Virginia Centurione Braccelli – Saint

Wealthy woman dedicated her life to relieving poverty

Virginia defied her father in order to
help the poor and sick in Genoa

The Feast Day of Virginia Centurione Braccelli, a noble lady from Genoa, who was made a Saint by Pope John Paul II, is celebrated every year on this day throughout Italy and in other parts of the world. Virginia died on December 15, 1651 in her native city after devoting her life to helping the poor and the sick.

Virginia was born in 1587 to Giorgio Centurione, who was the Doge of Genoa between 1621 and 1623, and his wife, Lelia Spinola. At that time, the Doge was the Head of State of the maritime Republic of Genoa.

Her mother was very pious and as a young girl Virginia spent a lot of time with her mother in prayer and contemplation. She could also hear her brother’s Latin lessons as she sat sewing and because she took in everything she heard, she learnt the language of the church. She was able to read passages of scripture in Latin and learn them by heart and meditate on them.

But after her mother’s death, although Virginia wanted to take holy orders, her father forced her to marry a rich nobleman, Gaspare Grimaldi Bracelli, when she was still only 15 years old. She bore him two daughters, Lelia and Isabella.

After her husband’s death, when Virginia was still only 20, she refused to have a second marriage arranged by her father and she made a vow to live a celibate life and to work to help poor and sick people in Genoa. She lived in her mother-in-law’s house, where she looked after her daughters and devoted herself to charitable work, sharing her own wealth with the needy.

Following Genoa’s involvement in a war in 1624, unemployment rose and there was an increase in the number of starving people in the city. It led Virginia to found a centre to accommodate some of the people living in poverty because she could not house them all in her home. The centre soon became overrun with people who were suffering as a result of either famine or the plague and she had to rent a convent to accommodate all the people who needed help.

Virginia created a community at the convent dedicated to Our Lady of Refuge, which she later split into two separate congregations, The Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge and the Daughters of Our Lady of Refuge.

By 1635, the centre was caring for more than 300 patients at any one time and it received official recognition as a hospital. Virginia trained the poor people she was caring for to gain employment so that they could eventually work to provide themselves with sustenance and she also earned extra money herself by teaching the catechism, the text that summarises the doctrine of the Catholic faith.

Virginia's body was found to be incorrupt
almost 300 years after her death

Although the community at the convent lost its official status in 1647 due to a decline in donations from the wealthy residents of Genoa, Virginia somehow managed to carry on with her work of helping the poor. She also acted as a peacemaker, intervening in disputes between the noble houses in Genoa, until she died in 1651 at the age of 64.

The work of the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Monte Calvario continues to this day with the sisters working to help sick, poor, and elderly people in hospitals, and also young people as far afield as Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and India.

The process for making Virginia a Saint was started in 1933, with theologians approving her writings and historians assessing the cause and clearing it to allow it to continue. 

In 1977, Pope Paul VI accorded Virginia the title of Servant of God. She was made Venerable in 1984, Beatified in 1985, and Canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

When Virginia’s remains were examined during the long process leading up to her Beatification and Canonisation, they were found to be in a remarkable state of preservation and officially classified as incorrupt.

While not a prerequisite for sainthood, the incorruptibility of an individual’s remains is considered by the Catholic Church as strong evidence of sanctity, a miraculous sign of divine favour, showing that the saint lived a life of purity and closeness to God.

The Marassi district is best known for its football
stadium, the Stadio Luigi Ferraris

Travel tip:

Virginia Centurione Braccelli’s remains are buried within the chapel of the religious congregation she founded, the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Mount Calvary, in the Marassi district of Genoa, a hillside area east of the city centre overlooking the Bisagno valley.  The sanctuary is thought to have roots going back to the 16th century, having been originally built on the site of a chapel dedicated to Saint Raphael.  It was relocated to Marassi in the 19th century after the church in central Genoa where it was originally based was demolished to make way for the Brignole railway station. The Marassi district, known as a lively, authentic neighbourhood away from the regular tourist trails, is most famous as the home of the Stadio Luigi Ferraris - also known as Stadio Marassi - which is shared by the city’s two major football clubs, Genoa and Sampdoria. The former, which still goes under the official title of Genoa Cricket and Football Club, was founded in 1893 by a group of British Consular officials. Among existing football clubs, it is the oldest in Italy.

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Piazza De Ferrari, at the heart of Genoa's elegant
city centre, with its impressive bronze fountain

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa, the capital of the Liguria region, has a rich history as a powerful trading centre with considerable wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks. It also boasts some fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Palazzo Ducale - the Doge's Palace - the 16th century Palazzo Reale, a lavish royal residence with frescoes, tapestries and a rooftop garden, and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral, with its striking black-and-white façade, are just three examples.  At the heart of the city centre is the Piazza De Ferrari, which features a monumental bronze fountain and is flanked by the Palazzo Ducale, the Palazzo della Borsa and the Teatro Carlo Felice among other buildings.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy.

