16 December

Giovanni Agnelli – entrepreneur

Founder of Fiat had keen eye for a good investment

Giovanni Agnelli, the businessman who founded the Fiat car manufacturing company, died on this day in 1945 in Turin.  As soon as Agnelli heard about the idea of a ‘horseless carriage’, he recognised it as a business opportunity and in 1898 met up with an inventor looking for investors for his project.  In 1899 he became part of a group who founded the Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino. Within a year he had become managing director of the company and by 1903 the business was making a small profit.  Giovanni had been born in Villar Perosa, a small town near Pinerolo in Piemonte, in 1866.  He embarked on a military career after finishing his studies but returned to his home town to follow in his father’s footsteps and become Mayor.  Fiat continued to grow and went public before the start of the First World War.  Read more…

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Luisa Ranieri - actress

Naples-born star of The Hand of God

The actress Luisa Ranieri, who received a Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-nominated 2021 movie The Hand of God, was born on this day in 1973 in Naples.  Ranieri, who is married to Inspector Montalbano actor Luca Zingaretti, was honoured with a prestigious Nastro d’Argento for her portrayal of Patrizia, the troubled aunt of The Hand of God’s central character, Fabietto.  Among more than 30 films in a big screen career that began with a leading role in Leonardo Pieraccioni’s Il principe e il pirata (The Prince and the Pirate) in 2001, Ranieri is also well known for her performances in Michelangelo’s Antonioni’s Eros in 2004, in Pupi Avati’s Gli amici del Bar Margherita (The Friends of the Bar Margherita) in 2009 and Gary Winick’s final film, Letters to Juliet (2010).  Read more… 

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Francesco Graziani - World Cup winner

Forward injured seven minutes into 1982 final

The footballer Francesco Graziani, who played in all of Italy’s matches in the 1982 World Cup in Spain but had the misfortune to be injured just seven minutes into the final, was born on this day in 1952 in Subiaco, in Lazio.  Graziani, a striker with Fiorentina who had made his name with Torino, scored a vital goal in Italy’s final match of the opening group phase against Cameroon, securing the draw that was enough to take the azzurri through to the second stage of the competition.  He played in Italy’s epic victories over Argentina and Brazil in the second group phase and in the thumping semi-final win over Poland but was replaced by Alessandro Altobelli after damaging a shoulder in the opening moments of the final against West Germany.  Altobelli went on to score Italy’s third goal as they overcame the Germans 3-1 to lift the trophy for a third time.  Read more…

Ivana Spagna – singer-songwriter

Dance track made 30 years ago still holds record

The singer and songwriter Ivana Spagna, whose single Call Me achieved the highest placing by an Italian artist in UK chart history when it reached number two in 1987, was born on this day in 1954 in the town of Valeggio sul Mincio, in the Veneto.  Often performing as simply Spagna, she has sold more than 10 million copies of her singles and albums in a career spanning 46 years, having released her first single in 1971 at the age of 16.  She began to sing professionally in the early 1980s, when she provided the vocals for a number of disco tracks lip-synched by other artists, and when she relaunched her recording career in her own right she met with immediate success.  The single Easy Lady, recorded in 1986 and which she tends to regard as her debut single as a professional artist, sold more than two million copies, as did Call Me, released the following year.  Read more…

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The founding of AC Milan

English roots of one of Italy’s football giants

The football club that would eventually become known as AC Milan was founded on this day in 1899.  Although Juventus have won twice as many domestic Serie A titles - 36 to their 18 - AC Milan have been Italy’s most successful club in international club football, winning 18 trophies, including the European Cup/Champions League on seven occasions.  Yet the club owes its existence largely to five expatriate Englishmen, who conceived the idea of forming a football club - a cricket and football club, to be more accurate - during an evening at the Fiaschetteria Toscana bar, a few steps from the Duomo in the centre of Milan. The group comprised Alfred Edwards, a businessman from Shropshire, players Samuel Davies, from Manchester, David Allison and Edward Nathan Berra, both English but born in France, and Herbert Kilpin, a butcher’s son from Nottingham.   Read more…

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Santo Versace - businessman and politician

