16 October

NEW - Gasparo Contarini – Cardinal 

Writer and diplomat portrayed Venice as an ideal society

Gasparo Contarini, a Venetian nobleman who served as a diplomat and then became a Cardinal, was born on this day in 1483 in Venice. He was the first person in Europe to explain why the 1519-22 Magellan-Elcano expedition to circumnavigate the globe apparently lost a day because of the Earth’s spin.  Contarini was an advocate for holding discussions with the Protestants during the Reformation, and he also tried to help restore religious unity in Germany. His writing praised the Venetian system of government and aimed to glorify Venice as a republic. The Contarini were one of Venice's longest-established noble families. Gasparo received a scientific and philosophical education at the University of Padua. He served as the Republic’s ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, while having to defend Venice’s alliance with Francis I of France, who was an enemy of the emperor.  Read more…

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Dino Buzzati - author

Novelist likened to Camus whose short stories remain popular

The multi-talented author Dino Buzzati, whose output included five novels, several plays, a children’s novel, five opera libretti, some poetry, a comic book in which he also drew the illustrations, and several books of short stories, was born on this day in 1906 in Belluno.  Buzzati’s most famous novel, Il deserto dei Tartari (1940), titled The Tartar Steppe in the English translation, saw Buzzati compared to Albert Camus and Franz Kafka as a work of existentialist style, but it is for his short stories that he still wins acclaim.  Several new collections of stories have been published in recent years, showcasing Buzzati’s extraordinary talent. Buzzati, who worked as a journalist for the whole of his adult life and also painted prolifically, was one of four children born to Giulio Cesare Buzzati, a professor of international law. Read more…

Dorando Pietri - marathon runner

Athlete who made his fortune from famous disqualification

The athlete Dorando Pietri, who found fame and fortune after being disqualified in the 1908 Olympic marathon, was born on this day in 1885 in Mandrio, a hamlet near Carpi, in Emilia-Romagna.  In an extraordinary finish to the 1908 race in London, staged on an exceptionally warm July day, Pietri entered the White City Stadium in first place, urged on by a crowd of more than 75,000 who were there to witness the finish, only for his legs to buckle beneath him.  He was helped to his feet by two officials only to fall down four more times before he crossed the finish line.  Each time, officials hauled him to his feet and walked alongside him, urging him on and ready to catch him if he fell.  The final 350 yards (320m) of the event accounted for 10 minutes of the two hours, 54 minutes and 46 seconds recorded as his official time.  Read more… 

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Election of Pope John Paul II

How Karol Wojtyla became first non-Italian pope for 455 years

Pope John Paul II, who was to have a political and social influence unmatched by any pontiff since the Middle Ages, was elected to be the new leader of the Catholic Church on this day in 1978.  The result of the second Papal conclave in what became known as the Year of the Three Popes was announced after eight ballots. The new pontiff succeeded Pope John Paul I, who had died on September 28 after only 33 days in office, who had himself followed Pope Paul VI, who had passed away in August after reigning for 15 years.  The new man chosen was 58-year-old Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Kraków, the first non-Italian to hold office for 455 years since the Dutch Pope Adam VI, who served from 1522-23.  Wojtyla's stand against Poland's Communist regime had brought him respect but he was not seen as a Vatican favourite. Read more…

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Book of the Day: A History of Venice, by John Julius Norwich

A History of Venice tells the story of this most remarkable of cities from its founding in the fifth century, through its unrivalled status for over a thousand years as one of the world's busiest and most powerful city states, until its fall at the hands of Napoleon in 1797. Rich in fascinating historical detail, populated by extraordinary characters and packed with a wealth of incident and intrigue, this is a brilliant testament to a great city - and a great and gripping read. Written by a renowned historian, and author of A Short History of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich's classic work can be regarded as the standard history of Venice in the English language.

John Julius Norwich was born in 1929. He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, at Eton, at the University of Strasbourg and, after a spell of National Service in the Navy, at New College, Oxford, where he took a degree in French and Russian. After 12 years in the Foreign Service, for whom he served at the embassies in Belgrade and Beirut, in 1964 he resigned from the service to write. He also wrote and presented some 30 historical documentaries on television.

