Gasparo da Salò – violin maker

Founder of the Brescian school of stringed instrument craftsmen

The bust of Gasparo da Salò in Salò

One of Italy’s earliest violin makers, Gasparo da Salò, died on this day in 1609 in Brescia.

He developed the art of string making to a high level and his surviving instruments are still admired and revered.

Da Salò was born Gasparo Bertolotti in Salò, a resort on Lake Garda in 1542.

His father and uncle were violinists and composers and his cousin, Bernardino, was a violinist at the Este court in Ferrara and at the Gonzaga court in Mantua.

Bertolotti received a good musical education and was referred to as ‘a talented violone player’ in a 1604 document about the music at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.

Bertolotti moved to Brescia on the death of his father and set up shop in an area where there were other instrument makers.

He became known as Gasparo da Salò and his workshop quickly became one of the most important in Europe for the production of every type of stringed instrument that was played at the time.

An example of a
Gasparo violin

His business was so successful that he was able to acquire land and property and provide financial assistance to members of his family.

It is not known whether da Salò was the first craftsman to produce a violin in its modern form. But he built violins that conform to the measurements of the modern violin and developed instruments with a powerful tone that decades later were studied by Antonio Stradivari. He built violas of different sizes as well as cellos and double basses.

About 80 of his instruments are known to have survived to the present day and are in museums. One of his most famous double basses is in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice.

After his death on 14 April 1609, Gasparo da Salò was recorded as buried at a cemetery in Brescia, but the exact location of his grave is unknown.

Travel tip:

Salò, where Gasparo Bertolotti was born, is on the western shore of Lake Garda. Mussolini formed a short-lived republic there in 1943, but the resort recovered after the World War II to become a popular tourist destination and now has a museum commemorating the resistance against Fascism.

Brescia's elegant Piazza della Loggia

Travel tip:

Brescia in Lombardy, where Gasparo da Salò worked and died, is of artistic and architectural importance. Brescia became a Roman colony before the birth of Christ and you can see remains from the forum, theatre and a temple. The town came under the protection of Venice in the 15th century and there is a Venetian influence in the architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, an elegant square, which has a clock tower similar to the one in Saint Mark’s square. Next to the 17th century Duomo is an older cathedral, the unusually shaped Duomo Vecchio, also known as la Rotonda.

More reading:

Antonio Stradivari - maker of the world's most valuable violins

How the Amati family helped make Cremona famous for violins

Muzio Clementi - father of the piano

Also on this day:

1488: The assassination of Girolamo Riario, papal military leader

1920: The birth of Lamberto Dalla Costa, the fighter pilot who became Italy's first Olympic bobsleigh champion



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Battle of Ravenna

Thousands die in pointless conflict of the Italian Wars

The chaos of the Battle of Ravenna depicted in a
15th century woodcut

French forces inflicted appalling casualties upon a largely Spanish Holy League army on this day in 1512 at Molinaccio just outside Ravenna.

The French, under the command of their brilliant 21-year-old leader Gaston de Foix, had taken Brescia in Lombardy by storm in February and then marched on Ravenna intending to provoke the papal Holy League army into battle. They also had an Italian contingent of soldiers with them under the command of Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.

Ramon de Cardona, Spanish viceroy of Naples and commander of the Holy League forces, led an army through the papal states of the Romagna to relieve Ravenna, passing Forlì and advancing north along the Ronco River.

Both sides had learned the new rules of warfare in the gunpowder age and were reluctant to assault well defended earthworks with cavalry or infantry.

They indulged in an artillery duel and had to manoeuvre unwieldy cannons to find effective lines of fire.

But after two hours they changed tactics and both cavalry and infantry threw themselves forward in assaults. The casualties were heavy as horsemen clashed in swirling melees and infantry swarmed over ramparts and ditches.

Alfonso I d'Este, who led a contingent of
Italian soldiers in the battle

The issue was decided when the French cavalry, having driven the opposing horsemen from the field, returned to attack the Spanish infantry.

While many of his soldiers were slaughtered, Cardona was taken prisoner.

Then, when the battle was effectively over, the French commander De Foix was killed during a pointless skirmish with the retreating Spanish infantry.

It was estimated that the French lost 4,500 men and the Holy League 9,000 in this battle, part of the War of the League of Cambrai, which took place during the long period of the Italian Wars.

The victory failed to help the French secure northern Italy and they were forced to withdraw from the region entirely by August of the same year.

Travel tip:

The Romagna, controlled by the Pope in the 16th century, was a region of Italy that approximately corresponds to the south eastern part of the present day region of Emilia-Romagna. It included the cities of Cesena, Faenza, Forlì, Imola, Ravenna and Rimini, where the Romagnola dialect is still spoken today.

