11 November

NEW - Giuseppe Toaldo - priest and physicist

Meteorology pioneer who persuaded Italy to use lightning rods

Giuseppe Toaldo, a physicist whose work in using data as a tool for forecasting the weather established him one of the founding fathers of scientific meteorology, died on this day in 1797 in Padua, where he spent 33 years as chair of astronomy at the city’s historic university.  Toaldo was ordained a priest 1743 and remained a member of the clergy until his death, although while he was addressed as Abbot - abate - during his time at the university, this was purely a courtesy title and did not come with any ecclesiastical duties.  In the scientific field, Toaldo is also credited with persuading sceptical fellow clergy members that attaching a lightning rod to a church tower was not the act of heresy suggested by centuries-old superstition but a legitimate way to save lives.  He designed the University of Padua’s renowned astronomical observatory, La Specola. Read more…

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Alessandro Mussolini - socialist activist

Father whose politics were Fascist leader’s early inspiration

Alessandro Mussolini, the father of Italian Fascist founder and leader Benito Mussolini, was born on this day in 1854, in Montemaggiore di Predappio, a hamlet in Emilia-Romagna, then still part of the Papal States in pre-unification Italy.  A blacksmith by profession, he was a revolutionary socialist activist who had a profound influence on his son’s early political leanings.  Although his embrace of nationalism was not as full as that of his son, Mussolini senior nonetheless greatly admired Italian nationalist figures such as Carlo Pisacane, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, whom he perceived as having socialist or humanist tendencies.  Regularly in trouble with the police for acts of criminal damage and sometimes violence against opponents, Alessandro was eventually held under house arrest and granted his release only when he announced he wished to marry his girlfriend, a local schoolteacher who was a devout Catholic.  Read more…

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Andrea Zani – violinist and composer

Musician who ushered in the new classical era

Andrea Teodora Zani, one of the earliest Italian composers to move away from the Baroque style, was born on this day in 1696 in Casalmaggiore in the province of Cremona.  Casalmaggiore was a breeding ground for musical talent at this time and Zani was an exact contemporary of Giuseppe Guarneri, the most famous member of the Guarneri family of violin makers in Cremona, and only slightly younger than the composers  Francesco Maria Veracini, Giuseppe Tartini and Pietro Locatelli.  Zani’s father gave him his first violin lessons and he later received instruction from Giacomo Civeri, a local musician, and Carlo Ricci, who was at the time court musician to the Gonzaga family at their palace in Guastalla.  After Zani played in front of Antonio Caldara, capellmeister for the court of Archduke Ferdinand Charles in Mantua, he was invited to go to Vienna. Read more… 

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Luca Zingaretti - actor

Found fame as TV detective Inspector Montalbano

The actor Luca Zingaretti, best known for his portrayal of Inspector Montalbano in the TV series based on Andrea Camilleri's crime novels, was born on this day in 1961 in Rome.  The Montalbano mysteries, now into a 10th series, began broadcasting on Italy's RAI network in 1999 and has become a hit in several countries outside Italy, including France, Spain, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.  Zingaretti has played the famously maverick Sicilian detective in all 28 feature-length episodes to date, each one based on a novel or short story collection by the Sicilian-born author Camilleri.  Although he had established himself as a stage actor and had appeared in a number of films, it was the part of Montalbano that established Zingaretti's fame.  Yet he had hoped to become a star on another kind of stage as a professional footballer. Read more…

Victor Emmanuel III

Birth of the King who ruled Italy through two world wars

Italy’s longest reigning monarch, Victor Emmanuel III (Vittorio Emanuele III di Savoia), was born on this day in Naples in 1869.  The only child of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy, he was given the title of Prince of Naples. He became King of Italy in 1900 after his father was assassinated in Monza.  During the reign of Victor Emmanuel III, Italy was involved in two world wars and experienced the rise and fall of Fascism.  At the height of his popularity he was nicknamed by the Italians Re soldato (soldier King) and Re vittorioso (victorious King) because of Italy’s success in battle during the First World War. He was also sometimes called sciaboletta (little sabre) as he was only five feet (1.53m) tall.  Italy had remained neutral at the start of the First World War but signed treaties to go into the war on the side of France, Britain and Russia in 1915. Read more…

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Filippo Buonarroti – revolutionary conspirator