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More reading:

The secret gift maker who has become known as Santa Claus

The noblewoman who gave up luxurious lifestyle to help the poor

A reformed gambler who became devoted to caring for sick

Also on this day:

1946: The birth of footballer Comunardo Niccolai

1966: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly released in Italy

1970: The birth of champion jockey Frankie Dettori

1973: Kidnappers release John Paul Getty III

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14 December

Errico Malatesta - anarchist

Middle-class boy who became notorious revolutionary

Errico Malatesta, one of the most prominent figures in the anarchist movement that flourished in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in the province of Caserta, in what is now Campania.  A committed revolutionary who was arrested for the first time at the age of 14, he spent more than 10 years of his life in prison and about 35 years in exile.  Apart from his activity in his own country, Malatesta helped organise anarchist revolutionary groups in several European countries, as well as in Egypt, and in North and South America, including Argentina, where he helped bakers form the country's first militant workers' union.  Born into a family of middle-class landowners in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in what was then the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Malatesta was arrested aged 14 for sending an "insolent and threatening letter" to King Victor Emmanuel II.  Read more…

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Luciano Bianciardi - novelist and translator

Writer who brought contemporary American literature to Italian audiences

The journalist, novelist and translator Luciano Bianciardi, who was responsible for putting the work of most of the outstanding American authors of the 20th century into Italian, was born on this day in 1922 in Grosseto in Tuscany.  Bianciardi translated novels by such writers as Saul Bellow, Henry Miller, William Faulkner and Norman Mailer, who were read in the Italian language for the first time thanks to his understanding of the nuances of their style.  He also wrote novels of his own, the most successful of which was La vita agra (1962; published in English as It’s a Hard Life), which was made into a film, directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Ugo Tognazzi.  Bianciardi, whose father, Atide, was a bank cashier, developed an appreciation for learning from his mother, Adele, who was an elementary school teacher.  Read more…

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Guarino da Verona – Renaissance scholar

Humanist who lost Greek manuscripts went grey overnight

Professor of ancient Greek, Guarino da Verona, who dedicated his life to learning the language and educating others to follow in his footsteps, died on this day in 1460 in Ferrara.  Da Verona studied ancient Greek in Constantinople for more than five years and returned to Italy with two cases full of rare Greek manuscripts that he had collected. It is said that when he lost one of the cases during  a shipwreck, he was so distraught that his hair turned grey in a single night.  Da Verona, who was also sometimes known as Guarino Veronese, was born in 1374 in Verona. He studied in Italy and established his first school in the 1390s before going to Constantinople.  After returning to Italy, he earned his living by teaching Greek in Verona, Venice and Florence.  Da Verona taught the philosophy of humanism to Leonello, Marquis of Este, who then became his patron. Read more…

Fabrizio Giovanardi – racing driver

Touring car specialist has won 10 titles

One of the most successful touring car racers in history, the former Alfa Romeo and Vauxhall driver Fabrizio Giovanardi, was born in Sassuolo, not far from Modena, on this day in 1966.  Giovanardi has won the European Championship twice, the European Cup twice, the British Championship twice, the Italian Championship three times and the Spanish touring car title once.  His best season in the World Championship came in 2005, when he finished third behind the British driver Andy Priaulx.  At the peak of his success, Giovanardi won a title each season for six consecutive years. Like many drivers across the motor racing spectrum, Giovanardi had his first experience of competition in karting, winning Italian and World titles in 125cc karts in 1986, before graduating to Formula Three and Formula 3000.  He was hoping from there to step up to Formula One. Read more…

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Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily

Sad, short life of a Neapolitan princess

The youngest daughter of Ferdinand, King of Naples and Sicily, Princess Maria Antonia, was born on this day in 1784 at the Royal Palace in Caserta.  Princess Maria Antonia was named after her aunt, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who was executed by guillotine in Paris in 1793.  Marie Antoinette was the favourite sister of the Princess’s mother, Maria Carolina of Austria, who became opposed to the military expansion of the new French republic as a result of her sister’s horrific death.  Princess Maria Antonia’s own fate was sealed when she became engaged to Infante Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, who later became King Ferdinand VII of Spain.  She married him in Barcelona in 1802.  When she failed to provide Ferdinand with an heir, suffering two miscarriages, there were rumours that she was plotting to poison both her mother in law, the Queen of Spain, and the Spanish Prime Minister. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification, by Lucy Riall

The Risorgimento was a turbulent and decisive period in the history of Italy. Lucy Riall's engaging account is the first book of its kind on the upheavals of the years between 1815 and 1860, when a series of crises destabilised the states of Restoration Italy and led to the creation of a troubled nation state in 1860. Comprehensive, yet original, The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification: examines the social history of 19th century Italy and the social context of political action;   offers a critical overview of the historiography of the topic; takes account of the most recent literature, especially literature in Italian not normally accessible to students; adopts a broad thematic approach; places the Italian experience in a European context.

Lucy Riall is an Irish historian. She was a professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and is currently a professor in the Department of History and Civilisation at the European University Institute in Florence. She has written or edited several books on Italian history.

