8 March

Carlo Gesualdo – composer

Madrigal writer was also a murderer

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, who composed highly experimental music for his time, was born on this day in 1566 in the principality of Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples.  He was to become known both for his extraordinary music and for the brutal killing of his first wife and her aristocratic lover after he caught them together.  Gesualdo was the nephew of Carlo Borromeo, who later became Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother, Geronima Borromeo, was the niece of Pope Pius IV.  Although Gesualdo was sent to Rome to begin an ecclesiastical career, he became heir to the principality after his older brother died. He married his cousin, Donna Maria D’Avalos, and they had a son, Emanuele.  Gesualdo was devoted to music from an early age and mixed with musicians and composers, learning to play the lute, harpsichord and guitar.  Read more…

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La Festa della Donna – Women’s Day

Bright fragrant mimosa signals respect

La Festa della Donna - Women’s Day - is celebrated in Italy on this day every year and is an occasion for men to show their appreciation for the women in their lives.  In many parts of Italy today, men will be seen carrying bunches of prettily wrapped mimosa to give to women who are special to them.  The flowers might be for their wives, girlfriends, mothers, friends or even employees and are meant as a sign of respect for womanhood.  The custom of men giving mimosa to their ladies began in the 1940s after the date 8 March was chosen as the Festa della Donna in Italy.  The date, which coincides with International Women's Day, has a political significance for campaigners for women's rights in Italy, marking the anniversary of a strike by female textile workers in New York in 1857 and the so-called 'bread and peace' strike by women in Russia in 1917. Read more…

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Antonello Venditti - enduring music star

Roman singer-songwriter's career spans 50 years

Singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti, one of Italy's most popular and enduring stars of contemporary music, was born on this day in 1949 in Rome.   Famous in the 1970s for the strong political and social content of many of his songs, Venditti can look back on a career spanning half a century, in which he has sold more than 30 million records.  Taking into account singles, studio and live albums and compilations, Venditti has released more than 100 recordings.  His biggest success came with the 1988 album In questo mondo di ladri (In This World of Thieves) - which sold 1.5 million copies, making it jointly the eighth best-selling album in Italian music history.  Venditti's music ranges from folk to soft rock, often with classical overtones. He enjoyed sustained success in the 1980s and 90s, when Cuore, Benvenuti in Paradiso and Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro all sold well. Read more…

Walter Chiari - actor

Talented star with taste for high life

The actor Walter Chiari, whose passionate affair with the American superstar Ava Gardner in 1950s Rome is said to have influenced Federico Fellini in the making of his landmark movie La dolce vita, was born on this day in 1924 in Verona.  Chiari was an accomplished stage and film actor when he met Gardner on the set of The Little Hut, a 1957 romantic comedy that was British made and with a Canadian director but was filmed largely at Cinecittà in Rome.  Gardner was still married to Frank Sinatra at the time but the pair were estranged and she was open to romance. She developed a taste for the Rome nightlife around the Via Veneto and her relationship with Chiari soon began to dominate the gossip columns. They were constantly harassed by photographers, some of whom felt the rough edge of Chiari’s temper.  Read more… 

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Gianni Baget Bozzo – priest and politician

Theologian moved from party to party

Prolific writer, ordained Catholic priest and political activist Gianni Baget Bozzo - often referred to as Don Gianni - was born on this day in 1925 in Savona in the northern Italian region of Liguria.  He took the name Baget from his mother, who was of Catalan origin but died when he was five, and Bozzo from the two uncles who raised him.  Baget Bozzo was known for supporting parties from both ends of the political spectrum at different times.  At one time a Christian Democrat activist, Baget Bozzo was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist party in 1984, which led to him being suspended from the priesthood. He was a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party from 1994.  He wrote many books about Christianity and as a theologian was a follower of the theories of Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Gesualdo Hex - Music, Myth, and Memory, by Glenn Watkins

In this vivid tale of adultery and intrigue, witchcraft and murder, Glenn Watkins explores the fascinating life of the Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo - a life suffused with scandal and bordering on the fantastical. An isolated prince, Gesualdo had a personal life that was no less eccentric and bewildering than the music he composed; his biography has often clouded our perception of his oeuvre, which music scholars have periodically dismissed as a late Renaissance deformation of little consequence. Today, however, Gesualdo’s music, once deemed so strange as to be unperformable, stands as one of the most vibrant legacies of the late Italian Renaissance with an undeniable impact on a host of 20th-century musicians and artists. The incendiary details of Gesualdo’s life recede, and his grip on our musical imagination comes to the fore. Watkins challenges our preconceptions of what has become a nearly mythic persona, weaving together the cumulative experience of some of the most vibrant artists of the past century from Stravinsky and Schoenberg to Abbado and Herzog. Beyond questions of mere influence, however, In The Gesualdo Hex, the author examines how Gesualdo’s life, music, myth, and memory intertwine with one another to reveal an uncanny affinity with our own time. 

Glenn E Watkins was a distinguished musicologist and Professor Emeritus of Music History and Musicology at the University of Michigan. 

