5 February

La dolce vita - cinematic masterpiece

Commentary on decadence of 1950s Rome saw Fellini hailed as a genius

La dolce vita, a film still regarded as one of the greatest in cinema history, was screened in front of a paying audience for the first time on this day in 1960.  After a preview before invited guests and media at the Fiamma cinema in Rome, the Capitol Cinema in Milan was chosen for its public premiere. The movie went on general release in Italy the day afterwards and made its London debut on 8 February.  It was shown in America for the first time in April of the following year.  Directed by Federico Fellini, the film won the Palme d'Or, the highest award presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1960 and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Director for Fellini, although ultimately the production team had to be content with the Oscar for Best Costumes.  It won numerous awards in Italy, while the brilliant Nino Rota’s soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Moroni – artist

Portrait painter left visual record of a changing society

Giovanni Battista Moroni, who was considered one of the greatest portrait painters of the 16th century, died on this day in 1578 while working on a painting at a church just outside Bergamo in the northern region of Lombardy.  His wonderful legacy of portraits provides an illuminating insight into life in Italy in the 16th century, as he received commissions from merchants trying to climb the social ladder as well as from rich noblemen.  Moroni was born at Albino near Bergamo somewhere between 1510 and 1522 and went on to train under a religious painter from Brescia, Alessandro Bonvicino.  Although Moroni painted many acclaimed religious works, he became known much more for the vitality and realism of his portraits, for which he was once praised by Titian.  Some of Moroni’s work is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the National Gallery in London.  Read more…

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Cesare Maldini - footballer and coach

Enjoyed success with AC Milan as player and manager

The footballer and coach Cesare Maldini, who won four Serie A titles and an historic European Cup as a centre half with AC Milan and later coached the club with success in domestic and European football, was born on this day in 1932 in Trieste.  When, under Maldini’s captaincy, Milan beat Benfica 2–1 at Wembley Stadium in London in May 1963, they became the first Italian club to win the European Cup and Maldini the first Italian captain to lift the trophy.  Maldini’s international career included an 18-month spell as coach of the Italy national team, during which the Azzurri reached the quarter-finals of the 1998 World Cup. He had earlier won three consecutive European championships as coach of the Italy Under-21s. He is the father of Paolo Maldini, the former AC Milan defender whose record-breaking career spanned 25 years. Read more…

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Giovanni Capurro - poet and songwriter

Neapolitan who wrote the words to ‘O sole mio

Giovanni Capurro, a poet and songwriter best known for writing the lyric of the classic Neapolitan song ‘O sole mio, was born in Naples on this day in 1859.  The son of a professor of languages, Capurro was a cultured man who would in time be considered one of the 19th century’s finest Italian poets, yet was never well rewarded for his art. He spent much of his working life as a journalist and died poor.  Capurro grew up in the Montecalvario district of Naples, an area of the city centre that climbs up the hill of San Martino to the west of Via Toledo. Although his first love was writing, and poetry in particular, he was also a talented musician, graduating from the Naples Conservatory after studying the flute. He was also blessed with a good singing voice.  He wrote poetry in both Italian and Neapolitan dialect, both in the form of song lyrics and volumes of poetry. Read more…

Premiere of Verdi’s Otello

Composer’s penultimate opera prompted 20 curtain calls

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Otello, the penultimate work of his outstanding career, was staged for the first time at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala theatre on this day in 1887.  The four-act opera, based on the play Othello by William Shakespeare, came into being only after a long campaign by Verdi’s publisher, Giulio Ricordi, and the librettist Arrigo Boito, to persuade Italy’s greatest opera composer to come out of his unofficial retirement.  Verdi effectively called time on his writing career after the success of Aida in 1871. It was his 28th opera and his success had enabled him to become a wealthy landowner. Although his Requiem was to come in 1874, he was reluctant to commit himself to any new works.  It took Ricordi and Boito eight years from first suggesting to Verdi that he wrote an opera based on Othello to it actually coming to fruition.  Read more…

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Carolina Morace - footballer and coach

Prolific goalscorer first woman in Italian Football Hall of Fame

Footballer and coach Carolina Morace, the first woman to be inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame, was born on this day in 1964 in Venice.  Morace played for 20 years for 10 different clubs and was the leading goalscorer in the Women's Serie A on 12 occasions, including an incredible run of 11 consecutive seasons from 1987 to 1998.   She won the Italian championship 12 times with eight of her clubs and scored an extraordinary 550 goals at an average of three in every two games at her peak, with a further 105 goals in 153 appearances for the Italy national team.  Four of those came in one match when Italy Women played England in a curtain-raiser to the pre-season Charity Shield game at Wembley in 1990, which she described as one of her proudest moments.  Morace, the daughter of a former officer in the Italian Navy, grew up a stone’s throw away from Venice's football ground at Sant' Elena. Read more…

