7 September

Kidnapping of Pope Boniface VIII

When the Pope was slapped down by a disgruntled landowner

An army, representing King Philip IV of France and the anti-papal Colonna family, entered Anagni in Lazio and captured Pope Boniface VIII inside his own palace on this day in 1303.  The Pope was kept in custody for three days and was physically ill-treated by his captors until the local people rose up against the invaders and rescued him.  Boniface VIII returned to Rome, but he was physically and mentally broken after his ordeal and died a month later.  The Pope had been born Benedetto Caetani in Anagni in 1230. He became Pope Boniface VIII in 1294 after his predecessor abdicated. He organised the first Catholic Jubilee Year to take place in Rome in 1300 and founded Sapienza University in the city in 1303, the year of his death.  But Boniface VIII is mainly remembered for his conflicts with Philip IV of France.  Read more…

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Genoa Cricket and Football Club

Italy's historic first football club

Italy's oldest surviving football club was founded on this day in 1893 in Genoa.  Originally named Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club, it was established by British Consular officials and for a number of years football was a minor activity.  Initially, Italians could not be members.  Football became more its focus after an English maritime doctor, James Spensley, arrived in Genoa in 1897 and organised a match against Football Club Torinese, which had been formed in Turin in 1894. Spensley insisted the club's rules be altered to allow Italians to play.  The match took place in January 1898 and although the attendance was only around 200 spectators, it was deemed a success by those who took part, particularly the Turin side, who won.  After a return match, plans were drawn up to form an Italian Football Federation and to organise a first Italian Championship. Read more… 

Guido Bentivoglio - cardinal, historian and diplomat

17th century ambassador who set standards for modern statecraft

The cardinal, archbishop and papal nuncio Guido Bentivoglio, an important figure in the development of modern international diplomacy, died on this day in 1644 in Rome.  Born in 1579 in Ferrara, Bentivoglio’s life was notable for having helped reset the Vatican’s approach to international relations, both through his astute and pragmatic methodology and his influential writings. His most notable written work, Della Guerra di Fiandra, is regarded as setting a new standard for historical writing. Published between 1632 and 1639, it documented in great detail what Bentivolgio  had learned from his eight years as papal nuncio in Flanders after decades of civil war between Habsburg rebels and the region’s Spanish rulers.  Bentivoglio’s blend of political acumen and ecclesiastical authority enabled him to navigate the religious and political tensions of a region divided between Catholic and Protestant powers. Read more… 

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Giuseppe Gioachino Belli – poet

Sonnet writer satirised life in 19th century Rome

The poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli was born on this day in 1791 in Rome and was christened Giuseppe Francesco Antonio Maria Gioachino Raimondi Belli.  He was to become famous for his satirical sonnets written in Romanesco, the dialect of Rome.  After taking a job in Civitavecchia, a coastal town about 70km (44 miles) northwest of Rome, Belli’s father moved the family to live there, but after he died - of either cholera or typhus - his wife returned to Rome with her children and took cheap lodgings in Via del Corso.  Living in poor circumstances, Belli began writing sonnets in Italian at the suggestion of his friend, the poet Francesco Spada.  In 1816, Belli married a woman of means, Maria Conti, and went to live with her in Palazzo Poli, the palace that forms the backdrop to the Trevi Fountain. This gave him the freedom to develop his literary talents. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, by John Julius Norwich

In a chronicle that captures nearly 2,000 years of inspiration and intrigue, John Julius Norwich recounts in riveting detail the histories of the most significant popes and what they meant politically, culturally, and socially to Rome and to the world. Norwich presents such popes as Innocent I, who in the fifth century successfully negotiated with Alaric the Goth, an invader civil authorities could not defeat; Leo I, who two decades later tamed (and perhaps paid off) Attila the Hun; the infamous "pornocracy" - the five libertines who were descendants or lovers of Marozia, debauched daughter of one of Rome's most powerful families; Pope Paul III, "the greatest pontiff of the 16th century," who reinterpreted the Church's teaching and discipline; and John XXIII, who in five short years starting in 1958 instituted reforms that led to Vatican II. Norwich dedicates a vivid section of this book to the dramatic 1303 showdown involving Boniface VIII. He captures the political build-up, the tension of the raid on the Anagni palace, the "slap", and the psychological collapse that led to the Pope's death just weeks later. Epic and compelling, Absolute Monarchs is an enthralling history.

