12 January

Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

Despotic ruler presided over chaos in southern Italy

The Bourbon prince who would become the first monarch of a revived Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was born in Naples on this day in 1751.  Ferdinando, third son of King Carlos (Charles) III of Spain, was handed the separate thrones of Naples and Sicily when he was only eight years old after his father’s accession to the Spanish throne required him to abdicate his titles in Spanish-ruled southern Italy.  In a 65-year reign, he would preside over one of the most turbulent periods in the history of a region that was never far from upheaval, which would see Spanish rule repeatedly challenged by France before eventually being handed to Austria.  Too young, obviously, to take charge in his own right when his reign began officially in 1759, he continued to enjoy his privileged upbringing, alternating between the palaces his father had built at Caserta, Portici and Capodimonte.  Government was placed in the hands of Bernardo Tanucci, a Tuscan statesman from Stia, near Arezzo, in whom King Charles had complete trust.  Tanucci fully embraced the enlightened ideas that were gaining popularity with the educated classes across Europe.  Read more…

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John Singer Sargent - painter

Celebrated portraitist had lifelong love for Italy

The painter John Singer Sargent, who was hailed as the leading portraitist of his era but was also a brilliant painter of landscapes, was born on this day in 1856 in Florence.  Although he became an American citizen at the first opportunity, both his parents being American, he spent his early years in Italy and would regularly return to the country throughout his life.  At his commercial peak during the Edwardian age, his studio in London attracted wealthy clients not only from England but from the rest of Europe and even from the other side of the Atlantic, asking him to grant them immortality on canvas.  His full length portraits, which epitomised the elegance and opulence of high society at the end of the 19th century, would cost the subject up to $5,000 - the equivalent of around $140,000 (€122,000; £109,000) today.  Sargent was born in Italy on account of a cholera pandemic, the second to hit Europe that century, which caused a high number of fatalities in London in particular. His parents, who were regular visitors to Italy, were in Florence and decided it would be prudent to stay.  Although his parents had a home in Paris, Italy, with its wealth of classical attractions, was a favourite destination.  Read more…

Revolution in Sicily

January revolt meant the beginning of the end for the Bourbons

The Sicilian uprising on this day in 1848 was to be the first of several revolutions in Italy and Europe that year.  The revolt against the Bourbon government of Ferdinand II in Sicily started in Palermo and led to Sicily becoming an independent state for 16 months.  It was the third revolution to take place on the island against Bourbon rule and signalled the end for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.  Naples and Sicily had been formally reunited to become the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1815. Back in medieval times they had both been part of a single Kingdom of Sicily.  The 1848 revolt was organised in Palermo and deliberately timed to coincide with King Ferdinand’s birthday.  News of the revolt spread and peasants from the countryside arrived to join the fray and express their frustration about the hardships they were enduring.  Sicilian nobles revived the liberal constitution based on the Westminster system of parliamentary government, which had been drawn up for the island in 1812.  The Bourbon army took back full control of Sicily by force in May 1849 but the revolt proved to be only a curtain raiser for the events to come in 1860.  Read more…

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Charles Emmanuel I – Duke of Savoy

Rash ruler who led catastrophic attack on Geneva 

Charles Emmanuel I, who developed a reputation for being hot-headed, was born on this day in 1562 in the Castle of Rivoli in Piedmont.  Renowned for his rashness and military aggression in trying to acquire territory, Charles Emmanuel has gone down in history for launching a disastrous attack on Geneva in Switzerland.  In 1602 he led his troops to the city during the night and surrounded the walls. At two o’clock in the morning the Savoy soldiers were ordered to dismount and climb the city walls in full armour as a shock tactic.  However the alarm was raised by a night watchman and Geneva’s army was ready to meet the invaders.  Many of the Savoy soldiers were killed and others were captured and later executed.  The heavy helmets worn by the Savoy troops featured visors with the design of a human face on them. They were afterwards called Savoyard helmets and the Swiss army kept some of them as trophies. Geneva’s successful defence of the city walls is still celebrated during the annual festival of L’Escalade, in which confectionery shops sell a cauldron known as a marmite made from chocolate.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Sicily: A Short History, from the Greeks to Cosa Nostra, by John Julius Norwich

The stepping stone between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the East and the West, at once a stronghold, clearing-house and observation post, Sicily has been invaded and fought over by Phoenicians and Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans, Goths and Byzantines, Arabs and Normans, Germans, Spaniards and the French for thousands of years. It has belonged to them all - and yet has properly been part of none.  John Julius Norwich was inspired to become a writer by his first visit in 1961 and this book is the result of a fascination that has lasted over half a century. In tracing its dark story, he attempts to explain the enigma that lies at the heart of the Mediterranean's largest island.  This vivid short history covers everything from erupting volcanoes to the assassination of Byzantine emperors, from Nelson's affair with Emma Hamilton to Garibaldi and the rise of the Mafia. Taking in the key buildings and towns, and packed with fascinating stories and unforgettable characters, Sicily: From the Greeks to the Cosa Nostra is the book he was born to write.

John Julius Norwich was the author of more than 20 books. He began his career in the British foreign service, but resigned his diplomatic post to become a writer. He was a chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund and the honorary chairman of the World Monuments Fund. He died in 2018.

