17 June

Rinaldo ‘Dindo’ Capello - endurance racing driver

Three times winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours 

Rinaldo ‘Dindo’ Capello, one of Italy’s most successful endurance racing drivers, was born on this day in 1964 in Asti, in Piedmont.  During a period between 1997 and 2008 in which there was an Italian winning driver in all bar two years, Capello won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the most prestigious endurance race on the calendar, three times.  Only Emanuele Pirro, his sometimes Audi teammate and rival during that period, has more victories in the race among Italian drivers, with five. Pirro won in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006 and 2007, Capello in 2003, 2004 and 2008.  Capello’s career record also includes two championship wins in the American Le Mans Series and five victories in the 12 Hours of Sebring. He is also record holder for most wins at Petit Le Mans, the race run annually at Atlanta, Georgia to Le Mans rules, with five.  Read more…

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Giovanni Paolo Panini – artist

Painter who preserved scenes of Rome

Giovanni Paolo Panini, an artist mainly known for his views of Rome, was born on this day in 1691 in Piacenza, in Emilia-Romagna.  He is particularly remembered for his view of the interior of the Pantheon, commissioned by the Venetian collector, Francesco Algarotti, in around 1734.  The Pantheon was as much a tourist attraction in Panini’s day as it is today and Panini manipulated the proportions and perspective to include more of the interior that is actually visible from any one vantage point.  Indeed, many of his works, especially those of ruins, have slightly unreal embellishment. He sought to meet the needs of visitors for painted postcards depicting scenes of Italy and his clients were often happy with minor distortions of reality if it meant they could show off a unique picture.   As a young man, Panini trained in Piacenza but then moved to Rome where he studied drawing. Read more…

Saint Joseph of Copertino 

Flying friar now protects aviators

Saint Joseph, a Franciscan friar who became famous for his miraculous levitation, was born Giuseppe Maria Desa on this day in 1603 in Copertino, a village in Puglia that was then part of the Kingdom of Naples.  Joseph was canonised in 1767, more than 100 years after his death, by Pope Clement XIII and he is now the patron saint for astronauts and aviation.  Joseph’s father, Felice Desa, had died before his birth leaving large debts. After the family home was seized to settle what was owed, his mother, Francesca Panara, was forced to give birth to him in a stable.  Joseph experienced ecstatic visions as a child at school. When he was scorned by other children he had outbursts of anger.  He was apprenticed to a shoemaker but when he applied to join the Franciscan friars he was rejected because of his lack of education.  Read more...

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Sergio Marchionne - business leader

Man who saved Fiat divides opinions in Italy

Controversial business leader Sergio Marchionne was born on this day in 1952 in the city of Chieti in the Abruzzo region of Italy.  The former chief executive of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is credited with saving the iconic Italian motor manufacturer from potential extinction in 2004, when Fiat was on the verge of being taken into the ownership of the banks that were keeping it afloat.  It had suffered cumulative losses of more than $8 billion over the previous two years and a strategic alliance with General Motors had failed. Its share of the European car market had shrunk to an historic low of just 5.8 per cent.  Yet after the little-known Marchionne was appointed chief executive at the company's Turin headquarters it took him only just over a year to bring Fiat back into profit.  When Fiat opened a new assembly line at the Mirafiori plant outside Turin in 2006, Marchionne was hailed as a hero.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: 24 Hours: 100 Years of Le Mans, by Richard Williams

Award-winning writer Richard Williams tells the remarkable story of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the world's most iconic motorsports events, which celebrates its centenary in 2023. The event was created by a group of Frenchmen in 1923 and remains uniquely compelling to spectators, to the major motor manufacturers who continue to see it as an opportunity for priceless publicity, as well as to drivers hoping to add their names to its distinguished roll of honour. Between the wars, those manufacturers included Bugatti, Bentley and Alfa Romeo. Subsequently, Ferrari, Jaguar, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Ford, Porsche, Audi and Toyota have all been serial winners, guaranteeing the continuation of ferocious inter-marque rivalry. Over the decades the race acquired a rich folklore, including stories of leaking petrol tanks being sealed with chewing gum, one competitor making his last pit-stop for a fill-up and a glass of champagne, or the woman who drove her MG through the night wearing a fur coat. But in 1955 it had also been the scene of the greatest tragedy ever to befall motor racing, when 82 people were killed by a competing car, an accident that for a while threatened the sport’s entire future.  From the Bentley Boys of the 1920s, through record-breaking multiple winners Jacky Ickx and Tom Kristensen to modern stars such as Allan McNish, 24 Hours: 100 Years of Le Mans celebrates the skill, courage and technical brilliance of the men and women who gave the race its worldwide renown.

