NEW - Ottavio Bottecchia - cycling champion
First Italian to win the Tour de France
Ottavio Bottechia, who was the first of the seven Italian riders so far to have won the classic Tour de France cycle race, was born on this day in 1894 in San Martino di Colle Umberto, a village in the province of Treviso about 50km (31 miles) north of Venice. Bottechia, who took up cycling as a sport only after serving with a cycle battalion of the Bersaglieri Corps, an elite, highly-mobile infantry force deployed by the Royal Italian Army in World War One, won the Tours de France of both 1924 and 1925. Such was his dominance of both those races that he achieved the distinction - unique at the time - of wearing the leader’s yellow jersey for all 15 stages in 1924, a feat he almost repeated the following year, when he held the lead for 13 stages. His successes brought him fame and financial reward yet his life began in hardship. Read more…
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Paolo De Poli – enameller and painter
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Artist devoted his life to an ancient technique
A painter who became fascinated with the ancient art of enamelling, Paolo De Poli was born on this day in 1905 in Padua. At first De Poli experimented with enamelling small, decorative objects but after he mastered his craft he moved on to creating large panels for the interiors of ships, hotels and public buildings. De Poli trained in drawing and embossing on metal at the art school Pietro Selvatico of Padua and then studied oil painting in Verona. He embarked on a career as a portrait and landscape painter. In 1926 he participated for the first time in the Biennale di Venezia with the oil painting Still Life. While travelling in the 1930s he visited art museums and archaeological sites and became interested in the traditional art of working with vitreous enamel. From 1933 onwards, he devoted himself to creating enamel works on metal. Read more…
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Kaspar Capparoni - actor
Found fame co-starring with crime-fighting dog
The actor Kaspar Capparoni, an accomplished performer on stage and screen whose fame received its biggest boost after he starred alongside a German Shepherd dog in the TV crime series Il Commissario Rex, was born in Rome on this day in 1964. Capparoni played the part of Commissioner Lorenzo Fabbri, a homicide detective who is accompanied in his work by a talented police dog known as Rex, whose ever-growing range of skills are often key to solving the crimes Fabbri is charged with investigating. Il Commissario Rex, which was screened by Italian national broadcaster Rai between 2008 and 2015, revived a show previously shown on TV in Austria but which had ceased production in 2004 after 11 years. Capparoni portrayed Commissioner Fabbri for four seasons, working alongside two German Shepherds in the Rex role. Read more…
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Cosimo de' Medici
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Banker who founded the Medici dynasty
The first of the Medici rulers of Florence, Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici, died on this day in 1464 in Careggi in Tuscany. Cosimo had political influence and power because of the wealth he had acquired as a banker and he is also remembered as a patron of learning, the arts and architecture. Cosimo, who is sometimes referred to as Cosimo the Elder (il Vecchio) was born into a wealthy family in Florence in 1389. His father was a moneylender who then joined the bank of a relative before opening up his own bank in 1397. The Medici Bank opened branches in Rome, Geneva, Venice and Naples and the Rome branch managed the papal finances in return for a commission. The bank later opened branches in London, Pisa, Avignon, Bruges, Milan and Lubeck, which meant that bishoprics could pay their money into their nearest branch for the Pope to use. Read more…
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Antonio Cotogni – baritone
Singer who moved the composer Verdi to tears
Antonio ‘Toto’ Cotogni, who achieved international recognition as one of the greatest male opera singers of the 19th century, was born on this day in 1831 in Rome. Cotogni’s fine baritone voice was particularly admired by the composer Giuseppe Verdi and music journalists wrote reviews full of superlatives after his performances. Cotogni studied music theory and singing from an early age and began singing in churches and at summer music festivals outside the city. He made his opera debut in 1852 at Rome’s Teatro Metastasio as Belcore in Gaetano Donizetti's L’elisir d’amore. After that he did not sing in public for a while, concentrating instead on building up his repertoire. After singing in various Italian cities outside Rome he was signed up to sing at Rome’s Teatro Argentina in 1857 in Lucia di Lammermoor and Gemma di Vergy, also by Donizetti. Read more…
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Francesca Scanagatta - soldier
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Woman pretended to be a man to join Austrian army
Francesca Scanagatta, an Italian woman who served in the Imperial Austrian army for seven years while pretending to be a man, was born on this day in 1776 in Milan. Scanagatta – sometimes known as Franziska – was a small and apparently rather plain girl, who was brought up in Milan while the city was under Austrian rule. She admired the Austrian soldiers to the extent of wishing she could join the army, yet knew that as a girl she would not be allowed to. Even so, it did not stop her dreaming and throughout her childhood and teenage years she worked on becoming physically stronger through exercise while reading as much literature as she could about the army. By contrast, her brother Giacomo hated the idea of joining up. He was rather effeminate in nature and the very thought of becoming a soldier filled him with dread. Read more…
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The Arab conquest of Sicily
Fall of Taormina put island in Muslim control
The Arab conquest of Sicily, which began in 827, was completed on this day in 902 with the fall of Taormina, the city in the northeast of the island that was the last stronghold of the Byzantine Empire, which had been in control for more than 350 years. The island had been coveted by powers around the Mediterranean for centuries and raids by Saracens, as the Muslim Arabs from Roman Arabia became known, had been taking place since the mid-7th century without threatening to make substantial territorial gains. However, in 827 the commander of the island's fleet, Euphemius, led a revolt against Michael II, the Byzantine Emperor, and when he and his supporters were at first driven from the island by forces loyal to Michael II, he turned to the Aghlabids, the rulers of Ifriqiya, the area of north Africa now known as Tunisia, for help. Read more…
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Book of the Day: The Official History of the Tour de France (2025): Revised and Updated, by Luke Edwardes-Evans, Serge Laget and Andy McGrath
Luke Edwardes-Evans is a freelance writer who regularly contributes articles to Cycling Weekly. He is the author of The Official Tour de France Bike Maintenance Book and co-author (with Serge Laget) of The Official Treasures of the Tour de France. Andy McGrath is a staff writer for Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport magazines.
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