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7 March

Baldassare Peruzzi - architect and painter

Pupil of Bramante who left mark on Rome

The architect and painter Baldassare Peruzzi, who trained under Donato Bramante and was a contemporary of Raphael, was born on this day in 1481 in a small town near Siena.   Peruzzi worked in his home city and in Rome, where he spent many years as one of the architects of the St Peter’s Basilica project but where he was also responsible for two outstanding buildings in his own right - the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne.  The Villa Farnesina, a summer house commissioned by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere district, is unusual for its U-shaped floor plan, with a five-bay loggia between the arms.  Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo were among those who helped decorate the villa with frescoes, but Peruzzi is acknowledged as the chief designer.  Read more…

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Alessandro Manzoni – novelist

Writer who produced the greatest novel in Italian literature

Italy’s most famous novelist, Alessandro Manzoni, was born on this day in 1785 in Milan.  Manzoni was the author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), the first novel to be written in modern Italian, a language that could be understood by everyone.  The novel caused a sensation when it was first published in 1825. It looked at Italian history through the eyes of the ordinary citizen and sparked pro-unification feelings in many Italians who read it, becoming a symbol of the Risorgimento movement.  I promessi sposi is now considered to be the most important novel in Italian literature and is still required reading for many Italian schoolchildren.  Manzoni spent a lot of his childhood in Lecco, on Lago di Lecco, where his father’s family originated, and he chose to set his great work there.  Lago di Lecco is an arm of Lago di Como and is surrounded by dramatic mountain scenery. Read more…

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Luciano Spalletti - football manager

National coach has long record of success

The football manager Luciano Spalletti, who led Napoli to their first Serie A title since the Diego Maradona era before being appointed head coach to Italy’s national team, was born on this day in 1959 in the Tuscan town of Certaldo, just under 50km (31 miles) southwest of Florence.  A late starter as a professional player, at 64 Spalletti became the oldest winning coach in the history of the Italian championship when Napoli won the 2022-23 scudetto.  The achievement turned him into a hero in Naples, where fans celebrated in scenes not witnessed in the southern Italian city since Napoli won two titles in four years with the late Maradona as captain and talisman, the second of which was 33 years earlier in the 1989-90 campaign.  Having hinted before the season finished that he was thinking about taking time out of football, Spalletti confirmed ahead of the final fixture that he would be leaving the club.  Read more…

Filippo Juvarra – architect

Baroque designer influenced the look of ‘royal Turin’

Architect and stage set designer Filippo Juvarra was born on this day in 1678 in Messina in Sicily.  Some of his best work can be seen in Turin today as he worked for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy from 1714 onwards. The buildings Juvarra designed for Turin made him famous and he was subsequently invited to work in Portugal, Spain, London and Paris.  Juvarra was born into a family of goldsmiths and engravers but moved to Rome in 1704 to study architecture with Carlo and Francesco Fontana.  He was commissioned to design stage sets to begin with, but in 1706 he won a contest to design the new sacristy at St Peter’s Basilica.  He then designed the small Antamoro Chapel for the church of San Girolamo della Carità with his friend, the French sculptor, Pierre Le Gros. He was later to design the main altar for the Duomo in Bergamo in Lombardy.   Read more…

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Saint Thomas Aquinas - philosopher

Theologian who synthesised Aristotle’s ideas with principles of Christianity

Saint Thomas Aquinas, known in Italian as Tommaso d’Aquino, died on this day in 1274 at Fossanova near Terracina in Lazio.  A Dominican friar who became a respected theologian and philosopher, D’Aquino was canonised in 1323, less than 50 years after his death.  He was responsible for two masterpieces of theology, Summa theologiae and Summa contra gentiles. The first sought to explain the Christian faith to students setting out to study theology, the second to explain the Christian faith and defend it in the face of hostile attacks.  As a poet, D'Aquino wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in the church’s liturgy, which are still sung today.  D’Aquino is recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost philosopher and theologian and he had a considerable influence on the development of Western thought and ideas.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Not Built in a Day: Exploring the Architecture of Rome, by George Sullivan

Not Built in a Day: Exploring the Architecture of Rome is a unique, unconventional guide and a deeply felt homage to Rome and its extraordinary 2,500-year history. Moving beyond the names, dates, and statistics of ordinary guidebooks, George Sullivan's eye-opening essays celebrate the special character of Rome's buildings, fountains, piazzas, streets, and ruins. From the largest landmark down to the smallest hidden gem, Not Built in a Day explores the city in comprehensive detail, offering detailed visual and historical analyses that enable readers to see and understand exactly what makes the architecture of Rome so important, influential, and fascinating. 

George H Sullivan is a veteran travel writer whose work includes walking tours of both Florence and Vienna for Fodor’s Travel Guides. A lecturer on Roman architecture at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, he spent 15 years researching and writing the essays that became Not Built in a Day.

