12 July

NEW - Luigi Gorrini – fighter pilot

Flying ace defended Italy from the skies

Valiant Italian airman Luigi Gorrini, who is believed to have shot down 19 Allied planes during World War II, was born on this day in 1917 in Alseno in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.  Gorrini was awarded the Medaglia d’oro al valore militare - the Gold Medal of Military Valour - and both the first, and second classes of the German Iron Cross. When he died at the age of 97, he was the last surviving Italian pilot to have been awarded the Medaglia d’oro.  During World War II, Gorrini flew with the Corpo Aereo Italiano - the Italian expeditionary force set up to support the German Luftwaffe - during the Battle of Britain. He also fought over Libya and Tunisia and helped to defend the Italian mainland.  After joining the Regia Aeronautica - the Royal Italian Air Force - in 1937 he trained at their fighter school near Perugia.  He later took part in operations over France as well as in the Battle of Britain.  Read more…

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Carla Fendi - fashion executive

Turned family business into global giant

Carla Fendi, whose flair for marketing helped propel her mother and father’s small fur and leather business into a worldwide fashion giant, was born on this day in 1937 in Rome.  Under Fendi’s guidance, the business became so successful that at one point it had 215 stores worldwide and generated more than $1.2 billion in annual sales.  She also helped turn a young Paris-based German designer named Karl Lagerfeld into a household name, having taken up a friend’s recommendation to give him a try when the firm needed some fresh ideas in the 1960s.  Carla Fendi was one of five sisters who grew up in the leather workshop and fur boutique run by Edoardo and Adele Fendi in the Via del Plebiscito, near Rome’s Piazza Venezia. The family lived in rooms above the shop.  When Edoardo died in 1954, the sisters began to help the mother with the business. Read more…

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Agostino Codazzi - soldier and map-maker

Italian who mapped first route for Panama Canal

Agostino Codazzi, a soldier, scientist, geographer and cartographer who became a national hero in Venezuela and plotted the route for the Panama Canal on behalf of the British government, was born on this day in 1793 in the town of Lugo in Emilia-Romagna.  When the canal was eventually built by United States engineers, they followed the precise route that Codazzi had recommended, although the Italian has not been credited in the history of the project.  Known in Latin America as Agustín Codazzi, he was born Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi.  As a young man, he was excited about the French Revolution and the idea of the ruling classes being overthrown by the people in pursuit of a more equitable society.  After attending the Scuola di Artiglieria military academy in Pavia, he joined Napoleon’s army and served with them until the Napoleonic empire collapsed in 1815.  Read more…

Amedeo Modigliani – artist

Illness marred short life of creative genius 

Painter and sculptor Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was born on this day in 1884 in Livorno in Tuscany.  The artist went on to become famous for his portraits and his paintings of nudes, which were characterised by their elongated faces and figures.  Modigliani did not receive much acclaim during his lifetime, but after his death his work became popular and achieved high prices.  He was born into a Jewish family and suffered health problems as a child, but began drawing and painting from an early age and begged his family to take him to see the paintings in the Uffizi in Florence.  His mother enrolled him at the art school of Guglielmo Micheli in Livorno where he received artistic instruction influenced by the style and themes of 19th century Italian art.  In 1902 Modigliani enrolled in the school of nude studies at the Accademia di Belle Art in Florence and then moved on to Venice to continue his studies.  Read more…

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Stefano della Bella – printmaker

Artist sketched important events preserving them for posterity

Stefano della Bella, who produced hundreds of sketches of court festivities held by the Medici, as well as visual records of important public occasions, died on this day in 1664 in Florence.  Della Bella was a draughtsman and printmaker known for his etchings of military and court scenes. He left more than 1,000 prints and several thousand drawings, but only one known painting.  He was born into a family of artists in Florence in 1610 and was apprenticed to a goldsmith. However he went on to become an engraver and studied etching.  Thanks to the patronage of the Medici family, della Bella was able to study for six years in Rome living in the Medici Palace in the Villa Borghese area.  Della Bella produced views of Rome, drawings of antiquities and sketches of crowded public occasions in a series of sketchbooks, many of which were later turned into prints.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italian Aces of World War 2, by Giorgio Apostolo and Giovanni Massimello

