Showing posts with label 1978. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1978. Show all posts

27 February 2018

Simone Di Pasquale – dancer

Ballroom talent has been springboard for business success


Simone Di Pasquale is a regular on the  Italian TV show Ballando con le stelle
Simone Di Pasquale is a regular on the
Italian TV show Ballando con le Stelle
Ballroom dancer and television celebrity Simone Di Pasquale was born on this day in 1978.

In 2005, he became a household name after he started to appear regularly on Italian television in Ballando con le Stelle - the equivalent of the US show Dancing with the Stars and Britain’s Strictly Come Dancing. The annual show, presented by Milly Carlucci, is broadcast every Saturday evening on the tv channel Rai Uno during the season.

Pasquale has also appeared in numerous other television programmes, on stage in musical theatre and as an actor in a television drama.

Born in Rome, Di Pasquale learnt ballroom dancing at a young age and took part in competitions.

In 2000 he paired up with the dancer Natalia Titova, who also later became a celebrity because of Ballando con le Stelle. The couple were engaged from 1998 to 2005.

They took first place in the competition Rising Stars UK in 2004.

In the first season of Ballando con le Stelle, Di Pasquale partnered the Italian actress Hoara Borselli and the couple won the competition. He has taken part in each successive series since. The 2018 season of the show is due to begin on March 10 and will be broadcast live on Rai Uno every Saturday night.

Di Pasquale has appeared as a guest on numerous programmes on Italian television and had a role in an episode of the long running crime series, Don Matteo.

Di Pasquale and actress Hoara Borselli won the first series of the Ballando con le stelle competition
Di Pasquale and actress Hoara Borselli won the first
series of the Ballando con le stelle competition
He has also appeared on many famous stages in the musicals, Saturday Night Fever and Hairspray: Fat is beautiful!

Di Pasquale has dance schools in Rome, Florence, Milan, and Bologna and runs the company, Twister Entertainment, which organises events and dance and entertainment initiatives.

He presented the final of the European Championship of Tango in 2013, which was broadcast from Rome on Rai Uno and he also was part of the Canadian tour of Ballando con le Stelle in 2014, which was renamed Dances with Milly.

In January 2018, he was production director for the prestigious La Notte delle Stelle, a pro-am dance competition held at the Parco dei Principi in Rome.



Mussolini had hoped his new stadium in Rome would host the Olympic Games in 1944
Mussolini had hoped his new stadium in Rome would
host the Olympic Games in 1944
Travel tip:

Ballando con le Stelle is broadcast from Rai's studio in Piazza Lauro de Bosis close to Foro Italico in Rome. Formerly named Foro Mussolini, the Olympic Stadium was built between 1928 and 1938 to a design by Enrico del Debbio and Luigi Moretti inspired by the Roman forums of the Imperial age. The purpose of the prestigious project was to secure the Olympic Games of 1944 for Fascist-run Italy, although in the event there were no Games that year because of the Second World War.







The Villa Borghese gardens date back to 1605
The Villa Borghese gardens date back to 1605
Travel tip:

The pro-am dance competition produced and directed by Di Pasquale in January was held at the Grand Hotel Parco dei Principi, which is in one of the most prestigious locations in Rome, on the edge of the Villa Borghese gardens and close to the Via Veneto. The beautiful Villa Borghese gardens date back to 1605 when Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, commissioned the work to turn a former vineyard into the most extensive gardens built in Rome since the days of the republic.









(Picture credits: Stadio dei Marmi by Blackcat; Borghese Gardens by Jean-Christophe Benoist; via Wikimedia Commons)




20 November 2017

Giorgio de Chirico – artist

Founder of the scuola metafisica movement


Giorgio de Chirico painted this self-portrait, confronting a bust of himself, in 1922
Giorgio de Chirico painted this self-portrait, confronting
a bust of himself, in 1922
The artist Giorgio de Chirico, who founded the scuola metafisica (metaphysical school) of Italian art that was a profound influence on the country’s Surrealist movement in the early 20th century, died on this day in 1978 in Rome.

Although De Chirico, who was 90 when he passed away, was active for almost 70 years, it is for the paintings of the first decade of his career, between about 1909 and 1919, that he is best remembered.

