18 October

Ludovico Scarfiotti - racing driver

Only Italian to win ‘home’ Grand Prix in 74 years

The racing driver Ludovico Scarfiotti, whose victory in the 1966 Italian Grand Prix at Monza was the last by an Italian until Kimi Antonelli's stunning triumph in 2026, was born on this day in 1933 in Turin.  His success at Monza, where he came home first in a Ferrari one-two with the British driver Mike Parkes, was the first by a home driver for 14 years since Alberto Ascari won the last of his three Italian Grand Prix in 1952.  It was Scarfiotti’s sole victory - indeed, his only top-three finish - in 10 Formula One starts. His competitive career spanned 15 years, ending in tragic circumstances with a fatal crash in 1968, little more than a month after he had come home fourth in the Monaco Grand Prix in a Cooper-BRM.  Scarfiotti in some respects was born to race. His father, Luigi, a deputy in the Italian parliament who made his fortune from cement, had raced for Ferrari as an amateur.  Read more…

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Alessandro Antonelli – architect

The creator of Turin’s striking Mole 

Alessandro Antonelli, who became famous for designing what has become Turin’s most iconic building, died on this day in 1888 in the Piedmont capital.  Antonelli was the architect of the Mole Antonelliana, which was named after him. The Mole now houses the National Museum of Cinema. At 167.5 metres (550ft), it remains the tallest unreinforced brick building in the world, and is believed to be the tallest of any construction to house a museum.  Mole is an Italian word that is used to describe a building of monumental proportions. Turin’s impressive Mole is represented on the obverse side of the Italian two euro cents coin, which is the side that displays the nationality of the country that has issued the coin.  Antonelli was born in Ghemme, a town near Novara in Piedmont, in 1798. His father was a notary and he was one of 11 children.  Read more… 

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Cristoforo Benigno Crespi - entrepreneur

Textile boss created industrial village of Crespi d’Adda

The entrepreneur Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, who became famous for creating a company-owned village around his textile factory in Lombardy, was born on this day in 1833 in Busto Arsizio, about 34km (21 miles) northwest of Milan.  A textile manufacturer, in 1869 Crespi bought an area of land close to where the Brembo and Adda rivers converge, about 40km (25 miles) northeast of Milan, with the intention of building a cotton mill on the banks of the Adda.  The factory he built was substantial, with room for 10,000 spindles, but as well the capacity to produce textiles on a large scale, Crespi recognised that it was essential to his plans to have a contented workforce. Consequently, following the lead of other manufacturers in the textile industry outside Italy, he set about providing on site everything to meet the daily needs of his employees.  Read more…

Theft of Caravaggio masterpiece

Fate of Nativity taken from Palermo church remains a mystery

One of the most notorious art crimes in history was discovered on this day in 1969 when a housekeeper at the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo arrived for work to find that the Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, painted by the Renaissance master Caravaggio in 1609, had been stolen. The painting sat above the altar in the Oratory, which is situated in Via Immacolata in the centre of the Sicilian capital, adjacent to the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, but when the housekeeper, Maria Gelfo, opened up with her sister on the morning of 18 October, they were confronted with an empty frame.  Worth an estimated £20 million (€23.73 million; $27.52 million), the painting has never been found, leaving half a century’s worth of theories about its fate to remain unproven.  Most of the theories link the theft to the Sicilian Mafia.  Read more…

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Luca Giordano – artist

Talented Neapolitan was renowned for being a fast worker

Luca Giordano, the most celebrated and prolific Neapolitan painter of the late 17th century, was born on this day in 1634 in Naples.  His nicknames were Luca Fa Presto - "Luca work faster" - said to derive from the way his father, the copyist Antonio Giordano, used to admonish him, Fulmine (the Thunderbolt) because of his speed, and Proteus, because he was reputed to be able to imitate the style of almost any other artist.  Giordano’s output both in oils and in frescoes was enormous and he is said to have once painted a large altarpiece in just one day.  He was influenced at the start of his career by Jose de Ribera, to whom he was apprenticed, and he also assimilated Caravaggio’s style of dramatic intensity.  But after Giordano had travelled to Rome, Florence and Venice, his style underwent a profound change.  Read more…

