24 January 2020

Galeazzo Maria Sforza - Duke of Milan

Effective leader with dark side



Piero Pollaiuolo's portrait of Galeazzo, which is kept by Uffizi in Florence
Piero Pollaiuolo's portrait of Galeazzo,
which is kept by Uffizi in Florence
Galeazzo Maria Sforza, who became the second member of the Sforza family to take the title Duke of Milan, was born on this day in 1444 in Fermo, in what is now the Marche region.

Sforza was an effective ruler but is often remembered as a tyrant with a cruel streak.  He ruled Milan for just 10 years before he was assassinated in 1476.

In that time, Galeazzo did much to boost the economy of Milan and the wider area of Lombardia. He introduced measures to promote and protect the work of Lombard craftsmen and boosted agriculture by the introduction of jasmine farming and rice cultivation. Farsightedly, he realised that a healthy population was a more productive one and expanded the health institutions started by his father, Francesco Sforza.  He minted a new silver coin, the Testone, which carried an image of his profile on the reverse.

He saw to it that work on Milan’s cathedral, which had started almost 100 years earlier, continued to progress, and took over the construction of a major hospital that his father had wanted to see built.

Galeazzo was also a major patron of music, attracting composers and musicians not just in Italy but from northern Europe, especially the Franco-Flemish areas of present day Belgium and Holland. Alexander Agricola, Johannes Martini, Loyset Compère, and Gaspar van Weerbeke all had their standing boosted by their association with the Sforza court, where they composed masses, motets and secular music.

The Testone coin, bearing the image of Galeazzo Maria Sforza on the reverse
The Testone coin, bearing the image
of Galeazzo Maria Sforza on the reverse
He was also a patron of the arts, although this was mainly connected with the extravagant decoration and embellishment of the vast Castello Sforzesco. The castle had been built by his father, Francesco, but he and Galeazzo’s mother, Bianca Maria Visconti, chose to live in the more modest Corte d’Arengo rather than be seen to flaunt their wealth.

Such considerations were dismissed by Galeazzo, who decided the castle was a suitable home for him and his family and hired two Florentine architects of particular note, Bartolomeo Gadio and Benedetto Ferrini, to oversee the restructuring of the Ducal Court, Rocchetta courtyard and his own private accommodation.

He commissioned the Ducal Chapel, built in 1471, and engaged artists of considerable reputation such as Bonifacio Bembo, Giacomino Vismara and Stefano de Fedeli.  The chapel’s extraordinary decoration, with much use of pure gold, makes it one of the masterpieces of Sforza art.

A skilled soldier, Galeazzo was called back from a military expedition in France at the time of his father’s death and hundreds of Milanese turned out to acclaim him as the new Duke when he returned to the city. It was not long before his ruthless streak emerged, however. At first ruling jointly with his mother, he soon took steps to relegate her to a much less influential position and it was not long before she moved to Cremona, where she had considerable support.  It is said that she was in contact with Ferdinand I of Naples, an enemy of Galeazzo, and after she became ill and died in 1468 there were suspicions that Galeazzo had ordered his agents to poison her.

Part of the sumptuously decorated ceiling of the Ducal Chapel
Part of the sumptuously decorated
ceiling of the Ducal Chapel
If that were true, it would have been consistent with the stories of cruelty that have been associated with Galeazzo, who is said to have taken delight in condemning those who offended him to agonizing deaths and subjecting his enemies to torture.  A womaniser, he allegedly raped the wives and daughters of Milanese noblemen, confident that they would be too fearful for their own safety to raise objections.

However, his excesses and cruelties eventually cost him his life when three of high-ranking officials in his court, Carlo Visconti, Gerolamo Olgiati and Giovanni Andrea Lampugnani, conspired to assassinate him.  All three had motives, Lampugnani’s stemming from a land dispute that cost him a considerable part of his fortune, Olgiati’s from political differences, and Visconti’s from suspicions that Galeazzo had raped his daughter.

Their plot came to fruition on 26 December, the feast of Santo Stefano, when Galeazzo attended the Basilica di Santo Stefano Maggiore to celebrate the saint.  When Galeazzo arrived, Lampugnani knelt before him in the atrium but then rose suddenly and stabbed him in the groin and chest. Visconti and Olgiati joined in, plunging their own weapons into the body of the Duke, who was soon dead.