It was during this period, his metaphysical phase, that he sought to use his art to express what might be called philosophical musings on the nature of reality, taking familiar scenes, such as town squares, and creating images that might appear in a dream, in which pieces of classical architecture would perhaps be juxtaposed with everyday objects in exaggerated form, the scene moodily atmospheric, with areas of dark shadow and bright light, and maybe a solitary figure.

These works were much admired and enormously influential.  During military service in the First World War he met Carlo CarrĂ , who would become a leading light in the Futurist movement, and together they formed the pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting) movement.

De Chirico's The Song of Love (1914)
De Chirico's The Song of Love (1914)
De Chirico’s work in this period, in which he was inspired by the German symbolist painter Max Klinger and the Swiss painter Arnold Bocklin, whom he had met while studying at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, was extraordinary.

Such works as The Enigma of the Hour, The Disquieting Muses, The Song of Love, The Soothsayer’s Recompense and The Melancholy of Departure, greatly inspired the Surrealists of the 1920s, who were enormously fascinated with the subconscious mind and saw De Chirico as a figure to be revered.

De Chirico never saw himself as a Surrealist, although he had admired Pablo Picasso after meeting him in Paris, yet he was happy to collaborate with the movement for a while, willingly showing his work at their group exhibitions in the French capital.

Yet in the 1920s he moved away from his metaphysical phase and began to embrace the traditional, looking for inspiration towards the Old Masters of the Renaissance, such as Titian and Raphael. 

He became an advocate for the revival of classicism in art and architecture and began to be an outspoken critic of modern art. When his former admirers in the Surrealist movement disparaged his new work, he denounced them as “cretinous and hostile” and distanced himself from them.

The Red Tower, which De Chirico painted in 1913
The Red Tower, which De Chirico painted in 1913
Born in 1888 in Volos in Greece to Italian parents – his mother was a  noblewoman of Genoese origin and his father an engineer hired to work on Greece’s new railway network – De Chirico studied art at Athens polytechnic before moving to Munich with his mother following the death of his father in 1905.

Returning to Italy, he spent time in Milan and Turin before settling in Florence, where the Piazza Santa Croce inspired the first of his metaphysical town square works, entitled The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910).

He stayed in Paris for much of 1911 and 1912, residing with his brother, Andrea, who was also a painter.  Works such as The Soothsayer's Recompense (1913) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914) were inspired by Paris.

It was his time in Paris that particularly influenced the Surrealists, largely because one of the movement’s leading figures, the writer AndrĂ© Breton, happened upon one of his pictures in a gallery owned by the art dealer, Paul Guillaume, and told all his friends.

Another of De Chirico's classics of the  scuola metafisica, The Disquieting Muse
Another of De Chirico's classics of the
scuola metafisica, The Disquieting Muse
The outbreak of war saw De Chirico called up to serve in the Italian army. Stationed in Ferrara, he suffered a nervous breakdown and it was while he was recuperating in military hospital that he met CarrĂ .

He returned to Paris after the war with his first wife, a Russian ballerina named Raissa Gurievich, but left again after his acrimonious fall-out with the Surrealists, moving to New York and then London.

De Chirico divorced Gurievich and married another Russian, Isabella Pakszwer Far, with whom he would spend the rest of his life.  After returning to Italy in the early 1930s they moved to America to escape Fascism and settled in Italy only after the fall of Mussolini’s regime, acquiring a house near the Spanish Steps which is now a museum dedicated to his work.

He wrote at times as well as painted, and his 1929 novel Hebderos, the Metaphysician, was described by John Ashbery, the American Pulitzer prize-winning poet, as “the finest major work of Surrealist fiction.”

De Chirico attracted controversy in his later years when, disappointed with the lukewarm response to his classically-inspired work, he secretly produced a number of paintings in the style of the scuola metafisica and falsely dated them as if they had been painting during his peak years, greatly inflating their value.

The bustling Piazza di Spagna in Rome
The bustling Piazza di Spagna in Rome, where De Chirico lived
Travel tip:

The Casa Museo di Giorgio de Chirico – the museum housed in De Chirico’s former home – can be found in the 16th century Palazzetto del Borgognoni in Piazza di Spagna in Rome. The house was left to the state by De Chirico’s widow and opened as a museum in 1998. It is opened only by appointment, but can be visited by prior arrangement on any day apart from Sunday and Monday.  There are many of his works on display there.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is housed
in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal
Travel tip:

Many of De Chirico’s finest works of his metaphysical phase are on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City but his 1913 classic, The Red Tower, is owned by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and can be viewed in the gallery in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, the 18th century palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, where the American heiress lived for three decades.