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6 March

NEW - Guarino Guarini - architect

Baroque master who shaped the identity of Turin

Guarino Guarini, an architect regarded as one of the most transformative figures in the architectural history of Turin, died on this day in 1683 at the age of 59.  Guarini enjoyed the patronage of the House of Savoy from 1666 until his death, during which time he is said to have built or submitted designs for as many as six churches and chapels and five palaces in Turin. He reportedly designed a gate to replace the existing Porta di Pio, although it was never actually built.  Of those projects that progressed beyond the drawing board, his church of San Lorenzo, with its structurally daring dome, the Chapel of the Holy Shroud and the Palazzo Carignano, notable for the rhythmic curves of its facade, are regarded as his most notable achievements.  The circumstances of Guarini’s death are not documented beyond his being in Milan at the time.  Read more…

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Francesco Guicciardini - writer and diplomat

Friend of Machiavelli among first to record history in context

The historian and statesman Francesco Guicciardini, best known for writing Storia d'Italia, a book that came to be regarded as a classic history of Italy, was born on this day in 1483 in Florence.  Along with his contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli, Guicciardini is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance.  Guicciardini was an adviser and confidant to three popes, the governor of several central Italian states, ambassador, administrator and military captain.  He had a long association with the Medici family, rulers of Florence.  Storia d'Italia - originally titled 'La historia di Italia' - was notable for Guicciardini's skilful analysis of interrelating political movements in different states and his ability to set in context and with objectivity events in which sometimes he was a direct participant.  Read more…

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La traviata - the world's favourite opera

Verdi's masterpiece performed for the first time

Giuseppe Verdi's opera, La traviata, was performed in front of a paying audience for the first time on this day in 1853.  The premiere took place at Teatro La Fenice, the opera house in Venice with which Verdi had a long relationship, one that saw him establish his fame as a composer.  La traviata would ultimately cement his reputation as a master of opera after the success of Rigoletto and Il trovatore.  La traviata has become the world's favourite opera, inasmuch as no work has been performed more often, yet the reception for the opening performance was mixed, to say the least.  Reportedly there was applause and cheering at the end of the first act but a much changed atmosphere in the theatre in the second act, during which some members of the audience jeered.  Their displeasure was said to be aimed in part at the two male principals, the baritone Felice Varesi and the tenor Lodovico Graziani. Read more…

Giovanni Battista Bugatti - executioner

‘Mastro Titta’ ended 516 lives in long career

Giovanni Battista Bugatti, who served as the official executioner for the Papal States from 1796 to 1864, was born on this day in 1779 in Senigallia, a port town on the Adriatic coast about 30km (19 miles) northwest of the city of Ancona.  Bugatti, who became known by the nickname Mastro Titta - a corruption of the Italian maestro di giustizia - master of justice - in Roman dialect, carried out 516 executions in his 68-year career.  He was the longest-serving executioner in the history of the Papal States.  The circumstances of him being granted such an important role in Roman life at the age of just 17 are not known.  What is documented is that while not carrying out his grim official duties he kept a shop selling painted umbrellas and other souvenirs next to his home in the Borgo district, in Vicolo del Campanile, a short distance from Castel Sant’Angelo, which served as a prison during the time of the Papal States.  Read more…

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Augusto Odone – medical pioneer

Father who invented ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’ for sick son

Augusto Odone, the father who invented a medicine to treat his incurably ill son despite having no medical training, was born on this day in 1933 in Rome.  Odone’s son, Lorenzo, was diagnosed with the rare metabolic condition ALD (Adrenoleukodystrophy) at the age of six. Augusto and his American-born wife, Michaela, were told that little could be done and that Lorenzo would suffer from increasing paralysis and probably die within two years.  Refusing simply to do nothing, the Odones, who lived in Washington, where Augusto was an economist working for the World Bank, threw themselves into discovering everything that was known about the condition and the biochemistry of the nervous system, contacting every doctor, biologist and researcher they could find who had researched the condition and assembled them for a symposium.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Rough Guides Snapshot Turin, Piemonte and Valle d'Aosta, by Ros Belford

Snapshot Turin, Piemonte and Valle d’Aosta (extracted from The Rough Guide to Italy) gives you everything you need to know about just these regions – focused, expert coverage where you need it most.   Discover the best of northwest Italy with this expert travel guide – explore royal Turin, the wine hills of Alba, Langhe Roero and Asti, medieval Saluzzo, and the Alpine landscapes of Aosta, Gran Paradiso National Park and the Mont Blanc region.  Inside this Snapshot Travel Guide, find expert picks on what to see and where to stay, eat and shop. Covers top sights such as the Museo Egizio, Sacra di San Michele, Aosta’s Roman ruins, royal Turin and the Gran Paradiso National Park, as well as regional highlights including the Barolo and Barbaresco vineyards, truffle markets in Alba, castles of the Valle d’Aosta and mountain routes around Mont Blanc. 

Writer and journalist Ros Belford spends her time between Salina, Siracusa and Cambridge and is the author of numerous guidebooks to Italy, Sicily and the Mediterranean. She has written articles on travel and food for many magazines and newspapers and is the Telegraph's Sicilian travel expert.