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Saint Agatha of Sicily – Christian martyr

Huge crowds turn out for feast day in Catania

One of the largest festivals in the Roman Catholic calendar takes place on this day every year to celebrate the life of the Christian martyr Saint Agatha of Sicily.   In Catania, which adopted her as the patron saint of the city, hundreds of thousands of people line the streets to watch the extraordinary sight of up to 5,000 citizens hauling a silver carriage said to weigh 20 tons (18,140kg), bearing a huge statue and containing the relics of the saint, who died on this day in 251 AD.  The procession follows a route from Piazza del Duomo that takes in several city landmarks and ends, after a long climb along the Via Antonino di Sangiuliano at Via Crociferi.  The procession begins in the afternoon and finishes deep into the night.  There is an enormous fireworks display that takes place when the procession reaches Piazza Cavour.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Cinema of Federico Fellini, by Peter Bondanella

This major artistic biography of Federico Fellini shows how his exuberant imagination has been shaped by popular culture, literature, and his encounter with the ideas of C G Jung, especially Jungian dream interpretation. Covering Fellini's entire career, The Cinema of Federico Fellini links his mature accomplishments to his first employment as a cartoonist, gagman, and sketch-artist during the Fascist era and his development as a leading neorealist scriptwriter. Peter Bondanella thoroughly explores key Fellinian themes to reveal the director's growth not only as an artistic master of the visual image but also as an astute interpreter of culture and politics. Bondanella draws on a new archive of several dozen manuscripts, obtained from Fellini and his scriptwriters. These previously unexamined documents allow a comprehensive treatment of Fellini's important part in the rise of Italian neorealism and the even more decisive role that he played in the evolution of Italian cinema beyond neorealism in the 1950s. By probing Fellini's recurring themes, Bondanella reinterprets the visual qualities of the director's body of work and discloses in the films a critical and intellectual vitality often hidden by Fellini's reputation as a storyteller and entertainer. After two chapters on Fellini's precinematic career, the book covers all the films to date in analytical chapters arranged by topic: Fellini and his growth beyond his neorealist apprenticeship, dreams and metacinema, literature and cinema, Fellini and politics, Fellini and the image of women, and La voce della luna and the cinema of poetry.

Until his retirement in 2007, Peter Bondanella was Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, Film Studies, and Italian at Indiana University. A member of the European Academy of Sciences and the Arts and past President of the American Association for Italian Studies, Bondanella wrote numerous books and articles on Italian literature and cinema and translated or edited a number of Italian literary classics.

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4 February

Cesare Battisti – patriot and irredentist

Campaigner for Trentino hailed as national hero

Cesare Battisti, a politician whose campaign to reclaim Trentino for Italy from Austria-Hungary was to cost him his life, was born on this day in 1875 in the region’s capital, Trento.  As a member of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party, Battista was elected to the assembly of South Tyrol and the Austrian Imperial Council, where he pushed for autonomy for Trentino, an area with a mainly Italian-speaking population.  When the First World War arrived and Italy decided to side with the Triple Entente and fight against Austria-Hungary, Battisti decided he could fight only on the Italian side, joining the Alpini corps.  At this time he was still a member of the Austrian Chamber of Deputies, so when he was captured wearing Italian uniform during the Battle of Asiago in 1916 he was charged with high treason and executed.  Italy now looks upon Battisti as a national hero. Read more…

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Ugo Betti - playwright

Judge who combined writing with legal career

Ugo Betti, a playwright whose works exploring facets of the human condition are considered by some to be the finest plays written by an Italian after Luigi Pirandello, was born on this day in 1892 in Camerino in Le Marche.  Betti wrote 27 plays, mainly concerned with evil, guilt, justice, atonement and redemption, largely in his spare time alongside a career in the legal profession.  Although he started life in what was then a remote town in the Apennine mountains, about 75km (47 miles) inland from the Adriatic coast and a similar distance from the city of Perugia, Betti moved with his family at an early age to Parma in Emilia-Romagna.  He followed his older brother Emilio in studying law, although his progress was interrupted when he was enlisted as a volunteer in the army after Italy entered the First World War. Read more…

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Alessandro Magnasco - painter