Also on this day: 

1851 - The birth of Italy's 19th century Queen Margherita 

1914 - The birth of fashion designer Emilio Pucci.










16 October 2016

Election of Pope John Paul II

How Karol Wojtyla became first non-Italian pope for 455 years



Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II, who was to have a political and social influence unmatched by any pontiff since the Middle Ages, was elected to be the new leader of the Catholic Church on this day in 1978.

The result of the second Papal conclave in what became known as the Year of the Three Popes was announced after eight ballots. The new pontiff succeeded Pope John Paul I, who had died on September 28 after only 33 days in office, who had himself followed Pope Paul VI, who had passed away in August after reigning for 15 years.

The new man chosen was 58-year-old Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of KrakĂ³w, the first non-Italian to hold office for 455 years since the Dutch Pope Adam VI, who served from 1522-23.

Wojtyla's stand against Poland's Communist regime had brought him respect but he was not seen as a Vatican favourite and his elevation to the highest office stunned the Catholic world.

Yet he would go on to become one of the most familiar faces in the world, remaining in post for almost 27 years, which made him the second longest-serving pope in modern history after Pope Pius IX. He visited 129 countries, beatified 1,340 people and canonised 483 saints.

He was a dynamic and approachable pope, which only enhanced his popularity. Yet to his critics, John Paul II was an arch-conservative who reinforced the Catholic Church's autocratic stance on abortion, contraception and women's rights.

On the other hand, others hail his enlightenment at having helped end Communist rule in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe, at the same time improving the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion.

A stone tablet marks the spot outside St Peter's Basilica where  Mehmet Ali Agca attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981
A stone tablet marks the spot outside St Peter's Basilica where
 Mehmet Ali Agca attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981
As a young man, he loved sport, in particular soccer and skiing, and the theatre. He might have become an actor had he not been ordained a priest in 1946. He became archbishop of his home city of Krakow in 1964.

Throughout his time in office, he always wanted to get as close to the public as possible, even when huge crowds turned out to see and hear him. He survived an attempted assassination in May 1981 when, leaning out of his vehicle in St Peter's Square, he was shot and seriously wounded by a Turkish fanatic, Mehmet Ali Agca.

It was his role in the break-up of the Soviet bloc that was his most significant legacy. When Mikhail Gorbachev visited Rome in 1989 it was the first time a Soviet leader had crossed the threshold of St Peter's, and the understanding between the two men is acknowledged as having eased the transition to democracy in the eastern bloc.

Yet critics saw his support for freedom from oppression for Poles and other Eastern Europeans as at odds with his anti-liberal position on other matters.  He called for action to combat world poverty yet insisted that contraception was morally unacceptable even with the need to curb population growth, and while declaring that he wanted to improve the status of women he also stressed that motherhood should be a woman's first aspiration.

The beatification ceremony at St Peter's in 2011 attracted huge crowds
The beatification ceremony at St Peter's
in 2011 attracted huge crowds
He was fiercely and outspokenly against gay rights, believing homosexuality to be another symptom of the moral depravity of which he despaired, particularly in the United States, where headlines concerning radical feminist nuns and gay priests caused him much annoyance, even before the 1990s scandal of paedophile clergy emerged.

Increasingly frail in his later years although still insisting on maintaining a punishing schedule of travel and public appearances, he died in March 2005, having been treated in hospital for pneumonia the previous month.

Pope John Paul II became Pope Saint John Paul II just nine years after his death after a campaign that began at his funeral when crowds began chanting 'Santo subito' - literally meaning 'Saint immediately' - in recognition of his achievements.

He was beatified in 2011 by his successor Pope Benedict XVI and canonised in 2014 by Pope Francis after two women claimed their prayers to John Paul II had resulted in miracle cures, in one case from advanced Parkinson's Disease and in the other from a brain aneurysm.

Travel tip:

The stunning Renaissance Basilica of St Peter in Rome is believed to be the largest church in the world and was built to replace the original fourth century Basilica that had been constructed on what was believed to be the burial site of St Peter. Bramante, Michelangelo and Bernini all contributed to the design of the 16th century structure. Located within Vatican City, the Basilica is approached along Via della Conciliazione and through the vast space of St Peter’s Square. The magnificent central dome of the Basilica dominates the skyline of Rome and the balcony above the entrance, where the Pope makes appearances, is instantly recognisable because of the many times it has been shown on television.

The pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo  overlooks Lake Albano
The pope's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo
 overlooks Lake Albano
Travel tip:

Castel Gandolfo, where Pope John Paul II spent a lot of time while recovering from the attempt on his life, overlooks Lake Albano from its wonderful position in the hills south of Rome. It is traditional for the Pope to take up residence every summer in the Apostolic Palace there. Although his villa lies within the town’s boundaries, it is one of the properties of the Holy See. The palace is not under Italian jurisdiction and is policed by the Swiss Guard. The whole area is part of the regional park of Castelli Romani and there are many places of historic and artistic interest to see there.

More reading:

The day Pope John Paul II came face to face with his would-be killer

(Photo of Lake Albano by Gaucho CC BY-SA 3.0)

Home

28 September 2016

Pope John Paul I

Sudden end to the reign of ‘The Smiling Pope’


Pope John Paul I making his weekly  address to the crowds outside St Peter's
Pope John Paul I making his weekly
address to the crowds outside St Peter's

John Paul I died on this day in 1978 in Rome, having served for just 33 days as Pope.

His reign is one of the shortest in Papal history and resulted in the most recent ‘Year of Three Popes’, which hadn’t happened since 1605.

John Paul I was also the most recent Pope to be born in Italy, his death ending the succession of Italian pontiffs that started with Clement VII in 1523.

Pope John Paul I was born Albino Luciani in 1912 in a small town then known as Forno di Canale, in the province of Belluno in the Veneto.

The son of a bricklayer, he decided to become a priest when he was just ten years old and was educated first at the seminary in Feltre and then in Belluno.

After Luciani was ordained, he taught for a while at the seminary in Belluno before going to Rome to work on a Doctorate in Sacred Theology.

He was appointed Bishop of Vittorio Veneto by Pope John XXIII in 1958. The next Pope, Paul VI, made him Patriarch of Venice in 1969 and then Cardinal Priest of San Marco in 1973.

Albino Luciani in 1959, soon after he was  appointed Bishop of Vittorio Veneto
Albino Luciani in 1959, soon after he was
 appointed Bishop of Vittorio Veneto 
After the death of Pope Paul VI in August 1978, Luciani was elected Pope in the fourth ballot of the papal conclave. He accepted his election but prophesied that his reign would be a short one.

The new Pope chose the name John Paul to honour both of his predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI. It was the first time in history a Pope had chosen a double name.

It was suggested at the time that his election had been a compromise to satisfy rival camps among the Cardinals.

Pope John Paul I died during the night of 28 September 1978 and was found the following morning lying in his bed with a book open next to him and his reading light on. According to a doctor at the Vatican he had died at around 11 pm of a heart attack.

After his funeral in St Peter’s Square, the Pope’s body was laid to rest in a tomb in the Vatican grottoes.

His successor Cardinal Karol Wojtyla chose the name Pope John Paul II and paid tribute to his predecessor’s warm qualities.

In Italy John Paul I is remembered as ‘The Smiling Pope’, Il Papa del Sorriso.

Pope John Paul I was against Communism but was a friend to Muslim people and defended their right to build Mosques in Italy.

The suddenness of his death and the discrepancies in statements issued by the Vatican about it resulted in a number of conspiracy theories being aired. Several books were published and films and plays were produced based on the story.

David Yallop’s book, In God’s Name, puts forward the theory that the Pope was in danger because of corruption in the Vatican Bank, while Malachi Martin’s book, Vatican: A Novel, suggests the Pope was murdered by the Soviet Union because he was opposed to Communism. Other books and films propose alternative theories.

The house in Canale d'Agordo in which Albino Luciani, who would become Pope John Paul I, was born
The house in Canale d'Agordo in which Albino Luciani, who
would become Pope John Paul I, was born
Travel tip:

Canale d’Agordo, the birthplace of John Paul I, is a small town in the province of Belluno in the Veneto, which was previously known as Forno di Canale. The Albino Luciani Museum, which displays documents, personal items and objects associated with the life of Pope John Paul I, opened last month in the old town hall in Canale d’Agordo.