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Guarino Guarini - architect

Baroque master who shaped the identity of Turin

Guarini's daring geometrics brought a
new dimension to the architecture of Turin

Guarino Guarini, an architect regarded as one of the most transformative figures in the architectural history of Turin, died on this day in 1683 at the age of 59.

Guarini enjoyed the patronage of the House of Savoy from 1666 until his death, during which time he is said to have built or submitted designs for as many as six churches and chapels and five palaces in the city. He reportedly designed a gate to replace the existing Porta di Pio, although it was never actually built.

Of those projects that progressed beyond the drawing board, his Church of San Lorenzo, with its structurally daring dome, the Chapel of the Holy Shroud and the Palazzo Carignano, notable for the rhythmic curves of its facade, are regarded as his most notable achievements.

The circumstances of Guarini’s death are not documented beyond his being in Milan at the time. His presence there may have been connected with his Architettura Civile, the treatise which became a reference point for many of his architectural successors, upon which he was still working at the time of his death. 

He also remained active in the Theatine Order - he was ordained a priest in 1648 at the age of 24 - and may have been in Milan to teach or to pursue other Theatine business, the order having a tradition of architectural patronage.

Guarini was born in Modena in 1624. Coming from a religious family, Guarino and his four brothers all became novices in the Theatine Order, Guarino being despatched to serve his novitiate at the monastery of San Silvestro al Quirinale in Rome.

In the event, he stayed in Rome for nine years, learning from the most innovative Baroque architects of the period. Francesco Borromini, whose spatial complexity and elastic geometry left a lasting imprint on Guarini’s imagination, was a major influence, as to a lesser degree was Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 

He returned to Modena in 1648. He combined his duties as a priest and  a lecturer in philosophy at the Theatine College with architectural projects for the Order, beginning with the reconstruction of the Church of San Vincenzo in Modena.

The undulating facade of Guarini's Palazzo Carignano,
a Baroque masterpiece in Savoyard Turin

Guarini also worked in Messina in Sicily, where he built the façade of the Church of Santa Maria Annunziata for his Order, providing early evidence of his willingness to experiment with design. He constructed the façade diagonally to the nave, so that it could conform with the line of the street. The church was destroyed in an earthquake but drawings show plans for complex vaulting and spatial layering. 

From Messina, Guarini moved to Paris, where a number of projects showed the influence of Borromini on his construction methods. Appointed a lecturer in theology at the Theatine School in Paris, he might have stayed much longer but for disagreements over the management of funding for the Church of Sainte-Anne-la-Royale, which he had been invited to design. Instead, he left for Turin.

It was in the capital of the Duchy of Savoy that Guarini produced his greatest work, his buildings there being defined by intricate geometries, interlaced ribs, and dramatic manipulation of light.

Among the most striking examples is the Real Chiesa di San Lorenzo, a Baroque-style church adjacent to the Royal Palace of Turin, which bears influences of Borromini and Bernini. In accordance with Guarini’s ambition ‘to erect buildings that were very strong, but looked so weak as to need a miracle to keep them standing,’ the dome of San Lorenzo was a masterpiece of spatial illusion, its structure appearing to be held up by slender columns, whereas the load-bearing was really down to massive brick arches hidden from view.  Its star-like pattern of interlocking arches dissolves the boundary between structure and ornament.

Guarini's beautiful cupola in Turin's Church of
San Lorenzo seemed to defy the laws of physics

The light that floods the interior creates a luminous quality, something also characteristic of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, a building attached to the Royal Palace, a project started after Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, impressed with his work on the Church of San Lorenzo, named him Royal Engineer and Mathematician in May 1668.

The chapel uses stacked, progressively narrowing arches to create a soaring vertical ascent, culminating in a lantern that floods the space with symbolic light. It remains one of the most technically daring domes of the Baroque.

Yet some regard the Palazzo Carignano in Turin, which showcased Guarini’s command of undulating façades and dynamic massing, anticipating styles that would become characteristic of later Baroque and Rococo. 

Built for Emmanuel Philibert, Prince of Carignano, heir to Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, it is regarded as one of the finest urban palaces of the second half of the 17th century in Italy.  In addition to its distinctive terracotta façade, the palace stands out for its atrium with double staircases and a double dome in the main salon. 

Guarini wrote prolifically throughout his career, producing treatises on  mathematics and astronomy as well as architecture.  He published books at the rate of one every other year and his major work, Architettura Civile, was published posthumously in 1737, bringing together previously unpublished manuscripts on architecture, surveying and drawing. 

Filippo Juvarra built
on Guarini's legacy

This text circulated widely in 18th‑century Europe and became a key reference for architects seeking alternatives to classical orthodoxy. Guarini’s influence can be seen particularly in the Central European Baroque styles that became prevalent in Bohemia, Austria and southern Germany. 

Nearer to home, Piedmontese architects such as Filippo Juvarra, responsible for the monumental Basilica of Superga and the Palazzo Madama among other great works, and later Bernardo Vittone, who built some of the finest churches not only in Turin but across the whole region,  absorbed and expanded Guarino’s geometric daring.

