14 July

Collapse of St Mark’s Campanile

Dramatic fall of instantly recognisable symbol of Venice

The bell tower (Campanile) in St Mark’s Square in Venice collapsed on this day in 1902.  No one was killed but the Biblioteca Marciana nearby was partially damaged.  A crack had appeared in one of the walls of the bell tower a few days before and at approximately 9.45 am on Monday, 14 July, the entire structure collapsed into a heap of rubble.  Venetians regarded the event as a tragedy. The bell tower, just short of 100 metres tall, had stood for around 1,000 years and was seen as symbolic of the city.  Built on foundations of wood and mud, however, there was always the danger it would become unstable over time.  On the evening of the day of the collapse, the Venice authorities approved funding for the reconstruction of the Campanile in the same place in the piazza, to be built in the way that it looked after 16th century improvements to the ninth century design.  Read more… 

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Natalia Ginzburg - writer and politician

Sicilian raised in Turin became one of Italy’s great postwar novelists

The writer and politician Natalia Ginzburg was born on this day in 1916 in the Sicilian capital, Palermo.  The author of 11 novels and short story collections, as well as numerous essays, Ginzburg came to be regarded as one of Italy’s great postwar writers, alongside Primo Levi, Carlo Levi, Alberto Moravia, Cesare Pavese, Elsa Morante and Giorgio Bassani among others.  Her most famous works include Tutti i nostri ieri - All Our Yesterdays - published in 1952, Lessico famigliare  - Family Sayings -  published in 1963, and La famiglia Manzoni - The Manzoni Family - published in 1983.  She was notable for writing about family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy.  Ginzburg, who was married to a prominent figure in the Italian resistance movement in World War Two, was an active anti-Fascist. Read more…

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Palmiro Togliatti – politician

Communist leader gunned down near Italian parliament

The leader of the Italian Communist Party, Palmiro Togliatti, was shot three times on this day in 1948 near Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome.  Togliatti was seriously wounded and for several days it was not certain that he would survive, causing a political crisis in Italy.  Three months before the shooting, Togliatti had led the Communists in the first democratic election in Italy after the Second World War, which would elect the first Republican parliament.  He lost to the Christian Democrats after a confrontational campaign in which the United States played a big part, viewing Togliatti as a Cold War enemy.  On July 14, Togliatti was shot three times near the Parliament building. It was described as an assassination attempt, the perpetrator of which was named as Antonio Pallante, an anti-Communist student with mental health problems. Read more…

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Cardinal Jules Mazarin - ruler of France

Jesuit-educated Italian served two French kings

Jules Mazarin, who was to become the de facto ruler of France for nearly 20 years, was born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino on this day in 1602 in Pescina, a small town in the province of L’Aquila in the Abruzzo region.  He served as the chief minister to the Kings of France, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, from 1642 until his death in 1661. Mazzarino’s parents were residents of Rome but would spend the summers in Pescina to escape the heat.  His father, Pietro Mazzarino, had moved to Rome from Sicily to become a chamberlain in the family of Filippo I Colonna, the Grand Constable of Naples. His mother was Filippo I Colonna’s goddaughter.  Influenced by the Colonna family, the couple sent Mazzarino to the Jesuit College in Rome when he was seven. He excelled in his studies and gave a public lecture at the age of 16, explaining Halley’s comet, which had appeared that year. Read more… 

Camillus de Lellis - saint

Reformed gambler who became devoted to caring for sick

Camillo de Lellis, a gambler and streetfighter who reformed his life and eventually set up a religious order to tend the wounds of soldiers on the battlefield, died on this day in 1614 in Rome.  He was made Saint Camillus de Lellis by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746. Nowadays he is recognised as the patron saint of the sick, hospitals, nurses and physicians. Sometimes his assistance is also invoked by individuals with gambling problems.  The Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers of the Infirm (M.I), better known as the Camillians, is seen as the original Red Cross on account of an incident during the Battle of Canizza in 1601, when a tent containing all of the Camillians’ equipment and supplies was destroyed in a fire.  Among the ashes, the red cross from the back of a religious habit belonging to one of the Camillians was found to have survived. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: La Serenissima: The Story of Venice, by Jonathan Keates

'Everything about Venice,' observed Lord Byron, 'is, or was, extraordinary - her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like a romance.' Dream and romance have conditioned myriad encounters with Venice across the centuries, but the city's story embodies the hard reality of an independent state built on conquest, profit and entitlement and on the toughness and resilience of a free people.  In La Serenissima, a new study of key moments in Venice's history, from its half-legendary founding amid the collapse of the Roman empire to its modern survival as a fragile city of the arts men maced by saturation tourism and rising sea levels, Jonathan Keates shows us just how much this remarkable place has contributed to world culture and explains how it endures as an object of desire and inspiration for so many.

