24 June

Battle of Solferino

Suffering of soldiers led to the founding of the Red Cross

The Battle of Solferino - part of the Second Italian War of Independence - took place on this day in 1859 south of Lake Garda between Milan and Verona.  It was the last battle in world history where all the armies were under the personal command of their monarchs.  The French army under Napoleon III was allied with the Sardinian army commanded by Victor Emmanuel II. Together, they were victorious against the Austrian army led by Emperor Franz Joseph I.  The battle lasted more than nine hours and resulted in thousands of deaths on both sides.  Jean-Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman, toured the battlefield afterwards and was so horrified by the suffering of the thousands of wounded and dying soldiers, he wrote a book about what he had seen and set about establishing the International Red Cross.  Read more…

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Piero Barone – singer

Young tenor found fame on TV talent show

Piero Barone, one of the three singers who make up the Italian opera and pop group, Il Volo, was born on this day in 1993 in Naro, a town in the province of Agrigento in Sicily.  Il Volo hit the headlines after winning the Sanremo Music Festival in 2015. They came third when they represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest with their hit Grande Amore later that year in Austria and have since acquired growing popularity worldwide.  In 2016, the group, together with tenor Placido Domingo, released Notte Magica – A Tribute to the Three Tenors, a live album featuring many of the songs performed by the Three Tenors (Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras) for their iconic concert held at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome on the eve of the Italia ’90 World Cup.  Piero’s father, Gaetano Barone, is a mechanic. Read more…

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Lorenzo Del Boca – journalist and writer

Author of Polentoni says north of Italy was betrayed by the Risorgimento

The author Lorenzo Del Boca, whose books and essays about Italian history and politics have been translated into several languages, was born on this day in 1951 in Romagnano Sesia in the province of Novara in Piedmont.  Del Boca has become known outside Italy following the publication of his book Polentoni in 2011, which puts forward his opinions about how and why the north of the country was betrayed by the unification of Italy in 1861.  But he refutes the idea that Polentoni is in any way a riposte to the book Terroni, published in 2010 by the author and journalist Pino Aprile, who is from Puglia in the south of Italy and expresses the opinion that the south was betrayed by the north as a result of the Risorgimento.  Polentoni argues that Risorgimento was a betrayal of the north as well as the south. Read more…

Battle of Custoza

Austrians thwart Italy’s hopes of unifying the peninsula

An army of the recently unified Kingdom of Italy was driven out of Custoza in the Veneto region by Austrian troops in the Battle of Custoza on this day in 1866.  Although the Italians had twice the number of soldiers, the Austrians were victorious strategically and drove the Italians back across the Mincio river and out of the area then known as Venetia.  King Victor Emmanuel II’s younger son, Amadeo, was severely wounded in the battle but he survived his injuries and went on to reign briefly as King of Spain from 1870 to 1873.  The German Kingdom of Prussia had declared war on the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to join forces with Prussia, with the intention of annexing Venetia and uniting the Italian peninsula, in what became known as the Third Italian War of Independence. The Austrian Imperial army joined up with the Venetian army. Read more…

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Benedetta Tagliabue - architect

Italian half of an acclaimed design partnership

The architect Benedetta Tagliabue, whose work in partnership with her late husband Enric Miralles included the iconic Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood in Edinburgh, was born on this day in 1963 in Milan.  Tagliabue formed a close friendship with Barcelona-born Miralles when she was a student and he was teaching at Columbia University in New York.  They became business partners in 1991 and married a year later.  Tragically, Miralles died in 2000 at the age of just 45, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour, but Tagliabue has continued to run the business they created.  Tagliabue studied architecture in Switzerland and Venice, attending the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV), which is part of the University of Venice. She fell in love with the city of canals and made it her home for several years. Read more…

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Vittorio Storaro - cinematographer