Travel tip:

Belluno, where Luciani both studied and taught in the Seminary, is about 100 kilometres north of Venice. Named Alpine Town of the Year in 1999, it is the most important city in the area of the Eastern Dolomites and has some fine architecture There are picturesque views of the surrounding countryside to be seen from the 12th century Porta Ruga at the end of the main street and from the Campanile of the 16th century Duomo.

(Photo of John Paul's birthplace by Sibode 1 GFDL)

Books


In God's Name, by David Yallop

Vatican: A Novel, by Malachi Martin



Home

16 March 2016

Aldo Moro - Italy's tragic former prime minister

Politician kidnapped and murdered by Red Brigades


Aldo Moro pictured in 1978, not long before his kidnap by the Red Brigades
Aldo Moro pictured in 1978, not long
before his kidnap by the Red Brigades
Italy and the wider world were deeply shocked on this day in 1978 when the former Italian prime minister, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped on the streets of Rome in a violent ambush that claimed the lives of his five bodyguards.

The attack took place on Via Mario Fani, a few minutes from Signor Moro's home in the Monte Mario area, at shortly after 9am during the morning rush hour.  Moro, a 61-year-old Christian Democrat politician who had formed a total of five Italian governments, between 1963 and 1968 and again from 1974-76, was being driven to the Palazzo Montecitorio in central Rome for a session of the Chamber of Deputies.

As the traffic forced Moro's car to pause outside a cafĂ©, one of four small Fiat saloon cars used by the kidnappers reversed into a space in front of Moro's larger Fiat, in which the front seats were occupied by two carabinieri officers with Moro sitting behind them.  Another of the kidnappers' Fiats pulled in behind the Alfa Romeo immediately following Moro's, which contained three more bodyguards.  At that moment, four gunmen emerged from bushes close to the roadside and began firing automatic weapons.

Moro's five bodyguards were killed before he was pulled from his vehicle and bundled into another of the kidnappers' cars, which had stopped alongside and was then driven away at speed.

La Repubblica's headline: Moro rapito (Moro kidnapped)
The front page of La Repubblica
brings news of the dramatic events
"Moro rapito (kidnapped)"
Soon afterwards, responsibility for the kidnapping was claimed by the Red Brigades, the notorious left-wing terrorist organisation that had been carrying out violent acts since the early 1970s, aimed at destabilising the country.

Moro was held captive for 55 days before his body was found in the boot of a Renault car in Via Michelangelo Caetani in Rome's historic centre on the afternoon of May 9 following a tip-off. During his period of captivity, members of the Red Brigades communicated with the authorities that Moro had been tried and condemned to death for what they perceived as his "political crimes" but that they would consider a pardon in return for the release of 13 members of the organisation, including the founder, Renato Curcio, who were on trial in Turin.

However, the state's position was that it would not negotiate with terrorists, despite personal pleas from Moro himself.  Numerous attempts to locate his place of imprisonment were unsuccessful.

The authorities ultimately identified 10 individuals involved in the kidnapping, eight of whom were arrested.

The motives for the kidnapping appeared to be linked to Moro's role as a negotiator between the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party - the PCI - who at the time were gaining considerable support in Italy as a left-wing group who supported democracy and parliament.  Moro was an advocate of the so-called 'historic compromise' between the two ideologically-opposed groups.

The memorial to Aldo Moro in Via Caetani
(Photo: Torvindus (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The PCI had condemned the Red Brigades for their violent tactics and revolutionary aims and in turn the Red Brigades had accused the PCI of allowing themselves to be manipulated by the right.

On the day of the kidnap, the Chamber of Deputies had been due to vote on an alliance between the Christian Democrats and the PCI, brokered by Moro in what became known as the 'historic compromise', that would have given the Communists a direct role in Italy's government for the first time.

The Red Brigades are said to have wanted this process to be derailed and if this was their objective they succeeded. A vote of confidence in Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti's right-wing coalition government went ahead as planned later in the day and Andreotti won with a large majority, with even members of the PCI voting with him in the interests of national security and stability.

Yet although there were four subsequent trials relating to the Moro murder and 38 years have passed, conspiracy theories still circulate that forces other than the terrorist group were involved.

Given that the kidnap took place with the Cold War between east and west still a long way from resolution, the most popular theories link his death with American opposition to the involvement of the PCI in any Italian government, preferring Italy to retain its position as a bulwark between western Europe and the Eastern Bloc which it bordered.

