Pino Daniele - guitarist and songwriter

Naples mourned star with flags at half-mast

Pino Daniele on stage in 1982 in the early part of his
career, when he was already becoming a star

The Neapolitan singer-songwriter and guitarist Pino Daniele died on this day in 2015 in hospital in Rome.

Daniele, whose gift was to fuse his city’s traditional music with blues and jazz, suffered a heart attack after being admitted with breathing difficulties. Because of a history of heart problems, he had been taken to a specialist hospital in Rome after falling ill at his holiday home in Tuscany.

On learning of his death at only 59, the Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris ordered that flags on municipal buildings in the city be flown at half-mast.

Born in 1955, Daniele grew up in a working class family in the Sanità neighborhood of Naples, once a notorious hotbed of crime. His father worked at the docks.

As a musician, he was self-taught, mastering the guitar with no formal lessons and developing a unique voice, alternately soaring and soft, and gravelly to the point of sounding almost hoarse.  He named the great American jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and George Benson as his major influences but also drew deeply on the life, culture and traditions of his home city, which he loved.

Daniele taught himself how to play
the guitar

His songs sometimes combined Italian, English and Naples dialect.  One of his best known songs was Napule E, which he wrote as a tribute to the city and its contradictions.

Daniele coined the term "tarumbò" to define his music, which he described as a blend of tarantella, blues and rumba. His lyrics often railed against what he perceived as the social injustices of Naples and broader Italian society.

He released his first album, Terra mia - "My Land" - in 1977 and his popularity grew quickly.  Only four years later, he staged an outdoor concert in Naples that attracted 200,000 fans.  His reputation was further enhanced when he was asked to be the opening act at a Bob Marley concert in Milan.

Terra mia was the first of 24 studio albums, one of the most successful of which was the 1980 release Nero a metà - "Half-black". He also recorded seven live albums and 23 singles. His last recording - Nero a metà Live - captured his performance on stage in Milan only a couple of weeks before he died. It was released after his death.

Daniele’s total record sales have been conservatively estimated at in excess of five million. He was at his peak in the mid-1990s. His 1995 album Non calpestare i fiori nel deserto - “Don’t Step on the Flowers in the Desert” - sold more than 800,000 copies, while Dimmi cosa succede sulla Terra - “Tell me What Happens on Earth” (1997) - topped one million.

He also wrote the lyrics and music, including the hit Quando - "When", for three films directed by his fellow-Neapolitan, the actor-director and comic Massimo Troisi.

Daniele in 2010, at around the time he was performing
in concerts with the legendary Eric Clapton

In 2010, Daniele was invited by his friend Eric Clapton to play at the Crossroads Guitar Festival at Toyota Park in Chicago, and the following year reciprocated by performing in a concert with former Cream lead guitarist Clapton at Cava de' Tirreni stadium.

Daniele was hailed by the great and good after his death. As well as receiving countless tributes from fellow musicians, including his close friend Eros Ramazzotti, the then-prime minister Matteo Renzi spoke of “an incredible voice...precious guitar-playing…” and “a rare sensitivity that was tinged with passion and melancholy that will continue to tell the story of our country to the whole world."

A service for Daniele took place at Rome's Sanctuary of Our Lady of Divine Love before his remains were taken back to Naples, where the funeral had to be moved from the Basilica di San Francesco Di Paola to the Piazza del Plebiscito to accommodate tens of thousands of fans.

Daniele grew up in the working class neighbourhood of
Rione Sanità, at the foot of Capodimonte hill

Travel tip:

The Rione Sanità district of Naples, where Daniele was born and grew up, is situated at the foot of the Capodimonte hill and was once home to some of the richest families in Naples, as the presence of some fine palaces is a reminder. It then fell into disrepair, becoming a notorious slum area, with high unemployment and a dominant Camorra presence.  However, its air of faded grandeur attracted a number of writers and film directors to use it as a backdrop and it has seen something of a revival in recent years, with shops, artistic studios and workshops springing up, and a growing number of bars and restaurants turning into a popular area after dark. Sanità was also the birthplace of the brilliant comic actor Totò.