Lampugnani himself was killed by one of Galeazzo’s guards, while Visconti and Olgiati were caught and executed within days.  Galeazzo was succeeded as Duke of Milan by Gian Galeazzo Sforza, the first-born of his four legitimate children, although for five years, until his majority, Milan was governed by his mother, Bona of Savoy.

The inner courtyard of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, which Galeazzo Maria Sforza turned into his luxurious home
The inner courtyard of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan,
which Galeazzo Maria Sforza turned into his luxurious home
Travel tip:

The Castello Sforzesco is one of the main sights for visitors to Milan, situated to the northwest of the city centre, with the Parco Sempione behind it. Francesco Sforza built it on the site of the Castello di Porta Giovia, which had been the main residence in the city of the Visconti family, from which Francesco was descended. The Viscontis ruled Milan for 170 years. Renovated and enlarged a number of times in subsequent centuries, it became one of the largest citadels in Europe and now houses several museums and art collections.

The Basilica of Santo Stefano Maggiore in Milan, the scene of Galeazzo Maria Sforza's assassination
The Basilica of Santo Stefano Maggiore in Milan, the
scene of Galeazzo Maria Sforza's assassination
Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santo Stafano Maggiore can be found in Piazza Santo Stefano, to the southeast of Milan’s centro storico, just a few minutes’ walk from the Duomo. Although it dates back to the fifth century, the present structure was built in 1075 in Romanesque style.  It contains the relics of at least eight saints. As well as being the scene of the death of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, an event which is commemorated with a plaque in the atrium, the church also witnessed the baptism, in 1571, of the painter Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio.

Also on this day:

41AD: The assassination of Roman Emperor Caligula

1705: The birth of the castrato singer Farinelli, acknowledged as music’s first ‘superstar’

1916: The birth of actor Arnoldo Foà

1947: The birth of footballer Giorgio Chinaglia


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23 January 2020

23 January

Luisa Casati – heiress and muse


Outrageous marchioness saw herself as a living work of art

The heiress, socialite and artist’s muse Luisa Casati, known for her outlandish dresses, exotic pets and hedonistic lifestyle, was born on this day in 1881 in Milan.  Casati, born into a wealthy background, married a marquis – Camillo, Marchese Casati Stampa di Soncino – when she was 19 and provided him with a daughter, Cristina, a year later, yet the marriage was never strong and they kept separate residences from an early stage.  It was not long before she tired of a life bound by formalities and the strict rules of etiquette and everything changed after she met the poet, patriot and lothario Gabriele D’Annunzio at a society hunt.  They became lovers and D’Annunzio introduced her to the world of writers and artists.  Tall, almost painfully thin and with striking looks, she became a creature of fascination for many young artists, who craved the attention of this eccentric aristocrat and the chance to paint her.  Their interest only encouraged the Marchesa Casati to indulge her taste for the extravagant, posing in ever-more outlandish dresses, embracing the culture of the Belle Époque. Her wealth enabled her to throw lavish parties.  Read more…


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Giovanni Michelotti – car designer


The many Triumphs of Turin sports car genius

One of the most prolific designers of sports cars in the 20th century, Giovanni Michelotti died on this day in 1980 in Turin.   Known for his hard work and creative talent, Michelotti has been credited with designing more than 1200 different cars.  He worked for Ferrari, Lancia and Maserati in Italy but car firms abroad soon got to know about him and he also designed for Triumph and BMW.  Michelotti was born in Turin in 1921 and worked for coach building firms before opening his own design studio in 1959.  The first of his designs put into production was for an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 in 1947.  Among the legendary sports cars designed by Michelotti in Italy are the Ferrari 166 MM and the Maserati Sebring.  In Britain he was responsible for many successful Triumphs, including the famous Spitfire, Stag and TR4. He also designed buses and trucks for British Leyland.  Under his own name he designed a beach car, the Shellette, with wicker seats. Only about 80 were made, but among the buyers were the Dutch royal family, who used it at their summer property in Porto Ercole, and Jacqueline Onassis.  Read more…