Flying aircraft such as the Macchi 200-202, Fiat G.50 and biplane Fiat CR.42, the Italian fighter pilots were recognised by their Allied counterparts as brave opponents blessed with sound flying abilities, but employing under-gunned and underpowered equipment.  Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, a number of aces continued to take the fight to the Allies as part of the Luftwaffe-run ANR, which was equipped with far more potent equipment such as the Bf 109G, Macchi 205V and Fiat G.55. Flying these types, the handful of ANR squadrons continued to oppose Allied bombing raids on northern Italy until VE-Day. Italian Aces of World War 2 tells the story of the Italian air force’s most heroic and successful fighter pilots.

Giorgio Apostolo runs the leading Italian aviation publishing company GAE, and has become the recognised authority on the Regia Aeronautica during World War 2.  Giovanni Massimello is a prominent Italian military historian and author specializing in World War II aviation.

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Luigi Gorrini – fighter pilot

Flying ace defended Italy from the skies

Luigi Gorrini, pictured with one of the MAM Ro.41
biplane fighter aircraft which he flew in early WW2 

Valiant Italian airman Luigi Gorrini, who is believed to have shot down 19 Allied planes during World War II, was born on this day in 1917 in Alseno in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.

Gorrini was awarded the Medaglia d’oro al valore militare - the Gold Medal of Military Valour - and both the first, and second classes of the German Iron Cross. When he died at the age of 97, he was the last surviving Italian pilot to have been awarded the Medaglia d’oro.

During World War II, Gorrini flew with the Corpo Aereo Italiano - the Italian expeditionary force set up to support the German Luftwaffe - during the Battle of Britain. He also fought over Libya and Tunisia and helped to defend the Italian mainland.

After joining the Regia Aeronautica - the Royal Italian Air Force - in 1937 he trained at their fighter school near Perugia.

He later took part in operations over France as well as in the Battle of Britain, when he was involved in a large combat operation over Harwich in November 1940.  Piloting a Fiat CR 42 biplane,  he took part in operations over the English Channel and southern England engaging RAF Spitfires in aerial combat.

Having been sent to North Africa, Gorrini shot down his first aircraft in 1941 over Libya. While flying a solo sortie he intercepted two Allied planes that had just arrived in the area and opened fire on them. He was credited with a kill and a damaged aircraft. He later shot down a Blenheim bomber over Benghazi.

In the winter of 1941, while escorting convoys between Italy and Greece, Gorrini encountered two Allied aircraft and attacked them both, hitting one repeatedly and strafing the second.

Gorrini notched many successes flying the more
advanced Macchi C200 during the defence of Italy

The following year, flying a Fiat CR.42 in a dogfight with Allied airmen, Gorrini shot down one RAF plane and damaged another. He was frequently tasked with escorting German bombers and would down any Allied planes he encountered, but he was sent back to Italy in 1943 when an eye injury he had sustained started to get worse.

Later that year, while defending Italy from the skies in the more advanced Macchi C200 and C205 fighter aircraft, he shot down 11 Allied aircraft. Even after the arrest of Mussolini, Italian pilots remained committed to trying to prevent damage to Italian cities by the Allies, although they realised it might cost them their lives.

While shooting down an Allied plane off the coast of Ostia in Lazio, Gorrini himself was shot down by defensive fire from the bomber, but he bailed out safely. On another occasion after shooting down more planes, he ran out of fuel and had to glide back to his base in a powerless landing.

Then, after shooting down his 15th Allied plane, his own aircraft was seriously damaged and he had to make a forced landing away from his airfield. He was seriously wounded as a result and was out of the fighting when Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943.

Gorrini reckoned he flew in 212
combat missions in his career

In December 1943, Gorrini joined the Italian Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana - the air force of Mussolini's Italian Social Republic - and, flying the more versatile Fiat G55 fighter aircraft, went on to reach his total of 19 downed Allied planes. Other estimates put his tally at 24, although this tally was not verified.

