2 November

NEW - Giuseppe Sinopoli – conductor and composer

Maestro died while conducting Verdi’s Aida

Musician Giuseppe Sinopoli, who became known for his intense and sometimes controversial interpretations of opera, was born on this day in 1946 in Venice.  Sinopoli specialised in late 19th century and early 20th century music, especially works by the Italian composers of the period and the music of the German composer, Richard Strauss. He was principal conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra in London between 1984 and 1994, succeeding Riccardo Muti, and he made many recordings while he was with them, including complete operas by Mahler and music by Elgar.  His own most famous composition is his opera Lou Salomë, which was based on the life and intellectual circle of the Russian-born psychoanalyst and author Lou Andreas-Salomë, who was known for her relationships with figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Rainer Maria Rilke. Read more...

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Battista 'Pinin' Farina - car designer

Family's 'smallest brother' became giant of automobile history

Battista 'Pinin' Farina, arguably the greatest of Italy's long roll call of outstanding automobile designers, was born on this day in 1893 in the village of Cortanze in Piedmont.  His coachbuilding company Carrozzeria Pininfarina became synonymous with Italian sports cars and influenced the design of countless luxury and family cars thanks to the partnerships he forged with Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Nash, Peugeot, Rolls Royce and others - most notably Ferrari, with whom his company has had a continuous relationship since 1951.  Among the many iconic marques that Pinin and his designers created are the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the Ferrari Dino 206 and the Cisitalia 202.  Battista was the 10th of 11 children raised by his parents in Cortanze, a small community in the province of Asti, situated about 30km (19 miles) east of Turin.  Read more…

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Arnoldo Mondadori - publisher

Business launched with socialist magazine became biggest in Italy

Arnoldo Mondadori, who founded what would become Italy’s biggest publishing company, was born on this day in 1889 in Poggio Rusco, a small town about 40km (25 miles) southeast of Mantua.  As the business grew, Mondadori published Italian editions of works by Winston Churchill, Thomas Mann and Ernest Hemingway among others, as well as by some of Italy’s own literary giants, including Gabriele D’Annunzio and Eugenio Montale.  Mondadori was the publisher of news magazines such as Epoca, Tempo and Panorama, launched the women’s magazine, Grazia, struck a deal with Walt Disney to publish children’s magazines, and introduced Italy to detective fiction with a series of crime mysteries called Gialli Mondadori, whose yellow (giallo) covers eventually led to gialli becoming a generic term in the Italian language, used not only to identify a detective novel but to describe unsolved mysteries in real life.  Read more…

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Gaspare Nadi - builder and diarist

Craftsmen kept chronicle for 50 years

Gaspare Nadi, a builder who became famous for the insight into life in 15th century Italy provided by a diary he maintained for half a century, was born on this day in 1418 in Bologna.  Nadi worked on several important buildings in Bologna, including the bell tower of the Palazzo d’Accursio and several churches. He built the library of the Basilica of San Domenico.  He attained the position of Master Mason in the local guild of bricklayers, whom he also served for many terms as guild manager and other official positions.  Yet it was the diary he began to compile in 1452 that became his legacy. Written in idiomatic Bolognese, it proved to be an extraordinary document, a source for historians seeking to understand how families and society functioned in the Italy of Nadi’s lifetime.  As well as detailing family issues, the diary explained much about the construction industry of the time. Read more…

Bartolomeo Colleoni - soldier

Death of an ‘honourable’ Italian military leader

Bergamo soldier Bartolomeo Colleoni, who became known for using his wealth to benefit people, died on this day in 1475.  Colleoni spent most of his life in the pay of the republic of Venice defending the city of Bergamo against invaders.  But he is remembered as one of the most decent condottieri of his era, carrying out charitable works and agricultural improvements in Bergamo and the surrounding area when he was not involved in military campaigns.  Condottieri were the leaders of troops, who worked for the powerful ruling factions, often for high payments.   Bergamo’s Bartolomeo Colleoni was unusual because he remained steadfast to one employer, the republic of Venice, for most of his career.  During a period of peace between Venice and Milan he worked briefly for Milan but the rulers never fully trusted him.  Read more…

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San Giusto of Trieste - martyr

Patron saint of maritime city 

San Giusto of Trieste - also known as Saint Justus of Trieste - died on this day in 293 after being found guilty of being a Christian, which was illegal under Roman law at the time.  His death occurred during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, who was notable for his persecution of Christians.  After his trial, he was given the opportunity to renounce his faith and make a sacrifice to the Roman gods.  He refused to do so and was condemned to death by drowning. The story handed down over the centuries was that weights were attached to his ankles before he was thrown from a small boat into the Gulf of Trieste, off the shore of the area known today as Sant'Andrea.  The legend has it that on the night of San Giusto’s death, his friend Sebastian, said to have been a bishop or priest, was told in a dream that the body had broken free of the weights and been washed ashore.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Five Centuries of Music in Venice, by H C Robbins Landon and John Julius Norwich

