31 August

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo – aristocrat and businessman

Former driver who led Ferrari to Formula One success

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, a former racing driver, former chairman of Ferrari and Fiat and president of employers’ federation Confindustria, was born on this day in 1947 in Bologna.  He is one of the founders of NTV, an Italian company that is Europe’s first private, open access operator of 300km/h (186 mph) high-speed trains.  He retains an interest in motor sport as a director of McLaren Group Holdings Ltd. Montezemolo is a descendant of an aristocratic family from Piedmont, who served the Royal House of Savoy for generations. He is the youngest son of Massimo Cordero dei Marchesi di Montezemolo and Clotilde Neri, niece of the surgeon, Vincenzo Neri. His uncle was a commander in the Italian Navy in World War II and his grandfather and great grandfather were both Generals in the Italian Army.  He obtained a degree in law from Rome Sapienza University in 1971. Read more…

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Amilcare Ponchielli - opera composer

Success of La Gioconda put musician on map

The opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli was born on this day in 1834 in Paderno Fasolaro, near Cremona, about 100km south-east of Milan in what is now Lombardia.  Ponchielli's works in general enjoyed only modest success, despite the rich musical invention for which he was later applauded.  One that did win acclaim in his lifetime, however, was La Gioconda, which was first produced in 1876 and underwent several revisions but remained unaltered after 1880.  Well known for the tenor aria, Cielo e mar, and the ballet piece, Dance of the Hours, La Gioconda is the only opera by Ponchielli still performed today and many recordings have been made, featuring some of the biggest stars of recent times.  Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi and Montserrat Caballé are among those to have played the role of Gioconda, written for soprano. Read more…

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Altiero Spinelli - political visionary

Drafted plan for European Union while in Fascist jail

Altiero Spinelli, a politician who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the European Union, was born on this day in 1907 in Rome.  A lifelong communist who was jailed for his opposition to the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, he spent much of the Second World War in confinement on the island of Ventotene in the Tyrrhenian Sea, one of an archipelago known as the Pontine Islands.  It was there that he and two prisoners, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni, agreed that if the forces of fascism in Italy and Germany were defeated, the only way to avoid future European wars was for the sovereign nations of the continent to join together in a federation.  The document they drew up, which became known as the Ventotene Manifesto, was the first document to argue for a European constitution and formed the basis for the Movimento Federalista Europeo, which Spinelli, Rossi and some 20 others launched at a secret meeting in Milan.  Read more…

Gino Lucetti – failed assassin

Anarchist tried to kill Mussolini with grenade

Gino Lucetti, who acquired notoriety for attempting to assassinate Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in Rome in 1926, was born on this day in 1900. A lifelong anarchist, part of a collective of like-minded young men and women from Carrara in Tuscany, he planned to kill Mussolini on the basis that doing so would save the lives of thousands of potential future victims of the National Fascist Party  regime.  Lucetti hatched his plot while in exile in France, where he had fled after taking a fascist bullet in the neck following an argument in a bar in Milan, clandestinely returning several times to Carrara to finalise the details.  After enlisting the help of other anarchists, notably Steffano Vatteroni, who worked as a tinsmith in Rome, and Leandro Sorio, a waiter originally from Brescia, he returned to Rome to carry out the attack.  Read more…

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Isabella de’ Medici – noblewoman

Tuscan beauty killed by her husband

Isabella Romola de’ Medici, the daughter of the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, was born on this day in 1542 in Florence.  She was said to have been beautiful, charming, educated and talented and was the favourite child of her father, Cosimo I de’ Medici.  But she died at the age of 33, believed to have been murdered by the husband her family had chosen for her to marry.  While Isabella was growing up she lived first in Palazzo Vecchio and later in Palazzo Pitti in Florence with her brothers and sisters. Her brother, Francesco, who was a year older than her, eventually succeeded his father as Grand Duke of Tuscany.  The Medici children were educated by tutors in classics, languages and the arts and Isabella particularly loved music.  When Isabella was 11 she was betrothed to 12-year-old Paolo Giordano Orsini, heir to the Duchy of Bracciano. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Ferrari: The Golden Years: Enlarged, multilingual edition, by Leonardo Acerbi

Ferrari's sporting history, from the origins to 1988, the year of Enzo Ferrari's death, is narrated in 400 pages and more than 700 photos, most of which previously unpublished and drawn from the publisher's own archive. More than a book, this is a unique and prestigious document that reviews year by year, from 1947 to 1988, the true sporting epic of Ferrari's Ferrari. Page by page, we find champions of the calibre of Tazio Nuvolari, Alberto Ascari, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, Gilles Villeneuve and many others, who in Formula 1 and elsewhere won world titles at the wheel of unforgettable cars such as the 500 F2, the 158 F1, the Testa Rossa, the 250 GTO, the 330 P4 and the successful 312 T family, from the 1950s through to the late 1980s. This new enlarged edition includes not only champion drivers, but also the men and the mechanics who lived in close contact with the "Drake". They are described in specific text boxes: from Romolo Tavoni to Mauro Forghieri, from Franco Gozzi to Marco Piccinini, from Ermanno Cuoghi to Giulio Borsari. All accompanied by contextual texts by Leonardo Acerbi, a Ferrari historian of great experience. Ferrari: The Golden Years contains a unique collection of images, many in black and white but also a series of very rare colour shots, the majority by Franco Villani, a great reporter long associated with the Prancing Horse. An album allowing us to relive one of the greatest sporting stories of all time.

