Alfonso II d’Este – Duke of Ferrara
Tasso’s patron raised Ferrara to the height of its glory
Alfonso II d’Este, who was to be the last Duke of Ferrara, was born on this day in 1533 in Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna. Famous as the protector of the poet Torquato Tasso, Alfonso II also took a keen interest in music. He was also the sponsor of the philosopher Cesare Cremonini, who was a friend of both Tasso and the scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Although he was married three times, he failed to provide an heir for the Duchy. Alfonso was the eldest son of Ercole II d’Este and Renée de France, the daughter of Louis XII of France. As a young man, Alfonso fought in the service of Henry II of France against the Habsburgs but soon after he became Duke in 1559 he was forced by Pope Pius IV to send his mother back to France because she was a Calvinist. In 1583 he joined forces with the Emperor Rudolf II in his war against the Turks in Hungary. Alfonso II was proficient in Latin and French as well as Italian and like his ancestors before him encouraged writers and artists. He welcomed the poet Tasso to his court in Ferrara and he wrote some of his most important poetry while living there, including his epic poem, Gerusalemme liberata. Read more…
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Joe Adonis - Mafia boss
Boy from mountainous Campania who became powerful New York mobster
The Mafia criminal Joe Adonis, who at one time was effectively America’s senior gangster as chairman of the so-called ‘Commission’, was born Giuseppe Antonio Doto on this day in 1902 at Montemarano, a small town in mountainous Campania. Doto became a friend and associate of the powerful Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano, who would head one of the New York Mafia’s powerful Five Families. As Adonis, Doto would emerge as a powerful figure in his own right in Brooklyn and Manhattan and later New Jersey. Accounts of his arrival in the United States as a child vary. Many suppose that he travelled with his family among thousands of migrants from Italy who left for a new life in America in the 1900s, their names recorded at the immigrant inspection station on Ellis Island in 1909. Others suggest that he arrived in 1915, having travelled as a stowaway on a liner from Naples. Either way, he appears to have settled in Brooklyn, where he quickly turned to crime, making money through stealing and picking pockets. It was in partnership with Luciano and two up-and-coming figures in the Jewish-American underworld, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, that he became involved in bootlegging. Read more…
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Paolo Gentiloni – politician
Italy’s 57th premier both noble and a Democrat
Italy’s prime minister from 2016 to 2018, Paolo Gentiloni, was born on this day in 1954 in Rome. A member of the Democratic Party, Gentiloni was asked to form a Government in December 2016 by Italian President Sergio Mattarella. A professional journalist before he entered politics, Gentiloni is a descendant of Count Gentiloni Silveri and holds the titles of Nobile of Filottranno, Nobile of Cingoli and Nobile of Macerata. The word nobile, derived from the Latin nobilis, meaning honourable, indicates a level of Italian nobility ranking somewhere between the English title of knight and baron. Gentiloni is related to the politician Vincenzo Ottorino Gentiloni, who was a leader of the Conservative Catholic Electoral Union and a key ally of Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti, who held the office five times between 1892 and 1921. Gentiloni attended the Classical Lyceum Torquato Tasso in Rome and went on to study at La Sapienza University in the city where he became a member of the Student Movement, a left wing youth organisation. He moved on to become a member of the Workers’ Movement for Socialism and graduated in Political Sciences. Read more…
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Rocco Commisso - entrepreneur
US businessman with roots in Calabria
Rocco Commisso, the founder of the American cable TV provider Mediacom and owner of football clubs in the United States and Italy, was born on this day in 1949 in Marina di Gioiosa Ionica, a small seaside town in Calabria. With annual revenues of more than $2,000 million, Mediacom is the fifth largest cable company in the US, having been launched from Commisso’s basement in 1995, when he began to buy up small community cable systems, mainly in the Midwest and Southeast. It now has its headquarters in Blooming Grove, New York. Commisso, a football fan from his childhood, bought a majority stake in the New York Cosmos club in 2017 and completed the purchase of ACF Fiorentina in Italy two years later, with plans to return each club to its glory days of the past. With a southwest aspect on the Ionian coast, Marina di Gioiosa Ionica is something of an idyllic spot today, blessed with wide beaches and clear inviting water. As Commisso was growing up, however, it was a relatively deprived area as Italy struggled to rebuild after World War Two and it was not uncommon for families to leave the area in search of prosperity elsewhere. Read more…
Giuseppe Olmo - cycling champion and businessman
Olympic gold medallist set up prestige cycle brand
The road cyclist Giuseppe Olmo, who won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and later launched his own cycle-manufacturing business, was born on this day in 1911 in Celle Ligure, a fishing village about 40km (25 miles) southwest of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. Olmo missed out on an individual medal in Los Angeles, finishing fourth behind compatriot Attilio Pavesi in the road race, but won gold as part of the winning Italy trio in the team event, alongside Pavesi and Guglielmo Segato. He turned professional after the Olympics and, though his career was truncated somewhat by the cessation of the sport during World War Two, enjoyed some success. Racing for the Fréjus team, he won the Milan-Turin race at the age of just 21 in 1932. After moving to the colours of Bianchi, Olmo won the prestigious Milan-San Remo race three years later and in 1938, the Giro dell’Emilia in 1936 and the Giro di Campania in 1938. Olmo was somewhat unlucky in the Giro d’Italia. He finished third behind Vasco Bergamaschi in 1935 after winning four stages and wearing the leader’s pink jersey for seven days, and runner-up the following year despite winning 10 stages. Read more…