Jonathan Keates is an English writer, biographer, novelist and former chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund.

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13 July

Tommaso Buscetta - Mafia ‘pentito’

Sicilian gangster’s testimony put hundreds behind bars

The Sicilian mobster Tommaso Buscetta, who was the first major Mafia figure to break the code of omertà and pass details of organised criminal activity to the authorities, was born on this day in 1928 in Palermo.  His evidence to the celebrated anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone paved the way for the so-called Maxi Trial, a process lasting six years that led to the conviction and jailing of 350 mafiosi.  Buscetta’s testimony in the Pizza Connection Trial in New York State at around the same time in the mid-1980s led to the conviction of several hundred more mobsters both in Italy and the United States, including the powerful Sicilian Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti.  Arguably the most shocking information he passed on to the authorities concerned Italy’s three-times former prime minister, the late Giulio Andreotti, whose links with the Cosa Nostra he exposed. Read more…

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Giulio d’Este of Ferrara

Plots and prison ruin life of handsome son of Duke

Giulio d’Este, who spent more than half of his life in prison for taking part in a failed conspiracy against his half-brother, the Duke of Ferrara, was born on this day in 1478 in Ferrara.  He was the illegitimate son of Ercole I d’Este, an earlier Duke of Ferrara, born as a result of an affair the Duke had with Isabella Arduin, a lady in waiting to his wife.  Giulio was often in conflict with his half-brothers, Alfonso and Ippolito, which led to him eventually playing his part in a plot to assassinate them.  He had grown up in the court of Ferrara and later lived in a palace on the Via degli Angeli in Ferrara.  The first major conflict between Giulio and Ippolito arose over a musician, Don Rainaldo of Sassuolo. Rainaldo was in the service of Giulio, but Ippolito, who had by then become a Cardinal, wanted him for his chapel and so in 1504 he abducted Rainaldo. Read more…

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Vannozza dei Cattanei - popes’ mistress

Mother of Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia was figure of influence

Vannozza dei Cattanei, who was for many years the chief mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo de Borgia - later Pope Alexander VI - was born on this day in 1442 in Mantua.  Herself from the aristocratic Candia family, Vannozza - baptised as Giovanna de Candia - grew up to be a beautiful woman but also a successful businesswoman, acquiring a number of osterie - inns - after she moved to Rome.  In 15th century Italy, it was not unusual for cardinals and popes to have mistresses, despite Holy Orders coming with a vow of celibacy.  Before her relationship with Rodrigo de Borgia, Vannozza allegedly was mistress to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II and a rival to Borgia in the 1492 papal election that he won.  Rodrigo made no attempt to hide his sexual dalliances, acquiring the nickname Papa Cattivo - the naughty pope. Read more…

Jarno Trulli - racing driver and winemaker

Ex-Formula One star still winning prizes

The racing driver-turned-winemaker Jarno Trulli was born on this day in 1974 in Pescara on the Adriatic coast.  Trulli competed in Formula One from 1997 until 2011, competing in more than 250 Grands Prix.  He enjoyed his most successful season in 2004, when he represented the Mild Seven Renault team and finished sixth in the drivers’ championship.  He retired from racing in 2014-15 to focus on his winemaking business, which he had established while still competing and which now produces more than 1.2 million bottles every year.  Trulli’s Podere Castorani vineyard, situated near the village of Alanno, some 35km (22 miles) inland of Pescara, focuses largely on wines made from Abruzzo’s renowned Montepulciano grapes.  Although he was familiar with vineyards as a boy - his grandfather was a winemaker - Trulli’s parents were motorsports fans. Read more…

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The founding of the Carabinieri

Italy’s stylish ‘First Force’