Artist known for eerie scenes and lifelike figures

The painter Alessandro Magnasco, who became famous for populating eerie landscapes with exaggeratedly realistic figures to illustrate the darker sides of society in his lifetime, was born on this day in 1667 in Genoa.  He specialised in wild and gloomy landscapes and interiors, often crowded with figures such as bandits and beggars, sometimes soldiers, monks or nuns in chaotic scenes, and acquired a substantial following.  His work was especially popular with wealthy families in Milan and Florence, where he worked primarily, and regular lucrative commissions enabled him to become wealthy himself.  Magnasco’s father, Stefano, was a modestly successful painter in Genoa and it is likely Alessandro would have remained in the Ligurian city had his father not died suddenly when he was only three years old.  Read more…

Eugenio Corti - soldier and writer

Author drew on his experiences on the front line

Eugenio Corti, the writer most famous for his epic 1983 novel The Red Horse, died on this day in 2014 at the age of 93.  He passed away at his home in Besana in Brianza in Lombardy, where he had been born in January 1921.  The Red Horse, which follows the life of the Riva family in northern Italy from Mussolini's declaration of war in the summer of 1940 through to the 1970s, covers the years of the Second World War and the evolution of Italy's new republic.  Its themes reflect Corti's own view of the world, his unease about the totalitarianism of fascism and communism, his faith in the Christian Democrats to tread a confident path through the conservative middle ground, and his regret at the decline in Christian values in Italy.  It has been likened to Alessandro Manzoni's novel I promessi sposi - The Betrothed. Read more…

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Giacomo Facco – composer

The forgotten talent of the musician from Padua

Giacomo Facco, a Baroque composer, was born on this day in 1676 in Marsango, a small town just north of Padua.  Highly regarded during his own lifetime, he was completely forgotten about until 1962 when his work was rediscovered by Uberto Zanolli, a musicologist.  Facco is believed to have worked as a violinist and a conductor and he is known to have been given a job in 1705 by the Viceroy of Sicily as a choirmaster, teacher and violinist in Palermo.  In 1708 he moved with the Viceroy to Messina where he composed The Fight between Mercy and Incredulity. In 1710 he presented a work dedicated to King Philip V of Spain, The Augury of Victories, in Messina Cathedral.  By 1720 it is known Facco was working in the Spanish court because his pay is mentioned in a report dating from that year. He is later named as clavichord master to the Spanish princes.  Read more…

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Saint Maria De Mattias - educator

Woman trapped by wealth who set up religious order

Maria De Mattias, whose ambition to serve Christ and to see women given the chance to receive a formal education led her to set up a religious order, was born on this day in 1805 in Vallecorsa, a village in a mountainous region of southern Lazio.  De Mattias, who died in Rome in 1866, was beatified in 1950 by Pope Pius XII and made a saint in 2003 by Pope John Paul II. The Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ, which she established in 1834, now has a membership of more than 2,000, with communities in South America, the United States, Southeast Asia and Africa as well as Italy.  During more than 30 years travelling throughout Italy to help establish communities of her Sisters, De Mattias founded nearly 70 schools, often in remote towns and rural areas of Italy. The young Maria had an upbringing said to have been happy for the most part but subject to constraints.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front, 1915-1918, by John MacDonald and Zeljko Cimpric

From May 1915 to October 1917 the armies of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire were locked into a series of twelve battles along the River Isonzo, a sixty-mile front from the Alps to the Adriatic. The campaign was fought in the most appalling terrain for combat, with horrendous casualties on both sides, often exceeding those of the more famous battles of the Great War. Yet this massive struggle is too often neglected in histories of the war which focus on the fighting on the Western and Eastern Fronts. In Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front, 1915-1918, John Macdonald aims to set the record straight. His description of the Isonzo battles, of the battlefields and of the atrocious conditions in which the soldiers lived and fought is supported by a graphic selection of original photographs that record the terrible reality of the conflict. 

John Macdonald was a distinguished management theorist, consultant and lecturer. His special interest in the Great War and the fighting on the Italian Front in particular was inspired by a visit to the battlefields in Slovenia and Italy. He completed this book shortly before he died in 2011.