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Gasparo Contarini – Cardinal

Writer and diplomat portrayed Venice as an ideal society

Gasparo Contarini hailed from one of
Venice's most prominent noble families

Gasparo Contarini, a Venetian nobleman who served as a diplomat and then became a Cardinal, was born on this day in 1483 in Venice. He was the first person in Europe to explain why the 1519-22 Magellan-Elcano expedition to circumnavigate the globe apparently lost a day because of the Earth’s spin.

Contarini was an advocate for holding discussions with the Protestants during the Reformation, and he also tried to help restore religious unity in Germany. His writing praised the Venetian system of government and aimed to glorify Venice as a republic.

The Contarini were one of Venice's longest-established noble families. Gasparo received a scientific and philosophical education at the University of Padua. He served as the Republic’s ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, while having to defend Venice’s alliance with Francis I of France, who was an enemy of the emperor. 

While he was in Spain accompanying Charles V in 1522, the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation returned to Seville bringing with them a cargo of spices. Ferdinand Magellan had planned and captained the 1519 expedition to reach the Spice Islands for the Spanish Crown, but was killed in battle in the Philippines in 1521. Therefore, Juan Sebastian Elcano had assumed command of the ship, the Victoria, after Magellan's death, and navigated it back to Spain in 1522, completing the first recorded global circumnavigation.

Although the sailors on board had carefully recorded every day of the three-year journey since leaving Seville, the ship’s log was one day earlier than the actual date when they arrived home.

Contarini was the first European to be able to explain this phenomenon. He said that since the ship had sailed westward around the world, in the same direction as the apparent motion of the sun in the sky, the sailors had experienced one fewer sunrise than a stationary observer would have had. 

Despite having no known experience of maritime navigation, Contarini was proved correct in his theory, which ultimately paved the way for the establishment of the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean more than 350 years later.

An Italian edition of Contarini's book
about the government of Venice

Contarini participated at the Congress of Ferrara in 1526 as the Venetian Republic's representative, when the League of Cognac was formed against the Holy Roman Emperor, allying France with Venice and several states of Italy. 

After the Sack of Rome in 1527, he helped to reconcile the Holy Roman Emperor with Pope Clement VII, whose release from imprisonment in the Castel Sant’Angelo he had helped to bring about.  

After Contarini’s return to Venice, he was made a senator and a member of the Great Council.

In 1535, Pope Paul III unexpectedly made Contarini a Cardinal, even though he was a layman, to secure an able man to advocate in the interests of Rome. The following year he was appointed Bishop of Belluno. 

Contarini went on to become one of the most prominent leaders of the movement for reform within the Roman Catholic church.

Contarini was a key part of the efforts to improve the Roman Catholic Church. He and his allies believed that fixing problems in the Church would solve most of the issues they were concerned about and he wrote letters to the Pope complaining about divisions in the Church. He also spoke out against unfair practices and even criticised what he saw as the Pope's excessive power. Later, in 1539, a future Pope, Paul IV, placed Contarini's report on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of books that Catholics were not allowed to read.

Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, acknowledged the role Contarini played in winning papal approval for the Society of Jesus.

The monument to Gasparo
at Santa Maria dell'Orto

Contarini's book De magistratibus et republica venetorum, published in Paris in 1543, has been a key source for understanding Venice's system of government in the 1500s and 1600s. This book, written while he was an ambassador to Emperor Charles V, praises the different parts of the Venetian government, portraying them as harmonious, fair, and peaceful, which helped to spread the idea that Venice was a stable, successful society. 

Contarini's description of the Doge shows the figure to be both king-like and a symbol of a government run by citizens, idealising the image of Venetian politics. Legally, power in Venice came from the many councils, not from the Doge, who was mostly a figurehead. The Doge became a clear statement of Venice's republican system. Venice showed off a grand, richly dressed leader, but most of the real power belonged to councils made up of its citizens. 

Gasparo Contarini died in 1542, while he was acting as the Pope's representative in Bologna. He was 55 years of age. After his death his remains were transferred to his family’s tomb in the Church of Santa Maria dell’Orto in Venice.

Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo, the palace
where Gasparo Contarini lived

Travel tip:

Gasparo Contarini lived in Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo, a magnificent Renaissance palace built in the late 1400s in the Dorsoduro district in Venice, overlooking the Grand Canal. The beautiful façade of the palazzo is entirely covered with polished marble tiles.  The Contarini family, regarded as one of the 12 founding families of the city, held political, economic and cultural influence over Venice for almost 1,000 years, producing eight Doges, which is more than any other single family. At least eight palaces in Venice bear the Contarini name or were among their principal residences, including the C’a d’Oro on the Grand Canal. Others include the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, famous for its  multi-arch spiral staircase, located near Campo Manin in San Marco. Most, like the C’a d’Oro and Gasparo's own home palace, can be found on the Grand Canal, including Palazzo Contarini Fasan and the adjacent Palazzo Venier Contarini, Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni e Corfù, Palazzo Corner Contarini dei Cavalli, and Palazzo Foscari Contarini.

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The Church of Madonna dell'Orto
is in a quiet part of Cannaregio

Travel tip:

After initially being buried in Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna, the principal church in the city where Gasparo Contarini died, his remains were transferred to the Church of Madonna dell’Orto in Cannaregio in Venice and interred in the Contarini family tomb. Madonna dell’Orto is considered one of the finest Gothic churches in Venice. The fourth chapel in the north aisle is the Cappella Contarini, which is dedicated to Saint Agnes and contains Tintoretto's painting, Miracle of St Agnes (1575). Busts of members of the Contarini family line the walls of the chapel. The painter Tintoretto is also buried in Madonna dell’Orto and one of his paintings, The Adoration of the Golden Calf, is on the left wall of the church. The figure carrying the calf in the painting is said to represent Tintoretto himself. Madonna dell'Orto can be found in a relatively quiet part of Cannaregio, away from the area that runs alongside the Grand Canal between the Santa Lucia railway station and the Rialto bridge. Although a heavily populated district, Cannaregio is primarily a residential neighbourhood with shops and schools that serve the local population.

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More reading:

How Doge Francesco Foscari ruled Venice for 34 years

Ludovico Manin - the last Doge of Venice

Marco Polo, Venice’s great merchant-explorer

Also on this day:

1885: The birth of marathon runner Dorando Pietri

1906: The birth of writer Dino Buzzati

1978: The election of Pope John Paul II

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15 October

Angelo Schiavio - footballer

Scored goal that won Italy's first World Cup

Angelo Schiavio, the hero of the Italian football team’s first World Cup victory in 1934, was born on this day in 1905 in Bologna.  The centre forward, a prolific goalscorer for his home-town club in Serie A, scored the winning goal in the final against Czechoslovakia to hand victory to the Azzurri in the 16-team tournament, of which the Italians were hosts.  In the final at the Stadio Flaminio in Rome, the Azzurri had gone behind to a goal by the Czech winger Antonin Puc with 19 minutes remaining, but equalised 10 minutes later through Raimundo Orsi, the Argentina-born forward from Juventus, taking the match into extra time.  Schiavio struck the decisive goal, driven home with his right foot from a pass by Enrique Guaita, another Argentine – one of 12 to represent Italy and Argentina in the days before playing for more than one nation was outlawed. Read more…

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Stefano D’Arrigo – writer

Author’s greatest work took him 17 years to complete

The Sicilian poet, writer, and art critic Stefano D’Arrigo, who once made a small appearance in a Pier Paolo Pasolini film, was born Fortunato Stefano D’Arrigo on this day in 1919 in Alì Terme, a comune - municipality - of Messina.  He became famous for his novel, Horcynus Orca (Killer Whale) which was published in 1975 and was considered a masterpiece of 20th century Italian literature.  The action in the book takes place in the aftermath of World War II and follows the journey of a Sicilian fisherman as he returns home to his village after serving in the Italian Navy during the war.  The reader experiences the fisherman’s encounters with the transformed landscape and people and sees through his eyes the impact of war on the traditional ways of life in Sicily.  Stefano D’Arrigo left Alì Terme after completing elementary school when he was ten years old.  Read more… 

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Giovanni Migliara – painter

19th century artist captured many beautiful views for posterity

Giovanni Migliara, who rose from working as a theatre set designer to becoming court painter to King Charles Albert of Sardinia, was born on this day in 1785 in Alessandria in Piedmont.  He was first apprenticed to the sculptor Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo, but then went on to study at the Brera Academy.in Milan with Giocondo Albertolli.  He began working as a set designer with Teatro Carcano in Milan in 1804 and then moved to La Scala in 1805, where he served under the direction of Alessandro Sanquirico until 1809. His theatre work enabled him to acquire skills as a landscape artist and a creator of perspective.  Migliara had to stop working while he was suffering from a serious lung problem but from about 1810 he started painting miniatures and then moved on to watercolours and then oils on canvas, silk and ivory, drawing inspiration from Venetian painters.  Read more…

