5 September

NEW - Bernardo Tasso - poet

Writer fathered a famous Renaissance literary figure

Bernardo Tasso, a prolific poet who served as a courtier to various Italian noblemen, died on this day in 1569 in Ostiglia, which was then part of the Duchy of Mantua.  He was famous for being the father of Torquato Tasso, who went on to become one of Italy’s greatest Renaissance poets. Bernardo, who was born in Bergamo in 1493, married Porzia de Rossi while he was in the service of the Prince of Salerno. Their son, Torquato, was born in Sorrento in 1544 in a building that is now part of the Hotel Tramontano in the centre of the resort. When Torquato was a child, the Prince of Salerno fell out of favour with the Spanish government of Naples and he was outlawed. His employee, Bernardo, and his son, Torquato, shared in his  punishment and were declared rebels of the state and they both had to leave Sorrento. Read more… 

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Renzo Rivolta - engineer 

Entrepreneur who invented the ‘bubble car’

Renzo Rivolta, the businessman and engineer behind the ‘bubble car’ phenomenon of the 1950s, was born in Desio, a town in Lombardy about 20km (12 miles) north of Milan, on this day in 1908.  A visionary entrepreneur, Rivolta conceived the three-wheeled vehicle as a crossover between a motorcycle and a car, to bridge the gap in the market between conventional motorcycles and scooters and Italy’s cheapest car, the Fiat Topolino.  Named the Isetta, the car was essentially egg-shaped with just about room for two adults on the one seat. The nose section was also the access door, with a rack attached to the rear to carry a small amount of luggage. Because of its shape and bubble-like windows, it became known as a bubble car.  In the event, it was not particularly successful in Italy, yet it was a hit with buyers in other parts of Europe and in South America. Read more… 

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Mario Scelba – Prime Minister 

Tough interior minister worked for social and economic reform

Mario Scelba, a Christian Democrat who would become Italy’s 33rd Prime Minister, was born on this day in 1901 in Caltagirone in Sicily.  He earned the nickname ‘the Iron Sicilian’ while serving as Interior Minister because of his repression of both left-wing protests and neo-Fascist rallies.  Scelba had been born into a poor family that worked on land owned by the priest Don Luigi Sturzo, who was to become one of the founders of the Italian People’s Party (PPI).  As his godfather, Sturzo paid for Scelba to study law in Rome. When the Fascists suppressed the PPI and forced Sturzo into exile, Scelba remained in Rome as his agent.  He wrote for the underground newspaper, Il Popolo, during the Second World War. He was once arrested by the Germans but freed after three days as he was considered to be ‘a worthless catch’.  Read more…

Tommaso Campanella – poet and philosopher

Friar had utopian dream to banish poverty

Writer Tommaso Campanella was born on this day in 1568 in Stilo in Reggio Calabria and was baptised Giovanni Domenico Campanella.  As a friar who was also a philosopher, Campanella tried to reconcile humanism with Roman Catholicism. He is best remembered for his work, La città del sole (The city of the sun), written in 1602 which was about a utopian commonwealth where every man’s work contributed to the good of the community and there was no poverty.  Campanella spent almost half of his life in prison after becoming involved with a plot to overthrow Spanish rule in Calabria.  The son of a poor cobbler, Campanella was an infant prodigy who joined the Dominican order before he was 15, taking the name Fra Tommaso.  He was influenced by the work of philosopher Bernardino Telesio, who opposed Aristotle’s ideas.  Read more… 

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Francesca Porcellato - Paralympian

Life of sporting excellence born of horrific accident

Francesca Porcellato, one of Italy’s most enduring Paralympians, was born on this day in 1970 in Castelfranco Veneto.  She has competed in eight summer Paralympics as an athlete and cyclist and three winter Paralympics in cross-country skiing, winning a total of 14 medals, including three golds.  At the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, Canada, she was flag-bearer for the Italian team.  She is also a prolific wheelchair marathon competitor, sharing with America’s Tatyana McFadden the distinction of having won the London Marathon wheelchair event four times.  In 2018, won both the road race and time trial golds in the H3 category for the third time at the Paracycling road world championships. The H3 category involves competitors riding in a lying position, using their arms to turn the wheels.  Read more…

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Giacomo Zabarella – philosopher

