dedicated himself to astronomy and in 1582 wrote his Ephemerides coelestium motuum, a major treatise on the subject, which was translated into Italian the following year.

In 1588 Magini joined in the competition for the chair of mathematics at Bologna University and was chosen over Galileo because he was older and had more moderate views. He held the position for the rest of his life.

But his greatest achievement was the preparation of Italia, or the Atlante geografico d’Italia, which was printed posthumously by Magini’s son in 1620.

Although Italy as a state has existed only since 1861, the name Italia, referring to the southern part of the peninsula, may go back to the ancient Greeks. It appeared on coins thought to have been produced in the 1st century BC and was eventually applied to the whole of the peninsula. Magini’s atlas set out to include maps of every Italian region with exact names and historical notes.

Giovanni Antonio Magini

It proved expensive to produce and Magini took on extra posts in order to fund it. These included working as mathematics tutor to the sons of Vincenzo I of Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua.

The atlas is dedicated to the duke, who assisted him with the project by arranging for maps of the many states of Italy to be brought to Magini.

The governments of Messina and Genoa also assisted him financially to help him produce the atlas.

Magini died in Bologna in 1617 and the lunar crater maginus was later named after him.

Giotto's brilliant frescoes cover the walls of the Scrovegni
Chapel, one of the Italy's great artistic treasures

Travel tip:

Padua in the Veneto, where Magini was born, is one of the most important centres for art in Italy and home to the country’s second oldest university. Padua has become acknowledged as the birthplace of modern art because of the Scrovegni Chapel, the inside of which is covered with frescoes by Giotto, an artistic genius who was the first to paint people with realistic facial expressions showing emotion. At Palazzo Bo in the centre of the city, where Padua’s university was founded in 1222, you can still see the original lectern used by Galileo and the world’s first anatomy theatre, where dissections were secretly carried out from 1594.

The courtyard of the Archiginnasio, the oldest surviving
building of the University of Bologna

Travel tip:

Bologna University, where Magini occupied the chair in Mathematics, was founded in 1088 and is the oldest university in the world. The oldest surviving building, the Archiginnasio, is now a library and is open Monday to Friday from 9 am to 7 pm, and on Saturdays from 9 am to 2 pm. It is a short walk away from Piazza Maggiore and the Basilica di San Petronio in the centre of the city.

Also on this day:

The feast of St Anthony of Padua

2000: Mehmet Ali Agca, the gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II, is granted a state pardon by the Italian government

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Nick Gentile - mafioso

Sicilian mobster defied code of silence by publishing memoirs

Nick Gentile was
rarely photographed

The mafioso Nicola Gentile, known in the United States as Nick, who became notorious for publishing a book of memoirs that revealed the inner workings of the American Mafia as well as secrets of the Sicilian underworld, was born on this day in 1885 in Siculiana, a small town on the south coast of the Sicily, in the province of Agrigento.

Gentile’s book, Vita di Capomafia, which he wrote in conjunction with a journalist, was published in 1963 and provided much assistance to the American authorities in their fight against organized crime.

As a result Gentile was sentenced to death by the mafia council in Sicily for having broken the code of omertà, a vow of silence to which all mafiosi are expected to adhere to protect their criminal activities.  Siculiana, in fact, was a mafia stronghold, where the code was usually enforced with particular rigour.

Yet the mobsters from the city of Catania who were tasked with carrying out the sentence declined to do so, for reasons that have not been explained. In the event, Gentile died in Siculiana in 1966 of natural causes, having spent his last years as an old, sick man who appeared to have very little money and was kept alive by the kindliness of neighbours.

The file the American FBI kept on Gentile's
criminal activity and personal details

The book was also a source of embarrassment for the American government, revealing how US forces collaborated with criminals across Sicily to help facilitate the invasion of the island in 1943 and the subsequent push up the Italian peninsula, helping the Sicilian Mafia rebuild after the damage it suffered during the Fascist era.

Gentile - known in his home country as 'Zio' or 'Zu Cola' (Uncle Nicola) - went to America as an illegal immigrant at the age of 19, having been invited there by a small crime clan made up of Sicilians from Siculiana, acting in New York as well as Philadelphia and Kansas City.

