20 January

Federico Fellini – film director

The cinematic legacy of Rimini’s most famous son

Federico Fellini, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, was born on this day in Rimini in 1920.  He had a career lasting almost 50 years and his films were nominated for 12 Academy Awards. He won four Oscars, each for Best Foreign Language Film, with La strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8½ and Amarcord.  Fellini initially went to Rome to study Law at university but ended up working as a journalist instead.  His assignments for a magazine gave him the opportunity to meet people involved in show business and he eventually got work as a script writer for films and radio.  Fellini worked as both a screenwriter and assistant director on Roberto Rossellini films as well as producing and directing for other filmmakers. He began work on his first solo film, The White Sheik, in 1951. It received mixed reviews but in 1953 his film, I vitelloni, pleased both the public and the critics.  Read more…

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Ennio Porrino - composer

Premature death robbed Italian music of great talent

The composer Ennio Porrino, best known for his symphonic poem, Sardegna, and his opera, I Shardana, was born on this day in 1910 in Cagliari.  Porrino was critically acclaimed, his operas earning comparisons with the great Giacomo Puccini, although to some his reputation has been tarnished by his association with Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime. He was only 49 when he died in Rome.  His 1941 opera, Gli Orazi, has been interpreted as a ‘hymn to fascism’ by some critics, while his piece, The March of the Volunteer, was used by Mussolini’s short-lived Italian Social Republic as its anthem.  Little is known of Porrino’s early years. It is thought that his family moved to Rome when he was a small child and most accounts of his life begin with his studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, which he attended from the age of 17. Read more…

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Franca Sozzani – magazine editor

Risk taker who turned Vogue Italia into a major voice

Franca Sozzani, the journalist who was editor-in-chief of the Italian edition of Vogue magazine for 28 years, was born on this day in 1950 in Mantua.  Under her stewardship, Vogue Italia was transformed from what she saw as little more than a characterless clothing catalogue for the Milan fashion giants to one of the edgiest publications the style shelves of the newsstands had ever seen.  Sozzani used high-end fashion and the catwalk stars to make bold and sometimes outrageous statements on the world issues she cared about, creating shockwaves through the industry but often selling so many copies that editions sometimes sold out even on second or third reprints.  It meant that advertisers who backed off in horror in the early days of her tenure clamoured to buy space again, particularly when the magazine began to attract a following even outside Italy.  Read more…

Marco Simoncelli - motorcycle world champion

Young rider whose career ended in tragedy

The motorcycle racer Marco Simoncelli, who is part of an illustrious roll call of Italian world champions headed by Giacomo Agostini and Valentino Rossi, was born on this day in 1987 in Cattolica on the Adriatic coast.  Simoncelli, who was European 125cc champion in 2002 in only his second year of senior competition, became 250cc world champion in 2008 when he won six races riding for Gilera.  He had dreams of emulating Rossi, winner of the 250cc world title in 1999, in going on to be a force in the premier MotoGP category, in which the latter has been world champion seven times, just one fewer than Agostini's record eight titles.  But after stepping up to MotoGP in 2010, Simoncelli suffered a fatal crash at the Malaysian Grand Prix in October the following year, killed at the age of just 24.  On only the second lap of the Sepang circuit, he lost control of his Honda at a corner.  Read more…

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Rafael Bombelli – mathematician

First person to explain algebra in simple language

Rafael Bombelli, the mathematician regarded as the inventor of complex numbers, was baptised and was also probably born on this day in 1526 near Bologna.  He wrote a book about algebra in simple language that could be understood by everyone, giving a comprehensive account of what was known about the subject at the time. The first three volumes, published in 1572, were the first European texts to explain how to perform computations with negative numbers.  Rafael Bombelli was the eldest son of Antonio Mazzoli, a wool merchant, who had changed his name to Bombelli to disassociate himself from the reputation of his family. His grandfather had taken part in a failed attempt to seize Bologna on behalf of the Bentivoglio family but had been caught and executed. Antonio Mazzoli was able to return to Bologna only after changing his name to Bombelli. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Films of Federico Fellini (Cambridge Film Classics), by Peter Bondanella

The Films of Federico Fellini examines the career of one of Italy's most renowned filmmakers through close analysis of five masterpieces that span his career: La strada, La dolce vita, 8 1/2, Amarcord and Interview. Providing an overview of Fellini's early career as a cartoonist and scriptwriter for neorealist directors such as Roberto Rossellini, this study traces the development of Fellini's unique and personal cinematic vision as it transcends Italian neorealism. Rejecting an overtly ideological approach to Fellini's cinema, Bondanella emphasizes the director's interest in fantasy, the irrational and individualism.