Scholar devoted his life to explaining Aristotle’s ideas

The leading representative of Renaissance Aristotelianism, Giacomo Zabarella, was born on this day in 1533 in Padua in the Veneto.  His ability to translate ancient Greek enabled him to understand the original texts written by Aristotle and he spent most of his life presenting what he considered to be the true meaning of the philosopher’s ideas.  He had been born into a noble Paduan family who arranged for him to receive a humanist education.  After entering the University of Padua he was taught by Francesco Robortello in the humanities, Bernardino Tomitano in logic, Marcantonio Genua in physics and metaphysics and Pietro Catena in mathematics. All were followers of Aristotle.  Zabarella obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy from the university in 1553 and was offered the Chair of Logic in 1564.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance. Edited by Michael Wyatt

The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance is a comprehensive scholarly anthology featuring essays by leading Renaissance experts on key topics including literature, art, philosophy, politics, and cultural context. It is designed to provide an overview of Italian Renaissance intellectual and cultural life, and is therefore helpful for understanding the world the Tassos inhabited. It offers valuable context on the literary traditions, religious climate - it was the time of the Counter-Reformation - and cultural debates of his era. As an academic text rather than narrative biography, it works well as a reference guide alongside primary texts such as Jerusalem Delivered.

Michael Wyatt is a resident scholar in the Comparative Literature Programme at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

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Bernardo Tasso - poet

Writer fathered a famous Renaissance literary figure

Bernardo Tasso was for a time resident
poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino

Bernardo Tasso, a prolific poet who served as a courtier to various Italian noblemen, died on this day in 1569 in Ostiglia, which was then part of the Duchy of Mantua.

He was famous for being the father of Torquato Tasso, who went on to become one of Italy’s greatest Renaissance poets.

Bernardo, who was born in Bergamo in 1493, married Porzia de Rossi while he was in the service of the Prince of Salerno.  Torquato was born in Sorrento in 1544 in a building that is now part of the Hotel Tramontano in the centre of the resort.

When Torquato was a child, the Prince of Salerno fell out of favour with the Spanish government of Naples and he was outlawed. His employee, Bernardo, and his son, Torquato, shared in his punishment and were declared rebels of the state and they both had to leave Sorrento.

Bernardo went into the service of Duke Guidobaldo II at his court in Urbino and Torquato went with him and was educated there. While his father was resident poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino, Torquato studied alongside Francesco Maria della Rovere, the heir to the Duke. 

It was in Urbino that Bernardo started writing his major work, L’Amadiji, an epic poem of 100 cantos, which was later completed by Torquato.

While at the court in Urbino, he would read cantos of his epic poem to the Duchess and her ladies, and he would also discuss the merits of Homer, Virgil, Trissino, and Ariosto with the Duke’s librarians and secretaries.

Bernardo went on to serve the Duke of Mantua, Guglielmo Gonzaga, who appointed him Governor of Ostiglia, the place where he died in 1569.

During his life, Bernardo Tasso wrote many psalms, sonnets and odes in the manner of Horace. He published his lyric poems, Amori, in Venice in 1555. His main work, L’Amadiji, was inspired by the Spanish chivalric romance, Amadis de Gaula. Torquato later completed L’Amadiji and published the full work under the title of Floridante in 1587.

Torquato Tasso is seen as
one of Italy's greatest poets

Torquato Tasso has come to be regarded as the greatest Italian poet of the Renaissance. His most famous work was his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) in which he gives an imaginative version of the battles between Christians and Muslims at the end of the first crusade during the siege of Jerusalem. 

His poetry was later to prove inspirational for other writers who followed him, in particular Edmund Spencer and Lord Byron, who visited the places associated with him during his time in Italy.  

Torquato Tasso was to spend many years living in Ferrara at the Castle owned by the Este family, where he fell in love with a lady in waiting and wrote love sonnets to her.

But he suffered from the jealous behaviour of the other courtiers, which led to him developing a persecution mania and suspecting he was going to be poisoned. Eventually, he escaped and made his way to Sorrento to visit his sister, Cornelia, who had married there and settled in a house in the historic centre between the main street and the sea.

After some difficult years during which Tasso was confined to a madhouse by his patron, the Duke of Urbino, and later wandered from city to city without settling, he was invited to go and live in Rome by the Pope.