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Salvatore Lima - politician


Christian Democrat MEP murdered by Mafia

Salvatore Lima, a politician strongly suspected of being the Sicilian Mafia’s ‘man in Rome’ until he was shot dead near his seaside villa in 1992, was born on this day in 1928 in Palermo.  The Christian Democrat MEP, usually known as Salvo, had long been suspected of corruption, from his days as Mayor of Palermo in the 1950s and 60s to his time as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, between 1968 and 1979, when he formed a close association with Giulio Andreotti, the three-times Italian prime minister whose rise to power was helped considerably by the support Lima was able to garner for him in Sicily.  Lima's links with the Mafia were established by a magistrates’ enquiry into his death when it was concluded that he was killed on the orders of the then all-powerful Mafia boss Salvatore ‘Toto’ Riina as an act of revenge following Lima’s failure to have sentences against 342 mafiosi accused in the so-called 'maxi-trial' of 1986-87 annulled or at least reduced.  He had allegedly promised his Cosa Nostra paymasters that he would see to it that a Supreme Court judge with a reputation for overturning sentences against suspected Mafia members was appointed prosecutor.  Read more…

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Muzio Clementi – composer and pianist


Musician is remembered as ‘father of the piano’

Composer Muzio Clementi, whose studies and sonatas helped develop the technique of the early pianoforte, was born on this day in 1752 in Rome.  He moved to live in England when he was young, where he became a successful composer and pianist and started a music publishing and piano manufacturing business. He also helped to found the Royal Philharmonic Society in London.  Clementi was baptised Mutius Philippus Vincentius Franciscus Xaverius the day after his birth at the Church of San Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome.  His father was a silversmith, who soon recognised Clementi’s musical talent and arranged for him to have lessons from a relative, who was maestro di cappella at St Peter’s Basilica.  By the time he was 13, Clementi had already composed an oratorio and a mass and he became the organist at his parish church, San Lorenzo in Damaso, at the age of 14.  Sir Peter Beckford, a wealthy Englishman, was so impressed with Clementi’s musical talent and his skill with the harpsichord when he visited Rome in 1766 that he offered to take him to England and sponsor his musical education until he was 21.  Read more…


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22 January 2020

22 January

Frankie Yale - gang boss


Mobster who employed a young Al Capone

The gang boss who gave Al Capone one of his first jobs was born in this day in 1893 in Longobucco in Calabria.  Francesco Ioele, who would later become known as Frankie Yale, moved to the United States in around 1900, his family settling into the lower Manhattan area of New York City.  Growing up, Ioele was befriended by another southern Italian immigrant, John Torrio, who introduced him to the Five Points Gang, which was one of the most dominant street gangs in New York in the early part of the 20th century.  In time, Ioele graduated from petty street crime and violent gang fights to racketeering, changing his name to Yale to make him sound more American and taking control of the ice delivery trade in Brooklyn.  With the profits Yale opened a waterfront bar on Coney Island, which was called the Harvard Inn. It was there that he took on a young Capone as a bouncer and in a fight there that Capone acquired the facial scars that would stay with him for life.  Capone worked for Yale for two years until Torrio, by then based in Chicago, recruited him to his organisation, and Capone moved to the city with which his criminal activities would become associated.  Read more…


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Antonio Todde - supercentenarian


Sardinian shepherd holds record as oldest Italian in history

Antonio Todde, who was the oldest living man in the world before he died at the age of 112 years 346 days in 2002 and remains the oldest Italian man in history, was born on this day in 1889 in Tiana, a mountain village in Sardinia.  There are 19 other Italians who have attained a higher age, but all are women. Maria Giuseppa Robucci, from Apulia, is still living at the age of 115 years 307 days but would need to survive a further year and 195 days to match Emma Morano, from Piedmont, who died in 2017 aged 117 years 137 days as the oldest Italian of all time.  Todde was the world’s most senior male centenarian from the death of the American John Painter on March 1, 2001 until his own death 10 months later.  He was born to a poor shepherd family in Tiana, about 140km (87 miles) north of Cagliari in the Gennargentu mountains, about 55km (34 miles) southwest of the provincial capital, Nuoro.  The area historically has a high number of centenarians and there was longevity in Todde’s family. His father Francesco lived to be 90 years old, and his mother Francesca 98. His sister Maria Agostina - one of 11 siblings - was still alive at the age of 97 at the time of his death and herself lived to be 102.  Read more…