Entrepreneurial brain behind Versace fashion empire

Santo Versace, sometime politician and the business brain behind Italy's world famous luxury fashion label, was born on this day in 1944 in Reggio Calabria.  Along with his brother and sister, Gianni and Donatella, Santo grew up in Italy's southernmost major city, which is situated right on the "toe" of the Italian peninsula and separated from the island of Sicily by barely 10km of the Strait of Messina.  Unlike his younger siblings, who were inspired by their mother, Francesca, a dressmaker who owned a small clothes shop, to become designers, Santo took after their father, Antonio, a coal merchant who in time became an interior decorator, in wishing to become an entrepreneur.  He helped his father hump sacks of coal as a child and learned the basics of running a business as a teenager before obtaining a degree in economics at the University of Messina. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler, and the Power of a Dynasty, by Jennifer Clark

Fiat is one of the world's largest automakers,  but when it made headlines by grabbing control of a bankrupt Chrysler in 2009 it was largely unknown in the United States. Fiat’s against-all-odds swoop on Chrysler - masterminded by Sergio Marchionne, the Houdini-like manager who saved Fiat from its own near-collapse in 2005 - has made the automaker one of the most unlikely winners of the financial crisis. Mondo Agnelli looks at the chain of unpredictable events triggered by the death of Gianni Agnelli in 2003. Gianni, the charismatic, silver-haired power broker and style icon, was the patriarch who had lead the company founded by his grandfather in 1899. But Gianni's own son had committed suicide. Without a mature heir, the dynasty and Fiat were rudderless. Backed by Gianni's closest advisors, his serious, shy, and determined grandson John Elkann plucked Marchionne from obscurity. Together, they saved the family company and, inadvertently, positioned Fiat as a global trailblazer when the global storm hit.  A classic story of ingenuity and hard work, the book portrays a business dynasty that triumphed over adversity and family tragedy because of its own smart thinking, sweat, and ability to bend the rules.  

Jennifer Clark is an American journalist living in Italy. Fascinated by the Agnelli family, and hugely admiring of Sergio Marchionne’s turnaround of Fiat, when news about Fiat's plan to take over Chrysler broke in 2009, she identified the story as the book she had always wanted to write. 

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15 December

NEW - Virginia Centurione Braccelli – Saint

Wealthy woman dedicated her life to relieving poverty

The Feast Day of Virginia Centurione Braccelli, a noble lady from Genoa, who was made a Saint by Pope John Paul II, is celebrated every year on this day throughout Italy and in other parts of the world. Virginia died on December 15, 1651 in her native city after devoting her life to helping the poor and the sick.  Virginia was born in 1587 to Giorgio Centurione, who was the Doge of Genoa between 1621 and 1623, and his wife, Lelia Spinola. At that time, the Doge was the Head of State of the maritime Republic of Genoa. Her mother was very pious and as a young girl Virginia spent a lot of time with her mother in prayer and contemplation. She could also hear her brother’s Latin lessons as she sat sewing and because she took in everything she heard, she learnt the language of the church. She was able to read passages of scripture in Latin and learn them by heart. Read more… 

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Frankie Dettori - champion jockey

Milan-born horseman among all-time greats

Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori, the three-times British champion jockey, was born on this day in 1970 in Milan.  As well as winning the UK jockeys' title in 1994 and 1995 and again in 2004, Dettori has won more than 500 Group Races around the world, including 23 British Classics.  He won his first Classic in 1994 on Balanchine in the Oaks. He won his first St Leger in 1995 on Classic Cliche, his first 2,000 Guineas in 1996 on Mark of Esteem and his first 1,000 Guineas in 1998 on Cape Verdi, finally completing the set at the 15th attempt when Authorized won the Derby at Epsom in 2007. Dettori won the Derby for a second time in 2015 on Golden Horn, which he rates as the best horse he has ever ridden. Golden Horn won the Derby, the Eclipse Stakes, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 2015, each time with Dettori in the saddle.  Read more…

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John Paul Getty III released

