21 October

NEW - Giuseppe Giacosa – poet and playwright

Writer produced polished libretti for composer Giacomo Puccini

One of Italy’s most prominent 19th century playwrights, Giuseppe Giacosa, was born on this day in 1847 in Colleretto Parella, which is now called Colleretto Giacosa, around 40km (25 miles) north of Turin. Along with his plays, he is remembered for his success as a librettist for the opera composer Giacomo Puccini. Giacosa, who was the son of an attorney, obtained a law degree from the University of Turin and practised law for a while from his father’s office, while also writing plays. But after his play Una partita a scacchi - A Game of Chess - was a success in 1871, Giacosa concentrated on writing for the stage. His plays were mainly set in Piemonte and had themes that addressed contemporary bourgeois values. In 1885, Giacosa was appointed as professor of history and literature at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, but he would often go to stay in the town of Ivrea, which was near the village he was born in, and he would spend long periods writing.  Read more...

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Domenichino - Baroque master

Artist whose talents rivalled Raphael

The painter Domenico Zampieri, in his era spoken of in the same breath as Raphael, was born on this day in 1581 in Bologna.  Better known as Domenichino (“Little Domenico”), the nickname he picked up early in his career on account of his small stature, he painted in classical and later Baroque styles in Rome, Bologna and Naples.  Noted for the subtle, almost serene lighting and understated colours of his compositions, he painted portraits, landscapes, religious and mythological scenes and had a prolific output. Among his most notable works were significant frescoes commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese for the Badia (monastery) at Grottaferrata, outside Rome, and for Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini at the Villa Belvedere (also known as the Villa Aldobrandini) in nearby Frascati, as well as Scenes from the Life of Saint Cecilia at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Read more…

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Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

Cousin of Italy's wartime monarch died in a POW camp

Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who died in a British prisoner-of-war camp after leading the defeated Italian Army in the East Africa Campaign of the Second World War, was born on this day in 1898 in Turin.  After distinguished military service in the First World War and seeing action as a pilot in the pacification of Italian Libya in the early 1930s, Amedeo had been appointed by Mussolini as Viceroy of Ethiopia and Governor-General of Italian East Africa in 1937, replacing the controversial Marshal Rodolfo Graziani.  Italy’s entry into the Second World War on the side of Germany in June 1940 meant the Duke of Aosta became the commander of the Italian forces against the British in what became known as the East African Campaign.  As such, he oversaw the Italian advances into the Sudan and Kenya and the Italian invasion of British Somaliland.  Read more…

Edmondo De Amicis - writer and journalist

Author whose most famous work became a staple text in Italian schools

The writer, journalist and former soldier Edmondo De Amicis, famous as the author of Cuore, his imagined diary of a schoolboy in Turin, was born on this day in 1846 in Oneglia, now part of modern Imperia in Liguria.  Through its daily diary entries by the book’s central character, Enrico, interspersed with uplifting stories told by one of his teachers, Cuore - published for the first time in 1886 - came to be seen as something of a moral compass for young people growing up in post-unification Italy.  At a time when the newly-formed Italian State was keen to impose its authority over a Catholic Church that had vehemently opposed unification and still refused to recognise the Kingdom of Italy, Cuore’s emphasis on values such as patriotism, compassion, diligence, and respect for authority, resonated deeply with the new secular government.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Pinelli - anarchist

His 'accidental death' inspired classic Dario Fo play

Giuseppe 'Pino' Pinelli, the railway worker from Milan who inspired Dario Fo to write his classic play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was born on this day in 1928.  Pinelli fell to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan Questura - the main police station - on December 15, 1969, three days after a bomb exploded at a bank in Piazza Fontana in Milan, killing 17 people and wounding 88.  A known anarchist during a period of growing political and social tension in Italy, Pinelli had been picked up for questioning, along with a number of other activists, over the Piazza Fontana bomb.  The story put out first by police was that Pinelli had jumped, willing to take his own life rather than face prosecution. Yet three police officers who had been interrogating Pinelli were put under investigation.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: La bohème: Original libretto with side-by-side English translation, by Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa 