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11 January

NEW - Fabrizio De André - singer-songwriter

‘Poet of music’ who remains a hero of the Italian left

The singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, whose songs often celebrated the lives of the marginalised in Italian society and gained him a popularity that has already outlived him by a quarter of a century, died on this day in 1999 in the Città Studi district of Milan.  De André, who was a month short of his 59th birthday, had been diagnosed with lung cancer six months earlier, having been a heavy smoker for much of his adult life. After his death at the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, his body was returned to his native Genoa, where a crowd estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000 gathered for his funeral at the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano.  His impact on Italian culture has been such that streets, squares and schools in many towns and cities bear his name. A three-hour tribute to him broadcast on a relatively obscure Italian TV channel to mark the 10th anniversary of his death attracted an audience of almost eight million viewers, as many as tuned in to the new series of Grande Fratello - the Italian version of Big Brother - on a mainstream channel the following evening. Read more…

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The Giannini sextuplets

The multiple birth that made history

History was made on this day in 1980 when a schoolteacher from the Casentino valley in Tuscany gave birth to sextuplets in a hospital in Florence.  The babies – four boys and two girls – delivered between 4.17am and 4.22am at the Careggi Hospital, on the northern outskirts of the Tuscan capital, grew to become the first sextuplets in Europe to survive beyond infancy and only the second set in the world.  Their arrival turned the Giannini family - mum Rosanna and dad Franco - into instant celebrities and their house in Soci, a village in the municipality of Bibbiena, 60km (37 miles) east of Florence, was besieged by the world’s media, seeking pictures and interviews.  In Italy, the event was celebrated with particular enthusiasm, heralded as the good news the nation craved after a particularly difficult year marked by a series of catastrophes, including the Ustica plane crash, the bombing of Bologna railway station and the Irpinia earthquake.  The family eventually signed an exclusive deal with the best-selling Italian magazine Gente for access rights.  Photographs of the children appeared around the time of their birthday for a number of years.  Read more…

The 1693 Sicily earthquake

Devastation that led to architectural rebirth

A huge earthquake destroyed or severely damaged scores of towns and cities in Sicily on this day in 1693, killing more than 60,000 people.  Records say the tremor struck at around 9pm local time and lasted about four minutes.  It was mainly confined to the southeast corner of the island, with damage also reported in Calabria on the Italian mainland and even on Malta, 190km (118 miles) away.  Although it is an estimate rather than a verifiable figure, the earthquake has been given a recorded magnitude of 7.4, which makes it the most powerful in Italian history, although in terms of casualties it was eclipsed by the earthquake that destroyed much of Messina and Reggio Calabria in 1908, with perhaps up to 200,000 killed.  At least 70 towns and cities - including Catania, Syracuse (Siracusa), Noto and Acireale - were either very badly damaged or destroyed, with an area of 5,600 sq km (2,200 sq miles) affected.  The earthquake is indirectly responsible for the wonderful Baroque architecture that makes the cities of southeast Sicily so attractive, commissioned by the island’s wealthy Spanish aristocracy.  Read more…

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Galeazzo Ciano - ill-fated Fascist politician

The son-in-law Mussolini had shot as a traitor

Galeazzo Ciano, part of the Fascist Grand Council that voted for Benito Mussolini to be thrown out of office as Italy faced crushing defeat in the Second World War, was killed by a firing squad in Verona on this day in 1944 after being found guilty of treason.  The 40-year-old former Foreign Minister in Mussolini's government was also his son-in-law, having been married to Edda Mussolini since he was 27.  Yet even his position in the family did not see him spared by the ousted dictator, who had been arrested on the orders of King Victor Emmanuel III but, after being freed by the Nazis, later exacted revenge against those he felt had betrayed him.  Ciano, a founding member of the Italy's National Fascist Party whose marriage to the Duce's daughter certainly helped him advance his career, had largely been supportive of Mussolini and was elevated to Foreign Minister in part because of his role in the military victory over Ethiopia, in which he was a bomber squadron commander. Yet he expressed doubts from the start over Italy's readiness to take part in a major conflict. In his diaries, which Edda was later to use without success as a bargaining tool as she tried to save her husband's life, Ciano recalled that he had tried to persuade Mussolini against committing to an alliance with Hitler.  Read more…

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Matteo Renzi – politician

Italy's youngest Prime Minister was inspired by the scout movement

Matteo Renzi, the former Prime Minister of Italy, was born on this day in 1975 in Florence.  When he became Prime Minister in February 2014, he was the youngest person to hold the office since Italian unification in 1861. His father, Tiziano Renzi was a Christian Democrat local councillor in Rignano sull’Arno, where Renzi was brought up as part of an observant Catholic family.  He went to school in Florence and was a scout in the association of Catholic Guides and Scouts of Italy.  On Renzi’s personal website he carries a quote from Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout Movement: “Lasciare il mondo un po’ migliore di come lo abbiamo trovato - Leave the world a bit better than how you found it.”  In government, Renzi reformed labour and employment laws to boost economic growth and abolished some small taxes.  Renzi became interested in politics while still at school. He graduated from the University of Florence with a degree in Law and at the age of 21 joined the Italian People’s Party. After being elected as President of Florence Province in 2004, he joined the Democratic Party and was elected as Mayor of Florence in 2009.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Genoa 'La Superba': The Rise and Fall of a Merchant Pirate Superpower, by Dr Nicholas Walton