Writer paved the way for the 1848 revolutions in Europe

Filippo Buonarroti, whose political writing inspired many other famous socialists, including Karl Marx, was born on this day in 1761 in Pisa.  Sometimes referred to as Philippe Buonarroti because he spent many years living in France, working to further the cause of the revolution there, the writer was born into a noble family. His father was a direct descendant of the brother of the artist Michelangelo Buonarroti.  Filippo Buonarroti studied Law at the University of Pisa, where he founded what was seen at the time as a subversive newspaper, the Gazetta Universale. It is thought that he joined a Masonic Lodge at about the same time.  Although he was kept under surveillance by the authorities in Italy, Buonarroti expressed support for the French Revolution and travelled to Corsica to spread the revolutionary message through a newspaper, Giornale Patriottico di Corsica. Read more…

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Germano Mosconi – sports writer and presenter

Short-tempered journalist who became the news

Germano Mosconi, who became a well-known television personality, was born on this day in 1932 in San Bonifacio in the Veneto.  Mosconi became notorious for his short temper and swearing on air and was regarded as a bit of a character on local television. But he became known all over Italy and throughout the world after a video of him someone posted anonymously on the internet went viral.  In the 1980s Mosconi delivered sports reports on Telenuovo in Verona and in 1982 he received the Cesare d’Oro international award for journalistic merit.  But he later became known for his excessive swearing and blaspheming. The anonymous video showed his irate reactions to various problems he encountered while broadcasting, such as people unexpectedly entering the studio, background noises and illegible writing on the news sheets he received.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Science in the Enlightenment: An Encyclopedia, by William E Burns

The first introductory A–Z resource on the dynamic achievements in science from the late 1600s to 1820, including the great minds behind the developments and science's new cultural role.  Though the Enlightenment was a time of amazing scientific change, science is an often-neglected facet of that time. Now, Science in the Enlightenment redresses the balance by covering all the major scientific developments in the period between Newton's discoveries in the late 1600s to the early 1800s of Michael Faraday and Georges Cuvier.  More than 200 A-Z entries explore a range of disciplines, including astronomy and medicine, scientists such as Sir Humphry Davy and Benjamin Franklin, and instruments such as the telescope and calorimeter. Emphasis is placed on the role of women, and proper attention is given to the shifts in the worldview brought about by Newtonian physics, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier's chemical revolution, and universal systems of botanical and zoological classification. The social impact of science is explored, as well as the ways in which the work of scientists influenced the thinking of philosophers such as Voltaire and Denis Diderot and the writers and artists of the romantic movement.

William Earl Burns is a professional historian living in Washington, DC.

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Giuseppe Toaldo - priest and physicist

Meteorology pioneer who persuaded Italy to use lightning rods

Giuseppe Toaldo was one of the first to use
data to predict meteorological patterns

Giuseppe Toaldo, a physicist whose work in using data as a tool for forecasting the weather established him one of the founding fathers of scientific meteorology, died on this day in 1797 in Padua, where he spent 33 years as chair of astronomy at the city’s historic university.

Toaldo was ordained a priest 1743 and remained a member of the clergy until his death, although while he was addressed as Abbot - abate - during his time at the university, this was purely a courtesy title and did not come with any ecclesiastical duties.

In the scientific field, Toaldo is also credited with persuading sceptical fellow clergy members that attaching a lightning rod to a church tower was not the act of heresy suggested by centuries-old superstition but a legitimate way to save lives.

He designed the University of Padua’s renowned astronomical observatory, La Specola, which remained in use until the 1930s, and he created one of Europe’s first meteorological networks, recording data from more than 30 observers across the Venetian Republic. 

Toaldo was born in 1719 in Pianezze, a village about 30km (19 miles) north of Vicenza. He entered the episcopal seminary of Padua in 1733, graduated in theology in 1742 and was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Padua the following year. 

Soon after graduating, he was entrusted with editing the works of Galileo Galilei, the astronomer and physicist, which were being reprinted by the seminary's press. In doing so, he obtained the permission of the Catholic Church to include Galileo’s controversial Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the first to do so since the text was banned and Galileo convicted of heresy just over 100 years earlier because it supported the view that the sun, rather than Earth, was the centre of the solar system.

After serving as the parish priest at Montegalda, a small town roughly equidistant between Vicenza and Padua, for eight years, Toaldo moved to the University of Padua, being appointed chair of astronomy in 1764.

As professor of astronomy and meteorology, he immediately began  recording painstaking daily meteorological and astronomical observations, a practice he would maintain until his death. 

