Giulio Einaudi - publisher

Son of future president who defied Fascists

Giulio Einaudi ran his publishing company
for more than 60 years

Giulio Einaudi, who founded the pioneering publishing house that carries the family name, was born on this day in 1912 in Dogliani, a town in Piedmont.

The son of Luigi Einaudi, an anti-Fascist intellectual who would become the second President of the Italian Republic, Giulio was also the father of the musician and composer Ludovico Einaudi.

Giulio Einaudi’s own political leanings were influenced by his education at the the Liceo Classico Massimo d'Azeglio, where his teacher was Augusto Monti, a staunch opponent of Fascism who was imprisoned by Mussolini’s regime in the 1920s.

After enrolling at the University of Turin to study medicine, Einaudi decided to abandon his studies to work alongside his father Luigi in publishing an anti-Fascist magazine Riforma Sociale - Social Reform.

His own contribution was to establish a cultural supplement, edited by the writer and translator Cesare Pavese, which so offended Mussolini that in 1935 the magazine was closed down and the staff arrested.

Einaudi spent 45 days in jail along with Pavese and several writers who would later become celebrated names, including Vittorio Foa, Massimo Mila, Carlo Levi and Norberto Bobbio.

The publisher's famous ostrich logo is still on
the cover of every Einaudi publication

By that time, in collaboration with Mila, Bobbio, Pavese and Leone Ginzburg, he had founded the publishing house - Giulio Einaudi Editore - whose offices were on Via Arcivescovado in Turin. Critics who later accused Einaudi of being a literary mouthpiece for the Italian Communist Party (PCI), rather than a genuinely independent publisher, would delight in pointing out that it was the same building that had hosted L'Ordine Nuovo - The New Order - the journal published by the Marxist philosopher and PCI founder Antonio Gramsci.

The first book to carry the company’s famous ostrich emblem - borrowed from the magazine - was a translation - by his father - of Henry A. Wallace's What America Wants, an analysis of New Deal economics. Mussolini apparently approved of the substance of the book but not of Luigi Einaudi’s foreword.

Luigi Einaudi, Giulio's father, was the
2nd President of the Italian Republic

Despite Giulio’s imprisonment and the Fascist Party verdict that the purpose of Giulio Einaudi Editore was “disseminating anti-fascist publications and gathering together anti-fascist elements from the intellectual world”, the publishing house survived the war years.

This was despite being damaged in bombing raids on Turin and Giulio’s decision to decamp temporarily to Switzerland, from where he returned to support the resistance movement in Piedmont.

Once the Fascists had been overthrown, the business grew quickly. Einaudi was well placed to feed the literary needs of a nation embracing a left-wing renaissance and although the publisher had a close relationship with many leading members of the PCI, many literary historians have argued that Einaudi was already the father of left-wing culture in Italy and that his writers influenced the PCI rather than other way round.

At the same time, Einaudi had an eye for spotting young talent, publishing authors such as Natalia Ginsburg, Elsa Morante, Italo Calvino and Primo Levi while they were still unknown.

When Giulio Einaudi Editore celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1983, it had published more than 5,000 titles, its back catalogue representing a history of 20th century Italian literature, with Carlo Emilio Gadda, Leonardo Sciascia and the poet Eugenio Montale also among his authors.

The composer and pianist Ludovico
Einaudi is Giulio's son

In addition to original fiction and non-fiction, Einaudi published translations of Goethe and Defoe and was the first to publish the studies in psychology of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung in Italian.

Known as Il principe (the prince) because of his distinguished appearance, his biggest failing was that he spent money as if he were royalty. Seldom would he reject a project on the grounds of cost and years veering from one financial crisis to another came to head in 1994, when his bankers ran out of patience and the need for outside investment led to the company being taken over by Mondadori, the publishing conglomerate controlled by the right-wing former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, although Einaudi remained chairman.

Einaudi enjoyed Rome as much as Turin and died at his country house just outside the capital in April 1999, aged 87. He was survived by his wife, Renata Aldrovandi, sons Mario, Riccardo and Ludovico, and a daughter, Giuliana.

Dogliani's imposing church of Sant Quirico and
Paolo, designed by Giovanni Battista Schellino

Travel tip:

Einaudi’s home town of Dogliani, where there has been a settlement since pre-Roman times, is about 60km (37 miles) southeast of Turin in the Langhe, a picturesque area of hills to the south and east of the Tanaro river famous for wines, cheeses and truffles. As well as being the home of the red wine Dolcetto di Dogliani, the town is famous for the annual tradition of Presepio Vivente, in which around 350 people take part in a living nativity scene in the medieval streets.  The town is also notable for the magnificent parish church of Santi Quirico and Paolo, designed by Giovanni Battista Schellino. The Einaudi home, a farmhouse just outside the town called San Giacomo, was acquired by Luigi Einaudi in 1897 and became the heart of the family’s wine-producing business.

Rome's Isola Tiberina used to be one of Giulio Einaudi's
favourite places in the capital

Travel tip:

When in Rome, Giulio Einaudi would often be spotted at a table outside a cafe in Piazza Navona or, in the summer months, on the Isola Tiberina, situated in the bend in the Tiber that wraps around the Trastevere district, with which it is connected by the Ponte Cestio. A footbridge allows access from the other bank of the river.  The island was once the location of an ancient temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine and healing, and in modern times the Fatebenefratelli Hospital, founded in the 16th century. The 10th century the Basilica of St. Bartholomew is also located on the island, which is just 270m (890ft) long and 67m (220ft) wide.