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Nevio Scala - footballer and coach
Led Parma to success in golden era of 1990s
Nevio Scala, a European Cup winner with AC Milan as a player and the most successful coach of Parma's golden era in the 1990s, was born on this day in 1947 in Lozzo Atestino, a small town in the Euganean Hills, just south of Padua. A midfielder who also played for Roma, Vicenza and Internazionale at the top level of Italian football, Scala was never picked for his country but won a Serie A title and a European Cup-Winners' Cup in addition to the European Cup with AC Milan. But his achievements with Parma as coach arguably exceeded even that, given that they were a small provincial club that had never played in Serie A when Scala was appointed. He had given notice of his ability by almost taking the tiny Calabrian club Reggina to Serie A in 1989 only a year after winning promotion from Serie C, and needed only one season to take Parma to the top flight for the first time. With the massive financial backing of Calisto Tanzi, the founder and chairman of the local dairy giants Parmalat, Scala then led Parma into a period of sustained success no one could have predicted. Between 1991 and 1995, Parma won the Coppa Italia, the European Cup-Winners' Cup, the European Super Cup and the UEFA Cup. Read more…
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Bernardo Pasquini - composer
Talented musician wrote music for a queen
Baroque composer Bernardo Pasquini died on this day in Rome in 1710. He is remembered as an important composer for the harpsichord and for his musical scores for operas. Along with his fellow composers Alessandro Scarlatti and Arcangelo Corelli, Pasquini was a member of the Arcadian Academy (Accademia degli Arcadi) which was set up in Rome by one of his patrons, Queen Christina of Sweden. Pasquini enjoyed Queen Christina’s protection while he was living in Rome and produced several operas in her honour. These were staged in Rome initially and then replayed in theatres all over Italy. Queen Christina had abdicated from the throne of Sweden in 1654, converted to Roman Catholicism and moved to live in Rome. While living in the Palazzo Farnese, she opened up her home for members of the Arcadian Academy to enjoy music, theatre, literature and languages with her. She became a cultural leader and protector of many Baroque artists, composers and musicians. The Baroque period, which influenced sculpture, painting and architecture, as well as literature, dance, theatre and music, began in Rome around 1600. Read more…
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Beatrice Trussardi – entrepreneur
Art promoter chosen among the 100 most successful Italian women
Art and design promoter and business woman Beatrice Trussardi, the daughter of fashion designer Nicola Trussardi, was born on this day in 1971 in Milan. Since 1999, Beatrice has been president of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, which was founded by her father to promote contemporary art and culture. Nicola Trussardi, who was born in Bergamo, went to work in his grandfather’s glove making business in the city and turned it into a multimillion-dollar business that helped contribute to the popularity of the Made in Italy label throughout the world. Beatrice, who was his eldest child, obtained a degree in Art, Business and Administration at New York University and went on to work at the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. She directed the move by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi from its permanent exhibition space in Milan to develop a new, itinerant model. The foundation now focuses on holding art exhibitions in historical monuments and forgotten buildings in Milan, that were not previously accessible to the public. Read more…
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Book of the Day: The Liberation of Jerusalem (Gerusalemme liberata), by Torquato Tasso. Translated by Max Wickert
In The Liberation of Jerusalem (Gerusalemme liberata, 1581), Torquato Tasso set out to write an epic to rival the Iliad and the Aeneid. Unlike his predecessors, he took his subject not from myth but from history: the Christian capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade. The siege of the city is played out alongside a magical romance of love and sacrifice, in which the Christian knight Rinaldo succumbs to the charms of the pagan sorceress Armida, and the warrior maiden Clorinda inspires a fatal passion in the Christian Tancred. Tasso's masterpiece left its mark on writers from Spenser and Milton to Goethe and Byron, and inspired countless painters and composers. This is the first English translation in modern times that faithfully reflects both the sense and the verse form of the original. Max Wickert's fine rendering is introduced by Mark Davie, who places Tasso's poem in the context of his life and times and points to the qualities that have ensured its lasting impact on Western culture. This edition is one of the Oxford World's Classics series, which for more than 100 years has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his 1591 poem Gerusalemme liberata. Tasso suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was to be crowned the “king of poets” by Pope Clement VIII on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Until the beginning of the 20th century, he remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe. Max Wickert is a German-American teacher, poet, translator and publisher. He is Professor of English Emeritus at the University at Buffalo.
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