In June 1944, he fought his last air battle when he found himself surrounded by four Allied planes. After his plane was hit, he was forced to bail out, but he did not open his parachute until he was near the ground, fearing that he would be strafed by American pilots. But when he finally opened it, he suffered a violent jerk and lost consciousness.

When he woke up he was in hospital and was subsequently sent on leave. He later summed up his own career: “212 air combat, 24 solo air victories, five parachute jumps.”

After the war, Gorrini enlisted in the newly-formed Italian Air Force, but because of Allied opposition, he remained as a warrant officer. He was promoted to tenente - lieutenant - only after he had retired.

When Gorrini died in November 2014 in Alseno, aged 97, he was believed to have been the last surviving Italian World War II flying ace.

The Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba
attracts visitors to Alseno, near Piacenza

Travel tip:

Alseno, where Gorrini was born and died, is a town of just under 5,000 people in the province of Piacenza in the Emilia-Romagna region. It is about 120km (72 miles) northwest of Bologna and 40km (24 miles) southeast of Piacenza. It originated in Roman times following the construction of the Via Emilia, the road that links Piacenza with Rimini. Alseno borders Busseto, a small town that is famous because it was where the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi - born nearby in Le Roncole - attended school and later lived with his first wife, Margherita. Just outside Alseno is the Cistercian Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba, founded in 1136 by the abbot Bernardo di Clairvaux. Another nearby attraction, just a few kilometres outside Alseno, is the castle of Castelnuovo Fogliani (4 km), a fascinating medieval borough developed around a fortress.  Cold cuts feature heavily in local cuisine, with the local coppa, salame and pancetta, as well as the less well known mariola and goletta, worth seeking out.

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Piacenza's main square, the Piazza Cavalli, with
Francesco Mocchi's two equestrian statues

Travel tip:

Piacenza is a city in Emilia-Romagna lying between Bologna and Milan. Its main square is named Piazza Cavalli because of its two famous bronze equestrian monuments featuring Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and his son, Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, who succeeded him. The statues are masterpieces by the sculptor Francesco Mochi.  Piacenza’s Romanesque duomo, the 12th century Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta e Santa Giustina, is the city’s most important monument. Its pink Verona marble and sandstone façade, rose window, and sculpted portals set the tone for the historic centre. Inside, there are frescoes by Guercino and Morazzone. The impressive ducal palace, the Palazzo Farnese, today houses the Musei Civici, which includes archaeology collections, including Roman mosaics and Lombard artefacts, and the famous “Madonna della Scodella” by Correggio.

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More reading: 

The World War One flying ace who survived combat to become physician to the Chamber of Deputies

A World War One pilot who survived 465 combat sorties and scored 17 verified victories

Italy’s most successful First World War fighter pilot

Also on this day:

1664: The death of printmaker Stefano della Bella

1793: The birth of soldier and mapmaker Agostino Codazzi

1884: The birth of painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani

1937: The birth of fashion executive Carla Fendi

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11 July

Giuseppe Arcimboldo – painter

Portraits were considered unique in the history of art

The artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who created imaginative portrait heads made up entirely of objects such as fruit, vegetables, flowers and fish, died on this day in 1593 in Milan.  Unique at the time, Arcimboldo’s work was greatly admired in the 20th century by artists such as Salvador Dali and his fellow Surrealist painters.  Giuseppe’s father, Biagio Arcimboldo, was also an artist and Giuseppe followed in his footsteps designing stained glass and frescoes for churches.  Arcimboldo (sometimes also known as Arcimboldi) at first painted entirely in the style of the time. His beautiful fresco of the Tree of Jesse can still be seen in the Duomo of Monza.  But in 1562 he abruptly changed his style after moving to Prague. He began to create human heads, which could be considered as portraits, made up of pieces of fruit and vegetable and other objects. Read more… 

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Antoninus Pius - Roman Emperor