Five Centuries of Music in Venice explores how music saturated every layer of Venetian life, from sacred state ceremonies at St Mark's Basilica to late-night carnival revelry. The narrative traces the city's shifting sonic landscape across 500 years, charting the evolution of Renaissance polyphony, the commercial birth of public opera, and the Baroque mastery of Vivaldi. It also examines how Venice sheltered later icons such as Verdi, Wagner, and Stravinsky. Balancing structural analysis with social history, this lavishly illustrated volume published in 1996 illustrates a civilization where the development of musical composition was fundamentally linked to the unique political, economic, and physical landscape of the lagoon city itself.

H C (Howard) Robbins Landon was an internationally renowned American musicologist, author, and broadcaster. John Julius Norwich was a prominent English historian, travel writer, and television presenter, who served for decades as chairman of the Venice in Peril conservation fund.

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Giuseppe Sinopoli – conductor and composer

Maestro died while conducting Verdi’s Aida

Giuseppe Sinopoli conducted some of the world's 
most prestigious philharmonic orchestras

Musician Giuseppe Sinopoli, who became known for his intense and sometimes controversial interpretations of opera, was born on this day in 1946 in Venice. 

Sinopoli specialised in late 19th century and early 20th century music, especially works by the Italian composers of the period and the music of the German composer, Richard Strauss.

He was principal conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra in London between 1984 and 1994, succeeding Riccardo Muti, and he made many recordings while he was with them, including complete operas by Mahler and music by Elgar. 

His own most famous composition is his opera Lou Salomë, which was based on the life and intellectual circle of the Russian-born psychoanalyst and author Lou Andreas-Salomë, who was known for her relationships with figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Rainer Maria Rilke, which was staged for the first time in Munich in 1981, with the American soprano Karan Armstrong singing the title role.

Sinopoli began to be interested in music from the age of 12 and studied music at the Venice Conservatory under the Italian composer Ernesto Rubin de Cervin Albrizzi. From there he went to Darmstadt in Germany, where he was mentored in composition by the controversial German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others.  

While still studying music in his own time, Sinopoli enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Padua. He obtained a doctorate in medicine, with an emphasis on psychiatry, before completing a dissertation on criminal anthropology.

After making a name for himself as a composer, Sinopoli became professor of contemporary and electronic music at the Venice Conservatory, where he became a major proponent of the new movement in Venice for contemporary music. 

He studied orchestral conducting at the Vienna Academy of Music and in 1992 he became principal conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Saxon State Orchestra. He also joined the roster of conductors for the Bayreuth Festival, staged annually at the town of the same name in northern Bavaria.

Sinopoli was only 54 when he died
following a heart attack

He went on to conduct many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Wiener Philharmoniker, and the orchestras at Covent Garden Opera House, the New York Metropolitan, the New York Philharmonic and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Tragically, Sinopoli died at the age of just 54 following a heart attack, which he suffered while conducting Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in 2001. Following his collapse during the third act, he was taken from the opera house to the German Heart Centre in Berlin, but was pronounced dead the following day. 

By a sad coincidence, it was the same opera that he had conducted when he made his debut at the rostrum in Venice in 1978.

Two nights later, the Swiss conductor Marcello Viotti stepped in to conduct Aida and he dedicated his performance to Sinopoli’s memory.

The funeral of Sinopoli took place in Rome on April 23 and was attended  by the Italian President, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and the Prime Minister, Giuliano Amato, as well as a large contingent of musicians and staff from La Scala opera house in Milan.

Sinopoli had previously been studying for a degree in archaeology and he had been due to make the defence of his thesis on the day that his funeral took place. His degree was subsequently awarded to him posthumously by the University of Padua.

An annual arts festival in Taormina in Sicily is now dedicated to the conductor and composer because Sinopoli had been the director of the music section of the Taormina festival  between 1989 and 1997.

Every October, since 2005, the Sinopoli Chamber Orchestra has performed works by Sinopoli at the festival, which is now named after him.

In all, the conductor composed more than 20 pieces of music, making a name for himself by producing what are known as serial works, using pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres and other musical elements in a series.

His conducting sometimes caused controversy, especially in the symphonic genre, with some critics highlighting the ‘eccentricity’ of his interpretations, while others praised his ‘intellectual approach’ to works of music.