Porticoes line the historic main
street through the centre of Cava

Travel tip:

Cava de’ Tirreni is a fascinating historical town just a few kilometres inland from Vietri sul Mare, the seaside resort at the southern end of the famed Amalfi Coast, occupying the valley between the cities of Salerno and Nocera Inferiore.  It takes its name from its first inhabitants, the Tyrrhenians, who were descendant from the Etruscans. The focal point of the town is the long, porticoed Corso Umberto, which runs from one end of the centre to the other, eventually turning into the narrow, winding Borgo Scacciaventi, which was Cava’s 15th century shopping centre. With its nearby Benedictine Abbey, the Abbazia della Santissima Trinità, Cava de' Tirreni has been an important destination for travellers since the 17th century and was popular with poets and Grand Tourists in the 19th century.

Also on this day:

1710: The birth of ‘opera buffa’ composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

1881: The birth of Gaetano Merola, founder of the San Francisco Opera

1952: The birth of Mafia executioner Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Greco

1975: The death of Carlo Levi, author of Christ Stopped at Eboli


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Bruno Conti - World Cup winner

Roma star was key figure for Azzurri in 1982 victory

Bruno Conti played almost 400 times
for Roma over 18 years

The former footballer - now coach - Bruno Conti, who played a starring role as Italy won the World Cup in Spain in 1982, was born on this day in 1955 in Nettuno, a seaside resort south of Rome.

A winger with extravagant skills, Conti became an increasingly influential figure as the Azzurri campaign in 1982 gathered momentum after a slow start.

He scored Italy’s goal against Peru in the first group stage, a fine shot into the top right-hand corner from 20 yards (18m), although as a team Italy were not at their best and failed to win any of their opening three matches, scraping into the second group phase only by virtue of having scored more goals than Cameroon, who finished with the same number of points.

But the second phase saw a transformation as Italy defied the odds to beat the holders Argentina and the multi-talented Brazil team of Socrates, Zico and Falcao who had started the tournament as hot favourites.

Although the striker Paolo Rossi ultimately took the headlines with his hat-trick against Brazil, Conti played superbly in both matches, his runs and turns posing problems repeatedly for the opposition defence.

The Italy team which won the 1982 World Cup in Spain,
upsetting the odds by knocking out Argentina and Brazil

Italy defeated Poland in the semi-final before putting together another superb performance to beat West Germany 3-1 in the final in Madrid, after which Conti was proclaimed as man of the match by the great Brazilian Pele, who thought he had been the best player of the tournament.

In the final, he won a penalty in the first half, which Antonio Cabrini failed to convert, played a part in Marco Tardelli’s goal - the second of the Azzurri three, all in the second half - and created the third for Alessandro Altobelli when his run led a storming counter-attack.

Throughout the tournament, Conti had been given the nickname Mara-Zico by his fans, who said that he had the skills of both Argentina’s Diego Maradona and Brazil’s Zico.

Conti took a while to be accepted
because of his small stature

His more familiar nickname, coined by his supporters at home, was ‘Mayor of Rome’, which was a reflection of his loyalty to AS Roma, the club he joined as a boy and for whom he still works today, as head of the youth development section.

The son of a bricklayer and one of seven children, Bruno excelled at baseball as well as football as a child but grew up as a Roma fan, following the example of his father, Andrea, who declared himself to be “the happiest man in the world” when his boy became a Roma player.

After shining with Roma’s youth teams, he made his senior debut in Serie A at the age of just 18.

His career with the giallorossi was not always plain sailing.  Because of his small stature - he is only 5ft 7ins (1.69m) tall - there were doubts about whether he was physically strong enough. He was selected for the first team only a handful of times in his first two seasons before being sent away to play for Genoa in Serie B, on loan, winning his first medal as the Ligurian team won the Serie B title.

The experience helped him nail a place in the Roma team for the 1976-77 season, although not firmly enough not be sent out on loan to Genoa for a second time.

Bruno Conti is now in charge of AS Roma's
youth development programmes

However, when he came back, Roma had recently appointed Nils Liedholm as their manager and Conti became an integral part of the Swede’s team. The winger thrived with the confidence shown in him and his consistently outstanding form not only made him a favourite with the Roma fans, helping them win the Coppa Italia in consecutive seasons, but a player the national coach Enzo Bearzot identified as integral to his plans for the World Cup in Spain.

Returning to domestic football after Italy’s triumph, he helped Roma win the 1982-83 scudetto - their first domestic title for more than 40 years - and reach the final of the European Cup the following year.