Triple Oscar winner among best in movie history

Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, whose work has won three Academy Awards, was born on this day in 1940 in Rome.  Storaro won Oscars for Best Cinematography for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now, for the Warren Beatty-directed historical drama Reds in 1981, and for The Last Emperor, Bernardo Bertolucci’s story of imperial China, in 1987.  Described as someone for whom cinematography was “not just art and technique but a philosophy as well”, Storaro worked extensively with Bertolucci, for whom he shot the controversial Last Tango in Paris and the extraordinary five-hour epic drama 1900.  He filmed many stories for his cousin, Luigi Bazzoni, collaborated with Coppola on three other movies and more recently has worked with Woody Allen. Storaro inherited his love of the cinema from his father. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Origin of the Red Cross: "Un souvenir de Solferino", by Henry Dunant. Translated by Anna B. Heylin Wright

After noticing the suffering of thousands of wounded soldiers at the Battle of Solferino in 1859, Henry Dunant, a Swiss businessman, decided to write 'A Memory of Solferino'. Many were left to die due to lack of care.  Dunant proposed creating national relief societies, made up of volunteers, trained in peacetime to provide neutral and impartial help to relieve suffering in times of war.  In response to these ideas, a committee (which later became the International Committee of the Red Cross) was established in Geneva. The founding charter of the Red Cross was drawn up in 1863.  Dunant also proposed that countries adopt an international agreement, which would recognise the status of medical services and of the wounded on the battlefield. This agreement – the original Geneva Convention – was adopted in 1864. When war broke out between France and Prussia in July 1870, Colonel Loyd-Lindsay (later Lord Wantage of Lockinge) wrote a letter to The Times. He called for a National Society to be formed in Britain just like in other European nations.  On August 4, 1870, a public meeting was held in London and a resolution was passed, paving the way for the formation of the British National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War. It gave aid and relief to both warring armies during the Franco-Prussian War and in other wars and campaigns during the 19th century. This was done under the protection of the red cross emblem.

Henry Dunant, also known as Henri Dunant, was a Swiss humanitarian, businessman, social activist, and co-founder of the Red Cross. His humanitarian efforts won him the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

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23 June

Arnaldo Pomodoro - sculptor

Romagnolo artist best known for his Sphere within Sphere series

The avant-garde sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, who became famous for monumental spherical bronze sculptures with their outer surface cracked to reveal intricate interiors, was born in Morciano di Romagna, a small town just inland from the Adriatic coast, on June 23, 1926. Pomodoro’s first Sphere within Sphere (Sfera con Sfera) was installed in the Cortile della Pigna courtyard at the Vatican Museums in Rome in the 1960s and he has subsequently produced versions for locations around the world, including Trinity College, Dublin, the United Nations Plaza and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.  Broadly speaking, the sculptures, which contain a smaller sphere at the centre of the larger, broken sphere, separated by layers of what look a little like the inner workings of a watch, represent the fragility of the world or of society and the complexities that lie beneath the surface.  Read more…

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Francesca Schiavone – tennis player

First Italian woman to win a Grand Slam

Tennis champion Francesca Schiavone was born on June 23, 1980 in Milan.  When she won the French Open at Roland Garros in 2010 she became the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam event in singles. She was the runner-up in the French Open final the following year. Schiavone won eight titles on the WTA tour and was the runner up in events 11 times.  Her highest career ranking was World Number Four, which she achieved in January 2011.  She helped Italy win the Federation Cup in 2006, 2009 and 2010 and she has had the most wins for the Italian team.  She also appeared in the women’s doubles final at the 2008 French Open.  Schiavone retired from tennis after the 2018 US Open. In December 2019, Schiavone revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year but after successful treatment she was declared free of the disease.  Read more…

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Giuseppina Tuissi - partisan

Key figure in capture and execution of Mussolini

Giuseppina Tuissi, who was among a group of partisans who captured the deposed Fascist leader Benito Mussolini as he tried to escape to Switzerland in 1945, was born on June 23, 1923, in Abbiategrasso, near Milan.  Tuissi and her comrades seized Mussolini at Dongo, a small town on the shores of Lake Como, on April 27, 1945, along with his mistress Claretta Petacci.  Having heard that Hitler was preparing to surrender to the Allies, Mussolini was trying to reach Switzerland before flying on to Spain. He and Petacci and their entourage were executed at the village of Giulino di Mezzegra the following day before the partisan group took their bodies to be put on public display in Milan.  Tuissi, however, would herself be killed less than a couple of months later,probably at the hands of fellow partisans who suspected her of betraying comrades. Read more…