Hadrian’s adopted son presided over 23 years of peace

Antoninus Pius, the fourth of the so-called Five Good Emperors who ruled the Roman Empire between 96 and 180 AD, assumed power on this day in 138 following the death of Hadrian at his villa outside Naples the previous day.  As well as being notable for peace and stability, his reign was one of well-run administration, support for education and public works projects including expanded free access to drinking water in all parts of the empire. He was seen as a wise and benevolent ruler who made the well-being of his subjects a priority, an example being the attention he gave to ensuring freed slaves were given the full rights of citizenship.  Antoninus instigated legal reforms, built temples and theatres, was an active promoter of the arts and sciences, and rewarded the teachers of rhetoric and philosophy in particular with honours and financial incentives.  Read more…

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The founding of Fiat

The investors and aristocrats who created giant of car industry

A group of nine Italian investors and aristocrats met at the Palazzo Cacherano di Bricherasio in Turin on this day in 1899 to found the automobile company Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino - Fiat, as it would become known.  The group were brought together by Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, a wealthy nobleman and entrepreneur, and his fellow entrepreneur Cesare Goria Gatti, who were founder members of the Automobile Club of Italy.  In addition to Bricherasio and Gatti, the nine consisted of two other nobleman, Count Roberto Biscaretti di Ruffia and the Marquis Alfonso Ferrero de Gubernatis Ventimiglia, the banker and silk industrialist Michele Ceriana Mayneri, the lawyer Carlo Racca, the landowner Lodovico Scarfiotti, the stockbroker Luigi Damevino and the wax industrialist Michele Lanza. Read more…

Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo - noblewoman

The shocking fate of Medici wife

The beautiful wife of Don Pietro de' Medici, Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, was strangled to death with a dog lead on this day in 1576 in a villa near Barberino di Mugello in Tuscany.  The murder was carried out by her husband, Pietro, but he was never brought to justice. His brother, Francesco, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, gave out as the official line that his sister-in-law had died as a result of an accident.  Eleonora, who was more often referred to as Leonora, was born in Florence in 1553, the daughter of Garcia Alvarez di Toledo and Vittoria d’Ascanio Colonna. Her father and mother were living in Florence at the time because Garcia was in charge of the castles of Valdichiana.  When her mother died a few months later, Leonora, was left in the care of her aunt, Eleonora, Duchess of Florence, and her husband, the Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici. Read more… 

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Giorgio Armani – designer

Former army medic forged brilliant career in fashion

Giorgio Armani, who is considered by many to be Italy's greatest fashion designer, was born on this day in 1934 in Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.  Known for his menswear and the clean, tailored lines of his collections for women, Armani has become a multi-billionaire.  His original career plan was to become a doctor and he enrolled in the Department of Medicine at the University of Milan but after three years left to join the army. Due to his medical background he was assigned to the military hospital in Verona.  After he left the army, Armani decided to have a complete career change and got a job as a window dresser for La Rinascente, a Milan department store.  He progressed to become a sales assistant in the menswear department and then moved on to work for Nino Cerruti as a menswear designer.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Impossible Nature: The World of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, by Jessica Keating

Impossible Nature offers a fresh reassessment of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, the Lombard painter whose fantastical composite heads became fixtures of the Habsburg court and emblems of imperial imagination. Moving beyond the familiar images, this book argues that court art was never merely decorative: it upheld power even as it subtly unravelled the narratives that power wished to project. Through incisive visual readings, Jessica Keating shows the ways in which Arcimboldo’s work pictured and contemplated anew the co-dependency of art, nature and sovereignty, and reveals an artist far more conceptually daring – and more urgently relevant – than his playful surfaces suggest.

Jessica Keating is Associate Professor of Early Modern Art History at Carleton College, Minnesota. 

