14 September

Dante Alighieri – poet

Famous son of Florence remains in exile

Dante Alighieri, an important poet during the late Middle Ages, died on this day in 1321 in Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna.  Dante’s Divine Comedy is considered to be the greatest literary work written in Italian and has been acclaimed all over the world.  In the 13th century most poetry was written in Latin, but Dante wrote in the Tuscan dialect, which made his work more accessible to ordinary people.  Writers who came later, such as Petrarch and Boccaccio, followed this trend.  Therefore Dante can be said to have played an instrumental role in establishing the national language of Italy.  His depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in the Divine Comedy later influenced the works of John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Lord Alfred Tennyson, among many others.  Dante was also the first poet to use the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, terza rima.  Read more…

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Renzo Piano – architect

Designer of innovative buildings is now an Italian senator

Award-winning architect Renzo Piano was born on this day in 1937 in Genoa.  Piano is well-known for his high-tech designs for public spaces and is particularly famous for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, which he worked on in collaboration with the British architect, Richard Rogers, and the Shard in London.  Among the many awards and prizes Piano has received for his work are the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for architecture in 1995, the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998 and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 2008.  Piano was born into a family of builders and graduated from the Polytechnic in Milan in 1964. He completed his first building, the IPE factory in Genoa, in 1968. He worked with a variety of architects, including his father, Carlo Piano, until he established a partnership with Rogers, which lasted from 1971-1977.  Read more…

Tiziano Terzani - journalist

Asia correspondent who covered wars in Vietnam and Cambodia

The journalist and author Tiziano Terzani, who spent much of his working life in China, Japan and Southeast Asia and whose writing received critical acclaim both in his native Italy and elsewhere, was born on this day in 1938 in Florence.  He worked for more than 30 years for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, who took him on as Asia Correspondent in 1971, based in Singapore.  Although he wrote for other publications, including the Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica, it was Der Spiegel who allowed him the freedom to offer his own unique slant on the major stories.  He was one of only a handful of western journalists who remained in Vietnam after the liberation of Saigon by the Viet Cong in 1975 and two years later reported from Phnom Penh in Cambodia after its capture by the Khmer Rouge.  Read more…

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Vittorio Gui – composer and conductor

Precise and sensitive musician enjoyed a long and distinguished career

Internationally renowned orchestra conductor Vittorio Gui was born on this day in 1885 in Rome.  Gui composed his own operas, while travelling around Italy and Europe conducting the music of other composers. He spent many years conducting in Britain and served as the musical director of the Glyndebourne Festival for 12 years.  He was taught to play the piano by his mother when he was a young child. He graduated in Humanities at the University of Rome and then studied composition at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.  The premiere of his opera, David, took place in Rome in 1907. He made his professional conducting debut at the Teatro Adriano in Rome in the same year, having been brought in as a substitute to lead Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.  This led to Gui being invited to conduct in Rome and Turin. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Reading Dante - from Here to Eternity, by Prue Shaw

Reading Dante is an accessible yet expert introduction to his great poem, La Divina Commedia. This is far more than an exegesis of Dante’s three-part Commedia. The author communicates the imaginative power, the linguistic skill and the emotional intensity of Dante's poetry, the qualities that make the Commedia perhaps the greatest literary work of all time and not simply a medieval treatise on morality and religion. The book provides a graphic account of the complicated geography of Dante's version of the afterlife and a sure guide to 13th-century Florence and the people and places that influenced him. At the same time it offers a literary experience that lifts the reader into the universal realms of poetry and mythology, creating links not only to the classical world of Virgil and Ovid but also to modern art and poetry, the world of T S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney and many others. Dante's questions are our questions: What is it to be a human being? How should we judge human behaviour? What matters in life and in death? Reading Dante helps the reader to understand Dante's answers to these timeless questions and to see how surprisingly close they sometimes are to modern answers. Reading Dante is an astonishingly lyrical work that will appeal to both those who've never read the Commedia and those who have. It underscores Dante's belief that poetry can change human lives.