Find a hotel in Rome with TripAdvisor

More reading:

Cesare Pavese, the author whose translations introduced Italy to the great American writers of the 20th century

How the murder Giacomo Matteotti changed the mind of Luigi Einaudi

Antonio Gramsci - the Communist intellectual Mussolini could not gag

Also on this day:

533: Pope John John II is the first pontiff not to us his own name

1462: The birth of painter Piero di Cosimo

1909: The birth of mountaineer Riccardo Cassin

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Giorgio Amendola - politician and partisan

Anti-Mussolini activist who sought to moderate Italian Communism

Giorgio Amendola was against extremism
on the right or left of politics

The politician Giorgio Amendola, who opposed extremism on the right and left in Italy, was born on this day in 1907 in Rome.

Amendola was arrested for plotting against the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, fought with the Italian resistance in the Second World War and later worked to move the Italian Communist Party (PCI) away from the doctrines of Soviet Communism and Leninism towards a more moderate position acceptable in the mainstream of Italian politics.

Amendola was almost born to be a political thinker. His mother, Eva Kuhn, was an intellectual from Lithuania, his father Giovanni a liberal anti-Fascist who was a minister in the last democratically elected Italian government before Mussolini.

It was as a reaction to his father’s death in 1926, following injuries inflicted on him by Fascist thugs who tracked him down in France on Mussolini’s orders, that Amendola secretly joined the PCI and began to work for the downfall of the dictator.

Giorgio's father, Giovanni, died
after being beaten by Fascist thugs

He was largely based in France and Germany but from time to time returned to Italy undercover in order to meet other left-wing figures. It was on one visit in 1932 that he was arrested in Milan.

After a few months in jail he was freed under a supposed amnesty but then detained again and sentenced to confinement on Santo Stefano island in the Pontine archipelago, which Mussolini used for political prisoners. After leading protests by inmates against the requirement that they greet visiting politicians with the Fascist ‘Roman salute’ he was exiled to France and later Tunisia.

Amendola was not freed until 1943, at which point he returned to Rome to join in the Italian partisans in helping to liberate the city.

He was a PCI representative in the Central Committee of National Liberation and as the commander of a so-called “Garibaldini" corps - named after the volunteers who fought with Giuseppe Garibaldi in the unification of Italy in the 19th century - he reached Milan in 1944, helping with the work of partisan group in parts of northern Italy still under German occupation.

After the war, Amendola served as a deputy for the PCI from 1948 until his death in 1980.

A minister in the postwar governments of Ferruccio Parri and Alcide De Gaspari, he adopted a position on the right-wing of the party, opposing the extremism of the left as fiercely as he had fought against the extremism of Mussolini’s followers.

Italian Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer built on the work
of Amendola in making the left more mainstream

It was Amendola’s goal to shift the party away from the ideology of the Russian Communists towards a position where meaningful alliances could be formed with more moderate left-wing groups, such as the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

His attempts to reposition the PCI was in part responsible for the emergence of the concept of Eurocommunism that gained popularity as the philosophy embraced by Italy’s most successful communist politician, the long-time PCI leader Enrico Berlinguer.

Amendola turned his political philosophy into several books, including Comunismo, antifascismo e Resistenza (Communism, Anti-Fascism and Resistance, 1967), Lettere a Milano (Letters to Milan, 1973), Intervista sull'antifascismo (Interview on Anti-Fascism, 1976, with Piero Melograni), Una scelta di vita (A choice of Life, 1978), and Un'isola (An Island, 1980), which was a biographical work about his time on Santo Stefano.

Amendola died in Rome, aged 72, after a long illness. His wife Germaine Lecocq, whom he met during his French exile in Paris and who helped him to write his last work, passed away only a few hours later.

The ruins of the prison building on the island of Santo
Stefano that Mussolini used to incarcerate his opponents

Travel tip:

Santo Stefano is an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the west coast of Italy, part of the Pontine Islands.  The prison built by the Bourbons in 1797 remained in use until 1965. It was one of the prisons used extensively by the Fascists to imprison opponents of Benito Mussolini’s regime.  The future president of the republic, Sandro Pertini, was incarcerated there. These days, the island is uninhabited except for the tourists who visit each day.

The Campo Verano cemetery in Rome has many highly
elaborate and ornate tombstones

Travel tip:

Giorgio Amendola was buried in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome, close to the Basilica of San Lorenzo al Verano in the Tiburtino quarter of the city, not far from the Sapienza University of Rome. The cemetery, built on the site of ancient Roman catacombs, is also the last resting place among others of the novelist Alberto Moravia, the actor Marcello Mastroianni, the racing driver Elio de Angelis, and Claretta Petacci, who was the mistress of the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

More reading:

How Enrico Berlinguer turned Italy's Communists into a political force

Alcide de Gaspari - the man charged with rebuilding a broken Italy

Antonio Gramsci - the Communist intellectual Mussolini could not gag

Also on this day:

1688: The birth of engraver Antonio Visentini

The Festival of Madonna della Salute in Venice

1854: The birth of Pope Benedict XV, First World War pontiff


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Andrea Zanzotto - poet

Writer drew inspiration from landscapes of Veneto

Andrea Zanzotto wrote 15 volumes of poetry
during his active career, while also teaching

Andrea Zanzotto, who was regarded as one of Italy’s greatest 20th century poets, was born on this day in 1921 in Pieve di Soligo, the village near Treviso where he lived almost all of his life. 