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Luke the Evangelist

Scientists believe Saint is buried in Padua

The feast day of St Luke the Evangelist - la festa di San Luca - is celebrated in Padua and throughout Italy on this day every year.  Luke the Evangelist is believed to be one of the four authors of the Gospels in the New Testament. Both the Gospel according to St Luke and the book of Acts of the Apostles have been ascribed to him.  Luke is believed to have been a doctor who was also a disciple of St Paul. It has been claimed he was martyred by being hung from an olive tree, although other sources say he worked as a doctor until his death at the age of 84.  He is regarded as the patron saint of artists, physicians, surgeons, students and butchers and it is strongly believed that his body lies in the Basilica of Santa Giustina in Prato della Valle in Padua.  It is thought that Luke was a Greek physician who lived and worked in the city of Antioch in ancient Syria.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Superveloce: How Italian Cars Conquered the World, by Peter Grimsdale

Silverstone, 1950 – the first post-war Grand Prix and the birth of Formula One. The king and queen, alongside 150,000 spectators, watch in dismay as Italy’s Alfa Romeos scream past to claim the first three places. British cars are hopelessly outclassed by Alfa Romeos and Maseratis. How can it be, they all wonder, that Italy, its industry reduced to rubble by Allied bombs so recently, has set new standards of speed and style that leave the rest of the world for dust?  Italy’s ability to outflank its more powerful and better-equipped neighbours is nothing new. At the turn of the century Italy made so few cars that its output wasn’t recorded, by 1907 Italian cars and drivers swept the board in the first Grand Prix season. In Superveloce, Peter Grimsdale explores the mystery of how a country with no industrial revolution, hampered by poverty, came to represent an innovation and flair that other countries struggled to match. Grimsdale traces a century of Italian design genius, the rise of great marques such as Ferrari, Fiat and Alfa Romeo. We see the lives of fiercely charismatic and competitive drivers such as Ascari, Varzi and Nuvolari. Does the secret lie deep in Italy’s cultural heritage – in historic links between art and machine going back to da Vinci? Or is it simply ‘sprezzatura’ – the art of making something difficult look effortlessly easy? 

Peter Grimsdale is a novelist, screenwriter and TV producer. His non-fiction books include High Performance – When Britain Ruled the Roads and Racing in the Dark: How the Bentley Boys Conquered Le Mans. Superveloce: How Italian Cars Conquered the World was named the 2026 Motorsports Book of the Year at the Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Book Awards. 

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17 October

The end of the Venetian Republic

Peace treaty saw Venice given away to Austria

A peace settlement signed in a small town in north-east Italy on this day in 1797 heralded a dark day for the Most Serene Republic as Venice officially lost its independence after 1,100 years.  The Treaty of Campo Formio, drawn up after the Austrians had sought an armistice when faced with Napoleon Bonaparte's advance on Vienna, included an exchange of territory that saw Napoleon hand Venice to Austria.  It marked the end of the First Coalition of countries allied against the French, although it was a short-lived peace.  A Second Coalition was formed the following year.  The Venetian Republic, still a playground for the rich but in decline for several centuries in terms of real power, had proclaimed itself neutral during the Napoleonic Wars, wary that it could not afford to sustain any kind of conflict.  Read more…

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Giovanni Matteo Mario - operatic tenor

Disgraced nobleman became the toast of London and Paris

The operatic tenor Giovanni Matteo Mario, a Sardinian nobleman who deserted from the army and began singing to earn a living after fleeing to Paris, was born on this day in 1810 in Cagliari.  He was baptised Giovanni Matteo de Candia and some of his relatives were members of the Royal Court of Turin. His father, Don Stefano de Candia of Alghero, held the rank of general in the Royal Sardinian Army and was aide-de-camp to the Savoy king Charles Felix of Sardinia.  He became Giovanni Mario or Mario de Candia only after he had begun his stage career at the age of 28. He was entitled to call himself Cavaliere (Knight), Nobile (Nobleman) and Don (Sir) in accordance with his inherited titles, yet on his first professional contract, he signed himself simply ‘Mario’ out of respect for his father, who considered singing a lowly career.  Read more…