John Julius Norwich was the author of more than 20 books. He began his career in the British foreign service, but resigned his diplomatic post to become a writer. He was a chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund and the honorary chairman of the World Monuments Fund. He died in 2018.

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6 September

Andrea Camilleri – author

Creator of Inspector Montalbano

Writer and film producer Andrea Camilleri, who died in 2019, was born on this day in 1925 in Porto Empedocle in Sicily.  Famous for creating the fictional character Inspector Montalbano, Camilleri is a prolific, best-selling novelist who has generated worldwide interest in the culture and landscapes of Sicily.  Camilleri studied literature and although he never completed his course he began to write poems and short stories. He became a director and a screenwriter. He worked on several television productions for Rai, including the Inspector Maigret series.  He wrote his first novel in 1978 but it was not until 1992 that one of his novels, La stagione della caccia - The Hunting Season - became a bestseller.  In 1994 Camilleri published La forma dell’acqua - The Shape of Water - which was the first novel to feature the character of Inspector Montalbano. Read more…

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Francesco I d’Este – Duke of Modena

Military leader left legacy of fine architecture

Francesco I, Duke of Modena, who was to be immortalised in a bust by the sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was born on this day in 1610 in Modena in Emilia-Romagna.  He is remembered as a skilful military commander, who enriched Modena with the building of the Ducal Palace.  Francesco was the eldest son of Alfonso III d’Este and Isabella of Savoy and became Duke of Modena in 1629 after the death of his mother had prompted his grieving father to abdicate in order to take religious vows and become a Capuchin Friar in Merano.  During the next two years about 70 per cent of the inhabitants of Modena were killed by the plague.  The Duke’s father, now known as Fra’ Giambattista da Modena, tried to help the dying and went about preaching during the outbreak of plague, before retiring to a convent built by Francesco for him in Castelnuovo in Garfagnana.  Read more…

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Nino Castelnuovo - actor

Starred in sumptuous French musical and TV adaptation of literary classic

The actor Nino Castelnuovo, best known for playing opposite a young Catherine Deneuve in a Palme d’Or-winning French musical and as the star of a celebrated TV adaptation of Alessandro Manzoni’s classic novel I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), died on this day in 2021 at the age of 84.  Castelnuovo’s talent came to the fore during a golden age of Italian cinema, working with leading directors such as Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, Pietro Germi, Luigi Comencini and Pier Paolo Pasolini, and starring opposite such luminaries as Alberto Sordi, Monica Vitti and Claudia Cardinale.  Yet it was the visually beautiful, deeply sentimental French musical, Le parapluies de Cherbourg - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - that had catapulted him to fame in 1964. Castelnuovo played the handsome Guy, a mechanic, who is in love with Deneuve’s character, Geneviève. Read more…

Isabella Leonarda – composer

Devout nun wrote an abundance of Baroque music

Isabella Leonarda, a nun who was one of the most productive women composers of her time, was born on this day in 1620 in Novara.  Leonarda’s published work spans a period of 60 years and she has been credited with more than 200 compositions.  She did not start composing regularly until she was in her fifties, but noted in the dedication to one of her works that she wrote music only during time allocated for rest, so as not to neglect her administrative duties within the convent.  Leonarda was the daughter of Count Gianantonio Leonardi and his wife Apollonia. The Leonardi were important people in Novara, many of them church and civic officials.  Leonarda entered the Collegio di Sant’Orsola, a convent in Novara, when she was 16 and rose to a high position within the convent.  Her published compositions began to appear in 1640. Read more…

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Giovanni Fattori - painter

Landscape artist who painted Risorgimento battle scenes 

The painter Giovanni Fattori, who campaigned to free Italy from Austrian domination and captured Risorgimento battle scenes on canvas, was born on this day in 1825 in Livorno.  Fattori became a leading member of a group of Tuscan painters known as the Macchiaioli, who have been described as the Italian equivalent of the French Impressionists but whose images were more sharply defined.  The group, largely comprising painters from a working class background, saw themselves more as a social movement who expressed themselves through art.  Born into a modest household in Livorno, Fattori’s family hoped he would seek a qualification in commerce that would equip him to prosper in the city’s trade-based economy.  But his skill in sketching persuaded them instead to apprentice him in 1845 to Giuseppe Baldini, a local painter of religious themes.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Terracotta Dog, by Andrea Camilleri. Translated by Stephen Sartarelli 