Zanzotto, who spent 40 years as a secondary school teacher, wrote 15 books of poetry, two prose works, two volumes of critical articles and translations of French philosophers such as Michaux, Leiris and Bataille.

His first book of poetry, Dietro il paesaggio (1951), won a literary award judged by several noteworthy Italian poets. Critics reserved their greatest acclaim for his sixth volume, La beltà (1968), in which he questioned the ability of words to reflect truth.

Zanzotto, whose verse was consistently erudite and creative, was known for his innovative engagement with language and his fascination with the rugged landscapes of the Veneto, from which he drew inspiration and provided him with much symbolism.

His upbringing was difficult at times because his father, Giovanni Zanzotto, a painter who has trained at the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, was a committed supporter of the Socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti, who was murdered by Fascist thugs in 1924 a few days after accusing Mussolini’s party of electoral fraud.

Zanzotto had a difficult upbringing in the
Fascist Italy of the 1920s and 1930s

Fearing for his own safety, Giovanni fled to France in 1925. He returned to the Veneto, taking a job as a teacher in Santo Stefano di Cadore, about 100km (62 miles) north of Pieve di Soligo, not far from the border with Austria, in 1927 and the family reunited there in 1928.

Giovanni, in fact, painted some frescoes in a church in nearby Costalissoio but his campaigning against the Fascists and the collapse of a co-operative that was providing financial support for his family, forced him into exile again in 1931.

Andrea, who had been deeply affected by the death of his younger sister, Marina, became close to his maternal grandmother and an aunt, and began to develop his love of writing. They helped him to see his first work published in 1936.

After completing school, Zanzotto began to focus on a career in teaching but suffered another loss in 1937 when his other sister, Angela, died of typhus. The grief, combined with the fatigue of commuting to college in Treviso, took a toll on his health, yet he obtained his teaching credentials.

Zanzotto enrolled at the University of Padua, where he received his diploma in literature in 1942, with a thesis on the work of the Italian Nobel Prize winner Grazia Deledda, after which he began teaching in Valdobbiadene and then Treviso.

Andrea Zanzotto spent the majority of
his 90-year life in Pieve di Solito

In the meantime, having avoided conscription because of severe asthma, he participated in the Italian Resistance, working largely on propaganda publications, and after the war spent some time travelling in Switzerland, France and Spain before returning to Pieve di Soligo where he resumed his work as a teacher.

Zanzotto’s poetry was influenced by his study of European intellectual thought and became notable for his of divergent language, from the lofty lingua aulica of the great poets of the past, notably Petrarch and Dante, to the language of pop songs and advertising slogans.

Dialect was one of Zanzotto’s favourite linguistic registers. Section one of Filò (1976) was written in a pseudo-archaic Venetian dialect. It was composed at the request of Federico Fellini for his film Casanova. Section two, in fact, included a diatribe against the film industry.

Dialectal words and phrases reoccurred in Il Galateo in bosco (1978), the first book of a trilogy completed by Fosfeni (1983) and Idioma (1986), which are regarded among his finest works.

Although a lot of his writing suggested nostalgia for disappearing landscapes, languages and cultures, Zanzotto never lost sight of the present and its possible effects on the future. His later works were increasingly engaged with topical issues such as the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the war in Bosnia, and local environmental changes.

He died in October 2011 at the age of 90, survived by his wife, Marisa, to whom he had been married for 52 years, and their children.

The neighbourhood of Cal Santa in Pieve di Solito, where
Zanzotto lived for many years in his childhood

Travel tip:

Pieve di Soligo is a town of some 12,000 inhabitants a little more than 30km (19 miles) north of Treviso, in a plain bordered to the north by the Belluno Prealps. At the heart of the town is the cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, a neo-Romanesque monument built in the early 20th century by the architect Domenico Rupolo, who is well known for having designed the fish market by the Rialto bridge in Venice. Along the banks of the Soligo river are two of the oldest parts of the town, including Cal Santa, where Zanzotto spent much of his formative years.

The vine-clad hills around Valdobbiadene, home of Italy's
finest Prosecco wines

Travel tip:

The picturesque hills around Valdobbiadene, where Zanzotto briefly worked as a supply teacher, are famous for the production of what is generally regarded as the best Prosecco in Italy. It is largely made from Glera grapes and though the name comes from that of the village of Prosecco near Trieste, where the grape and wine originated, the only Prosecco granted DOCG status - the classification granted to superior Italian wines - is produced from grapes grown on the hills between the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, or from a smaller area around the town of Asolo, a few kilometres south of Valdobbiadene.

More reading:

How Grazia Deledda became the first Italian woman to win a Nobel Prize

The tragic brilliance of Giacomo Leopardi

What the Italian language owes to Petrarch

Also on this day:

1881: The death of missionary Saint Daniele Comboni

1891: The birth of Mafia boss Stefano Magaddino


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Pietro Badoglio - soldier and politician

Controversial general who turned against Mussolini

Pietro Badoglio was Mussolini's Chief of
Staff from 1925 to 1940

Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who was a general in the Italian Army in both World Wars and became Italy’s wartime prime minister after the fall of Mussolini, was born on this day in 1871 in the village of Grazzano Monferrato in Piedmont.