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13 December

Carlo Gozzi – playwright

Noble Venetian who fought to preserve commedia dell’arte

Count Carlo Gozzi, the poet and playwright, was born on this day in 1720 in Venice.  He was a staunch defender of the traditional Italian commedia dell’arte form of drama and his plays were admired throughout Europe.  Commedia dell’arte was a theatrical form that used improvised dialogue and a cast of masked, colourful stock characters such as Arlecchino, Colombina and Pulcinella.  Gozzi was against the dramatic innovations made by writers such as Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni. He attacked Goldoni in a satirical poem and then wrote a play, L’amore delle tre melarance - The Love of Three Oranges - in which he portrayed Goldoni as a magician and Chiari as a wicked fairy.  The play was first performed by commedia dell’arte actors, who had been out of work due to the dwindling interest in the genre following the innovations of Goldoni and Chiari. Read more…

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Enrico Rastelli – juggler

Performer whose juggling record has never been surpassed

Enrico Rastelli, who is thought to have been the greatest juggler of all time, died on this day in 1931 in Bergamo in Lombardy.  Rastelli began his career in the circus ring and practised his juggling skills constantly until he was able to achieve levels of skill beyond those of any of his contemporaries. By the 1920s he had become a star, touring Europe and America, amazing audiences with his prowess and amassing large earnings.  Eventually he made the move to performing in vaudeville shows in theatres where he would appear in full football strip and juggle up to five footballs at a time.  Rastelli had been born in Russia in 1896, into a circus family originally from the Bergamo area of Lombardy. Both his parents were performers and trained him in circus disciplines including acrobatics, balancing, and aerial skills. Read more…

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Caravaggio masterpiece is unveiled in Siracusa

Great work of art was created by a desperate painter wanted for murder 

A magnificent altarpiece by Caravaggio depicting The Burial of Saint Lucy, was displayed for the first time on this day in 1608 at the Santuario Santa Lucia al Sepolcro in Siracusa - Syracuse - in Sicily.  The largest known work by Caravaggio, The Burial of Saint Lucy was painted by the artist while he was on the run accused of murder and in fear of arrest and execution. He created this important work of art in a few precious weeks while he was afforded some protection from the church authorities who had commissioned it.  The altarpiece measures 408 by 300 centimetres and is his largest known canvas painted in oils. It depicts the fragile body of Santa Lucia - Saint Lucy - bearing the wounds she had suffered during her execution, about to be interred in the Roman catacombs on which the Sanctuary now stands.  Read more…

Pope Sixtus V

Pontiff who cleaned up and rebuilt Rome and reformed church

Pope Sixtus V, whose five-year reign was one of the most effective of any pontiff in history, was born Felice Peretti on this day in 1521 in Grottammare, a coastal resort in the Marche region that was then part of the Papal States.  Succeeding Pope Gregory XIII in 1585, Sixtus V inherited an administration that was riddled with corruption and a city of Rome that to a large extent had fallen into the hands of thieves and criminal gangs.  He responded with a series of measures that brought about profound change with far-reaching consequences for the city and the wider country, making his mark on a scale that few pontiffs had matched before or since.  As well as tackling crime with brutal ruthlessness, he introduced significant reforms in the administration of the Catholic Church and commissioned lavish building projects. Read more…

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La Festa di Santa Lucia

Much loved saint was immortalised in song

La festa di Santa Lucia - St Lucy’s Day - will be celebrated all over Italy today.  According to tradition, Santa Lucia comes down from the sky with a cart and a donkey and distributes gifts to all the children who have been good, while all the naughty children receive only a piece of coal.  Santa Lucia is the patron saint of the city of Siracusa - Syracuse - in Sicily. Today, a silver statue of the saint containing her relics will be paraded through the streets before being returned to the Cathedral.  In Sicilian folklore there is a legend that a famine ended on Santa Lucia’s feast day when ships loaded with grain entered the harbour.  Santa Lucia is also popular with children in parts of northern Italy. In Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lodi and Mantua in Lombardy, and also parts of the Veneto, Trentino, Friuli and Emilia-Romagna, the children will have been expecting the saint to arrive with presents during the night.  Read more…

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Donatello – Renaissance sculptor

Work by prolific artist still on display for all to see

Early Renaissance sculptor Donatello died on this day in Florence in 1466.  Generally acknowledged as the greatest sculptor of the 15th century, Donatello left a legacy of wonderful statues in marble and bronze, some still out in the open and delighting visitors to Italy free of charge today.  He was born Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi in Florence in about 1386. He studied classical sculpture, which later influenced his style, and then worked in a goldsmith’s workshop and in the studio of artist Lorenzo Ghiberti.  One of his most famous early works is a statue of David, originally intended for the Cathedral, but which stood instead for many years in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.  Donatello’s work also shows influences of the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, a friend with whom he often travelled to Rome.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Commedia dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook, by John Rudlin

There has been an enormous revival of interest in commedia dell'arte. It remains a central part of many drama school courses. In Commedia dell'Arte: An Actor’s Handbook, John Rudlin first examines the origins of this vital theatrical form and charts its recent revival through the work of companies like Tag, Theatre de Complicite and the influential methods of Jacques Lecoq. The second part of the book provides a unique practical guide for would-be practitioners: demonstrating how to approach the roles of Zanni, Arlecchino, Brighella, Pantalone, Dottore, and the Lovers in terms of movement, mask-work and voice, as well as offering a range of lazzi - comic gags - improvisation exercises, sample monologues,and dialogues. No other book so clearly outlines the specific culture of commedia or provides such a practical guide to its techniques. 