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19 January

Paolo Borsellino - anti-Mafia judge

Magistrate slain by Mafia 57 days after colleague Giovanni Falcone

Paolo Borsellino, the judge who was helping to wage a successful war against the Sicilian Mafia when he was murdered in 1992, was born on this day in 1940 in Palermo.  He and his boyhood friend, Giovanni Falcone, became the most prominent members of a pool of anti-Mafia magistrates set up in the 1980s to investigate organised crime and share information. They made considerable progress in weakening the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, in particular through the so-called Maxi Trial of 1986-87, which resulted in 360 convictions and prison sentences totalling 2,665 years.  Yet both were killed within the space of two months, Falcone on May 23 by a bomb placed under the motorway between Sicilian capital Palermo and the city's airport, Borsellino on July 19 by a car bomb as he left his mother's house in the centre of the city.  Read more…

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Il trovatore – opera

Verdi masterpiece is regularly performed all over the world 

One of the most successful operas composed by Giuseppe Verdi, Il trovatore was first staged on this day in 1853 in Rome.  The four act opera was based on a play by Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez about a troubadour, the son of a gypsy woman, who is in love with a lady in waiting at a Spanish castle.  After its premiere, at the Teatro Apollo in Rome, the opera became a big success and in the first three years there were 229 productions of it worldwide. In Naples alone there were 11 different productions in six theatres, including Teatro San Carlo, during the first three years. The opera was first performed in America by the Max Maretzek Opera Company in 1855. The Metropolitan Opera in New York have performed it more than 600 times since it was first staged there in 1883.  Verdi was asked to prepare a French version of the opera in 1855, Le Trouvère, and to include music for a ballet. Read more…

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Rosina Storchio - soprano

Star prospered despite Butterfly debut flop

The soprano Rosina Storchio, a major star of the opera world in the early 20th century, was born on this day in 1872 in Venice.  A favourite of the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini, with whom she had an affair that scandalised Milan, she sang opposite Enrico Caruso and other male stars of her era, including Giuseppe Anselmi, Titta Ruffo and the Russian, Fyodor Chaliapin.  She sang in five notable premieres.  Ruggero Leoncavallo cast her as the first Mimì in his version of La bohème (1897) and also as Zazà in the opera of the same name (1900), Umberto Giordano created the role of Stephana for her in Siberia (1903), while she was Pietro Mascagni’s first Lodoletta (1917).  The first night for which she was often remembered, however, was the one that turned into a personal catastrophe for Giacomo Puccini, when Madama Butterfly was unveiled in Milan in 1904. Read more…

Giuseppe Bonomi - architect

Roman who became famous for English country houses

The architect Giuseppe Bonomi, who became better known by his Anglicised name Joseph Bonomi after spending much of his working life in England, was born on this day in 1739 in Rome.  Records nowadays refer to him as Joseph Bonomi the Elder, to distinguish him from his son of the same name, who became a sculptor, artist and Egyptologist of some standing and tends to be described as Joseph Bonomi the Younger.   Joseph Bonomi the Elder is known primarily for designing a number of English country houses in the last two decades of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th.  Among these are Lambton Castle in County Durham, Barrells Hall in Warwickshire, Longford Hall in Shropshire and Laverstoke House in Hampshire.  He also designed the saloon in the grand house of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Portman Square in London. Read more…

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Assunta ‘Pupetta’ Maresca – camorrista

Ex-beauty queen who avenged death of husband

Assunta Maresca, the mobster’s wife who made headlines around the world when she walked into a bar in Naples in broad daylight and shot dead the man she suspected of ordering the murder of her husband on behalf of the Neapolitan Mafia - the Camorra - was born on this day in 1935 in the coastal town of Castellammare di Stabia.  Better known as ‘Pupetta’ – the little doll – on account of her small stature and stunning good looks, Maresca took the law into her own hands after her husband – a young and ambitious camorrista and the father of her unborn child - was assassinated on the orders of a rival.  Her extraordinary act brought her an 18-year prison sentence, of which she served about a third, yet made her a figure of such public fascination that several movies and TV series were made about her life.  Read more… 

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Giuseppe Millico - opera singer, composer and teacher