He was Mussolini’s Chief of Staff between 1925 and 1940, although his relationship with the Fascist dictator was fractious.

Indeed, he ultimately played a key part in Mussolini’s downfall in 1943, encouraging the Fascist Grand Council to remove him as leader and advising King Victor Emmanuel III in the lead-up to Mussolini’s arrest and imprisonment in July of that year, after which he was named as head of an emergency government.

It was Badoglio who then conducted the secret negotiations with the Allies that led to an armistice being signed barely five weeks later.

However, historians are divided over whether he should be seen as an heroic figure, in part because of his role in the disastrous defeat for Italian forces at the Battle of Caporetto in the First World War, at a cost of 10,000 Italian deaths and 30,000 more wounded.

Many Italian soldiers became German prisoners of war
after Badoglio had secretly negotiated Italy's surrender

Badoglio hailed from a middle-class background. His father, Mario, was a small landowner. He trained at the Royal Military Academy in Turin.

After completing his studies, he served with the Italian Army from 1892, at first as a Lieutenant in artillery, taking part in the early Italian colonial wars in Eritrea and in Libya.

Early in Italy’s participation in the First World War, he was elevated to the rank of Major General following the capture of Monte Sabotino in May 1916, which was attributed to his strategic planning.

The Battle of Caporetto in October 1917 went less well, however. He was blamed in various reports for poor decision-making with regard to the forces under his command. However, by the time a commission of inquiry looked into his role Mussolini had taken control and, having identified Badoglio as someone he wanted on his side, is thought to have ordered all references to Badoglio to be excluded from the report.

Pietro Badoglio was a soldier for the
whole of his adult life

Badoglio was uneasy, however, with the aggressive Fascist stance on foreign policy issues and, in an effort to distance himself from Mussolini’s ambitions, which he felt were unrealistic, asked to be assigned to an ambassadorial position in Brazil. However, Mussolini summoned him back and offered to make him his Chief of Staff, a position Badoglio felt unable to refuse.

He was made a Field Marshal in May 1926, governed Libya from 1928 to 1934 and assumed command of the Italian forces during the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, capturing Addis Ababa, the capital.  The conflict was notorious for the use by the Italian side of mustard gas, in contravention of the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Blame for this was laid at the feet of Mussolini, but some claim Badoglio had already ordered its deployment before authority was given.

Badoglio joined the Fascist Party but his relationship with Mussolini began to fracture soon after the Ethiopia war, in part because the dictator wanted to take personal credit for the operation’s success.  Badoglio opposed Italy’s involvement in the Pact of Steel with Germany in the lead-up to the Second World War because he had doubts about Germany’s ambitious military objectives, yet led Mussolini to believe the Italian army was capable of playing a significant role.

Indeed, the invasion of Greece by Italian forces in 1940 went ahead, seemingly with Badoglio’s endorsement.  The campaign was a disaster for the Italians, however, with considerable losses in personnel and equipment. Badoglio resigned as Chief of Staff soon afterwards.

Plaques identify the house in Grazzano
where Badoglio was born

As the Second World War as a whole became one in which Italian sacrifices looked increasingly likely to be pointless, Badoglio positioned himself with those who believed the only hope for Italy was to remove Mussolini.  He began to be involved in talks with other prominent Fascists about how this might be brought about and made it known to Victor Emmanuel III that he would be willing to lead an interim government if Mussolini was overthrown.

In the event, he was installed as prime minister on the day Mussolini was arrested. However, he attracted criticism for allowing news of the armistice to come out on the Allied side before his own troops had been informed, appearing to put his own safety ahead of Italian personnel.

Right up to the moment it was announced, Badoglio had been reassuring the Germans that Italy remained a fully committed ally. When the armistice was revealed, many Italians were still fighting alongside German forces, unaware that their status had suddenly changed to enemies.  Badoglio and Victor Emmanuel, on the other hand, had removed themselves to safe locations in the south of the country, avoiding capture.

Badoglio dissolved the Fascist Party, and Italy declared war on Nazi Germany.  He was never a popular figure, however, as the political climate changed and in June 1944 he resigned, giving way to the left-winger, Ivanoe Bonomi.

Badoglio retired to his home in Grazzano Monferrato, which by then had changed its name to Grazzano Badoglio in his honour. He remained a figure of influence amid increasing tensions over the Soviet Union and managed to convince the British government that he could help prevent the establishment of a communist government in Italy, thus avoiding any prosecution for war crimes over what happened in Ethiopia.

He died in 1956 at the age of 85, having returned to his home village. He is buried at the village cemetery.

The Royal Palace in Turin is not far from where the
former military academy was located

Travel tip:

The Royal Military Academy in Turin, where Badoglio trained, was the oldest military academy in the world, dating back to the 17th century, when Duke Carlo Emanuele II of Savoy had the idea of creating an institute to train members of the ruling class and army officers in military strategy.  It was inaugurated on January 1, 1678, which predates the Royal Academy at Woolwich in Britain by 42 years and the Russian Academy in Petersburg, by 45 years. The court architect Amedeo di Castellamonte designed the building, work on which began in 1675, which was situated a short distance from the Royal Palace in the centre of the city. Unfortunately, the building was almost totally destroyed in 1943, during Allied air attacks.