John Rudlin was the founder of the department and first Head of Drama at Exeter University, before leaving this position to found the Centre Sélavy, a Centre in France for the study of outdoor performance. He is a recognised authority on the commedia dell’arte genre and masked theatre in general.

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12 December

Piazza Fontana bombing

Blast at Milan bank killed 17 and wounded 88

Italy found itself the victim of an horrific terrorist attack on this day in 1969 when a bomb blast at a Milan bank left 17 people dead and a further 88 injured.  The bomb exploded at 4.37pm in the headquarters of the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana, just 200m away from the Duomo.  It was caused by a bomb containing about 18lbs of explosives left on the third floor, killing customers and members of staff.  At around the same time, two bombs exploded in Rome, injuring 14 people. Another device, placed in the courtyard of a bank near Teatro alla Scala in Milan, was deactivated by police.  The explosions followed one month after a policeman was killed during a riot of left-wing extremists in Milan and are generally seen as the start of a period of violent social and political unrest in Italy dubbed the Years of Lead.  Read more…

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Guglielmo Marconi – inventor and electrical engineer

Message received meant a scientific breakthrough

Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal using equipment he had invented himself on this day in 1901 in Newfoundland.  Marconi was credited with the invention of radio as a result and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 with another scientist, Karl Ferdinand Braun.  The message Marconi received, which was regarded as a great scientific advance, was the letter ‘S’ in Morse Code. It had been sent from a transmission station Marconi had set up in Cornwall, 2,200 miles away.  The inventor was born in Bologna in 1874. His father, Giuseppe Marconi, was a nobleman and landowner from Porretta Terme and his mother was of Scottish and Irish descent.  Marconi was brought up in Bedford in England as a young child but after moving back to Italy he was educated privately and then went to study at the University of Bologna.  Read more…

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Susanna Tamaro - bestselling author

Writer’s third published novel was international hit

The writer Susanna Tamaro, whose novel Va' dove ti porta il cuore - published in English as Follow your Heart - was one of the biggest selling Italian novels of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1957 in Trieste.  Va' dove ti porta il cuore - in which the main character, an elderly woman, reflects on her life while writing a long letter to her estranged granddaughter - has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide since it was published in 1994.  Only Umberto Eco’s historical novel Il Nome della Rosa  - The Name of the Rose - has enjoyed bigger sales among books by Italian authors written in the 20th century.  Tamaro has gone on to write more than 25 novels, winning several awards, as well as contributing a column for a number of years in the weekly magazine Famiglia Cristiana and even co-writing a song that reached the final of the Sanremo Music Festival.  Read more…

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Robert Browning - English poet

Writer who called Italy his ‘university’

Victorian poet and playwright Robert Browning died on this day in 1889 at his son’s home, Ca’ Rezzonico, a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice.  Browning was considered one of the most important Victorian poets, who had made contributions to social and political debate through his work, and he was given the honour of being buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.  The poet’s early career had begun promisingly with his work being well received by the critics, but his long poem, Sordello, produced in 1840, was judged to be wilfully obscure and it was to take many years for his reputation to recover.  In 1846 Browning secretly married the poet, Elizabeth Barrett, who was six years older than him and had been living the life of an invalid in her father’s house in London. A few days later they went to live in Italy, leaving their families behind in England forever.  Read more…

Loredana Marcello – Dogaressa of Venice

Doge’s wife developed treatments for plague sufferers

Loredana Marcello, who became a Dogaressa of Venice as she was the wife of Doge Alvise I Mocenigo, died on this day in 1572.  A scholar and writer, Loredana developed treatments to help people suffering from the horrific symptoms of the plague. These were put to good use during the deadly outbreak that brought Venice to a standstill in 1575, three years after her death.  Loredana was the daughter of Giovanni Alvise Marcello. She received a good education, along with her sisters, Bianca, Daria and Maria. They were all considered by the nobility in Venice to represent the ideal of the educated Renaissance woman.  Loredana wrote letters and poetry and also studied botany, under Melchiorre Giulandino, a custodian of the Botanical Garden of the University of Padua and the first to occupy the chair in botany at the university.  Read more…

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Giancarlo De Carlo - architect

Forward-thinking designer helped shape modern Urbino

The architect Giancarlo De Carlo, who gained international recognition for his forward-thinking work in urban planning, was born in Genoa on this day in 1919.  De Carlo was also a writer and educator, who was critical of what he saw as the failure of 20th century architecture.   Many of his building projects were in Urbino, the city in Marche known for its 15th century ducal palace and as the birthplace of the painter Raphael.  He put forward a master plan for Urbino between 1958-64, which involved new buildings and renovations added carefully to the existing fabric of the city, described as genteel modernism and designed with the lives of Urbino citizens in mind.  The most notable parts of the Urbino project were at the University of Urbino, where he worked for decades, constructing housing, classroom and administration buildings, carefully embedded into the hilly landscape. Read more…