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The founding of Atalanta football club

Bergamo institution started by students of local high school

The football club now known as Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio - generally referred to as Atalanta - was founded on this day in 1907 in the Lombardy city of Bergamo.  The club was the idea of a group of students from the Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, one of the city’s oldest and most prestigious high schools.  They gave it the rather long-winded name of the Società Bergamasca di Ginnastica e Sports Atletici - the Bergamasca Society of Gymnastics and Athletic Sports - to which they attached the name Atalanta after the Greek mythological heroine famed for her running prowess.  For the first seven years of its life, the new club had no home and played friendly matches on whatever open space was available, but in 1914 found a home ground in Via Maglio del Lotto, adjoining the railway line just outside Bergamo railway station.  Read more…

Cristofano Allori – artist

Mannerist painter’s masterpiece was inspired by his mistress 

The artist Cristofano Allori, who is particularly remembered for his 1613 painting of Judith with the Head of Holofernes, which is now in the British Royal Collection, was born on this day in 1577 in Florence. Allori was a painter of the late Florentine Mannerist school who specialised in portraits and religious subjects. He is well regarded by experts because of the delicacy and technical perfection of his work. His skill was demonstrated by some copies he made of Antonio da Correggio’s works, which for a time were thought to be duplicates that had been painted by Correggio himself. The artist was extremely fastidious about his work, which limited the number of paintings he executed, but there are still fine examples of his art to be seen in Florence. He received his first lessons in painting from his father, Alessandro Allori, who had many distinguished pupils. Read more…

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Bartolommeo Bandinelli - Renaissance sculptor

Career scarred by petty jealousies

The sculptor Bartolommeo Bandinelli, a contemporary and rival of Michelangelo and Benvenuto Cellini in Renaissance Italy, was born on this day in 1473 in Florence.  He left his mark on Florence in the shape of the monumental statue of Hercules and Cacus in the Piazza della Signoria and his statues of Adam and Eve, originally created for the Duomo but today housed in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello.  He was skilled in small sculptures but became known and disliked for his antagonistic manner with other artists and his particular hatred of Michelangelo, of whom he was bitterly jealous.  Giorgio Vasari, the artist and sculptor who compiled a history of art and artists, recalled Bandinelli being so enraged by the excitement that ensued when a Michelangelo drawing was uncovered in the Palazzo Vecchio that, as soon as an opportunity arose, he tore it up.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Venice: A New History, by Thomas F Madden

Thomas Madden’s majestic, sprawling history of Venice is the first full portrait of the city in English in almost 30 years. Using long-buried archival material and a wealth of newly translated documents, Madden weaves a spellbinding story of a place and its people, tracing an arc from the city’s humble origins as a lagoon refuge to its apex as a vast maritime empire and Renaissance epicenter to its rebirth as a modern tourist hub. Madden explores all aspects of Venice’s breathtaking achievements: the construction of its unparalleled navy, its role as an economic powerhouse and birthplace of capitalism, its popularization of opera, the stunning architecture of its watery environs, and more. He sets these in the context of the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire, the endless waves of Crusades to the Holy Land, and the awesome power of Turkish sultans. And perhaps most critically, Madden corrects the stereotype of Shakespeare’s money-lending Shylock that has distorted the Venetian character, uncovering instead a much more complex and fascinating story, peopled by men and women whose ingenuity and deep faith profoundly altered the course of civilization. Venice: A New History is an extraordinary chronicle of Venice, its people, and its grandeur.

Thomas F Madden is a professor of history and the director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University in Missouri. He is the author of The New Concise History of the Crusades, Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice, The Fourth Crusade and Empires of Trust.

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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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