Prue Shaw is an emerita reader in Italian studies at University College, London and one of the world’s leading authorities on Dante. She is the editor of the edizione nazionale of Dante's Monarchia and of a digital edition of the Commedia.

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13 September

Girolamo Frescobaldi – composer

Organist was a ‘father of Italian music’

Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi, one of the first great masters of organ composition, was born on this day in 1583 in Ferrara.  Frescobaldi is famous for his instrumental works, many of which are compositions for the keyboard, but his canzone are of historical importance for the part they played in the development of pieces for small instrumental ensembles and he was to have a strong influence on the German Baroque school.  Frescobaldi began his career as organist at the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome in 1607. He travelled to the Netherlands the same year and published his first work, a book of madrigals, in Antwerp.  In 1608 he became the organist at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and, except for a few years when he was court organist in Florence, he worked at St Peter’s until his death.  Read more…

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Fabio Cannavaro - World Cup winner

Defender captained azzurri to 2006 triumph

The footballer and coach Fabio Cannavaro, who was captain of the Italy team that won the 2006 World Cup in Germany, was born on this day in 1973 in Naples.  In a hugely successful playing career, the central defender was part of the excellent Parma team that won the UEFA Cup and the Coppa Italia under coach Alberto Malesani in the late 1990s, winning another Coppa Italia in 2002 with Pietro Carmignani in charge.  But his biggest glories were to come after he left Italy to play for Real Madrid under the Italian coach Fabio Capello, winning La Liga twice, in 2006 and 2007.  His 136 appearances for the Italian national team made him the most capped outfield player in history and the feat of winning La Liga and the World Cup in the same year helped him win the coveted Ballon d’Or, awarded annually by the magazine France Football. Read more…

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Andrea Mantegna – artist

Genius led the way with his use of perspective

The painter Andrea Mantegna died on this day in 1506 in Mantua.  He had become famous for his religious paintings, such as St Sebastian, which is now in the Louvre in Paris, and The Agony in the Garden, which is now in the National Gallery in London.  But his frescoes for the Bridal Chamber (Camera degli Sposi) at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua were to influence many artists because of his innovative use of perspective.  Mantegna studied Roman antiquities for inspiration and was also an eminent engraver.  He was born near Padua in about 1431 and apprenticed by the age of 11 to the painter, Francesco Squarcione, who had a fascination for ancient art and encouraged him to study fragments of Roman sculptures.  Mantegna was one of a large group of painters entrusted with decorating the Ovetari Chapel in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua.  Read more…

Saverio Bettinelli – writer

Jesuit scholar and poet was unimpressed with Dante

Poet and literary critic Saverio Bettinelli, who had the temerity to criticise Dante in his writing, died at the age of 90 on this day in 1808 in Mantua.  Bettinelli had entered the Jesuit Order at the age of 20 and went on to become known as a dramatist, poet and literary critic, who also taught rhetoric in various Italian cities.  In 1758 he travelled through Italy and Germany and met the French writers Voltaire and Rousseau.  Bettinelli taught literature from 1739 to 1744 at Brescia, where he formed an academy with other scholars. He became a professor of rhetoric in Venice and was made superintendent of the College of Nobles at Parma in 1751, where he was in charge of the study of poetry and history and theatrical entertainment.  After travelling to Germany, Strasbourg and Nancy, he returned to Italy.  Read more…

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Francesco Manelli – Baroque composer

Theorbo player staged the world’s first public opera

Musician and opera composer Francesco Manelli, who is remembered for the important contribution he made to bringing commercial opera to Venice, was born on this day in 1595 in Tivoli in Lazio.  Manelli (sometimes spelt Mannelli) was also a skilled player of the theorbo, which is a plucked string instrument belonging to the lute family that has a very long neck.  From the age of ten, Manelli used to sing in Tivoli's Duomo, the Basilica Cattedrale di San Lorenzo Martire, and he was taught music by the various maestri di cappella working there at that time.  Manelli moved to Rome with the intention of studying for a career in the church, but after meeting and marrying a singer, Maddalena, he decided to dedicate himself exclusively to music.  In 1627, Manelli went back to Tivoli where he himself became a maestro di cappella at the Duomo, a post he held for two years.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Girolamo Frescobaldi: A Variety of Inventions, by Richard Lester