Genoa has an incredible story to tell. It rose from an obscurity imposed by its harsh geography to become a merchant-pirate superpower that helped create the medieval world. It fought bitter battles with its great rival Venice and imprisoned Marco Polo, as the feuding city states connected Europe to the glories of the East. It introduced the Black Death to Europe, led the fight against the Barbary Corsairs, bankrolled Imperial Spain, and gave the world Christopher Columbus and a host of fearless explorers. Genoa and Liguria provided the brains and the heroism behind the Risorgimento, and was the last place emigrants saw before building new lives across the Atlantic. It played host to writers and Grand Tourists, gave football to the Italians, and helped build modern Italy. Today, along with the glorious Riviera coast of Liguria, Genoa provides some of the finest places on earth to sip wine, eat pesto and enjoy spectacular views. Genoa 'La Superba' brings the past alive and paints a portrait of a modern port city and region that is only now coming to terms with a past that is as bloody, fascinating and influential as any in Europe.

Nicholas Walton is a former BBC World Service journalist who worked and reported from around the world for 14 years before moving to the European Council on Foreign Relations. He previously lived in Singapore, where he wrote reports for the Economist Intelligence Unit on education and media and a book, Singapore, Singapura: From Miracle to Complacency.

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Fabrizio De André - singer-songwriter

‘Poet of music’ who spoke for the marginalised in society

Fabrizio De André's lyrics are studied by Italian
students as part of the school curriculum

The singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, whose songs often celebrated the lives of the marginalised in Italian society and gained him a popularity that has already outlived him by a quarter of a century, died on this day in 1999 in the Città Studi district of Milan.

De André, who was a month short of his 59th birthday, had been diagnosed with lung cancer six months earlier, having been a heavy smoker for much of his adult life. After his death at the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, his body was returned to his native Genoa, where a crowd estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000 gathered for his funeral at the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano.

His impact on Italian culture has been such that streets, squares and schools in many towns and cities bear his name. A three-hour tribute to him broadcast on a relatively obscure Italian TV channel to mark the 10th anniversary of his death attracted an audience of almost eight million viewers, as many as tuned in to the new series of Grande Fratello - the Italian version of Big Brother - on a mainstream channel the following evening.

Nicknamed ‘Faber’ by his close friend, the writer and comic actor Paolo Villaggio, and known as ‘the songwriter of the marginalised’ and ‘the poet of the defeated’ as well as simply the ‘poet of music’, De André had a voice of warmth and depth but it was for his lyrics that he acquired a huge following.

De André drew inspiration from
the streets of his home city

Many of his songs told stories of outcasts and rebels or tackled subjects such as prostitution and homosexuality that others regarded as off-limits in a country where the Catholic Church still loomed large over public morality. He did not shy from criticising the church itself, which he felt was riddled with hypocrisy.

His lyrics are often included in school anthologies of modern poetry and he has attained the status of cult hero among some on the Italian political left, itself increasingly marginalised by the shift towards the centre and the right.

Although sometimes spoken of as Italy’s Bob Dylan, De André’s major influences were said to be Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-songwriter also renowned for deeply meaningful lyrics, and the French singer-songwriter and poet, Georges Bressens, to whom he was introduced when his father gave him some records as a teenager. It was Bressens who inspired De André to be a pacifist and a libertarian.

He was a jazz enthusiast in his youth, singing and playing the guitar at La Borsa di Arlecchino, a café-theatre located in the basement of the Palazzo della Borsa in Genoa. Always willing to experiment, he explored many types of music in his career, as well as singing in Genoese and Neapolitan dialects in addition to Italian.

Born into a relatively prosperous family in the Pegli district of Genoa in 1940, De André’s early life was inevitably shaped by the war into which Italy was led by Benito Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler and Nazi Germany.  His father, Giuseppe, who had made his money through his purchase of a technical institute in the city, was fervently anti-Fascist, which was part of his reason for taking the family to live in a farmhouse in his native Piemonte, both to avoid the attention of the authorities and to escape Allied bombing. They would not return to Genoa until 1945. 

The writer and comic actor Paolo Villaggio was
De André's close friend and supporter

It was not long before De André began to show both musical talent and a rebellious streak, at the age of eight paying off his violin teacher to let him skip lessons. Later, he would drop out of law school after receiving royalties from a song - La canzone di Marinella (Marinella’s song) - which he sold to Mina, Italy’s all-time biggest selling female star. Its lyrics, which told the story of a young orphan forced into prostitution, provided early evidence of De André’s fascination with the low-life characters populating Genoa's back streets.

He was still a student when he made his stage debut in February 1961, singing two songs as part of a programme of music in a theatre in Genoa. The two songs - Nuvole barocche (Baroque clouds) and E fu la notte (And it was night) were the A and B sides of his debut single, released in 1961.

Although it was 1975 before he could be persuaded to appear on stage in a solo concert, his career would ultimately stretch over four decades, during which he released 14 studio albums, a number of live albums, and numerous singles.  Songs such that established his status as a songwriter and singer of note included Amico fragile, written in stream-of-consciousness style about a drunken evening with friends; Crêuza de mä, a song in Genoese dialect about the tough lives of sailors and fishermen in Genoa; and La ballata del Michè, a song based on the true story of a southern Italian emigrant to Genoa who was sentenced to 20 years in jail after killing a man who had tried to seduce his girlfriend.