Leonardo Acerbi is a motoring journalist and publisher, a historian of Ferrari and of the Mille Miglia race. He is author of Ferrari: 60 years, Ferrari: All the Cars - a Complete Guide, and Mille Miglia Story 1927-1957. He is editorial director of Giorgio Nada Editore.

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30 August

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo – painter and printmaker

Famous artist’s son developed his own style

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, who became famous for his paintings of Venetian life and of the clown, Pulcinella, was born on this day in 1727 in Venice.  Also known as Giandomenico Tiepolo, he was one of the nine children born to the artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his wife, Maria Guardi, the sister of painters Francesco and Giovanni Guardi. Perhaps not surprisingly, Giandomenico inherited the talent to go into the same profession as his father and uncles and, by the age of 13, he had become the elder Tiepolo’s chief assistant. His younger brother, Lorenzo, also became a painter and worked as an assistant to his father.  By the age of 20, Giandomenico was already producing his own work for commissions. However, he continued to accompany his father when he received his major commissions in Italy, Germany and Spain.  Read more…

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Emanuele Filiberto – Duke of Savoy

Ruler who made Turin the capital of Savoy

Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, who was nicknamed testa di ferro (iron head) because of his military prowess, died on this day in 1580 in Turin.  After becoming Duke of Savoy he recovered most of the lands his father Charles III had lost to France and Spain and he restored economic stability to Savoy.  Emanuele Filiberto was born in 1528 in Chambery, now part of France. He grew up to become a skilled soldier and served in the army of the emperor Charles V, who was the brother-in-law of his mother, Beatrice of Portugal, during his war against Francis I of France. He distinguished himself by capturing Hesdin in northern France in July 1553.  When he succeeded his father a month later he began the reacquisition of his lands.  His brilliant victory over the French at Saint Quentin in northern France in 1557 on the side of the Spanish helped to consolidate his power in Savoy. Read more…

Joe Petrosino - New York crime fighter

Campanian immigrant a key figure in war against Mafia

Joe Petrosino, a New York police officer who dedicated his life to fighting organised crime, was born Giuseppe Petrosino in Padula, a southern Italian town on the border of Campania and Basilicata, on this day in 1860.  The son of a tailor, Prospero Petrosino, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 12.  The family lived in subsidised accommodation in Mulberry Street, part of the area now known as Little Italy on the Lower East Side towards Brooklyn Bridge, where around half a million Italian immigrants lived in the second half of the 19th century.  Giuseppe took any job he could to help the family, at first as a newspaper boy and then shining shoes outside the police headquarters on Mulberry Street, where he would dream of becoming a police officer himself.  In 1878, by then fluent in English and known to everyone as Joe, Petrosino became an American citizen. Read more…

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Andrea Gabrieli - composer

Father of the Venetian School

The Venetian composer and organist Andrea Gabrieli, sometimes known as Andrea di Cannaregio, notable for his madrigals and large-scale choral works written for public ceremonies, died on this day in 1585.  His nephew, Giovanni Gabrieli, is more widely remembered yet Andrea, who was organist of the Basilica di San Marco – St Mark’s – for the last 19 years of his life, was a significant figure in his lifetime, the first member of the Venetian School of composers to achieve international renown. He was influential in spreading the Venetian style of music in Germany as well as in Italy.  Little is known about Andrea’s early life aside from the probability that he was born in the parish of San Geremia in Cannaregio and that he may have been a pupil of the Franco-Flemish composer Adrian Willaert, who was maestro di cappella at St Mark’s from 1527 until 1562.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Tiepolo (Masters of Art), by William L Barcham

Tiepolo, part of a Masters of Art series, traces Giambattista Tiepolo's life and career from his early training and first exhibitions in his native Venice through his major regional projects in northern Italy, international commissions in Germany and France, and final years working for the King of Spain in Madrid. It explores the full scope of his artistic production, including his light-filled, airy ceiling frescoes, altarpieces, religious compositions, cabinet paintings  and portraits. It details how Tiepolo worked for diverse patrons, including princes, religious orders, churches, and private nobility across Europe. The book features numerous colour illustrations and plates paired with analytical commentary discussing his unique Rococo style, brilliant palette, theatrical perspectives, and mastery of monumental decoration.  The author highlights the role of Tiepolo’s son, Giandomenico as his chief assistant and most important collaborator and covers their pivotal travel to the Würzburg Residenz in Germany (1750–1753), where Giandomenico worked alongside his father to execute the massive, world-renowned staircase and Kaisersaal frescoes. It notes that Giandomenico accompanied his father to Spain in the final years of his career to help complete the grand allegorical ceilings for the Royal Palace, such as the Apotheosis of Spain.

William L Barcham is an American author and art historian. He is Professor Emeritus of Art History at the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York.