Richard Williams was the chief sportswriter of the Guardian from 1995 to 2012, having previously worked for The Times and the Independent. He was the original presenter of BBC2's The Old Grey Whistle Test and was artistic director of the Berlin Jazz Festival from 2015-17. Among his previous books are The Death of Ayrton Senna (1995), The Last Road Race (2004) and A Race with Love and Death (2020).

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16 June

Pietro Bracci - sculptor

Artist best known for Oceanus statue at Trevi Fountain

The sculptor Pietro Bracci, who left his mark on the architectural landscape of Rome with the colossal six-metre high statue Oceanus that towers over the Trevi Fountain, was born on this day in 1700 in Rome.  The monumental figure is shown standing on a chariot, in the form of a shell, pulled by two winged horses flanked by two tritons. Bracci worked from sketches by Giovanni Battista Maini, who died before he could execute the project.  He also completed work on the fountain itself, built in front of Luigi Vanvitelli’s Palazzo Poli. This was started by Bracci’s close friend Nicola Salvi, who had been commissioned by Pope Clement XII to realize plans drawn up by Gian Lorenzo Bernini that had been shelved in the previous century. Salvi died in 1751, before he could complete the work. Giuseppe Pannini was also involved for a while before Bracci took over in 1761.  Read more…

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Achille Lauro - shipping magnate and politician

Businessman once dubbed the ‘Neapolitan Onassis’

The businessman and politician Achille Lauro, who at his peak controlled the largest private shipping fleet in the Mediterranean and whose achievements as Mayor of Naples included building the San Paolo football stadium and the city’s main railway station, was born on this day in 1887 in Piano di Sorrento in Campania.  Lauro inherited a small number of ships from his father, Gioacchino, but lost them at the start of the First World War, when they were requisitioned by the government. When the conflict ended he had no money but managed to launch another fleet by creating a company that was essentially owned by its employees, who invested their savings in return for a share of the profits and a guarantee of employment.  Within little more than a decade, Flotta Lauro consisted of 21 vessels. Lauro's business plan avoided the union problems that were prevalent in the 1920s. Read more…

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Giacomo Agostini - world motorcycle champion

Brescia-born rider enjoyed record-breaking career 

Giacomo Agostini, 15 times Grand Prix world motorcycling champion, was born on this day in 1942 in Brescia. Agostini moved with his family to the lakeside town of Lovere, which overlooks the picturesque Lago d'Iseo, when he was 13.   Riding for the Italian MV Agusta team, Agostini won the 500cc class seven times in a row from 1966 to 1972 and the 350cc class seven times in succession from 1968 to 1974, adding a further 500cc title on a Yamaha in 1975.  His total of 122 Grand Prix wins from 1965 to 1976 is the highest by any rider in the history of the sport. Agostini, considered perhaps the greatest motorcycle racer of all time, was at the peak of his powers between 1967 and 1970.  In 1967, he won an epic duel with his former MV Agusta teammate, Britain's Mike Hailwood, who was riding for Honda.  Read more…

Mario Rigoni Stern – author

Brave soldier became a bestselling novelist

The novelist Mario Rigoni Stern, who was a veteran of World War II, died on this day in 2008 in Asiago in the Veneto region.  His first novel, Il sergente della neve - The Sergeant in the Snow - was published in 1953. It drew upon his experiences as a sergeant major in the Alpine corps during the disastrous retreat from Russia in the Second World War. It became a best seller and was translated into English and Spanish.  Rigoni Stern had been a sergeant commanding a platoon in Mussolini’s army in the Soviet Union during the retreat of the Italians in the winter of 1942.  His book was inspired by how he succeeded in leading 70 survivors on foot from Ukraine into what was then White Russia - now part of Belarus - and back to Italy.  It won the Viareggio Prize for best debut novel and went on to sell more than a million copies.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Baroque Sculpture in Rome, by Alessandro Angelini