Heir to world’s biggest fortune held by kidnappers for 158 days

A story that dominated the Italian press and newspapers around the world ended on this day in 1973 when police responding to a tip-off found a shivering, malnourished and deeply traumatised American teenager inside a disused motorway service area in a remote part of southern Italy.  John Paul Getty III, grandson of the richest man in the world, the oil tycoon John Paul Getty, had been held in captivity for more than five months by a kidnap gang who had demanded $17 million for his safe return.  The boy’s 80-year-old grandfather, whose personal fortune would equate today to almost $9 billion but who was notoriously mean, at first refused to pay a penny and stuck to that position until late November, when a letter containing a lock of hair and a human ear arrived at the offices of a daily newspaper in Rome.  Read more…

Comunardo Niccolai - footballer

‘King of own goals’ was also a champion

The footballer Comunardo Niccolai, a central defender with a propensity for scoring calamitous own goals, was born on this day in 1946 in Uzzano, a beautiful hill town in Tuscany.  Niccolai scored six own goals in his Serie A career, which contributed to his standing as a cult figure. He was actually an exceptionally talented player - good enough to be picked for the Italian squad that finished runners-up in the World Cup in 1970, and win a Serie A title with Cagliari. But he seemed unable to avoid moments of freakish bad luck and acquired such unwanted notoriety as a result that people outside the game still reference his name when describing someone doing something to their own disadvantage.  For example, in the late 1990s, the right-wing politician Francesco Storace said of a decision taken by prime minister Massimo D’Alema, “Ha fatto un autogol alla Niccolai” - meaning that he had “scored an own goal Niccolai-style”.  Read more…

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Spaghetti western has steadily gained critical acclaim

The film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, was released on this day in Italy in 1966.  It was the third and final instalment in the Dollars Trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More.  Despite mixed reviews to begin with, it was a financial success, grossing more than $25 million at the box office.  The film has gained respect over the years and is now seen as a highly influential example of the Western film genre and has been acclaimed as one of the greatest films of all time.  Directed by Sergio Leone, the film, known in Italian as Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, was made partly at the Cinecittà studio in Rome and partly on location.  It became categorised as a 'spaghetti western' and was distinctive because of Leone’s film–making style, which involved juxtaposing close-ups with lengthy long shots.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Saints: An authoritative guide to the lives and works of over 300 Christian saints, by Tessa Paul

This beautiful book chronicles the fascinating history of sainthood and the lives of over 300 saints. A concise introduction outlines the religious and social history of Christian saints from stigmata and martyrdom to feast days and patron saints. The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Saints outlines the work of each saint, listed in chronological order, from the Apostles and early medieval martyrs, through to 21st-century saints. Well-known saints such as St Francis of Assisi and St Teresa of Avila sit alongside 1st-century martyrs and African saints of the 19th century. Special themed pages explore subjects such as Celtic Saints, the Holy Family, and Saints in Art. Illustrated with over 500 images, this expert guide will inform every reader interested in learning more about Christianity and the lives of the saints.

Tessa Paul has worked for many years as a researcher on European cultural and religious history. She has written extensively on Christian art for popular magazines, and co-edited and co-wrote 'Fiesta!', a series of 32 volumes on the religious festivals of Christianity and other major world religions.

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Virginia Centurione Braccelli – Saint

Wealthy woman dedicated her life to relieving poverty

Virginia defied her father in order to
help the poor and sick in Genoa

The Feast Day of Virginia Centurione Braccelli, a noble lady from Genoa, who was made a Saint by Pope John Paul II, is celebrated every year on this day throughout Italy and in other parts of the world. Virginia died on December 15, 1651 in her native city after devoting her life to helping the poor and the sick.

Virginia was born in 1587 to Giorgio Centurione, who was the Doge of Genoa between 1621 and 1623, and his wife, Lelia Spinola. At that time, the Doge was the Head of State of the maritime Republic of Genoa.

Her mother was very pious and as a young girl Virginia spent a lot of time with her mother in prayer and contemplation. She could also hear her brother’s Latin lessons as she sat sewing and because she took in everything she heard, she learnt the language of the church. She was able to read passages of scripture in Latin and learn them by heart and meditate on them.

But after her mother’s death, although Virginia wanted to take holy orders, her father forced her to marry a rich nobleman, Gaspare Grimaldi Bracelli, when she was still only 15 years old. She bore him two daughters, Lelia and Isabella.

