20 August

Jacopo Peri – composer and singer

Court musician produced the first work to be called an opera

The singer and composer Jacopo Peri, also known as Il Zazzerino, was born on this day in 1561 in Rome.  He is often referred to as the ‘inventor of opera’ as he wrote the first work to be called an opera, Dafne, in around 1597.  He followed this with Euridice in 1600, which has survived to the present day although it is rarely performed. It is sometimes staged as an historical curiosity because it is the first opera for which the complete music still exists.  Peri was born in Rome to a noble family but went to Florence to study and then worked in churches in the city as an organist and a singer.  He started to work for the Medici court as a tenor singer and keyboard player and then later as a composer, producing incidental music for plays.  Peri’s work is regarded as bridging the gap between the Renaissance period and the Baroque period.  Read more…

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Stelvio Cipriani – composer

Musician wrote some of Italy’s most famous film soundtracks

Stelvio Cipriani, an award-winning composer of film scores, was born on this day in 1937 in Rome.  One of his most famous soundtracks was for the 1973 film, La polizia sta a guardare (also released as The Great Kidnapping). The main theme was used again by Cipriani in 1977 for the film, Tentacoli, and also featured in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof in 2007.  Although Cipriani did not come from a musical background, he was fascinated with the organ at his church when he was a child.  His priest gave him music lessons and then Cipriani went to study piano and harmony at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome at the age of 14.  His first job was playing in a band on a cruise ship and then he became the accompanist for the popular Italian singer, Rita Pavone.  Stelvio wrote his first movie soundtrack for the 1966 spaghetti western, The Bounty Killer. Read more…

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Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel – poet and revolutionary

Noblewoman who sacrificed her life for the principle of liberty

A writer and leader of the movement that established the Parthenopean Republic in Naples, Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel was hanged on this day in 1799 in a public square near the port.  A noblewoman, she would have expected her execution to be carried out by beheading, but had given up her title of marchioness when she became involved with the Jacobins, founded by supporters of the French Revolution, who were working to overthrow the monarchy.  Pimentel had asked to be beheaded anyway, but the restored Bourbon monarchy showed her no mercy, reputedly because she had written pamphlets denouncing Queen Maria Carolina as a lesbian. On the day of her execution, Pimentel was reputed to have stepped calmly up to the gallows, quoting Virgil by saying: ‘Perhaps one day this will be worth remembering.’ She was 47 years of age.  Read more…

Carla Fracci – ballerina

Brilliant Romantic dancer brought ballet to the people

Destined to become one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, Carolina ‘Carla’ Fracci was born on this day in 1936 in Milan.  Carla became a leading dancer of the La Scala Theatre Ballet in her home town and then worked with the Royal Ballet in London, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, becoming known for her interpretations of leading characters in Romantic ballets such as Giselle, Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet.  Sent to live with relatives in the countryside during World War Two, she returned to Milan after the conflict ended and her mother took her and her sister to sit the La Scala Theatre ballet school entrance exam.  At first she was bored, but after performing alongside Margot Fonteyn in The Sleeping Beauty when she was 12, Carla changed her mind and started working hard to make up for lost time.  Read more…

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Pope Pius X

Good hearted pontiff was made a saint

Pope Pius X, who chose to live in poverty and devote his life to the Blessed Virgin Mary, died on this day in 1914 in the Apostolic Palace in Rome.  His body was exhumed from its tomb nearly 30 years later and was found to be miraculously incorrupt and Pius X was made a saint in 1954.  Pius X was born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto in 1835 in Riese in the province of Treviso.  He was the second son of the ten children born to the village postman and his seamstress wife. Although the family were poor, they valued education and, as a young boy, Sarto walked six kilometres (3.7 miles) to attend school every day.  In 1850 he was given a scholarship to attend the seminary in Padua, where he completed classical, philosophical and theological studies with distinction.  After being ordained a priest, he continued to study while carrying out the duties of a parish pastor.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A History of Opera: The Last Four Hundred Years, by Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker 