Guarini sits in a remarkably elevated position among the architects who shaped Turin. The buildings he created can be said to have fundamentally altered the city’s architectural language.

Where Amedeo di Castellamonte planned many of the Savoy projects, giving Turin its ordered urban structure, Guarini reimagined them, introducing spatial complexity and daring geometry.  Juvarra admired Guarini’s work and built on his legacy, while taking fewer risks, yet Vittone’s domes and lanterns would have been unthinkable without Guarini’s precedent.

The Palazzo Madama, designed by Filippo Juvara,
can be found on Turin's Piazza Castello

Travel tip:

Turin became the capital of the House of Savoy in 1562, when Duke Emmanuel‑Philibert transferred his ducal seat from Chambéry to Turin. This move marks the beginning of Turin’s transformation from a provincial stronghold into a consciously designed capital city.  Much of the architecture of Turin illustrates its rich history as the home of the Savoy Kings. In the centre of the city, Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library, and Filippo Juvarra’s Palazzo Madama, which used to be where the Italian senate met, showcases some of the finest buildings in ‘royal’ Turin, including the Palazzo Reale, to which Juvarra and Amedeo di Castellamonte both contributed, and the Teatro Regio, built to Juvarra’s plans after his death. Some members of the House of Savoy are buried in Turin’s Duomo in Piazza San Giovanni, built by Amedeo de Francisco di Settignano. Guarini’s adjoining chapel, of course, is famous for being the home of the Turin shroud, which many people believe was the actual burial shroud of Jesus Christ.  At the centre of the historic city, Piazza Castello is a hub that connects Via Po, Via Roma and Via Garibaldi.

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Luigi Bartolomeo Avanzini's huge Ducal Palace,
built as a home for the Este Dukes of Modena

Travel tip:

Modena, where Guarino Guarini was born, is a city on the south side of the Po Valley in the Emilia-Romagna region.  It is known for its car industry, because Ferrari, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati have all been located there.. One of the main sights in Modena is the huge, Baroque Ducal Palace, begun by Francesco I on the site of a former castle in 1635. His architect, Luigi Bartolomeo Avanzini, created a home for him that few European princes could match at the time. In the Galleria Estense, on the upper floor of the Palazzo dei Musei in Modena, is a one-metre high bust of Francesco I d’Este, Duke of Modena, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.  The Cathedral of Modena and its bell tower, Torre della Ghirlandina, are both UNESCO World heritage sites. The tower stands more than 89 metres (292ft) tall and can be seen outside the city from all directions. Inside, there is the Sala della Secchia room, which has 15th century frescoes, and the tower also houses a copy of the oaken bucket, from the War of the Bucket referred to by Tassoni in his poem, which was fought between Modena and Bologna in 1325. The statue of Alessandro Tassoni, which stands at the foot of the tower, was sculpted by Antonio Cavazza and erected in 1860. Modena is also well known for its balsamic vinegar, while operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti and soprano Mirella Freni were both born in the city.

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More reading:

Filippo Juvarra, the architect behind the magnificent Basilica of Superga

Carlo Mollino, Turin’s 20th century ‘Renaissance man’

Alessandro Antonelli, the creator of Turin’s striking Mole Antonelliana, the tallest unreinforced brick building in the world

Also on this day:

1483: The birth of writer and diplomat Francesco Guicciardini

1779: The birth of Papal executioner Giovanni Battista Bugatti 

1853: The premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La traviata

1933: The birth of Augusto Odone, who invented ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’ for sick son

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5 March

Pier Paolo Pasolini - writer and film director

Controversial figure who met violent death

The novelist, writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini was born on this day in 1922 in Bologna.  Pasolini's best-known work included his portrayal of Jesus Christ in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), his bawdy adaptations of such literary classics as Boccaccio’s Decameron (1971) and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1972), and and his brutal satire on Fascism entitled Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).   He also wrote novels and poetry, made documentaries, directed for the theatre and was an outspoken columnist for the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, expressing political views that would regularly spark heated debate.  A former member of the Communist Party and openly homosexual, Pasolini died in violent circumstances in Ostia, near Rome, in November 1975, supposedly murdered by a young man he had picked up. Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Tiepolo – artist

Painter’s decorative work can be seen all over Venice

Painter and printmaker Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born on this day in 1696 in Venice.  Also sometimes known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo, his output was prolific and he enjoyed success not only in Italy, but in Germany and Spain as well.  Highly regarded right from the beginning of his career, he has been described by experts as the greatest decorative artist of 18th century Europe. Although much of his work was painted directly on to the walls and ceilings of churches and palaces in his native Venice, many of Tiepolo’s paintings on canvas are now in art galleries all over the world.  Tiepolo was the youngest child of a Venetian shipping merchant who died a year after his birth leaving his mother to struggle to bring up her six children alone.  In 1710 he became a pupil of Gregorio Lazzarini, a successful established painter, but Tiepolo quickly developed a style of his own.  Read more…

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Launch of Corriere della Sera