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29 August

Libero Grassi - anti-Mafia hero

Businessman brutally murdered after refusing to pay

Libero Grassi, a Palermo clothing manufacturer, died on this day in 1991, shot three times in the head as he walked from his home to his car in Via Vittorio Alfieri, a street of apartment buildings not far from the historic centre, at 7.30am.  It was a classic Mafia hit to which there were no witnesses, at least none prepared to come forward. Such killings were not uncommon in the Sicilian capital as rival clans fought for control of different neighbourhoods.  Yet this one was different in that 67-year-old Grassi had no connection with the criminal underworld apart from his brave decision to stand up to their demands for protection money and refuse to pay.  Grassi owned a factory making underwear, which he sold in his own shop.  He employed 100 workers and his business had a healthy turnover. In a struggling economy, he was doing very well.  Read more…

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Leonardo De Lorenzo – flautist

Flair for the flute led to international career

Leonardo De Lorenzo, a brilliant flute player who passed on his knowledge of the instrument to others through his books, was born on this day in 1875 in Viggiano in the province of Potenza.  De Lorenzo started playing the flute at the age of eight and then moved to Naples to attend the music conservatory of San Pietro a Majella.  He became an itinerant flautist until he was 16, when he moved to America, where he worked in a hotel. He returned to Italy in 1896 to do his military service in Alessandria and became a member of a military band directed by Giovanni Moranzoni, whose son was to become a famous conductor of the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  De Lorenzo then began a career as a flautist and toured Italy, Germany, England and South Africa, joining an orchestra in Cape Town for a while. Read more…

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Lucia Valentini Terrani - opera singer

Colatura mezzo-soprano noted for velvety softness of agile voice

The opera singer Lucia Valentini Terrani, who became one of Italy’s most captivating mezzo-sopranos, blessed with an agile, velvety voice and magnetic stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 in Padua, in the Veneto region.  Equally at home in contralto roles, she was among the most notable interpreters of the 18th and 19th century bel canto repertoire and was a major influence on the way the Gaetano Rossini repertoire evolved over the last three decades of the 20th century.  After her debut in 1969 and breakthrough in 1973, Valentini Terrani sang at most of the world’s major opera houses, in South America and Russia as well as Europe and the United States.  Little is known about her early life in Padua before she attended the city’s Cesare Pollini Music Conservatory. From there she moved on to the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice. Read more…

Ugo Nespolo - artist and designer

Painter and sculptor worked in theatre, advertising and literature

The contemporary artist Ugo Nespolo, whose broad range of work includes paintings and sculpture, theatre sets and costumes, advertising posters, book layouts, commercial designs and experimental films, was born on this day in 1941 in the village of Mosso Santa Maria in the Biellese Prealps, about 70km (43 miles) northeast of Turin. As well as an enormous output of artworks influenced by Pop Art, conceptual art and Arte Povera among others and numerous sculptures in glass and ceramic, Nespolo created unique set and costume designs for major opera and theatre productions and was associated with several prestigious advertising campaigns, including for the drinks manufacturer Campari and the chocolatier Caffarel.  Nespolo is described as having an insatiable artistic and intellectual appetite. Read more…

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Tiziana ‘Tosca’ Donati - singer

Versatile performer whose range spans musicals to sacred songs

The singer Tiziana Donati, who performs under the stage name Tosca, was born on this day in 1967 in Rome.  Winner of the Sanremo Festival in 1996, at the time of writing, Tosca has recorded 10 studio albums, released a similar number of singles and has recorded duets with many other artists.  She has enjoyed a successful stage career, appearing in numerous theatrical productions, and has been invited to perform songs for several movies, including the title track for Franco Zeffirelli’s version of Jane Eyre in 1996. She also sang and spoke the part of Anastasia in the Italian dubbed version of the Disney cartoon of the same name.  At Christmas in 1999, she participated in concerts in churches in Italy where she performed Latin songs set to music. Following this she began a collaboration with the Vatican, taking part in several televised events to commemorate the Jubilee of 2000. Read more…

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Book of the Day:  Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, by Alexander Stille

Excellent Cadavers (a term used in Sicily to distinguish the assassination of prominent government officials from the hundreds of common criminals killed in the course of routine mafia business) tells of the remarkable investigation spearheaded by Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the two Sicilian prosecutors who in the 1980s took the war against the Mafia further than anyone had ever dared.  In 1992, aware that the two magistrates were without the complete support of the Italian government, the Mafia assassinated them. In death they were hailed as national heroes; the massive public outcry demanded their investigations be completed. The outcome: the toppling of crucial alliances that had forged political rule in Italy since WWII and the criminal indictment of Italy's most prominent leaders. Stille’s book features a dedicated account of Libero Grassi's stand against the Sicilian Mafia, his public refusal to pay pizzo, and his murder.

Alexander Stille is the San Paolo Professor of International Journalism at Columbia University, New York. His first book, Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism, was chosen by the Time Literary Supplement as one of the best books of 1992, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. He is also the author of The Future of the Past and The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi. 

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28 August

NEW - Marie Mancini – Princess of Paliano 

Dark Italian beauty won the heart of King Louis XIV

Marie Mancini, an aristocratic Italian woman who once had a love affair with French King Louis XIV, was born on this day in 1639 in Rome.  Anna Maria ‘Marie’ Mancini was the third of five sisters, who were all taken to live in France. They were the nieces of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who was Chief Minister to both Louis XIII and Louis XIV.  Marie grew up in Rome until she was 11 years old, when her father, Baron Lorenzo Mancini, died. Along with her sisters, Marie was taken to Paris by her widowed mother, Geronima, in the hope that Cardinal Mazarin would use his influence to help them all marry advantageously.  Two of Marie’s cousins, who were the daughters of Mazarin’s eldest sister, were also taken to France for the same purpose, and the seven girls were all known at the French court as ‘the Mazarinettes’.  Although Marie was christened Anna Maria, she became known in France as Marie and was said to have grown up as ‘dark, vivacious and beautiful’.  Read more…