Between 1767 and 1777 he oversaw the design and construction of La Specola, the astronomical observatory. It was housed inside a 14th century tower that was part of the Torlonga, a tower from a castle originally built in the 13th century at a point at which the Bacchiglione river splits into two forks just south of the centre of Padua. The tower contained a lower observatory, 16m (52ft) above ground level, and an upper observatory, at a height of 35m (115ft).

A French publication of Toaldo's
treatise on lightning conducters

A strong champion of the lightning rod invented by Benjamin Franklin two decades earlier, in 1772 Toaldo published his landmark treatise, Della maniera di difendere gli edificii dal fulmine (On the Manner of Defending Buildings from Lightning). 

Before the lightning rod’s invention, thunderbolts were interpreted as the direct expression of God's wrath and judgment. Preventing a strike was seen by many religious traditionalists as an attempt to interfere with divine plans and therefore regarded as heresy.

When a storm approached, churches would frantically ring their bells to disperse "evil spirits" in the air. Not only did it not work, it cost the lives of hundreds of bell-ringers, church bell towers being the very structures most likely to be struck by lightning in an electrical storm. 

Nonetheless, many still refused to install what they deemed the "heretical rod" and it took a major catastrophe before they even considered changing their minds. This came about in 1769, when lightning struck the Church of San Nazaro in Brescia, which was being used by the Republic of Venice to store 90 tons of gunpowder. The resulting explosion killed 3,000 people and flattened about a sixth of the city.

In the wake of this disaster, Toaldo used his unique position as a priest as well as a scientist to persuade church leaders that lightning rods were not the tools of the Devil but a gift from God to protect human life.

Toaldo also argued that the pointed tip that characterised Franklin’s lightning rod was more effective than the round, blunted tip of an alternative version designed in France and, as a result of his treatise, “Franklinian” rods were installed at many vulnerable historical structures in Italy, including St Mark's Campanile in Venice and the cathedral in Siena, as well as critical gunpowder stores and warships belonging to the Venetian navy. 

As work on the observatory progressed, Toaldo published work on barometric and tidal studies and launched the Giornale astro-meteorologico, an annual almanac compiling data from the network of meteorological observers he assembled across the Republic of Venice. 

By the 1780s, he had enough data to begin to see patterns in the weather. In his Climate Cycle Hypothesis, he formalised the theory that meteorological patterns returned roughly in nine and 18-year cycles and connected lunar cycles directly to terrestrial climate patterns.

Although Toaldo’s astro-meteorological theories were eventually discounted as modern physics proved that lunar atmospheric tides are too weak to influence weather patterns significantly, they were highly celebrated during the Enlightenment, when they were seen as a valuable tool in agricultural planning.

Giuseppe Toaldo died on November 11, 1797, after suffering a stroke. Records show that he was actively taking astronomical and meteorological measurements until just three days before his death.

After his death, Toaldo’s nephew and long-time assistant, Vincenzo Chiminello, was appointed in his place as director of the Astronomical Observatory of Padua and assumed Toaldo's chair of astronomy and meteorology at the university. His Giornale astro-meteorologico continued to be published for many decades.

Giotto's frescoes inside the Scrovegni Chapel are
one of Padua's many important attractions

Travel tip:

The city of Padua in Veneto is just 25 minutes west of Venice by train, yet despite being one of northern Italy's oldest and most captivating cultural attractions it remains free from the overwhelming crowds of its famous coastal neighbour. More than 25km (16 miles) of elegant medieval porticoes help visitors explore the city’s lively market piazzas, as well as a host of important historical sights. These include the Scrovegni Chapel, housing Giotto’s early 14th-century masterpiece fresco cycle of biblical scenes, and Palazzo Bo, the oldest part of the University of Padua, which still keeps the original wooden desk where Galileo Galilei taught physics, alongside the world's oldest surviving permanent anatomical theatre. Also not to be missed are Prato della Valle, a broad elliptical square featuring a central island encircled by a scenic water canal and a ring of 78 marble statues depicting historic figures, and the Basilica di Sant’Antonio, a multi-domed Byzantine-Gothic structure housing the tomb of Saint Anthony and bronze masterpieces by Donatello. In the centre, the Palazzo della Ragione is a 13th-century medieval courthouse known for its vast, upper great hall - Il Salone - the walls of which are covered by astrological frescoes.