Torquato Tasso died in Rome in 1595, when he was just about to be crowned poet laureate by Pope Clement VIII.

Caffe del Tasso's tables in Bergamo are watched
over by the statue of Torquato Tasso

Travel tip:

Bernardo Tasso is remembered in his native city, Bergamo, where a street in the Città Bassa, the lower town, is named after the family. His son, Torquato, is also immortalised in the upper town, the Città Alta, by a large statue of him that stands in front of Palazzo della Ragione in the main square, Piazza Vecchia. Torquato Tasso spent only two periods living in his father’s native city, but he wrote about Bergamo with affection. The statue was erected almost 100 years after his death. The bar next to it subsequently changed its name to Caffè del Tasso. Dating back to at least 1476, the bar would have been known during Tasso’s life as Locanda delle Due Spade (Two Swords Inn.) In 1681 when the statue of the poet was erected, the bar’s name was changed to Al Torquato Tasso Caffè e Bottiglieria (Torquato Tasso Café and Wine Shop). Piazza Vecchia, which was remodelled during the Renaissance and has been hailed by architects and writers as the most beautiful square in Italy, is surrounded by old palaces and has a 12th century bell tower that still strikes 100 times at ten pm each night, in recognition of the ancient curfew. The bell would be sounded to warn residents that the gates in the Città Alta’s Venetian walls were about to be closed for the night. 

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Torquato Tasso's sister Cornelia lived
in this house in historic Sorrento

Travel tip:

Although Bernardo and Torquato Tasso travelled all over Italy during their lives, Sorrento’s main square has been named after them. Piazza Tasso is right at the hub of Sorrento, in the middle of the main shopping street, Corso Italia, and looks out over Marina Piccola, Sorrento’s port. The house where Bernardo was living when Torquato Tasso was born in 1544, is a few streets away from Piazza Tasso in Via Vittorio Veneto and now forms part of the Imperial Hotel Tramontano. It was at this hotel that the beautiful song Torna a Surriento was composed by Ernesto De Curtis while he was sitting on the terrace. Sorrento is one of southern Italy’s most popular holiday destinations, a beautiful cliff-top town overlooking the Bay of Naples with wonderful views of the volcano Vesuvius and the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida in the distance.  Known by Italians as La Gentile, Sorrento has a mild climate and excellent tourist amenities. The historic centre has a wealth of elegant architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with some Greek, Roman and medieval structures still preserved as a reminder of historical roots that go back to 600BC.

 

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More reading:

The troubled life of Torquato Tasso

Bernardo Accolti, love poet of the late Renaissance

Salvatore Quasimodo, the civil engineer who was a Nobel Prize winning-poet 

Also on this day:

1533: The birth of philosopher Giacomo Zabarella

1568: The birth of poet and philosopher Tommaso Campanella

1901: The birth of politician Mario Scelba

1908: The birth of entrepreneur Renzo Rivolta

1970: The birth of Paralympian Francesca Porcellato

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4 September

Luigi Cadorna – Marshall of Italy

Tough military leader was blamed for losing crucial battle

Luigi Cadorna, a military General who was made a Marshall of Italy, was born on this day in 1850 in Verbania, on the shore of Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region.  Cadorna is most remembered for his role as Chief of Staff of the Italian Army during the first part of the First World War.  His father was General Raffaele Cadorna, the Piedmontese military leader whose capture of Rome in 1870 completed the unification of Italy.  Sent by his father to a military school in Milan from the age of 10, he entered the Turin Military Academy when he was 15 and, after graduating at the age of 18, was commissioned as a second lieutenant of artillery.  He participated in the occupation of Rome in 1870 as part of the force commanded by his father.  After becoming a Major, Cadorna was appointed to the staff of General Pianelli and became Chief of Staff of the Verona Divisional Command.  Read more…