Italy’s biggest-selling daily newspaper

Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest daily newspapers, began its unbroken production run on this day in 1876.  Of the 22 newspapers with a countrywide circulation, only Il Sole 24 Ore, which made its first appearance in 1865, and La Stampa, which launched in 1866, have a longer continuous history than Corriere della Sera.  Based in Milan, Corriere once sold more than one million copies each day. In common with newspapers across the globe, daily sales have tumbled as readers switch to online sources for news coverage. Yet, even though daily sales have slipped to below 250,000 today, it outstrips nearest rival La Repubblica by around 90,000.  Corriere’s founding-editor was Eugenio Torelli-Viollier, a Naples-born Milan journalist who envisaged a newspaper that would establish a reputation for objective analysis, with a centre-right stance. Read more…

Alessandro Volta – scientist

Invention sparked wave of electrical experiments

Alessandro Volta, who invented the first electric battery, died on this day in 1827 in Como.  His electric battery had provided the first source of continuous current and the volt, a unit of the electromotive force that drives current, was named in his honour in 1881.  Volta was born Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta in 1745 in Como.  He became professor of physics at the Royal School of Como in 1774. His interest in electricity led him to improve the electrophorus, a device that had been created to generate static electricity. He discovered and isolated methane gas in 1776, after finding it at Lake Maggiore and was then appointed to the chair of physics at the University of Pavia.  Volta was a friend of the scientist Luigi Galvani, a professor at Bologna University, whose experiments led him to announce in 1791 that the contact of two different metals with the muscle of a frog resulted in the generation of an electric current.  Read more…

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Lucio Battisti - singer-songwriter

Musician credited with writing ‘the soundtrack of Italian life’

Lucio Battisti, who was one of the most influential figures in Italian pop and rock music in a career spanning four decades, was born on this day in 1943 in Poggio Bustone, a hillside village in the province of Rieti in Lazio, about 100km (62 miles) northeast of Rome.  A songwriter, singer and composer, his work has been described as defining popular music in Italy in the late 1960s and the 1970s in particular, although his popularity continued right up to his death, at the age of just 55, in 1998.  Some music critics and music historians have credited Battisti with writing ‘the soundtrack of our lives’ for several generations of young people, citing songs such as Emozioni (Emotions), Acqua azzurra, acqua chiara (Blue Water, Clear Water), Il mio canto libero (My Free Song) and La canzone del sole (The Song of the Sun) as his most memorable, although there were many more that made their mark.  Read more…

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Marietta Piccolomini – soprano

Popular star who found fame as Violetta

The operatic soprano Marietta Piccolomini, who was most famous for her performances as Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata, was born on this day in 1834 in Siena.   Her career was relatively brief, spanning just 11 years. Yet she managed to achieve unprecedented popularity, to the extent that crowds of fans would gather outside her hotel and men would volunteer to take the place of horses in pulling her carriage through the streets.  Some critics said that the adulation she enjoyed was more to do with her youthful good looks and her acting ability than her voice, who they argued was weak and limited.  Nonetheless, she was seldom short of work and she was the first Violetta to be seen by opera goers in both Paris and London.  She had a particularly enthusiastic following in England, where she undertook several tours of provincial theatres. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini – A Bilingual Edition, by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Edited and translated by Stephen Sartarelli

Most people outside Italy know Pier Paolo Pasolini for his films, many of which began as literary works - Arabian Nights, The Gospel According to Matthew, The Decameron, and The Canterbury Tales among them. What most people are not aware of is that he was primarily a poet, publishing 19 books of poems during his lifetime, as well as a visual artist, novelist, playwright, and journalist. Half a dozen of these books have been excerpted and published in English over the years, but even if one were to read all of those, the wide range of poetic styles and subjects that occupied Pasolini during his lifetime would still elude the English-language reader. For the first time, Anglophones will now be able to discover the many facets of this singular poet. The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini features poems from every period of Pasolini’s poetic oeuvre, giving English-language readers a more complete picture of the poet, whose verse ranged from short lyrics to longer poems and extended sequences, and whose themes ran not only to the moral, spiritual, and social spheres but also to the aesthetic and sexual. It shows how central poetry was to Pasolini, no matter what else he was doing in his creative life, and how poetry informed all of his work from the visual arts to his political essays to his films.

Stephen Sartarelli is an American poet and translator, probably best known for translating into English the popular Inspector Montalbano novels by the Italian writer Andrea Camilleri.