Gibbon's moment of inspiration

Walk around the Forum sparked idea for epic work 

The English writer and historian Edward Gibbon claimed that the inspiration to write the book that - unbeknown to him - would grant him literary immortality came to him while exploring the ruins of the Forum in Rome on this day in 1764.  Gibbon, who had enjoyed modest success with his first book, entitled Essay on the Study of Literature, was in Rome after deciding to embark on the Grand Tour, taking in the Italian cities of Florence, Naples and Venice as well as the capital.  Later, in his memoirs, Gibbon wrote that:  "It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind."  In the event, the book expanded to cover more than the city of Rome.  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ran to six volumes and as many as 5,000 pages. Read more…

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Virgil – Roman poet

Writer’s epic poem commemorates achievements and ideals of Rome

Regarded as the greatest of the Roman poets, Virgil, or Publius Vergilius Maro as he was originally named, was born on this day in 70 BC in the village of Andes near Mantua, in what is now Lombardy.  Virgil is famous for his work, The Aeneid, which told the story of Rome’s founder and the Roman mission to civilise the world under divine guidance. It is widely considered one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature.  Experts have high regard for Virgil’s poetry, not only for the music and diction of his verse and for his skill in constructing an intricate work on a grand scale, but also because of what it reveals about Roman life and behaviour.  Virgil was born of peasant stock and his love of the Italian countryside and the people who worked in it is well reflected in his poetry.  He was educated in Cremona, Milan and Rome. Read more…

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Roberto Vittori – astronaut

High-flying Colonel contributed to space research

Roberto Vittori, the last non-American to fly on board the US Space Shuttle, was born on this day in 1964 in Viterbo.  An Italian air force officer, Vittori was selected by the European Space Agency to be part of their Astronaut Corps and has participated in three space flights.  In 2011 Vittori was on board the Space Shuttle that travelled to the International Space Station to install the AMS-02 cosmic ray detector to examine dark matter and the origin of the Universe.  Vittori is one of five Italians to have visited the International Space Station. The others are Umberto Guidoni, who was the first European to set foot on board, Paolo Nespoli, at 61 (at the time of writing) the European Space Agency’s oldest active astronaut, Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space.  Nespoli participated in three International Space Station missions.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup, by Jonathan Wilson

THE 2026 CHARLES TYRWHITT SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 

By 1930, football had outgrown the Olympic Games. A new competition, run by Fifa, would take international football to the next level. After a shambolic start to the first tournament in Uruguay - an incomplete stadium, shoddy refereeing and physios accidentally injuring players - the thrilling final saw Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2.  From those chaotic beginnings grew the modern World Cup, a cultural phenomenon that draws the world together like nothing else. Ask a random person to name a moment in the history of Senegal and they may well say Pape Bouba Diop's winner against France in the 2002 World Cup, defeating his country's former colonial masters. The World Cup has political significance. West Germany's success in 1954 was a moment of reintegration into global society, while progress to the semi-finals in 1998 boosted Croatia's sense of national self. At the other end of the scale, in the so-called Soccer War of 1969, tensions between El Salvador and Honduras were ignited by a World Cup qualifier. More recently, hosting the tournament has been a vehicle for governments seeking political gain, the World Cups in Russia and Qatar being clear examples of sportswashing, staging a tournament to project an image of a thriving society. The story of the World Cup is also the story of the world. The Power and the Glory tells its definitive history.

Jonathan Wilson is the editor of The Blizzard and a freelance writer for the Guardian, World Soccer and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of 11 books, including Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe, Angels with Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina, The Barcelona Legacy and The Names Heard Long Ago.