Castrato taught Lord Nelson’s lover

The castrato opera singer and composer Giuseppe Millico, who numbered Lord Nelson’s future lover, Emma Hamilton, as among his pupils as a singing teacher in Naples, was born on this day in 1737 in Terlizzi, a town in Apulia.  As a singer, Millico is best remembered for his performances in the operas of the Bavarian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. He also compiled a significant body of work of his own, including eight operas, eight cantatas, numerous arias and duets not part of wider works, and 82 canzonets.  Having learned his craft in Naples in the 1750s, Millico returned to the city in 1780 after many years of touring, becoming a teacher as well as a composer. He taught singing to the Bourbon princesses Maria Teresa and Luisa Maria, as well as to Emma, Lady Hamilton, the actress and model, who was living in Naples after her marriage to Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Vendetta: The Mafia, Judge Falcone and the Quest for Justice, by John Follain

On May 23, 1992 the Mafia assassinated its 'Number One Enemy', the legendary prosecutor Judge Falcone, with a motorway bomb that also killed his wife Francesca and three bodyguards. Fifty-seven days later, the Mafia killed Falcone's friend and colleague, Judge Paolo Borsellino, with a car bomb outside his mother's home that also killed five bodyguards. These two murders changed forever how Italy viewed the Mafia. Vendetta tells the inside story of the assassination plots and the investigation that followed. Follain reveals Borsellino's desperate race against time to find out who killed his friend while knowing he was next on the list and reveals the daring undercover police mission which unmasked the killers.  Based on new and exclusive interviews and the testimony of investigators, Mafia supergrasses, survivors, relatives and friends, Vendetta recounts the events hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute as the Mafiosi plan and carry out the murders, and as the police hunt them down.

John Follain is an editor for European government news at Bloomberg. He was previously a reporter for Bloomberg, and a correspondent for the Sunday Times based in Paris and in Rome, covering events across Europe. He was also a correspondent for Reuters based in Paris and Rome. As well as Vendetta, he has written eight non-fiction books including the award-winning Zoya's Story, an international bestseller, and Death in Perugia: The Definitive Account of the Meredith Kercher Case.

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18 January

NEW - Austria takes control of Venice

Soldiers restored calm but became unpopular with the Venetians 

Austrian troops took over Venice and her territories on this day in 1798 and put an end to the destruction and looting caused by Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers in the city.  The Venetian Republic had proclaimed itself neutral during the Napoleonic Wars, knowing it could not afford to get involved in conflict. But Napoleon wanted to acquire the city anyway, and in May 1797 had provoked the Venetians into attacking a French ship, which he then used as an excuse to declare war against Venice.  The Venetian Grand Council and the last of its Doges, Ludovico Manin, voted the Republic out of existence and surrendered, putting the city under French rule. It was humiliating for Venice as it was the first time foreign troops had occupied the city in its 1,100 years of history.  But worse was to come as the French soldiers began systematically stripping Venice of its assets. Read more… 

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Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster – Cardinal

Blessed monk who tried to preach humility to Mussolini

Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, who was a Benedictine monk and served as Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan during World War II, was born on this day in 1880 in Rome.  Towards the end of the war, Schuster attempted to arrange a truce between Mussolini and the partisans, but failed because Mussolini refused to accept the demands for total surrender made by the partisan delegates.  During the unsuccessful meeting between Mussolini and the partisans in the Archbishop’s Palace in Milan, Schuster is reported to have made an attempt to preach humility to the Fascist leader. More than 40 years after his death, Cardinal Schuster was beatified on 12 May 1996 by Pope John Paul II.  Schuster was the son of a Bavarian tailor who had moved to live in Rome and he served as an altar boy at a German Church near St Peter’s Basilica.  Read more…

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Katia Ricciarelli - operatic soprano

Star whose peak years were in ‘70s and ‘80s

The opera singer Katia Ricciarelli, who at her peak was seen as soprano who combined a voice of sweet timbre with engaging stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 at Rovigo in the Veneto.  She rose to fame quickly after making her professional debut as Mimi in Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème in Mantua in 1969 and in the 1970s was in demand for the major soprano roles.  Between 1972 and 1975, Ricciarelli sang at all the major European and American opera houses, including Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1973), the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1974) and the Metropolitan Opera (1975).  In 1981, she began an association with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro that she maintained throughout the ‘80s.  In addition to her opera performances, Ricciarelli also appeared in a number of films.  She was Desdemona in Franco Zeffirelli's film version of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello in 1986, alongside Plácido Domingo. Read more…