Step into the vibrant and unforgiving world of 1830s Paris with Giacomo Puccini’s timeless masterpiece, La bohème. This is the story of the "four Musketeers" - the poet Rodolfo, the painter Marcello, the philosopher Colline, and the musician Schaunard - who navigate a "gay and terrible life" balanced between the freezing cold of a Latin Quarter attic and the intoxicating euphoria of the Caffè Momus. Amidst the naive enthusiasm of their "brief youth," a fragile and tragic love blossoms between Rodolfo and the gentle seamstress Mimì, creating one of the most profoundly moving stories in the history of opera.With La bohème, Puccini broke away from the dominant trends of his time to invent a revolutionary musical language. Through the technique of "sung conversation" (conversazione cantata), the melody flows seamlessly from everyday dialogue, elevating simple objects - such as a lost key or a pink bonnet - into poignant, universal symbols of love and loss. Experience the original Italian within a unique bilingual format. For Anglo-American opera lovers, students, and performers, fully grasping the nuances of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa’s libretto has never been easier.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. He was widely regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Giuseppe Verdi. Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica wrote the libretti for some of his most successful works.

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Giuseppe Giacosa – poet and playwright

Writer produced polished libretti for composer Giacomo Puccini

A magazine illustration of Giuseppe
Giacosa in his studio in Milan

One of Italy’s most prominent 19th century playwrights, Giuseppe Giacosa, was born on this day in 1847 in Colleretto Parella, which is now called Colleretto Giacosa, around 40km (25 miles) north of Turin.  Along with his plays, he is remembered for his success as a librettist for the opera composer Giacomo Puccini.

Giacosa, who was the son of an attorney, obtained a law degree from the University of Turin and practised law for a while from his father’s office, while also writing plays.

But after his play Una partita a scacchi - A Game of Chess - was a success in 1871, Giacosa concentrated on writing for the stage. His plays were mainly set in Piemonte and had themes that addressed contemporary bourgeois values.

In 1885, Giacosa was appointed as professor of history and literature at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, but he would often go to stay in the town of Ivrea, which was near the village he was born in, and he would spend long periods writing. He enjoyed brief trips to southern Italy and Sicily, as well as visits to France and Germany, but he preferred to spend most of his time living in northern Italy.

Giacosa moved to Milan in 1888, where he was appointed director and lecturer at the Academy of Dramatic Arts and professor of dramatic literature at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, Milan’s college of music. While living in Milan he had the opportunity to hear many operas at La Scala and he became a close friend of the librettist and composer Arrigo Boito.

Having written a play in French, La dame de Challant, for the actress Sarah Bernhardt, Giacosa accompanied the actress on a tour of America with the play in 1891. He wrote an account of his journey, which took him to the Midwest of America and Toronto, in Impressioni d’America, which was published in Milan in 1899.

The Italian actress Eleonora Duse appeared in two premieres of plays by Giacosa, and in 1891 she took part in the premiere in Turin of La signora di Challant, the Italian version of his play for Sarah Bernhardt.

Giacosa became a close friend of Émile Zola and Giovanni Verga and turned towards naturalism in his writing and became the most important representative of verismo on the Italian stage.

A poster advertising an early production of Puccini's
La bohème, with Giacosa and Luigi Illica credited

Among his wide-ranging work, Giacosa wrote stories, verse dramas and about the history and people of his region, Piemonte, and, as a keen alpinist, he wrote about his wanderings among the mountains around the Aosta valley.

Giacosa’s drama Tristi Amori was a failure at its premiere in Rome in 1887, but Eleonora Duse turned it into a triumphant success when she performed in it a few months later in Turin. It is now considered one of his finest works, along with Come le foglie - Like Falling Leaves - a psychological  drama about people in crisis, which has been compared to Chekov’s Cherry Orchard.

The playwright wrote the final, polished version of the libretto for Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, which had been started by other libretto writers, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Marco Praga, Domenico Oliva, and Luigi Illica. He also wrote the libretti used by Puccini for La bohème, Tosca and Madame Butterfly, in collaboration with Illica. His contribution was to turn Illica’s plots and dialogue into polished verses.

Giacosa adapted his own play, Una partita a scacchi, for a one-act-opera for the composer Pietro Abba Comaglia.

In the last few years of his life, and right up to his death, Giacosa was director of the literary magazine, La lettura, which was published with Corriere dell Sera in Milan. He died at the age of just 58 in his home village of Colleretto Giacosa in 1906.