Why has opera transfixed and fascinated audiences for centuries? Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker answer this question in their scrupulous and provocative retelling of the history of opera, examining its development, the means by which it communicates, and its societal role. In a new revision with an expanded examination of opera as an institution in the 21st century this book explores the tensions that have sustained opera over 400 years: between words and music, character and singer, inattention and absorption. Abbate and Parker argue that, though the genre's most popular and enduring works were almost all written in a distant European past, opera continues to transform the viewer with its enduring power.  Abbate and Parker's A History of Opera is the first full new history of opera in sixty years - now in paperback in an updated second edition

Carolyn Abbate is Professor of Music at Harvard University and the author of Unsung Voices and In Search of Opera. Roger Parker is Professor of Music at King's College, London, and the author of Leonora's Last Act and Remaking the Song.

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19 August

Nanni Moretti - film director

Award winning filmmaker helped shape politics

Giovanni ‘Nanni’ Moretti, film director, producer, screenwriter and actor, was born on this day in 1953 in Brunico in South Tyrol.  Moretti has been a prominent opponent to Silvio Berlusconi’s governments and policies in Italy. In his 2006 film, Il Caimano, a comedy drama focusing on allegations about Berlusconi’s lifestyle, he played the role of Berlusconi himself.  Moretti’s parents, who were both teachers, were from Rome but he was born while they were on holiday in Trentino-Alto Adige. His father, Luigi Moretti, taught Greek at Sapienza University in Rome.  While growing up Moretti developed a passion for the cinema and water polo. He started making films as a hobby and played in the junior national water polo team in 1970.  His first feature film, Io sono un autarchico - I am Self-sufficient, was released in 1976.  Read more…

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Cesare Prandelli – football coach

Led Italy to the final of Euro 2012

The former head coach of the Italian national football team, Cesare Prandelli, was born on this day in 1957 in Orzinuovi, near Brescia.  Under Prandelli’s guidance, the azzurri finished runners-up in the European Championships final of 2012 and qualified for the finals of the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.  Despite winning a two-year extension to his contract, he quit after Italy’s elimination at the group stage in Brazil, which he considered was the honourable course of action after a very disappointing tournament in which the azzurri beat England in their opening match but then lost to Costa Rica and Uruguay.  As a player, Prandelli had been a member of a highly successful Juventus team in the early 1980s, winning Serie A three times and the European Cup in 1985 – albeit on a night overshadowed by tragedy at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels.  Read more…

Andrea Palladio - the world's favourite architect

Humble stonecutter became his profession's biggest name

Andrea Palladio, the humble stonecutter who became the most influential architect in the history of his profession, died on this day in 1580, aged 71.  The cause of his death is not clear but some accounts say he collapsed while inspecting the construction of the Tempietto Barbaro, a church in Maser, a town in the Veneto not far from Treviso.  He was initially buried in a family vault in the church of Santa Corona in Vicenza, the city in which he spent most of his life, but later re-interred at the civic cemetery, where a chapel was built in his honour.  Examples of Palladio's work can be found all over the region where he lived and in Venice, where he was commissioned to build, among other architectural masterpieces, the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, the focal point of the view across the lagoon from St Mark's Square through the Piazzetta.  Read more…

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Salomone Rossi - violinist and composer

Leading Jewish musician of the late Renaissance 

The composer and violinist Salomone Rossi, who became a renowned performer at the court of the Gonzagas in Mantua in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and is regarded as the leading Jewish musician of the late Renaissance, is thought to have been born on this day in 1570.  Jews had periodically been persecuted in the Italian peninsula for hundreds of years. At around the time of Rossi’s birth, Pope Pius V expelled all Jews from all but two areas of the papal states and Florence established a ghetto, in which all Jews within the city and the wide Grand Duchy of Tuscany were required to live.  The Mantua of Rossi’s day was more enlightened than many Italian cities, however. Jews were not only tolerated but were often allowed to mix freely with non-Jews. The liberal atmosphere allowed Jewish writers, musicians and artists to have an important influence on the culture of the day.   Read more…

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Book of the Day: Berlusconi: The Epic Story of the Billionaire Who Took Over Italy, by Alan Friedman