The Carabinieri Corps was created on this day in 1814 in Italy by a resolution passed by Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy.  He established an army of mounted and foot soldiers to provide a police force, to be called Royal Carabinieri (Carabinieri Reali). The soldiers were rigorously selected ‘for their distinguished good conduct and judiciousness.’  Their task was defined as ‘to contribute to the necessary happiness of the State, which cannot be separated from protection and defence of all good subjects.’  Their functions were specified in the royal licence issued at the time, which underlined the importance of the personal skills required by the soldiers selected. It also affirmed their dual military and civil roles.  The sense of duty and high level of conduct displayed by the Carabinieri went on to win the respect of the Italian people.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, by Alexander Stille

Excellent Cadavers (a term used in Sicily to distinguish the assassination of prominent government officials from the hundreds of common criminals killed in the course of routine mafia business) tells of the remarkable investigation spearheaded by Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the two Sicilian prosecutors who in the 1980s took the war against the Mafia further than anyone had ever dared. In 1992, aware that the two magistrates were without the complete support of the Italian government, the Mafia assassinated them. In death they were hailed as national heroes; the massive public outcry demanded their investigations be completed. The outcome: the toppling of crucial alliances that had forged political rule in Italy since WWII and the criminal indictment of Italy's most prominent leaders.

Alexander Stille's first book, Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism, was chosen by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the best books of 1992, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. Since Excellent Cadavers, Stille has written The Future of the Past and The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi. He has written for the Boston Globe, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the Toronto Globe & Mail and the New Yorker. He is also the San Paolo Professor of International Journalism at Columbia. 

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12 July

NEW - Luigi Gorrini – fighter pilot

Flying ace defended Italy from the skies

Valiant Italian airman Luigi Gorrini, who is believed to have shot down 19 Allied planes during World War II, was born on this day in 1917 in Alseno in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.  Gorrini was awarded the Medaglia d’oro al valore militare - the Gold Medal of Military Valour - and both the first, and second classes of the German Iron Cross. When he died at the age of 97, he was the last surviving Italian pilot to have been awarded the Medaglia d’oro.  During World War II, Gorrini flew with the Corpo Aereo Italiano - the Italian expeditionary force set up to support the German Luftwaffe - during the Battle of Britain. He also fought over Libya and Tunisia and helped to defend the Italian mainland.  After joining the Regia Aeronautica - the Royal Italian Air Force - in 1937 he trained at their fighter school near Perugia.  He later took part in operations over France as well as in the Battle of Britain.  Read more…

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Carla Fendi - fashion executive

Turned family business into global giant

Carla Fendi, whose flair for marketing helped propel her mother and father’s small fur and leather business into a worldwide fashion giant, was born on this day in 1937 in Rome.  Under Fendi’s guidance, the business became so successful that at one point it had 215 stores worldwide and generated more than $1.2 billion in annual sales.  She also helped turn a young Paris-based German designer named Karl Lagerfeld into a household name, having taken up a friend’s recommendation to give him a try when the firm needed some fresh ideas in the 1960s.  Carla Fendi was one of five sisters who grew up in the leather workshop and fur boutique run by Edoardo and Adele Fendi in the Via del Plebiscito, near Rome’s Piazza Venezia. The family lived in rooms above the shop.  When Edoardo died in 1954, the sisters began to help the mother with the business. Read more…

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Agostino Codazzi - soldier and map-maker

Italian who mapped first route for Panama Canal

Agostino Codazzi, a soldier, scientist, geographer and cartographer who became a national hero in Venezuela and plotted the route for the Panama Canal on behalf of the British government, was born on this day in 1793 in the town of Lugo in Emilia-Romagna.  When the canal was eventually built by United States engineers, they followed the precise route that Codazzi had recommended, although the Italian has not been credited in the history of the project.  Known in Latin America as Agustín Codazzi, he was born Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi.  As a young man, he was excited about the French Revolution and the idea of the ruling classes being overthrown by the people in pursuit of a more equitable society.  After attending the Scuola di Artiglieria military academy in Pavia, he joined Napoleon’s army and served with them until the Napoleonic empire collapsed in 1815.  Read more…