He developed a reputation for being able to mediate in disagreements between rival Mafia families and subsequently travelled regularly from state to state as a peacemaker, while at the same time capitalising on the respect he gained from others by forming strategic alliances.

In the 1920s. Gentile was the head of criminal smuggling cartels plus the mafia families of Kansas City, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Gentile returned frequently to Sicily, sometimes to visit relatives, at other times to escape his enemies and the law. Ultimately, his criminal activities in America were based in New York, where he became involved with narcotics operations headed by Charles 'Lucky' Luciano.

He returned to Sicily permanently after being arrested in New Orleans in 1937 on drug charges, fleeing the country on $15,000 bail.

Charles "Lucky" Luciano was an associate of Gentile
both in the United States and in Sicily

Gentile then rose to a top-level position in the Sicilian Mafia and was one of the mob figures who collaborated with the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, helping the military set up a new civil administration in return for being appointed to prominent positions in local government.

He became involved with a Sicilian separatist movement and claimed to have been approached by a US special agent to rally support for the monarchy in the referendum on June 2, 1946.

When Lucky Luciano was extradited to Italy in 1946, he also is said to have been a collaborator with the US military. In Sicily he was again able to team up with Gentile and questions have been raised since over how he and Gentile had the freedom to organise drug trafficking routes to the US.

Quite why, in 1963, Gentile decided to write his memoirs, with the help of Italian journalist Felice Chilanti, is not clear.  In describing the internal organization of the Mafia, or l'onorata società - the Honoured Society - as Gentile called it, he ignored the code of omertà in a way not seen until the pentito Tommaso Buscetta began to reveal secrets more than 20 years later.

Ultimately, the American law enforcement agencies used the detail in Gentile’s book to corroborate the evidence of another repentant mobster, Joe Valachi, who told them that Gentile’s descriptions were accurate.

The marina area at Siculiana is part of an unspoilt stretch
of Sicilian coastline in the southeast of the island

Travel tip:

Siculiana, a town thought to have Greek and Arab roots, is situated on the south-facing coast of the island, about 24km (15 miles) from Agrigento. The Chiaramonte family built a castle, parts of which are still visible, on the ruins of an Arab fortress that was destroyed in 1087 during the conquest of Sicily by the Normans. A 13km (8 miles) stretch of unspoilt coastline northwest of Siculiana is now a protected nature reserve.

A view across the port of Porto Empedocle, where
Andrea Camilleri based his Montalbano novels

Travel tip:

Only 13km (8 miles) from Siculiana along the coast in the other direction, on the way to Agrigento, is Porto Empedocle, the birthplace of the author Andrea Camilleri and the port town on which he based Vigàta, the fictional home of his famous detective, Inspector Montalbano. Camilleri’s Montalbano books have become international best-sellers, with many of them turned into episodes of the crime drama TV series starring Luca Zingaretti as Montalbano. Many scenes from the TV series were filmed around Porto Empedocle, which has now changed its name to Porto Empedocle Vigàta to encourage Camilleri fans to visit the area.

More reading:

How Charles 'Lucky' Luciano became one of organised crime's most powerful figures

Andrea Camilleri - the creator of Inspector Montalbano

The story of anti-mafia crusader Giovanni Falcone


Also on this day:

1675: The death of Charles Emmanuel II, notorious Duke of Savoy

1922: The birth of astrophysicist Margherita Hack

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Giovanni Antonio Giay – composer

Opera composer also wrote religious music for the Savoy family

Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, who invited Giay
 to become maestro di cappella at the royal chapel

Opera and music composer Giovanni Antonio Giay was born on this day in 1690 in Turin.

A protégée of Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, Giay sometimes spelt Giai or Giaj, wrote 15 operas, five symphonies and a large quantity of sacred music for the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral.

Giay’s father, Stefano Giuseppe Giay, who was a chemist, died when Giovanni Antonio was just five years old.

At the age of ten, Giovanni Antonio became the first member of his family to study music when he entered the Collegio degli Innocenti at Turin Cathedral to study under Francesco Fasoli.