On the whole, when one thinks of 17th-century sculpture in Rome, one has in mind the wonderful and famous works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, such as the Fountain of the Four Rivers or The Ecstasy of St. Theresa. The influence of Bernini's work on sculpture and art in general, especially in Rome, was huge. However, this domination spread only during the second half of the 17th century, and less unequivocally than one might suppose. Other great sculptors, with personalities often very different from Bernini's, contributed to making the extraordinary proliferation of Roman statuary extremely complex and varied at that time.  Baroque Sculpture in Rome is aimed especially at students and museum visitors who would like to learn more about the topic and discusses the art in a straightforward and strictly chronological fashion. The narrative begins in the early decades of the 17th century with sculpture created by a motley and conspicuously cosmopolitan group of artists. Later, with the growing success of the great masters, commissions began to gravitate around Bernini, Alessandro Algardi, and François Duquesnoy.  The book aims to show how marble and travertine were used throughout the century to create a whole army of statues that were positioned in the open and in churches, lending modern Rome its truly incomparable new face.

Alessandro Angelini was born in Siena in 1958 and teaches History of Modern Art at the University of Siena. He specialises in 15th- and 16th-century Tuscan art (Disegni italiani del tempo di Donatello, Florence, 1986) and 17th-century sculpture (Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Chigi tra Roma e Siena, Milan, 1998). 

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15 June

NEW - Festa di San Vito

Saint watches over dancers, entertainers, and pet dogs 

Celebrations are held throughout Italy every year on this day to celebrate the feast day of San Vito (Saint Vitus) . Although it is not a national public holiday, June 15 is the day when many Italians remember San Vito, a  young Christian martyr from Sicily, who died during the persecutions carried out in the fourth century by successive Roman Emperors, including Diocletian.  Many Italian towns, particularly those in southern Italy, honour San Vito with processions through the streets, theatrical events and religious ceremonies.  Vito was thought to have been born towards the end of the third century in Mazzaro del Vallo in Sicily. Little is known about his life, but according to legend, he was the son of a senator. As he grew up, he resisted his father’s attempts, which included various forms of torture, to persuade him to renounce his faith. Read more… 

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Carlo Scorza - politician and journalist

Blackshirt who was last party secretary of Mussolini’s Fascists 

Carlo Scorza, who rose to prominence with the Fascist paramilitary group known as the Blackshirts and was the last party secretary of Benito Mussolini’s regime, was born on this day in 1897 in Paolo, a seaside town in Calabria.  Scorza fought with the Italian Army’s Bersaglieri corps during World War One. After the war he became a member of Mussolini’s fasci italiani di combattimento, the organisation that was the forerunner of the National Fascist Party.  Such was his loyalty to Mussolini even as the course of the Second World War turned against Italy that the dictator appointed him secretary of the party in April 1943, although the position ceased to exist when the party was dissolved in July of that year after Mussolini was deposed as leader and arrested.  After growing up on his father’s small farm in Calabria, Scorza moved with his family to Lucca in Tuscany, where ultimately he studied to be an accountant. Read more…

Lisa del Giocondo – the Mona Lisa

Florentine wife and mother who became a global icon

Merchant’s wife Lisa del Giocondo, who has been identified as the model for the Mona Lisa, was born on this day in 1479 in Florence.  Her enigmatic beauty was immortalised by Leonardo da Vinci in the early part of the 16th century when he painted her portrait, a major work of art known as the Mona Lisa, which is now in the Louvre in Paris.  The painting, sometimes known as La Gioconda, has become a global icon that has been used in other works of art, illustrations and advertising.  The face of the Mona Lisa belongs to a woman who was born as Lisa Gherardini into a well-off Tuscan family. When she was still in her teens she was married to Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a successful cloth and silk merchant who was much older than her. They had five children together.  Read more…

