24 April

Alessandro Costacurta - footballer 

AC Milan defender played in Serie A until 41 years old

Former AC Milan and Italy defender Alessandro Costacurta was born on this day in 1966 in the town of Orago, near Varese. Costacurta retired in May 2007, 25 days after his 41st birthday, having played more than 660 matches for Milan over the course of 21 seasons.  He is the oldest outfield player to appear in a Serie A match. Milan lost his final game 3-2 at home to Udinese but Costacurta marked the occasion with a goal, from the penalty spot.  It was only his third goal in 458 Serie A appearances for the rossoneri, but made him Serie A's oldest goalscorer.  He enjoyed a career laden with honours, including seven Serie A titles and five European Cups or Champions League titles. He also won 59 caps for Italy and was a member of the team that finished runners-up in the 1994 World Cup in the United States. Read more…

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Luigi Lavazza - coffee maker

From a grocery store in Turin to Italy's market leader

Luigi Lavazza, the Turin grocer who founded the Lavazza Coffee Company, was born on this day in 1859 in the small town of Murisengo in Piedmont.  He had lived as a peasant farmer in Murisengo but times were hard and after a couple of poor harvests he decided to abandon the countryside and head for the city, moving to Turin and finding work as a shop assistant.  The Lavazza brand began when Luigi had saved enough money to by his own shop in Via San Tommaso, in the centre of Turin, in 1895.  He sold groceries and provisions and where other stores simply sold coffee beans, he had a workshop in the rear of the store where he experimented by grinding the beans and mixing them into different blends. When the first automatic roasting machines went into production in the 1920s, he was one of the first in Italy to buy one. Read more…

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Giuseppe Panza - art collector

Businessman amassed more than 2,500 pieces

The art collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, whose fascination with postwar art, particularly American, led him to build up one of the world’s most important collections, died on this day in 2010 in Milan.  A businessman who succeeded his father in making money from wine and property, Panza acquired more than 2,500 pieces in his lifetime, many of which he sold or donated to museums and art galleries.  Some he parted with for millions of dollars, although he always insisted that his motivation was never financial gain but the love of art.  Approximately 10 per cent of his collection remains in the 18th-century Villa Menafoglio Litta, his family home at Varese, north of Milan, where he created 50,000 square feet (4,600 sq m) of exhibition space.  Read more…

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