The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna

Travel tip:

Ravenna, in Emilia-Romagna, was the capital city of the western Roman empire in the fifth century. It is known for its well preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture and has eight UNESCO world heritage sites. The Basilica of San Vitale is one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture in Europe.

More reading:

How the Treaty of Lodi brought peace to northern Italy

Ravenna, the Ostrogoths and the Sack of Rome

The murder of papal military leader Girolamo Riario

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Angela Merici – Saint

Nun dedicated her life to educating girls

Angela Merici, pictured in a 17th
century painting by an unknown artist

Angela Merici, who founded the monastic Ursuline Order, was born on this day in 1474 in Desenzano del Garda, then part of the republic of Venice.

The Ursulines are the oldest order of women in the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to teaching and were the first to work outside a convent in the community.

Merici was orphaned at the age of 15 and sent to Salò to live in the home of an uncle, where she became deeply religious and joined the Third Order of Saint Francis.

She returned to Desenzano after the death of her uncle when she was 20 and found that many of the young girls in her home town received no education and had no hope of a better future.

Merici gathered together a group of girls to teach the catechism to the young children.

Then, in 1506, while praying in the fields, she had a vision that she would found a society of virgins in the town of Brescia.

It is claimed Merici became suddenly blind when she was on the island of Crete on her way to the Holy Land but continued on her journey. She is believed to have been cured of her blindness on her return, while praying at exactly the same place where she had been afflicted.

Merici and 28 of her followers consecrated themselves to God by a vow of virginity in 1535 in Brescia. They placed themselves under the protection of St Ursula, a fourth century martyr, and the Company of St Ursula was born. Their idea was to provide for the Christian education of girls in order to restore the family and, through the family, the whole of Christian society.

The 19th century artist Pietro Calzavacca
depicted Angela Merici as a teacher

Merici was unanimously elected as Superior of the Company in 1537. Before she died, she dictated her Testament and Souvenirs, which contained her counsels to her nuns.

After her death in 1540 in Brescia, her body was clothed in the habit of a Franciscan tertiary and interred in the church of St Afra, where she had often gone to pray at the tombs of martyrs. She was beatified in 1768 and canonised in 1807.

She is the patron saint of sickness, disability and those grieving the loss of parents.

The church of St Afra had to be rebuilt after Allied bombing in 1945 and after it reopened, a new dedication was made to Saint Angela Merici there.

Nuns from the Order of Ursulines established places of prayer and learning throughout Europe and north America. Many parishes and schools in America still bear the name Angela Merici.

The pretty harbour at Desenzano del Garda.

Travel tip:

Desenzano del Garda, Angela Merici’s birthplace, is the largest resort on Lake Garda, on the south western shore of the lake. It is a lively town with plenty of fashion shops, restaurants, bars and hotels. A Servizio di Navigazione (boat service) operates from Desenzano to other resorts on Lake Garda such as Sirmione, Bardolino, Peschiera and Moniga del Garda. In 1921 the remains of a fourth century Roman villa were unearthed close to the lake. The ruins are now open to the public and can be accessed from Via Antonio Gramsci. There is also a medieval castle within walking distance of the lake in Via Castello. The Duomo, dedicated to Santa Maria Maddalena, has an 18th century version of The Last Supper by Giambattista Tiepolo.

Piazza della Loggia is an elegant square in Brescia

Travel tip:

Brescia in Lombardy, where Angela Merici worked and died, is of artistic and architectural importance. Brescia became a Roman colony before the birth of Christ and you can see remains from the forum, theatre and a temple. The town came under the protection of Venice in the 15th century and there is a Venetian influence in the architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, an elegant square, which has a clock tower similar to the one in Saint Mark’s square. Next to the 17th century Duomo is an older cathedral, the unusually shaped Duomo Vecchio, also known as la Rotonda.

Brescia hotels by Booking.com

More reading:

Agostina Livia Pietrantoni - nurse whose death brought Rome to a standstill

First World War nurse who was made a Saint over lives she saved

Saint Giustina of Padua - slain by the Romans for refusing to renounce Christianity

Also on this day:

1858: The death of Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello - Nun who battled for educational rights for girls

1918: The birth of Alberto Marvelli - the Good Samaritan of World War Two Rimini




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Camillo Golgi – neuroscientist

Nobel prize winner whose name lives on in medical science

Camillo Golgi expanded knowledge of
the human nervous system

Camillo Golgi, who is recognised as the greatest neuroscientist and biologist of his time, died on this day in 1926 in Pavia.

He was well known for his research into the central nervous system and discovering a staining technique for studying tissue, sometime called Golgi’s method, or Golgi’s staining.

In 1906, Golgi and a Spanish biologist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system.