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Maurizio Costanzo - talk show host

Journalist whose show was the longest running on Italian TV

Talk show host and writer Maurizio Costanzo was born on this day in 1938 in Rome. Costanzo spent more than 40 years in television.  His eponymous programme, the Maurizio Costanzo Show, broke all records for longevity in Italian television.  Launched on September 18, 1982, the current affairs programme continued for 27 years, alternating between Rete 4 and Canale 5, two of Italy's commercial television networks, part of the Mediaset group owned by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.  Its run came to an end in 2009 but was relaunched on the satellite channel Mediaset Extra in 2014 and returned to terrestrial television in 2015, again on Rete 4.  Costanzo began his media career in print journalism with the Rome newspaper Paese Sera at just 18 years old and by the time he was 22 he was in charge of the Rome office of the mass circulation magazine Grazia. Read more…

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Ugo Mulas - photographer

Images of street life in Milan and of New York art scene won acclaim

The photographer Ugo Mulas, much admired for the way he captured the street atmosphere of post-War Milan and for his portrayals of Andy Warhol and others in the Bohemian New York art scene of the 1960s, was born on this day in 1928 in Pozzolengo, a small town near the southern tip of Lake Garda.  At one time part of Milan’s fashion community, another of Mulas’s claims to fame is having been the photographer who discovered Veruschka, a German aristocrat who became part of the supermodel generation of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton in the 60s.  Known for his meticulous approach to composition and lighting, and for the candid, spontaneous style of his work, illness denied Mulas a long life but he is widely seen as a pioneering figure in photography who had a profound impact on the art form.  Read more…

Lamberto Maggiorani - unlikely movie star

Factory worker who shot to fame in Bicycle Thieves

Lamberto Maggiorani, who found overnight fame after starring in the neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves (1948), was born on this day in 1909 in Rome.  Maggiorani was cast in the role of Antonio Ricci, a father desperate for work to support his family in post-War Rome, who is offered a job pasting posters to advertising hoardings but can take it only on condition that he has a bicycle – essential for moving around the city carrying his ladder and bucket.  He has one, but it has been pawned.  To retrieve it, his wife, Marie, strips the bed of her dowry sheets, which the pawn shop takes in exchange for the bicycle. They are happy, because Antonio has a job which will support her, their son Bruno and their new baby.  However, on his first day in the job the bicycle is stolen, snatched by a thief who waits for Antonio to climb to the top of his ladder before seizing his moment.  Read more…

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Elisabetta Sirani – artist

Sudden death of talented young woman shocked Bologna

The brilliant Baroque painter and printmaker Elisabetta Sirani died in unexplained circumstances at the age of 27 on this day in 1665 in Bologna. The body of the artist was carried to the Chapel of the Rosary in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna to be mourned, not just by her family, but by an entire community as she was loved and respected as an important female painter.  Elisabetta has been described as beautiful, focused and selfless and she became a symbol of the progressive city of Bologna, where the creativity of women was encouraged and they were able to express themselves through art and music.  Elisabetta’s father, Giovanni Andrea Sirani, was himself an artist and she was trained in his studio, although contemporary writers have recorded that he was reluctant to teach her to paint in the Bolognese style. Read more…

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Giovanni Maria Benzoni - sculptor

Roman collectors called him the ‘new Canova’

The sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni, who earned such fame in Rome in the mid-19th century that collectors and arts patrons in the city dubbed him the “new Canova” after the great Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova, was born on this day in 1809 in Songavazzo, a small mountain village in northern Lombardy.  Benzoni sculpted many allegorical and mythological scenes, but also busts and funerary monuments.  Songavazzo being just outside Clusone in the province of Bergamo, Benzoni was regarded as a bergamasco - a native of that ancient city - even though he spent much of his life in Rome.  As such he was held in similar regard to bergamaschi celebrities such as the composer Gaetano Donizetti, the philologist Cardinal Angelo Mai and the painter Francesco Coghetti, all of whom lived in Rome during Benzoni’s time there.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Memoirs, by Marie Mancini and Hortense Mancini. Translated by Sarah Nelson

The memoirs of Hortense (1646–1699) and of Marie (1639–1715) Mancini, nieces of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin and members of the court of Louis XIV, represent the earliest examples in France of memoirs published by women under their own names during their lifetimes. Both unhappily married - Marie had also fled the aftermath of her failed affair with the king - the sisters chose to leave their husbands for life on the road, a life quite rare for women of their day.  Through their writings, the Mancinis sought to rehabilitate their reputations and reclaim the right to define their public images themselves, rather than leave the stories of their lives to the intrigues of the court - and to their disgruntled ex-husbands. First translated in 1676 and 1678 and credited largely to male redactors, Memoirs is an accessible English translation that chronicles the beginnings of women’s rights to personal independence within the confines of an otherwise circumscribed early modern aristocratic society.

Sarah Nelson is associate professor of French at the University of Idaho.

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Marie Mancini – Princess of Paliano

Dark Italian beauty won the heart of King Louis XIV

A portrait of Marie Mancini by the
Flemish painter Jacob Ferdinand Voet

Marie Mancini, an aristocratic Italian woman who once had a love affair with French King Louis XIV, was born on this day in 1639 in Rome.

Anna Maria ‘Marie’ Mancini was the third of five sisters, who were all taken to live in France. They were the nieces of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who was Chief Minister to both Louis XIII and Louis XIV.