Giuseppe Sinopoli also had an extensive collection of Greek antiquities and one of the books he wrote was Masterpieces of Greek Ceramics from the Sinopoli Collection.

The courtyard of the Palazzo Pisani
has twice featured in James Bond films

Travel tip:

The Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello, commonly known as the Venice Conservatory, is a musical education institution located within the historic Palazzo Pisani in the San Marco district of Venice. Founded privately in 1876 as a music high school and society, it permanently relocated to its current home in 1899, later achieving prestigious state conservatory status in 1940.  Renowned Italian composers who helped shape the institution’s legacy as directors or faculty members include Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Gian Francesco Malipiero, and the avant-garde pioneer Bruno Maderna. The conservatory preserves invaluable archives, housing rare, historic manuscripts by the great Venetian late Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi. Visitors are welcomed to attend regular public concerts, masterclasses, and recitals in its very grand rooms. There is also a specialised music museum featuring rare instruments, Richard Wagner relics, and an extensive library housing 50,000 documents. The conservatory has acquired fame of a different kind through its appearance in two James Bond movies. In the 1979 film Moonraker, Roger Moore’s Bond arrives by gondola and uses a skeleton key to sneak into the conservatory's 17th century columned courtyard. The courtyard and its adjoining alleyways doubled as the exterior of a high-tech Venetian glass museum owned by the villainous industrialist Hugo Drax.  Some 27 years later, Daniel Craig’s Bond returns to the exact same courtyard in Casino Royale (2006), one of the most tense, emotional sequences of which sees Bond stalk the double agent Vesper Lynd as she passes beneath the stone arches and columns of the courtyard to hand over poker winnings to the villainous Mr. Gettler. 

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Taormina's Ancient Greek Theatre, which dates back
to the third century BC, still stages performances

Travel tip:

Taormina, which commemorates Giuseppe Sinopoli via its annual arts festival, is an historic hilltop resort town on the east coast of Sicily, known for its dramatic cliffside views of the Ionian Sea and of nearby Mount Etna. Celebrated as the ‘Pearl of the Mediterranean’, it was once an unmissable stop of the Grand Tour, the journey of the 19th century European aristocracy, it remains a popular destination for international tourism,  particularly at the luxury end of the market. beauty.  Originally established as the ancient Greek fortress of Tauromenion prior to 735 BC, its crown jewel is the Ancient Greek Theatre - Teatro Antico - a remarkably preserved third century BC amphitheatre carved directly out of the rockface. It still acts as an active, open-air performance venue framed by a backdrop of Mount Etna. In the global tourism space, Taormina sits firmly at the pinnacle of the luxury and cultural market. It initially rose to prominence in the 19th and early 20th centuries as an exclusive winter refuge for European royalty, avant-garde intellectuals, and literary figures such as Truman Capote. By the mid-20th century, it became a playground for the Hollywood elite, famously hosting stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Greta Garbo. The town’s main thoroughfare, Corso Umberto, is lined with designer stores, Michelin-starred restaurants, and five-star hotels. Taormina’s artistic prestige is anchored heavily by the Giuseppe Sinopoli Festival, which has been held annually since 2005. Prestigious international orchestras often feature at the festival, along with the Sinopoli Chamber Orchestra, a talented collective formed in collaboration with the Messina Conservatory that focuses on performing Sinopoli's own avant-garde compositions. 

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More reading:

Carlo Maria Giulini, the boy violinist who became a maestro of the baton

The brilliant Arturo Toscanini, the cellist who became an orchestra leader by chance

The celebrated career of Riccardo Muti

Also on this day:

293: The death of San Giusto of Trieste

1418: The birth of builder and diarist Gaspare Nadi

1475: The death of condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni

1889: The birth of publishing giant Arnoldo Mondadori

1893: The birth of car designer Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina

1906: The birth of aristocratic film director Luchino Visconti

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1 November

Annibale Bergonzoli - soldier

Commander who was both decorated and imprisoned by the British

The military commander Annibale Bergonzoli, who served the Italian army in both world wars and led an Italian expeditionary force supporting General Francisco Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, was born on this day in 1884 in Cannobio, a town on the shore of Lago Maggiore. Bergonzoli had the distinction of being awarded a medal for bravery by the British during World War One only to be held by them as a prisoner of war after being captured during World War Two. As a boy, Bergonzoli always had a taste for adventure. He completed a 1.5 mile (2.4km) swim across Lago Maggiore at the age of seven. He enrolled at the Military Academy of Modena, graduating with the rank of sub-lieutenant in 1907. He joined the Royal Italian Army in 1911 and was immediately sent to take part in the Italo-Turkish War. Read more…

