25 August

Vesuvius erupts

Terrible toll of Europe's worst volcanic catastrophe 

Mount Vesuvius erupted on this day in AD 79, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabiae and causing the deaths of thousands of people.  An eyewitness account of the eruption, in which tons of stones, ash and fumes were ejected from the volcano, has been left behind for posterity by a Roman administrator and poet, Pliny the Younger, who described the event in his letters to the historian Tacitus.  Although there were at least three large eruptions of Vesuvius before AD 79 and there have been many since, the disaster in August AD 79 is considered the most catastrophic volcanic eruption in European history.  Mount Vesuvius had thrown out ash the day before and many people had left the area. But in the early hours of the morning of August 25, pyroclastic flows of hot gas and rock began to sweep down the mountain. Read more…

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Death of Pliny the Elder

Roman writer was fascinated by nature and geography

The author, philosopher, and naval and army commander who became known as Pliny the Elder died on this day in 79 AD during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples in Campania. Pliny had been stationed with the Roman Navy a short distance away at Misenum, on what is now known as the Gulf of Pozzuoli, and had organised a rescue mission after a friend had sent him a message saying that she was stranded at Stabiae. It is thought he died from asphyxiation  caused by the toxic gases coming from the volcano.  Born Gaius Plinius Secundus in either 23 or 24 AD in Como, then called Novum Comum, in Lombardy, Pliny grew up to become a prolific writer, naturalist and philosopher.  He wrote Naturalis Historia - The Natural History - a 37-volume work about the natural world, based on his extensive studies and investigations into nature and geography.  Read more…

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Ippolito II d’Este – Cardinal

Borgia prince enjoyed the good things in life

Ippolito II d’Este, who became infamous for plundering Hadrian’s Villa to decorate his own home, was born on this day in 1509 in Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna.  He was the second son of Lucrezia Borgia and her husband, Duke Alfonso I d’Este and therefore also a grandson of Pope Alexander VI. He was named after his uncle, Ippolito d’Este.  At the age of ten, Ippolito II inherited the archbishopric of Milan from his uncle, the first of a long list of ecclesiastical appointments he was to be given, which provided him with a good income. He was later given benefices in many parts of France from which he was also able to draw revenue and he was created a Cardinal by Pope Paul III before he had reached the age of 30. A lover of luxuries and the finer things in life, Ippolito II had Palazzo San Francesco in Ferrara refurbished for himself. Read more…

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Galileo demonstrates potential of telescope

Scientist unveiled new instrument to Doge of Venice

The scientist and inventor Galileo Galilei demonstrated the wonders of the telescope to an audience of Venetian lawmakers on this day in 1609.  The 90th Doge, Leonardo Donato, and other members of the Venetian senate accompanied Galileo to the top of the campanile of St Mark’s Basilica, where each took it in turn to look through the instrument.  The meeting had been arranged by Galileo’s friend, Paolo Sarpi, who was a scientist, lawyer and statesman employed by the Venetian government. The two were both professors at the University of Padua.  Galileo, whose knowledge of the universe led him to be called the ‘father of observational astronomy’, was for many years wrongly credited with the invention of the telescope when in fact the first to apply for a patent for the device was a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey.   Read more…

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Carlo Eduardo Acton – composer and musician

Musical member of the Acton family was born in Naples

Opera composer Carlo Eduardo Acton, who was part of the distinguished Italian-based branch of the Acton family, was born on this day in 1829 in Naples.  Carlo became a concert pianist and is remembered for composing the opera Una cena in convitto. His father, Francis Charles Acton, was the youngest son of General Joseph Acton, and he was also the younger brother of Sir John Acton, the sixth Baronet.  Sir John Acton, Carlo’s uncle, had served as Commander of the naval forces of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Naples while the city was under the rule of King Ferdinand IV. He was the son of Edward Acton, an English physician who had settled in France, and he was the great-grandson of Sir Walter Acton, the second Baronet.  One of Sir John's grandchildren, John Dalberg-Acton (1834-1902), better known as Lord Acton, was an historian, English politician, and writer, also born in Naples.  Read more…