The hilltop village of Grazzano Badoglio, with the former
Abbey of Aleramica visible at the top 

Travel tip:

The hilltop village of Grazzano Badoglio, which was Grazzano Monferrato until 1939, is situated about 80km (50 miles) to the east of Turin in the province of Asti . In was renamed by the Fascist mayor in 1939 in honour of Pietro Badoglio.  The house where Badoglio grew up, which became an asylum in 1937, is marked with a commemorative plaque.  The village, which had Roman origins, is notable today for the Abbey of Aleramica - today the village’s parish church - which was founded in 961 by the Marquis Aleramo I of Monferrato on top of the hill where the church stands today. It was home to Benedictines monks for more than four centuries. The cloister, restored and open to the public by request, is among what remains of the original building. The Romanesque bell tower was added in 1910.

More reading:

Mussolini appointed prime minister with Italy on brink of civil war

Palermo falls to the Allies

Germans free captive Mussolini in daring raid

Also on this day:

1924: The birth of actor Marcello Mastroianni

1978: The sudden death of Pope John Paul I


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Alberto Franchetti - opera composer

Caruso sang his arias on first commercial record in 1902

Alberto Franchetti enjoyed his peak years in terms
of popular success around the turn of the century

The opera composer Alberto Franchetti, some of whose works were performed by the great tenor Enrico Caruso for his first commercial recording, was born on this day in 1860 in Turin.

Caruso had been taken with Franchetti’s opera, Germania, when he sang the male lead role in the opera’s premiere at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in March 1902.

A month later, Caruso famously made his first recording on a phonograph in a Milan hotel room and chose a number of arias from Germania and critics noted that he sang the aria Ah vieni qui… No, non chiuder gli occhi with a particular sweetness of voice.

A friend and rival of Giacomo Puccini, Franchetti had a style said to have been influenced by the German composers Wagner and Meyerbeer. He was sometimes described as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."

Despite the exposure the success of Germania and the association with Caruso brought him, Franchetti’s operas slipped quite quickly into obscurity.

Blame for that can be levelled at least in part at the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938, which made life and work very difficult for Italy's Jewish population.

Franchetti (left), pictured with his friends and fellow
composers Pietro Mascagni and Giacomo Puccini

Franchetti's works were banned from performance during Fascist rule. His fellow composer Pietro Mascagni made a personal plea for tolerance on his behalf directly to Benito Mussolini, but it fell on deaf ears.

Franchetti was the son of Baron Raimondo Franchetti, a Jewish nobleman. He studied in Venice, then at the Munich Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger, and finally in Dresden under Felix Draeseke.

His first major success occurred in 1888 with his opera Asrael, followed in 1892 by Cristoforo Colombo, which many consider to be Franchetti's best work. It did not, however, match the popularity of Germania, the libretto for which was written by Luigi Illica, which went on to be performed worldwide.

Illica is said to have offered his libretto of Tosca to Franchetti. It is not clear why it was taken up instead by Puccini. Some opera historians believe Franchetti was working on the opera but that Puccini asked the publishing house Ricordi to let him have it and that Franchetti was persuaded that the violence in the story made it unsuitable for an opera.

Another version - thought to have the Franchetti family’s seal of authenticity - is that Franchetti waived his rights to the opera because he felt that Puccini would make a better job of it.

Franchetti’s family home in Florence was the substantial Villa Franchetti, in Via Dante Da Castiglione, a short distance from the Giardino di Boboli (Boboli Gardens), where he would host lavish banquets for his friends from the artistic world. Puccini, Mascagni and the actress Eleonora Duse were regular guests.

During his life, substantial changes were made to the property, with the addition of an annex that served as a concert and dance hall, as well as stables in the grounds.  He decorated and furnished the house with the advice of his brother, Giorgio, a wealthy art collector who at the time owned the Ca d’Oro, the sumptuous palace on the Grand Canal in Venice.

Franchetti, who was director of the Florence College of Music from 1926 to 1928, died in Viareggio in 1942 at the age of 81. His music has been revived recently with new recordings of Cristoforo Colombo and Germania by the Berlin Opera.

He was married twice and had five children, one of whom, his son Arnold Franchetti, was a member of the Italian Resistance in the Second World War before emigrating to the United States and becoming a composer as well as a professor at the University of Hartford, Connecticut.

The Villa Franchetti-Nardi as it looks today

Travel tip:

After Franchetti’s death, the Villa Franchetti had a chequered history. It was seized by the Germans, who established it as a command post, during the Second World War, by which time the family’s financial fortunes had suffered badly. After the war it was rented for a few years before being largely abandoned in 1960 and falling into a state of disrepair.  The villa, which has had the status of "Historical Residence of Italy" since 1991, was rescued from its near-dereliction by its current owner Gustavo Nardi. Now known as the Villa Franchetti-Nardi, it opened its doors as a hotel in 2009.

The beautiful facade of the Ca d'Oro on Venice's Grand Canal

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Santa Sofia, one of the older palace on the Grand Canal in Venice, is known as Ca' d'Oro - golden house - due to the gilt and polychrome external decorations which once adorned its walls. Built between 1428 and 1430 for the Contarini family, since 1927 it has been used as a museum, the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti, named after Alberto’s brother, who acquired the palace in 1894 and personally oversaw its extensive restoration, including the reconstruction of the Gothic stairway in the inner courtyard that had been controversially removed by a previous owner. In 1916, Franchetti bequeathed the Ca' d'Oro to the Italian State.