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14 October

Palma Giovane - painter

Mannerist took the mantle of Tintoretto 

The Venetian artist Jacopo Negretti, best known as Jacopo Palma il Giovane - Palma the Younger - or simply Palma Giovane, died in Venice on this day in 1628.  Essentially a painter of the Italian Mannerist school, Palma Giovane's style evolved over time and after the death of Tintoretto in 1594 he became the most revered artist in Venice.  He became in demand beyond Venice, too, particularly in Bergamo, the city in Lombardy that was a dominion of Venice, and in central Europe.  He received many commissions in Bergamo and was often employed in Prague by the Habsburg Emperor, Rudolph II, a noted art connoisseur.  Palma had been born into a family of painters. His great uncle, also called Jacopo, was the painter Palma Vecchio - Palma the Elder - while his father, Antonio Negretti, was a pupil of the elder Palma’s workshop manager, Bonifacio Veronese.  Read more…

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Learco Guerra - racing cyclist

“Human Locomotive” set record for most wins in one season

The racing cyclist Learco Guerra, who won the Giro d'Italia in 1934 and was world champion in 1931, was born on this day in 1902 in San Nicolò Po, a hamlet on the banks of the Po river in Lombardy, about 15km (9 miles) south of Mantua. He gained the nickname of "Human Locomotive" by the editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, organisers of the Giro d’Italia, for his ability to maintain high speeds over long periods.  Guerra’s single Giro d’Italia victory came in a year when he won 18 races, including 10 stages of the Giro d’Italia, the Giro di Lombardia and four rounds of the national championships. It was a record by an individual rider in a single season that would stand until the 1970s.  His fame was exploited by the Fascist government, which profited from his heroic status. Benito Mussolini praised his 'manly Italian virtues' of strength, stamina and determination.  Read more…

Alessandro Safina – singer

Tenor who has blended opera and rock

Alessandro Safina, a singer trained in opera who has expanded the so-called ‘crossover’ pop-opera genre to include rock influences, was born on this day in 1963 in Siena.  A household name in Italy, the tenor is less well known outside his own country but has recorded duets with international stars such as Sarah Brightman, South Korean soprano Sumi Jo, Rod Stewart, former Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde, Scottish actor and singer Ewan McGregor and the superstar Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.  Safina’s biggest album to date is Insieme a Te, which has sold more than 700,000 copies.  It was written in collaboration with the Italian pianist and composer Romano Musumarra, who helped realise Safina’s ambition of creating soulful rock-inspired music for the tenor voice.  He first performed songs from the album at the Olympia theatre in Paris in 1999.  Read more…

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Alesso Baldovinetti - painter

One of first to paint realistic landscapes

The early Renaissance painter Alesso Baldovinetti, whose great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence is still intact, was born on this day in 1425 in Florence.  Baldovinetti was among a group described as scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano. Influenced by Uccello’s use of visual perspective, he had a particular eye for detail and his views of the Arno river in his Nativity and Madonna and Child are regarded as among Europe’s earliest paintings of accurately reproduced landscapes.  Veneziano’s influence is reflected in the pervasive light of his earliest surviving works, and he was also greatly influenced by Fra' Angelico. Historians believe that in the 1460s Baldovinetti was the finest painter in Florence. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Painted Male in the Italian Renaissance: Sixteenth-Century Masterpieces from the Leinuo Zhang Collection, by Carlo Falciani

During the 16th century, the male portrait acquired a central role in Italian painting, becoming a privileged tool for representing power and individual identity. Posture, clothing, gestures and gaze are not simple aesthetic details, but visual signs through which authority and social status are expressed: the male body is no longer depicted as a mere physical presence, but as the visible expression of virtue, moral strength and inner balance. The male portrait is therefore not limited to representing an individual, but proposes a social and cultural model of masculinity, an identity that combines rationality and authority, power and a conscious self-presentation.  The Painted Male in Italian Renaissance presents and explores, through the insights of experts, eleven masterpieces of Italian Renaissance painting from the collection of Leinuo Zhang, a young Chinese collector with a passion for art. The works are absolute masterpieces by the great masters of the Italian Renaissance: Veronese, Moroni, Paris Bordon, Vasari, Ghirlandaio, Palma il Giovane, Allori, Scarsellino, Leandro Bassano, Giulio and Vincenzo Campi.  Organised by geographical area and painting schools (Florentine, Lombard, Venetian and Emilian), the volume features an by the editor Carlo Falciani and an introductory text by Elena Lazzarini. This is followed by technical entries of the works, compiled by the most authoritative scholars of the Italian Renaissance (from Marco Tanzi to Daniele Benati, from Carlo Falciani to Simone Facchinetti and Fabrizio Magani), accompanied by colour illustrations that allow the reader to appreciate the quality and beauty of these masterpieces in detail.  This title will be released on January 28, 2027.

Carlo Falciani teaches Art history, iconography, and iconology at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence and is an independent curator. Elena Lazzarini is professor of modern and contemporary art history at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

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