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The Torlonga, the former castle tower in which Toaldo 
created his renowned astronomical observatory

Travel tip:

La Specola, the astronomical observatory that Giuseppe Toaldo built, remained in use until the 1930s, when the University of Padua decided to procure a modern facility, the Asiago Astrophysical Observatory, which was constructed on a plateau north of Padua.  The castle tower in which the original was housed was built in the 13th-century by Padua’s then-ruler, Ezzelino III da Romano. The tower, which served as a dungeon where prisoners were tortured at the orders of the tyrannical Ezzelino, was raised further in the 14th century during a reconstruction by Francesco I da Carrara. In the lower observatory, named the Sala Meridiana; noon was measured on the meridian line sunk in the floor. The upper observatory has  large windows almost six metres high. A plaque at the entrance carries an inscription by Toaldo that says: This tower, which once led to infernal shadows now, under the auspices of the Venetians, opens the way to the stars. Since 1994 the tower has been home to an astronomical museum. As well as displays outlining the history of astronomy in Padua and Europe from the 18th century, the museum offers the chance to see a superb collection of antique astronomical observation equipment, including English-made instruments from the 18th century, and telescopes from Germany and Austria.

Hotels in Padua from Expedia

Further reading:

Why Giovanni Battista Beccaria regularly corresponded with Benjamin Franklin 

How Galileo Galilei was convicted of heresy after trial by Inquisition 

Alessandro Volta, inventor of the first electric battery

Also on this day:

1696: The birth of composer and violinist Andrea Zani

1761: The birth of political revolutionary Filippo Buonarroti

1854: The birth of Alessandro Mussolini, socialist father of Fascist leader Benito

1869: The birth of King Victor Emmanuel III

1932: The birth of sports writer and presenter Germano Mosconi

1961: The birth of Montalbano actor Luca Zingaretti

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10 November

Lord Byron in Venice

Romantic English poet finds renewed inspiration

Aristocratic English poet Lord Byron and his friend, John Cam Hobhouse, arrived in Venice for the first time on this day in 1816.  They put up at the Hotel Grande Bretagne on the Grand Canal and embarked on a few days of tourism.  But it was not long before Byron decided to move into an apartment just off the Frezzeria, a street near St Mark's Square, and settled down to enjoy life in the city that was to be his home for the next three years.  Byron has become one of Venice’s legends, perhaps the most famous, or infamous, of all its residents.  Tourists who came afterwards expected to see Venice through his eyes. Even the art critic, John Ruskin, has admitted that on his first visit he had come in search of Byron’s Venice.  Byron once wrote that Venice had always been ‘the greenest island of my imagination’ and he never seems to have been disappointed by it. Read more…

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Vanessa Ferrari - gymnast

First Italian woman to win a World Championship gold

The gymnast Vanessa Ferrari, who in 2006 became the first Italian female competitor to win a gold medal at the World Championships of artistic gymnastics, was born on this day in 1990, in the town of Orzinuovi in Lombardy.  Ferrari won the all-around gold - consisting of uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise - at the World Championships in Aarhus in Denmark when she was only 15 years old. It remains the only artistic gymnastics world title to be won by an Italian woman.  Earlier in 2006, Ferrari had picked up her first gold medal of the European Championships at Volos in Greece as Italy won the all-around team event.  Naturally small in stature, Ferrari was inspired to take up gymnastics by watching the sport on television as a child, when the sport was dominated by Russian and Romanian athletes.  Read more…

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Clio Maria Bittoni – lawyer

First Lady who supported workers’ rights and victims of domestic violence

Clio Maria Bittoni, a specialist in labour law, who was married to a President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, was born on this day in 1934 in Chiaravalle in the province of Ancona in Marche.  Bittoni was working for the League of Cooperatives, specialising in the application of the fair rent law in agriculture, in 1992, when Napolitano was elected as president of the Chamber of Deputies.  She had helped many farm workers to get better conditions but was quoted at the time as saying that it seemed ‘inappropriate’ for her to stay in her role since her adversaries had often been parliamentary committees, and other institutional bodies in Italy.  Her parents were Diva Campanella, a socialist activist, and Amleto Bittoni, who were both opponents of the Fascist regime ruling Italy, and they were officially living in exile at the time of her birth.  Read more…

Ennio Morricone - film music maestro

Composer who scored some of cinema's greatest soundtracks

Ennio Morricone, who composed some of the most memorable soundtracks in the history of the cinema, was born on this day in 1928 in Rome.  Morricone has written more than 500 film and television scores, winning countless awards.  Best known for his associations with the Italian directors Sergio Leone, Giuseppe Tornatore and Giuliano Montaldo, he also worked among others with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Brian de Palma, Roland Joffé, Franco Zeffirelli and Quentin Tarantino, whose 2015 Western The Hateful Eight finally won Morricone an Oscar that many considered long overdue.  Among his finest soundtracks are those he wrote for Leone's 'Dollars' trilogy in the 1960s, for the Leone gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America two decades later, for Joffé's The Mission and De Palma's The Untouchables.  Read more…