Set in Sicily, The Terracotta Dog is the second novel in Andrea Camilleri’s humorous Inspector Montalbano series, following on from The Shape of Water.  After a cloak and dagger exchange with an ageing Mafioso, Inspector Montalbano is left haunted by the man’s dying words, which lead him to a mountainside just west of Vigàta where he unearths two young lovers, dead fifty years and still embracing, watched over by a life-size terracotta dog. Heedless of personal danger, Montalbano’s drive to solve this old crime forces him on a journey through Sicily’s World War II history and to the dark heart of one family . . .

Andrea Camilleri is the author of the spectacularly successful Montalbano mystery series and many other novels set in Sicily. His Montalbano novels have been made into an Italian TV series.  Stephen Sartarelli is an American poet and translator, specialising in translations from French and Italian into English.

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5 September

NEW - Bernardo Tasso - poet

Writer fathered a famous Renaissance literary figure

Bernardo Tasso, a prolific poet who served as a courtier to various Italian noblemen, died on this day in 1569 in Ostiglia, which was then part of the Duchy of Mantua.  He was famous for being the father of Torquato Tasso, who went on to become one of Italy’s greatest Renaissance poets. Bernardo, who was born in Bergamo in 1493, married Porzia de Rossi while he was in the service of the Prince of Salerno. Their son, Torquato, was born in Sorrento in 1544 in a building that is now part of the Hotel Tramontano in the centre of the resort. When Torquato was a child, the Prince of Salerno fell out of favour with the Spanish government of Naples and he was outlawed. His employee, Bernardo, and his son, Torquato, shared in his  punishment and were declared rebels of the state and they both had to leave Sorrento. Read more… 

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Renzo Rivolta - engineer 

Entrepreneur who invented the ‘bubble car’

Renzo Rivolta, the businessman and engineer behind the ‘bubble car’ phenomenon of the 1950s, was born in Desio, a town in Lombardy about 20km (12 miles) north of Milan, on this day in 1908.  A visionary entrepreneur, Rivolta conceived the three-wheeled vehicle as a crossover between a motorcycle and a car, to bridge the gap in the market between conventional motorcycles and scooters and Italy’s cheapest car, the Fiat Topolino.  Named the Isetta, the car was essentially egg-shaped with just about room for two adults on the one seat. The nose section was also the access door, with a rack attached to the rear to carry a small amount of luggage. Because of its shape and bubble-like windows, it became known as a bubble car.  In the event, it was not particularly successful in Italy, yet it was a hit with buyers in other parts of Europe and in South America. Read more… 

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Mario Scelba – Prime Minister 

Tough interior minister worked for social and economic reform

Mario Scelba, a Christian Democrat who would become Italy’s 33rd Prime Minister, was born on this day in 1901 in Caltagirone in Sicily.  He earned the nickname ‘the Iron Sicilian’ while serving as Interior Minister because of his repression of both left-wing protests and neo-Fascist rallies.  Scelba had been born into a poor family that worked on land owned by the priest Don Luigi Sturzo, who was to become one of the founders of the Italian People’s Party (PPI).  As his godfather, Sturzo paid for Scelba to study law in Rome. When the Fascists suppressed the PPI and forced Sturzo into exile, Scelba remained in Rome as his agent.  He wrote for the underground newspaper, Il Popolo, during the Second World War. He was once arrested by the Germans but freed after three days as he was considered to be ‘a worthless catch’.  Read more…

Tommaso Campanella – poet and philosopher

Friar had utopian dream to banish poverty

Writer Tommaso Campanella was born on this day in 1568 in Stilo in Reggio Calabria and was baptised Giovanni Domenico Campanella.  As a friar who was also a philosopher, Campanella tried to reconcile humanism with Roman Catholicism. He is best remembered for his work, La città del sole (The city of the sun), written in 1602 which was about a utopian commonwealth where every man’s work contributed to the good of the community and there was no poverty.  Campanella spent almost half of his life in prison after becoming involved with a plot to overthrow Spanish rule in Calabria.  The son of a poor cobbler, Campanella was an infant prodigy who joined the Dominican order before he was 15, taking the name Fra Tommaso.  He was influenced by the work of philosopher Bernardino Telesio, who opposed Aristotle’s ideas.  Read more… 