By coincidence, the Stadio Olimpico - the stadium Roma share with SS Lazio - had been chosen to host the final that year. Hopes of a giallorossi victory on home soil were dashed, however, when Roma were unable to beat opponents Liverpool in either normal or extra time and the trophy was decided on a penalty shoot-out, won by the English team with Conti, who had been one of Roma’s better players, being one of the unfortunate ones who missed his kick.

In total, Conti made almost 400 appearances in a Roma shirt and 47 for the azzurri, playing also in the 1986 World Cup finals, when Italy were knocked out in the round of 16. When he retired from playing in 1991 he remained with Roma on the coaching staff, including a stint as first-team coach in the 2004-05 season, during which the team reached the Coppa Italia final.

Conti and his wife Laura have two sons Daniele and Andrea, who are both professional footballers. Inducted into the AS Roma Hall of Fame in 2012, he is regarded by fans as one of the club’s all-time greats.

The beach at Nettuno, Conti's home town, with the
historic 500-year-old Forte Sangallo in the foreground

Travel tip:

Nettuno is a resort town on the coast of Lazio, about 68km (42 miles) southwest of Rome, almost adjoining the port of Anzio, where Allied forces famously landed in 1944 during the invasion that precipitated the end of the Second World War in Italy. Nettuno itself has a large harbour for private boats, plus a well-preserved historic centre, the Borgo Medievale, with charming streets and small squares, and the Forte Sangallo, a castle built in 1503 by Renaissance architect Antonio da Sangallo the Elder on behalf of the Borgia pope Alexander VI.

Search Booking.com for a selection of Nettuno hotels

The Stadio Olimpico in Rome has hosted four finals of
the European Cup and Champions League

Travel tip:

Rome's Stadio Olimpico - the Olympic Stadium - was built between 1928 and 1938 as part of the Foro Mussolini (now Foro Italico), a sports complex Mussolini hoped would enable Rome to host the 1944 Olympics had they taken place.  Originally named Stadio dei Cipressi and later Stadio dei Centomila, it was renamed when Rome won the bidding process for the 1960 Games, pipping the Swiss city of Lausanne.  Rebuilt for the 1990 football World Cup, in which it hosted the final, it has also hosted four European Cup and Champions League finals.

More reading:

How the pipe-smoking Enzo Bearzot plotted Italy's unlikely triumph in the 1982 World Cup

Marco Tardelli - immortalised for that celebration

Francesco Graziani - the other Roma player who missed his penalty against Liverpool

Also on this day:

1925: The birth of Godfather actor Corrado Gaipa

1960: The birth of rock star Luciano Ligabue

1980: The birth of dancer Flavia Cacace


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Riccardo Illy - businessman

Grandson of Illy coffee company founder who became firm’s chairman

Riccardo Illy is president of
Gruppo illy Spa

Riccardo Illy, whose paternal grandfather, Hungarian-born Francesco Illy, founded the world-famous illy coffee company, was born on this day in 1955 in Trieste.

Illy is president and former chairman of Gruppo illy and vice-chairman of illycaffè. Under his leadership, the company has expanded to include Domori chocolate, Dammann Frères teas, Agrimontana - which makes fruit preserves, jams and confectionery -  and Mastrojanni, a winery located in the Montalcino region of southern Tuscany.  It also holds a stake in Grom, a chain of premium ice cream parlours.

The company now has a presence in 140 countries and as well as coffee shops the company also operates ice cream stores in Italy, as well as in New York, Malibu, Los Angeles, Paris, Dubai, Osaka, and Jakarta.

Although the company’s roots are in Trieste, where Francesco opened for business in 1933, Gruppo illy Spa is based in Rome.

Riccardo’s first job was as a skiing instructor at the Piancavallo resort in the Dolomites and a sailing instructor at Monfalcone, near Trieste. He married the food and wine journalist Rossana Bettini, with whom he had a daughter, Daria.

He joined the family firm illycaffè in 1977, as the company's business director and for the first time gave the firm a marketing department. Now the company’s annual revenue is in the region of €400 million and reckons to serve more than seven million cups of coffee per day in around 100,000 outlets worldwide.

Francesco Illy founded the famous coffee
company in Trieste in 1933

Parallel with his business career, Riccardo also spent 15 years as active politician. He was elected Mayor of Trieste twice, in 1993 and 1997, became a member of the Italian parliament in 2001 as an independent and in 2003 was elected President of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, with the backing of the Democratic Coalition Party, remaining in office until he failed in his bid to be elected for a second term in 2008.