Although Giacosa is best known outside Italy for his libretti for Puccini, he was appreciated during his own lifetime as a playwright in Italy, as well as in Germany and Austria, where many of his plays were performed and he also gave lectures on the theatre.

Giacosa's drama, Tristi amori, has been adapted for the cinema twice. The first time was  by Giuseppe Sterni in 1917,  and later it was by Carmine Gallone in 1943. Gallone's version, which was also known by the English title, Sad Loves, starred Jules Berry, Gino Cervi, and Andrea Checchi. It was one of the last films produced at the Cinecittà studios in Rome before they were shut down toward the end of World War II.

The house in which Giuseppe Giacosa was born
is marked by a plaque on an outside wall

Travel tip:

Colleretto Parella, where Giuseppe Giacosa was born, is a village and municipality in Piemonte, located about 40km (25 miles) north of Turin. The comune changed its name to Colleretto Giacosa in honour of the playwright in 1953. The house in which Giacosa was born, at the junction of Via Provinciale and Via Giuseppe Giacosa, is marked with a plaque on the wall. The rolling hills and Alpine backdrop of the area heavily influenced his early works, and his collection of regional stories, Novelle e paesi valdostani, which celebrated the resilience of local mountaineers. The region of Piemonte is the second largest after Sicily. It borders France, Switzerland and the Italian regions of Lombardia, Liguria, Valle d’Aosta and a small part of Emilia-Romagna. Piemonte was acquired by Otto of Savoy in 1046 and its capital was established at Chambéry, which is now in France. The Savoy territory became the Duchy of Savoy in 1416 and the seat of the Duchy was moved to Turin in 1563 by Duke Emanuele Filiberto. After Victor Amadeus II became King of Sardinia in 1720, Piemonte became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Turin grew in importance as a European capital city. 

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The Castello d'Ivrea, built in the 14th
century, retains three of its four towers

Travel tip:

Ivrea, where Giuseppe Giacosa established himself for intensive periods of writing, is a town in the Piemonte region, about 50km (31 miles) north of Turin. It has a partially restored 14th century castle, with three of its original four towers still intact, and the ruins of a 1st century Roman theatre that would have been able to hold 10,000 spectators. The town’s cathedral, which originated from a church that was built on the same site in the 4th century, which itself had been built on the site of a pagan temple, was reconstructed in around 1000 AD in Romanesque style and, in 1785, rebuilt again in a Baroque style. The current neoclassical façade was added in the 19th century. Ivrea hosts an annual carnival before Easter, which includes the Battle of the Oranges, where teams of locals on foot throw oranges at teams riding in carts. In the 20th century, Ivrea gained international recognition after it became the headquarters of the Olivetti company, which was a pioneer in technological innovation and became well known for creating some of the first computers. 

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More reading:

Ferdinando Fontana, the journalist who was Puccini’s first librettist

Arrigo Boito, writer and patriot who fought for a free Venice

The brilliant actress Eleonora Duse

Also on this day:

1581: The birth of painter Domenichino 

1846: The birth of writer and journalist Edmondo De Amicis

1898: The birth of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

1928: The birth of anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli

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20 October

Dado Moroni - jazz musician

Self-taught pianist recorded first album at 17

The renowned jazz musician Edgardo ‘Dado’ Moroni was born on this day in 1962 in Genoa.  Moroni, who learned at the feet of some of the greats of American jazz music in Italian clubs in the 1980s and 90s, has recorded more than 25 albums, having released his first when he was only 17.  He has appeared as a guest on many more albums and built such a reputation as a pianist and composer that he was able to become part of the American jazz scene himself in the 1990s, when he lived in New York.  Moroni attributes his love of jazz music to his father’s passion for the genre, which meant that he grew up listening to the likes of Earl Hines, Fats Waller and Count Basie.  Using a piano his parents had bought for his sister, Monica, he taught himself to play many of the songs he heard on the record player, receiving his first tuition from his mother, who played the accordion.  Read more…

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Jacopo della Quercia - sculptor