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3 February

NEW - Renzo De Vecchi - footballer

Record-holder since 1910 as youngest to play for Italy

Renzo De Vecchi, a defender whose record as the youngest player to appear for the Italy national team has stood since 1910, was born on this day in 1894 in Milan.  De Vecchi was aged 16 years and 112 days when he was sent on to replace an injured player in a match against Hungary in Budapest on May 26, 1910. The newly-formed Italian team had played its first fixture only 16 days previously, beating France 6-2 in Milan. This time the result was a resounding 6-1 defeat.  Forward Rodolfo Gavinelli might have been credited with the record a year later. It was claimed he was only 16 years and 97 days when he appeared against France in Paris 1911 but it could not be recognised officially because of uncertainty over his date of birth.  Since then, the only player to appear for the azzurri before the age of 17 is the Udinese attacker Simone Pafundi.  Read more…

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Giulio Gatti-Casazza - impresario

Manager who transformed the New York Met

Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the impresario who as general manager transformed the Metropolitan Opera in New York into one of the world’s great houses, was born on this day in 1869 in Udine in northeast Italy.  The former general manager at La Scala in Milan, Gatti-Casazza was in charge of the Met for 27 years, from 1908 to 1935. In that time, having brought with him from Milan the brilliant conductor and musical director Arturo Toscanini, he not only attracted almost all of the great opera singers of his era but set the highest standards for the company, which have been maintained to the present day.  Gatti-Casazza also pulled off the not inconsiderable feat of rescuing the Met from the brink of bankruptcy after the stock market crash of 1929. The young Gatti-Casazza had studied engineering after leaving school, graduating from the Genoa Naval School of Engineering. Read more…

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Wilma Montesi - murder victim

‘Body on the beach’ mystery that sparked a national scandal

Wilma Montesi, the woman whose unexplained death in 1953 precipitated a scandal that reached the highest levels of the Italian government, was born on this day in 1932 in Rome.  Raised in the Trieste-Salario neighbourhood, little more than a couple of kilometres from central Rome, she was a 21-year-old woman who dreamed of becoming an actress but whose ambitions were known to no one outside her own family and friends until she disappeared from her home in Via Tagliamento on the afternoon of April 9, 1953.  Two days afterwards, her semi-naked body was found on the beach at Torvaianica, some 40km (25 miles) south of the capital. The mystery surrounding her death sparked four years of police investigations and conspiracy theories and the resignation of a senior member of prime minister Mario Scelba’s government. Read more…

Giuseppe Forlenza – eye surgeon

Napoleon recognised brilliance of ocular specialist

Giuseppe Forlenza, an important 18th century ophthalmologist and surgeon, was born on this day in 1757 in Picerno in the province of Potenza. He became famous for performing successful cataract surgery and for his treatment of eye diseases. Forlenza was born in the region of Basilicata, which at that time was part of the Kingdom of Naples. His father and two uncles were all surgeons.  He went to Naples and then on to France to study surgery. He spent two years gaining experience at St George’s Hospital in London and then returned to France where he concentrated on treating eye diseases.  Forlenza carried out eye surgery at a retirement home in Paris and performed many remarkable operations on soldiers returning from fighting in Egypt who were suffering from eye problems.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Vaccarini - architect

Sicilian Baroque designs shaped the look of Catania

Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, the architect who designed many of the important buildings in Sicily’s second city of Catania, was born on this day in 1702 in Palermo. He was responsible for several palaces, including the Palazzo del Municipio, the Palazzo San Giuliano and the Palazzo dell’Università.  He completed the rebuilding of a number of churches, including the Chiesa della Badia di Sant’Agata, and designed the Baroque façade of the city’s Duomo – the Cattedrale di Sant’Agata – which had been a ruin.  Perhaps his most famous work, though, is the Fontana dell’Elefante, which he placed at the centre of the reconstructed Piazza Duomo, consisting of a marble pedestal and fountains, supporting an ancient Roman statue of an elephant made from lava stone, which in turn has an obelisk mounted on its back.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Moretti - sculptor

Sienese artist who became famous in the United States

The sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, who became well known in the United States as a prolific creator of public monuments, was born on this day in 1857 in Siena.  Moretti's favourite medium was marble and he considered his Head of Christ, which he carved from a block of Alabama marble in 1903, to be his greatest work.  The creation which earned him most fame, however, was the 56-foot (17.07m) statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking, which he made for the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri on behalf of the city of Birmingham, Alabama as a symbol of its heritage in the iron and steel industry.  Moretti made the statue in clay in New Jersey before overseeing its casting in iron in Birmingham.  Vulcan, the largest cast iron statue in the world, was relocated to Alabama State Fairgrounds after the St Louis Exposition before being moved again. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Calcio: A History of Italian Football, by John Foot

The first history of Italian football to be written in English, Calcio: A History of Italian Football is a mix of serious analysis and comic storytelling, with vivid descriptions of games, goals, dives, missed penalties, riots and scandals in the sometimes richest and toughest league in the world.  Calcio tells the story of Italian football from its origins in the 1890’s to the present day. It takes us through a history of great players and teams, of style, passion and success, but also of violence, cynicism, catenaccio tactics and corruption.  We meet the personalities that have shaped this history – from the Italian heroes to the foreigners that failed, the model professionals to the mavericks. Calcio evokes the triumphs (the 1982 World Cup victory) and the tragedies (Meroni, the 'Italian George Best', killed by his number one fan), set against a backdrop of paranoia and intrigue, in a country where the referee is seen as corrupt until proven otherwise.