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Carlo Orelli – soldier


The last trench infantryman

Carlo Orelli, the last surviving Italian soldier to have served at the start of Italy's involvement in the First World War, died on this day in 2005 at the age of 110.  Orelli had signed up for active duty at the age of 21 and joined the Austro-Hungarian front after Italy joined the war on the side of Britain, France and Russia in May 1915.  He took part in combat operations near Trieste, experiencing the brutality of trench warfare and seeing many of his friends die violent deaths, but after receiving injuries to his leg and ear he spent the rest of the war in hospital.  Orelli was born in Perugia in 1894, but his family moved to Rome, where he was to spend most of the rest of his life living in the Garbatella district.  He came from a military background and had a grandfather who had helped to defend Perugia against Austrian mercenaries in 1849. His father had served in the Italian Abyssinian campaign in the 1880s and his elder brother had fought in Libya during the war between Italy and Turkey in 1911.  The wounds Orelli suffered during a confrontation with Austrian soldiers ended his military career and he spent the rest of the war recovering from an infection in hospital.  Read more…

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Papal Swiss Guard


Colourful uniforms camouflage highly trained security professionals

The Pope’s Swiss Guard was founded on this day in Vatican City in 1506.  A contingent of guards from Switzerland has continued to guard the Pope from that day to present times and it is one of the oldest military units still in existence.  The Swiss had been producing mercenary soldiers for hundreds of years with a reputation for loyalty and good discipline.  In the 15th century they were known for their good battle tactics and were employed by many European armies.  Pope Julius II ordered the first Swiss troops to guard the Vatican and they arrived in Rome on 22 January, 1506, the official date now given for the foundation of the Papal Swiss Guard.  The Pope later gave them the title ‘Defenders of the Church’s freedom’.  Recruits to the Pope’s Swiss Guard unit have to be Catholic men of Swiss nationality who have completed military training and can produce evidence of their good conduct.  Since the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981, the Guards have received training in unarmed combat and in the use of modern weapons.  They are a colourful sight on ceremonial occasions at the Vatican in their blue, red, orange and yellow uniforms of Renaissance design.  Read more…


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21 January 2020

21 January

Pietro Rava - World Cup winner


Defender was the last survivor from Azzurri of 1938

Pietro Rava, who was the last survivor of Italy's 1938 World Cup-winning football team when he died in December 2006, was born on this day in 1916 at Cassine in Piedmont.  A powerful defender who could play at full back or in a central position, Rava won 30 caps for the national team between 1935 and 1946, finishing on the losing side only once and being made captain in 1940.  He was also a member of the Italy team that won the gold medal in the football competition at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.  At club level, he spent most of his career with Juventus, forming a formidable defensive partnership with Alfredo Foni, alongside whom he also lined up in the national side.  Rava won a Championship medal in 1949-50, his final season at Juventus, although by then he had fallen out of favour with Jesse Carver, the Turin club's English coach, and made only six appearances, moving to Novara the following year.  At the time of his birth, Rava's family were living in Cassine, a small town near Alessandria, about 100km (62 miles) south-east of Turin, because of his father's job with a railway company.  Read more…


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Gennaro Contaldo – Chef


TV cook is passionate about Amalfi’s speciality dishes

Celebrity chef Gennaro Contaldo was born on this day in 1949 in Minori in Campania.  Contaldo has made many appearances on British television alongside chefs such as the late Antonio Carluccio, Jamie Oliver and James Martin and he has also brought out several cook books.  It is well documented that he is the man responsible for inspiring Jamie Oliver’s interest in Italian food.  Contaldo grew up in the small seaside town of Minori near Amalfi and is a passionate advocate of the style of cooking in the area, cucina amalfitana.  From an early age he was interested in dishes cooked with local produce, going out to collect wild herbs for his mother, and he began helping out in local restaurants at the age of eight.  Contaldo moved to Britain in the late 1960s and travelled around the country working in village restaurants and studying the food growing wild in each area, such as herbs and mushrooms. He eventually went to London and worked in several restaurants, including Antonio Carluccio’s establishment in Neal Street.  Read more…

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Antonio Janigro - conductor and cellist