After her husband’s death, when Virginia was still only 20, she refused to have a second marriage arranged by her father and she made a vow to live a celibate life and to work to help poor and sick people in Genoa. She lived in her mother-in-law’s house, where she looked after her daughters and devoted herself to charitable work, sharing her own wealth with the needy.

Following Genoa’s involvement in a war in 1624, unemployment rose and there was an increase in the number of starving people in the city. It led Virginia to found a centre to accommodate some of the people living in poverty because she could not house them all in her home. The centre soon became overrun with people who were suffering as a result of either famine or the plague and she had to rent a convent to accommodate all the people who needed help.

Virginia created a community at the convent dedicated to Our Lady of Refuge, which she later split into two separate congregations, The Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge and the Daughters of Our Lady of Refuge.

By 1635, the centre was caring for more than 300 patients at any one time and it received official recognition as a hospital. Virginia trained the poor people she was caring for to gain employment so that they could eventually work to provide themselves with sustenance and she also earned extra money herself by teaching the catechism, the text that summarises the doctrine of the Catholic faith.

Virginia's body was found to be incorrupt
almost 300 years after her death

Although the community at the convent lost its official status in 1647 due to a decline in donations from the wealthy residents of Genoa, Virginia somehow managed to carry on with her work of helping the poor. She also acted as a peacemaker, intervening in disputes between the noble houses in Genoa, until she died in 1651 at the age of 64.

The work of the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Monte Calvario continues to this day with the sisters working to help sick, poor, and elderly people in hospitals, and also young people as far afield as Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and India.

The process for making Virginia a Saint was started in 1933, with theologians approving her writings and historians assessing the cause and clearing it to allow it to continue. 

In 1977, Pope Paul VI accorded Virginia the title of Servant of God. She was made Venerable in 1984, Beatified in 1985, and Canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

When Virginia’s remains were examined during the long process leading up to her Beatification and Canonisation, they were found to be in a remarkable state of preservation and officially classified as incorrupt.

While not a prerequisite for sainthood, the incorruptibility of an individual’s remains is considered by the Catholic Church as strong evidence of sanctity, a miraculous sign of divine favour, showing that the saint lived a life of purity and closeness to God.

The Marassi district is best known for its football
stadium, the Stadio Luigi Ferraris

Travel tip:

Virginia Centurione Braccelli’s remains are buried within the chapel of the religious congregation she founded, the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Mount Calvary, in the Marassi district of Genoa, a hillside area east of the city centre overlooking the Bisagno valley.  The sanctuary is thought to have roots going back to the 16th century, having been originally built on the site of a chapel dedicated to Saint Raphael.  It was relocated to Marassi in the 19th century after the church in central Genoa where it was originally based was demolished to make way for the Brignole railway station. The Marassi district, known as a lively, authentic neighbourhood away from the regular tourist trails, is most famous as the home of the Stadio Luigi Ferraris - also known as Stadio Marassi - which is shared by the city’s two major football clubs, Genoa and Sampdoria. The former, which still goes under the official title of Genoa Cricket and Football Club, was founded in 1893 by a group of British Consular officials. Among existing football clubs, it is the oldest in Italy.

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Piazza De Ferrari, at the heart of Genoa's elegant
city centre, with its impressive bronze fountain

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa, the capital of the Liguria region, has a rich history as a powerful trading centre with considerable wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks. It also boasts some 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 just three examples.  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 among other buildings.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy.

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More reading:

The secret gift maker who has become known as Santa Claus

The noblewoman who gave up luxurious lifestyle to help the poor

A reformed gambler who became devoted to caring for sick

Also on this day:

1946: The birth of footballer Comunardo Niccolai

1966: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly released in Italy

1970: The birth of champion jockey Frankie Dettori

1973: Kidnappers release John Paul Getty III

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14 December

Errico Malatesta - anarchist

Middle-class boy who became notorious revolutionary

Errico Malatesta, one of the most prominent figures in the anarchist movement that flourished in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in the province of Caserta, in what is now Campania.  A committed revolutionary who was arrested for the first time at the age of 14, he spent more than 10 years of his life in prison and about 35 years in exile.  Apart from his activity in his own country, Malatesta helped organise anarchist revolutionary groups in several European countries, as well as in Egypt, and in North and South America, including Argentina, where he helped bakers form the country's first militant workers' union.  Born into a family of middle-class landowners in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in what was then the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Malatesta was arrested aged 14 for sending an "insolent and threatening letter" to King Victor Emmanuel II.  Read more…