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Gaetano Bresci - assassin

Anarchist who gunned down a king

Gaetano Bresci, the man who assassinated the Italian king Umberto I, was born on this day in 1869 in Coiano, a small village near Prato in Tuscany.  He murdered Umberto in Monza, north of Milan, on July 29, 1900, while the monarch was handing out prizes at an athletics event.  Bresci mingled with the crowd but then sprang forward and shot Umberto three or four times with a .32 revolver.  Often unpopular with his subjects despite being nicknamed Il Buono (the good), Umberto had survived two previous attempts on his life, in 1878 and 1897.  Bresci was immediately overpowered and after standing trial in Milan he was given a life sentence of hard labour on Santo Stefano island, a prison notorious for its anarchist and socialist inmates.  He had been closely involved with anarchist groups and had served a brief jail term earlier for anarchist activity.  Read more…

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Charles Ferdinand - Prince of the Two Sicilies

The heir presumptive whose marriage earned him exile

Charles Ferdinand, the Bourbon Prince of the Two Sicilies and Prince of Capua and heir presumptive to the crown of King Ferdinand II, was born on this day in 1811 in Palermo.  Prince Charles, the second son of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Isabella of Spain, gave up his claim to the throne when he married a commoner, after his brother, King Ferdinand II, issued a decree upholding their father’s insistence that blood-royal members of the kingdom did not marry beneath their status.  In 1835, at which time Ferdinand II had not fathered any children and Charles therefore held the status of heir presumptive, Charles met and fell in love with a beautiful Irish woman, Penelope Smyth, who was visiting Naples.  Penelope Smyth was the daughter of Grice Smyth of Ballynatray, County Waterford, and sister of Sir John Rowland Smyth. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Byron and Italy, edited by Alan Rawes and Diego Saglia

Venetian debauchery, Roman sight-seeing, revolution, horse-riding and swimming, sword-brandishing and pistol-shooting, the poet's 'last attachment' - all this forms part of the fabric of Romantic mythology. Yet Byron's time in Italy was crucial to his development as a writer, to Italy's sense of itself as a nation, to Europe's perceptions of national identity and to the evolution of Romanticism across Europe. In Byron and Italy, scholars of the poet and nobleman from Britain, Europe and beyond re-assess the topic in all its richness and complexity. They consider Byron's relationship to Italian literature, people, geography, art, religion and politics, and discuss his navigations between British and Italian identities. Byron and Italy was the winner of the 2018 Elma Dangerfield Award, a prize established in 1986 with the support of anonymous donors to commemorate new and original work related to the life of Lord Byron.

Alan Rawes is senior lecturer in Romanticism, English and American Studies at the University of Manchester whose principal research interest is Lord Byron. Diego Saglia is a professor of English Literature at the University of Parma, whose research focuses on Romantic literature and culture.

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9 November

Alessandro Del Piero – World Cup winner

Former striker is all-time record goalscorer for Juventus

The retired footballer Alessandro Del Piero, who won the World Cup with Italy in 2006 and holds the club records for most goals (290) and most appearances (705) for Juventus, was born on this day in 1974 in Conegliano in the Veneto.  Regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players, his overall goals tally of 346 in Italian football in all competitions has been bettered only once in history, by Silvio Piola, who was a member of Italy’s winning team in the 1938 World Cup and who scored 390 goals in his career.  Del Piero also finished his career having scored at least one goal in every competition in which he took part.  Del Piero was a member of six Serie A title-winning Juventus teams between 1995 and 2012 and would have had eight winner’s medals had the club not been stripped of the 2005 and 2006 titles due to the so-called Calciopoli corruption scandal.  Read more…

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The rebuilding of Cervia

Historic town is now a popular seaside resort

Pope Innocent XII, as Head of the Papal States, signed a document ordering the rebuilding of the town of Cervia in the Emilia-Romagna region, on this day in 1697.  It was the second time in its history that Cervia had been moved and rebuilt and therefore it has become known as ‘the town of three sites’.  Present day Cervia, in the province of Ravenna, is a popular seaside resort with a 9km (5.5 miles) stretch of sandy beaches along the Adriatic coast, about 30km (19 miles) north of Rimini. The town was originally known as Ficocle and was probably of Greek origin. It lay near the coast halfway between what is often referred to as New Cervia and the city of Ravenna.  However, the town of Ficocle was completely destroyed in 709 as punishment for being an ally of Ravenna and therefore against Byzantium. It was later rebuilt in a safer location.  Read more…

