Showing posts with label 1981. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1981. Show all posts

24 May 2018

Simone Rugiati - celebrity chef

Popular presenter found fame early in career


Simone Rugiati has been a regular participant in TV programmes since he was just 21 years old
Simone Rugiati has been a regular participant in TV
programmes since he was just 21 years old
The chef and TV presenter Simone Rugiati was born on this day in 1981 in Santa Croce sull’ Arno, midway between Pisa and Florence in Tuscany.

He became a famous face on TV in Italy with a seven-year run on the hit cookery show La Prova del Cuoco - the Test of the Cook - a hugely popular daytime programme on Rai Uno based on the BBC show Ready Steady Cook, fronted by Antonella Clerici.

Rugiati has also presented numerous programmes on the satellite TV food channel Gambero Rosso and since 2010 he has been the face of Cuochi e Fiamme  - Cooks and Flames - a cookery contest on the La7 network in which two non-professional chefs cook the same dish and see their efforts marked by a panel of judges.

He has also taken part in reality TV shows, including the 2010 edition of L’Isola dei Famosi, an Italian version of the American show Survivor.

Rugiati reached the semi-final of another reality show, Pechino Express, in which the competitors, paired in couples, complete an epic 7,900km (4,900 miles) journey from Haridwar in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand to Beijing in China, undertaking various challenges along the way.

Rugiati has been a contestant in reality TV shows as well as fronting a series of cookery programmes
Rugiati has been a contestant in reality TV shows as well
as fronting a series of cookery programmes
The show was presented by Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, a nephew of Umberto II, who was the last king of Italy before the constitution of the republic abolished the royal family.

The son of a physical education teacher, Rugiati left school to enrol at a specialist institute for hoteliers and chefs at Montecatini Terme, about 30km (18 miles) from Santa Croce, where he emerged with a diploma.

Soon afterwards, he began working in restaurants in Tuscany as a commis chef, working under a head chef and acquiring all the disciplines required to run a professional kitchen.

His media career began in 2002, when a few months before making his television debut he was appointed resident chef for the magazine La mia cucina at the age of just 21.  He went on to cook for two more magazines, Buon appetito and Mangiar sano.

The cover of Rugiati's latest book,
about home cooking
After becoming a well-known name via La prova del Cuoco, in which he was a regular participant between 2002 and 2009, Rugiati became the face of the new Rai satellite channel Gambero Rosso, fronting shows such as Oggi cucino in ... , SOS Simone and Io, me e Simone.

A regular speaker at fairs and conventions dedicated to food, he is the author of many books full of recipes, including Casa Rugiati, Stories of Brunch and Chef in the City.

Rugiati is a lively personality who has a reputation for being outspoken. Recently, he made the news when he posted a video of himself leaving a sushi restaurant where he claimed the food would have put him in hospital had he consumed it, prompting the owner to threaten to sue him.

A wintry scene in Piazza Garibaldi, the central square in Santa Croce sull'Arno
A wintry scene in Piazza Garibaldi, the central square
in Santa Croce sull'Arno
Travel tip:

Rugiati’s home town of Santa Croce sull’Arno is situated, as the name suggests, on the banks of the Arno river, about 50km (31 miles) downstream from Florence. It is thought to take its name from an oratory in which a wooden cross was found. The present day oratory of the church of San Lorenzo features a wooden Christ on the cross that dates back to the 13th century. The area is surrounded by hills, which are popular with walkers, although the town itself is built on a plain. Santa Croce sull’Arno is best known for its leather industry, with at one time more than 400 workshops and factories squeezed into its 17sq km (11 sq ml) area.

The entrance to the Liberty-style Municipio building in Montecatini
The entrance to the Liberty-style
Municipio building in Montecatini
Travel tip:

Montecatini Terme, where Rugiati began his studies to become a chef, is famous for its thermal waters, which still attract thousands of visitors each year to its spas, many of them wonderful examples of decorative Liberty-style architecture. The town enjoyed great popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when hotels, restaurants, theatres and nightclubs multiplied. It had a great attraction for celebrities from the world of the arts, such as the composers Giuseppe Verdi, Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo, the poet Trilussa, the opera singer Beniamino Gigli and the novelist and dramatist Luigi Pirandello, who were all regular visitors.