Musician who found ‘accidental’ fame in Yugoslavia

The conductor and cellist Antonio Janigro, who spent more than two decades as an orchestra leader in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, was born on this day in 1918 in Milan.  An accomplished cello soloist in Italy, his adventure in Yugoslavia happened by accident, in a way.  He was on holiday there in 1939 when the Second World War began, leaving him stranded with no prospect of returning home.  Happily, Zagreb Conservatory offered Janigro a job as professor of cello and chamber music. This turned out to be a providential turn of fate and he was to remain in Yugoslavia for much of his life.  He founded the school of modern cello playing in Yugoslavia, formed the exemplary chamber orchestra I Solisti di Zagreb with Dragutin Hrdjok in 1954 and for 10 years led the Radio Zagreb symphony orchestra. Raised in a house on the Via Guido d’Arezzo in Milan, Janigro was born in a musical family, although his father’s dream of becoming a concert pianist had to be abandoned, sadly, when he lost his arm after being shot in the First World War.  Janigro himself studied piano from the age of six, and then began playing the cello in 1926, when he was eight years old.  Read more…


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Camillo Golgi – neuroscientist


Nobel prize winner whose name lives on in medical science

Camillo Golgi, who is recognised as the greatest neuroscientist and biologist of his time, died on this day in 1926 in Pavia.  He was well known for his research into the central nervous system and discovering a staining technique for studying tissue, sometimes called Golgi’s method, or Golgi’s staining.  In 1906, Golgi and a Spanish biologist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system.  Golgi was born in 1843 in Corteno, a village in the province of Brescia in Lombardy. The village was later renamed Corteno Golgi in his honour.  In 1860 Golgi went to the University of Pavia to study medicine. After graduating in 1865 he worked in a hospital for the Italian army and as part of a team investigating a cholera epidemic in the area around Pavia.  He resumed his academic studies under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso, an expert in medical psychology, and wrote a thesis about mental disorders. As he became more and more interested in experimental medicine he started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero, who was to influence Golgi’s research publications.  Read more…


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20 January 2020

20 January

Federico Fellini – film director


The cinematic legacy of Rimini’s most famous son

Federico Fellini, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, was born on this day in Rimini in 1920.  He had a career lasting almost 50 years and his films were nominated for 12 Academy Awards. He won four Oscars, each for Best Foreign Language Film, with La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8½ and Amarcord.  Fellini initially went to Rome to study Law at university but ended up working as a journalist instead.  His assignments for a magazine gave him the opportunity to meet people involved in show business and he eventually got work as a script writer for films and radio.  Fellini worked as both a screenwriter and assistant director on Roberto Rossellini films as well as producing and directing for other filmmakers. He began work on his first solo film, The White Sheik, in 1951. It received mixed reviews but in 1953 his film, I Vitelloni, pleased both the public and the critics.  He won his first Academy Award with Nights of Cabiria, starring his wife, Giulietta Masini, in 1953.  Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita, starring Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni and set in Rome, broke all box office records in 1960 and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival. It is one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time.  Read more…

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Franca Sozzani – magazine editor


Risk taker who turned Vogue Italia into a major voice

Franca Sozzani, the journalist who was editor-in-chief of the Italian edition of Vogue magazine for 28 years, was born on this day in 1950 in Mantua.  Under her stewardship, Vogue Italia was transformed from what she saw as little more than a characterless clothing catalogue for the Milan fashion giants to one of the edgiest publications the style shelves of the newsstands had ever seen.  Sozzani used high-end fashion and the catwalk stars to make bold and sometimes outrageous statements on the world issues she cared about, creating shockwaves through the industry but often selling so many copies that editions sometimes sold out even on second or third reprints.  It meant that advertisers who backed off in horror in the early days of her tenure clamoured to buy space again, particularly when the magazine began to attract a following even outside Italy.  She gave photographers and stylists a level of creative freedom they enjoyed nowhere else, encouraging them to express themselves through their photoshoots, particularly if they could deliver a message at the same time.  She encouraged her writers, too, not to shy away from issues she thought were important, and not to regard fashion as an insular world.  Read more…

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Marco Simoncelli - motorcycle world champion