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1960 Summer Olympics

Games of the XVII Olympiad take place in Rome

The Summer Olympic Games opened on this day in 1960 in the ancient city of Rome. It was the first time the Summer Olympics had been held in Italy since the revival of the Games in 1896.  Rome had been due to host the 1908 Summer Olympic Games, but following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Naples in 1906, the eternal city had to pass the Olympic torch on to London. The 1960 Games - known officially as the Games of the XVII Olympiad -  were opened by the then-president of Italy, Giovanni Gronchi, in the Stadio Olimpico in the northwest of the city.  Building had begun on the multi-purpose sports venue in 1928 and it was expanded further in 1937, but then World War II halted any further development. Mussolini’s ruling Fascist party had at one time harboured ambitions of hosting the 1940 Games, which were awarded instead to Japan but then cancelled.  Read more…

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Alessandro Galilei - architect

Florentine who made mark in Rome

The architect Alessandro Galilei, best known for the colossal Classical façade of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, was born on this day in 1691 in Florence.  From the same patrician family as Renaissance polymath Galileo Galilei but not a direct descendant, Galilei’s father was a notary, Giuseppe Maria Galilei. Though his father considered the family to be noble still, their standing had fallen somewhat under Medici rule.  Alessandro studied mathematics and engineering at the prestigious Accademia dei Nobili in Florence, where he was instructed in building techniques and perspective among other things.  As he sought to develop a career, Galilei met John Molesworth, son of the Irish Viscount, Robert Molesworth, who spent three years in Florence as an envoy to the Medici court.  Read more…

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Saint Patricia of Naples

Patron saint performs a miracle every week

The feast day of Saint Patricia is celebrated every year in Naples on this day.  The saint, who is also sometimes referred to as Patricia of Constantinople, is one of a long list of patron saints of Naples.  She is less well known than San Gennaro, also a patron saint of the city, who attracts crowds to Naples Cathedral three times a year to witness the miracle of a small sample of his blood turning to liquid.  But Saint Patricia’s blood, which is kept in the Church of San Gregorio Armeno, is said to undergo the same miraculous transformation every Tuesday morning as well as on August 25 each year - her feast day - which was believed to be the day she died in 665 AD.  Saint Patricia was a noble woman, who may have been descended from St Constantine the Great.  She was a devout virgin and travelled to Rome to become a nun in order to escape an arranged marriage.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny, by Daisy Dunn

Ash spewed into the sky. All eyes were on Vesuvius. Pliny the Elder sailed towards the phenomenon. A teenage Pliny the Younger waited. His uncle did not come back.  In a dazzling new literary biography, Daisy Dunn introduces Pliny the Younger, the survivor who became a Roman lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, curator of drains, and representative of the Emperor. He was confidant and friend to the great and good, an unparalleled chronicler of the Vesuvius catastrophe, and eyewitness to the terror of Emperor Domitian.  The younger Pliny was adopted by his uncle, admiral of the fleet and author of the Natural History, an extraordinary compendium of knowledge and the world’s first full-length encyclopaedia. The younger Pliny inherited his uncle’s notebooks and carried their pearls of wisdom with him down the years.  Daisy Dunn breathes vivid life back into the Plinys. Reading from the Natural History and the Younger Pliny’s Letters, she resurrects the relationship between the two men to expose their beliefs on life, death and the natural world in the first century. Interweaving their work, and positioning the Plinys in relation to the devastating eruption, In the Shadow of Vesuvius is a celebration of two outstanding minds of the Roman Empire, and their lasting influence on the world thereafter.

Daisy Dunn was born in London in 1987 and read Classics at the University of Oxford, before winning a scholarship to the Courtauld and completing a doctorate in Classics and History of Art at University College London. She writes and reviews for many publications.