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10 July

Calogero Vizzini - Mafia chieftain

‘Man of Honour’ installed as Mayor by Allies

The Sicilian Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini, known as Don Calò, died on this day in 1954 in Villalba, a small town in the centre of the island about 100km (62 miles) southeast of the capital, Palermo.  He was 76 and had been in declining health. He was in an ambulance that was taking him home from a clinic in Palermo and was just entering the town when he passed away.  His funeral was attended by thousands of peasants dressed in black and a number of politicians as well as priests played active roles in the service. One of his pallbearers was Don Francesco Paolo Bontade, a powerful mafioso from Palermo.  Although he had a criminal past, Don Calò acquired the reputation as an old-fashioned ‘man of honour’, whose position became that of community leader, a man to whom people looked to settle disputes and to maintain order and peace through his power.  Read more… 

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The death of Hadrian

Legacy of emperor famous for wall across Britain

The Roman emperor Hadrian, famous for ordering the construction of a wall to keep barbarians from entering Roman Britain, died on this day in 138 AD.  Aged about 62, he is thought to have been suffering from heart failure and passed away at his villa at Baiae – now Baia – on the northern shore of the Bay of Naples.  Hadrian was regarded as the third of the five so-called "Good Emperors", a term coined by the political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, who noted that while most emperors to succeed to the throne by birth were “bad” in his view, there was a run of five - Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius – who all succeeded by adoption, who enjoyed the reputation as benevolent dictators. They governed by earning the good will of their subjects.  It is accepted that Hadrian came from a family with its roots in Hispania.  Read more… 

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Caterina Cornaro – Queen of Cyprus

Monarch lived out her last years in 'sweet idleness'

The last ruler of the Kingdom of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, died on this day in 1510 in Venice.  She had been living out her life in a castle in Asolo, a pretty town in the Veneto, after the Venetian Government persuaded her to abdicate as Queen of Cyprus.  Her court at the castle became a centre of literary and artistic excellence as she spent her days in what has been described as ‘sweet idleness,’ a translation of the verb asolare, invented by the poet Pietro Bembo to describe her daily life in the town.  Caterina was born in 1406 into the noble Cornaro family, which had produced four Doges, and she grew up in the family palace on the Grand Canal. The family had a long trading and business association with Cyprus.  Caterina was married by proxy to King James II of Cyprus in 1468, securing commercial rights and privileges for Venice in Cyprus.  Read more… 

Ludovico Chigi – Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Roman with many titles had powerful ancestors

Ludovico Chigi Albani della Rovere was born on this day in 1866 in Ariccia, a town in the Alban Hills to the southeast of Rome.  Chigi was the son of Imperial Prince Mario Chigi della Rovere-Albani and his wife, Princess Antoinette zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn. His father’s family, the Chigi, was one of the most prominent noble Roman families and they were descended from wealthy Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi.  Another of their ancestors was Pope Alexander VII, who in the 17th century had conferred upon his nephew, Agostino Chigi, the hereditary princedoms of Farnese and Campagnano and the dukedoms of Ariccia and Formello. Chigi was a wealthy banker from Siena, who had gone to live in Rome, taking his money with him, and he had lent considerable sums of money to his uncle, the Pope.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Mafia Allies: The True Story of America's Secret Alliance with the Mob in World War II, by Tim Newark

The Mafia is one of the most feared and powerful criminal organizations the world has ever known. It was also, briefly during World War II, America's ally - a fact that had a profound effect on the fortunes of the Fascists, and on those of the Mafia, whom Mussolini had effectively crushed.  This book brings to light a little-known chapter in the history of World War II, and of organized crime. It tells how Cesare Mori, deputized by Mussolini to "cauterize the sore of crime in Italy," waged all-out war on the Mafia in the name of fascism; and how the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 (Operation Husky) gave the Mafia an opening to regain its strength - and its hold on political power - in the vacuum created by the Fascists’ defeat. A provocative account of how the rise and ultimate defeat of fascism in Italy affected the world's largest and most notorious criminal organization, Mafia Allies also illuminates a dark truth about the unexpected long-term consequences of wartime alliances of convenience.

Tim Newark is the author of several critically acclaimed true-crime books. He contributes book reviews to the Financial Times, Time Out and the Daily Telegraph, and has also worked as a TV scriptwriter and historical consultant.

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