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Luciano Bianciardi - novelist and translator

Writer who brought contemporary American literature to Italian audiences

The journalist, novelist and translator Luciano Bianciardi, who was responsible for putting the work of most of the outstanding American authors of the 20th century into Italian, was born on this day in 1922 in Grosseto in Tuscany.  Bianciardi translated novels by such writers as Saul Bellow, Henry Miller, William Faulkner and Norman Mailer, who were read in the Italian language for the first time thanks to his understanding of the nuances of their style.  He also wrote novels of his own, the most successful of which was La vita agra (1962; published in English as It’s a Hard Life), which was made into a film, directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Ugo Tognazzi.  Bianciardi, whose father, Atide, was a bank cashier, developed an appreciation for learning from his mother, Adele, who was an elementary school teacher.  Read more…

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Guarino da Verona – Renaissance scholar

Humanist who lost Greek manuscripts went grey overnight

Professor of ancient Greek, Guarino da Verona, who dedicated his life to learning the language and educating others to follow in his footsteps, died on this day in 1460 in Ferrara.  Da Verona studied ancient Greek in Constantinople for more than five years and returned to Italy with two cases full of rare Greek manuscripts that he had collected. It is said that when he lost one of the cases during  a shipwreck, he was so distraught that his hair turned grey in a single night.  Da Verona, who was also sometimes known as Guarino Veronese, was born in 1374 in Verona. He studied in Italy and established his first school in the 1390s before going to Constantinople.  After returning to Italy, he earned his living by teaching Greek in Verona, Venice and Florence.  Da Verona taught the philosophy of humanism to Leonello, Marquis of Este, who then became his patron. Read more…

Fabrizio Giovanardi – racing driver

Touring car specialist has won 10 titles

One of the most successful touring car racers in history, the former Alfa Romeo and Vauxhall driver Fabrizio Giovanardi, was born in Sassuolo, not far from Modena, on this day in 1966.  Giovanardi has won the European Championship twice, the European Cup twice, the British Championship twice, the Italian Championship three times and the Spanish touring car title once.  His best season in the World Championship came in 2005, when he finished third behind the British driver Andy Priaulx.  At the peak of his success, Giovanardi won a title each season for six consecutive years. Like many drivers across the motor racing spectrum, Giovanardi had his first experience of competition in karting, winning Italian and World titles in 125cc karts in 1986, before graduating to Formula Three and Formula 3000.  He was hoping from there to step up to Formula One. Read more…

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Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily

Sad, short life of a Neapolitan princess

The youngest daughter of Ferdinand, King of Naples and Sicily, Princess Maria Antonia, was born on this day in 1784 at the Royal Palace in Caserta.  Princess Maria Antonia was named after her aunt, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who was executed by guillotine in Paris in 1793.  Marie Antoinette was the favourite sister of the Princess’s mother, Maria Carolina of Austria, who became opposed to the military expansion of the new French republic as a result of her sister’s horrific death.  Princess Maria Antonia’s own fate was sealed when she became engaged to Infante Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, who later became King Ferdinand VII of Spain.  She married him in Barcelona in 1802.  When she failed to provide Ferdinand with an heir, suffering two miscarriages, there were rumours that she was plotting to poison both her mother in law, the Queen of Spain, and the Spanish Prime Minister. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification, by Lucy Riall

The Risorgimento was a turbulent and decisive period in the history of Italy. Lucy Riall's engaging account is the first book of its kind on the upheavals of the years between 1815 and 1860, when a series of crises destabilised the states of Restoration Italy and led to the creation of a troubled nation state in 1860. Comprehensive, yet original, The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification: examines the social history of 19th century Italy and the social context of political action;   offers a critical overview of the historiography of the topic; takes account of the most recent literature, especially literature in Italian not normally accessible to students; adopts a broad thematic approach; places the Italian experience in a European context.

Lucy Riall is an Irish historian. She was a professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and is currently a professor in the Department of History and Civilisation at the European University Institute in Florence. She has written or edited several books on Italian history.

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