Before a real estate tycoon called Donald J Trump became President of the United States, there was Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul turned prime minister who dominated Italian life for 20 years. A candid, warts-and-all portrait of the leader who played hard in office and in private life, from the bunga-bunga parties to his most secret moments with world leaders, Berlusconi: The Epic Story of the Billionaire Who Took Over Italy is rich in anecdotes and revelations involving Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George W Bush, Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, and many others.  Berlusconi's incredible rise to power started from nothing. A self-created man, he was a cruise ship crooner as a young man, became - like Trump - a real estate tycoon in the '70s, started the first commercial television network in history, and turned AC Milan into a world-class soccer club. And that was all before he survived the squalid swampland of Italian politics to become prime minister who not only served the longest in Italian history, but also generated - at least, before Trump - the most controversy of arguably any world leader.

Alan Friedman is a US-born journalist, author, television producer and documentary maker who has spent more than 40 years as an award-winning correspondent and commentator with newspapers in London, the United States, Italy and Germany.

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18 August

NEW - Federico Borromeo - cardinal and cultural patron 

Archbishop of Milan who founded Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Federico Borromeo, who served as Archbishop of Milan from 1595 until his death in 1631 and founded the city’s Biblioteca Ambrosiana and its integral art gallery, was born on this day in 1564 in Milan.  He followed his cousin and spiritual guide Carlo Borromeo - later canonised as Saint Charles Borromeo - as a leading figure in the Counter-Reformation movement in the Catholic Church.  Federico’s life was also notable for his personal charity during the famine of 1627-28, when he fed up to 2,000 people every day within his own residence, and for his bravery during the 1630 plague outbreak, when he stayed in Milan to visit the sick and the dying, despite the grave risk to his own health.  He was immortalised in Alessandro Manzoni’s seminal novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), in which the author holds up Federico’s work as Archbishop as an example of humble and courageous Christian charity. Read more…

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Antonio Salieri - composer

Maestro of Vienna haunted by Mozart rumours

Antonio Salieri, the Italian composer who in his later years was dogged by rumours that he had murdered Mozart, was born on this day in 1750 in Legnago, in the Veneto.  Salieri was director of Italian opera for the Habsburg court in Vienna from 1774 to 1792 and German-born Mozart believed for many years that “cabals of Italians” were deliberately putting obstacles in the way of his progress, preventing him from staging his operas and blocking his path to prestigious appointments.  In letters to his father, Mozart said that “the only one who counts in (the emperor’s eyes) is Salieri” and voiced his suspicions that Salieri and Lorenzo Da Ponte, the poet and librettist, were in league against him.  It emerged years after Mozart died that the young composer had told friends in the final weeks of his life that he feared he had been poisoned.  Salieri was immediately the prime suspect.  Read more…

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Gianni Rivera - footballer and politician

Milan legend served in the Italian Parliament and as MEP

Gianni Rivera, a footballer regarded as one of Italy's all-time greats, was born on this day in 1943 in Alessandria, a city in Piedmont some 90km east of Turin and a similar distance south-west of Milan.  Rivera played for 19 years for AC Milan, winning an array of trophies that included the Italian championship three times, the Italian Cup four times, two European Cup-Winners' Cups and two European Cups.  He won 63 caps for the Italian national team, playing in four World Cups, including the 1970 tournament in Mexico, when Italy reached the final.  Later in life, he entered politics, sitting in the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament from 1987 to 2001 and serving as a Member of the European Parliament from 2005 to 2009.  Rivera had a tough upbringing in Alessandria, which suffered heavy bombing during the later stages of the Second World War, with hundreds of residents killed.  Read more…

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Beatrice Borromeo - journalist and model

Glamorous aristocrat who specialises in gritty real-life stories

The journalist Beatrice Borromeo, a descendant of one of Italy’s oldest aristocratic families and married to a member of the Monegasque royal family, was born on this day in 1985 in Innichen in the German-speaking province of South Tyrol in northeast Italy.  Although born into wealthy high society, Borromeo was driven by her political and humanitarian beliefs from an early age, taking part in demonstrations in Milan against the government of Silvio Berlusconi and deciding to pursue a career in journalism, working full time for the Italian daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano.  Since marrying long-time boyfriend Pierre Casiraghi - grandson of Prince Rainier III and the actress Grace Kelly - and having two children, she has devoted much energy towards making documentary films, but always on hard-hitting topics such as climate refugees and the women of ‘Ndrangheta - the Calabrian mafia. Read more... 