Claudio Capone – actor and dubber

The Italian voice of a host of stars

Italy lost one of its most famous voices on June 23, 2008, with the death of actor and dubber Claudio Capone, who suffered a stroke while working in Scotland. He died two days later, at the age of only 55.  Although he began his career with the ambitions of any actor to reach the top of his profession, he was offered an opportunity only a few years out of drama school to do some voice-over work and found the flow of work in dubbing to be so consistent he ultimately made it his career.  Italian cinema and TV audiences have always preferred to watch imported films and TV shows with dubbed Italian voices rather than subtitles and it was down to Rome-born Capone that many foreign stars became famous in Italy, even if they did not speak a word of Italian.  The biggest example of this was the American actor Ronn Moss, who played fashion magnate Ridge Forrester in the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Arnaldo Pomodoro: The Great Theatre of Civilizations, edited by by Lorenzo Respi and Andrea Viliani

Published in collaboration with FENDI, this is an immersive journey into the work of the greatest Italian sculptor of the second half of the 20th century. The book itself is conceived as a sculpture. In a large format, it is made of luxurious materials and fitted within a perforated and die-cut slipcase that recalls the silhouette of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, the iconic historic building which is both a symbol of the EUR district and the headquarters of the FENDI maison.  Arnaldo Pomodoro: The Great Theatre of Civilizations unfolds as a great theatre at once real and imaginary, historical and imaginative. It presents a selection of works from the late 1950s to the present day, along with largely unpublished documentary material exploring the extensive relationship between spheres of action pertaining to the visual and performing arts in the artist’s life. Here evanescent traces of possible “civilisations” emerge – archaic, ancient, modern, or simply fictional civilizations. In their interweaving, they provide a rich archaeology, constantly redefining our knowledge, imagination, conception of time and space, history and myth, and our relationship with other species and nature.

Lorenzo Respi is Director of Exhibitions and Collections at Fondazione Modena Arti Visive. Andrea Viliani is Director of the Museum of Civilizations in Rome. Both are members of the scientific committee of Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro.

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22 June

NEW - Leonardo Loredan - Doge of Venice

Strong ruler steered Venice through wars and established first Ghetto

One of the most important Doges to reign over Venice in its 1,100 years of history, Leonardo Loredan died on this day in 1521 in the city, where he had also been born.  As a wartime ruler of the most Serene Republic, his extraordinary cunning, and ability to construct Machiavellian plots against Venice’s many powerful opponents, saved his beloved city from potential downfall. Loredan was born into a noble Venetian family in 1436 and had a classical education. In accordance with the traditions of his family, he then focused on trade with Africa and the Levant, to add to the family’s fortune.  He began his political ascent as a lawyer in a legal magistracy concerned mainly with financial scandals and bankruptcies. This he followed by occupying positions such as Sage of the College, Sage of the Terrafirma, Cameriengo (or treasurer) di Comun, Podestà of Padua, ducal councillor for Cannaregio, and Procurator of Saint Mark. Read more… 

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Lucrezia Tornabuoni - political adviser

Medici wife one of most powerful women of the Renaissance

Lucrezia Tornabuoni, who became one of the most influential and therefore powerful women in 15th century Italy through family connections and her own political and business acumen, was born on this day in 1427 in Florence.  Connected by birth to the powerful Tornabuoni family on her father’s side and the Guicciardini through her mother, Lucrezia entered a third powerful family when she married Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici.  Yet she was an important figure in her own right, revealing political skill and a talent for diplomacy during her husband’s time as de facto leader of Florence, and when their son, Lorenzo, succeeded him.  She was also a successful property owner, buying houses, shops and farms in and around Pisa and Florence, which she would then lease out. She bought and renovated a hot spring, Bagno a Morba, turning it into a resort and spa for paying guests. Read more…

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Galileo Galilei convicted of heresy