Marie grew up in Rome until she was 11 years old, when her father, Baron Lorenzo Mancini, died. Along with her sisters, Marie was taken to Paris by her widowed mother, Geronima, in the hope that Cardinal Mazarin would use his influence to help them all marry advantageously.

Two of Marie’s cousins, who were the daughters of Mazarin’s eldest sister, were also taken to France for the same purpose, and the seven girls were all known at the French court as ‘the Mazarinettes’.

Although Marie was christened Anna Maria, she became known in France as Marie and was said to have grown up as ‘dark, vivacious and beautiful’. 

She was nearly a year younger than Louis XIV, who had become King of France at the age of four, after the death of his father, Louis XIII.

Louis XIV - later known also as the Sun King - fell in love with Marie and wanted to marry her and she said she was willing to marry him, but his adviser, Mazarin, and his mother, Queen Anne of Austria, were both against the match.

Queen Anne wanted Louis to marry his cousin, Maria Theresa of Austria, the Infanta of Spain, who was the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain. Cardinal Mazarin agreed with the Queen because he knew that her support for him and his foreign policy depended on making peace with Spain and on the Spanish marriage going ahead.

Louis XIV became aware that there were plans to exile Marie from the court and sent for Mazarin and asked him if he could marry his niece. Mazarin refused, saying he had been appointed to his position by the King’s parents to protect the welfare of the kingdom. It is said that Louis XIV fell on his knees before the Cardinal and pleaded with him, but without success.

Louis XIV pleaded to be allowed to marry
Marie Mancini (portrait by Charles Le Brun) 

The King also spoke to his mother about it for more than an hour and she managed to convince him that he must give up love for politics, but after the conversation he was observed with his eyes ‘red with tears’.

When Marie left the court, Louis XIV escorted her to her carriage and she is reputed to have said: “Sire, you weep, you love me, and yet you allow me to go!”

In 1660, Louis XIV married Maria Theresa of Spain and in 1661 Marie was sent to marry an Italian, the eighth Duke and Prince of Paliano, Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna.

Marie and Louis XIV had never been lovers, and Colonna was said to have been surprised to discover that she was still a virgin.

Marie bore him three sons, but after she found the third birth was particularly difficult, she refused to be intimate with him again. Their relationship deteriorated and she left Rome in 1672, accompanied by her younger sister, Hortense, because she said she was afraid that her husband might kill her.

She later spent a period living in a convent in Turin and some time travelling around Europe independently, which was unusual for a woman at the time.

Marie wrote her memoirs after a false account about her life had been circulated in France. Her sister, Hortense, also wrote her memoirs, after escaping from an abusive marriage with a French duke. She eventually travelled to London, where she became a mistress of the English King Charles II. The Mancini sisters were said to be among the first women in France to have published their own memoirs.

Marie Mancini died in Pisa in May 1715 at the age of 75 and she was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there. Her death occurred a little over three months before the death of Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles in France on September 1 of the same year.

The character of Marie Mancini has since been used by writers, both in novels and a musical, and a number of biographies have been written about her and her sister, Hortense Mancini.

An 18th century etching of Palazzo Mancini
by Giovanni Battista Piranese

Travel tip:

Palazzo Mancini, in Rome’s Via del Corso, where Marie would have lived as a child,  was created in 1634 by Lorenzo Mancini when the family’s old residence - also in Via del Corso - was enlarged for the celebrations of his wedding to Geronima Mazzarino, the sister of Cardinal Mazarin. Four adjoining houses were purchased and a new building was designed by the architect Carlo Rainaldi. After Lorenzo died and his widow and children went to live in France, the work was completed by Filippo Mancini. The palace was leased to the French Academy in Rome in 1725. One second floor room is still frescoed with scenes produced by the artists who were accommodated there during its time as an academy. After the French Revolution the building became the French Embassy to the Holy See. In 1818 the Palazzo was bought by Louis Bonaparte, who ceded it to Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, the widow of Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia, who gave it to her daughter, Maria Christina, who became Queen of Naples, and passed it on to the Bourbons of Naples. It was acquired by the Banco di Sicilia in 1919.

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The 12th century octagonal Chiesa del Santo
Sepolcro in Pisa, where Marie Mancini is buried

Travel tip:

Pisa, where Marie Mancini died, is a historic town in the Tuscany region that has become famous for its leaning tower, which dates back to 1173. The freestanding bell tower for the Cathedral now has a famous tilt that began during the building process, believed to have been caused by the laying of inadequate foundations on ground that was too soft on one side to support the weight of the structure. The tilt got worse over the years until work had to be carried out to correct it in the 20th century. In 1987, Pisa’s 60-metre-high tower was included in the Unesco World Heritage site list along with the neighbouring cathedral and baptistery  in the Piazza del Duomo. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Chiesa del Santo Sepolcro, where Marie Mancini was laid to rest in Pisa, is an octagonal church, which dates from early in the 12th century and is located in Piazza San Sepolcro, near the Lungarno Galilei in the San Martino district, along the southern bank of the River Arno.