Umberto Guidoni - astronaut

First European to step on to the International Space Station

The astronaut Umberto Guidoni, who spent almost 28 days in space on two NASA space shuttle missions, was born on this day in 1954 in Rome.  In April 2001, on the second of those missions, he became the first European astronaut to go on board the International Space Station (SSI).  After retiring as an active astronaut in 2004, Guidoni began a career in politics and was elected to the European Parliament as a member for Central Italy.  Although born in Rome, Guidoni’s family roots are in Acuto, a small hilltown about 80km (50 miles) southeast of the capital, in the area near Frosinone in Lazio known as Ciociaria.  Interested in science and space from a young age, Guidoni attended the Gaio Lucilio lyceum in the San Lorenzo district before graduating with honours in physics specialising in astrophysics at the Sapienza University of Rome in 1978. Read more…

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Francesco Canova da Milano – lutenist and composer

Brilliant virtuoso performed for popes and noblemen

Lute player and composer Francesco Canova da Milano was born on this day in 1497 in Monza near Milan in Lombardy.  Nicknamed il Divino by his contemporaries, Francesco Canova da Milano was known throughout Europe as the leading composer of his time for the lute. More of his work has been preserved than that of any other lutenist from the period and he influenced the work of other composers for more than a century after his death.  Francesco’s father, Benedetto, and his older brother, Bernardino, were also talented musicians.  Francesco studied the lute as a child and by 1514 he was known to be a member of the papal household in Rome. He and his father became private musicians to Pope Leo X in 1516.  His father was employed until 1518, but Francesco stayed with Leo X till the pope’s death in 1521. Read more…

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Fernanda Pivano - writer and translator

Played key role in popularising American literature in Italy

The writer and translator Fernanda Pivano, who became an important figure in Italian literary circles for translating and writing about the greats of 20th century American literature, from Ernest Hemingway to the so-called Beat Generation, died in Milan on this day in 2009.  She was 92, having enjoyed a literary career spanning half a century. Her final article in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera was published only a month before her death.  As well as Hemingway, with whom she developed a close friendship after meeting him for the first time in 1949, Pivano - whose first name was usually shortened to Nanda - translated into Italian works by classic American writers such as F Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Dorothy Parker.  In the 1950s, she became fascinated by the culture and ideals of what became known as the Beat Generation.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Sacred Painting and Museum, by Federico Borromeo. Translated and edited by Kenneth S Rothwell Junior

Federico Borromeo is well known as a leading Catholic reformer and as the founder of the Ambrosiana library, art collection, and academy in that city. Less known is the fact that the institution's art museum was the culmination of many decades of reflection on the aesthetic qualities and religious roles of art. Borromeo recorded his reflections in two treatises. "De pictura sacra" ("Sacred Painting", 1624) laid out the rules that artists should follow when creating religious art. Borromeo touched on dozens of iconographical issues and in so doing drew on his deep knowledge not only of church fathers, councils, and scripture but also of classical art and literature. In "Musaeum" (1625) Borromeo showed a less doctrinaire and more personal side by walking the reader through the Ambrosiana and commenting on specific works in his collection. He offered some of the earliest and most important critiques to survive on works by artists such as Leonardo, Titian, and Jan Brueghel the Elder. This volume offers, for the first time, translations of the treatises directly into English as well as freshly edited Latin texts, an introduction, extensive notes, and an appendix on the Academy of Design that was established in conjunction with the museum. 

Kenneth S Rothwell Jr is Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

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Federico Borromeo - cardinal and cultural patron

Archbishop of Milan who founded Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Federico Borromeo was made Archbishop
of Milan in 1595 at the age of 30

Federico Borromeo, who served as Archbishop of Milan from 1595 until his death in 1631 and founded the city’s Biblioteca Ambrosiana and its integral art gallery, was born on this day in 1564 in Milan.