Some of his songs were based on his own life experience, not least his kidnapping in 1979, along with his partner, Dori Ghezzi, by bandits in Sardinia, where they lived. They were held for four months until his father paid a ransom, said to be one billion lire. Afterwards, De André wrote Hotel Supramonte, drawing the title from the mountains where he was imprisoned, in which he likened their captivity to the feeling of confinement in love. 

De André's career spanned
almost 40 years

At the trial of the men who seized him, he chose not to condemn his captors, saying that “they were the real prisoners, not I” and blaming the organised crime bosses who made the bandits do their dirty work for them.

Although considered a subversive by the Italian police, De André was never actively involved with politics. Indeed, when the student riots were taking place in 1968, he spent his time writing an album about Jesus, portraying Christ as a revolutionary hero fighting for freedom. Songs from the album are still played in churches, despite De André's lack of faith. 

His adoption by the left as a favourite son followed Silvio Berlusconi’s election victory in 2008, when he won a third term as prime minister, following the collapse of Romano Prodi’s centre left Olive Tree coalition.

Ironically, as they tried to make ends meet during the early 1960s, De Andre and Villaggio would sometimes take work as cruise ships musicians in the backing groups supporting Berlusconi, who was then a singer.

Married twice, to Enrica Rignon, known to him as Puny, and later to Ghezzi, he left two children, a son, Cristiano, from his first marriage, and a daughter, known as Luvi. After his death, he was laid to rest in the monumental Staglieno cemetery, in the De André family chapel.

Pegli is an affluent, mainly residential suburb
but has a lively seafront promenade

Travel tip:

Pegli, where Fabrizio De André was born, is a mainly residential area of Genoa but boasts a lively seafront promenade and a number of hotels. There are good links by road, rail and boat to the central area of Genoa. 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, but also boasts many fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Doge's Palace, the 16th century Royal Palace and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral are just three examples.  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.

The cloister at the main building of the University
of Milan, founded in 1924

Travel tip:

Città Studi, where De André was treated at the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, is Milan’s university district. It developed from 1915 onwards to the northeast of the city centre, although there are other buildings around the city that are now part of the University.  The streets of the Città Studi area are notable for bars, pizza restaurants and ice cream shops. The University of Milan was founded in 1924 from the merger of two other academic institutions. By 1928, it already had the fourth-highest number of enrolled students in Italy, after Naples, Rome and Padua. Colloquially referred to as La Statale, it is today one of the largest universities in Europe, with about 60,000 students, and a permanent teaching and research staff of about 2,000.

Also on this day:

1693: Earthquake in southeastern Sicily

1944: The death of Fascist politician Galeazzo Ciano

1975: The birth of the politician Matteo Renzi

1980: The birth of the Giannini sextuplets

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10 January

Flaminio Bertoni - sculptor and car designer

Visionary ideas turned Citroën into style icon

The sculptor and automobile designer Flaminio Bertoni, the creative genius behind the groundbreaking Citroën cars of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, was born on this day in 1903 in what is now the Masnago district of Varese.  Bertoni, who lived in or near Paris from 1931 until his death in 1964, designed bodies for the stylish Traction Avant luxury executive car and the enduring workhorse 'Deux Chevaux' - the 2CV - which became almost a symbol of France.  Yes both of these were eclipsed, some would say, by the brilliance of Bertoni's aerodynamic, futuristic Citroën DS - also known as 'the Goddess' - which was named the most beautiful car of all time by the magazine Classic and Sports Car and was described by the Chicago Institute of Design soon after its launch as among the '100 most beautiful things in the world'.  Bertoni was fêted in France, where he was made a Knight of Arts and Letters by the government of Charles de Gaulle in 1961 but it was not until almost 40 years after his death that his achievements were given recognition in his home country, where his son, Leonardo, set up a museum in Varese to celebrate his work.  Read more…

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John Dalberg-Acton – historian, politician and writer

Gladstone’s friend and adviser became an Italian Marquess

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, better known as Lord Acton, was born on this day in 1834 in Naples, which was then part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.  He was brought up as a Roman Catholic and was later denied entry to the University of Cambridge because of his religion. He is best remembered for the quote, ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’, which he once wrote in a letter to an Anglican bishop.  Dalberg-Acton’s grandfather was Sir John Francis Edward Acton, who had been appointed by Queen Maria Carolina of Naples to reorganise the Neapolitan navy. His ability impressed her so much that she made him commander-in-chief of both the army and the navy of the Kingdom of Naples and he became Minister of Finance and eventually Prime Minister.  His father was Sir Ferdinand Richard Acton, who had the Villa Pignatelli built on the Riviera di Chiaia in Naples. Dalberg-Acton was born in the villa to Sir Ferdinand’s wife, Maria Luisa Pellina de Dalberg, who was from Germany. The baby was baptised the next day in a small chapel in the villa.  Dalberg-Acton was brought up to speak English, Italian, French and German. His father died when he was three years old. Read more…

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Pina Menichelli – silent movie star