Amedeo Modigliani – artist

Illness marred short life of creative genius 

Painter and sculptor Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was born on this day in 1884 in Livorno in Tuscany.  The artist went on to become famous for his portraits and his paintings of nudes, which were characterised by their elongated faces and figures.  Modigliani did not receive much acclaim during his lifetime, but after his death his work became popular and achieved high prices.  He was born into a Jewish family and suffered health problems as a child, but began drawing and painting from an early age and begged his family to take him to see the paintings in the Uffizi in Florence.  His mother enrolled him at the art school of Guglielmo Micheli in Livorno where he received artistic instruction influenced by the style and themes of 19th century Italian art.  In 1902 Modigliani enrolled in the school of nude studies at the Accademia di Belle Art in Florence and then moved on to Venice to continue his studies.  Read more…

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Stefano della Bella – printmaker

Artist sketched important events preserving them for posterity

Stefano della Bella, who produced hundreds of sketches of court festivities held by the Medici, as well as visual records of important public occasions, died on this day in 1664 in Florence.  Della Bella was a draughtsman and printmaker known for his etchings of military and court scenes. He left more than 1,000 prints and several thousand drawings, but only one known painting.  He was born into a family of artists in Florence in 1610 and was apprenticed to a goldsmith. However he went on to become an engraver and studied etching.  Thanks to the patronage of the Medici family, della Bella was able to study for six years in Rome living in the Medici Palace in the Villa Borghese area.  Della Bella produced views of Rome, drawings of antiquities and sketches of crowded public occasions in a series of sketchbooks, many of which were later turned into prints.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italian Aces of World War 2, by Giorgio Apostolo and Giovanni Massimello

Flying aircraft such as the Macchi 200-202, Fiat G.50 and biplane Fiat CR.42, the Italian fighter pilots were recognised by their Allied counterparts as brave opponents blessed with sound flying abilities, but employing under-gunned and underpowered equipment.  Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, a number of aces continued to take the fight to the Allies as part of the Luftwaffe-run ANR, which was equipped with far more potent equipment such as the Bf 109G, Macchi 205V and Fiat G.55. Flying these types, the handful of ANR squadrons continued to oppose Allied bombing raids on northern Italy until VE-Day. Italian Aces of World War 2 tells the story of the Italian air force’s most heroic and successful fighter pilots.

Giorgio Apostolo runs the leading Italian aviation publishing company GAE, and has become the recognised authority on the Regia Aeronautica during World War 2.  Giovanni Massimello is a prominent Italian military historian and author specializing in World War II aviation.

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Luigi Gorrini – fighter pilot

Flying ace defended Italy from the skies

Luigi Gorrini, pictured with one of the MAM Ro.41
biplane fighter aircraft which he flew in early WW2 

Valiant Italian airman Luigi Gorrini, who is believed to have shot down 19 Allied planes during World War II, was born on this day in 1917 in Alseno in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.

Gorrini was awarded the Medaglia d’oro al valore militare - the Gold Medal of Military Valour - and both the first, and second classes of the German Iron Cross. When he died at the age of 97, he was the last surviving Italian pilot to have been awarded the Medaglia d’oro.

During World War II, Gorrini flew with the Corpo Aereo Italiano - the Italian expeditionary force set up to support the German Luftwaffe - during the Battle of Britain. He also fought over Libya and Tunisia and helped to defend the Italian mainland.

After joining the Regia Aeronautica - the Royal Italian Air Force - in 1937 he trained at their fighter school near Perugia.

He later took part in operations over France as well as in the Battle of Britain, when he was involved in a large combat operation over Harwich in November 1940.  Piloting a Fiat CR 42 biplane,  he took part in operations over the English Channel and southern England engaging RAF Spitfires in aerial combat.

Having been sent to North Africa, Gorrini shot down his first aircraft in 1941 over Libya. While flying a solo sortie he intercepted two Allied planes that had just arrived in the area and opened fire on them. He was credited with a kill and a damaged aircraft. He later shot down a Blenheim bomber over Benghazi.

In the winter of 1941, while escorting convoys between Italy and Greece, Gorrini encountered two Allied aircraft and attacked them both, hitting one repeatedly and strafing the second.