He followed his cousin and spiritual guide Carlo Borromeo - later canonised as Saint Charles Borromeo - as a leading figure in the Counter-Reformation movement in the Catholic Church.

Federico’s life was also notable for his personal charity during the famine of 1627-28, when he fed up to 2,000 people every day within his own residence, and for his bravery during the 1630 plague outbreak, when he stayed in Milan to visit the sick and the dying, despite the grave risk to his own health.

He was immortalised in Alessandro Manzoni’s seminal novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), in which the author holds up Federico’s work as Archbishop as an example of humble and courageous Christian charity, and even gives him a specific role in helping free Lucia, the kidnapped fiancée of the novel’s principal character, Renzo.

At the time of Federico’s birth, the Borromeo family were among the most powerful in northern Italy. Wealthy from banking and land ownership around Lake Maggiore, they maintained high-ranking political ties to the Duchy of Milan and were influential within the Church.

Federico’s father, Giulio Cesare Borromeo, a condottiero and the 9th Count of Arona, died when he was still a child, after which Carlo played an active role in shaping his life. He was educated at the Universities of Bologna and Pavia, where he earned a doctorate in theology in 1585. He then spent some time in Rome, where he came under the influence of leading Counter‑Reformation thinkers.

He was only 23 when he was created cardinal by Pope Sixtus V, to whom he was distantly related. He participated in a number of papal conclaves and became Archbishop of Milan in 1595, following the death of the incumbent, Gaspare Visconti. 

Federico looked again to Carlo Borromeo for guidance, his cousin having himself held the post between 1564 and 1584. He followed the example of his predecessor by imposing discipline on the clergy, founding churches and colleges at his own expense, and strictly applying the canons of the Council of Trent, which were the cornerstones of the Counter-Reformation movement. 

Federico's cousin, Carlo Borromeo, had
a major influence on the young Federico

Since his time in Rome, Federico had nurtured the idea of a cultural institution of high artistic, literary, and scientific calibre, promoting “a universal service" to the glory of God and the humanistic values of the Catholic Church.

After his appointment as Archbishop of Milan, he sent emissaries to collect manuscripts and printed matter from all over the world and began working with architects Lelio Buzzi, Francesco Maria Richini and later Fabio Mangone on the construction of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana.

Founded in 1607, it comprised a public library - one of the first in the world along with the Bodleian Library in Oxford - an art gallery and an academy. It opened its doors to the public - at least those able to read and write - in 1609.

In 1618, Federico added a collection of statues and paintings to the Biblioteca. This later became the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the first art museum to be open to the public.

It began by housing Federico’s personal collection of 184 artworks, among them Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, which he commissioned, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Portrait of a Musician, Sandro Botticelli’s Madonna of the Pavilion, an Adoration of the Magi by Titian, and several works by Jan Brueghel the Elder, the Flemish painter who was a close friend.

History has applauded Federico for his courage when Milan was in the grip of plague in 1630. Despite being 65 years old and highly vulnerable, he refused to isolate himself in a countryside villa. Instead, he walked the desolate streets of Milan daily,  visiting hospitals, quarantined homes, and the crowded, infected wards of the Lazzaretto - the plague hospital - to comfort the dying.

A 1670 painting by Luigi Pellegrini Scaramuccia
shows Federico visiting a plague hospital in Milan

His example inspired his subordinates. Nearly 100 of his local clergy - including 62 parish priests - sacrificed their lives while staying behind to administer medicine, food, and the last rites to stricken Milanese. Around 60,000 people, almost half of the city’s inhabitants, are estimated to have died in the outbreak.

On a darker side, Federico Borromeo was a fierce campaigner against witchcraft, which was widely practised in Italy in the Middle Ages and beyond. Before and during his time, the attitude towards witches within the Church changed. Once regarded as harmless village healers offering dubious magic based on folklore, this shift reframed witches as dangerous individuals making pacts with the devil.