John Foot, whose father, Paul, was a noted investigative journalist, is an English academic and historian specialising in Italy. His other books include Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism, The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945, and Pedalare! Pedalare!: A History of Italian Cycling.

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Renzo De Vecchi - footballer

Record-holder since 1910 as youngest to play for Italy

Renzo De Vecchi in the red
and black of AC Milan

Renzo De Vecchi, a defender whose record as the youngest player to appear for the Italy national team has stood since 1910, was born on this day in 1894 in Milan.

De Vecchi was aged 16 years and 112 days when he was sent on to replace an injured player in a match against Hungary in Budapest on May 26, 1910. The newly-formed Italian team had played its first fixture only 16 days previously, beating France 6-2 in Milan. This time the result was a resounding 6-1 defeat.

Forward Rodolfo Gavinelli might have been credited with the record a year later. It was claimed he was only 16 years and 97 days when he appeared against France in Paris 1911 but it could not be recognised officially  because of uncertainty over his date of birth.

Since then, the only player to appear for the azzurri before the age of 17 is the Udinese attacker Simone Pafundi - currently on loan with Sampdoria - who was 16 years 247 days when he came off the substitutes’ bench against Albania in Tirana in November 2022.

De Vecchi, who made a total of 43 appearances for Italy, many as captain, in a career interrupted by the First World War, also held the record for 28 years as the youngest to play in Serie A, which was known as the Italian Football Championship during his career.

He was 15 years 284 days on his debut in November 1909, which was bettered in 1937 by Amedeo Amedei of Roma at 15 years 280 days.  The current record-holder is another AC Milan player, forward Francesco Camarda, who was aged 15 years 260 days when he tasted his first Serie A action in November 2023.

De Vecchi had another claim to football fame off the field. After hanging up his boots as a player in 1930, he became a regular contributor to many sport newspapers and in 1939 helped journalist Leone Boccali compile the first edition of Enciclopedia lllustrata del Calcio Italiano, considered the bible of Italian football.

The publication became so popular and well regarded that it is still published. Now called Almanacco lllustrato del Calcio, the 2026 edition is the 75th.  

De Vecchi was part of a Milan side that twice finished second in the Italian Football Championship, his qualities as a player making him such a revered member of the team that he was given the nickname "Il Figlio di Dio" - The Son of God - by the Milan fans.

De Vecchi (second right, back row) pictured with
the title-winning Genoa CFC team of 1924

As a player of brains rather than brawn, De Vecchi is said to have transformed the role of full back, who was traditionally asked to perform only basic tasks, mostly as uncomplicated as kicking the ball away from danger or hurling it as far up the field as possible from throw-ins.

Thanks to De Vecchi’s example, the full back became a contributor to the game as well as simply a defender, looking to pass the ball to a midfield teammate to set attacks in motion and taking throw-ins that had direction and purpose. 

De Vecchi even scored goals, which was unheard of from a traditional full back. He hit seven in his 64 appearances for AC Milan, who often asked him to take penalties.  As a defender, he was known for his strength, tackling ability, anticipation and organisational skills, yet had excellent ball skills and could dribble as effectively as a winger.

Despite becoming an idol among Milan fans, it was after he moved to Genoa in 1913 that he enjoyed his biggest success, winning the title in 1914-15 season and again in 1922-23 and 1923-24. Ultimately, he spent 16 years with the Liguria club before retiring as a player in 1929, having spent the last two seasons there in the role of player-coach.

De Vecchi, captain of the Italy team, with
his Netherlands counterpart, in 1920

Brought up in the Porta Ticinese area of Milan, De Vecchi first displayed his exceptional ability playing for a small Milanese team, Pro Monforte. 

Convinced his son could have a bright future in the game, De Vecchi’s father, Enrico, a die-hard AC Milan supporter, became a partner in the club. He had to pay handsomely for the privilege, but it opened doors for his son to sign with the rossoneri. 

