16 August

NEW - Jannik Sinner – tennis player

The astonishingly fast rise of a top Italian sportsman

Jannik Sinner, who has become the highest ranked Italian tennis singles player in history, was born on this day in 2001 in Innichen, also known as San Candido, in northern Italy.  Sinner is currently ranked as the World No 1 in Singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), having won a Grand Slam title at the 2024 Australian Open. He also led the Italian team to victory in the Davis Cup competition in 2023, the first time Italy had won the Davis Cup since 1976.  He grew up in Sexten - Sesto in Italian - in the Dolomites, where his father worked as a chef and his mother as a waitress in a ski lodge, in a part of the predominantly German-speaking South Tyrol province. Sinner was a competitive skier between the ages of seven and 12.  But he also had a talent for tennis and decided to focus on that sport exclusively from the age of 13. He went to train with the Italian coach Riccardo Piatti in Bordighera in Liguria, where he quickly improved his Italian.  Sinner had limited success as a junior, but he began playing on the ITF Men’s Tour in 2018.  Because of his low ranking he could compete in Challenger events only if he was given wild cards, but in 2019 he won his first ATP Challenger event in Bergamo at the age of 17 and a half.  Read more…

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Umberto Baldini – art restorer

Saved hundreds of artworks damaged by Arno floods

Umberto Baldini, the art historian who helped save hundreds of paintings, sculptures and manuscripts feared to have been damaged beyond repair in the catastrophic flooding in Florence in 1966, died on this day in 2006.  Baldini was working as director of the Gabinetto di Restauro, an office of the municipal authority in Florence charged with supervising restoration projects, when the River Arno broke its banks in the early hours of November 4, 1966.  With the ground already saturated, the combination of two days of torrential rain and storm force winds was too much and dams built to create reservoirs in the upper reaches of the Arno valley were threatened with collapse.  Consequently thousands of cubic metres of water had to be released, gathering pace as it raced downstream and eventually swept into the city at speeds of up to 40mph.  More than 100 people were killed and up to 20,000 in the valley left homeless. At its peak the depth of water in the Santa Croce area of Florence rose to 6.7 metres (22 feet).  Baldini was director of the conservation studios at the Uffizi, the principal art museum in Florence.  Read more... 

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Vincenzo Coronelli – globe maker

Friar whose globes of the world were in big demand

Vincenzo Coronelli, a Franciscan friar who was also a celebrated cartographer and globe maker, was born on this day in 1650 in Venice.  He became famous for making finely-crafted globes of the world for the Duke of Parma and Louis XIV of France.  This started a demand for globes from other aristocratic clients to adorn their libraries and some of Coronelli’s creations are still in existence today in private collections.  Coronelli was the fifth child of a Venetian tailor and was accepted as a novice by the Franciscans when he was 15. He was later sent to a college in Rome where he studied theology and astronomy.  He began working as a geographer and was commissioned to produce a set of globes for Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma. Each finely crafted globe was five feet in diameter.  After one of Louis XIV’s advisers saw the globes, Coronelli was invited to Paris to make a pair of globes for the French King.  The large globes displayed the latest information obtained by French explorers in North America. They are now in the François-Mitterand national library in Paris.  Read more…

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Tonino Delli Colli – cinematographer

Craftsman who shot Life is Beautiful and Italy's first colour film

Antonio (Tonino) Delli Colli, the cinematographer who shot the first Italian film in colour, died on this day in 2005 in Rome.  The last film he made was Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, shot on location in Arezzo in Tuscany, for which he won his fourth David di Donatello Award for Best Cinematography.  Delli Colli was born in Rome and started work at the city’s Cinecittà studio in 1938, shortly after it opened, when he was just 16.  By the mid 1940s he was working as a cinematographer, or director of photography, who is the person in charge of the camera and light crews working on a film. He was responsible for making artistic and technical decisions related to the image and selected the camera, film stock, lenses and filters. Directors often conveyed to him what was wanted from a scene visually and then allowed him complete latitude to achieve that effect.  Delli Colli was credited as director of photography for the first time in 1943 on Finalmente Si (Finally Yes), directed by László Kish.  In 1952 Delli Colli shot the first Italian film to be made in colour, Totò a colori. He had been reluctant to do it but was given no choice by his bosses.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Wimbledon: A Personal History, by Sue Barker

Sue Barker first walked through those famous wrought-iron gates aged 13 in 1969 to play in the National Schools event. What Sue didn't know then, was that every year for the next half century, she would be back in some capacity. As a junior, aged 15, as a semi-finalist and Grand-Slam winner ranked No.3 in the world, as a broadcaster leading the BBC coverage for thirty years and for the first time, as a fan in 2023.  Now she returns as a storyteller.  With her first-hand insight and perspective, Sue paints an intimate portrait of the place, past and present, full of behind-the-scenes details drawn from her own experiences as well as personal conversations with her former mentors, contemporary players, friends and colleagues - giants of the game such as Rod Laver, Billie Jean King, John McEnroe, Roger Federer, Venus Williams and many others. They share poignant memories with her and some startling revelations, from Sampras's deep regret that he didn't involve his parents more in his Centre Court triumphs to Borg divulging that McEnroe was always the quietest presence in the locker room ... You cannot be serious!  From the most talked-about matches and famous rivalries to the fashions and trends, from the stunning breakthroughs, to the near wins and gut-wrenching disappointments, Wimbledon: A Personal History is touched throughout by Championship stardust and is as tightly packed with stories as the courts are with blades of grass.

Sue Barker CBE is an award-winning broadcaster and former professional tennis player. During her tennis career she won 15 WTA singles titles, including a Grand Slam - the French Open in 1976, aged 20. At her career height she was Britain's No 1 player, with a world ranking of No 3.  As a broadcaster, in 2001 she became the first woman to win the Royal Television Society's best sports presenter award. She led the BBC's reporting on the Olympics for over a decade, including London 2012. She anchored Sports Personality of the Year for 19 years, was quizmaster on A Question of Sport for 24 years and fronted coverage of Wimbledon for three decades.

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