Young rider whose career ended in tragedy

The motorcycle racer Marco Simoncelli, who is part of an illustrious roll call of Italian world champions headed by Giacomo Agostini and Valentino Rossi, was born on this day in 1987 in Cattolica on the Adriatic coast.  Simoncelli, who was European 125cc champion in 2002 in only his second year of senior competition, became 250cc world champion in 2008 when he won six races riding for Gilera.  He had dreams of emulating Rossi, winner of the 250cc world title in 1999, in going on to be a force in the premier MotoGP category, in which the latter has been world champion seven times, just one fewer than Agostini's record eight titles.  But after stepping up to MotoGP in 2010, Simoncelli suffered a fatal crash at the Malaysian Grand Prix in October the following year, killed at the age of just 24.  On only the second lap of the Sepang circuit, he lost control of his Honda at a corner and appeared to be heading for the gravel run-off area but suddenly veered back across the congested track.  With the bike almost on its side, Simoncelli was struck by two other competitors.  One of them, with chilling irony, was Rossi, who was entirely blameless but unable to prevent his front wheel from striking his compatriot's head.  Read more…

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Rafael Bombelli – mathematician


First person to explain algebra in simple language

Rafael Bombelli, the mathematician regarded as the inventor of complex numbers, was baptised and was also probably born on this day in 1526 near Bologna.  He wrote a book about algebra in simple language that could be understood by everyone, giving a comprehensive account of what was known about the subject at the time. The first three volumes, published in 1572, were the first European texts to explain how to perform computations with negative numbers.  Rafael Bombelli was the eldest son of Antonio Mazzoli, a wool merchant, who had changed his name to Bombelli to disassociate himself from the reputation of his family. His grandfather had taken part in a failed attempt to seize Bologna on behalf of the Bentivoglio family but had been caught and executed. Antonio Mazzoli was able to return to Bologna only after changing his name to Bombelli.  It is thought that Rafael Bombelli did not attend university but was taught by an engineer-architect named Pier Francesco Clementi.  He followed Clementi into the profession and acquired a patron, Alessandro Rufini. His patron was given the right to reclaim marsh land in the Val di Chiana by the Pope and Bombelli worked on this project until 1555.  Read more…


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19 January 2020

19 January

NEW - Giuseppe Millico - opera singer, composer and teacher


Castrato taught Lord Nelson’s lover

The castrato opera singer and composer Giuseppe Millico, who numbered Lord Nelson’s future lover, Emma Hamilton, as among his pupils as a singing teacher in Naples, was born on this day in 1737 in Terlizzi, a town in Apulia.  As a singer, Millico is best remembered for his performances in the operas of the Bavarian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. He also compiled a significant body of work of his own, including eight operas, eight cantatas, numerous arias and duets not part of wider works, and 82 canzonets.  Having learned his craft in Naples in the 1750s, Millico returned to the city in 1780 after many years of touring, becoming a teacher as well as a composer. He taught singing to the Bourbon princesses Maria Teresa and Luisa Maria, as well as to Emma, Lady Hamilton, the actress and model, who was living in Naples after her marriage to Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador.  After studying at one of the Naples conservatories, Millico made his performing debut in Rome in 1757. Soon afterwards, he went to Moscow to sing at the Russian court. He remained in Russia for seven years, earning the nickname Il Moscovita on his return.  Read more…


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Paolo Borsellino - anti-Mafia judge


Magistrate slain by Mafia 57 days after colleague Giovanni Falcone

Paolo Borsellino, the judge who was helping to wage a successful war against the Sicilian Mafia when he was murdered in 1992, was born on this day in 1940 in Palermo.  He and his boyhood friend, Giovanni Falcone, became the most prominent members of a pool of anti-Mafia magistrates set up in the 1980s to investigate organised crime and share information. They made considerable progress in weakening the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, in particular through the so-called Maxi Trial of 1986-87, which resulted in 360 convictions and prison sentences totalling 2,665 years.  Yet both were killed within the space of two months, Falcone on May 23 by a bomb placed under the motorway between Sicilian capital Palermo and the city's airport, Borsellino on July 19 by a car bomb as he left his mother's house in the centre of the city.  The two were born and raised within a few streets of one another in the Kalsa district of Palermo, not far from the tree-lined Foro Italico Umberto I, the broad thoroughfare that runs along the city's waterfront.  It was a middle class neighbourhood that suffered severe damage in air raids as the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943.  Read more…