Forza Italia - political party

Movement that gave media magnate Silvio Berlusconi political power

The shape of Italy’s political landscape changed on this day in 1994 with the launch of the Forza Italia party, whose leader, the wealthy media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, served as Italy’s prime minister three times. Work had been going on behind the scenes to lay the foundations of the party for several months, going back to Berlusconi and a group of friends and business colleagues meeting in a notary’s office in Milan in June 1993 to give legal status to what was called the Forza Italia Association for Good Government.  By November, a network of Forza Italia Clubs was established, quickly attracting many thousands of members. Details of this network appeared in the media, although Berlusconi denied that they were branches of a political party - despite news in December that an address on Via dell'Umiltà in Rome had been registered as Forza Italia headquarters. Read more…

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Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder – musician

Court composer suspected of being a spy

Alfonso Ferrabosco, the composer who first introduced the madrigal to England, was born on this day in Bologna in 1543.  As well as composing music for Queen Elizabeth I of England, he was also suspected of working as a spy for her.  Ferrabosco had been born into a family of musicians and travelled about in Italy and France while he was young with his father and uncle.  He went to England in 1562 with his uncle and found employment with Elizabeth I, becoming the first composer to introduce the unaccompanied harmony of the madrigal to England, where it later became very popular. Elizabeth is said to have settled an annuity equivalent to £66 on him.  Ferrabosco’s madrigals suited English tastes and were considered very skilful. He also composed sacred music and instrumental music for lutes and viols.  Read more…

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Dino Meneghin – basketball player

Italy’s biggest star won 32 trophies and Olympic medal

Dino Meneghin, universally recognised as the greatest Italian player in basketball history, was born on this day in 1950 in Alano di Piave, a village in the Veneto.  The first Italian and only the second European player to be drafted by a National Basketball Association team when he was picked by the Atlanta Hawks in 1970, Meneghin enjoyed a professional career spanning 28 years.   He did not retire until he was 44 years old and had played in a professional match against his own son, Andrea, having won 32 trophies including 12 Italian national championships and seven EuroLeague titles.  Meneghin also participated in four Olympic basketball tournaments, winning a silver medal in the 1980 Games in Moscow. His international career amounted to 271 appearances for Italy, in which he scored 2,847 points.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City, by Dennis Romano

A sweeping and comprehensive history of Venice - from its formation in the early Middle Ages to the present day - that traces its evolution as a city, city-state, regional power, and overseas empire.  No city stirs the imagination more than Venice. From the richly ornamented palaces emerging from the waters of the Grand Canal to the dazzling sites of Piazza San Marco, visitors and residents alike sense they are entering, as 14th-century poet Petrarch remarked, "another world." During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Venice was celebrated as a model republic in an age of monarchs. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it became famous for its freewheeling lifestyle characterized by courtesans, casinos, and Carnival. When the city fell on hard times following the collapse of the Republic in 1797, a darker vision of Venice as a place of decay, disease, and death took hold. Today tourists from around the globe flock to the world heritage site as rising sea levels threaten its very foundations.  This comprehensive account reveals the adaptations to its geographic setting that have been a constant feature of living on water from Venice's origins to the present. It examines the lives of the women and men, noble and common, rich and poor, Christian, Jew, and Muslim, who built not only the city but also its vast empire that stretched from Northern Italy to the eastern Mediterranean.  Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City offers a stunning portrait of this most singular of cities.

Dennis Romano is the Dr Walter Montgomery and Marian Gruber Professor of History emeritus at Syracuse University, in New York State. He is the author and editor of numerous books.

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Austria takes control of Venice

Soldiers restored calm but became unpopular with the Venetians 

The French troops of Napoleon, pictured arriving
in St Mark's square, looted Venice's treasures

Austrian troops took over Venice and her territories on this day in 1798 and put an end to the destruction and looting caused by Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers in the city.

The Venetian Republic had proclaimed itself neutral during the Napoleonic Wars, knowing it could not afford to get involved in conflict. But Napoleon wanted to acquire the city anyway, and in May 1797 had provoked the Venetians into attacking a French ship, which he then used as an excuse to declare war against Venice.

The Venetian Grand Council and the last of its Doges, Ludovico Manin, voted the Republic out of existence and surrendered, putting the city under French rule. It was humiliating for Venice as it was the first time foreign troops had occupied the city in its 1,100 years of history.

But worse was to come as the French soldiers began systematically stripping Venice of its assets. 

The Lion of Venice, which sits on top one of the two granite columns that stand guard at the lagoon end of the Piazzetta adjoining St Mark's Square, was lifted down and taken to France and Napoleon’s soldiers seized many art treasures and large quantities of gold and silver. 

In October 1797, the French and the Austrians signed the Treaty of Campo Formio and Venice was awarded to Austria, in return for France getting Lombardy and the area of Belgium then known as the Austrian Netherlands. 