Yet the Milan of De Vecchi’s time could not reproduce the success the club enjoyed under the club’s English-born player-manager and co-founder, Herbert Kilpin, who led them to three titles in their first eight years as a club.

When rumours began to circulate that De Vecchi, fast establishing a reputation as the best defender in the Italian game, was unsettled, another of the Italian game’s early giants, Genoa Cricket and Football Club, set out to sign him.

Genoa’s Scottish-born president, Geo Davidson, came up with a record transfer fee of 24,000 lire to persuade Milan to sell. He also fixed up De Vecchi with a well-paid job at the port city’s Banca Commerciale, which enabled him to circumnavigate the Italian Football Federation’s rule that players, who were still officially amateurs, could be transferred from one club to another only if they had moved for work reasons.

De Vecchi’s amateur status also permitted him to play for Italy at the Olympic football tournaments of 1920 and 1924, in Antwerp and Paris, although the azzurri were successful in neither.

During World War One, when Genoa were declared champions after the 1914-15 championship ended early, many footballers lost their lives in action. De Vecchi managed to avoid being sent to the front. He enlisted in the infantry, stationed in Brescia, but was employed on liaison services, traveling in a motorcycle sidecar. 

After ending his career as a player, De Vecchi became a coach, first with Genoa and then Rapallo, a resort town near Genova. He reinforced his reputation as a hero in his adopted city by winning the 1934-35 Serie B (Girone A) title as coach, ensuring their absence from Serie A was limited to just one season after relegation the year before.

Having originally pursued his journalist interests simultaneously with being a player and then coach, he became a journalist full time. Having returned to Milan, he died in 1967 at the age of 73.

Porta Ticinese, of one Milan's historic gates, gives
its name to the district in which De Vecchi was born

Travel tip:

Porta Ticinese, the rione - district - of Milan in which De Vecchi was born, is today one of Milan’s most atmospheric and historic quarters. It takes its name from the Porta Ticinese gate. Formerly known as Porta Cicca, and during Napoleonic rule as Porta Marengo, the south-west facing former entrance to the city was first created with the Spanish walls of the city, in the 16th century, but later demolished and rebuilt in the early 19th century. The current arch was built between 1801 and 1813 by architect Luigi Cagnola. The district is part of the Navigli area of Milan, which boasts monuments, significant churches and night life, particularly around its canals, and has become one of the most important areas of Milan outside the historic centre. It is home to the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio, first established in the Middle Ages and restored several times. Sant'Eustorgio is located inside the Parco delle Basiliche - officially known as the Parco Papa Giovanni Paolo II - a 40,700 square metre urban park that also includes the Basilica of San Lorenzo, one of the oldest churches in the city, originally built in Roman times. The nearby Colonne di San Lorenzo are among the best preserved Roman ruins in Milan.

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A sheltered gulf and mild climate have made
Rapallo an attractive tourist destination

Travel tip: 

Rapallo, the coastal town on the Gulf of Tigullio in eastern Liguria, where De Vecchi coached for a time, is known for its sheltered gulf, mild climate and elegant seafront, which made it one of the earliest winter resorts in Italy. With its palm-lined promenade, Rapallo became famous across Europe in the late 19th century as a winter retreat for visitors from northern countries. A settlement since pre‑Roman times, the town grew significantly in the Middle Ages under the Republic of Genoa, benefiting from its strategic coastal position, and flourished after the arrival of the railway in the late 1800s opened it to tourism. Rapallo has an unusually rich literary heritage for a small Ligurian town, having attracted British, Irish, and American writers during the interwar years. Max Beerbohm, Ezra Pound and Friedrich Nietzsche all chose to stay in Rapallo for part of their lives, as did the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.  Architectural highlights include the Castello sul Mare, a 16th‑century coastal fort that sits right at the water’s edge, plus the churches of San Gervasio e Protasio and San Stefano. The Santuario di Montallegro, a major pilgrimage destination reached by cable car, offers sweeping views of the gulf.  Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure  and the Cinque Terre are among its neighbours on the Ligurian Riviera.

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More reading:

Genoa CFC  - Italy’s oldest football club

The first Italian football championship

Herbert Kilpin and the founding of AC Milan

Also on this day:

1702: The birth of architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini

1757: The birth of eye surgeon Giuseppe Forlenza

1857: The birth of sculptor Giuseppe Moretti

1862: The birth of opera impresario Giulio Gatti-Casazza

1932: The birth of Wilma Montesi, murder victim in 1953 scandal

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