More reading:

Enrico Caruso - 'the greatest tenor of all time'

How one great opera made Pietro Mascagni immortal

The brilliant talent of Eleonora Duse

Also on this day:

1587: The birth of singer and composer Francesca Caccini

1916: The birth of actor Rossano Brazzi

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Giovanni Gronchi – Italy’s third president

Opponent of Mussolini became head of state in 1955

Giovanni Gronchi's politics saw him expelled
from parliament by Mussolini's Fascists

Christian Democrat politician Giovanni Gronchi, who served as President of Italy from 1955 to 1962, was born on this day in 1887 at Pontedera in Tuscany.

He was elected to the Camera dei Deputati in 1919 and went on to become leader of a group of deputies opposed to Mussolini, but when the Fascist government suppressed this group he put his political career on hold.

Gronchi returned to politics towards the end of the Second World War and helped found the new Christian Democrat party. In 1955 he was chosen as the third President of the Republic of Italy, succeeding Luigi Einaudi.

His presidency was notable for his attempt to open a door into government for the Italian Socialist and Communist parties, which ultimately failed.

As a young man, Gronchi had obtained a degree in Literature and Philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and worked as a teacher of classics in Parma, Massa di Carrara, Bergamo and Monza.

He volunteered for military service during the First World War and afterwards became one of the founding members of the Catholic Italian Popular Party.

Gronchi was elected president in 1955
in succession to Luigi Einaudi

He was elected to represent Pisa in parliament and served in Mussolini’s first government as Under Secretary for Industry and Commerce.

By 1923 Gronchi’s party had decided to withdraw all their members from the government and so he went back to his previous role as a Catholic trade union leader, supporting members who were having to face violence every day from Mussolini’s Fascist squads.

Gronchi became leader of his party in 1924 and was re-elected to parliament. He joined the Aventine movement, the anti-Fascist opposition, and in 1926 he was expelled from parliament by the Government.

To avoid having to become a member of the Fascist party he had to resign from teaching and earned his living as a businessman, first as a salesman and then as an industrialist.

In 1941 he married Carla Bissatini and they had one son and one daughter.

He re-entered politics with the fall of Mussolini and, in 1943, after co-founding the new Christian Democrat party, he became a leader of its left-wing faction. He was also a member of the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, the multi-party committee of the Italian resistance and in 1947 he opposed his party’s decision to expel the Italian Communist and Socialist parties from government.

Gronchi, second left, with Giulio Andreotti, left, his wife, Carla,
and Amintore Fanfani, right, at the 1960 Olympics in Rome

Between 1948 and 1955 he served as president of the Camera dei Deputati before being elected President of the Republic on April 29, 1955.

As president, one of his missions was to bring Socialists and Communists back into government but he faced stiff opposition.

He appointed Fernando Tambroni, a trusted member of his Catholic left-wing faction as prime minister, but Tambroni was able to survive in office thanks only to neo-fascist votes.

However, in 1960 there were riots in several towns in Italy and police fired on demonstrators, killing five people. The Tambroni government was forced to resign.

While he was president, Gronchi was also criticised for interfering in diplomacy. He made many state visits, including visiting the Soviet Union, despite church opposition.

In 1962 he attempted to get a second mandate, but Antonio Segni was elected as president instead. However, it was not long until the first centre-left coalition was formed by Aldo Moro in 1964.

Gronchi became a life senator by right according to the Italian constitution. He died in 1978 in Rome at the age of 91.

The Palazzo Pretorio in Corso Giacomo Matteotti in
the centre of Pontedera, in the Arno valley

Travel tip:

Pontedera, the birthplace of Giovanni Gronchi, is in the province of Pisa in Tuscany in the Arno valley. Nowadays it houses the Piaggio motor vehicle company, the Castellani wine company and the Amedei chocolate factory. It was the seat of some notable historical battles. In 1369, the Milanese army of Barnabo Visconti was defeated by Florentine troops and in 1554 an army representing the Republic of Siena defeated the Florentines.

The Palazzo Quirinale in Rome is the official residence
of the President of the Republic

Travel tip:

As President of Italy, Gronchi lived in Palazzo Quirinale in Rome at one end of Piazza del Quirinale. This was the summer palace of the popes until 1870 when it became the palace of the kings of the newly unified Italy. Following the abdication of the last monarch, it became the official residence of the President of the Republic in 1947.

More reading:

Aldo Moro: a tragic end to a distinguished career in politics

Ludovico Einaudi - politician and winemaker

Amintore Fanfani and the 'third way'

Also on this day:

1890: The birth of fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli

1960: Abebe Bikila makes history at Rome Olympics


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Allied troops land at Salerno

Operation that marked start of invasion of Italy

American troops disembark from a US Navy tank ship
across a causeway set up by the beach at Palermo

The first wave of an invasion force that would eventually take control of much of the Italian peninsula on behalf of the Allies landed on the beaches around Salerno in Campania on this day in 1943.

More than 450 ships carrying 190,000 troops assembled off the coast on the evening of September 8, shortly after news had broken that terms for the surrender of the Italian half of the Axis forces had been agreed.

The US 36th Infantry Division were in the vanguard of the invasion force, approaching the shore at Paestum at 3.30am on September 9, and there were other landings further up the coast near Battipaglia and Pontecagnano involving British troops.