Girolamo Frescobaldi was the greatest Italian keyboard composer of the early Baroque. Throwing caution to the wind he introduced his own 'unconventional' style of inventive harmony, quirky rhythms and innovative embellishment, establishing his prominence as a beacon of musical excellence, and an inspiration for future generations of composers. With practical discussions on 17th century fingering methods, ornamentation, organ registration, modes, tuning and temperament, and Italian instruments, plus other intriguing concepts, Richard Lester explores much of the composer's creative genius: a trendsetter straordinario. A supplement to Girolamo Frescobaldi: A Variety of Inventions in the form of a documentary is available on www.richardlester.org.uk and audio recordings by Richard Lester on historic instruments are available on Spotify, or from sales@wyastone.co.uk

Richard Lester is an acclaimed early music keyboard player and recording artist known for his extensive recordings of Scarlatti, Bach, and Girolamo Frescobaldi on period instruments. 

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12 September

NEW - Elisabetta Canalis – Sardinian actress

Star who once dated American actor George Clooney

Actress and TV personality Elisabetta Canalis was born on this day in 1978 in Sassari in Sardinia. She has had roles in several films and taken part in many long-running television programmes for Italian channels. While Canalis was the girlfriend of the American actor, George Clooney in 2011, she and Clooney were both witnesses in the two-year trial of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in Milan, who was alleged to have paid for sex with an underage prostitute.  Her father, Cesare Canalis, was a clinical radiologist at the University of Sassari, and her mother, Bruna, was a teacher. Educated at the liceo classico Domenico Alberto Azuni in Sassari, Canalis went on to study foreign languages at the University of Milan, but left the course without graduating when she was 21, to work as a dancer for Canale 5, a TV Channel owned by Berlusconi. Read more…

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Nazis free captive Mussolini

Extraordinary daring of Gran Sasso Raid

One of the most dramatic events of the Second World War in Italy took place on this day in 1943 when Benito Mussolini, the deposed and imprisoned Fascist dictator, was freed by the Germans.  The former leader was being held in a remote mountain ski resort when 12 gliders, each carrying paratroopers and SS officers, landed on the mountainside and took control of the hotel where Mussolini was being held.  They forced his guards to surrender before summoning a small aircraft to fly Mussolini to Rome, from where another plane flew him to Austria.  Even Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime prime minister, professed his admiration for the daring nature of the daylight rescue.  Known as the Gran Sasso Raid or Operation Oak, the rescue was ordered by Adolf Hitler himself after learning that Mussolini's government had passed a resolution that he be replaced as leader. Read more…

Eugenio Montale - poet and translator

Influential writer one of six Italians to win Nobel Prize in Literature

Eugenio Montale, who became one of the most influential Italian writers of the 20th century and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, died on this day in 1981 in Milan at the age of 84.  Montale's most famous work is often considered to be his first, a collection of poems he published in 1925 under the title Ossi di seppia - Cuttlefish Bones. These poems established his use of stark imagery, his introspective tone and his fascination with themes such as desolation, alienation and mortality, and the search for elusive meaning in a fragmented world.  Later collections such as Le occasioni (1939) - The Occasions - and La bufera e altro (1956) - The Storm and Other Things - reinforced his reputation as one of Italian literature’s 20th century greats.  Montale was born in 1896 in a building overlooking the botanical gardens of the University of Genoa. Read more…

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Lorenzo II de’ Medici – Duke of Urbino