Giay’s first opera, Il trionfo d’amore o sia La Fillide, was premiered at the original Teatro Carignano during the Carnival of 1715.

At the invitation of Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, Giay became maestro di cappella at the royal chapel in Turin in 1732, succeeding Andrea Stefano Fiore.

Charles Emmanuel III liked art and music and reintroduced feasting and celebrations in Turin that had previously been abolished by his predecessors.

Giay's son, Francesco Saverio, took
over his father's role in Turin

The composer produced a great deal of religious music for the chapel but continued to write opera as well.

His intermezzo, Don Chisciotte in Venezia, which was written in about 1748, had lyrics by Giuseppe Baretti, a controversial poet and writer from Turin, who was later tried for murder in London.

The lyrics feature Miguel Cervantes’ characters Don Quixote and Dulcinea, with the action taking place during the carnival of Venice.

Giay remained in the post of maestro di cappella for 26 years until his death in 1764 in Turin.

He was succeeded as maestro by his son, Francesco Saverio Giay, who went on to hold the post for the next 34 years.

Turin Cathedral, where Giay studied and was later
appointed maestro di cappella

Travel tip:

Turin Cathedral, where Giay studied music and was maestro di cappella, was built between 1491 and 1498 in Piazza San Giovanni in Turin. The Chapel of the Holy Shroud, where the Turin Shroud is kept, was added in 1668. Some members of the House of Savoy are buried in the Duomo while others are buried in the Basilica di Superga on the outskirts of the city.

Teatro Carignano is believed to be
 more than 300 years old

Travel tip:

Teatro Carignano in Turin, where Giay’s first opera had its premiere, is one of the oldest and most important theatres in Italy and is believed to date back to 1711, although it has been rebuilt several times over the centuries. Today it is owned by the city of Turin and is used mainly to stage plays. The main entrance is in Piazza Carignano in the heart of ‘royal’ Turin.

Also on this day:

1611: The birth of Baroque artist Antonio Cifrondi

1956: The death of Corrado Alvaro, award-winning writer and journalist

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Carlo Ancelotti - football manager

Four-times winner of the Champions League

Carlo Ancelotti in the Milan colours in which he twice won
European football's top prize as both a player and a manager

Carlo Ancelotti, a former top-level player who has become one of football’s most accomplished managers, was born on this day in 1959 in Reggiolo, a small town in Emilia-Romagna.

With Real Madrid's defeat of Liverpool in the 2022 final, he became the only manager to have won the UEFA Champions League four times - twice with AC Milan and twice with Real Madrid. He is also the only coach to have managed teams in five finals.

Ancelotti, who has managed title-winning teams in four countries, is also one of only seven to have won the European Cup or Champions League as a player and gone on to do so as a manager too.

As a boy, Ancelotti often helped his father, Giuseppe, who made and sold cheese for a living, in the fields on the family farm, which is where he claims he acquired his appreciation of hard work.

But despite the cheeses of Emilia-Romagna having international renown, especially the famous Parmigiana-Reggiano, he saw how his father struggled to make enough money to feed his family and vowed to make more of his own life.

Ancelotti is one of the most accomplished
coaches in world football

His talent for football, allied to that work ethic, enabled him to fulfil that promise.

After playing for his local youth team in Reggiolo, Ancelotti was snapped up as a teenager by Parma, making his debut in Serie C - the third tier in Italian football - in the 1976–77 season, at the age of 18. His two goals in the decisive play-off earned the gialloblu promotion to Serie B the following year.

He joined Roma in 1979, staying in the capital for eight trophy-laden seasons, winning the Coppa Italia four times and his first Serie A title in 1983, under the great Swedish coach Nils Liedholm.

Then came six seasons with Arrigo Sacchi’s magnificent AC Milan team, which won the Scudetto - the Serie A title - in 1988, and the European Cup in both 1989 and 1990. He won his third Scudetto when Fabio Capello replaced Sacchi as manager.