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Lodovico Giustini – composer

Church organist who wrote the first music for piano

Lodovico Giustini, composer and keyboard player, was born on this day in 1685 in Pistoia in Tuscany.  Giustini is the first composer known to write music for the piano and his compositions are considered to be late Baroque and early Classical in style.  Giustini was born in the same year as Bach, Scarlatti and Handel. His father, Francesco Giustini, was a church organist, his uncle, Domenico Giustini, was a composer of sacred music and his great uncle, Francesco Giustini, sang in the Cathedral choir for 50 years.  After the death of his father in 1725, Giustini took his place as organist at the Congregazione dello Spirito Santo in Pistoia, where he began to compose sacred music, mostly cantatas and oratorios.  In 1728 he collaborated with Giovanni Carlo Maria Clari on a set of Lamentations, which were performed later that year.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Red Brigades: The Terrorists who Brought Italy to its Knees, by John Foot

In March 1978, the Red Brigades kidnapped former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, murdering his bodyguards. For nearly two months, they held him hostage while a shocked world looked on, before eventually killing him and dumping his body in the middle of Rome.  But who were this terrorist group? What did they want? And how did they continue to operate for almost 20 years, terrifying a nation from 1970 to 1988? In John Foot's remarkable new book, we learn how they became the most formidable left-wing terrorist organisation in post-war Western Europe. They recognised no rules and authority other than their own, and launched a campaign of murder, kidnap, kneecapping and intimidation that paralysed Italy's justice system and reshaped the political landscape.  In The Red Brigades: The Terrorists who Brought Italy to its Knees, Foot uncovers the true story behind the myths that have grown around the group, highlighting the human costs of their actions, as well as their impact on Italian society. He explains how the contradictions inherent in their actions eventually led to their downfall and highlights their legacy of conspiracy, distrust and bitterness that still lingers in Italy to this day.

John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University of Bristol. He has written a number of acclaimed books on Italian politics, history and sport, including Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism; The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945; and Calcio: The History of Italian Football.

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11 December

NEW - Giovanni Antonio Medrano - architect and engineer

Designed Teatro di San Carlo and Palace of Capodimonte in Naples

The architect and engineer Giovanni Antonio Medrano, who left a lasting mark on Naples by designing the Teatro di San Carlo and the Royal Palace at Capodimonte while in the service of the Bourbon king Charles VII - later Charles III of Spain - was born on this day in 1703 in Sciacca, a town on the southwestern coast of Sicily.  Teatro di San Carlo, which is recognised as the oldest continuously active opera house in the world, set new standards for European theatre design with Medrano’s horseshoe-shaped layout and attention to acoustics.  His design became known as the Italian-style theatre model and was taken up by architects around the world as the gold standard for new projects. The San Carlo became a symbol of Bourbon prestige and remains one of his most enduring legacies.  Medrano, born into a noble Sicilian-Spanish family, was stationed in Naples as a military engineer. Read more…

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Pope Leo X

Renaissance pope supported art but did not foresee the Reformation

Pope Leo X was born as Giovanni de' Medici, on this day in 1475 in Florence.  The second son of Lorenzo de' Medici - Lorenzo Il Magnifico - who ruled the Florentine Republic, Leo X has gone down in history as one of the leading Renaissance popes, who made Rome a cultural centre during his papacy.  He is also remembered for failing to take the Reformation seriously enough and for excommunicating Martin Luther.  Giovanni was always destined for a religious life and received a good education at his father’s court, where one of his tutors was the philosopher Pico della Mirandolo. Giovanni went on to study theology and canon law at the University of Pisa.  In 1492 he became a member of the Sacred College of Cardinals, but after his father died later that year, he returned to Florence to live with his older brother, Piero.  Read more…

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Gianni Morandi – actor and pop singer

Veteran entertainer has sold 50 million records 

The singer Gianni Morandi, a Sanremo Festival winner and Eurovision Song Contest contestant who has sold more than 50 million records and had a simultaneous career as a successful TV and film actor, was born on this day in 1944 in a mountain village in Emilia-Romagna.  Morandi, whose longevity has brought comparisons with the British singer Sir Cliff Richard, was still performing in his 70s and released new albums in 2023 and 2024. He had an unlikely hit in 2017 when he teamed up with 23-year-old rapper and web star Fabio Rovazzi.  Morandi, whose pop-ballad style still has a big following, showed his versatility and willingness to indulge in self-mocking humour by co-starring with Rovazzi in an electro-pop track and video called Volare that went to No 1 on iTunes Italy and attracted 2.5 million views in less than 24 hours.  Read more…