Screen diva who enjoyed worldwide fame

The actress Pina Menichelli, who became one of the most celebrated female stars of the silent movie era, was born on this day in 1890 in Castroreale, a village in northeast Sicily.  Menichelli’s career was brief – she retired at the age of just 34 – but in her last eight or nine years on screen she enjoyed such popularity that her films played to packed houses and she commanded a salary that was the equivalent of millions of euros in today’s money.  Without words, actors had to use facial expressions and body movements to create character in the parts they were playing and Menichelli, a naturally beautiful woman, exploited her elegance and sensuality to the full, at times pushing the limits of what was acceptable on screen.  In fact, one of her films, La Moglie di Claudio (Claudio’s Wife) was banned by the censors for fear it would offend sensitivities, particularly those of the Catholic Church.  Generally cast in the role of femme fatale, Menichelli thus became something of a sex symbol in the years after the First World War and there was considerable shock when she announced abruptly in 1924 that she was quitting the film industry for good.  Read more…

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Maurizio Sarri - football manager

Former coach of Juventus and Chelsea

The football coach Maurizio Sarri, former manager of Chelsea in the English Premier League, was born on this day in 1959 in Naples.  Sarri, who has an unusual background for a professional football coach in that he spent more than 20 years in banking before devoting himself to the game full-time, took over as Chelsea manager in the summer of 2017, succeeding another Italian, Antonio Conte.  Previously, he had spent three seasons as head coach at SSC Napoli, twice finishing second and once third in Serie A.  He never played professionally, yet he has now held coaching positions at 20 different clubs.  Sarri was born in the Bagnoli district of Naples, where his father, Amerigo, a former professional cyclist, worked in the sprawling but now derelict Italsider steel plant.  It was not long, however, before the family moved away, however, first to Castro, a village on the shore of Lago d’Iseo, near Bergamo, and then to Figline Valdarno, in Tuscany, his father’s birthplace. It was there that Sarri grew up and played football for the local amateur team. A centre half, he had trials with Torino and Fiorentina but was deemed not quite good enough for the professional game.  Read more…

San Pietro Orseolo – Doge of Venice and monk

Rich and powerful Doge made a life-changing decision

Pietro Orseolo, a former Venetian Doge who joined the Benedictine order, died on this day in 987.  He was canonised by Pope Clement XII in 1731 and his feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death on 10 January each year.  Pietro Orseolo became Doge of Venice in 976 but after just two years in office he left his palace in the middle of the night to go to France to become a monk.  Orseolo was originally from a powerful family in Udine and at the age of 20 became commander of the Venetian fleet waging successful campaigns against pirate ships.  He was elected Doge after the previous ruler of Venice had been killed in a revolt. Orseolo restored order to the city, built much needed hospitals and cared for widows and orphans.  He started to rebuild the Doge’s palace and St Mark’s Basilica using his own money. But he suddenly left Venice to travel to southern France with three other Venetians to join a Benedictine abbey. It is believed he told no one about his decision in advance, not even his wife and family.  After some years living as a monk performing menial tasks at the abbey, Orseolo went to live in the surrounding forest as a hermit.  Read more…

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Giorgio Mondadori - publisher

Helped launch La Repubblica after family split

The publisher Giorgio Mondadori, who was president of the famous publishing house set up by his father, Arnoldo Mondadori, until an acrimonious split in 1976, died on his 92nd birthday on this day in 2009 in a clinic in Tuscany.  Mondadori commissioned the Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, to build the company’s eye-catching headquarters in Segrate, near Milan, in 1975, which remains his legacy to the family business.  At around the same time that he left the company, for whom he had worked for 38 years, he set up a joint venture with another publishing group, L’Espresso, that resulted in the launch of La Repubblica, a new, centre-left national newspaper that was to grow into one of the most popular daily newspapers in Italy, with a circulation topped only by the long-established Corriere della Sera.  Born in Ostiglia, a small town in the province of Mantua, Lombardy, in 1917, Giorgio was the second of four children born to Arnoldo Mondadori and Andreina Monicelli, some 10 years after his father founded Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.  After completing his education, Giorgio began working for the company in 1938 at the age of 21.  Read more…

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Aldo Ballarin - footballer

Brilliant defender who died in Superga tragedy

Aldo Ballarin, one of the 18 Torino players who were killed in the 1949 Superga plane crash, was born on this day in 1922 in the fishing port of Chioggia, at the southern tip of the Laguna di Venezia.  Ballarin, whose brother, Dino, also died in the accident, played at right-back in the Torino team, making more than 150 appearances and winning the scudetto - the Serie A championship title - four seasons in a row between 1945 and 1949.  A defender who was renowned for his tackling and heading ability but who also used the skills he had learned as a winger in his youth to be an effective attacker, Ballarin won nine international caps in the azzurri of Italy.  He remains the only player born in Chioggia to play for the Italian national team.  One of six children in his family, Aldo would play football for hours in the street near his home as he was growing up. Of his three brothers, two would also play professionally. Dino, who was a little under two years younger than Aldo, was on Torino’s books as a goalkeeper.  At the age of 13, Aldo began playing for the youth team of Clodia, a local amateur club, before signing apprentice professional terms with Rovigo, a Serie C club about 55km (34 miles) from Chioggia. Read more…