Away from business and politics, Illy’s passion is for fast motorcycles, an interest which began when he would ride along the Italian and Yugoslavian coastlines as a teenager and continued when he and his wife traveled to Greece on his Kawasaki 900 soon after they were married. As regional president, he rode to his office each day on a 1200cc BMW.

As a music lover, Illy is president of Trieste's Theatre Giuseppe Verdi.

Piazza Unità d'Italia is Trieste's main square

Travel tip:

The seaport of Trieste, capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region,  officially became part of the Italian Republic in 1954. Trieste had been disputed territory for thousands of years and after it was granted to Italy in 1920, thousands of the resident Slovenians left. The final border with Yugoslavia was settled in 1975 with the Treaty of Osimo. The area today is one of the most prosperous in Italy and Trieste is a lively, cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building.

The Caffé Pirona was a favourite of James Joyce

Travel tip:

Trieste’s coffee house culture dates back to the Hapsburg era. Caffè Tommaseo, in Piazza Nicolò Tommaseo, near the grand open space of the Piazza Unità d’Italia, is the oldest in the city, dating back to 1830. Within a short space of time, more than 100 had opened, including Caffè degli Specchi, on Piazza Unità itself, which was popular with the authors James Joyce, Italo Svevo and Franz Kafka, who at different times were part of Trieste’s thriving literary scene. Another favourite of the Irish writer Joyce was the Caffè Pirona on Largo della Barriera Vecchia.

More reading:

How Turin shopkeeper Luigi Lavazza built a coffee empire

Angelo Moriondo - inventor of the world's first espresso machine

Trieste becomes part of Italy

Also on this day:

1934: The birth of exiled royal princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Parma

1954: The birth of footballer Marco Tardelli


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Walter Veltroni - politician

Popular former communist twice elected Mayor of Rome

Walter Veltroni was the first leader of Italy's
centre-left Democratic Party

The politician Walter Veltroni, who was the first leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (Partito Democratico) and was twice elected Mayor of Rome, was born on this day in 1955 in Rome.

A popular figure, Veltroni helped the PD reach a level of influence in Italian politics that enabled them to provide the leaders of three consecutive governments in Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni before the centre-left were routed at the 2018 general election.

Veltroni had such charisma and broad appeal that he was often tipped as a future prime minister, but his star began to wane after he lost the April 2008 general election in a head-to-head with Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom party.

He had stepped down as Mayor of Rome in order to focus on winning the election so defeat was a crushing blow.  In February 2009, following a heavy defeat for PD in regional elections in Sardinia and amid clashes within the party, he resigned as leader, giving way to his former deputy, Dario Franceschini.

Veltroni's political career had begun in 1976, when he was elected as a Rome city councillor as a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

Veltroni served two terms as
Mayor of Rome

When he was bidding to become Italy’s prime minister, Veltroni claimed he had never been a true communist, yet he had been a member of the Italian Communist Youth Federation from the age of 15.

Veltroni was the son of a manager in the RAI broadcasting network. His maternal grandfather had been a Slovenian diplomat in the Catholic Church who had helped many Jews and anti-fascists escape Nazi persecution in 1943.

A journalist by trade, he rose to the position of editor-in-chief of L'Unità, the newspaper of the the reconstituted Communist party, the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). His reputation was that of a progressive, however, and he was a driving force in turning the party into a social democratic movement. Under his stewardship, sales of the paper rose by almost a third to 151,000.

Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1987, he became a minister in Romano Prodi’s centre-left government in 1996 but resigned in 1998 prior to being elected leader of the new Democrats of the Left party (DS), a position he held until he was elected as Mayor of Rome for the first time in 2001.

He served two terms as Mayor, on the second occasion being elected after securing an unprecedented 61.4 per cent of the vote.

Critics say Veltroni achieved very little tangible progress for Rome as Mayor, failing to solve the city’s mounting traffic problems or to stop rising crime levels.

Veltroni embraces George Clooney after conducting
the film star's marriage in Venice

Yet he restored a feelgood factor in the city, commissioning bold building projects from renowned architects and attempting to recreate the atmosphere of the city in the 1950s and 1960s, as captured by Federico Fellini’s film, La Dolce Vita, giving the city its own film festival and inviting Hollywood celebrities to visit.