Carlo Ponti – film producer

The man who married Sophia Loren twice

Carlo Ponti, the producer of many iconic Italian films, was born on this day in 1912 in Magenta near Milan.  He studied law at Milan University and, after joining his father’s law firm in Milan, became involved in the film business through negotiating contracts.  His production of Mario Soldati’s Piccolo Mondo Antico about the Italian struggle against the Austrian occupation was his first success in 1940. But he was briefly jailed for allegedly undermining relations with Nazi Germany.  He went on to produce many of the popular and financially successful films of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Vittorio de Sica's Marriage Italian Style, David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup.  But Ponti also became famous for his love affair and two marriages to the film star Sophia Loren, who was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Rome.  Read more…

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Fabrizio Ravanelli - footballer

Juventus star who became a favourite at Middlesbrough

The footballer Fabrizio Ravanelli, who won five trophies with Juventus between 1992 and 1996 before stunning the football world by joining unfashionable Middlesbrough in the English Premier League, was born on this day in 1968 in Perugia.  Playing alongside Gianluca Vialli and Alessandro Del Piero in the Juventus forward line, Ravanelli scored in the 1996 Champions League final as the Turin side beat Ajax in Rome before signing for Middlesbrough just six weeks later.  The ambitious club from the northeast of England paid £7 million (€8.5m) for Ravanelli, a club record fee and at the time the third largest sum paid for any player by an English club.  It was part of a huge spending spree by Middlesbrough, managed by former England captain Bryan Robson, that brought a string of high-profile signings to the club's Riverside Stadium. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Illustrated History of the Popes, by Charles Phillips

For 2,000 years the pope has been the acknowledged head of the Roman Catholic Church. As the direct successor of St Peter, he holds a unique position, ruling over millions of Catholics worldwide. The Illustrated History of the Popes is a comprehensive guide to the 266 men who have been pope, providing a timeline of the history of the papacy, and details each pope's life, influence and the way they shaped the church. The book is divided into three historical sections in chronological order: the First Popes; the Crusades and the Reformation; and Into the Modern Era. Lavishly illustrated, it is a reference book that will fascinate and inform anyone interested in the history of Catholicism.

Charles Phillips is an established writer of popular history and the author of The Illustrated History of Knights and the Golden Age of Chivalry, and The Complete Illustrated Guide to Kings and Queens of Britain and Ireland. 

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Giovanni Antonio Medrano - architect and engineer

Designed Teatro di San Carlo and Palace of Capodimonte in Naples

Medrano revolutionised theatre design with his
horseshoe-shaped auditorium at Teatro di San Carlo

The architect and engineer Giovanni Antonio Medrano, who left a lasting mark on Naples by designing the Teatro di San Carlo and the Royal Palace at Capodimonte while in the service of the Bourbon king Charles VII - later Charles III of Spain - was born on this day in 1703 in Sciacca, a town on the southwestern coast of Sicily.

Teatro di San Carlo, which is recognised as the oldest continuously active opera house in the world, set new standards for European theatre design with Medrano’s horseshoe-shaped layout and attention to acoustics.

His design became known as the Italian-style theatre model and was taken up by architects around the world as the gold standard for new projects. The San Carlo became a symbol of Bourbon prestige and remains one of his most enduring legacies.

Medrano, born into a noble Sicilian-Spanish family, was stationed in Naples as a military engineer and brigadier having taken part in the Spanish military campaign to conquer Naples in 1734. This campaign was part of the War of the Polish Succession, which had broadened into a wider conflict after the Bourbons used it as a pretext to attack Austrian territories in southern Italy and Sicily.

When the Spanish prince Don Carlos de Borbón became Charles VII of Naples in 1735, he appointed Medrano - his former tutor in the court of his father, Philip V of Spain - as his court architect, with a brief to design and oversee major royal projects that symbolised Bourbon authority and magnificence.

One of his first projects was to renovate the Royal Palace that adjoins the Piazza del Plebiscito, designed by Domenico Fontana and built between 1600 and 1614 on behalf of the Bourbon king Philip III. Medrano’s work was mainly focussed on readying the royal apartments ahead of the new king’s marriage to Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Medrano's Teatro di San Carlo, as it appeared in
a painting of the centre of Naples in around 1830

The project to construct a theatre connected to the palace essentially followed on from that after Charles VII decided he wanted to replace the Teatro San Bartolomeo, which had been the city’s main theatre since 1621, with something much bigger and which would reflect the growing status of Naples as a centre for opera. 

The Real Teatro di San Carlo was built in just eight months, partially helped by Medrano’s use of wood rather than stone in the internal construction. This choice was initially controversial, as traditionalists favoured stone or marble, symbols of permanence and royal prestige, but Medrano argued that wood reflects and diffuses sound more evenly than stone, giving rise to a clearer, warmer tone.

What set the Teatro di San Carlo apart, though, was Medrano’s horseshoe-shaped layout with its six tiers of boxes. Unlike previous theatre designs, which were either based on the semi-circular footprint of Roman auditoriums, or rectangular layouts similar to medieval banqueting halls, Medrano’s design wrapped the audience around the stage, enhancing the acoustics and allowing almost all spectators a view of the performers.