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More reading:

How Cardinal Jules Mazarin became de facto ruler of France

Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of three French kings

Marie Josephine of Savoy, the Italian noblewoman who married Louis XVIII of France

Also on this day:

1665: The unexplained death of painter Elisabetta Sirani

1809: The birth of sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni

1909: The birth of Lamberto Maggiorani, star of classic movie Bicycle Thieves

1928: The birth of photographer Ugo Mulas

1938: The birth of talk show host Maurizio Costanzo

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27 August

Zanetta Farussi – actress

Venetian performer who gave birth to a legendary womaniser

Zanetta Farussi, the comedy actress who was the mother of the notorious adventurer, Casanova, was born on this day in 1707 in Venice.  At the age of 17, Zanetta had married the actor Gaetano Casanova, who was 10 years older than her.  He had just returned to Venice after several years with a touring theatrical troupe, to take a job at the Teatro San Samuele.  Farussi’s parents opposed the marriage because they considered acting to be a disreputable profession.  But Farussi soon began working at Teatro San Samuele herself and the following year she gave birth to a son, Giacomo, who was to grow up to make the name Casanova synonymous with womanising and philandering.  Giacomo Casanova would later claim that his real father was Michele Grimani, who owned the Teatro San Samuele.  Read more…

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Alessandro Farnese – Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro

Duke was a brilliant strategist and diplomat

The outstanding military leader, Alessandro Farnese, was born on this day in 1545 in Rome.  As regent of the Netherlands on behalf of Philip II of Spain between 1578 and 1592, Alessandro restored Spanish rule and ensured the continuation of Roman Catholicism there, a great achievement and testimony to his skill as a strategist and diplomat.  However, his brilliant military career gave him no time to rule Parma, Piacenza and Castro when he succeeded to the Dukedom.  Alessandro was the son of Duke Ottavio Farnese of Parma and Margaret, the illegitimate daughter of the King of Spain and Habsburg Emperor, Charles V.  Ottavio, and was the grandson of Pope Paul III, a Farnese who had set up the papal states of Parma, Piacenza and Castro as a duchy in order to award them to his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi. Read more…

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Lina Poletti - writer and feminist

One of first Italian women to come out as gay

The writer, poet and playwright Lina Poletti, who was one of the first gay Italian women to openly declare their sexuality, was born on this day in 1885 in Ravenna.  Poletti, an active campaigner for the emancipation of women, had relationships with a number of high-profile partners, including the writer Sibilla Aleramo and the actress Eleonora Duse. Her own works included the epic Il poemetto della guerra (The War Poem), many essays and lectures on her literary heroes, including Dante Alghieri, Giovanni Pascoli and Giosuè Carducci, and a number of collections of poetry.  One of four daughters born to Francesco Poletti and his wife Rosina Donati, who ran a business making ceramics, Lina’s birth name was Cordula.  She was said to be a rebellious child, misunderstood by her sisters and something of a loner.  Read more…

The 410 Sack of Rome

Invasion that signalled terminal decline of Western Roman Empire

The ancient city of Rome was left in a state of shock and devastation after three days of looting and pillaging by Visigoths under the command of King Alaric came to an end on this day in 410.  An unknown number of citizens had been killed and scores of others had fled into the countryside. Countless women had been raped. Many buildings were damaged and set on fire and Alaric and his hordes made off with vast amounts of Roman treasure.  It was the first time in 800 years that an invading army had successfully breached the walls of the Eternal City and many historians regard the event as the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire.  It could have been more devastating still had Alaric, a Christian, been a more cruel leader.  Although he struggled to control his men, he stopped short of ordering large-scale slaughter of the population. Read more…

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Titian - giant of Renaissance art

Old master of Venice who set new standards

Tiziano Vecellio, the artist better known as Titian, died in Venice on this day in 1576.  Possibly in his 90s by then - his date of birth has never been established beyond doubt - he is thought to have succumbed to the plague that was sweeping through the city at that time.  Titian is regarded as the greatest painter of 16th century Venice, a giant of the Renaissance held in awe by his contemporaries and seen today as having had a profound influence on the development of painting in Italy and Europe.  The artists of Renaissance Italy clearly owe much to the new standards set by Titian in the use of colour and his penetration of human character.  Beyond Italy, the work of Rubens, Rembrandt and Manet have echoes of Titian.  Titian was enormously versatile, famous for landscapes, portraits, erotic nudes and monumental religious works.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Story of My Life, by Giacomo Casanova. Introduced and edited by Gilberto Pizzamiglio (Penguin Classics)

Giacomo Casanova was not only the most notorious lover of the Western world, but a supreme story teller. In his time he was diplomat, business man, trainee priest, traveller, prisoner, magician, confidence trickster, gambler, professional entertainer and charlatan. He financed business projects, organised lotteries, wrote opera libretti and dabbled in high politics. Above all he was an autobiographer of enduring brilliance and subtlety who left behind him what is probably the most remarkable confession ever written, which he entitled simply The Story of My Life.  This new selection contains all the highlights of Casanova's life: his youth in Venice as a precocious ecclesiastic; his dabbling in the occult; his imprisonment and thrilling escape; and his amorous conquests, ranging from noblewomen to nuns.

Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) was born in Venice, the son of actors who wanted him to become a priest. Gilberto Pizzamiglio is Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Venice.