Also on this day:

1671: The birth of Grand Duke Gian Gastone, the last Medici to rule Florence

1751: The birth of Charles Emmanuel IV - King of Sardinia

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21 May 2018

Propaganda Due suspects named

Italy horrified as list reveals alleged members of ‘secret state’ 


Licio Gelli's home was raided by investigators
Licio Gelli's home was raided
by investigators
Ordinary Italians were stunned and the country’s elite rocked to the core on this day in 1981 when a list was made public of alleged members of Propaganda Due, a secret Masonic lodge which sought to run the country as a ‘state within the state’.

A staggering 962 names were on the list, including 44 members of parliament, three of whom were cabinet ministers, 49 bankers, numerous industrialists, a number of newspaper editors and other high-profile journalists, the heads of all three of Italy’s secret services and more than 200 military and police officers, including 12 generals of the Carabinieri, five of the Guardia di Finanza, 22 of the army and four from the air force.

The existence of the illegal, underground lodge, known as P2 had been rumoured for several years but there had been little concrete evidence until magistrates investigating the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in Milan raided the home in Tuscany of Licio Gelli, the former Fascist financier who turned out to be the Grandmaster.

The list of alleged members, which was made public by Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani on the advice of the prosecuting team, was found among paperwork seized in the raid.

Arnaldo Forlani's government collapsed in the wake of the P2 scandal
Arnaldo Forlani's government collapsed
in the wake of the P2 scandal
The names included Roberto Calvi, the former head of the Banco Ambrosiano who would be found dead in London the following year, Admiral Giovanni Torrisi, the Chief of the Defence Staff of Italy, and the future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had yet to enter politics but was already on his way to becoming Italy’s most powerful media tycoon.

The lodge was headed by Gelli, who had the title "Maestro venerabile".

Another major name on the list was Adolfo Sarti, the Minister of Justice, who resigned a couple of days after the list was published, triggering the collapse of Forlani’s ruling coalition and their resignation en masse.

The prosecuting magistrates told Forlani there was evidence that Gelli had constructed “a very real state within the state,'' using blackmail, favours, promises of advancement and bribes.

Their report described P2 as “a secret sect that has combined business and politics with the intention of destroying the constitutional order of the country and of transforming the parliamentary system into a presidential system.”

Banker Roberto Calvi, a member of P2, was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London
Banker Roberto Calvi, a member of P2, was found
hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London
It added that Gelli's strategy had been “to bring under his control a large number of powerful and highly-placed persons and thus to break down, for the first time in Italian history, the separation between political, administrative, military and economic spheres.''

Exactly how much power P2 wielded has been debated in all the years since it was exposed, although one undeniable coup was achieved when Gelli took control of Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s leading newspapers.

The paper, edited by Piero Ottone, had run into financial trouble and was finding it difficult to obtain loans because the banks were not impressed by Ottone’s outspoken opposition to the powerful Christian Democratic Party, the dominant force in Italian politics. Gelli stepped in to arrange a cash injection from the Vatican Bank. Ottone was fired, P2 member Franco Di Bella was appointed in his place and the paper's editorial line shifted to the right.

In 1980 the paper published a long interview with Gelli conducted by the television talk show host Maurizio Costanzo, another whose name was on the list.  Gelli told Costanzo he was in favour of rewriting the Italian constitution towards a Gaullist presidential system.

In the same year, there were suspicions that P2 members were involved in the bombing of Bologna railway station and the spreading of false stories seeking to undermine the Italian Communist Party in one of its biggest strongholds. In fact, Gelli and the deputy director of Italy's military intelligence service, SISMI, Pietro Musumeci were arrested for attempting to mislead the police investigation into the massacre, which killed 85 people, wounded more than 200 and was eventually blamed on a far-right terrorist group.