After news of the Italian surrender, the invasion force, which consisted initially of 55,000 troops, were unsure how much resistance they would encounter.

British soldiers on the quayside at Salerno, the day after
the invasion of the Italian mainland had begun

A decision had been taken not to launch a naval or aerial bombardment in advance of the invasion, in the hope that it would take the enemy by surprise. In fact, the Germans were well prepared and even as the first landing craft approached Paestum, the American soldiers on board were greeted with a loudspeaker announcement from near the beach in English, urging them to give themselves up.

Although the German Commander-in-Chief in Italy, Albrecht von Kesselring, had only only eight divisions to defend all of southern and central Italy, he had had six weeks to plan for an invasion following the deposing of Benito Mussolini in July and had been expecting the Allies, who had already taken Sicily, to strike at the Italian mainland. He even had a good idea where any invasion would take place.

The eight German divisions were therefore positioned to cover possible landing sites.

Within half an hour of the first American troops setting foot on the shore, German planes arrived to strafe the beaches. Under Kesselring’s instructions, the Germans had established artillery and machine-gun posts and scattered tanks throughout the area of the landing zones.

The Americans set up a command centre
inside one of the Greek temples at Paestum

This made progress difficult, but the beach areas were successfully taken. Around 7am a concerted counterattack was made by the 16th Panzer division, causing heavy casualties, but was beaten off with naval gunfire support.

Both the British and the Americans made slow progress from their landing positions, and still had a 10 mile (16km) gap between them at the end of day one. They linked up by the end of day two and occupied 35-45 miles (56-72km) of coast line to a depth of six or seven miles (10-12km).

In the days that followed, the German 10th Army were very close to overwhelming the Salerno beachhead and the Allies were fortunate that Adolf Hitler and his commander in northern Italy, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, decided that defending Italy south of Rome was not a strategic priority. As a result, Kesselring had been forbidden to call upon reserves from the northern army groups.

By early October Naples had been taken and the whole of southern Italy was in Allied hands, including a number of vital airfields.

But German strategy changed again in October, with Kesselring given the remit to keep Rome in German hands for the longest time possible.  His armies established a number of defensive lines stretching from west to east across the peninsula and only after seven months of intensive fighting did the Allies eventually reach the capital, in May 1944.

Travel tip:

A panoramic view over the city of Salerno

Salerno, which has a population of about 133,000, is a city often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento, but it has its own attractions and is a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts, yet Salerno itself has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt is the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist.  The city can be reached directly by train from Naples, which is about 55km (34 miles) north.

The second Temple of Hera at Paestum, built almost 2,500 years
ago at the time southern Italy was known as Magna Graecia

Travel tip:

Paestum, where the Allied landings began, is best known for the extraordinary archaeological site a mile inland that contains three of the best preserved Greek temples in the world, which were once part of the town of Poseidonia - built by Greek colonists from Sybaris, an earlier Greek city in southern Italy, in around 600BC.  The relics cover a large area and takes as much as two hours to explore, but there are several bars close by and a hotel and restaurant just outside the site.

More reading:

Palermo falls to the Allies

The destruction of Monte Cassino abbey

How the Nazis freed Mussolini from his mountain 'prison'

Also on this day:

1908: The birth of writer Cesare Pavese

1918: The birth of Italy's ninth President, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro


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Altiero Spinelli - political visionary

Drafted plan for European Union while in Fascist jail

Spinelli and two fellow prisoners were
the first to propose a united Europe

Altiero Spinelli, a politician who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the European Union, was born on this day in 1907 in Rome.

A lifelong Communist who was jailed for his opposition to the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, he spent much of the Second World War in confinement on the island of Ventotene in the Tyrrhenian Sea, one of an archipelago known as the Pontine Islands.

It was there that he and two prisoners, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni, agreed that if the forces of Fascism in Italy and Germany were defeated, the only way to avoid future European wars was for the sovereign nations of the continent to join together in a federation of states.

The document they drew up, which became known as the Ventotene Manifesto, was the first document to argue for a European constitution and formed the basis for the Movimento Federalista Europeo, which Spinelli, Rossi and some 20 others launched at a secret meeting in Milan as soon as they were able to leave their internment camp.

An official mugshot of Spinelli taken
during his confinement on Ventotene

In a nutshell, the Ventotene Manifesto put forward proposals for creating a European federation of states so closely joined together they would no longer be able to go to war with one another. It argued that if all of the European countries retained their complete national sovereignty in the post-war landscape then the possibility of a Third World War would still exist even if the Nazi attempt to establish the domination of the German race in Europe was defeated.

Throughout the 40s and 50s, Spinelli’s MFE was in the vanguard of the drive for European integration and Spinelli himself, who was elected as a Communist MEP in 1979, its most powerful voice.

By stages, he persuaded the Italian government and then the European Parliament of the wisdom of his proposals and his draft document, known as the Spinelli Plan, became the basis for the Single European Act of 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, which formally agreed the establishment of a European Union.

Spinelli himself lived to see none of these developments. His health declined in his late 70s and he died in a Rome clinic in May 1986 at the age of 78.

However, his legacy was recognised when the main building of the European Parliament in Brussels was named after him in 1999.

Spinelli was buried on the island of
Ventotene, where his memory is preserved

Although born in Rome, Spinelli spent his early years in Brazil, where his father was the Italian Vice-Consul. On returning home he joined the Italian Communist Party at the age of 17 in 1924, the year of the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, with Fascism now in power and Communists forced underground.

