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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8 November

NEW - Luigi Segre - motor engineer and entrepreneur

Neapolitan who turned Ghia name into symbol of automotive style

The automobile entrepreneur Luigi “Gigi” Segre, whose short life managed to combine wartime heroics with creating an iconic postwar coupé whose name would come to symbolise luxury styling in mass production cars, was born on this day in 1919 in Naples.  Segre was only 43 when he died but left a lasting legacy as the driving force behind the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia sports car range, which proved that beauty and style in automobile design could also be affordable.  It was so successful that when car giants Ford acquired Segre’s former company in 1970 they gave the Ghia name to top-of-the-range versions of their most popular models.  Segre had been working in his father’s construction business when Italy became embroiled in World War Two. He was a soldier in the Italian army but after the 1943 armistice took up arms against the Nazi occupiers of his home city. Read more… 

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Salvatore Cascio - actor

Child star of classic movie Cinema Paradiso

The actor Salvatore Cascio, who earned fame through his starring role in the Oscar-winning movie Cinema Paradiso, was born on this day in 1979 in Palazzo Adriano, a small town in a mountainous area of western Sicily.  In Guiseppe Tornatore’s nostalgic 1988 drama, Cascio was the eight-year-old child chosen to play the part of the the film’s central character as a small boy in a Sicilian village who loves to watch films at his local cinema and develops a friendship with the cinema’s grumpy but good-hearted projectionist, Alfredo.  His performance was so charming and captivating it won him the prize for best actor in a supporting role at the 1990 BAFTAs. He remains the only Italian to have won such an award. Roberto Benigni, star and director of the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, is the only Italian to have won a BAFTA as best actor.  Read more…

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Francesco Molinari – golfer

Second win in Italian Open gave him unique status

Francesco Molinari, one of two golfing brothers who have advanced the cause of the sport in Italy more than anyone in the modern era, was born on this day in 1982 in Turin.  He and Edoardo, who is 21 months’ his senior, won the Mission Hills World Cup in China in 2009, the first time Italy had won the two-player team event.  And when he sank a 5ft (1.5m) putt to beat the Masters champion Danny Willett to win the Italian Open in Monza in September 2016, Francesco became the first Italian to win his country’s open championship twice since it became part of the European tour in 1972.  He had won it for the first time in 2006 at the Castello di Tolcinasco course just outside Milan, which gave him his first European tour victory at the age of 23 and made him the first Italian to win the tournament since Massimo Mannelli in 1980.  Read more…

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Andrea Appiani - painter

The master of the fresco technique became court painter to Napoleon

Neoclassical artist Andrea Appiani, who was chosen to paint for the Emperor Napoleon during the time in which he ruled Italy, died on this day in 1817 in Milan.  He is remembered for his fine portraits of some of the famous people of the period, including Napoleon, the Empress Joséphine, and the poet, Ugo Foscolo. He is also well regarded for his religious and classical frescoes.  Born in Milan in 1754, Appiani was intended for a career in medicine, to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he went into the private academy of the painter Carlo Maria Guidici instead, where he received instruction in drawing and copying from sculpture and paintings.  He then joined the class of the fresco painter Antonio de Giorgi at the Ambrosiana picture gallery in Milan and he spent time in the studio of Martin Knoller where he learnt more about painting in oils.  Read more…

Sandro Mazzola - footballer

Tragedy instilled determination to succeed

The footballer Sandro Mazzola, widely regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players after a glittering career with Internazionale of Milan and the Italian national team, was born on this day in 1942 in Turin.  A forward or attacking midfield player with all the attributes of the world’s best players, Mazzola won four Serie A titles and two European Cups for Inter-Milan, largely under the coaching of Helenio Herrero. His goals tally in Serie A games alone was 116 in 417 appearances. He was capped 70 times by the national team, part of the side that won the 1968 European championships and reached the World Cup final in 1970.  Mazzola always saw his success as a tribute to his father, Valentino, a brilliant player who was captain of the Torino team that was almost entirely wiped out in the Superga air disaster of 1949. Read more…  

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Virna Lisi - actress

Screen siren turned back on glamour roles to prove talent

The actress Virna Lisi, born on this day in 1936, might have become the new Marilyn Monroe if she had allowed Hollywood to shape her career in the way the movie moguls had planned.  She was certainly blessed with all the physical attributes to fulfil their commercial ambitions - no less a screen goddess than Brigitte Bardot called her 'the most beautiful woman in the world'. But Lisi decided she was too good an actress to be typecast as mere window dressing or eye candy and ultimately rejected their advances.  In time she proved to herself that she made the right decision when her portrayal of the manipulative Catherine de' Medici, the Italian who was Queen of France between 1547 and 1559, in Patrice Chéreau’s 1994 film La Reine Margot won her three awards - Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, a César (the French equivalent of an Oscar) and the Italian film critics' award, the Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon).  Read more…

