Primo Carnera - boxer
Heavyweight’s career dogged by ‘fix’ rumours
The boxer Primo Carnera, who was world heavyweight champion between 1933 and 1934, was born on this day in 1906 in a village in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. After launching his professional career in Paris in 1928, Carnera moved to the United States in 1930 and spent many years there, returning from time to time to Italy, where he had a house built for himself and his family, but not permanently until he was in declining health and decided he would like to spend his final years in his home country. He won 89 of his 103 fights, 72 by a knockout, although there were suspicions that many of his fights were fixed by the New York mobsters who made up his management team, even including the victory over the American Jack Sharkey that earned him the world title. Physically, he was a freak. Said to have weighed 22lbs at birth he had grown to the size of an adult man by the time he was eight. By adulthood, he was a veritable giant, by Italian standards, standing 6ft 6ins tall when the average Italian man was 5ft 5ins. His fighting weight was as high at times as 275lb (125kg). He was born into a peasant family in the village of Sequals, around 45km (28 miles) west of Udine. Read more…
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Trieste becomes part of Italy
Fascinating city retains influences from past rulers
The beautiful seaport of Trieste officially became part of the Italian Republic on this day in 1954. Trieste is now the capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, one of the most prosperous areas of Italy. The city lies towards the end of a narrow strip of land situated between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia and it is also just 30km (19 miles) north of Croatia. Trieste has been disputed territory for thousands of years and throughout its history has been influenced by its location at the crossroads of the Latin, Slavic and Germanic cultures. It became part of the Roman Republic in 177 BC and was granted the status of a Roman colony by Julius Caesar in 51 BC. In 788 Trieste was conquered by Charlemagne on behalf of the French but by the 13th century was being occupied by the Venetian Republic. Austria made the city part of the Habsburg domains in the 14th century but it was then conquered again by Venice. The Hapsburgs recovered Trieste in the 16th century and made it an important port and a commercial hub. Trieste fell into French hands during the time of Napoleon but then became part of Austrian territory again. Read more…
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Domenico Scarlatti - composer
Neapolitan famous for his 555 keyboard sonatas
The composer Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti, known as Domenico Scarlatti, was born in Naples on this day in 1685. Born in the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, Scarlatti was the sixth of 10 children fathered by the composer Alessandro Scarlatti. Like his father, Domenico composed in a variety of musical styles, making the transition in his lifetime from Baroque to traditional Classical. Today, he is known mainly for his 555 keyboard sonatas, which expanded the musical possibilities of the harpsichord. Although he began his career in Naples, Scarlatti spent a large part of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. In fact, he died in Madrid in 1757. Early in 1701, at the age of just 15, Scarlatti was appointed as composer and organist at the royal chapel in Naples. At 17, his first operas, L’Ottavia restituita al trono and Il giustino, were produced there. In 1705 his father sent him to Venice, reputedly to study with the composer Francesco Gasparini, although nothing is known with certainty about his life there. It is thought he may have met a young Irishman, Thomas Roseingrave, who later described Scarlatti’s advances in harpsichord music to the English musicologist Charles Burney. Read more…
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Trilussa - poet and journalist
Writer used humour and irony in social commentary
The Roman poet who went under the name Trilussa was born on this day in 1871. The writer, best known for his works in Romanesco dialect, was actually christened Carlo Alberto Camillo Mariano Salustri. His pseudonym was an anagram of his last name. He was inspired to take up poetry by his admiration for Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, who satirised life in 19th century Rome in his sonnets, which were also written in Roman dialect. Born in a house in Via del Babuino, near the Spanish Steps, Carlo was the son of a waiter originally from Albano Laziale in the Castelli Romani area around Lago Albano south of Rome. His mother, Carlotta, was a seamstress born in Bologna. His early years were marred by tragedy. He lost both a sister and his father before he had reached four years old. After living for a short time in Via Ripetta, close to the Tiber river, his family were offered accommodation in a palazzo in Piazza di Pietra, a square midway between the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. The palazzo was owned by Carlo’s Godfather, the Marquis Ermenegildo del Cinque, who had been introduced to the family by Professor Filippo Chiappini, a disciple of Belli who for a while was Trilussa’s tutor. Read more…
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Giuditta Pasta – soprano
The first singer to perform the roles of Anna Bolena and Norma
Singer Giuditta Pasta, whose voice was so beautiful Gaetano Donizetti wrote the role of Anna Bolena especially for her, was born on this day in 1797 in Saronno in Lombardy. Her mezzo-soprano voice was much written about by 19th century opera reviewers and in modern times her performance style has been compared with that of Maria Callas. Indeed, Vincenzo Bellini’s opera Norma, which Callas would turn into her signature role, was actually written for Pasta in 1831. Pasta was born Giuditta Negri, the daughter of a Jewish soldier. She studied singing in Milan and made her operatic debut there in 1816. Later that year she performed at the Theatre Italien in Paris as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, but it was not until 1821 that her talent was fully recognised when she appeared in Paris as Desdemona in Gioachino Rossini’s Otello. Giuditta married another singer, Giuseppe Pasta, in 1816 and as well as being her regular leading man he handled her business affairs and identified likely roles and composers who might wish to work with her. Read more…
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Primo Carnera: The Life and Career of the Heavyweight Boxing Champion, by Joseph S Page
At over six and a half feet tall and nearly 300 pounds, heavyweight champion Primo Carnera was a giant for his times, but today "the Ambling Alp" is too often written off as an unskilled oaf and a product of the mob dealings that plagued boxing during the 1930s. He may not have been a natural in the ring, but he worked as hard as any boxer to learn his craft, to be in top condition, and he repeatedly showed that he was tougher than nails. Primo Carnera: The Life and Career of the Heavyweight Boxing Champion details Carnera's early life and boxing career, his success as a fighter as well as accusations of fight fixing, his strengths and limitations in the ring, and his later career as a wrestler.Joseph S Page is an American writer who is also the author of Pro Football Championships Before the Super Bowl: A Year-by-Year History, 1926–1965.
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