But before the city was handed over to the Austrians, the French destroyed the Venetian navy, sending some of the ships back to France, and deliberately scuttling others.

Workers at Venice’s Arsenale were dismissed and the whole complex was burnt down. Churches, convents, and palaces were emptied of valuables and artworks. The state mint and the treasury of the Basilica of St Mark were confiscated and the Doge's ceremonial galley, the Bucintoro, was stripped of all its sculptures. These were then burned on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore to recover their gold leaf. 

The abdication as Doge of Ludovico Manin, which
spelt the end of the Venetian Republic

The famous bronze horses of Saint Mark were removed from the Basilica and taken to Paris, while many ordinary citizens were imprisoned and then forced to hand over their wealth in exchange for being given their freedom.

On the same day the French left Venice in January 1798, the Austrians arrived and ended the plunder. But their rule over Venice lasted only until 1805, when the city once again came under French control. It was returned to Austrian rule in 1815 and became part of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, until its incorporation into the Kingdom of Italy in 1866.

Even though the Austrians had brought an end to the appalling ravages caused to the city by the French, the Venetians came to dislike their Austrian invaders. However, the new rulers were instrumental in building the railway that connected the city to the mainland, which opened the way for a new era of prosperity for Venice.

The Venetians rose up in rebellion against the Austrians in 1848, staging a general strike and recruiting a militia of 4,000 men, briefly driving their invaders out. The new Republic of San Marco declared its independence in March 1848 and a year passed before the Austrians reclaimed the city. The Austrian navy sailed into the lagoon and laid siege to the city, until its inhabitants were starving, and suffering from a cholera epidemic, and had no choice but to surrender.

The Austrians were finally driven out of Venice by the army of Victor Emmanuel II during the wars of Italian unification, at which point Venice became part of the Kingdom of Italy as a result of the Treaty of Vienna. 

During the 19th century, while Venice was under Austrian rule, coffee drinking became popular in the city and Austrian pastries, such as strudel and krapfen, were served in the coffee houses. 

The Habsburgs added new dishes to the traditional seafood diet with their own recipes that used meat,  cream, and knedel (dumplings). Their army officers, officials, and academics, also brought their own cooks with them to Venice, which enriched the city’s culinary tradition, and some traditional Austrian dishes can still be found on menus in Venice.

Caffè Quadri became the coffee house of choice
for the Austrian occupiers of the city

Travel tip:

Caffè Quadri in St Mark’s Square in Venice became the preferred coffee house for Austrian army officers during their 19th century occupation of the city. Originally founded in 1775 by Giorgio Quadri, who introduced Turkish coffee to Venice, it was taken over and restored in 1830, and a restaurant was added upstairs, the only one still in existence in St Mark’s Square today. It became a central hub for Austrians to meet and socialise, discuss politics, and read newspapers in the Viennese coffee house tradition. In 2011, the management of Quadri was taken on by the Alajmo family, headed by the Michelin-starred chef, Massimiliano “Max” Alajmo. Its rival on St Mark's Square, Caffè Florian opened its doors for the first time on this day in 1720, predating Quadri by 55 years. Florian’s nowadays occupies a long stretch of the arcades on the southern side of Piazza San Marco, its seats stretching out across the square with a permanent orchestra in residence to entertain clients. Yet the original consisted of just two rooms.  It became known as Florian’s after the owner, Floriano Francesconi, and claims to be the oldest still-active coffee house in Italy.

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Santa Lucia railway station is one of the few
modernist buildings facing Venice's Grand Canal

Travel tip:

Construction of Santa Lucia railway station in Venice was started in 1860 while the city was still under Austrian occupation. The Church of Santa Lucia and a convent were demolished to make room for the new station and its forecourt, and the station took the name Santa Lucia as a result. The current station building is one of the few modernist buildings facing the Grand Canal and was based on plans started by the architect Angiolo Mazzoni in 1924. The station building was constructed between 1936 and 1943 and the train hall, also designed by Mazzoni, was built after the end of World War II. The station is used by about 82,000 passengers per day, adding up to around 30 million per year. Every day, approximately 450 trains stop at the station, which is the terminus of several famous services, including the Venice Simplon Orient Express.

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More reading:

Ludovico Manin - the last Doge of Venice

The Venetian lawyer who led the fight to drive out the Austrians

When Venice was the target of history’s first air raid

Also on this day:

1543: The birth of madrigal composer Alfonso Ferrabosco

1880: The birth of Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster

1946: The birth of soprano Katia Ricciarelli 

1950: The birth of basketball star Dino Meneghin

1994: The launch of Silvano Berlusconi's Forza Italia political party

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