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Amadeus - TV presenter

Former DJ now one of Italian TV’s most familiar faces

The entertainment and game show presenter Amedeo Sebastiani - known professionally as Amadeus - was born on this day in 1962 in Ravenna.  In a small screen career spanning almost 35 years, Amadeus has fronted several major shows for both national broadcaster RAI and for the channels of the privately-owned Mediaset network.  He was the original face of the hit game show L'eredità - The Inheritance - which has been a fixture on Rai Uno since 2002 - and until leaving Rai in 2024 was the regular host of Rai Uno’s annual New Year’s Eve variety show L’anno che verrà - The Coming Year.  Amadeus has also presented two of Italy’s biggest song contests, Festivalbar, and the Sanremo Music Festival, of which he was the host and artistic director between 2020 and 2024.  His departure from the national broadcaster preceded a four-year deal with Warner Bros Discovery to host programmes on their Nove channel, but this was terminated by mutual agreement in 2026. Read more…

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Giacinto Facchetti - footballer

The original - and best - attacking full back

The footballer Giacinto Facchetti, who captained Italy at two World Cups and won four Serie A titles plus two European Cups for Inter Milan, died on this day in 2006 in Milan at the age of 64.  He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer. When his funeral took place at the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, more than 12,000 fans joined the mourners marking his life. His remains were then taken back to his home town of Treviglio in the province of Bergamo.  Apart from being regarded as the model professional and a pillar of moral decency, Facchetti was seen as a player ahead of his time, the first attacking full back who was a master in both disciplines of his game.  Under the coaching of Internazionale’s great Argentine-born coach, Helenio Herrera, he became integral to the defensive system known as catenaccio. Read more…

Rita Atria - witness of justice

Tragic teenager who broke Mafia code of omertà

Rita Atria, the girl from a Mafia family in southwest Sicily who famously went to the police after her father and brother were both killed by criminal rivals, was born on this day in 1974 in Partanna, in the province of Trapani. She was just 11 years old when her father, Vito, ostensibly a shepherd but in reality a local Mafia boss, was shot dead by a hit man hired by a rival family. The killing took place in 1985, nine days before her brother, Nicolò, was due to be married. He vowed to avenge his father’s death and spoke openly about knowing who was responsible.  He and his bride, Piera Aiella, a local girl, were both 18 at the time of their marriage. Piera, who had known Nicolò since he was 14, did not wish to marry him but Vito had thought she would make his son a suitable wife, and had made it clear to her that she had little choice in the matter.  Read more…

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Saint Rosalia

Little Saint ended the plague in Palermo

The Feast Day of Saint Rosalia is being celebrated today in Sicily, throughout the rest of Italy, in America, Venezuela and in many other countries.  Saint Rosalia, also known as La santuzza, or the Little Saint, is the patron saint of Palermo as well as three towns in Venezuela.  Centuries after Rosalia’s death, the people of Palermo believed she ended the plague when what they thought were her remains were carried in a procession through the city.  Rosalia was born in Palermo in about 1130 into a noble Norman family that claimed to descend from Charlemagne.  She became devoutly religious and eventually went to live as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino in Sicily.  There is a story that she was led by two angels to live in the cave and that she wrote on the wall that she had chosen to live there out of her love for Jesus.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Generalissimo: Luigi Cadorna and the Italian Army, 1850–1928 (Cambridge Military Histories), by Marco Mondini

Luigi Cadorna remains one of the most controversial generals in Italian history. Appointed chief of the armed forces in 1914, he led the Italian army in the field from May 1915 until the aftermath of their calamitous defeat at Caporetto in 1917. In The Generalissimo, a major new biography, Marco Mondini traces Cadorna's rise, the nature of his command, the course of the Isonzo campaign, and the battles over his post-war reputation. He brings a new cultural perspective to Cadorna's life, demonstrating the role of Italy's military and national culture, the myths of the Risorgimento, and the mobilization of propaganda in creating an effective cult of personality. Utilizing ego-documents, memoirs, letters and public writings, Mondini delves into the ideology and psychology that combined to create such an untouchable autocrat, arguing that the history of fascism in Italy cannot be fully understood without appreciating Cadorna's role in the First World War.

Marco Mondini is an associate professor in the Department of Political Sciences, Law and International Studies of the University of Padua. He is the author of numerous books on Italian military history.