The public burning at the stake of those accused of witchcraft became fairly regular occurrences. Federico also organised the raising of funds for the creation of a Milanese prison for witches and wizards.

Federico’s other achievements include commissioning the erection of the Colossus of San Carlo Borromeo, a giant 35m (115ft) statue of his cousin, who was canonised in 1610 - just 26 years after his death. The statue, located at the crowning of the Sacred Mount of Arona, overlooking Lake Maggiore, was erected between 1624 and 1698, based on a design by Giovanni Battista Crespi.

Milan’s Cathedral, which he embellished with paintings and sculptures during his lifetime, became his final resting place after he died in Milan in September, 1631. His body lay in state in the duomo before being buried in front of the altar of the Madonna dell'Albero.

Federico Borromeo wrote extensively during his life. His two best known works were his treatises  De pictura sacra (On Sacred Painting), in which he set out the rules that artists should follow when creating religious art, and Musaeum, which might be seen as an early guide book for visitors to the Pinocoteca Ambrosiana, commenting on specific works in his collection.

Milan’s Cathedral, which he embellished with paintings and sculptures during his lifetime, became his final resting place after he died in Milan in September, 1631. His body lay in state in the duomo before being buried in front of the altar of the Madonna dell'Albero.

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a major
cultural attraction for visitors to Milan

Travel tip:

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana today houses an extraordinary collection of more than 40,000 manuscripts and a million printed volumes, including works in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Syriac and Ethiopic. Highlights include the Codex Atlanticus, a vast compendium of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and notes; the Ambrosian Virgil, a 14th-century copy of Virgil's poems that belonged to Francesco Petrarch and is annotated by the poet himself; the Ilias Picta, an illuminated Iliad from the library of Vincenzo Pinelli, the noted botanist and book collector; and De Divina Proportione, a text on mathematical proportions by Luca Pacioli, featuring 60 scientific illustrations drawn directly by Da Vinci. As well as Federico Borromeo’s own collection, the Pinacoteca also has many other masterpieces of Italian, including works by Botticelli, Titian, Raphael, Bramantino, Luini, Bassano, Hayez, and many others. The galleries also preserve historic copies of famous paintings, commissioned by Borromeo for study - including a 17th‑century replica of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. The Ambrosiana’s history includes episodes of foreign plunder, most notably during the Napoleonic occupation, when many Leonardo manuscripts were seized and taken to Paris. Today, only the Codex Atlanticus remains in Milan; other volumes are held at the Institut de France. The library and gallery are housed within the same building at Piazza Pio XI in central Milan. Opening hours are 10am to 6pm daily except Wednesday, with extended hours until 10pm on Saturday.

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Casa Manzoni in Milan was
the home of Alessandro Manzoni

Travel tip:

A literary visit to Milan might also take in Casa Manzoni, the historic 19th-century townhouse in Via Gerolamo Morone, again in central Milan, not far from the city’s famous fashion district. This is the house where the author of I Promessi Sposi, Alessandro Manzoni, lived and wrote from 1814 until his death in 1873. The house includes a museum and is headquarters for the National Centre for Manzoni Studies. Guided tours are available, enabling visitors to see Manzoni’s study, which is preserved almost entirely intact with his original desk, personal items, and massive private library, as well as his living quarters, featuring period furniture, family portraits, and first editions of his literary works. There is also a courtyard and garden.  Normal opening hours are 10pm to 6pm Tuesday to Friday, 2pm to 6pm Saturday, closed on Sunday and Monday. Visitor numbers are controlled, with admission on an hourly basis.

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More reading:

Saint Charles Borromeo, the great reformer who earned appreciation after his death

Giovanni Battista Crespi, the painter, sculptor and architect sponsored by Federico Borromeo

Alessandro Manzoni, the writer credited by some with the greatest novel in Italian literary history

Also on this day:

1497: The birth of lutenist Francesco Canova da Milano

1750: The birth of composer Antonio Salieri

1943: The birth of footballer and politician Gianni Rivera

1954: The birth of astronaut Umberto Guidoni

1985: The birth of model and journalist Beatrice Borromeo

2009: The death of writer and translator Fernanda Pivano

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