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24 August

Peppino De Filippo - comedian, actor and playwright

Talented Neapolitan who lived in shadow of his brother

The playwright and comic actor Peppino De Filippo was born Giuseppe De Filippo on this day in 1903 in Naples.  A highly accomplished performer on stage in serious as well as comedy roles, De Filippo also had a list of film credits numbering almost 100, of which he is best remembered for his screen partnership with the brilliant comic actor Totò.  To an extent, however, he spent his career in the shadow of his older brother, Eduardo De Filippo, who after Luigi Pirandello was regarded as the second great Italian playwright of the 20th century.  The two fell out in the 1940s for reasons that were never clear, although it later emerged that they had many artistic differences.  They were never reconciled, and though Peppino went on to enjoy a successful and acclaimed career it annoyed him that he was always seen as a minor playwright compared with his brother.  Read more…

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Parmigianino - Mannerist painter

Artist from Parma left outstanding legacy

The artist Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola – better known as Parmigianino – died on this day in 1540 in Casalmaggiore, a town on the Po river south-east of Cremona in Lombardy.  Sometimes known as Francesco Mazzola, he was only 37 years old when he died but his work was nonetheless regarded as an important influence on the period that followed the High Renaissance era of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.  Known for the refined sensuality of his paintings, Parmigianino – literally ‘the little one from Parma’ – was one of the first generation of Mannerist painters, whose figures exuded elegance and sophistication by the subtle exaggeration of qualities associated with ideal beauty.  Parmigianino is also thought to have been one of the first to develop printmaking using the technique known as etching. Read more…

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Carlo Gambino - Mafia Don

Sicilian thought to be model for Mario Puzo's Godfather

Carlo Gambino, who would become one of the most powerful Mafia Dons in the history of organised crime, was born on this day in 1902 in Palermo, Sicily.  For almost two decades up to his death in 1976, he was head of the Gambino Crime Family, one of the so-called Five Families that have sought to control organised crime in New York under one banner or another for more than a century.  He is thought to have been the real-life Don that author Mario Puzo identified as the model for Vito Corleone, the fictional Don created for the best-selling novel, The Godfather.  During Gambino's peak years, the family's criminal activities realised revenues of an estimated $500 million per year.  Yet Gambino, who kept a modest house in Brooklyn and a holiday home on Long Island, claimed to make a living as a partner in a company that advised on labour relations.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Three Plays, by Eduardo De Filippo. 

Eduardo De Filippo is one of Italy's most important playwrights of the twentieth century. He was also an accomplished actor, theatre company manager and adaptor. Among his many theatrical achievements is his translation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest into the Neapolitan vernacular. His relationship with Italian audiences was so familiar that Italians refer to him simply by his first name, Eduardo. He wrote his plays in Neapolitan vernacular and Italian. Three Plays presents Napoli milionaria!, Grand Magic and Saturday, Sunday, Monday. They are all, to a certain extent, meta-theatrical works, in which characters often play roles in addition to their own. The three plays also share, as do most plays written by Eduardo, an investigation of the relationship between what is presumed to be real and what is fictitious.

Eduardo De Filippo, also known mononymously as Eduardo, was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli milionaria. He is considered one of the most important Italian artists of the 20th century. 

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23 August

NEW - Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese – mathematician and natural philosopher

Noblewoman made an important geometrical discovery

An aristocratic woman who was recognised as a brilliant mathematician and scientist of her time, Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese, died on this day in 1777 in Milan.  Borromeo Arese had become known for her outstanding ability to solve difficult mathematical problems and she was also considered to be a natural philosopher, having made a study of how the world worked.  She was born in Genoa in 1684, the daughter of Duke Marcantonio Mondragone and his wife, Antonia.  As young Clelia grew up she received a good education, at first from her mother, Antonia, and then at a convent that she attended. She became proficient in eight languages and was interested in geometry and how things worked.  In 1707 she married Count Giovanni Benedetto Borromeo Arese and they had eight children together.  Read more…

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Roberto Assagioli – psychiatrist

Harsh imprisonment sparked new psychiatric theories

Roberto Assagioli, the pioneering psychiatrist who founded the science of psychosynthesis, died on this day in 1974 in Capolona in the province of Arezzo in Tuscany.  His innovative psychological movement, which emphasised the possibility of progressive integration, or synthesis, of the personality, aimed at finding inner peace and harmony. It is still admired and is being developed by therapists and psychologists today.  Assagioli explained his ideas in four books - two published posthumously - and the many different pamphlets he wrote during his lifetime. In 1940 the psychiatrist had to spend 27 days in solitary confinement in prison, having been arrested by Mussolini’s Fascist government for praying for peace and encouraging others to join him. He later claimed this experience helped him make his psychological discovery.  Read more…