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Carlo Cattaneo - philosopher and writer

Intellectual who became a key figure in Milan uprising

Carlo Cattaneo, the philosopher and political writer who emerged as a leader in the so-called Five Days of Milan, the 1848 rebellion against the harsh rule of Austria, was born on this day in 1801 in Milan.  An influential figure in academic and intellectual circles in Milan, whose ideas helped shape the Risorgimento, Cattaneo was fundamentally against violence as a means to achieve change.  Yet when large-scale rioting broke out in the city in March 1848 he joined other intellectuals bringing organisation to the insurrection and succeeded in driving out Austria's occupying army, at least temporarily.  The uprising happened against a backcloth of social reform in other parts of the peninsula, in Rome and further south in Salerno, Naples and Sicily.  By contrast, the Austrians, who ruled most of northern Italy, sought to strengthen their grip by imposing harsh tax increases. Read more…

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Hugo Pratt – comic book creator

Talented writer and artist travelled widely

The creator of the comic book character, Corto Maltese, was born Hugo Eugenio Pratt on this day in 1927 in Rimini.  Pratt became a famous comic book writer and artist and was renowned for combining strong storytelling with extensive historical research.  His most famous character, Corto Maltese, came into being when he started a magazine with Florenzo Ivaldi.  Pratt spent most of his childhood in Venice with his parents, Rolando Pratt and Evelina Genero. His paternal grandfather, Joseph Pratt, was English and Hugo Pratt was related to the actor, Boris Karloff, who was born William Henry Pratt.  Hugo Pratt moved to Ethiopia with his mother in the late 1930s to join his father, who was working there following the conquest of the country by Benito Mussolini.  Pratt’s father was later captured by British troops and died from disease while he was a prisoner of war.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Dictionary of Saints, by John J Delaney 

The preeminent resource guide for more than 20 years, this one-of-a-kind book, now available in paperback, has been updated to include those more recently canonized and beatified.  Since its original publication in 1980, John J Delaney's Dictionary of Saints (more than 200,000 copies sold) has become the leading reference book for the scholar and general reader alike. With more than five thousand biographies of the saints from the well known to the obscure, this new edition brings to life the inspiring accomplishments of these men and women of God. The martyrs and the monks, the mystics and the virgins, the doctors and the peasants are all contained in this essential volume. To know the saints, how they thrived in their achievements, how they lived in destitution, is to meet a fascinating company of people whose actions have influenced and enriched the history of the world.  Reset in an easy-to use-format, it contains substantial listings for the more popular saints, and thumbnail sketches for those less well known. From Aaron to Zosimus, this modern dictionary has been updated with the entries for the newly canonized, including Italian mystic Padre Pio, Mexican Nahuatl Juan Diego, Polish Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe, and Americans Katharine Drexel and Rose Philippine Duchesne. It also contains a complete listing of feast days, an index of patron saints, and several other useful appendixes.

John J Delaney, the former director of Doubleday Religious Publishing and founder of Image Books, was an active figure in the world of religious publishing for more than 40 years.

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Festa di San Vito

Saint watches over dancers, entertainers, and pet dogs 

A statue of San Vito, with dogs at
his feet, at Paternò in Sicily

Celebrations are held throughout Italy every year on this day to celebrate the feast day of San Vito (Saint Vitus) . Although it is not a national public holiday, June 15 is the day when many Italians remember San Vito, a  young Christian martyr from Sicily, who died during the persecutions carried out in the fourth century by successive Roman Emperors, including Diocletian.

Many Italian towns, particularly those in southern Italy, honour San Vito with processions through the streets, theatrical events and religious ceremonies.

Vito was thought to have been born towards the end of the third century in Mazzaro del Vallo in Sicily. Little is known about his life, but according to legend, he was the son of a senator. As he grew up, he resisted his father’s attempts, which included various forms of torture, to persuade him to renounce his faith. He fled with his tutor and his tutor’s wife, who was also Vito’s nanny, to Lucania, in what is now Basilicata.