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Caesar crosses the Rubicon

Act of defiance that started a civil war and coined a phrase

The Roman general Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon river in northern Italy in an act of military defiance that would plunge the Roman Republic into civil war on this day in 49BC.  The course of the Rubicon, which can still be found on maps of Italy today, entering the Adriatic between Ravenna and Rimini in northeast Italy, represented the border between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul, over which Caesar had command, and what was by then known as Italia, the area of the peninsula south of the Alps directly governed by Rome.  One of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic after forming an alliance with Pompey and Crassus known as the First Triumvirate, Caesar had spent much of the previous decade expanding his territory through the Gallic Wars, taking control of much of modern-day France and northern Italy and extending the borders of the Republic as far as the Rhine.  He was the first Roman general to invade Britain.  The troops under his command - the 13th Legion - numbered more than 20,000 men who had seen Caesar’s military skills develop and were fiercely loyal.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Citroen DS: French Design Classic, by Lance Cole

Launched in 1955 yet looking like a sci-fi design proposal for a future then undreamed of, Flaminio Bertoni's ellipsoid sculpture with wheels that was the Citroen DS stunned the world. There was a near riot at the 1955 Paris Motor Show launch of the car, orders flooded in for this, the new 'big Citroen' (a Voiture a Grande Diffusion or VGD) as the car that replaced the legendary Traction Avant range. The term 'DS' stems from two Citroen parts of nomenclature - the type of engine used as the 11D, (D) and the special hemispherical design of the cylinder head as 'Culasse Special' (S): DS out of 'Deesse' or Goddess, was a more popular myth of ' DS' origination, but an erroneous one. But it was not just the car's aerodynamically advanced body shape that framed the genius of the DS: hydro pneumatic self-levelling suspension, advanced plastics and synthetics for the construction of the roof and dashboard/fascia, and amazing road holding and cabin comfort were some of this car's highlights. Only the lack of an advanced new engine was deemed a missed opportunity. In fact Citroen had created a new engine for the car but lacked the resources to produce it in time for 1955. DS was a major moment in the history of car design, one so advanced that it would take other auto manufacturers years to embrace. Citroen DS: French Design Classic describes how the DS, with its 'aero' design, was the precursor to today's low drag cars of curved form. Manufactured worldwide, used by presidents, leaders, diplomats, farmers and many types of people, the DS redefined Citroen, its engineering and design language, and its brand, for decades to come.

Lance Cole is a journalist and the author of over a dozen books. He has written features and news items for many of the major automotive titles. He has been a columnist with the Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the South China Post. His books include Bugatti Blue, Vickers VC10, Secrets of the Spitfire, Saab Cars, and The Classic Car Adventure. 

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9 January

NEW - Franca Viola – rape survivor

Sicilian heroine achieved a change in the attitude towards rape in Italy

Franca Viola, who survived a horrific kidnapping and a series of rapes and heroically resisted societal pressure to marry her attacker afterwards, was born on this day in 1948 in Alcamo in Sicily. She became famous throughout Italy in the 1960s for refusing to undergo what was called a matrimonio riparatore - a rehabilitating marriage - to her rapist, which would have enabled her to be accepted in Sicilian society despite having lost her virginity while still unmarried.  Franca was born in the rural town of Alcamo and was the oldest daughter of a farmer and his wife. At the age of 15, Franca became engaged to Filippo Melodia, who was 23 and the nephew of a Mafia member.  After Melodia was arrested for theft, Franca’s father insisted that she broke off the engagement with him and Melodia subsequently went to live in Germany.  Two years later, after Franca had become engaged to another man, Melodia returned to Alcamo and tried to get back into her life. He started stalking her and threatened her father, Bernardo, and her new fiancé.  In the early hours of Boxing Day in 1965, Melodia and a group of about 12 armed men broke into Franca’s family home and kidnapped her.  Read more…

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Marco Polo - merchant and explorer

Venetian trader who described travels in China 

The Italian explorer Marco Polo, who achieved a place in history as the first European to write in extensive detail about life in China, is thought by many historians to have died on or close to this day in 1324 in his home city of Venice.  Accounts of his final days say he had been confined to bed with an illness and that his doctor was concerned on January 8 that he was close to death. Indeed, so worried were those around his bedside that they sent for a local priest to witness his last will and testament, which Polo dictated in the presence of his wife, Donata, and their three daughters, who were appointed executors.  The supposition has been that he died on the same evening. The will document was preserved and is kept by the Biblioteca Marciana, the historic public library of Venice just across the Piazzetta San Marco from St Mark’s Basilica. It shows the date of the witnessing of Polo’s testament as January 9, although it should be noted that under Venetian law at the time, the change of date occurred at sunset rather than midnight.  Confusingly, the document recorded his death as occurring in June 1324 and the witnessing of the will on January 9, 1323. The consensus among historians, however, is that he probably reached his end in January, 1324.  Read more…

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Norberto Bobbio - political philosopher

Intellectual regarded as foremost 20th century commentator

Norberto Bobbio, a philosopher of law and political sciences who came to be seen as one of Italy’s most respected political commentators in the 20th century, died on this day in 2004 in Turin, the city of his birth.  He was 94 and had been in hospital suffering from respiratory problems. His funeral was attended by political and cultural leaders including the then-President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.  He had been writing essays well into his 90s, despite for much of his life suffering from bouts of what was described as “fatigue and melancholy”.  His extensive catalogue of work spanned almost seven decades of Italian political life and societal change from the rise of Fascism in the 1930s to the second premiership of Silvio Berlusconi, of whom he was an outspoken critic.  For much of his career, Bobbio was a professor at the University of Turin, where he was chair of philosophy of law from 1948 and, from 1972, of the faculties of legal and political philosophy and political science.  He was made a Life Senator in 1984, although he stayed away from playing an active role in Italian politics after failing to gain election to the parliament of the new Republic in 1946.  Read more…