After the Teatro di San Carlo was inaugurated in November 1737, with a performance of Domenico Sarro's opera Achille in Sciro, the horseshoe design became the standard for new theatres in Europe and around the world.

Medrano’s wide architectural legacy includes the Royal Palace of Portici, built between 1737 and 1738 as a summer residence for the royal family, with views over the Bay of Naples. 

Medrano also designed and built the Royal Palace
of Portici, a summer residence overlooking the sea

The palace later became central to the excavations of Herculaneum, the Roman city that had been buried by the same volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in 79AD. The existence of ruins beneath the planned site of the palace was already known, marble having been discovered during the sinking of a well in 1709, but after more remains were revealed as the foundations were dug for the palace, Charles VII ordered more organised excavations, which Medrano oversaw.

The vast Reggia di Capodimonte, which Charles commissioned in 1738 after deciding the Portici palace was too small, was also designed by Medrano. Work began under Medrano’s direction but took over a century to complete, finishing in 1840.

Other projects attributed to Medrano include the Di Torcini bridge, which crossed the Volturno river at Venafro, north of Naples, and the Obelisk of Bitonto, which commemorates the decisive Bourbon victory over the Habsburg army at the town of the same name, near Bari in Puglia. 

Despite his successes, Medrano’s career was marred by controversy. In 1741, he and his associate Angelo Carasale were accused of fraud in tax dealings related to Capodimonte’s construction. The long trail was a contributing factor in delaying the work at Capodimonte.

The charges led to an 18-month jail sentence, after which Medrano was dismissed from his position at the court and exiled. Though he eventually returned to Naples, in 1746, and carried out renovations at the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, a church on via Portamedina in the centre of Naples, his reputation never fully recovered.

After the inauguration of the choir in the church in 1754, there is no record of Medrano being active professionally again. He died in 1760, at the age of 56. 

The Reggia di Capodimonte, another Bourbon palace,
now houses a major museum of Italian art

Travel tip:

The Reggia di Capodimonte, which Charles VII commissioned to house both his expanding court and the vast Farnese art collection, which he had inherited from his mother, Elisabetta Farnese, is a grand Bourbon royal palace a few kilometres from the centre of Naples.  Adjoining an area of woodland now known as the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, it was originally intended to be a hunting lodge but evolved as a replacement for the Reggia di Portici.  Its location was chosen because its elevated position - capo di monte literally means ‘top of the hill’ - promised an escape from the heat of the city. Although it has subsequently become part of greater Naples, at the time of its construction it was surrounded by parkland. Nowadays, the main building is home to the National Museum of Capodimonte, which showcases major works by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, El Greco, Giovanni Bellini, Masaccio, Lorenzo Lotto and many others, as well as the best collection of paintings from the distinct tradition of Neapolitan art, and many works of monumental sculpture from the Farnese Collection.

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Some parts of Herculaneum are
extraordinarily well preserved

Travel tip:

Until 1969, the town now called Ercolano was known as Resina, the name given to the medieval settlement that was built on top of the volcanic material left by the eruption of Vesuvius that also destroyed nearby Pompeii.  The existence of Ercolano - the Roman city of Herculaneum - was not known until the early 18th century, when a farmer sinking a well came across ancient marble columns which, it transpired, were part of an ancient theatre.  Systematic exploration followed under the patronage of Charles VII, the Bourbon king of Naples, from the 1730s to the 1760s.  Charles was more concerned with treasure-hunting than archaeology, but under Giovanni Antonio Medrano’s supervision statues and frescoes were uncovered as well as the famous Villa of the Papyri, with its extraordinary library of carbonized papyrus scrolls. Ercolano was smaller and less prestigious than Pompeii but is better preserved due to the different volcanic materials that covered the town, although its more famous neighbour was a bigger city and its destruction was particularly well documented.  The ruins at Pompeii and Ercolano can both be reached by using the Circumvesuviana railway, which runs from Naples along the southern stretch of the Bay of Naples, terminating at Sorrento.

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More reading

The Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii

The emperor who came to the aid of the victims

The 19th century archaeologist who saved the relics

Also on this day:

1475: The birth of Pope Leo X

1912: The birth of film producer Carlo Ponti

1944: The birth of veteran pop star Gianni Morandi

1968: The birth of footballer Fabrizio Ravanelli

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10 December

Luigi Pirandello - playwright, poet and novelist

Brilliant writing was born out of ‘chaos’

Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello died on this day in Rome in 1936.  Famous for his play Six Characters in Search of an Author (Sei Personaggi in Cerca d’Autore), Pirandello was also a prolific writer of novels, short stories and poetry, some of which were written in his native Sicilian dialect.  His plays are often seen as the forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd dramas of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco.  Pirandello’s contribution to the theatre was recognised in 1934 when he was awarded the Nobel prize in literature.  Pirandello was literally born in chaos. The name of the village near Agrigento in Sicily where his mother gave birth to him in 1867 is Caos, the Italian word for ‘chaos’, or in Sicilian, u Càvusu.  He was educated at home and had written his first play by the time he was 12. When his family moved to Palermo, he registered at the city’s university. Read more…