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Il trovatore – opera


Verdi masterpiece is regularly performed all over the world 

One of the most successful operas composed by Giuseppe Verdi, Il trovatore was first staged on this day in 1853 in Rome.  The four act opera was based on a play by Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez about a troubadour, the son of a gypsy woman, who is in love with a lady in waiting at a Spanish castle.  After its premiere, at the Teatro Apollo in Rome, the opera became a  big success and in the first three years there were 229 productions of it worldwide. In Naples alone there were 11 different productions in six theatres, including Teatro San Carlo, during the first three years. The opera was first performed in America by the Max Maretzek Opera Company in 1855. The Metropolitan Opera in New York have performed it more than 600 times since it was first staged there in 1883.  Verdi was asked to prepare a French version of the opera in 1855, Le Trouvère, and to include music for a ballet. It was first performed in French in 1857 in Paris when Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugènie went to see it.  Along with Rigoletto and La traviata, Il trovatore is believed by experts to represent Verdi at the height of his artistry in the middle of his career.   Read more…


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Assunta ‘Pupetta’ Maresca – camorrista


Ex-beauty queen who avenged death of husband

Assunta Maresca, the mobster’s wife who made headlines around the world when she walked into a bar in Naples in broad daylight and shot dead the man she suspected of ordering the murder of her husband on behalf of the Neapolitan Mafia - the Camorra - was born on this day in 1935 in the coastal town of Castellammare di Stabia.  Better known as ‘Pupetta’ – the little doll – on account of her small stature and stunning good looks, Maresca took the law into her own hands after her husband – a young and ambitious camorrista and the father of her unborn child - was assassinated on the orders of a rival.  Her extraordinary act brought her an 18-year prison sentence, of which she served about a third, yet made her a figure of such public fascination that several movies and TV series were made about her life.  She went on to become the lover of another mobster and was alleged to have participated in Camorra activity herself, serving another jail term after she was found guilty of abetting the murder of a forensic scientist, which she denied.  Assunta Maresca was born into a world of crime.  Her father, Alberto, was a smuggler specialising in trafficking cigarettes.  Read more…


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Giuseppe Bonomi - architect


Roman who became famous for English country houses

The architect Giuseppe Bonomi, who became better known by his Anglicised name Joseph Bonomi after spending much of his working life in England, was born on this day in 1739 in Rome.  Records nowadays refer to him as Joseph Bonomi the Elder, to distinguish him from his son of the same name, who became a sculptor, artist and Egyptologist of some standing and tends to be described as Joseph Bonomi the Younger.   Joseph Bonomi the Elder is known primarily for designing a number of English country houses in the last two decades of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th.  Among these are Lambton Castle in County Durham, Barrells Hall in Warwickshire, Longford Hall in Shropshire and Laverstoke House in Hampshire.  He also designed the saloon the in grand house of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Portman Square in London, sadly destroyed during the Blitz in the Second World War.  Bonomi’s father hailed from the Veneto and was an agent to members of the Roman aristocracy. Giuseppe was educated at the Collegio Romano, the Jesuit school in Rome that taught pupils from elementary school to university age.  Read more…


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Giuseppe Millico - opera singer, composer and teacher

Castrato taught Lord Nelson’s lover


Giuseppe Millico was for a while a celebrated and in-demand castrato singer
Giuseppe Millico was for a while a celebrated
and in-demand castrato singer
The castrato opera singer and composer Giuseppe Millico, who numbered Lord Nelson’s future lover, Emma Hamilton, as among his pupils as a singing teacher in Naples, was born on this day in 1737 in Terlizzi, a town in Apulia.

As a singer, Millico is best remembered for his performances in the operas of the Bavarian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. He also compiled a significant body of work of his own, including eight operas, eight cantatas, numerous arias and duets not part of wider works, and 82 canzonets.

Having learned his craft in Naples in the 1750s, Millico returned to the city in 1780 after many years of touring, becoming a teacher as well as a composer. He taught singing to the Bourbon princesses Maria Teresa and Luisa Maria, as well as to Emma, Lady Hamilton, the actress and model, who was living in Naples after her marriage to Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador.

After studying at one of the Naples conservatories, Millico made his performing debut in Rome in 1757. Soon afterwards, he went to Moscow to sing at the Russian court. He remained in Russia for seven years, earning the nickname Il Moscovita on his return.