Massimiliano Fuksas – architect

Brilliant designs illuminate cities worldwide

The international architect Massimiliano Fuksas, whose work has influenced the urban landscape in more than a dozen countries across the globe, was born on this day in 1944 in Rome.  The winner of multiple awards, Fuksas sits alongside Antonio Citterio and Renzo Piano as the most important figures in contemporary Italian architectural design.  His Fuksas Design company, which has its headquarters in a Renaissance palace near Piazza Navona in Rome, also has offices in Paris and in Shenzhen, China, employing 140 staff.  Among more than 600 projects completed by the company in 40 years, those that stand out include Terminal Three at the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in China, the New National Archives of France at Pierrefitte sur Seine-Saint Denis, the Peres Peace House in Tel Aviv,  the Zenith Music Hall in Strasbourg, the Armani Ginza Tower in Tokyo, the Italian Space Agency headquarters in Rome and the FieraMilano Trade Fair complex on the outskirts of Milan.  Ongoing projects include the new EUR Hotel and Conference Centre in Rome and the Duomo metro station in Naples.  Read more…

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Victor Emmanuel II dies

Christian burial for the King excommunicated by the Pope

Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy, died on this day in 1878 in Rome.  He was buried in a tomb in the Pantheon in Rome and was succeeded by his son, who became Umberto I, King of Italy.  Victor Emmanuel II was allowed to be buried in the Pantheon by Pope Pius IX, even though he had previously excommunicated him from the Catholic Church.  Before becoming King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, as King of Sardinia-Piedmont, had secretly encouraged Garibaldi in the conquest of Sicily and Naples. He had then led his Piedmontese army into papal territory to link up with Garibaldi, despite the threat of excommunication.  In his quest to become King of a fully united Italy, Victor Emmanuel achieved two notable military triumphs. He managed to acquire the Veneto after linking up with Bismark’s Prussia in a military campaign in 1866. Also, after the withdrawal of the French occupying troops, his soldiers were able to enter Rome through a breach in the walls at Porta Pia and take over the city.  This had antagonised Pius IX so much that he refused all overtures from the new King, when he attempted a reconciliation.  Read more…

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Umberto I – King of Italy

Anarchists made three attempts on monarch’s life

King Umberto I ascended the throne of Italy on this day in 1878.  Known by the Italian people as Il Buono (the Good) he succeeded on the death of his father, Victor Emmanuel II.  Umberto had already won popular support because of the way he had conducted himself during his military career and as a result of his marriage to Margherita of Savoy and the subsequent birth of their son, who was to become King Victor Emmanuel III.  But he was to become increasingly unpopular during his reign because of his imperialist policies and his harsh ways of dealing with civil unrest.  Queen Margherita was particularly loved in Naples, where she visited schools and hospitals and organised collections of toys and clothes for the children of poor families. She was seen to hold the hands of cholera victims without wearing gloves and to join the ordinary women in their processions to the Duomo.  As a result, Pizza Margherita, with its tomatoes, basil and mozzarella representing the colours of the Italian flag, was created in Naples and named after her.  However, her popularity didn’t help Umberto, who was attacked by an anarchist in Naples during the first year of his reign.  Read more…

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Book of the Day:  Women and the Reinvention of the Political: Feminism in Italy, 1968-1983, by Maud Anne Bracke

Women and the Reinvention of the Political is the first in-depth study of the feminist movement that swept Italy from 1968 through to the early 1980s, and one of the first to use a combination of oral history interviews and fresh archive sources to analyze the origins, themes, practices and impacts of "second-wave" feminism. While detailing the local and national contexts in which the movement operated, it sees this movement as transnationally connected.  Emerging in a society that was both characterised by traditional gender roles, and a microcosm of radical political projects in the wake of 1968, the feminist movement was able to transform the lives of thousands of women, shape gender identities and roles, and provoke political and legislative change. More strongly mass-based and socially diverse than its counterparts in other Western countries at the time, its agenda encompassed questions of work, unpaid care-work, sexuality, health, reproductive rights, sexual violence, social justice, and self-expression.

Maud Anne Bracke is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Glasgow. She was educated in her native Belgium and in Italy.

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Franca Viola – rape survivor

Sicilian heroine achieved a change in the attitude towards rape in Italy

Franca Viola was kept
prisoner for eight days

Franca Viola, who survived a horrific kidnapping and a series of rapes and heroically resisted societal pressure to marry her attacker afterwards, was born on this day in 1948 in Alcamo in Sicily.

She became famous throughout Italy in the 1960s for refusing to undergo what was called a matrimonio riparatore - a rehabilitating marriage - to her rapist, which would have enabled her to be accepted in Sicilian society despite having lost her virginity while still unmarried.

Franca was born in the rural town of Alcamo and was the oldest daughter of a farmer and his wife. At the age of 15, Franca became engaged to Filippo Melodia, who was 23 and the nephew of a Mafia member. 