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26 August

Carlo Camillo Di Rudio - soldier

Italian aristocrat who survived Battle of the Little Bighorn

Carlo Camillo Di Rudio, a military officer who became known as Charles Camillus DeRudio and gave 32 years’ service to the United States Army in the late 19th century, was born in Belluno in northern Italy on this day in 1832.  Having arrived in New York City as an immigrant from England in 1860, he served as a volunteer in the American Civil War (1861-65) before joining the Regular Army in 1867 as a 2nd lieutenant in the 2nd Infantry. That appointment was cancelled when he failed a medical. Yet he was readmitted and joined the 7th Cavalry, eventually promoted to Major.  He participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which the US Army was defeated by the combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribesmen. The battle was part of the Great Sioux Wars of 1876, fought for possession of the Black Hills in South Dakota, where gold had been found.  Read more…

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La Pietà - Michelangelo's masterpiece

Brilliant sculpture commissioned by French Cardinal

Michelangelo Buonarotti agreed the contract to create the sculpture that would come to be regarded as his masterpiece on this day in 1498.  It was made between the artist and Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, the French ambassador to the Holy See, who wanted a sculpture of the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of Jesus, which was a common theme in religious art in northern Europe at the time.  Michelangelo, who would live until he was almost 89, was just 23 at the time and had been in Rome only a couple of years, but was about to produce a piece of work that astounded his contemporaries and is still seen as one of the finest pieces of sculpture ever crafted.  La Pietà – in English, 'the pity' – was carved from a block of blue and white Carrara marble selected by Michelangelo, a good six feet (183cm) tall by six feet across.  Read more…

Sant’Alessandro of Bergamo

Annual festival keeps alive the memory of city’s saint

The patron saint of Bergamo, Sant’Alessandro, was martyred on this day in 303 by the Romans for refusing to renounce his Christian faith.  It is believed Alessandro was a devout citizen who had continued to preach in Bergamo, despite having several narrow escapes from would-be Roman executioners, but he was eventually caught and suffered public decapitation.  In Christian legend, Alessandro was a centurion of the Theban Legion, a legion of the Roman army that converted en masse to Christianity, whose existence prompted a crusade against Christianity launched by the Romans in around AD 298.  Alessandro was reputedly held in prison in Milan on two occasions but escaped to Bergamo, where he defiantly refused to go into hiding and instead openly preached, converting many Bergamaschi to his faith.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Battle of the Little Big Horn: A New Appraisal, by Wendy Ann Wallace

Lt Col George Armstrong Custer died at the hands of native Americans by the banks of the Little Big Horn in Montana June 25, 1876. This is an established undisputed fact. What is disputed is the real reason that he died. So forget all you have been taught to believe and begin to learn the truth. George Custer was an anathema to his superiors, but the populace loved him. If he had stood for president there was a strong possibility that he would have won. Neither William T Sherman nor ‘Little Phil’ Sheridan could allow that to happen. Thus they conspired to put Custer in a position in the field where the opposing Sioux and Cheyenne were stronger and could deliver the ‘Coup de Gras’. The Battle of the Little Big Horn: A New Appraisal is the first of two volumes to deal with the circumstances that arose leading the native Americans on a collision course with the US Army that fateful day and the death of a national hero. Subsequently the conspiracy is uncovered and shows how these men used their powers and positions and so deftly covered their tracks. Perhaps, but not quite. 30 years of diligent research has uncovered the truth in this ground breaking history.

Wendy Ann Wallace is an English military historian known worldwide, the author of best-selling books and numerous articles. An authority on the American Indian Wars, she lives in Leicestershire. 

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25 August

Vesuvius erupts

Terrible toll of Europe's worst volcanic catastrophe 

Mount Vesuvius erupted on this day in AD 79, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae and causing the deaths of thousands of people.  An eyewitness account of the eruption, in which tons of stones, ash and fumes were ejected from the volcano, has been left behind for posterity by a Roman administrator and poet, Pliny the Younger, who described the event in his letters to the historian Tacitus.  Although there were at least three large eruptions of Vesuvius before AD 79 and there have been many since, the disaster in August AD 79 is considered the most catastrophic volcanic eruption in European history.  Mount Vesuvius had thrown out ash the day before and many people had left the area. But in the early hours of the morning of August 25, pyroclastic flows of hot gas and rock began to sweep down the mountain. Read more…

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Death of Pliny the Elder

Roman writer was fascinated by nature and geography

The author, philosopher, and naval and army commander who became known as Pliny the Elder died on this day in 79 AD during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples in Campania. Pliny had been stationed with the Roman Navy a short distance away at Misenum, on what is now known as the Gulf of Pozzuoli, and had organised a rescue mission after a friend had sent him a message saying that she was stranded at Stabiae. It is thought he died from asphyxiation  caused by the toxic gases coming from the volcano.  Born Gaius Plinius Secundus in either 23 or 24 AD in Como, then called Novum Comum, in Lombardy, Pliny grew up to become a prolific writer, naturalist and philosopher.  He wrote Naturalis Historia - The Natural History - a 37-volume work about the natural world, based on his extensive studies and investigations into nature and geography.  Read more…

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Ippolito II d’Este – Cardinal

Borgia prince enjoyed the good things in life

Ippolito II d’Este, who became infamous for plundering Hadrian’s Villa to decorate his own home, was born on this day in 1509 in Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna.  He was the second son of Lucrezia Borgia and her husband, Duke Alfonso I d’Este and therefore also a grandson of Pope Alexander VI. He was named after his uncle, Ippolito d’Este.  At the age of ten, Ippolito II inherited the archbishopric of Milan from his uncle, the first of a long list of ecclesiastical appointments he was to be given, which provided him with a good income. He was later given benefices in many parts of France from which he was also able to draw revenue and he was created a Cardinal by Pope Paul III before he had reached the age of 30. A lover of luxuries and the finer things in life, Ippolito II had Palazzo San Francesco in Ferrara refurbished for himself. Read more…