One of the stars with whom he became closely acquainted was George Clooney, who saw in Veltroni similarities with the American Democratic president Bill Clinton.  Later, after Veltroni had taken a back seat in Italian politics, Clooney asked Veltroni to conduct his marriage to his Anglo-Lebanese fiancee Ama Alamuddin, the ceremony taking place in Venice.

Whatever he did or did not achieve, whether his association with celebrities was fitting for a politician or not, Veltroni’s supporters say he promoted a culture of openness and tolerance, of solidarity and welcome in the capital.

The ruins of the Circus of Maxentius on Via Antica Appia

Travel tip:

Visitors to Rome tend to head for the major tourist attractions such as the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum and St Peter’s Basilica, but these places are inevitably thronged with visitors, especially in the summer months.  For a more peaceful experience, try a walk along the first stretch of the Via Appia Antica - the Appian Way - the ancient Roman road that linked Rome with the port of Brindisi some 550km (340 miles) away in the southeast corner of the peninsula. Beginning at Porto San Sebastiano, two miles south of the Colosseum, while some of the road is open to traffic other sections are preserved in their original form, passing through pleasant parkland, and there are numerous catacombs, tombs and other ruins along the way.

The beautiful porticoed facade of the Basilica of St Paul
Outside the Walls in the Ostiense district

Travel tip:

Another place in Rome where crowds are likely to be less overwhelming is the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, which was built on the site of the burial place of the Apostle Paul, in the Ostiense district south of the city centre. There has been a church on the site since the 4th century but most of the current structure is much newer, a fire in 1823 having destroyed much of the basilica itself, which dates back to 395. The reconstruction, though, produced a magnificent building, reopened in 1840, lavishly decorated with gold mosaics and marble columns that made for a strikingly beautiful interior. The facade, also decorated with gold mosaic, is guarded by an atrium of 150 pillars with a statue of St Paul in the centre.

More reading:

Paolo Gentiloni - the modern centre-left prime minister descended from nobility

How Matteo Renzi was inspired by the scout movement

When Italy almost had a Communist prime minister

Also on this day:

1871: The birth of Ulisse Stacchini, architect of Milan landmarks

1900: The birth of film director Alessandro Blasetti

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Alberto Ascari - racing driver

F1 champion killed amid eerie echoes of father's death

Alberto Ascari (centre), pictured a few weeks before his fatal
crash with his friends Luigi Villoresi (left), Eugenio
 Castellotti (right) and the famous engineer Vittorio Jano.

Racing driver Alberto Ascari, who was twice Formula One champion, died on this day in 1955 in an accident at the Monza racing circuit in Lombardy, just north of Milan.

A hugely popular driver, his death shocked Italy and motor racing fans in particular. 

What many found particularly chilling was a series of uncanny parallels with the death of his father, Antonio Ascari, who was also a racing driver, 30 years previously.

Alberto had gone to Monza to watch his friend, Eugenio Castellotti, test a Ferrari 750 Monza sports car, which they were to co-drive the car in the 1000 km Monza race.

Contracted to Lancia at the time, although he had been given dispensation to drive for Ferrari in the race, Ascari was not supposed to test drive the car, yet he could not resist trying a few laps, even though he was dressed in a jacket and tie, in part to ensure he had not lost his nerve after a serious accident a few days earlier.

Ascari on the cover of a magazine in
Argentina, where he was very popular

When he emerged from a fast curve on the third lap, however, the car inexplicably skidded, turned on its nose and somersaulted twice. Ascari was wearing Castellotti’s white helmet but he suffered multiple injuries nonetheless when he was thrown out of the car and survived for only a few minutes, pronounced dead at the scene.

There were several eerie similarities between the deaths of Alberto and his father.

Alberto Ascari died on May 26, 1955, at the age of 36, the same age as his father, Antonio, who was killed in the French Grand Prix, on July 26, 1925. Alberto was only four days older than his father had been.

That both should die on the 26^th of the month at the same age was a strange coincidence, yet it did not end there.

Even more weirdly, both were killed four days after surviving serious accidents, Antonio having crashed while practising ahead of the Grand Prix in which he died, Alberto having lost control of his car during the Monaco Grand Prix and gone into the harbour.

Both suffered fatal crashes at the exit of fast left-hand corners, both had won 13 championship Grand Prix events and both left behind a wife and two children.

Alberto’s accident occurred on the Curva del Vialone, one of the Monza track's most challenging high-speed corners. The corner was renamed in his honour but has subsequently been replaced with a chicane, now called Variante Ascari.