Short rule of the grandson of Lorenzo Il Magnifico

Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, was born on this day in 1492 in Florence.  The grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Lorenzo II ruled Florence from 1513 to 1519.  Niccolò Machiavelli addressed his work, The Prince, to Lorenzo II, advising him to accomplish the unification of Italy under Florentine rule by arming the whole nation and expelling its foreign invaders.  When Lorenzo was two years old, his father, who became known as Piero the Unfortunate, was driven out of Florence by Republicans with the help of the French.  The Papal-led Holy League, aided by the Spanish, finally defeated the rebels in 1512 and the Medici family was restored to Florence.  Lorenzo II’s uncle, Giuliano, ruled Florence for a year and then made way for his nephew. Another uncle, Pope Leo X, made Lorenzo the Duke of Urbino after expelling the legitimate ruler of the duchy, Francesco Maria della Rovere.  Read more…

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Daniela Rocca – actress

Tragic star shunned after breakdown

The actress Daniela Rocca, who starred in the hit big-screen comedy Divorce, Italian Style, was born on this day in 1937 in Sicily.  The movie, in which she starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni, won an Academy Award for its writers and acclaim for former beauty queen Rocca, who revealed a notable acting talent.  Yet this zenith in her short career would in some ways also prove to be its nadir after she fell in love with the director, Pietro Germi.  The relationship she hoped for did not materialise and she subsequently suffered a mental breakdown, which had damaging consequences for her career and her life.  Born in Acireale, a coastal city in eastern Sicily in the shadow of the Mount Etna volcano, Rocca came from poor, working class roots but her looks became a passport to a new life. She entered and won the Miss Catania beauty contest before she was 16. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: The Italian Cinema Book, edited by Peter Bondanella

The Italian Cinema Book is an essential guide to the most important historical, aesthetic and cultural aspects of Italian cinema, from 1895 to the present day. With contributions from 39 leading international scholars, the book is structured around six chronologically organised sections: The Silent Era (1895-1922); The Birth of the Talkies and The Fascist Era (1922-45); Postwar Cinematic Culture (1945-59); The Golden Age of Italian Cinema (1960-80); An Age of Crisis, Transition and Consolidation (1981-present); and New Directions in Critical Approaches to Italian Cinema.  Acutely aware of the contemporary 'rethinking' of Italian cinema history, Peter Bondanella has brought together a diverse range of essays which represent the cutting edge of Italian film theory and criticism. This provocative collection will provide the film student, scholar or enthusiast with a comprehensive understanding of the major developments in what might be called 20th-century Italy's greatest and most original art form.

Peter Bondanella, who was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Italian, Comparative Literature and Film Studies at Indiana University, wrote a number of groundbreaking books, including Hollywood Italians, The Cinema of Federico Fellini, and The Films of Roberto Rossellini. He also won acclaim for his translations of Italian literary classics.

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Elisabetta Canalis – Sardinian actress

Star who once dated American actor George Clooney

Elisabetta Canalis has enjoyed a successful
career in films and television

Actress and TV personality Elisabetta Canalis was born on this day in 1978 in Sassari in Sardinia. She has had roles in several films and taken part in many long-running television programmes for Italian channels.

While Canalis was the girlfriend of the American actor, George Clooney in 2011, she and Clooney were both witnesses in the two-year trial of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in Milan, who was alleged to have paid for sex with an underage prostitute.

Her father, Cesare Canalis, was a clinical radiologist at the University of Sassari, and her mother, Bruna, was a teacher. Educated at the liceo classico Domenico Alberto Azuni in Sassari, Canalis went on to study foreign languages at the University of Milan, but left the course without graduating when she was 21, to work as a dancer for Canale 5, a TV Channel owned by Berlusconi.

She worked on the show, Striscia la notizia, for three years and then had some minor parts in films. In 2005, she was chosen to replace the actress Michelle Hunziker in the television sitcom Love Bugs.

Canalis was a co-host on a variety of TV programmes before being picked to host the Trofeo Birra Moretti 2008, a summer football competition for Italian teams.

