Pope Urban VIII
Pontiff whose extravagance led to disgrace
The controversial Pope Urban VIII died on this day in 1644 in Rome. Urban VIII – born Maffeo Barberini – was a significant patron of the arts, the sponsor of the brilliant sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose work had a major influence on the look of Rome. But in his ambitions to strengthen and expand the Papal States, he overreached himself in a disastrous war against Odoardo Farnese, the Duke of Parma, and the expenses incurred in that and other conflicts, combined with extravagant spending on himself and his family, left the papacy seriously weakened. Indeed, so unpopular was Urban VIII that after news spread of his death there was rioting in Rome and a bust of him on Capitoline Hill was destroyed by an angry mob. His time in office was also notable for the conviction in 1633 for heresy of the physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, who had promoted the supposition, put forward by the Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus, that the earth revolved around the sun, which was directly contrary to the orthodox Roman Catholic belief that the sun revolved around the earth. Read more…
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Benito Mussolini - Fascist leader
Future dictator inspired by his father's politics
Benito Mussolini, who would become Italy's notorious Fascist dictator during the 1920s, was born on this day in 1883 in a small town in Emilia-Romagna known then as Dovia di Predappio, about 17km (11 miles) south of the city of Forlì. His father, Alessandro, worked as a blacksmith while his mother, Rosa was a devout Catholic schoolteacher. Benito was the eldest of his parents' three children. He would later have a brother, Arnaldo, and a sister, Edvige. It could be said that Alessandro's political leanings influenced his son from birth. Benito was named after the Mexican reformist President, Benito Juárez, while his middle names - Andrea and Amilcare - were those of the Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani. Working in his father's smithy as a boy growing up, Mussolini would listen to Alessandro's admiration for the protagonists of the Italian unification movement, such as the nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, and the military leader Giuseppe Garibaldi. But he also heard him speak with approval about the socialist thinker Carlo Pisacane and anarchist revolutionaries such as Carlo Cafiero and Mikhail Bakunin. Read more…
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Agostino Depretis – politician
Premier stayed in power by creating coalitions
One of the longest serving Prime Ministers in the history of Italy, Agostino Depretis died on this day in 1887 in Stradella in the Lombardy region. He had been the founder and main proponent of trasformismo, a method of making a flexible centrist coalition that isolated the extremists on the right and the left. Depretis served as Prime Minister three times between 1876 and his death. He was born in 1813 in Mezzana Corti, a hamlet that is now part of Cava Manara, a municipality in the province of Pavia. After graduating from law school in Pavia, Depretis ran his family’s estate. In 1848, the year of revolutions in Europe, he was elected as a member of the first parliament in Piedmont. He consistently opposed Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont Sardinia. A disciple of the pro-unification activist Giuseppe Mazzini, Depretis was nearly captured by the Austrians while smuggling arms into Milan, but he did not take part in the 1853 uprising planned by Mazzini in Milan. It is thought he predicted it would fail. Depretis briefly served as Governor of Brescia in Lombardy after Cavour’s resignation in 1859. Read more…
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Teresa Noce - activist and partisan
Anti-Fascist who became union leader and parliamentary deputy
Teresa Noce, who became one of the most important female campaigners for workers’ rights in 20th century Italy, was born on this day in 1900. A trade union activist as young as 12 years old, Noce spent almost 20 years in exile after the Fascists outlawed her political activity, during which time she became involved with the labour movement and in Paris and subsequently led a French partisan unit under the code name Estella. After she returned to Italy in 1945 she was elected to the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies) as a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Working with the Unione Donne Italiane (Italian Women’s Union), she secured changes to the law to protect working mothers and provide paid maternity leave. Born in one of the poorest districts of Turin, she and her older brother were brought up in a one-parent family after her father abandoned their mother while they were both young. Because of her mother’s poor income, they were seldom able to keep the same home more than a few weeks before being evicted for non-payment of rent. Teresa was a bright girl who taught herself to read the newspapers. Read more…
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Book of the Day: The Popes: A History, by John Julius Norwich
The Popes: A History traces the history of the oldest continuing institution in the world, tracing the papal line down the centuries from St Peter himself – traditionally (though by no means historically) the first pope – to Benedict XVI, who was pope from 2005 to 2013. Of the 280-odd holders of the supreme office, some have unquestionably been saints; others have wallowed in unspeakable iniquity. One was said to have been a woman – and an English woman at that – her sex being revealed only when she improvidently gave birth to a baby during a papal procession. Pope Joan never existed (though the Church long believed she did) but many genuine pontiffs were almost as colourful: Formosus, for example, whose murdered corpse was exhumed, clothed in pontifical vestments, propped up on a throne and subjected to trial; or John XII of whom Gibbon wrote: 'his rapes of virgins and widows deterred female pilgrims from visiting the shrine of St Peter lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.’
John Julius Norwich was well known for his histories of Norman Sicily, Venice, the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean. The second Viscount Norwich, he is an agnostic with no religious axe to grind. In this rich, authoritative book he does full justice to a rich and important tale. He was the son of the Conservative politician and diplomat Duff Cooper, later Viscount Norwich, and of Lady Diana Manners, a celebrated beauty and society figure.
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