He was laid to rest next to the grave of his father in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan. His death was considered to be a factor in the withdrawal of Lancia from motor racing in 1955, just three days after his funeral, although it was also a fact that the company was in financial trouble.

Ascari, in his Lancia, chases the legendary Argentina Juan
Manuel Fangio, in a Mercedes, in a 1954 race

Born in Milan, Alberto was only seven when he lost his father yet was not put off his desire to become a racing driver.

He was one of the best drivers around when Formula One launched in 1950, with a string of victories in Grand Prix events over 1948 and 1949. His success continued in 1950, although his nine race wins did not include any in the inaugural Formula One series, won by another Italian, Giuseppe Farina.

The 1951 season brought seven more victories and this time two of them counted as he finished second to the legendary Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio.

He went one better and won the drivers’ championship in 1952, winning the final six rounds after Fangio dropped out midway through the season, and defended his title successfully in 1953.

After his death, a street in Rome was named in his honour, while both the Autodromo Nazionale Monza and Autodromo Oscar Alfredo Gálvez in Buenos Aires, which staged the Argentine Grand Prix between 1953 and 1998, have chicanes named after him.

Monza's Duomo, the striking Basilica of San
 Giovanni Battista

Travel tip:

Apart from the motor racing circuit, Monza is notable for its 13th century Basilica of San Giovanni Battista, often known as Monza Cathedral, which contains the famous Corona Ferrea or Iron Crown, bearing precious stones.  According to tradition, the crown was found on Jesus's Cross.  Note also the Villa Reale, built in the neoclassical style by Piermarini at the end of the 18th Century, which has a sumptuous interior and a court theatre.

Travel tip:

The Cimitero Monumentale is one of the two largest cemeteries in Milan, the other one being the Cimitero Maggiore. Designed by the architect Carlo Maciachini (1818–1899), it was planned to consolidate a number of small cemeteries that used to be scattered around the city into a single location.  It can be found in the northern part of the city, adjacent to Chinatown and Porta Volta.  As well as Ascari and his father, it is the resting place of the tenor Franco Corelli, the conductor Arturo Toscanini, the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti – who founded the futurist movement - the novelist and writer Alessandro Manzoni, and the founder of AC Milan football club, the Englishman Herbert Kilpin.

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Bruno Tonioli - dance show judge

Dancer and choreographer is star of Strictly Come Dancing

Strictly Come Dancing judge Bruno Tonioli

Dancer, choreographer and television dance show judge Bruno Tonioli was born on this day in 1955 in Ferrara in north-east Italy.

Tonioli is one of the judging panel of Strictly Come Dancing on British TV and on its US equivalent Dancing With the Stars, which requires him to divide his time between London and New York when seasons overlap.

He began his showbusiness career in the 1980s as a member of the Paris-based dance company La Grande Eugène before moving into the music industry as a choreographer.

Among the artists he has worked with are Tina Turner, Sting, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Sinitta, Boy George, Dead or Alive, and Duran Duran.

Tonioli has also worked on numerous films and television shows including Little Voice, The Gathering Storm, Dancin' thru the Dark and Enigma.

He also has a number of acting credits, including the role of Peppino, manservant to Michael Gambon's Oscar Wilde in the BBC production Oscar.  Tonioli appeared as himself in the movie version of the BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous.

Renowned for his flamboyantly wild gestures and amusingly extravagant comments, Tonioli has been a member of the Strictly Come Dancing team since the show's launch in 2004 and is now into his 14th series alongside fellow ever-presents Len Goodman and Craig Revel-Horwood.  He was hired to judge on Dancing With the Stars when that show launched in 2005.

Bruno Tonioli is renowned for his wild gestures

The son of a bus driver, Werther Tonioli, and a seamstress mother, Fulvia, Tonioli was 12 before the family could afford their own apartment in Ferrara. Until then they had lived with his father's parents.

He knew from an early age that he was gay, although he said in a newspaper interview in 2005 that the subject of his sexuality was never discussed at home.  He believes his parents, who were strict Catholics, would not have wanted to contemplate the possibility at the time, although not out of shame but for fear of how others might judge him.

He said he was bullied and threatened at school but fought back by growing his hair long, smoking expensive cigarettes, wearing the latest in cool clothes and becoming friends with the best-looking girls among his peer group, after which he became popular and acceptable.