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3 September

Giuseppe Bottai - Fascist turncoat

Ex-Mussolini minister who fought with Allies

Giuseppe Bottai, who served as a minister in the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini but finished the Second World War fighting with the Allies against Germany, was born on this day in 1895 in Rome.  Bottai helped Mussolini establish the National Fascist Party and served as Minister of National Education under Mussolini between 1936 and 1943. He supported Mussolini’s anti-semitic race laws and founded a magazine that promoted the idea of a superior Aryan race.  However, in 1943, following Italy’s disastrous fortunes in the Second World War, he was among the Fascist Grand Council members who voted for Mussolini to be arrested and removed from office.  Later, after Mussolini was freed from house arrest by German paratroopers and established as head of the Italian Social Republic, Bottai was handed a death sentence.  Read more…

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Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina – racing driver

The first Formula One world champion

Emilio Giuseppe Farina, driving an Alfa Romeo, became the first Formula One world champion on this day in 1950.  The 43-year-old driver from Turin - usually known as Giuseppe or 'Nino' - clinched the title on home territory by winning the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.  He was only third in the seven-race inaugural championship going into the final event at the Lombardy circuit, trailing Alfa teammates Juan Manuel Fangio, of Argentina, by four points and his Italian compatriot, Luigi Fagioli, by two.  Under the competition’s complicated points scoring system, Fangio was hot favourite, with the title guaranteed if he was first or second, and likely to be his if he merely finished in the first five, provided Farina did not win.  He could have been crowned champion simply by picking up a bonus point for the fastest lap in the race, provided Farina was no higher than third.  Read more…

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Armistice of Cassibile

Document signalled the end of World War II

A secret agreement to end hostilities between Italy and the Allies during World War II was signed at Cassibile in Sicily on this day in 1943.  The Armistice of Cassibile was approved by both King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio. It was signed by Brigade General Giuseppe Castellano for Italy, and Major-General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies.  The signing took place at a Sicilian military camp that had been occupied by the Allies, but the news about the agreement was not announced by Italy for another five days.  Germany responded to the announcement when it was made on September 8 by immediately attacking Italian forces in Italy, southern France, and the Balkans.  Four days after the news of the armistice was made public, the Germans freed dictator Benito Mussolini from his captivity in the Gran Sasso mountain range in Abruzzo.  Read more…

Pietro Locatelli – musician

Violinist astonished his listeners with his ability

Virtuoso violinist and Baroque composer Pietro Antonio Locatelli was born on this day in 1695 in Bergamo.  He showed an astonishing talent for playing the violin while he was still a young boy and began playing with the orchestra at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo when he was 14.  In 1711, when he was 16 years old, he left to go to Rome and although it is not known whether he studied with Arcangelo Corelli before the composer’s death in 1713, he would have absorbed a lot of his influence by studying with the other eminent musicians in the city.  In 1714 Locatelli wrote to his father, telling him that he was a member of the band of household musicians working for Prince Michelangelo I Caetani, a notable political figure and scholar. While in Rome he made his debut as a composer, producing his XII Concerto Grossi Op I in 1721. Read more…

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San Marino - world's oldest sovereign state

Republic founded in 301 as Christian refuge

The Most Serene Republic of San Marino, an independent state within Italy, was founded on this day in 301.  Situated on the north east side of the Apennine mountains, San Marino claims to be the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world.  Of the world's 196 independent countries, it is the fifth smallest, covering an area of just 61 square kilometres or 24 square miles.  It is also the sole survivor of Italy's once all-powerful city state network, having outlasted such mighty neighbours as Genoa and Venice.  San Marino grew from a monastic community, taking its name from Saint Marinus of Alba in Croatia, a Christian who had been working as a stonemason in Rimini when he was forced to flee Roman persecution and escaped to Mount Titano, where he built a church and founded both the city and state of San Marino.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism, by John Foot

In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one that preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one that promised to build a 'New Roman Empire', and make Italy a great power once again.  Wearing black shirts and wielding guns, knives and truncheons, the proponents of fascism embraced a climate of violence and rampant masculinity. Led by Benito Mussolini, they would systematically destroy the organisations of the left, murdering and torturing anyone who got in their way.  In Blood and Power, historian John Foot draws on decades of research to chart the turbulent years between 1915 and 1945, and beyond. Drawing widely from accounts of people across the political spectrum - fascists, anti-fascists, communists, anarchists, victims, perpetrators and bystanders - he tells the story of Italian Fascism and its legacy, which still, disturbingly, reverberates to this day.

John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University of Bristol. He has written a number of books on Italian politics, history and sport.

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