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Pino Presti – bass player and composer

Talented musician could sing, play guitar, write songs and conduct

Pino Presti, one of the most important personalities in the Italian music business, was born Giuseppe Prestipino Giarritta on this day in 1943 in Milan.  He is a bass guitar player, arranger, composer, conductor and record producer and his work ranges between the different music genres of pop, jazz, funk, latin and dance.  His father, Arturo Prestipino Giarritta, was a well-known violinist and Presti began studying piano and music theory at the age of six.  He taught himself to play the bass guitar and began playing professionally at the age of 17, having developed his own special technique using either the pick or thumb.  Presti was a pioneer of electric bass and was probably the first to play a Fender Jazz Bass in Italy.  His talent for playing the instrument led him to collaborate with the major Italian pop artists of the 1960s, including the famous singer, Mina. Read more…

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Giovanni Minzoni - priest

Devout Catholic murdered for opposing Fascists

Don Giovanni Minzoni, a Catholic priest whose name is commemorated in many street names around Italy, was murdered by Fascist thugs in the small town of Argenta in Emilia-Romagna on this day in 1923.  A parish priest in the town, midway between the cities of  Ferrara and Ravenna, Don Minzoni was attacked at around 10.30pm as he returned to his rectory in the company of Enrico Bondanelli, a parishioner, when he was set upon by two men who were attached to a Fascist militia in Casumaro, almost 50km (31 miles) from Argenta on the other side of Ferrara. He was pelted with stones and, when the blows made him fall to the ground, was beaten. What proved to be the fatal blow was struck with a heavy walking stick. He had a fractured skull and, despite being helped home by Bondanelli and neighbours, died a couple of hours later. Read more…

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Rita Pavone - teenage singing star

Precocious talent who conquered America

Rita Pavone, who was one of Europe's biggest teenage singing stars in the 1960s, was still performing live concerts as recently as 2014 and sang at the Sanremo Music Festival in 2020, was born on this day in 1945 in Turin. The singer had her first hit single when she was just 17 years old and enjoyed success at home and in America during a career that spanned more than five decades, going on to become an accomplished actress on television and in the theatre.  She announced she was quitting show business in 2006 but came out of retirement in 2013 to record two studio albums as a tribute to the stars who had influenced her in throughout her career, then embarking on a series of live concerts in Italy in 2014 and performing in Toronto, Canada exactly 50 years after her first appearance there.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, by Jacob Burckhardt 

For 19th-century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, the Italian Renaissance was nothing less than the beginning of the modern world - a world in which flourishing individualism and the competition for fame radically transformed science, the arts, and politics. In this landmark work he depicts the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice and Rome as providing the seeds of a new form of society, and traces the rise of the creative individual, from Dante to Michelangelo. A fascinating description of an era of cultural transition, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy was to become the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance, and anticipated ideas such as Nietzsche's concept of the 'Ubermensch' in its portrayal of an age of genius.

Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) intended to join the church, but lost his faith while studying theology. Thereafter he studied history at the University of Basel, gaining his doctorate in 1843 and becoming a lecturer. He moved to the Zurich Polytechnic as Professor of Architecture and History in 1855, which is where he wrote The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. 

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Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese – mathematician and natural philosopher

Noble woman made an important geometrical discovery

Clelia Borromeo Arese was from an aristocratic
family but was also an eminent scientist

An aristocratic woman who was recognised as a brilliant mathematician and scientist of her time, Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese, died on this day in 1777 in Milan.

Borromeo Arese had become known for her outstanding ability to solve difficult mathematical problems and she was also considered to be a natural philosopher, having made a study of how the world worked.

She was born in Genoa in 1684, the daughter of Duke Marcantonio Mondragone and his wife, Antonia. 

As young Clelia grew up she received a good education, at first from her mother, Antonia, and then at a convent that she attended. She became proficient in eight languages and was interested in geometry and how things worked.

In 1707 she married Count Giovanni Benedetto Borromeo Arese and they had eight children together. Her husband was the son of Carlo Borromeo Arese, one of the most wealthy and powerful men in Italy at the time.