Innovative work said to have influenced Michelangelo

The sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, regarded as one of the most original artists in his field in the early 15th century and an influence on a number of leading figures in the Renaissance including Michelangelo, died on this day in 1438. Della Quercia’s most notable works include the Fonte Gaia in Piazza del Campo in Siena, the sculptures around the Porta Magna of the church of San Petronio in Bologna, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto in Lucca Cathedral, and Zacharias in the Temple, a bronze relief for the baptismal font in the church of San Giovanni in Siena.  His attention to proportion and perspective gave his creations a particularly lifelike quality and his innovative work put him at the forefront of his generation.  Art historians consider that his work marked a transition in Italian art from Gothic to Renaissance style that was taken forward by Michelangelo and others. Read more…

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Claudio Ranieri - football manager

Title-winning former Leicester City boss 

Football manager Claudio Ranieri was born on this day in 1951 in Rome.  Ranieri, who won the English Premier League in the 2015-16 season with rank outsiders Leicester City, managed 18 clubs in four countries in a 39-year career in coaching, three of them more than once, before announcing his retirement in 2025.  He also had a stint in charge of the Greece national team.  Despite stepping away from coaching, Ranieri continued his career in football, taking the role of Technical Director of the Italian national team after Roberto Mancini was appointed head coach in July 2026. Among the teams Ranieri has coached are a host of big names - Internazionale, Juventus, Roma, Napoli and Fiorentina in Italy, Atletico Madrid and Valencia in Spain, Monaco in France and Chelsea in England. He has won titles in lower divisions as well as Italy's Coppa Italia and the Copa del Rey in Spain but until Leicester's Premier League triumph is his only major league championship. Read more…

Mara Venier - television presenter

Former actress became famous as face of Sunday afternoon

Mara Venier, a familiar face on Italian television for more than 40 years, was born on this day in 1950 in Venice.  The former actress, who made her big-screen debut in 1973, is best known for presenting the long-running Sunday afternoon variety show Domenica In, which has been a fixture on the public TV channel Rai Uno since 1976.  Venier, born Mara Povoleri, has hosted the show for 18 seasons in five stints since 1993, overtaking Pippo Baudo, something of a legendary figure in Italian television, as its longest-serving presenter.  Fronting Domenica In, which at one time was on air for an incredible six hours, was not only a test of stamina for the presenter but a patriotic duty, the show’s format having been conceived by the Italian government, faced with the global oil crisis in the 1970s, as a way to tempt citizens to stay at home rather than use precious fuel for their cars.  Read more…

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Bianca Cappello – noblewoman

Tragic end for the mistress who earned promotion to Grand Duchess 

Bianca Cappello, the mistress of Francesco I Grand Duke of Tuscany, who became his Grand Duchess after he married her in the face of widespread criticism, died on this day in 1587 in Poggio a Caiano.  Grand Duchess Bianca died just one day after her husband, and historians are still divided between the theories that either they were both poisoned, or that they each died of malarial fever.  Bianca had been born in Venice in 1548, the only daughter of a Venetian nobleman. As she grew up, she was acknowledged to be a great beauty.  At the age of 15, Bianca fell in love with a young Florentine clerk and she eloped with him to Florence, where they were married. She gave birth to a daughter one year later.  The Venetian government tried to have Bianca arrested and brought back to Venice, but Cosimo I, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, intervened on her behalf.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Jazz Italian Style: From its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra, by Anna Harwell Celenza

Jazz Italian Style explores a complex era in music history, when politics and popular culture collided with national identity and technology. When jazz arrived in Italy at the conclusion of World War I, it quickly became part of the local music culture. In Italy, thanks to the gramophone and radio, many Italian listeners paid little attention to a performer's national and ethnic identity. Nick LaRocca (Italian-American), Gorni Kramer (Italian), the Trio Lescano (Jewish-Dutch), and Louis Armstrong (African-American), to name a few, all found equal footing in the Italian soundscape. The book reveals how Italians made jazz their own, and how, by the mid-1930s, a genre of jazz distinguishable from American varieties and supported by Mussolini began to flourish in northern Italy and in its turn influenced Italian-American musicians. Most importantly, the book recovers a lost repertoire and an array of musicians whose stories and performances are compelling and well worth remembering.

Anna Harwell Celenza is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she holds a joint appointment in the Writing Seminars and at Peabody Conservatory. She is the author of the best-selling title On the Record: Music That Changed America (2026) and several other titles.