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Pietro da Cortona – painter and architect

Outstanding exponent of Baroque style

Artist Pietro da Cortona was born Pietro Berrettini on this day in 1596 in Cortona in Tuscany.  Widely known by the name of his birthplace, Cortona became the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and contributed to the emergence of Baroque architecture in Rome.  Having been born into a family of artisans and masons, Cortona went to Florence to train as a painter before moving to Rome, where he was involved in painting frescoes at the Palazzo Mattei by 1622.  His talent was recognised and he was encouraged by prominent people in Rome at the time. He was commissioned to paint a fresco in the church of Santa Bibiana that was being renovated under the direction of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1624.  Then, in 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned Cortona to paint a large fresco on the ceiling of the Grand Salon at Palazzo Barberini. Read more…

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Sistine Chapel ceiling revealed

All Saints’ Day chosen to show off Michelangelo’s work

Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel were unveiled for public viewing for the first time on this day in 1512.  The date of All Saints’ Day was chosen by Pope Julius II, who had commissioned Michelangelo, because he felt it appropriate to show off the frescoes on a significant festival in the Catholic Church year.  The frescoes, the central nine panels of which depict stories from the Book of Genesis, have become one of the most famous works of art in the world, the image of  The Creation of Adam rivalled only perhaps by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa for iconic status.  Yet Michelangelo was reluctant initially to take on the project, which was first mooted in 1506 by Julius II, who felt that the Sistine Chapel, which had restored by his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, ought to have a ceiling with more meaningful decoration than the gold stars on a blue background of his uncle’s design.  Read more…

Antonio Canova - sculptor

Genius who could bring marble to life 

Sculptor Antonio Canova was born on this day in 1757 in Possagno in the hills near Asolo in the Veneto.  He became famous for creating lifelike figures, possessing the ability to make the marble he worked with resemble nude flesh. One of his masterpieces is the group, The Three Graces, now in the Victoria and Albert museum in London.  Canova’s father and grandfather were both stone cutters and his grandfather taught him to draw at an early age.  The noble Falier family of Venice took an interest in Canova’s talent and brought him to the city to learn his trade in the workshop of Giuseppe Bernardi.  Canova also studied anatomy, history and languages and later moved to work in Rome. His first big success was his funerary monument to Clement XIV, which was inaugurated in the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli.  Read more…

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Giulio Romano – artist and architect

Painter from Rome left his mark on Mantua

Giulio Romano, who was the principal heir to the artist Raphael and one of the most important initiators of the Mannerist style of painting, died on this day in 1546 in Mantua.  He is most remembered for his masterpiece, the Palazzo del Te, built on the outskirts of Mantua as a pleasure palace for the Gonzaga family, which was designed, constructed and decorated entirely by him and his pupils.  The artist had been born in Rome some time in the 1490s and was given the name Giulio di Pietro di Filippo de’ Gianuzzi. He was known originally as Giulio Pippi, but later was referred to as Giulio Romano because of where he was born.  Giulio was apprenticed to Raphael when still a child and worked on the frescos in the Vatican loggias to designs by Raphael. He also collaborated with him on the decoration of the ceiling in the Villa Farnesina.  Read more…

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Book of the Day:  The Desert War: The classic trilogy on the North Africa campaign 1940-43, by Alan Moorehead 

The seminal account of the battle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, amidst the endless harsh wastes of the Western Desert.  In 1940, Alan Moorehead was sent to cover the North Africa campaign by the Daily Express, and he followed its dramatic course all the way to 1943. The three books he subsequently wrote about The Desert War – later collected as his ‘African Trilogy’ – were swiftly acclaimed as a classic account of the tussle between Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Rommel’s Afrika Corps, under the beating sun of the Egyptian Sahara's Western Desert.  Moorehead was responsible for the celebrated insight that tank battles in the desert are like battles at sea, the lumbering tanks like ships lost in a vast ocean of sand. The New Statesman could not have put it better when it described his achievement with this riveting book: ‘There is something of genius in the breadth and penetration of his vision, which encompasses the whole panorama of war and then narrows it down to the particular: the soldier stubbing out his cigarette before going into action, the expression on a tank commander’s face as he is hit… The story of the African campaigns will go down in history as one of the great epics of mankind, largely thanks to Mr Moorehead’s account.’

Alan Moorehead was born in Melbourne in 1910. He was a reporter for the Melbourne Herald before sailing to London in 1936. He became foreign correspondent for the Daily Express, and ultimately one of the finest correspondents of World War II. This book, originally published in 1944, was republished by Aurum in 2009.