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Francis I of the Two Sicilies

Death of the king who failed to impress Lady Blessington 

Francis I died in Naples on this day in 1830 after having been King of the Two Sicilies for five years.  The Two Sicilies was the largest of all the Italian states before unification, originally formed as a union between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples.  It lasted until 1860 when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia, and became part of the new Italy in 1861.  The Two Sicilies originated when the Kingdom of Sicily was divided in 1283. The King at the time lost the island of Sicily but kept control of his part of southern Italy, which was also referred to as Sicily. The Two Sicilies had capitals in Palermo and Naples.  After Francis succeeded his father Ferdinand I in 1825 he took little part in government and lived with his mistresses in constant fear of assassination.  He is remembered for having the Austrian occupation force removed from Naples. Read more…

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Paolo Taviani - film director

Half of a successful partnership with brother Vittorio

The film director Paolo Taviani, the younger of the two Taviani brothers, whose work together won great acclaim and brought them considerable success in the 1970s and 80s in particular, was born on this day in 1931 in San Miniato, Tuscany.  With his brother Vittorio, who was two years his senior and died in April of this year, he wrote and directed more than 20 films.  Among their triumphs were Padre Padrone (1977), which won the Palme d’Or and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) prize at the Cannes Film Festival, La notte di San Lorenzo (The Night of the Shooting Stars) 1982, which won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes, and Caesar Must Die (2012), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.  The brothers famously would work in partnership, directing alternate scenes. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Ghia: Masterpieces of Style, by Luciano Greggio

Ghia: Masterpieces of Style is the story of Ghia of Turin, a company active from the 1920s. The firm was responsible for some of the most important models in automotive history, frequently distinguished by daring and trend-setting styling. Tracing the history of Ghia brings to light models of particularly evocative appeal such as the Fiat 508 Sport Spider (1934), various Alfa Romeo 6C 2500s and the 1900 SS Abarth (1954), not to mention a number of unusual Ferraris from the same decade. A decade that was of fundamental importance to Ghia that, one after the other, produced a series of opulent cars inspired by the styling canons in vogue in the United States in that period, but also styling exercises such as the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia (1955). The Sixties were no less prolific, with further "classics” such as the Fiat 2300 S (1960), the De Tomaso Mangusta and Pantera (1966 and 1970) and the immortal Ghibli from 1966. As was the case for other Italian coachbuilders, there followed a period of crisis that saw the Ghia marque change hands on a number of occasions before being acquired by Ford.

An expert in international car history, Luciano Greggio is an authoritative journalist with a long career in publishing and motoring journalism. He is the author of many prestigious books.

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Luigi Segre - motor engineer and entrepreneur

Neapolitan who turned Ghia name into symbol of automotive style

Luigi Segre at his desk at the workshop of Carrozzeria
Ghia, which he turned into a global brand

The automobile entrepreneur Luigi “Gigi” Segre, whose short life managed to combine wartime heroics with creating an iconic postwar coupé whose name would come to symbolise luxury styling in mass production cars, was born on this day in 1919 in Naples.

Segre was only 43 when he died but left a lasting legacy as the driving force behind the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia sports car, which proved that beauty and style in automobile design could also be affordable.

It was so successful that when car giants Ford acquired Segre’s former company in 1970 they gave the Ghia name to top-of-the-range versions of their most popular models.

Segre had been working in his father’s construction business in Naples when Italy became embroiled in World War Two. He was a soldier in the Italian army but after the 1943 armistice took up arms against the Nazi occupiers of his home city, taking part in the uprising known as the Quattro giornate di Napoli - the Four Days of Naples - which cost 300 Italian lives but successfully drove out the German forces ahead of the arrival of Allied troops.

He volunteered to fight with the Allies, who gave him some training and sent him to northern Italy on behalf of American intelligence as a liaison officer, parachuted in behind enemy lines to work with partisan groups in Piedmont.

He learned English quickly, earning the respect of  his commanders, and his bravery impressed the Allies, who helped him secure a university place at the end of the conflict. He graduated in engineering and took a job with Siata, a small car manufacturer based in Turin which also made mopeds, a mode of transport that was hugely in demand as Italy struggled with war-damaged roads.

The VW Karmann Ghia, the stylish sports coupé
built on the chassis of the VW Beetle family car

From there he joined Carrozzeria Ghia, a coachbuilding and car design company launched by Giacinto Ghia in 1916 and then owned by the designer Mario Boano. As commercial director, Segre was so successful he was able to buy part-ownership of the business.

Carrozzeria Ghia’s market was largely domestic, making custom bodies for Italian manufacturers such as Fiat and Alfa Romeo, but Segre wanted to expand into global markets. He travelled to the United States, where his fluent English and his familiarity with Americans, due to his wartime activities, enabled him to forge a relationship with Chrysler and its chief designer, Virgil Exner, which would ultimately lead to 18 Chrysler Ghia cars.

The Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, the project that ultimately defined Segre’s legacy, came about through his connection with Wilhelm Karmann, the owner of a German coachbuilding company based in Osnabrück, in the northwest of the country. They would often meet at international motor shows.

Karmann had worked with Volkswagen before and was aware that the company, whose success had been built on the utilitarian Beetle family car, wanted to enhance its range with something more sporty. It was a contract he was keen to land and in 1952 he and Segre hatched a plan to build a sports coupé that could be mounted on a Beetle chassis.

Luigi Segre with Wilhelm Karmann, with
whom he worked on the Karmann Ghia 

Such was the waiting list for Beetles that it would have taken Ghia months to source one in Italy but Gian Paolo - Mario Boano’s son - managed to buy one in Paris and drove it back to Turin. Over the next months, with Segre, Mario Boano plus in-house Ghia designers Sergio Coggiola and Giovanni Savonuzzi all having input, the concept became a reality.

The result was a car that had the look of an expensive marque, with sweeping, sculpted lines and elegant, low-slung proportions, but was as simple to drive and as economical to run as its parent Beetle. 

Production ran from 1955 to 1974, with almost half a million of the cars sold. It cemented the "Ghia" name into the vocabulary of mainstream car buyers worldwide.

Sadly, Segre did not live to enjoy many years of Ghia success. After Mario Boano left the business in 1953, Segre became sole owner in 1954 and hired well-respected designers such as Pietro Frua to ensure Ghia continued to be at the forefront of the market.

However, in February, 1963, following successful surgery to remove kidney stones, his health suddenly and unexpectedly deteriorated and he died in a Turin clinic.

Doctors blamed a viral infection, possibly one he had picked up on a business trip to Brazil, but this was not confirmed. He was survived by his wife, Luisa, whom he had married in 1955, and their two sons, Edmondo and Silvio.

Luisa subsequently sold most of the Carrozzeria Ghia business. It was acquired by Ford in 1970 and remains in that company’s ownership, helping craft designs for the European market from its headquarters in Corso Guglielmo Marconi in Turin.

The Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples was badly
damaged during a World War Two bombing raid

Travel tip:

Naples was the most heavily bombed Italian city during World War Two, enduring roughly 200 Allied air raids and extensive damage from retreating German forces. Following the war, a massive effort was undertaken to resurrect its historic centre.  Among the buildings worst affected were the Basilica di Santa Chiara, the 18th-century Baroque interior of which was ruined along with historic frescoes when a bombing raid triggered a fire that burned for two days, causing the roof to collapse. Restorers stripped away the damaged plaster to reveal and rebuild the church’s original 14th-century Gothic architecture.  The Royal Palace of Naples was damaged several times, including by the catastrophic March 1943 explosion of the ammunition ship Caterina Costa in the nearby port. Bombing raids damaged the palace's facades, collapsed the roof of the Court Theatre, and destroyed the palace chapel.  The Teatro di San Carlo, Europe's oldest continuously active opera house, sustained direct bomb damage in 1943. The auditorium only narrowly escaped complete demolition, and the foyer and adjacent structural sections were also badly hit. Amazingly, in view of its huge cultural importance, it was one of the first buildings to receive emergency aid. Under the direction of Allied authorities and local craftsmen, it was rapidly patched up and fully restored by 1948.

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Fiat's vast Lingotto Factory was renowned for its
rooftop test track, which was 1,500m in length

Travel tip:

Turin’s identity is closely connected with the Italian automotive industry, earning it the nickname the "Detroit of Italy." The association began in 1899 with the founding of FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) by Giovanni Agnelli. By 1906, Turin was home to more than 20 car manufacturers. The city benefited from strategic advantages, including cheap hydroelectric power from nearby Alpine lakes and a direct rail link to France through the Frejus tunnel, which accelerated early technical exchange. The crowning symbol of this era was Fiat’s Lingotto Factory, an architectural marvel completed in 1923, featuring a test track on its roof where newly-assembled vehicles were put through their paces. As well as large-scale manufacturing, Turin became a global centre for elite automotive design and specialised coachbuilding, becoming the home of great design houses such as Pininfarina and Bertone.  Today, its engineering prowess lives on through cultural institutions such as MAUTO - The National Automobile Museum - which exhibits more than 200 cars from 80 global manufacturers.

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Read also:

Filippo Illuminato, the 13-year-old partisan who gave his life for the city of Naples

Battista 'Pinin' Farina, the little brother who became a giant of car design

Why Giorgetto Giugiaro has been described as the most influential auto designer of the 20th century

Also on this day:

1817: The death of painter Andrea Appiani

1830: The death of Francis I of the Two Sicilies

1931: The birth of film director Paolo Taviani

1936: The birth of actress Virna Lisi

1942: The birth of footballer Sandro Mazzola

1979: The birth of actor Salvatore Cascio

1982: The birth of golfer Francesco Molinari

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