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NEW - Giorgia - singer-songwriter
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Sanremo victory first of multiple successes
The popular singer-songwriter Giorgia Todrani, who performs simply as ‘Giorgia’, was born on this day in 1971 in the Monteverde Vecchio neighbourhood of Rome. Giorgia, whose vocal ability has seen her compared to the American superstar singer Whitney Houston, rocketed to fame after winning the prestigious Sanremo Music Festival in 1995, less than a year into her recording career. She has since sold more than 25 million records worldwide. Of her 12 studio albums, five have reached No 1 in the Italian charts, as did a greatest hits compilation released in 2002. Giorgia has also topped the Italian singles chart on five occasions. Her 1995 Sanremo winner, Come saprei - How would I know? - which she co-wrote with three others, including the best-selling Italian male star, Eros Ramazzotti, was the first entry to win both the main competition and the critics’ award at the annual festival. Read more…
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Gian Paolo Lomazzo - artist
Painter became leading art historian and critic of the 16th century
Gian Paolo Lomazzo, a talented painter who went blind when he was 33 and turned to writing instead, was born on this day in Milan in 1538. He became an expert on the work of Leonardo da Vinci and was given unique access to the artist’s own written work. Lomazzo, whose first name is sometimes given as Giovan or Giovanni, was born into a family who had just moved to Milan from the town of Lomazzo in the province of Como in Lombardy. He began training as a painter early in his life with the artists Gaudenzio Ferrari and Giovan Battista della Cerva in Milan. By 1567 Lomazzo had painted a large Allegory of the Lenten Feast for the Church of Sant’ Agostino in Piacenza. Other notable works by him include an elaborate fresco of a dome with Glory of Angels and a painting depicting The Fall of Simon Magus for the Cappella Foppa in the Church of San Marco in Milan. Read more…
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Michele Ferrero - the man who invented Nutella
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Hazelnut spread that became a worldwide favourite
The man who invented the global commercial phenomenon that is Nutella spread was born on this day in 1925. Michele Ferrero, who died in 2015 aged 89, owned the Italian chocolate manufacturer Ferrero SpA, the second largest confectionery producer in Europe after Nestlé. He was the richest individual in Italy, listed by the Bloomberg Billionaires index in 2014 as the 20th richest person in the world. The wealth of Michele and his family was put at $20.4 billion, around 14.9 billion euros. Ferrero is famous for such brands as Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri, Kinder and Tic Tacs. But, it could be argued, none of those names would probably exist had it not been for Nutella. The chocolate and hazelnut spread came into being after Michele, who was born in the small town of Dogliani in Piedmont, inherited the Ferrero company from his father, Pietro. Read more…
Maria de’ Medici
Medici daughter who ended up ruling France
Maria de’ Medici, who became Queen of France after her marriage to King Henri IV, was born on this day in 1575 at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. After her husband was assassinated the day after his coronation, she ruled France as regent for her son, Louis, until he came of age. Maria was the daughter of the grand duke of Tuscany, Francesco de’ Medici, and his wife, Joanna of Austria. Henri had divorced his wife, Margaret, and married Maria in 1600 to obtain a large dowry that would help him pay his debts. In 1601 Maria gave birth to a son, the future King Louis XIII, and then went on to bear a further five children for her husband. However she resented her husband’s infidelities and he despised her friends from Florence, Concino Concini and his wife, Leonora. After Henri was assassinated in 1610, the French parliament proclaimed Maria regent for her young son. Read more…
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Samantha Cristoforetti - astronaut
Record-breaker spent almost 200 days in space
Italy’s first female astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, was born on this day in 1977 in Milan. A captain in the Italian Air Force, in which she is a pilot and engineer, Cristoforetti holds the world record for the longest space flight by a woman, which she set as a crew member on the European Space Agency’s Futura mission to the International Space Station in 2014. Cristoforetti and her two fellow astronauts, the Russian Anton Shkaplerov and the American Terry Virts, left Kazakhstan in a Soyuz spacecraft on November 23, 2014 and returned on June 11, 2015, having spent 199 days and 16 hours in space – four days longer than the previous record for a female astronaut, held by the American NASA astronaut Sunita Williams. The mission was supposed to have ended a month earlier but had to be extended after a Russian supply freighter failed to reach the ISS. Read more…
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Tommaso Allan - rugby player
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Ex-Treviso star has won 80 international caps
The rugby player Tommaso Allan, who has won 80 international caps for the Italy rugby union team since his debut in 2013, was born on this day in 1993 in Vicenza. A specialist fly-half, Allan is second in the all-time points scoring chart for the Azzurri, having amassed a total of 501 points, including 15 tries and 89 conversions. Only Diego Dominguez, who also played at fly-half before retiring in 2003, scored more points for the national team in his career. Currently playing for Perpignan in France, Allan spent five seasons playing for Benetton Treviso, one of Italy’s most famous and successful clubs. Allan was born into a rugby-playing family. His mother, Paola Berlato, was herself an international player, with four caps for the Azzurre at scrum half; his father, William, born in Scotland, spent two years playing for the rugby team of Thiene, a small city in Vicenza province. Read more…
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Book of the Day: Made in Italy: Studies in Popular Music, edited by Franco Fabbri and Goffredo Plastino
Franco Fabbri is professor of popular music, and of techniques and cultures of sound and music, at the University of Torino in Italy. He has published widely and in many languages on subjects such as pop music, genre theory and music in the digital age. Goffredo Plastino is reader in ethnomusicology at Newcastle University in the UK. He has co-edited multiple volumes on popular music and has published in several languages on folk music, jazz, and organology.
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