He was arrested in Milan in June 1927, when the Fascists introduced legislation outlawing political opponents. He was convicted and sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison.

After a decade, he was transferred to Rome and was led to believe he would be released, only to be told he was instead being transferred to confinement status, first on the island of Ponza, later on Ventotene, a smaller island midway between Ponza and Ischia, off the coast of Naples.

His release eventually came in 1943, after Mussolini had been expelled by the Fascist Grand Council and arrested on the orders of the king, Victor Emmanuel III. 

Ponza has some beautiful coastline and was once a haunt
for movie stars and other celebrities

Travel tip:

The island of Ponza has had a chequered history. Inhabited from neolithic to Roman times, it was abandoned during the middle ages due to frequent attacks by Saracens and pirates and not recolonised until the 18th century. Due to its remoteness, it was used as penal colony by several regimes in addition to the Fascists. Mussolini himself was confined there for a brief period after his arrest in 1943. In more recent years, it was developed for tourism and became a fashionable resort for celebrities, including Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. It has become less attractive since the death of several tourists due to falling rocks led to the permanent closure of the main beach, Chiaia di Luna, although there are many other smaller beaches and several picturesque bays.

The picturesque harbour on the island of Ventotene

Travel tip:

Closer to the mainland than Ponza and therefore more easy to reach, Ventotene attracts many tourists during the summer months but remains in some ways a permanent monument to Spinelli, who was returned to the island following his death and interred in the churchyard of the Parrocchia Santa Candida Vergine e Martire. The former prison has been converted into colorful summer homes and visitors can even sleep in Spinelli’s old apartment.  In 2016, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi met with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande on the island, where they laid a wreath at the Spinelli’s tomb and staged a mini-summit meeting to discuss the future of the EU following the referendum staged in Britain.

More reading:

Victor Emmanuel III appoints Mussolini as prime minister

The murder of Giacomo Matteotti

How Alcide de Gasperi rebuilt Italy


Also on this day:

1834: The birth of opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli

1900: The birth of Gino Lucetti, anarchist famous for botched attempt to kill Mussolini


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Carlo Pisacane – socialist and revolutionary

Patriot who put deeds before ideas

Carlo Pisacane's revolutionary philosophy
influenced Benito Mussolini

Carlo Pisacane, Duke of San Giovanni, was killed on this day in 1857 at Sanza in Campania, while trying to provoke an uprising in the Kingdom of Naples.

Pisacane is remembered for coming up with the concept ‘propaganda of the deed’, an idea that influenced Mussolini and many rebels and terrorists subsequently.

He argued that violence was necessary, not only to draw attention or generate publicity for a cause, but to inform, educate and rally the masses to join in.

Pisacane was born into an impoverished, noble family in Naples in 1818.

He joined the Neapolitan army at the age of 20, but became interested in the political ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini and went to England and France before going to serve in the French army in Algeria.

After the revolution of 1848 he came back to Italy, where he played a part in the brief life of the Roman Republic. After the city was captured by the French he went into exile again in London.

Pisacane regarded the rule of the House of Savoy as no better than the rule of Austria and went to Genoa to involve himself with the uprisings planned by Mazzini and his followers.

Giuseppe Mazzini had the idea to start
an insurrection in Naples

Mazzini came up with the idea of starting an insurrection in the Kingdom of Naples and Pisacane volunteered to organise it. He sailed from Genoa with a few followers on board the steamer, Cagliari, in June 1857.

They landed first on the island of Ponza, which was being used as a penal colony at the time. They overpowered the guards and liberated hundreds of prisoners.

They then sailed on to Sapri in Campania from where he led about 300 men towards the area known as the Cilento. When they were confronted at Padula, Pisacane was stabbed. He was finally killed at Sanza by angry locals who thought he was a wandering gypsy who had been stealing their food.

Pisacane had written essays about his political beliefs, saying that ideas result from deeds, not deeds from ideas, and that people will not be free when they are educated, but educated when they are free. These essays were published posthumously in France.

Pisacane’s disastrous landing was commemorated in the poem, La Spigolatrice di Sapri by Luigi Mercantini. This was translated into English by Henry Longfellow with the title, The Gleaner of Sapri. The poem also inspired the 1952 historical drama film, Eran trecento - They were 300 - starring Rossano Brazzi.

A monument in Sarpi
commemorates Pisacane

Travel tip:

The port of Sapri on the Tyrrhenian Sea, where Pisacane landed with his followers, is one of the most southern points of the Cilento and is close to the border with Basilicata. The people of Sapri celebrate Pisacane’s landing every year with a three-day festival in August.

Pisacane's memorial
stone in Sanza

Travel tip:

The small town of Sanza, where Pisacane was killed, is on a hill about 35km (22 miles) to the north of Sapri, surrounded by mountains and on the edge of the Vallo di Diano National Park. Sanza has an annual celebration on 2 July, the day of the revolutionary’s death, which is known as Carlo Pisacane Day. A ceremony will be held today next to Pisacane’s memorial stone.

More reading:

The making of Benito Mussolini

Giuseppe Mazzini: hero of the Risorgimento

Garibaldi and the Expedition of the Thousand

Also on this day:

1922: The birth of fashion designer Pierre Cardin

The Palio di Siena

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