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Francesca Porcellato - Paralympian

Life of sporting excellence born of horrific accident

Francesca Porcellato, one of Italy’s most enduring Paralympians, was born on this day in 1970 in Castelfranco Veneto.  She has competed in eight summer Paralympics as an athlete and cyclist and three winter Paralympics in cross-country skiing, winning a total of 14 medals, including three golds.  At the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, Canada, she was flag-bearer for the Italian team.  She is also a prolific wheelchair marathon competitor, sharing with America’s Tatyana McFadden the distinction of having won the London Marathon wheelchair event four times.  In 2018, won both the road race and time trial golds in the H3 category for the third time at the Paracycling road world championships. The H3 category involves competitors riding in a lying position, using their arms to turn the wheels.  Read more…

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Giacomo Zabarella – philosopher

Scholar devoted his life to explaining Aristotle’s ideas

The leading representative of Renaissance Aristotelianism, Giacomo Zabarella, was born on this day in 1533 in Padua in the Veneto.  His ability to translate ancient Greek enabled him to understand the original texts written by Aristotle and he spent most of his life presenting what he considered to be the true meaning of the philosopher’s ideas.  He had been born into a noble Paduan family who arranged for him to receive a humanist education.  After entering the University of Padua he was taught by Francesco Robortello in the humanities, Bernardino Tomitano in logic, Marcantonio Genua in physics and metaphysics and Pietro Catena in mathematics. All were followers of Aristotle.  Zabarella obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy from the university in 1553 and was offered the Chair of Logic in 1564.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance. Edited by Michael Wyatt

The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance is a comprehensive scholarly anthology featuring essays by leading Renaissance experts on key topics including literature, art, philosophy, politics, and cultural context. It is designed to provide an overview of Italian Renaissance intellectual and cultural life, and is therefore helpful for understanding the world the Tassos inhabited. It offers valuable context on the literary traditions, religious climate - it was the time of the Counter-Reformation - and cultural debates of his era. As an academic text rather than narrative biography, it works well as a reference guide alongside primary texts such as Jerusalem Delivered.

Michael Wyatt is a resident scholar in the Comparative Literature Programme at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

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Bernardo Tasso - poet

Writer fathered a famous Renaissance literary figure

Bernardo Tasso was for a time resident
poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino

Bernardo Tasso, a prolific poet who served as a courtier to various Italian noblemen, died on this day in 1569 in Ostiglia, which was then part of the Duchy of Mantua.

He was famous for being the father of Torquato Tasso, who went on to become one of Italy’s greatest Renaissance poets.

Bernardo, who was born in Bergamo in 1493, married Porzia de Rossi while he was in the service of the Prince of Salerno.  Torquato was born in Sorrento in 1544 in a building that is now part of the Hotel Tramontano in the centre of the resort.

When Torquato was a child, the Prince of Salerno fell out of favour with the Spanish government of Naples and he was outlawed. His employee, Bernardo, and his son, Torquato, shared in his punishment and were declared rebels of the state and they both had to leave Sorrento.

Bernardo went into the service of Duke Guidobaldo II at his court in Urbino and Torquato went with him and was educated there. While his father was resident poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino, Torquato studied alongside Francesco Maria della Rovere, the heir to the Duke. 

It was in Urbino that Bernardo started writing his major work, L’Amadiji, an epic poem of 100 cantos, which was later completed by Torquato.

While at the court in Urbino, he would read cantos of his epic poem to the Duchess and her ladies, and he would also discuss the merits of Homer, Virgil, Trissino, and Ariosto with the Duke’s librarians and secretaries.

Bernardo went on to serve the Duke of Mantua, Guglielmo Gonzaga, who appointed him Governor of Ostiglia, the place where he died in 1569.