An efficient and assiduous midfield player, he could create goals and score them, which earned him a place in the Italian national team, although injuries restricted him to 26 senior caps and caused him to miss the 1982 and 1986 World Cups as well as the Olympics in Seoul in 1988.  He did win a bronze medal as part of the Azzurri squad at the 1990 World Cup on home soil.

As a mentor to several future top-class players, including Giuseppe Giannini, Demetrio Albertini and Andrea Pirlo, Ancelotti displayed burgeoning man-management skills even while still a player.

Ancelotti with the Champions League trophy after winning
it for the third time with Real Madrid in 2014

Persistent knee injuries forced him to quit at the age of 33. He moved immediately into coaching with the Italian Football Federation at the national training headquarters at Coverciano, near Florence, where he rose to be assistant to his former Milan manager Arrigo Sacchi on the Azzurri coaching staff as Italy reached the final of the 1994 World Cup.

Ancelotti stepped on to the club management ladder in familiar territory with Reggiana in Serie B in 1995. He had to wait seven years for his first major trophy, but claimed the biggest prize first as AC Milan, his fourth club after Reggiana, Parma and Juventus, won the 2002-03 Champions League final, defeating Juventus in the final on penalties.

Now major trophies came thick and fast: a Serie A title with Milan in 2004 and a second Champions League in 2007, when victory over Liverpool in the final in Athens made up for the catastrophe of losing the 2005 final to the same opponents in Istanbul after being 3-0 up at half-time.

The Stadio San Paolo in Naples, where Ancelotti takes
up his next management position in July

Moving to England, he led Chelsea to a Premier League-FA Cup double in 2009-10, won the French Ligue 1 title with Paris St Germain in 2013, followed by a third Champions League with Spanish giants Real Madrid in 2014.

After taking some time off for a back operation, Ancelotti resurfaced at Bayern Munich, where he succeeded Pep Guardiola and led the German giants to their fifth consecutive Bundesliga title. But lack of success in the Champions League led to his dismissal in September 2017.

He later had spells with Napoli back in Italy and Everton in England, before returning to Real Madrid in 2021.

Having been with his first wife, Luisa, for 25 years before they divorced in 2008, Ancelotti is now married to the Canadian businesswoman Barrena McClay, whom he met while they were both working in London. He has two children, Katia and Davide, from his first marriage. Davide was on his father’s coaching staff at Bayern Munich.

(Updated on 09-06-22)

The Rocca di Reggiolo in Ancelotti's home town

Travel tip:

Ancelotti’s home town of Reggiolo is close to the border of Emilia-Romagna and Veneto, about 32km (20 miles) north of Reggio Emilia in the Padana plain. It is the same distance from Mantua in the Veneto and was the frequent target of attacks between the 12th and 14th centuries, when Mantua and Reggio disputed possession. This led to the construction of the impressive walled castle that remains the town’s main feature.

Piazza San Prospero in Reggio Emilia often hosts a market

Travel tip:

Although the city of Reggio Emilia is often described as the home of Italy's world famous hard cheese, Parmigiano-Reggiano - known in English as Parmesan - is thought to have originated in the commune of Bibbiano, in the Reggio Emilia province, about 15km (9 miles) to the southeast.  The province is also believed to have given Italy its tricolore national flag, with evidence that a short-lived 18th century republic, the Repubblica Cispadana, had a flag of red, white and green.  The city lacks the cultural wealth of neighbouring Parma and is consequently less visited but it has an attractive historic centre with a number of notable buildings, including the Basilica della Ghiara and the 10th century Basilica di San Prospero, which overlooks the elegant Piazza of the same name.

More reading:

How Arrigo Sacchi started a tactical and technical revolution in Italian football

The genius of Andrea Pirlo

Coaching veteran Fabio Capello has won Serie A five times

Also on this day:

1918: The death of writer and composer Arrigo Boito

1940: Italy enters the Second World War

Home

The death of Nero

Brutal emperor killed himself with help of aide

The bust of Nero in the Capitoline
Museum in Rome

The Roman emperor Nero, whose rule was associated with extravagance and brutality, died on this day in 68 AD in what would now be described as an assisted suicide.