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Galileo demonstrates potential of telescope

Scientist unveiled new instrument to Doge of Venice

The scientist and inventor Galileo Galilei demonstrated the wonders of the telescope to an audience of Venetian lawmakers on this day in 1609.  The 90th Doge, Leonardo Donato, and other members of the Venetian senate accompanied Galileo to the top of the campanile of St Mark’s Basilica, where each took it in turn to look through the instrument.  The meeting had been arranged by Galileo’s friend, Paolo Sarpi, who was a scientist, lawyer and statesman employed by the Venetian government. The two were both professors at the University of Padua.  Galileo, whose knowledge of the universe led him to be called the ‘father of observational astronomy’, was for many years wrongly credited with the invention of the telescope when in fact the first to apply for a patent for the device was a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey.   Read more…

Carlo Eduardo Acton – composer and musician

Musical member of the Acton family was born in Naples

Opera composer Carlo Eduardo Acton, who was part of the distinguished Italian-based branch of the Acton family, was born on this day in 1829 in Naples.  Carlo became a concert pianist and is remembered for composing the opera Una cena in convitto. His father, Francis Charles Acton, was the youngest son of General Joseph Acton, and he was also the younger brother of Sir John Acton, the sixth Baronet.  Sir John Acton, Carlo’s uncle, had served as Commander of the naval forces of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Naples while the city was under the rule of King Ferdinand IV. He was the son of Edward Acton, an English physician who had settled in France, and he was the great-grandson of Sir Walter Acton, the second Baronet.  One of Sir John's grandchildren, John Dalberg-Acton (1834-1902), better known as Lord Acton, was an historian, English politician, and writer, also born in Naples.  Read more…

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1960 Summer Olympics

Games of the XVII Olympiad take place in Rome

The Summer Olympic Games opened on this day in 1960 in the ancient city of Rome. It was the first time the Summer Olympics had been held in Italy since the revival of the Games in 1896.  Rome had been due to host the 1908 Summer Olympic Games, but following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples in 1906, the eternal city had to pass the Olympic torch on to London. The 1960 Games - known officially as the Games of the XVII Olympiad -  were opened by the then-president of Italy, Giovanni Gronchi, in the Stadio Olimpico in the northwest of the city.  Building had begun on the multi-purpose sports venue in 1928 and it was expanded further in 1937, but then World War II halted any further development. Mussolini’s ruling Fascist party had at one time harboured ambitions of hosting the 1940 Games, which were awarded instead to Japan but then cancelled.  Read more…

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Alessandro Galilei - architect

Florentine who made mark in Rome

The architect Alessandro Galilei, best known for the colossal Classical façade of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, was born on this day in 1691 in Florence.  From the same patrician family as Renaissance polymath Galileo Galilei but not a direct descendant, Galilei’s father was a notary, Giuseppe Maria Galilei. Though his father considered the family to be noble still, their standing had fallen somewhat under Medici rule.  Alessandro studied mathematics and engineering at the prestigious Accademia dei Nobili in Florence, where he was instructed in building techniques and perspective among other things.  As he sought to develop a career, Galilei met John Molesworth, son of the Irish Viscount, Robert Molesworth, who spent three years in Florence as an envoy to the Medici court.  Read more…

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Saint Patricia of Naples

Patron saint performs a miracle every week

The feast day of Saint Patricia is celebrated every year in Naples on this day.  The saint, who is also sometimes referred to as Patricia of Constantinople, is one of a long list of patron saints of Naples.  She is less well known than San Gennaro, also a patron saint of the city, who attracts crowds to Naples Cathedral three times a year to witness the miracle of a small sample of his blood turning to liquid.  But Saint Patricia’s blood, which is kept in the Church of San Gregorio Armeno, is said to undergo the same miraculous transformation every Tuesday morning as well as on August 25 each year - her feast day - which was believed to be the day she died in 665 AD.  Saint Patricia was a noble woman, who may have been descended from St Constantine the Great.  She was a devout virgin and travelled to Rome to become a nun in order to escape an arranged marriage.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny, by Daisy Dunn

Ash spewed into the sky. All eyes were on Vesuvius. Pliny the Elder sailed towards the phenomenon. A teenage Pliny the Younger waited. His uncle did not come back.  In a dazzling new literary biography, Daisy Dunn introduces Pliny the Younger, the survivor who became a Roman lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, curator of drains, and representative of the Emperor. He was confidant and friend to the great and good, an unparalleled chronicler of the Vesuvius catastrophe, and eyewitness to the terror of Emperor Domitian.  The younger Pliny was adopted by his uncle, admiral of the fleet and author of the Natural History, an extraordinary compendium of knowledge and the world’s first full-length encyclopaedia. The younger Pliny inherited his uncle’s notebooks and carried their pearls of wisdom with him down the years.  Daisy Dunn breathes vivid life back into the Plinys. Reading from the Natural History and the Younger Pliny’s Letters, she resurrects the relationship between the two men to expose their beliefs on life, death and the natural world in the first century. Interweaving their work, and positioning the Plinys in relation to the devastating eruption, In the Shadow of Vesuvius is a celebration of two outstanding minds of the Roman Empire, and their lasting influence on the world thereafter.

Daisy Dunn was born in London in 1987 and read Classics at the University of Oxford, before winning a scholarship to the Courtauld and completing a doctorate in Classics and History of Art at University College London. She writes and reviews for many publications.

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