P2 members were certainly involved in the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, one of Milan's principal banks - owned in part by the Vatican Bank, and of the Franklin National Bank in New York, owned by a Calvi associate and P2 member, Michele Sindona, who was suspected of facilitating a Mafia money-laundering network involving the Banco Ambrosiano and the Vatican Bank.

Calvi, convicted of illegal money exports in 1980 but released from prison pending an appeal, was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982. Sindona, who was tried and found guilty of organising the murder of one of the Banco Ambrosiano scandal investigators, died in prison after being poisoned.

Arezzo's beautiful Piazza Grande is at the heart of the major Tuscan city
Arezzo's beautiful Piazza Grande is at the heart of the
major Tuscan city
Travel tip:

Arezzo, where Licio Gelli lived, is one of the wealthiest cities in Tuscany. Situated at the confluence of four valleys - Tiberina, Casentino, Valdarno and Valdichiana – its medieval centre suffered massive damage during the Second World War but still has enough monuments, churches and museums to be a worthwhile stopover on tourist itineraries. In addition to the Basilica di San Francesco and the Piero della Francesca fresco cycle, sights to take in include central square Piazza Grande, with its sloping pavement in red brick, the Medici Fortress, the Cathedral of San Donato and a Roman amphitheatre.

The neoclassical main grandstand at the Arena Civica sports stadium in central Milan
The neoclassical main grandstand at the Arena Civica
sports stadium in central Milan
Travel tip:

One of Milan’s often overlooked attractions is the Arena Civica, which was opened in 1807 in the city's Parco Sempione, behind the Castello Sforzesco. It is one of Milan's main examples of neoclassical architecture, an elliptical amphitheatre commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte soon after he became King of Italy in 1805.  Napoleon wanted it to be Milan's equivalent of the Colosseum in Rome, although there are Greek influences too. The first event to be staged there, fittingly, was a chariot race.  It was adapted for football in the early part of the 20th century and was the home of Internazionale until the move to San Siro in 1947. Nowadays it is renamed Arena Gianni Brera in honour of one of Italy's most influential sports journalists.

More reading:

How Roberto Calvi, the financier known as 'God's Banker', met a mysterious death

Michele Sindona - shady banker with links to Mafia and P2

Maurizio Costanzo - record-breaking broadcaster

Also on this day:

1910: The birth in Sicily of Philadelphia gang boss Angelo Bruno

1972: Attacker damages Michelangelo masterpiece


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13 June 2017

Pope's would-be killer pardoned

Turkish gunman 'freed' but immediately detained


Pope John Paul II's historic meeting in prison with Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who attempted to kill him
Pope John Paul II's historic meeting in prison with Mehmet
Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who attempted to kill him
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italy’s president, signed the order granting an official pardon to Pope John Paul II’s would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, on this day in 2000.

The Turkish gunman had spent 19 years in jail after wounding the pontiff in St Peter’s Square in Rome in May 1981 but John Paul II, who had forgiven Agca from his hospital bed and visited him in prison in 1983, had been pressing the Italian government to show clemency and allow him to return to Turkey.

However, at the same time as granting him his freedom under the Italian judicial system, Ciampi also signed Agca’s extradition papers at the request of the Turkish authorities, who required him to serve the outstanding nine years of a 10-year jail sentence after being convicted in his absence of the murder of a Turkish journalist in 1978.

He was handed over to Turkish police, who escorted him onto a military flight to Istanbul airport on Tuesday night.

The pontiff pressed the Italian authorities to show clemency towards Agca
The pontiff pressed the Italian authorities
to show clemency towards Agca
At the time, a Vatican statement described the Pope as "very happy" about the pardon and said that John Paul II’s satisfaction was all the greater for the pardon being carried out during the Roman Catholic Church's Holy Year, the theme of which was pardon and forgiveness.

The attempt on the Pope's life had come on May 13, 1981 as he drove across St Peter's Square in an open car to hold a general audience with a crowd of 20,000 people.