Effectively deposed as emperor when simultaneous revolts in the Gallic and Spanish legions coincided with the Praetorian Guard rising against him, with Galba named as his successor, Nero fled Rome, seeking refuge from one of his few remaining loyalists.

Phaon, an imperial freedman, gave him the use of a villa four miles outside Rome along Via Salaria, where he hastened, under disguise, along with Phaon and three other freedmen, Epaphroditos, Neophytus, and Sporus.

Nero had hoped to escape to Egypt but realised there was no one left to provide the means and asked the four freedmen to begin digging his grave, in readiness for his death by suicide.

In the meantime, the Senate had declared Nero a public enemy. As well as ordering the executions of numerous rivals, real or perceived, and even having his mother and two wives killed, Nero made many enemies through unpopular policies and confiscation of property.

He was suspected of starting the great fire that destroyed much of Rome in 64 AD in order to create space to build the vast Domus Aurea - a complex of palaces and pavilions in a landscaped park with an artificial lake and a gigantic bronze statue of himself. Nero blamed the fire on the small community of Christians, many of whom were put to death.

This bust of Nero can be found in the
Summer Garden in St Petersburg, Russia

Nero had been unable to keep his hiding place a secret and soon a courier arrived with news of the Senate’s declaration and their intention to have him beaten to death in the Forum. Armed men had been despatched to apprehend him.

Nero was famous for his love of the theatre, which largely involved him performing on the stage quite literally in front of a captive audience, with the doors of the theatre locking the audience in.  But, according to legend, when it came to the ultimate drama of taking his own life he was found wanting and begged one of his freedmen to help. Out of loyalty, Epaphroditos obliged and plunged a knife into the emperor’s chest.

It had the desired effect. When soldiers arrived, Nero was dying and attempts to stop his bleeding so that he could be returned alive to meet his fate failed.

Ironically, after the soldiers had been despatched, the debate in the Senate had continued and Nero might have been spared.

He was the last member of the revered Julio-Claudian dynasty and many of the senators felt a loyalty to the bloodline, if not to Nero himself, who had no heir. There was talk of a compromise that would preserve Nero's life, at least so a future heir to the dynasty could be produced.

Thus the line ended after 95 years. In the interests of maintaining public order, the Senate did posthumously declare Nero a public enemy.

Galba was proclaimed the new emperor, precipitating the chaos of what became known as the year of the Four Emperors.

Nero was buried in the Mausoleum of the Domitii Ahenobarbi, in what is now the Pincian Hill area of Rome, where the Villa Borghese stands.

The small side arches of the Ponte Salario are thought to
be part of the original Roman structure

Travel tip:

The Via Salaria ran from Porta Salaria in Rome’s Aurelian Walls to what was then Castrum Truentinum - Porto d'Ascoli today - on the Adriatic coast, a distance of 242 km (150 miles), passing through Reate (Rieti) and Asculum (Ascoli Piceno). It was originally built for the transportation of salt. Today, Via Salaria (SS4) is a state highway that runs more or less on the same path from Rome to the Adriatic sea. The remains of a number of Roman bridges along the route still exist, including the Ponte Salario, which crosses the Aniene, a tributary of the Tiber, just outside Rome. The bridge has been rebuilt and altered over the years but there are visible side arches which are thought to be from the original structure, built in the first century BC.

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One of the rooms in the rediscovered and
partially restored Domus Aurea

Travel tip:

After Nero’s death, the Domus Aurea - Golden House - was stripped of its treasures, with its marble, jewels and ivory removed. The vast complex was filled with earth and built over. The Baths of Titus, the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Colossus Neronis, the Baths of Trajan and the Temple of Venus and Rome were all built on the site, obliterating all visible trace of the Golden House. It was rediscovered during the Renaissance, when a young man fell down a hole on the site and found himself in the cavernous, subterranean rooms of Nero’s palace. It was discovered that beautiful, intricate frescoes remained, preserved from dampness by the buildings above. Since then, various restoration projects have taken place and are ongoing, with guided tours of parts of the complex now available.

Also on this day:

1311: Duccio's Maestà altarpiece in the Cathedral of Siena is unveiled

1898: The birth of Luigi Fagioli, the oldest driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix

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