When he was about 12 or 13, he was believed to have been taken to Rome to drive out a demon that had taken possession of the soul of one of the sons of the Emperor Diocletian. He successfully performed the exorcism, but was then tortured, along with his tutor and nanny, for staying faithful to Christianity.

According to the story, an angel brought the three of them back to Lucania by a miracle, but they all died from the wounds they had suffered. After Vito had been dead for three days, he appeared to a local woman, who later discovered the three dead bodies and buried them where they lay.

During the Middle Ages, San Vito was counted among the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints who are venerated by Catholics because they believe their intercession can help against various diseases. 

In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great referred to a monastery dedicated to San Vito in Sicily and later popes wrote about a shrine and a chapel dedicated to him. His relics were taken to Pavia, France, Germany, and Bohemia. The bones from his hand are kept as a sacred relic in St Vitus Cathedral in Prague. 

The Cathedral of Saint Vitus in Prague, where
bones from his hand are kept as a sacred relic

In Germanic and Latvian cultures, the feast of Saint Vitus was once celebrated with manic dancing before his statue. After this dancing became popular, the name Saint Vitus Dance was given to the neurological disorder, Sydenham’s Chorea, which is characterised by involuntary jerking movements.

This also led to San Vito being considered the patron saint of dancers and entertainers. He is also supposed to protect people against lightning strikes, animal attacks and oversleeping.

Vito is the patron saint of the towns of Ciminna and Vita in Sicily, Forio on the island of Ischia, the town of Sapri in Campania, the contrada of San Vito in Torella dei Lombardi in Avellino, and the town of Rapone, in Basilicata. 

On June 15, which Italian regard as the beginning of summer, towns with San Vito as their patron have his statue carried through the streets, accompanied by brass bands. 

Because legend claims that the Emperor Diocletian set rabid dogs on Vito, only for the dogs to be cured and calmed by him, some regions historically tie his feast day in with the blessing of animals.

San Vito Lo Capo in Sicily, which sits at the head
of a promentory 34km (20 miles) north of Trapani

Travel tip:

San Vito Lo Capo, a town in northwestern Sicily named after the Saint, hosts some of the most spectacular celebrations with locals performing a dramatic, torch-lit re-enactment of the Saint's arrival by sea, culminating in a midnight firework display. On the afternoon of June 15, locals participate in a traditional game on the water. Competitors try to walk across a 10-metre-long wooden beam that is suspended over the sea and heavily coated in slippery soap. The goal is to grab a flag at the far end. At dusk, a flotilla of local fishing boats sails out to sea and returns carrying actors portraying young Vito, and his tutor and nanny. The shore erupts with flaring rockets and the blare of boat sirens. A solemn night procession features a heavy statue of San Vito carried on the shoulders of the faithful. The statue is wrapped in a cloak covered in gold ex-votos, offerings that have been given by people in exchange for miracles. San Vito can be found about 34km north of the resort of Trapani.

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Positano, looking from the beach towards the
Church of Santa Maria Assunta

Travel tip:

Because San Vito is also the patron saint of dogs, on June 15 in Positano on the Amalfi coast,  the area near the Church of Santa Maria Assunta and the pier of the Spiaggia Grande is filled with local people bringing their pet dogs to receive a blessing from a priest. The town's main beach is taken over by market stalls selling traditional Italian sweets, street food, and toys. The celebration closes at midnight with a big fireworks display over the sea that illuminates the entire cliffside town. Positano is one of the most glamorous towns on the Amalfi coast and became fashionable with artists and writers after the Second World War. Positano’s villas, shops and hotels spill down the hillside to the beach, so that seen from further round the bay, the resort looks as though it is covered by a cascade of pink, cream and yellow houses.

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More reading:

Sant’Eustachio, the Christian convert martyred by Hadrian

Why Saint Bona of Pisa became the patron saint of flight attendants

Saint Camillus de Lellis, the reformed gambler who gave up his vice to care for the sick

Also on this day:

1479: The birth of Lisa del Giocondo, immortalised as Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

1801: The birth of philosopher and writer Carlo Cattaneo

1897: The birth of politician and journalist Carlo Scorza

1927: The birth of comic book creator Hugo Pratt

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