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19 October

Umberto Boccioni - painter

Artist who died tragically young was key figure in Futurism

The painter Umberto Boccioni, who became arguably the leading artist of Italian Futurism before the First World War, was born on this day in 1882 in Reggio Calabria.  Futurism was an avant-garde artistic, social and political movement that was launched by the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909.  Its ethos was to embrace modernity and free Italy from what was perceived as a stifling obsession with the past. The Futurists admired the speed and technological advancement of cars and aeroplanes and the new industrial cities, all of which they saw as demonstrating the triumph of humanity over nature through invention. Their work attempted to capture the dynamism of life in a modern city, creating images that convey a sense of the power and energy of industrial machinery and the passion and violence of social change.  Read more…

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Adolfo Fumagalli - pianist and composer 

‘Virtuoso of the left hand’ had brief but influential career

The pianist and composer Adolfo Fumagalli, who is chiefly remembered for his extraordinary ability to play complicated pieces with only his left hand, was born on this day in 1828 in Inzago, a small town about 28km (17 miles) east of Milan.  Born into a family rich in musical talent, Fumagalli became known at a young age for his technical prowess and expressive style, a dazzling performer playing in the conventional two-handed fashion.  He studied piano at the Milan Conservatory from the age of nine to 19. It is noted that, as a 12 or 13-year-old, his performance playing variations on a march from Gioachino Rossini's opera L'assedio di Corinto in the Conservatory hall created excitement.  Fumagalli made his public debut in Milan in 1848, at the age of 20. His talent was greeted with enthusiastic acclaim and he was soon captivating audiences across Europe. Read more… 

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Fiorenzo Magni - cycling champion

Rider from Tuscany won Giro d'Italia three times

Italy lost one of its finest professional riders and its last link with the so-called golden age of Italian cycle racing when Fiorenzo Magni died on this day in 2012.  Tuscan-born Magni was a multiple champion, winning the Giro d'Italia three times, as well as three Italian Road Race Championships.  He had seven stage wins in the Tour de France, in which he wore the yellow jersey as race leader for a total of nine days.  His other major victories were in the demanding Tour of Flanders, in which he became only the second non-Belgian winner in 1949 and went on to win three times in a row, a feat yet to be matched.  Magni might have been even more successful had his career not coincided with those of two greats of Italian cycling, the five-times Giro champion Fausto Coppi, who was twice winner of the Tour de France, and Gino Bartali, who won three Giros and one Tour de France.  Read more…

Carlo Urbani – microbiologist

Infectious disease expert who identified SARS

The doctor and microbiologist Carlo Urbani, whose decisive action after discovering the deadly SARS virus saved millions of lives, was born on this day in 1956 in Castelplanio, near Ancona.  Dr Urbani himself died after contracting the condition, which had been given the name severe acute respiratory syndrome.  He identified it in an American businessman who had been taken ill in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, with suspected influenza.  Recognising quickly that what he was dealing with was not a straightforward case of ‘flu, Urbani, who was working in Vietnam as an infectious diseases specialist for the World Health Organisation, immediately alerted WHO headquarters in Geneva.  He convinced them that what he had discovered posed a grave threat to life and thus sparked the most effective response to a major epidemic in the history of medicine. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe, edited by Vivien Greene

Italian Futurism was officially launched in 1909 when Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism." This catalogue considerably advances the scholarship and understanding of an influential 20th-century artistic movement. As part of the first comprehensive overview of Italian Futurism to be presented in the United States, Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe examines the historical sweep of Futurism from its inception with Marinetti’s manifesto through the rise of Italian fascism and the movement’s demise at the end of World War II. Presenting over 300 works created between 1909 and 1944 by artists, writers, designers and composers such as Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Fortunato Depero, Gerardo Dottori, Marinetti, Ivo Pannaggi, Rosa Rosà, Luigi Russolo, Tato and many others, this publication encompasses not only painting and sculpture but also architecture, design, ceramics, fashion, film, photography, advertising, poetry, publications, music, theatre and performance.

Vivien Greene has been a Guggenheim curator since 1993 and specializes in late 19th- and early 20th-century European art with concentrations in French and Italian modernism and international currents in turn-of-the-century art and culture.

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