Tonioli's love of the theatre began when he the film version of the musical Cabaret, starring Liza Minnelli, came to Ferrara in 1972.  He saw it eight times and realised he wanted dance to be his career. Others boys of his age wanted to play football but he was much more interested in theatre and the arts.

His parents were keen for him to find a steady job, perhaps in a bank.  Instead, he left for Rome to enrol at ballet school, leaving Italy for Paris at the age of 18.  Both his parents are now dead but he says he was reconciled with them long before they passed away.

From Paris he moved to London, joining another dance company and finding work in television and the West End as a choreographer.  The English capital has been his home almost ever since.

The Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara

Travel tip:

Apart from the impressively well preserved Castello Estense right at the heart of the city, Ferrara - situated midway between Bologna and Venice in Emilia-Romagna - has many notable architectural gems, including many palaces from the 14th and 15th centuries.  Among them is the striking Palazzo dei Diamanti, so-called because the stone blocks of its facade are cut into the shape of diamonds. The palace holds the National Picture Gallery, which houses many works from the  masters of the 16th-century School of Ferrara, including Lorenzo Costa, Dosso Dossi, Girolamo da Carpi and Benvenuto Tisi.

Travel tip:

Rome's prestigious ballet school of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma was established in 1928 and is one of the oldest and most respected vocational schools in Italy. It can be found in Via Ozieri in a charming cottage set in a secluded and quiet street in the San Giovanni neighbourhood to the south-east of the city, near the ruins of the Felice Aqueduct. Director Luchino Visconti in 1951 chose it as the location for shooting some scenes of his film Beautiful, starring the Roman actress Anna Magnani.


Books: Bruno: My Story, by Bruno Tonioli (Headline)

More reading:

Antonio Carluccio - chef and restaurateur who settled in London

How Luca Zingaretti found fame as TV detective Montalbano

Pierina Legnani - Italian dancer who conquered St Petersburg

Also on this day:

1881: The Birth of Angelo Roncalli, the Bergamo farmer's son who became Pope John XXIII

(Picture credits: Bruno Tonioli pictures from YouTube; Palazzo dei Diamante by Sansa55 via Wikimedia Commons)

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Ludovico Einaudi – composer

Musician world famous for his unique blend of sounds

Ludovico Einaudi takes the applause after a
performance at the Palazzo del Quirinale 

Pianist and film music composer Ludovico Maria Enrico Einaudi was born on this day in 1955 in Turin.

Einaudi has composed the music for films such as The Intouchables and I’m Still Here and has released many solo albums for piano and orchestra.

His distinctive music, which mixes classical with contemporary rhythms of rock and electronic, is now played all over the world and has been used as background music and in television commercials.

Einaudi’s mother, Renata Aldrovandi, played the piano to him as a child and her father, Waldo Aldrovandi, was a pianist, opera conductor and composer, who went to live in Australia after the Second World War.

Einaudi's grandfather, Luigi Einaudi, was
President of Italy from 1948 to 1955

His father, Giulio Einaudi, was a publisher, who worked with authors Italo Calvino and Primo Levi, and his grandfather, Luigi Einaudi, was President of Italy between 1948 and 1955.

Einaudi started composing his own music and playing it on a folk guitar when he was a teenager.

He began his musical training at the Conservatorio Verdi in Milan, obtaining a diploma in composition in 1982. He took an orchestration class with the composer Luciano Berio, in which, according to Einaudi himself, he learnt to have a very open way of thinking about music.

He started by composing in traditional forms and some of his music was performed at Teatro alla Scala and the Arena in Verona.

Listen to Einaudi's beautiful Due Tramonti from his album Eden Roc

By the mid 1980s, Einaudi had begun to express himself more personally in the music he created for theatre, video, dance and film. 

He composed the music for Acquario in 1996, for which he won the Grolla D’Oro, an Italian film award, for the best sound track.

In 2000 his sound track for the film Fuori del mondo was nominated for an Oscar and he won the Echo Klassic award for it in Germany in 2002. Einaudi also won the award for best soundtrack at the 2002 Italian Music Awards for the film Luce dei miei occhi.

In 2004, his soundtrack for Sotto falso nome won a prize at the Avignon Film Festival. Einaudi has written the scores for, or had his music included, in many other films.

Le Onde, Ludovico Einaudi's first solo piano album

His first solo piano album, Le Onde was released in 1996 and has been followed by a string of successes. Divenire, in 2007, considered the most musically ambitious, has been his greatest commercial success to date. The latest, Elements, featuring piano, electronic and orchestral music was released in 2015.