He was hit by four bullets, wounding him in the stomach, his left hand and his right arm.  Two of his aides were also injured in the attack, as were two bystanders.  John Paul II suffered considerable loss of blood but attributed his survival to the Virgin of Fatima, whose feast day falls on May 13.

Agca was arrested by Italian police as he tried to flee the scene. He was sentenced to life imprisonment two months later, although it was always likely he would be released. It is rare for criminals in Italy to remain incarcerated much beyond 20 years, even for very serious offences.

The gunman, who spent the last part of the sentence in Montacuto prison near Ancona, had kissed John Paul II’s ring when he was visited in his cell in 1983 at the Rebibbia prison in Rome and later described the pontiff as his friend and thanked him for the help he had given to his family in Turkey while he remained imprisoned.

The open vehicle in which Pope John Paul II was travelling when the assassination attempt took place
The open vehicle in which Pope John Paul II was
travelling when the assassination attempt took place
Despite three investigations and two trials, mystery has long surrounded the assassination attempt. It was at first believed to be linked to Bulgarian and Soviet secret services as part of a communist plot to kill John Paul II because of his influence in his native Poland, where he had helped to loosen the grip of the communist authorities.

Agca had allegedly told the pontiff when they met in 1983 that he had been instructed to kill him by the Bulgarian secret services on behalf of the Russian KGB but, at a second trial in 1986, prosecutors failed to prove that Bulgarian secret services had hired him on the orders of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, a court in Istanbul had sentenced him in absentia to death for his part in the murder of newspaper editor Abdi İpekçi, carried out by a far-right Turkish paramilitary group, the Grey Wolves. The sentence was later commuted to a 10-year jail term.

Bernini's awe-inspiring sweep of colonnades makes St Peter's Square instantly recognisable
Bernini's awe-inspiring sweep of colonnades makes
St Peter's Square instantly recognisable
Travel tip:

St Peter’s Square – Piazza San Pietro – took shape under the supervision of the sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1656 and 1667, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, who wanted an appropriate space in front of the basilica "so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace". Bernini, who had been working on the interior of St Peter's for many years, chose to enclose the square within colonnades, using simple Doric columns so as not to detract from the majesty of Carlo Maderno’s basilica façade but created a sense of awe with the sheer size of the sweep of colonnades on each side. The Egyptian obelisk, erected in 1586, was retained as the centrepiece. One of the two fountains was built by Maderno in 1613 and matched by the addition of a second by Bernini in 1675.

Travel tip:

The coastal town of Ancona, about 7km (4 miles) from Montacuto, is a bustling port that at first glance can appear to lack obvious charm but which possesses much history, bearing witness to its Greek and Roman past. The 18m-high Arch of Trajan, built in honour of the emperor who built the city’s harbour, is regarded as one of the finest Roman monuments in the Marche region. The Duomo – also known as the Basilica Cattedrale Metropolitana di San Ciriaco – is equally impressive, as is the Lazzaretto, the pentagonal building constructed on an artificial island in the 18th century as a quarantine station designed to protect Ancona from diseases carried by infected travellers.


17 December 2016

NATO boss seized by Red Brigades

Brigadier-General James L Dozier held for 42 days


General James L Dozier pictured when he returned to Italy in  2012 for a reunion with the special forces team who freed him
General James L Dozier pictured when he returned to Italy in
2012 for a reunion with the special forces team who freed him
Three years after the kidnap and murder of the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro shocked Italy and the wider world, terrorists representing the ultra-left group Brigate Rosse - the Red Brigades - returned to the headlines on this day in 1981 with the abduction of the high-ranking United States Army officer James L Dozier.

Brigadier-General Dozier, who was serving in Italy as deputy Chief of Staff of NATO's Southern European land forces, was seized and taken from his apartment in Verona and held for 42 days before being rescued by Italian special forces.

The kidnap took place at between 5.30 and 6pm when four men turned up at the door of the apartment posing as plumbers.  The general was overpowered and then struck over the head before his wife, Judith, who was initially held at gunpoint, was tied up with chains and plastic tape.