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Paolo Uccello - painter

Pioneer of perspective also worked in mosaics

Paolo Uccello, who was one of the leading painters in Florence in the 15th century, died on this day in 1475 at the age of 78.  The son of a surgeon, Uccello served an apprenticeship in the workshop of the sculptor and goldsmith Lorenzo Ghiberti but made his own mark as a painter and also as a mosaicist, at one time employed to work on the facade of Basilica di San Marco in Venice.  Younger than Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello, three giants of the Early Renaissance period, Uccello belonged to a generation of artists eager to move away from the flat, decorative forms of traditional Gothic art. His work is more often characterised by clear colours, well-defined outlines and a dramatic narrative, although he retains the fairytale quality of Gothic.  He was noted for his interest in linear perspective, which helped create a sense of depth in many of his paintings. Read more…

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Giuseppe Dossena - painter

Modern impressionist who funded his art with restoration projects

The painter Emilio Giuseppe Dossena was born on this day in 1903 in the small town of Cavenago d’Adda, about 48km (30 miles) southeast of Milan, in Lombardy.  Known more often simply as Giuseppe Dossena, he showed a talent for sculpture during his early years but preferred painting and soon began to produce outstanding landscapes in a neo-impressionist style.  With a young family to support, however, he had to find ways to supplement his income and eventually found regular work restoring and decorating villas and castles for a string of rich or aristocratic clients.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dossena spent a number of years living in the United States, where he was employed as a restorer of priceless artworks owned by institutions ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of New York to the Playboy Club.  Read more…

Amedeo Nazzari - movie star

Sardinian actor seen as the Errol Flynn of Italian cinema

The prolific actor Amedeo Nazzari, who made more than 90 movies and was once one of Italian cinema's biggest box office names, was born on this day in 1907 in Cagliari.  Likened in his prime to the Australian-American star Errol Flynn, with whom he had physical similarities and the same screen presence, Nazzari enjoyed a career spanning five decades.  One of his first major successes, in the title role of the 1938 drama Luciano Serra, Pilot, in which he played a First World War veteran, established him as Italy's leading male star in 1930s and he maintained his popularity in the '40s and '50s.  He is remembered also for his appearance in Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria, which won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.  Towards the end of his career, he featured in Henri Verneuil's 1969 Mafia caper The Sicilian Clan. Read more...

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Giuseppe 'Peppino' Prisco - lawyer and football administrator

Vice-president who became Inter Milan icon

The lawyer and football administrator Giuseppe Prisco, who served as a senior figure in the running of the Internazionale football club in Milan for more than half a century, was born on this day in 1921.  Universally known as Peppino, he managed to combine a career in legal practice with a passion for Inter that he would share so publicly he became a symbol of the club whose name was chanted on the terraces.  Born in Milan into a family with its roots in Torre Annunziata, near Naples, he was said to have fallen in love with the nerazzurri at seven years old in 1929, when he witnessed his first derby against AC Milan at Inter’s old stadium, the Campo Virgilio Fossati, between Via Goldoni and Piazza Novelli to the east of the city centre.  His career as a lawyer did not begin until after he had served with the Alpini - the mountain troops of the Italian Army - on the Russian front in the Second World War. Read more…

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Errico Petrella – opera composer

Sicilian whose popularity drew scorn from rivals

The largely forgotten opera composer Errico Petrella, whose popularity in Italy in the 1850s and 1860s was second only to operatic giant Giuseppe Verdi, was born on this day in 1813 in Palermo.  He composed 25 works, mainly comedic or melodramatic in nature, and had a run of successes in the 1850s, when three of  his productions were premiered at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.  However, Petrella attracted the scorn of both Verdi and another contemporary, the German composer Richard Wagner, both of whose careers coincided exactly with Petrella’s, even down to having been born in the same year.  When Il Duca di Scilla had its first performance at La Scala in March 1859, a year on from his hugely successful Jone, which also premiered at the Milan theatre, Wagner’s criticism could have hardly been more unflattering.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays, by Luigi Pirandello. Translated by Mark Musa

Luigi Pirandello was the founding architect of 20th-century drama, brilliantly innovatory in his forms and themes, and in the combined energy, imagination and visual colours of his theatre.This volume of plays, translated from the Italian by Mark Musa, opens with Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello's most popular and controversial work in which six characters invade the stage and demand to be included in the play. The tragedy Henry IV dramatizes the lucid madness of a man who may be King. In So It Is (If You Think So) the townspeople exercise a morbid curiosity attempting to discover 'the truth' about the Ponza family. Each of these plays can lay claim to being Pirandello's masterpiece, and in exploring the nature of human personality each one stretches the resources of drama to their limits.

Luigi Pirandello’s first real success in the theatre came about in 1921 when Six Characters in Search of an Author was performed. Henry IV followed the next year and confirmed his position as a playwright. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934. Mark Musa, who was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of German, French and Italian at Indiana University, was best known for his translations of Italian classics, including Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch. 

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