'Father of Science' forced to deny that earth revolves around sun

One of the more bizarre episodes in the history of human intellectual advancement took place in Rome on this day in 1633 when Galileo Galilei, the brilliant astronomer, mathematician, philosopher and engineer – often described as ‘the father of science’ - was convicted of heresy.  His crime was to support the view – indeed, to confirm it with scientific proof – that the sun rather than the earth was the centre of the solar system, as had been theorised by the Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus in the previous century.  This flew completely in the face of a major plank of orthodox Roman Catholic beliefs, within which the contention that the sun moved around the earth was regarded as a fact of scripture that could not be disputed.  Galileo was something of a celebrity in his day, who won the patronage of such powerful Italian families as the Medici and the Barberini. Read more…

Walter Bonatti - mountaineer

Climber's outstanding career marred by 50-year row

Walter Bonatti, the Italian who some would argue is the greatest alpine mountain climber that ever lived, was born on this day in 1930 in Bergamo in Lombardy.  He was the first to complete some of the most demanding climbs in the Alps and the Himalayas, including the first solo climb in winter of the North face of the Matterhorn.  But those achievements were marred for half a century by the bitter row that sprang from the part he played in the 1954 Italian expedition to conquer K2, the 8,611-metre peak north-east of the Himalayas that is the second highest in the world - behind Mount Everest (8,848 metres) - but is regarded as the more difficult climb.  Incredibly fit and able to survive at high altitudes without oxygen, he was already such an accomplished climber at just 24 years of age that he was chosen to join the expedition. Read more...

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Book of the Day: Venice and the Doges: Six Hundred Years of Architecture, Monuments, and Sculpture, by Toto Bergamo Rossi

A feast for the eyes and an entertaining, erudite read, Venice and the Doges opens with an illustrated survey of the 120 doges who led the Venetian Republic, before continuing with a detailed survey of the incredible array of sculptures and monuments that memorialize them. Although celebrated for painting and music, Venice has a sculptural tradition that was overshadowed by Florence and Rome. Based on new scholarship, this volume reveals the true magnificence of six centuries of Venetian sculpture. With the oldest works dating to the 13th century, these masterpieces fill the city's churches and include pieces by great masters from the Lombardo family to Antonio Rizzo, Jacopo Sansovino, Alessandro Vittoria and Baldassare Longhena. The sculptural marvels of Venice tell the story of a procession of doges, politicians, scholars, conquerors, merchants and even a saint, Pietro Orseolo, over a thousand-year history. Engaging text highlights the adventurous, eventful, and sometimes glorious lives of these legendary figures, while the newly commissioned photography showcases the grandeur and beauty of a neglected aspect of Venice s cultural history.

Francesco Bergamo Rossi, known as Toto, was born in Venice in 1967. He obtained his degree in architecture from Ca’ Foscari University before going on to specialise in restoration. He is general manager of the Venetian Heritage Foundation.

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Leonardo Loredan - Doge of Venice

Strong ruler steered Venice through wars and established first Ghetto

Giovanni Bellini's Portrait of 
Doge Leonardo Loredan

One of the most important Doges to reign over Venice in its 1,100 years of history, Leonardo Loredan died on this day in 1521 in the city, where he also had been born.

As a wartime ruler of the Most Serene Republic, his extraordinary cunning and ability to construct Machiavellian plots against Venice’s many powerful opponents, saved his beloved city from potential downfall.

Loredan was born into a noble Venetian family in 1436 and had a classical education.  In accordance with the traditions of his family, he then focused on trade with Africa and the Levant, to add to the family’s fortune.

He began his political ascent as a lawyer in a legal magistracy concerned mainly with financial scandals and bankruptcies. This he followed by occupying positions such as Sage of the College, Sage of the Terrafirma, Cameriengo (or treasurer) di Comun, Podestà of Padua, ducal councillor for Cannaregio, and Procurator of Saint Mark.

In 1481, he married Giustina Giustiani, also known as Morosina Giustiani, with whom he had nine children. Her influential family is believed to have played a significant part in his election as the 75th Doge of Venice in 1501.