According to his wife, 50-year-old General Dozier was then bundled into what she described as a "steamship trunk", which the men carried out to a waiting van.  Mrs Dozier was left in the apartment, alerting neighbours later by banging on the walls.

It was the first time the Red Brigades had held a member of the American military, or any foreign national, although kidnappings were a major element of their strategy, either for  political objectives to raise funds via ransom demands, during the so-called "Years of Lead".

The Italian authorities were hampered in their search for General Dozier by a succession of calls by people purporting to know where he was being held, including one from an Arabic-speaking caller in Beirut.  Police carried out numerous searches of premises in Verona, Venice and Trento, but all the supposed tip-offs turned out to be hoaxes.

However, they eventually received information that was genuine and an apartment in Padua became the focus of the search.

The front page headline in the Rome newspaper Il  Messaggero the day after General Dozier was freed
The front page headline in the Rome newspaper Il
Messaggero the day after General Dozier was freed
The apartment was kept under surveillance for three days before a team of 13 officers from the Nucleo Operativo Centrale Sicurezza, led by Major Eduardo Perna, captured the building on the morning of January 28, 1982.

Six officers secured the perimeter of the apartment block before Major Perna led six others in forcing their way in.

Inside, they found General Dozier chained by his right wrist and left ankle to the central pole of a small tent.  He was barefoot, gagged and wearing a tracksuit but was otherwise unhurt, although he had lost some weight.

There were five Red Brigade members in the apartment, including one who pointed a gun at their captive's head as soon as the raid began.  It later transpired that he had been instructed to kill General Dozier in the event of a rescue attempt but failed to do so.

In fact, all five of his captors - three men and two women - surrendered with little resistance and no shots were fired.  During the 42 days the American was held, the Red Brigades issued a number of messages outlining their complaints but none contained any ransom demand.

The objective of the terrorists seemed to be to extract information from General Dozier, in particular with relation to NATO plans to deploy nuclear missiles in Western Europe, including in Sicily, to counter the threat of Soviet missiles aimed at European cities.

In between interrogation sessions, General Dozier was exposed to constant artificial light and forced to endure loud music played through headphones for hours at a time, which left him with permanent hearing damage.

Eduardo Perna pictured at his reunion with  General Dozier in 2012
Eduardo Perna pictured at his reunion with
General Dozier in 2012
The Red Brigades gang was led by Antonio Savasta, the head of the terror group's operations in Venice, and included his girlfriend, Emilia Libera.  Police also seized guns, hand grenades, explosives and ammunition in the apartment.  Savasta, who had also played a role in the Aldo Moro abduction, was later sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Using intelligence obtained from the five arrested in the raid, the Italians launched a crackdown on Red Brigades activity soon after General Dozier's release and early the following year 59 of the group's members stood trial for the murders of Aldo Moro and 16 others, with a number of those convicted receiving life sentences.

General Dozier returned to Italy in 2012 for an emotional reunion with Major Eduardo Perna and the other members of his NOCS team.

Travel tip:

The former NATO headquarters in Verona, Caserma Passalacqua, was situated on land between the city's Monumental Cemetery and the University of Verona, less than one kilometre from Piazza Bra and the Arena di Verona.  There are plans to redevelop the Caserma Passalacqua site, which was abandoned in 2004, to include social housing and market housing and to provide the city with its largest park.

Hotels in Verona from Hotels.com

The Arena di Verona undergoes preparation for a concert
The Arena di Verona undergoes preparation for a concert
Travel tip:

Verona, a city in the Veneto region, has a medieval city centre built alongside the winding Adige River. Famous for being the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to the 14th-century building on Via Cappello, with a tiny balcony overlooking a courtyard, which is said to have been Juliet’s house. The city's other major attraction is the Arena di Verona, the vast Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Bra that stages music concerts and large-scale opera performances.

More reading:


Aldo Moro - Italy's tragic former prime minister

How Moro death and Operation Gladio haunted career of former president Francesco Cossiga

A bombing in Milan and the accidental death of an anarchist


Also on this day:


1749: Birth of 'comic opera' composer Domenico Cimarosa



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