9 January

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.  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.  Read more…

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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.  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 Zenith Music Hall in Strasbourg, the Italian Space Agency headquarters in Rome and the FieraMilano Trade Fair complex on the outskirts of Milan. 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. 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. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu, by Laurence Bergreen

In September 1298, the rival Italian republics of Genoa and Venice fought a fierce sea battle at Curzola off the rocky coast of southern Dalmatia. Against the odds the Venetians, led by Admiral Andrea Dandolo, son of the Doge, were defeated. Among the thousands of Venetians captives was one Marco Polo, gentleman, merchant of Venice, and sometime traveller to East Asia. Incarcerated in a Ligurian fastness, he told his story to a fellow-prisoner, a writer of romances named Rustichello of Pisa. The account of his travels that Marco Polo dictated to Rustichello in captivity - Il Milione - would be exceptionally widely read and would stimulate European interest in the East and its riches. Marco Polo: from Venice to Xanadu is Laurence Bergreen's thrilling and masterly reconstruction of the life and wanderings of one the great adventurers of world history. Between 1271 and 1275 Marco Polo accompanied his father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo on a journey east from Acre into central Asia along the Silk Route, eventually reaching China and the court of the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, Kublai Khan. Entering the service of the Khan, he travelled extensively in the Mongol Empire. The three Venetians returned home by sea in 1292-5, calling at Sumatra and southern India before reaching Persia, and making the last part of their journey to Venice overland. Three years later came that fateful encounter with the Genoese fleet in the Adriatic...

Laurence Bergreen was born in New York City and educated at Harvard University. Now a prize-winning nonfiction writer, his books include Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe and Voyage to Mars: NASA's Search for Life Beyond Earth.

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