She played a character in the TV series, Leverage, and then co-hosted the 2011 San Remo Song Festival with Gianni Morandi and Maria Belen Rodriguez, during which she interviewed Robert De Niro.

Canalis appeared on the 13th season of Dancing with the Stars in America, but she and her professional partner were the second couple to be eliminated. Afterwards, she was interviewed on the Ellen De Generes Show.

Also in demand as a model, Canalis has been photographed for many calendars and magazines. She appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair for the third time in 2010 and was voted the fourth most beautiful woman in the world by the magazine's readers that year. 

In 2012, she was invited to model for the German designer, Philip Plein, during Milan Fashion Week.

Elisabetta Canalis with the American actor George
Clooney, with whom she had a two-year romance

Canalis has been engaged to the footballer Christian Vieri and has had short relationships with film director Gabriele Muccino and Brazilian-born footballer, Reginaldo Ferreira da Silva, who spent much of his career in Italy.

After her relationship with George Clooney broke up after two years in 2011, Canalis met Brian Perri an American orthopaedic surgeon. When they married in Alghero in Sardinia in 2014, the Italian singer Bianca Atzei sang the traditional Sardinian version of Ave Maria, Deus ti salvet Maria, during the wedding ceremony. The couple had a daughter together one year later.

Canalis was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF Italy in March 2015.

In 2023,  Canalis revealed that she and Perri were separated pending a divorce and that she was at the time romantically involved with Romanian kickboxer Georgian Cimpeanu.

Canalis returned to acting in 2024, when she played the character of Amalia in the film comedy, Come far litigare Mamma e Papá, which was directed by Gianluca Ansanelli. 

The elegant Piazza d'Italia, surrounded by many
neoclassical buildings, is at the centre of Sassari

Travel tip:

Sassari, where Elisabetta Canalis was born, is rich in art, culture and history. It is a city well known for its beautiful palazzi, for the Fountain of the Rosello, and for the elegant neoclassical architecture that can be found around the central Piazza d'Italia and the Teatro Civico. The city, situated in the northwest corner of the island, is second in size only to Cagliari on Sardinia and it is not heavily industrialised. Its economy relies mainly on tourism. Although Sassari was founded early in the Middle Ages, the surrounding area has been inhabited since the Neolithic age, and later by the Nuragics and the Romans. There are many archaeological sites and ancient ruins in or around the town and the ruins of a Roman aqueduct. A Roman villa was discovered under San Nicholas Cathedral, and a section of an ancient road has been unearthed.

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The historic Castello district of Cagliari is one
of the city's most popular areas for tourists

Travel tip:

Sardinia is a large island off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea, with sandy beaches and a mountainous landscape and it is a popular holiday destination, welcoming millions of visitors every year. Alghero, where Elisabetta Canalis married Brian Perri, is a town on the north-west side of the island, with a delightful historic centre and a sandy beach. It has excellent seafood restaurants and plenty of bars. The wedding ceremony took place at the Duomo, the Cathedral of Santa Maria Immacolata, which was built in the 16th century in Catalan Gothic style in the historic centre of the city. The reception was held at a vineyard estate about 15 minutes’ drive from Alghero, where the famous Sardinian wine Vermentino is produced. Cagliari is Sardinia's capital, its main port and industrial centre, as well as a popular tourist destination, especially loved for the tree-lined boulevards and elegant arcades of the marina area and the charm of its historical centre, known as Castello, with limestone buildings that prompted DH Lawrence to call it 'the white Jerusalem', which take on beautiful pastel hues at sunset.

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More reading:

Luisa Ranieri, Naples-born star who married Luca Zingaretti

Manuela Arcuri - actress chosen as 'model' for controversial statue

Pier Angeli, il-fated Hollywood star from Cagliari

Also on this day:

1492: The birth of Lorenzo II de' Medici

1937: The birth of tragic actress Daniela Rocca

1943: Germans free Mussolini in Gran Sasso Raid

1981: The death of Nobel Prize-winning writer Eugenio Montale

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