His links with Gluck began in 1769 in Parma, Gluck was preparing a great celebratory work, Le feste d’Apollo, for the marriage of the Bourbon Duke Ferdinand of Parma and Maria Amalia of Austria. The work incorporated part of his opera Orfeo ed Euridice, which Gluck adapted to suit voice of Millico in the role of Orfeo. The following year, Gluck rewrote the whole of the opera with Millico in mind and invited him to play Orfeo in Vienna. He similarly adapted his opera Alceste and wrote a new work, Paride ed Elena, specifically for him.

One of the many paintings of Emma Hamilton by the English portrait painter, George Romney
One of the many paintings of Emma Hamilton
by the English portrait painter, George Romney
After performing for the composer Antonio Sacchini in Milan, Millico joined Sacchini in London in 1772, becoming primo musico - principal castrato - at the King's Theatre. He performed the leading male roles in the first London operas by Sacchini, Il Cid and Tamerlano, both in 1773.

While he was based in London, Millico travelled extensively, singing in Paris and at several opera houses in Germany, including Mannheim, Schwetzingen and Zweibrücken. He toured the major opera centres in Italy – Venice, Milan, Florence and Rome before returning to Naples.

Some time after 1777, he was appointed Virtuoso di Camera e della Regia Cappella - Virtuoso of the Chamber and Royal Chapel - in Naples, and music master to the Royal princesses, Maria Teresa and Luisa Maria.

It was not long before he had given up performing as a singer in order to dedicated himself to composing and teaching.

His operas included Le cinesi and L’isola disabitata, written for the Bourbon princesses. He wrote two operas to libretti by Pietro Metastasio and one to words by Ranieri de' Calzabigi, who had been Gluck's librettist.  His work La pietà d’amore, commissioned by Antonio Lucchesi-Palli, Prince of Campofranco in Sicily, was interpreted as a message of support for Gluck.

Millico came into contact Emma Hamilton, who was married to Sir William Hamilton in 1791, having become his lover in Naples, probably through Queen Maria Carolina, sister of Marie Antoinette and wife of Ferdinand I of Naples, with whom she developed a friendship.

Lady Hamilton became a talented amateur singer under Millico’s tutelage, confidently entertaining guests at her home. Indeed, she was good enough to be approached by the Royal Opera in Madrid, who tried to engage her for a season to compete with their star, the Italian soprano Angelica Catalani. She turned down the offer.

Millico remained in Naples until his death in 1802, at the age of 65.

The Naples waterfront, as depicted in an 18th century view  towards Santa Lucia and Castel dell'Ovo
The Naples waterfront, as depicted in an 18th century view
towards Santa Lucia and Castel dell'Ovo
Travel tip:

Naples in the 18th century was one of Europe's great cities. It featured what was then Italy's largest opera house, the Teatro di San Carlo, and was considered by Grand Tourists to be a stimulating diversion from the stuffier historical splendour of Rome. South of Naples, the newly excavated remains of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the ancient Roman cities buried by volcanic lava in the first century AD, were another attraction.   Part of the Bourbon legacy to Naples is the vast Reggia di Caserta, the royal palace commissioned in 1752 by Charles VII of Naples and built by the Italian architect Luigi Vanvitelli along the lines of the French royal palace at Versailles.

The Roman ruins at Ercolano are in many ways better preserved than at neighbouring Pompeii
The Roman ruins at Ercolano are in many ways
better preserved than at neighbouring Pompeii
Travel tip:

Until 1969, the town now called Ercolano was known as Resina, the name given to the medieval settlement that built on top of the volcanic material left by the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius that also destroyed nearby Pompeii.  The existence of Ercolano - the Roman city of Herculaneum - was not known until the early 18th century, when a farmer sinking a well came across ancient marble columns.  Herculaneum was smaller and less prestigious than Pompeii but is better preserved due to the different volcanic materials that covered the town.  The ruins at Ercolano are better preserved than Pompeii’s, although its more famous neighbour was a bigger city and its destruction particularly well documented.  The ruins at Pompeii and Ercolano can both be reached by using the Circumvesuviana railway, which runs from Naples along the southern stretch of the Bay of Naples, terminating at Sorrento.

Also on this day:

1739: The birth of architect Giuseppe Bonomi, also known as Joseph Bonomi the Elder

1853: Verdi's opera Il trovatore is performed for the first time

1935: The birth of Assunta Maresca, the beautiful gangster's widow famous for murdering a Mafia boss in an act of revenge

1940: The birth of anti-Mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino


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