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31 October

Bud Spencer – swimmer-turned-actor

Competed at two Olympics before turning to screen career

The actor known as Bud Spencer was born Carlo Pedersoli on this day in 1929 in Naples.  He was best known for the series of so-called spaghetti westerns and comedies he made with another Italian-born actor, Terence Hill.  Hill was from Venice and his real name was Mario Girotti.  They began their partnership in 1967 in a spaghetti western directed by Giuseppe Colizzi called God Forgives…I Don’t! and were asked to change their names so that they would sound more American.  Pedersoli came up with Bud Spencer because his movie idol was Spencer Tracy and his favourite American beer was Budweiser.   The two would go on to make 18 movies together, with westerns such as Ace High (1968) and They Call Me Trinity (1970) winning them box office success. As Carlo Pedersoli, he had already achieved a measure of fame as a swimmer.  Read more… 

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Angelo Rizzoli – publisher

Rags to riches story of an editorial entrepreneur

Printer, publisher and film producer Angelo Rizzoli was born on this day in 1889 in Milan.  Rizzoli was orphaned very young and grew up in poverty, but by the time he was in his 20s he had become an entrepreneur.  He was brought up in the orphanage of Martinitt in Milan, which had been founded in the 16th century in Via Manzoni for orphaned and abandoned Roman Catholic boys. It was there that he learnt the trade of a printer.  Along with another trained print worker, and using his savings for the downpayment on a Linotype machine, he opened a typographical firm under the name of A. Rizzoli & C. in Via Cerva in Milan in 1911. The company was later to evolve into the publishing giant, RCS MediaGroup.  Rizzoli acquired Novella magazine, a bi-weekly aimed mainly at women and went on to add new publications, such as Annabella, Bertoldo, Candido, Omnibus, Oggi and L’Europeo.  Read more… 

Eduardo De Filippo - Neapolitan dramatist

Playwright captured essence of city's spirit

One of Italy’s greatest dramatists, Eduardo De Filippo, died on this day in 1984 in Rome at the age of 84.  An actor and film director as well as a playwright, De Filippo – often referred to simply as Eduardo – is most remembered as the author of a number of classic dramas set in his native Naples in the 1940s that continue to be performed today.  Arguably the most famous of these was Filomena Marturano, upon which was based the hit movie Marriage, Italian Style, which starred Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni under the direction of Vittorio de Sica.  De Filippo’s other memorable works included Napoli Milionaria, Le voci di dentro and Sabato, domenica e lunedi.  All of these plays showcased De Filippo’s ability to capture the essence of life in Naples in his time, particularly in the working class neighbourhoods that he felt were the beating heart of the city.  Read more…

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Galileo Ferraris - electrical engineer

Pioneer of alternating current (AC) systems

The physicist and electrical engineer Galileo Ferraris, who was one of the pioneers of the alternating current (AC) system for transmitting electricity and invented the first alternators and induction motors, was born on this day in 1847 in Piedmont.  The AC system was a vital element in the development of electricity as a readily-available source of power in that it made it possible to transport electricity economically and efficiently over long distances.  Ferraris did not benefit financially from his invention, which is still the basis of induction motors in use today. Another scientist, the Serbian-born Nikola Tesla, patented the device after moving to the United States to work for the Edison Corporation.  Tesla had been working simultaneously on creating an induction motor but there is evidence that Ferraris probably developed his first.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Bud Spencer and Terence Hill: Friends on Screen, Best Friends in Real Life, by Massimiliano Santamaria

Bud Spencer and Terence Hill: Friends on Screen, Best Friends in Real Life celebrates one of European cinema's most iconic and beloved action-comedy duos.  The book traces the separate early paths of Mario Girotti - who grew into the agile, quick-witted, blue-eyed hero Terence Hill - and Carlo Pedersoli, an Olympic swimmer and athlete who transformed into the gruff, big-hearted giant Bud Spencer. It covers their accidental first meeting in 1967 on the set of God Forgives… I Don’t! and charts the birth of a partnership that defined the spaghetti western and comedy genres. Through detailed analysis of classics such as They Call Me Trinity and Watch Out, We're Mad, the volume examines their signature blend of slapstick humour, synchronized choreography, and lighthearted brawls. Crucially, it explores their real-life brotherhood - a rare, deeply loyal bond of more than 50 years that anchored their on-screen chemistry and turned them into timeless legends of Italian cinema.

Massimiliano Santamaria is an Italian writer best known for compiling film history, pop culture biographies, and fantasy fiction.

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