Borromeo Arese often invited scientists to her home in Milan, both from Italy and abroad. A frequent visitor there was Antonio Vallisneri, who was  a physician, naturalist and a professor of Medicine at the University of Padua. 

His host was an avid reader of books and journals and visitors to her house were often struck by the breadth and depth of her extensive library.

She started her own academy at her home in 1717, which was called the Academia Vigilantium Cleli and she became famous for being able to solve any mathematical problem that she was given. Her academy also played a major role in the ongoing scientific debates of the time.

Among the Academy’s members were the mathematicians Giovanni Saccheri and Tomasso Ceva, and physicists such as Giovanni Crivelli and Alessandro Volta. The Academy played a prominent role in the dissemination of the physics of Newton and the philosophy of Leibnitz.

Scientist Alessandro Volta was a member
of Borromeo Arese's academy

In 1726, Borromeo Arese made an important discovery of her own in geometry. She identified a special kind of curve, on the surface of a sphere, which became known as the Clelia curve.

As an example, a path marked on the surface of a planet to correspond with an orbiting satellite's trajectory would follow a Clelia curve.

An independent woman, Borromeo Arese formed her own opinions and she chose to support Spain against Austria during the war in 1746, As a result, she had to leave Milan for a while, but when she was allowed to return home she was welcomed back as a heroine by the Milanese people.

Genoa, the city where she was born, honoured her contribution to geometry by awarding her a medal, which was inscribed with the words ‘Genuensium Gloria’, which means ‘The Honour of Genoa’.

After her death in 1777, Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese was buried in the Church of Santa Maria Podone, a Greek Orthodox church in the centre of Milan.

The Italian monk and mathematician, Luigi Guido Grandi, who had also been a member of Borromeo Arese’s Academy, wrote about the Clelia curve in a book that he dedicated to her. He wrote that ‘Clelia curves are curves on the earth’s sphere for whose points there is a linear relationship between longitude and colatitude’. 

A colatitude is the complement of a given latitude. It is found by subtracting the latitude angle from 90 degrees. Instead of measuring distance up or down from the equator, it measures the angle down from the North Pole.

The striking black-and-white
facade of San Lorenzo Cathedral

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa, where Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese was born, is capital of the Liguria region. It has a rich history as a trading centre with wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks. It also has fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour. The Palazzo Ducale - the Doge's Palace - the 16th century Palazzo Reale, a lavish royal residence with frescoes, tapestries and a rooftop garden, and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral, with its striking black-and-white façade, are three examples worth visiting.  At the heart of the city centre is the Piazza De Ferrari, which features a monumental bronze fountain and is flanked by the Palazzo Ducale, the Palazzo della Borsa and the Teatro Carlo Felice.  The area around the restored harbour area has some fascinating alleyways and squares to explore and it has been enhanced in recent years by the Genoa architect Renzo Piano. 

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Palazzo Borromeo is one of the finest 
examples of a Milanese patrician palace

Travel tip:

The Borromeo family of Milan, into which Clelia Grillo Borromeo Arese married, were rich nobles, who started out as merchants and then became bankers. They played important roles in politics, and as cardinals during the Counter-Reformation movement in Italy. Federico Borromeo, who was Archbishop of Milan, founded the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana in Milan, one of Europe’s first, free public libraries. The ancestral home of the Borromeo family in Milan is Palazzo Borromeo, a late 14th century palace in Piazza Borromeo, about 10 minutes’ walk from the Duomo. It was originally built as both the home and business headquarters of the family. They had moved to Milan after fleeing from San Miniato, outside Florence, when the head of the family, Filippo, was executed.  It contains an important fresco cycle from the 1440s and is one of the finest examples of a Milanese patrician palace from the early Renaissance. Parts of the building were badly damaged during Allied bombings in World War II but were reconstructed and restored to their original appearance. 

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More reading:

Federico Borromeo, the Archbishop of Milan who founded the Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Saint Charles Borromeo and the movement to combat the spread of Protestantism

Luigi Guido Grandi – monk, philosopher and mathematician

Also on this day:

1923: The murder by Fascist thugs of Catholic priest Don Giovanni Minzoni

1943: The birth of bass player and composer Pino Presti 

1945: The birth of teenage singing star Rita Pavone

1974: The death of psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli 

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