Others suspect the involvement of the subsequently outlawed Masonic lodge Propaganda Due, which had among its members many politicians, industrialists, prominent journalists and military leaders who saw the Italian communists as a threat.

Travel tip:

Visitors to Rome can pay their respects to Aldo Moro at a modest monument in Via Michelangelo Caetani, close to the place his body was discovered.  There is a plaque and a bronze bas-relief portrait on a wall opposite the Palazzo Caetani.  The street can be found in central Rome a short walk from the Largo di Torre Argentina, scene of the death of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44BC. A plaque in Via Mario Fani remembers the five policeman killed in the kidnap.

Piazza Aldo Moro in Lecce
Photo: Lupiae (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Travel tip:

Aldo Moro was born in the far south of Italy in Maglie, an inland town of just under 15,000 inhabitants in Apulia, in the Province of Lecce. The historic city of Lecce, famous for its baroque architecture, is 25 kilometres to the north.  Moro has been honoured with the naming of a square, the Piazza Aldo Moro, in the centre of the town.

More reading:

Why Socialist politician Bettino Craxi opposed Aldo Moro's 'historic compromise'

How the Moro tragedy cast a shadow over the political career of president Francesco Cossiga

Enrico Berlinguer - the leader who turned Italy's Communists into a political force

Also on this day:

1886: The birth of athlete Emilio Lunghi, Italy's first Olympic medal winner

1940: The birth of controversial film director Bernardo Bertolucci


Home

28 January 2016

Gianluigi Buffon – goalkeeper


Record breaking footballer still at peak of his career


Gianluigi Buffon is goalkeeper for Italy and Juventus
Gianluigi Buffon
Picture courtesy of Puma
Italy and Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon was born on this day in 1978 in Carrara in Tuscany.

Widely considered by football experts to be the best goalkeeper in the world, he is known for his outstanding ability to stop shots.

He holds the record for the most clean sheets, both in Serie A and the national side, and he has won numerous awards.

Now aged 38, Buffon has announced that he will probably retire after the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia.

He has played a record 154 times for Italy and is expected to be first choice at this summer’s European Championships in France.

Buffon, whose nickname is Gigi, was born into a family of athletes. His mother, Maria, was a discus thrower and his father, Adriano, was a weight lifter. His two sisters both played volleyball for the Italian national team and his uncle was a prominent basketball player.

Watch 10 of Gianluigi Buffon's greatest saves



His grandfather’s cousin, Lorenzo Buffon, was also a top goalkeeper, playing for AC Milan and Italy, representing his country at the 1962 FIFA World Cup.

Gianluigi Buffon began his career with the Parma youth team at the age of 13 as an outfield player. When both of the team’s goalkeepers were injured he was asked to deputise in goal and within two weeks he had been promoted to first team 'keeper.

Buffon saves a penalty from England's Ashley Cole during Italy's quarter-final shoot-out win at Euro 2012
Buffon saves a penalty from England's Ashley Cole
during Italy's quarter-final shoot-out win at Euro 2012
When he transferred from Parma to Juventus in 2001 for 100 billion lire, more than 51 million euros (the equivalent of £32.4 million) he became the most expensive goalkeeper in history and the record still stands.

Buffon auctions off his captain’s arm band after every match to benefit the charities he supports.

UPDATE: Since this article was written, Buffon spent the 2018-19 season playing for Paris St Germain in France, returned to Juventus for two more seasons and rejoined his boyhood club, Parma, last summer, continuing to play in Serie B, the second tier of the Italian championship. He retired from international football after Italy failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup finals.

Travel tip:

The city of Carrara in Tuscany, where Buffon was born, is famous for the quarries that produce white and blue-grey Carrara marble. Among the sights worth seeing in the centre of the town are a decorative 12th century Duomo and a 16th century Ducal Palace, the Palazzo Cybo Malaspina, which is now the headquarters of a Fine Arts Academy.


Palazzo Cybo Malaspina in Carrara
Photo: Davide Papalini (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Travel tip:

Juventus Football Club, colloquially known as Juve, play at Juventus Stadium in Corso Galileo Ferraris in Turin. You can book a ticket to visit the club’s museum and tour the stadium, which will even give you the chance to see inside the club's dressing rooms. For more details go to www.juventus.com