Gorrini notched many successes flying the more
advanced Macchi C200 during the defence of Italy

The following year, flying a Fiat CR.42 in a dogfight with Allied airmen, Gorrini shot down one RAF plane and damaged another. He was frequently tasked with escorting German bombers and would down any Allied planes he encountered, but he was sent back to Italy in 1943 when an eye injury he had sustained started to get worse.

Later that year, while defending Italy from the skies in the more advanced Macchi C200 and C205 fighter aircraft, he shot down 11 Allied aircraft. Even after the arrest of Mussolini, Italian pilots remained committed to trying to prevent damage to Italian cities by the Allies, although they realised it might cost them their lives.

While shooting down an Allied plane off the coast of Ostia in Lazio, Gorrini himself was shot down by defensive fire from the bomber, but he bailed out safely. On another occasion after shooting down more planes, he ran out of fuel and had to glide back to his base in a powerless landing.

Then, after shooting down his 15th Allied plane, his own aircraft was seriously damaged and he had to make a forced landing away from his airfield. He was seriously wounded as a result and was out of the fighting when Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943.

Gorrini reckoned he flew in 212
combat missions in his career

In December 1943, Gorrini joined the Italian Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana - the air force of Mussolini's Italian Social Republic - and, flying the more versatile Fiat G55 fighter aircraft, went on to reach his total of 19 downed Allied planes. Other estimates put his tally at 24, although this tally was not verified.

In June 1944, he fought his last air battle when he found himself surrounded by four Allied planes. After his plane was hit, he was forced to bail out, but he did not open his parachute until he was near the ground, fearing that he would be strafed by American pilots. But when he finally opened it, he suffered a violent jerk and lost consciousness.

When he woke up he was in hospital and was subsequently sent on leave. He later summed up his own career: “212 air combat, 24 solo air victories, five parachute jumps.”

After the war, Gorrini enlisted in the newly-formed Italian Air Force, but because of Allied opposition, he remained as a warrant officer. He was promoted to tenente - lieutenant - only after he had retired.

When Gorrini died in November 2014 in Alseno, aged 97, he was believed to have been the last surviving Italian World War II flying ace.

The Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba
attracts visitors to Alseno, near Piacenza

Travel tip:

Alseno, where Gorrini was born and died, is a town of just under 5,000 people in the province of Piacenza in the Emilia-Romagna region. It is about 120km (72 miles) northwest of Bologna and 40km (24 miles) southeast of Piacenza. It originated in Roman times following the construction of the Via Emilia, the road that links Piacenza with Rimini. Alseno borders Busseto, a small town that is famous because it was where the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi - born nearby in Le Roncole - attended school and later lived with his first wife, Margherita. Just outside Alseno is the Cistercian Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba, founded in 1136 by the abbot Bernardo di Clairvaux. Another nearby attraction, just a few kilometres outside Alseno, is the castle of Castelnuovo Fogliani (4 km), a fascinating medieval borough developed around a fortress.  Cold cuts feature heavily in local cuisine, with the local coppa, salame and pancetta, as well as the less well known mariola and goletta, worth seeking out.

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Piacenza's main square, the Piazza Cavalli, with
Francesco Mocchi's two equestrian statues

Travel tip:

Piacenza is a city in Emilia-Romagna lying between Bologna and Milan. Its main square is named Piazza Cavalli because of its two famous bronze equestrian monuments featuring Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and his son, Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, who succeeded him. The statues are masterpieces by the sculptor Francesco Mochi.  Piacenza’s Romanesque duomo, the 12th century Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta e Santa Giustina, is the city’s most important monument. Its pink Verona marble and sandstone façade, rose window, and sculpted portals set the tone for the historic centre. Inside, there are frescoes by Guercino and Morazzone. The impressive ducal palace, the Palazzo Farnese, today houses the Musei Civici, which includes archaeology collections, including Roman mosaics and Lombard artefacts, and the famous “Madonna della Scodella” by Correggio.

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More reading: 

The World War One flying ace who survived combat to become physician to the Chamber of Deputies

A World War One pilot who survived 465 combat sorties and scored 17 verified victories

Italy’s most successful First World War fighter pilot

Also on this day:

1664: The death of printmaker Stefano della Bella

1793: The birth of soldier and mapmaker Agostino Codazzi

1884: The birth of painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani

1937: The birth of fashion executive Carla Fendi

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