During his life, Bernardo Tasso wrote many psalms, sonnets and odes in the manner of Horace. He published his lyric poems, Amori, in Venice in 1555. His main work, L’Amadiji, was inspired by the Spanish chivalric romance, Amadis de Gaula. Torquato later completed L’Amadiji and published the full work under the title of Floridante in 1587.

Torquato Tasso is seen as
one of Italy's greatest poets

Torquato Tasso has come to be regarded as the greatest Italian poet of the Renaissance. His most famous work was his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) in which he gives an imaginative version of the battles between Christians and Muslims at the end of the first crusade during the siege of Jerusalem. 

His poetry was later to prove inspirational for other writers who followed him, in particular Edmund Spencer and Lord Byron, who visited the places associated with him during his time in Italy.  

Torquato Tasso was to spend many years living in Ferrara at the Castle owned by the Este family, where he fell in love with a lady in waiting and wrote love sonnets to her.

But he suffered from the jealous behaviour of the other courtiers, which led to him developing a persecution mania and suspecting he was going to be poisoned. Eventually, he escaped and made his way to Sorrento to visit his sister, Cornelia, who had married there and settled in a house in the historic centre between the main street and the sea.

After some difficult years during which Tasso was confined to a madhouse by his patron, the Duke of Urbino, and later wandered from city to city without settling, he was invited to go and live in Rome by the Pope.

Torquato Tasso died in Rome in 1595, when he was just about to be crowned poet laureate by Pope Clement VIII.

Caffe del Tasso's tables in Bergamo are watched
over by the statue of Torquato Tasso

Travel tip:

Bernardo Tasso is remembered in his native city, Bergamo, where a street in the Città Bassa, the lower town, is named after the family. His son, Torquato, is also immortalised in the upper town, the Città Alta, by a large statue of him that stands in front of Palazzo della Ragione in the main square, Piazza Vecchia. Torquato Tasso spent only two periods living in his father’s native city, but he wrote about Bergamo with affection. The statue was erected almost 100 years after his death. The bar next to it subsequently changed its name to Caffè del Tasso. Dating back to at least 1476, the bar would have been known during Tasso’s life as Locanda delle Due Spade (Two Swords Inn.) In 1681 when the statue of the poet was erected, the bar’s name was changed to Al Torquato Tasso Caffè e Bottiglieria (Torquato Tasso Café and Wine Shop). Piazza Vecchia, which was remodelled during the Renaissance and has been hailed by architects and writers as the most beautiful square in Italy, is surrounded by old palaces and has a 12th century bell tower that still strikes 100 times at ten pm each night, in recognition of the ancient curfew. The bell would be sounded to warn residents that the gates in the Città Alta’s Venetian walls were about to be closed for the night. 

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Torquato Tasso's sister Cornelia lived
in this house in historic Sorrento

Travel tip:

Although Bernardo and Torquato Tasso travelled all over Italy during their lives, Sorrento’s main square has been named after them. Piazza Tasso is right at the hub of Sorrento, in the middle of the main shopping street, Corso Italia, and looks out over Marina Piccola, Sorrento’s port. The house where Bernardo was living when Torquato Tasso was born in 1544, is a few streets away from Piazza Tasso in Via Vittorio Veneto and now forms part of the Imperial Hotel Tramontano. It was at this hotel that the beautiful song Torna a Surriento was composed by Ernesto De Curtis while he was sitting on the terrace. Sorrento is one of southern Italy’s most popular holiday destinations, a beautiful cliff-top town overlooking the Bay of Naples with wonderful views of the volcano Vesuvius and the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida in the distance.  Known by Italians as La Gentile, Sorrento has a mild climate and excellent tourist amenities. The historic centre has a wealth of elegant architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with some Greek, Roman and medieval structures still preserved as a reminder of historical roots that go back to 600BC.

 

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More reading:

The troubled life of Torquato Tasso

Bernardo Accolti, love poet of the late Renaissance

Salvatore Quasimodo, the civil engineer who was a Nobel Prize winning-poet 

Also on this day:

1533: The birth of philosopher Giacomo Zabarella

1568: The birth of poet and philosopher Tommaso Campanella

1901: The birth of politician Mario Scelba

1908: The birth of entrepreneur Renzo Rivolta

1970: The birth of Paralympian Francesca Porcellato

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