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Piero Cappuccilli - operatic baritone

Singer highly respected for interpretation of Verdi roles

Piero Cappuccilli, regarded during a 41-year opera career as one of the finest Italian baritones of the late 20th century, was born on this day in 1926 in Trieste, in the far northeast corner of the peninsula.  Although not exclusively, Cappuccilli’s focus was predominantly the work of Italian composers, in particular Giuseppe Verdi, in whose operas he sang 17 major roles.  He sang at many of the world’s great opera houses, travelling to South America and the United States, where he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s La traviata in 1960 and had a particular association with the Lyric Opera in Chicago, where he made his first appearance in 1969 as Sir Richard Forth in Bellini's I puritani and returned many times before his farewell performances there in 1986.  Read more…

Niccolò III d’Este – Marquis of Ferrara

Soldier who built up the importance of home city

The military leader - condottiero in Italian - Niccolò III d’Este was born on this day in 1383 in Ferrara.  He was the son of Alberto d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara, and became ruler of the city when he was just ten years old on the death of his father, under the protection of Venice, Florence and Bologna.  A relative, Azzo d’Este, who was working for Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, tried to attack Ferrara, but Venice, Florence and Bologna helped Niccolò see off the challenge to his rule.  In 1403 Niccolò joined the league formed against the Duke of Milan and was appointed Captain General of the Papal Army by Pope Boniface IX.  At the age of 13, Niccolò was married for the first time, to Gigliola da Carrara, the daughter of Francesco II da Carrara, Lord of Padua.  Although his first marriage was childless, he fathered an illegitimate son, Ugo, in 1405.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Panini - entrepreneur

News vendor who started football sticker craze

Giuseppe Panini, the entrepreneur and businessman who created an international craze for collecting football stickers, was born on this day in 1921 in the village of Pozza in Emilia-Romagna, not far from Modena.  Since the stickers’ first appearance in Italy in the 1960s and the first World Cup sticker album in 1970 took the concept into an international marketplace, Panini has grown into a publishing company that in 2017 generated sales in excess of €536 million ($643 million US) in more than 120 countries, employing more than 1000 people worldwide.  Giuseppe Panini, who died in 1996, grew immensely wealthy as a result, selling the business in 1989 for a sum said to be around £96 million, the equivalent of £232 million (€266 million; $303 million US) today, after which he spent the remaining years of his life building on an already established reputation for philanthropy.  Read more…

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Enrico De Nicola - politician

Italy’s ‘reluctant’ first president

The man who was to become the first president of the Republic of Italy was born on this day in Naples in 1877.  Enrico De Nicola studied law at Naples University and went on to become one of the most esteemed criminal lawyers in Italy. He also worked as a journalist writing about legal issues.  He later joined the Italian liberal party and was elected to the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies) in 1909.  He held minor government posts until the advent of Fascism when he retired from public life to concentrate on his legal career.   De Nicola took an interest in politics again after Mussolini’s fall from power in 1943.  At first King Victor Emmanuel III tried to extricate the monarchy from its association with the Fascists and his son Umberto became Lieutenant General of the Realm and took over most of the functions of the Sovereign. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Golden Generations: The Story of the 2006 FIFA Men’s World Cup, by Michael Gallwey

Golden Generations: The Story of the 2006 FIFA Men’s World Cup tells the tale of one of the most action-packed international tournaments in recent memory.  From Philipp Lahm’s extraordinary goal just six minutes in, to Zinedine Zidane’s infamous headbutt, it was a World Cup that had it all.  With all six confederations represented for the first time since 1982, there was a truly global feel to this World Cup. There were subplots attached to almost every nation at the tournament.  Germany were in the midst of a rebuild, the Italians had the cloud of Calciopoli hanging over them and France and England were nearing the end of an era with their talented squads.  Even the debutant nations were filled with household names, from the Touré brothers and Didier Drogba with the Ivory Coast to Dwight Yorke dropping into midfield to captain Trinidad and Tobago.  Golden Generations explores the plots and subplots that defined the 2006 World Cup, from the tournament’s beginnings to the legacy it left behind.

Michael Gallwey is a history graduate and football writer. He has had work featured for These Football Times and Football Chronicle, as well as other publications and websites. He contributed to Iberia Chronicles, a collaborative exploration of Spanish and Portuguese football. Golden Generations is his first solo book.

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