His reign began with the disastrous Second Ottoman War, which he was able to settle after  two years, but only at the cost of losing territory. Then he had a dispute with Pope Julius II, which escalated into the 1509 War of the League of Cambrai. Venice was fighting against both the Pope and France, and was defeated.

However, in 1513, Loredan formed a military alliance with the French King Louis XII against the Pope, which they won decisively. Venice was able to regain some of its lost territory and the Pope was forced to pay back a large amount of money owed to the Loredan family.

Unfortunately, Loredan fell and injured his leg in 1514, and his health was to deteriorate from then on.

In 1516, Loredan arranged a truce with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and was able to regain Verona. The end of war celebrations in Venice that year were to be the high point of Loredan’s reign as Doge. He also bought titles and offices for his children and relatives, making the most of his influence while he had it.

Girolamo Campagna's statue of
Leonardo Loredan is part of his tomb

It was under Loredan’s rule, in 1516, that a decree was enacted to formally isolate the Jews in Venice. The first Ghetto in the world was created, from which all others have derived their names.

Loredan’s last years as Doge were filled with financial and political scandals, some caused by rival families. Meanwhile, his health deteriorated further and he died in pain, suffering from gangrene, in 1521.

He was interred in the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, at first in a simple grave which no longer exists. But in 1572, a monumental tomb was erected for him in the basilica, adorned with marble Corinthian columns.

Among the many portraits and paintings of Loredan, the most famous is the Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, painted by Giovanni Bellini in about 1501, which is now in the National Gallery in London.

One of his descendants, Francesco Loredan, became the 116th Doge of Venice in 1752, and after his death he was interred in Leonardo Loredan’s tomb.

Another of his descendants, Pietro Loredan, was the 84th Doge between 1567 and 1570.

Pietro Loredan also established a winery in the Veneto, which is still known for its celebrated robust and powerful Capo di Stata red wine.

The Campo di Gheto Nuovo, the main square in
the fashionable Ghetto quarter in Venice

Travel tip:

A decree creating Venice’s historic Ghetto was pronounced by Leonardo Loredan in 1516. It meant that the Jewish population of the city, who were already obliged to live under restrictions since the 13th century, were forced to move to an island in the northwestern part of the Cannaregio sestiere and could not live in any other district. There are a number of theories about how it came to be known as the Ghetto, the most plausible of which is that the area was known to Venetians by the dialect word geto - foundry - as it used to be home to a factory making heavy iron cannons for the Venetian fleet. The word may have acquired an ‘h’ in its spelling to reflect its mispronunciation by the early inhabitants, mainly German Jews, who incorrectly gave it a hard ‘g’ rather than the soft one of the dialect. At some time later, it acquired a second ‘t’, although street signs in Venice have only one. The freedom of the rest of the city was not restored to the Jewish population until 1797, when the French Army, commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, occupied Venice and forced the dissolution of the Republic. The Ghetto’s gates were removed, with Jews given the same status as other citizens.

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The Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice,
where Loredan and many other Doges are buried

Travel tip:

Leonardo Loredan was buried in the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo in the Castello district. The Basilica is known in Venice as San Zanipolo, and is in the Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The land was donated to the Dominicans by Doge Jacopo Tiepolo after he dreamt of a flock of white doves flying over it. One of the largest churches in Venice, it has the status of a minor basilica. It has many works by Veronese in the Chapel of the Rosary, as well as paintings by Lorenzo Lotto and sculptures by Pietro Lombardo.  Outside is a statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, a Bergamo condottiero (mercenary) and a former captain-general of the Republic of Venice, sculpted by Andrea del Verrocchio. A total of 25 of Venice’s Doges are buried there, among them Tiepolo himself.

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More reading:

The Ghetto - Venice’s Jewish quarter

Jacopo Tiepolo, the Doge who granted land for beautiful churches

Ludovico Manin - the last Doge of Venice

Also on this day:

1427: The birth of political adviser and businesswoman Lucrezia Tornabuoni

1633: Galileo Galilei convicted of heresy

1930: The birth of mountaineer Walter Bonatti

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