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4 March

Alfonso Bialetti – engineer

The genius behind one of the most quintessentially Italian style symbols

Alfonso Bialetti, who became famous for designing the aluminium Moka Express coffee maker, died on this day in 1970 in Omegna in Piedmont.  Originally designed in 1933, the Moka Express has been a style icon since the 1950s, and it remains a famous symbol of the Italian way of life to this day.  Bialetti was born in 1888 in Montebuglio, a district of the Casale Corte Cerro municipality in Cusio, Piedmont. As a young man, he is said to have alternated between assisting his father, who sold branding irons, and working as an apprentice in small workshops.  He emigrated to France while he was still young and became a foundry worker, acquiring metalworking skills by working for a decade in the French metal industry.  In 1918 he returned to Montebuglio, opened a foundry in nearby Crusinallo and began making metal products. Read more…

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Birth of the Italian Constitution

Celebrations in Turin for historic Statute

The Albertine Statute - Statuto Albertino - which later became the Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy, was approved by Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, on this day in 1848 in Turin.  The Constitution was to last 100 years, until its abolition in 1948 when the Constitution of the new Italian republic came into effect.  The Statute was based on the French Charter of 1830. It ensured citizens were equal before the law and gave them limited rights of assembly and the right to a free press.  However, it gave voting rights to less than three per cent of the population.  The Statute established the three classic branches of government: the executive, which meant the king, the legislative, divided between the royally appointed Senate and an elected Chamber of Deputies, and a judiciary, also appointed by the king.  Originally, it was the king who possessed the widest powers. Read more…

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Giorgio Bassani - writer and novelist

Best-known work reflected plight of wealthy Jewish Italians in 1930s

Giorgio Bassani, rated by many critics as alongside the likes of Cesare Pavese, Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia among the great postwar Italian novelists, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.  Bassani’s best-known work, his 1962 novel Il giardino dei finzi-contini - The Garden of the Finzi-Continis - was turned into an Oscar-winning movie by the director Vittorio De Sica.  Like much of his fiction, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is semi-autobiographical, drawing on his upbringing as a member of an upper middle-class Jewish family in Ferrara, the city in Emilia-Romagna, during the rise of Mussolini’s Fascists and the onset of World War Two.  Bassani, who was the editor of a number of literary journals and a respected screenplay writer, had already achieved recognition for his work through his Cinque storie ferraresi - Five Stories of Ferrara - which won the prestigious Strega Prize in 1956.  Read more…

Lucio Dalla - musician

Cantautore inspired by the great Caruso

The singer/songwriter Lucio Dalla was born on this day in 1943 in Bologna. Dalla is most famous for composing the song, Caruso, in 1986 after staying in the suite the great tenor Enrico Caruso used to occupy overlooking the sea at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento.  Dalla started playing the clarinet when he was young and joined the Rheno Dixieland Band in Bologna along with the future film director, Pupi Avati.  Avati was later to say that his film Ma quando arrivano le ragazze? was inspired by his friendship with Dalla.  In the 1960s the band won first prize in the traditional jazz band category at a festival in Antibes. After hearing Dalla’s voice, his fellow cantautore - the Italian word for singer/songwriter - Gino Paoli suggested he try for a solo career as a soul singer, but his first single was a failure.  Read more…

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Antonio Vivaldi – Baroque composer

The success and the sadness in the life of musical priest 

Violinist, teacher, composer and cleric Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born on this day in Venice in 1678.  Widely recognised as one of the greatest Baroque composers, he had an enormous influence on music throughout Europe during his own lifetime.  His best-known work is a series of beautiful violin concertos called The Four Seasons.  Vivaldi was a prolific composer who enjoyed a lot of success when his career was at its height.  As well as instrumental concertos he composed many sacred choral works and more than 40 operas.  Vivaldi’s father taught him to play the violin when he was very young and he became a brilliant performer. At the age of 15 he began studying to be a priest and he was ordained at the age of 25. He soon became nicknamed ‘Il Prete Rosso’, the red priest, because of his red hair. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The World Atlas of Coffee: From Beans to Brewing - Coffee Explored, Explained and Enjoyed (3rd edition), by James Hoffman

Coffee has never been better, or more interesting, than it is today. Coffee producers have access to more varieties and techniques than ever before and, as consumers, we can share in that expertise to make sure the coffee we drink is the best we can find. Where coffee comes from, how it was harvested, the roasting process and the water used to make the brew are just a few of the factors that influence the taste. Champion barista and coffee expert James Hoffmann examines these key factors, looking at varieties of coffee, the influence of terroir, how it is harvested and processed, the roasting methods used, through to the way in which the beans are brewed.  Country by country - from Bolivia to Zambia - he identifies key characteristics and the methods that determine the quality of that country's output. The World Atlas of Coffee is the first book to chart the coffee production of over 35 countries, encompassing knowledge never previously published outside the coffee industry.

James Hoffmann is the managing director of Square Mile Coffee Roasters, a multi-award-winning coffee roasting company based in East London. He is also the World Barista Champion 2007, having won the UK Barista competition in both 2006 and 2007. 