After Melodia was arrested for theft, Franca’s father insisted that she broke off the engagement with him and Melodia subsequently went to live in Germany.

Two years later, after Franca had become engaged to another man, Melodia returned to Alcamo and tried to get back into her life. He started stalking her and threatened her father, Bernardo, and her new fiancé.

In the early hours of Boxing Day in 1965, Melodia and a group of about 12 armed men broke into Franca’s family home and kidnapped her. They dragged her into a car after injuring her mother.  They also abducted her eight-year-old brother, Mariano, because he refused to let go of his sister.

Mariano was released a few hours later, but Franca was kept prisoner for eight days, during which she was raped many times. Melodia told her that she would now be forced to marry him so that she did not become a dishonoured woman in the eyes of the community, but she still refused him.

Pope Paul VI with Franca Viola
soon after she was married

Melodia eventually contacted Franca’s father to try to strike a deal with him. He wanted her father to agree to an arrangement that was sometimes made between two Sicilian families after a couple had eloped together. 

Franca’s father, Bernardo, pretended to negotiate with him, but all the while he was secretly collaborating with the Carabinieri, who were preparing an operation to rescue his daughter.

After Franca was freed and her kidnappers had been arrested, her father asked her if she wanted to marry Melodia. When she told him she did not want to marry him, her father said he would do everything he could to help her.

By refusing a so-called ‘rehabilitating marriage’, Franca was challenging what was common practice in Sicily at the time. If she remained unmarried, having lost her virginity, she would become ‘una donna svergognata’ - a shameless woman.

At the time, the Italian Penal Code regarded rape as a crime against public morality, rather than as a violent attack on a person. A rehabilitating marriage meant that a rapist’s crime was automatically expunged.

Viola pictured during a police
interrogation in Sicily

After Franca refused to marry her attacker, her family were threatened and persecuted by some of the local people and their vineyard and barn were set on fire.

The resulting trial attracted a lot of media and public attention. Melodia’s lawyers claimed Franca had consented to an elopement, rather than having been kidnapped in violent circumstances.

However, when the trial finished in 1966 Melodia was found guilty and sentenced to 11 years in prison. This sentence was later reduced to ten years, with a two-year period of compulsory residence in Modena imposed upon him. Some of his fellow gang members were acquitted and the rest received brief sentences.

Two years after Melodia was released from prison, he was killed in a Mafia-style execution before he could return to Sicily.

The article of Italian law that stipulated a rapist could vacate his crime by marrying his victim was not abolished until 1981, and sexual violence did not become a crime against the person instead of a crime against public morality in Italy until 1996. This was 30 years after Melodia was found guilty of raping Franca Viola.

In 1968, when Franca was nearly 21, she married Giuseppe Ruisi, an accountant, who she had known and liked since childhood. It is claimed he was threatened and that he had to request a firearms licence after applying for the marriage licence, to protect himself and his bride-to-be from harm.

Italian President Giuseppe Saragat sent the couple a wedding gift and Pope Paul VI received them in a private audience soon after their wedding. They went on to have three children together. 

Three films have been made based on Franca’s story and a book about her case was written by Sicilian author Beatrice Monroy. Franca is now 77 years old and still lives in Sicily.

The Basilica di Santa Maria
Assunta in Alcamo

Travel tip:

Alcamo, the birthplace of Franca Viola, is a town of almost 45,000 residents in the province of Trapani in Sicily, located about 50km (31 miles) north of the city of Trapani and the same distance from the capital of the island, Palermo. To the north of Alcamo is the Tyrrhenian Sea and to the west, the town of Castellammare del Golfo, a beautiful seaside town that has been used as a location in several films and was also featured in an episode in the Inspector Montalbano television series, entitled A Sense of Touch. Strategically important in both the Roman and Byzantine empires and an important Arab settlement, Alcamo has many historic buildings. These include the restored Castello Conti di Modica, which dates back to the 14th or 15th centuries and now houses a museum, and some good examples of Baroque architecture in the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta, which contains columns of red marble extracted from Monte Bonifato and frescoes and paintings by the Flemish artist Guglielmo Borremans, and the Chiesa dei Santissimi Paolo e Bartolomeo.

Trapani, now a popular tourist destination,
is notable for its curving harbour

Travel tip:

Trapani is a large city with ancient origins situated on the west coast of Sicily. Its Mediterranean climate of long summers and mild winters along with its nearby airport have made it an attractive destination for tourists. It has some beautiful historic buildings, including the Basilica and Sanctuary of Maria Santissima Annunziata. The city has a big fishing industry and produces its own pesto, a sauce made alla trapanese - using Sicilian almonds instead of pine nuts. The port is notable for a curving harbour, where Peter of Aragon landed in 1282 to begin the Spanish occupation of Sicily.  Well-placed strategically to trade with Africa as well as the Italian mainland, Trapani was once the hub of a commercial network that stretched from Carthage in what is now Tunisia to Venice. Nowadays, the port is used by ferries serving Tunisia and the smaller islands, as well as other Italian ports.  

Also on this day:

1324: The death of explorer Marco Polo

1878: The death of Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy

1878: Umberto I succeeds Victor Emmanuel II

1944: The birth of architect Massimiliano Fuksas

2004: The death of political philosopher Norberto Bobbio

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