Einaudi has travelled all over the world performing his own music. His concerts in Birmingham last night and in Glasgow tonight, the evening of his birthday, have both sold out in advance of the performance and his concerts in Milan from December 8 to13 are already sell-outs.

In 2005, Einaudi was awarded the Ordine al Merito della Repubblic Italiana (OMRI), a senior order bestowed by the Italian Republic, which is the equivalent of a Knighthood.

Turin's Piazza Castello

Travel tip:

Turin, where Einaudi was born, is the capital city of the region of Piedmont in the north of Italy. It is an important business centre, particularly for the car industry, and has a rich history linked with the Savoy Kings of Italy. Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library and Palazzo Madama, which used to house the Italian senate, is at the heart of royal Turin.



Travel tip:

Einaudi followed in the footsteps of many famous Italian composers by receiving a musical education at Milan’s Conservatory of Music (Conservatorio di Musica ‘Giuseppe Verdi’), which is in Via Conservatorio, just off Via Pietro Mascagni, behind the Duomo. It is just a short walk from there to Teatro alla Scala in Piazza della Scala, with its fascinating museum focusing on the history of opera. 

More reading:

Ennio Morricone - the maestro of the film soundtrack

How The Godfather turned Nino Rota into a household name

Eros Ramazotti - bestselling singer-songwriter

Also on this day:

1553: Born: Prospero Alpini - the botanist who told Europe about coffee 

(Picture credits: pictures of Ludovico Einaudi and Luigi Einaudi courtesy of Presidenza della Repubblica; Piazza Castello by cheniyuan; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Zucchero Fornaciari – singer

Sweet success for writer and performer

Zucchero is known for the passion and
emotion of his stage performances

The singer/songwriter now known simply as Zucchero was born Adelmo Fornaciari on this day in 1955 in Roncocesi, a small village near Reggio Emilia.

In a career lasting more than 30 years, he has sold more than 50 million records and has become popular all over the world.

He is hailed as ‘the father of the Italian blues’, having introduced blues music to Italy, and he has won many awards for his music. He has also been given the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

As a young boy, Zucchero lived in the Tuscan seaside resort of Forte dei Marmi, where he sang in the choir and learned to play the organ at his local church.

He became fond of soul music and began to write his own songs and play the tenor saxophone. He started playing in bands while studying veterinary medicine but gave up his studies to follow his dream of becoming a singer.

He took the stage name of Zucchero, the Italian word for sugar, which was a nickname one of his teachers had given him.

Zucchero with U2 lead singer Bono at a U2
concert in Turin in 2015

Zucchero took part in the San Remo song contest for the second time in 1985 and although his song ‘Donne’ did not win, it went on to become a hit single.

His 1987 album Blues became the highest selling album in Italian history and made Zucchero a household name. His next album Oro, Incenso e Birra, which included guest spots by Ennio Morricone, Eric Clapton and Rufus Thomas, then outsold it.

Zucchero has sung in duets with Paul Young, Sting, and Luciano Pavarotti and his collaboration on the song Miserere with the young Andrea Bocelli won popularity for the up-and-coming tenor.

He sang regularly in the concerts organised by Pavarotti to raise money for children in war zones and more recently he has sung at the Concert for Emilia, to raise money for earthquake victims, and in the Voices for Refugees concert in Vienna in 2015.

Watch Zucchero on stage at the Arena in Verona

His new single, Streets of Surrender, which is dedicated to the victims of the recent Paris attacks, will be among the songs he will perform in his concerts at the Arena in Verona taking place between now and 28 September.

Travel tip:

Roncocesi, where Zucchero was born, is a hamlet – frazione -- of Reggio Emilia, situated about seven kilometres outside the city. Reggio Emilia is an ancient walled city in Emilia-Romagna that has many beautiful buildings within the hexagonal shape of its historic centre. Roman remains mingle with medieval palaces and Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces.

Stage construction under way at the Arena di Verona 

Travel tip:

The Arena di Verona, where Zucchero is appearing in concert between 16 and 28 September, is a wonderful surviving example of a first-century Roman amphitheatre, which has now become a famous location for large-scale, outdoor productions of opera each summer.

See Zucchero's back catalogue of music at Amazon.com

(Main photo of Zucchero by Danielle dk CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Bono & Zucchero photo by angelo freddo)

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