23 May

NEW - Ancona comes under attack as Italy enters World War I

The day the capital of Le Marche was bombarded from the sea

The port city of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea became an immediate target for naval ships deployed by Austria-Hungary on this day in 1915, after Italy entered World War I.  The Austrian fleet were quick to react after Italy declared that it was joining the war on the side of the Allies, having initially remained neutral.  Destroyers immediately set sail from their base in Pola - modern-day Pula in Croatia - heading towards Ancona to attack both military and civilian targets under the cover of darkness.  The rest of the Austrian fleet set off to join in the bombardment the following day and the enemy ships attacked several other coastal cities in the province of Ancona, destroying a train and a railway station while they were firing on Senigallia.  Two destroyers and a torpedo boat bombarded Ancona’s harbour for about an hour and 15 minutes. Read more…

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Sergio Gonella - football referee

First Italian to referee a World Cup final

Sergio Gonella, the first Italian football referee to take charge of a World Cup final, was born on this day in 1933 in Asti, a city in Piedmont best known for its wine production.  Gonella was appointed to officiate in the 1978 final between the Netherlands and the hosts Argentina in Buenos Aires and although he was criticised by many journalists and football historians for what they perceived as a weak performance lacking authority, few matches in the history of the competition can have presented a tougher challenge.  Against a backcloth of political turmoil in a country that had suffered a military coup only two years earlier and where opponents of the regime were routinely kidnapped and tortured, or simply disappeared, this was Argentina’s chance to build prestige by winning the biggest sporting event in the world, outside the Olympics.  Read more…

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Girolamo Savonarola executed

Death of the friar who was to inspire best-selling novel by Tom Wolfe

The hellfire preacher Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and burned on this day in 1498 in Piazza della Signoria in Florence.  By sheer force of personality, Savonarola had convinced rich people to burn their worldly goods in spectacular bonfires in Florence during 1497, but within a year it was Savonarola’s burning corpse that the crowds turned out to see.  Savonarola had become famous for his outspoken sermons against vice and corruption in the Catholic Church in Italy and he encouraged wealthy people to burn their valuable goods, paintings and books in what have become known as ‘bonfires of the vanities.’  This phrase inspired the author Tom Wolfe to write The Bonfire of the Vanities, a novel about ambition and politics in 1980s New York.  Savonarola was born in 1452 in Ferrara. He became a Dominican friar and entered the convent of Saint Mark in Florence in 1482. Read more…

Ferdinando II de’ Medici – Grand Duke of Tuscany

Technology fan who supported scientist Galileo

Inventor and patron of science Ferdinando II de’ Medici died on this day in 1670 in Florence.  Like his grandmother, the dowager Grand Duchess Christina, Ferdinando II was a loyal friend to Galileo and he welcomed the scientist back to Florence after the prison sentence imposed on him for ‘vehement suspicion of heresy’ was commuted to house arrest.  Ferdinando II was reputed to be obsessed with new technology and had hygrometers, barometers, thermometers and telescopes installed at his home in the Pitti Palace.  He has also been credited with the invention of the sealed glass thermometer in 1654.  Ferdinando II was born in 1610, the eldest son of Cosimo II de’ Medici and Maria Maddalena of Austria.  He became Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1621 when he was just 10 years old after the death of his father.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Parini – writer

Satirist avenged bad treatment though his poetry

Poet and satirist Giuseppe Parini was born on this day in 1729 in Bosisio in Lombardy.  A writer associated with the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, he is remembered for his series of Horatian odes and for Il giorno - The Day - a satirical poem in four books about the selfishness and superficiality of the aristocracy in Milan.  The son of a silk trader, Parini was sent to Milan to study under the religious order, the Barnabites. In 1752 his first volume of verse introduced him to literary circles and the following year he joined the Milanese Accademia dei Trasformati - Academy of the Transformed - which was located at the Palazzo Imbonati in the Porta Nuova district.  He was ordained a priest in 1754 - a condition of a legacy made to him by a great aunt - and entered the household of Duke Gabrio Serbelloni at Tremezzo on Lake Como to be tutor to his eldest son.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italy: Umbria & The Marche (Bradt Travel Guides), by Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls

Bradt's Umbria & the Marche is the most detailed guide to combine these two small central Italian regions, which offer all the beauty, history and culture of neighbouring Tuscany only without the crowds, the traffic or eye-popping prices.  Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls, authors of the original Cadogan guide to the area, lived in Umbria in the 1980s and have been returning regularly and writing about it ever since. They are the perfect guides to the region's landscapes, hill towns, food and wine, and art and architecture.  The superb art cities of Umbria and Le Marche steal the limelight - Perugia, Orvieto, Urbino, Loreto, Todi, where art fills every church and palazzo. There is a dedicated chapter on Assisi, the rose-tinted pilgrim destination, and Spoleto, medieval capital of the Lombards and home of the famous arts festival. But never far from these centres wait unspoiled countryside of rolling olive groves, forests and meadows, long walks and towns and tiny villages, nearly all with a masterpiece or two to show off and a great little family-run restaurant.  The Bradt guide covers them all, along with the republic of San Marino. Le Marche's geography is dominated by a series of east-west river valleys - the Metauro, Esino, and Tronto etc - twisting down to Adriatic and often ending in long sandy beaches, from the historic towns of Senigallia and Fano through Ancona's Cornero Riviera to the Riviera delle Palme at San Benedetto del Tronto. Landlocked Umbria, where rivers flow into the mighty Tiber, has exceptional water features as well: Italy's fourth largest lake, Trasimeno; the Tiber Valley; Clitunno springs; and Italy's most beautiful waterfall, the Cascata delle Marmore.  Featuring superb photography and expert recommendations, Umbria & the Marche is a timely guide to a more authentic corner of Italy.

Long-time travel authors Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls have been tramping over Italy for decades with notebook in hand, in an unending search for the next double espresso. The two spent years living in a tiny village in the Apennines with their small children, and since then they have written over 20 regional and city guides covering every corner of Italy.

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