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3 March

Charles Ponzi - fraudster

Name forever linked with investment scam

The swindler Charles Ponzi, whose notorious fraudulent investment scheme in 1920s America led his name to be immortalised in the lexicon of financial crimes, was born Carlo Ponzi in the town of Lugo di Romagna on this day in 1882.  Ponzi, who emigrated to the United States in 1903 but arrived there almost penniless, had been in prison twice - once for theft and a second time for smuggling Italian immigrants illegally into the US - when he came up with his scheme.  Ponzi identified a way to make profits through exploiting the worldwide market in international postal reply coupons.  This was not his scheme, simply the starting point.  These coupons, which allowed a correspondent in one country to pay for the cost of return postage from another, were sold at a universal cover price but variations in exchange rates meant that a coupon bought in one country might be worth more in another. Read more…

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The Balvano Disaster

Italy’s worst but little known train tragedy

The Italian railway network suffered its worst accident on this day in 1944 when more than 600 passengers died from carbon monoxide poisoning after a train stopped in a tunnel just outside the small town of Balvano, on the border of Basilicata and Campania about 90km (56 miles) east of Salerno.  Yet, despite the death toll being perhaps nine times that of the country’s worst peacetime rail disaster, few Italians were aware that it had happened until author and historian Gianluca Barneschi wrote a book about it in 2014.  Because the tragedy took place during the final stages of the Second World War, when much of southern Italy was a battleground between German and Allied forces, it resonated as a news story for only a short time, the victims essentially added to Italy’s overall count of civilian casualties during the conflict, which is put at more than 150,000.  Read more…

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Teatro Olimpico – Palladio masterpiece

Renaissance theatre still stages plays and concerts

The Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, originally designed by Andrea Palladio, was inaugurated on this day in 1585.  A performance of Oedipus the King by Sophocles was given for its opening and the original scenery, which was meant to represent the streets of Thebes, has miraculously survived to this day.  The theatre was the last piece of architecture designed by Andrea Palladio and it was not completed until after his death.  The Teatro Olimpico is one of three Renaissance theatres remaining in existence and since 1994 it has been listed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site.  In 1579 Palladio was asked to produce a design for a permanent theatre in Vicenza and he decided to base it on the designs of Roman theatres he had studied.  After his death, only six months into the project, the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi was called in to complete it.  Read more…

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Sebastiano Venier – Doge of Venice

Victorious naval commander briefly ruled La Serenissima

Sebastiano Venier, who successfully commanded the Venetian contingent at the Battle of Lepanto, died on this day in 1578 in Venice.  He had been Doge of Venice for less than a year when fire badly damaged the Doge’s Palace. He died soon afterwards, supposedly as a result of the distress it had caused him.  Venier was born in Venice around 1496, the son of Moisè Venier and Elena Donà. He was descended from Pietro Venier, who governed Cerigo, one of the main Ionian islands off the coast of Greece, which was also known as Kythira.  Venier worked as a lawyer, although he had no formal qualifications, and he went on to become an administrator for the Government of the Republic of Venice. He was married to Cecilia Contarini, who bore him two sons and a daughter.  Venier was listed as procurator of St Mark’s in 1570. Read more...

Nicola Porpora – composer and teacher

Tutor of celebrated opera singers died in poverty

Nicola Porpora, who composed more than 60 operas and was a brilliant singing teacher in Italy, died on this day in 1768 in Naples.  Among his many pupils were poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio, composers Johann Adolph Hasse and Joseph Haydn and the celebrated castrati, Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) and Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano).  Porpora’s most important teaching post was in Venice at the Ospedale degli Incurabili, where there was a music school for girls, in which he taught between 1726 and 1733.  He then went to London as chief composer to the Opera of the Nobility, a company that had been formed in opposition to Royal composer George Frideric Handel’s opera company.  The composer was born Nicola Antonio Giacinto Porpora in 1686 in Naples.  He graduated from the music conservatory, Poveri di Gesù Cristo, and his first opera, Agrippina, was a success at the Neapolitan court in 1708. Read more…

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Ascanio Sforza – Cardinal

Borgia pope’s ally used his power to benefit Milan

Ascanio Maria Sforza Visconti, who became a skilled diplomat and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, was born on this day in 1455 in Cremona in Lombardy.  He played a major part in the election of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI in the papal conclave of 1492 and served as Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church from 1492 until 1505.  Ascanio was the son of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Bianca Maria Visconti. Two of his brothers, Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Ludovico Sforza, became Dukes of Milan, as did his nephew, Gian Galeazzo Sforza.  At the age of ten, Ascanio was named commendatory abbot of Chiaravalle and he was promised the red hat of a cardinal when he was in his teens. He was appointed Bishop of Pavia in 1479.  Pope Sixtus IV created him cardinal deacon of SS Vito e Modesto in March 1484. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Rise of Mr. Ponzi, by Charles Ponzi

Who was Charles Ponzi?... a scoundrel, a petty criminal, a misunderstood financial genius, a criminal mastermind, or perhaps simply a salesman extraordinaire? The fascination in examining the life of Charles Ponzi lies in trying to understand the machinations of his heart, mind, and soul as he perpetrated one of the largest frauds in U.S. history. While much opinion and speculation has been bandied about regarding this key point, the complexity of Charles Ponzi has made reaching a satisfying conclusion all but impossible. In his autobiography, The Rise of Mr Ponzi, first published in 1936, Ponzi recounts his life and the extraordinary events of 1920 from his own perspective. Gain insight into the mind behind the most infamous "Ponzi" scheme in the history of the United States.

Revived by Despair Inc, this 400-page book offers a first-hand account from the infamous swindler himself regarding his rise to fortune and ultimate disgrace. 

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