Golgi was born in 1843 in Corteno, a village in the province of Brescia in Lombardy.

The village was later renamed Corteno Golgi in his honour.

In 1860 Golgi went to the University of Pavia to study medicine. After graduating in 1865 he worked in a hospital for the Italian army and as part of a team investigating a cholera epidemic in the area around Pavia.

He resumed his academic studies under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso, an expert in medical psychology, and wrote a thesis about mental disorders. As he became more and more interested in experimental medicine he started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero, who was to influence Golgi’s research publications. They became close friends and Golgi later married his niece, Lina Aletti.

Financial pressure led Golgi to work at the Hospital for the Chronically Ill in Abbiategrasso near Milan and while he was there he set up a simple laboratory in a former hospital kitchen.

A statue within the campus of Pavia University
commemorates Golgi's life and work

It was in his improvised laboratory that he made his most notable discoveries. His major achievement was the development of staining technique for studying nerve tissue called the black reaction, using potassium bichromate and silver nitrate, which was more accurate than other methods and was later to become known as Golgi’s method.

In 1885 he joined the faculty of histology at the University of Pavia and then later became Professor of Histology. He also became Professor of Pathology at the San Matteo hospital.  His connection with the university is commemorated with a statue within the grounds, while a plaque marks the house in nearby Corso Strada Nuova where he lived.

He was rector of the University of Pavia for two separate periods and during the First World War he directed the military hospital, Collegio Borromeo, in Pavia.

Golgi retired in 1818 and continued his research in a private laboratory. He died on 21 January1926.

In 1900 he had been named as a Senator by King Umberto I. He received honorary doctorates from many universities and was commemorated on a stamp by the European community in 1994.

The Golgi apparatus, the Golgi tendon organ, the Golgi tendon reflex and certain nerve cells are all named after him.

The Golgi museum in Via Brescia, Corteno Golgi

Travel tip:

Corteno Golgi, a village of around 2,000 people is situated in the High Camonica Valley, about 100km (62 miles) north of Brescia in the Orobie Alps in Lombardy. It has a museum dedicated to Camillo Golgi in Via Brescia. For more information visit www.museogolgi.it.

The covered bridge over the Ticino river at Pavia

Travel tip:

Pavia, where Golgi lived for a large part of his life, is a city in Lombardy, about 46km (30 miles) south of Milan, known for its ancient university, which was founded in 1361, and its famous Certosa, a magnificent monastery complex north of the city that dates back to 1396. A pretty covered bridge over the River Ticino leads to Borgo Ticino, where the inhabitants claim to be the true people of Pavia and are of Sabaudian origin.

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Luigi Olivari – flying ace

First World War pilot claimed 19 victories

Luigi Olivari was only 25 when he was killed
in a crash near Udine

Lieutenant Luigi Olivari, a pilot in the military aviation corps of the Royal Italian Army who was decorated with a string of awards for valour in action, was born on this day in 1891 in La Spezia, the maritime city on the coast of what is now Liguria.

Olivari became a proficient aerial duellist, claiming to have downed 19 enemy aircraft as Italian planes took on Austro-Hungarian opponents after Italy had joined the war on the side of the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia.

Only eight of these were confirmed, yet Olivari was awarded four silver and two bronze medals for valour by the Italian government, as well as the French Croix de guerre and the Serbian Order of the Star of Karadorde.

The last of his silver medals was awarded posthumously after he was killed on October 13, 1917 when his Spad VII aircraft stalled and crashed during take-off at the Santa Caterina airfield just outside Udine in northwest Italy.

Born to middle-class parents in La Spezia, as a boy he moved with his family to Turin.

A Spad VII similar to the one flown by Luigi Olivari

A good all-round sportsman and an accomplished motorcyclist, Olivari entered the school for civil pilots at Mirafiori, just outside Turin, and obtained his Aero Club’s pilots licence on November 27, 1914.

In May 1915, the week before Italy entered the war, Olivari applied for military pilot's training. He qualified in June and in January 2016 was assigned to fly in the 1a Squadriglia (later redesignated as 70a Squadriglia). 

He scored his first confirmed aerial victory on April 7 - only the second success in the air for Italy – having claimed an earlier success that went unconfirmed.

In September 1916, Olivari was commissioned as a Sottotenente - sub-lieutenant. By April 1917, he was specifically assigned two aircraft—a Spad VII and a Nieuport 17 ser. no. 3127.

In May 1917, he was transferred to the newly formed fighter squadron 91a Squadriglia and than loaned to 77a Squadriglia for about a month. He was subsequently promoted to Tenente and assigned as an Ansaldo SVA.5 test pilot for the Technical Directorate.

Olivari won many awards for valour and claimed to have
shot down 19 enemy aircraft

In February 1919, some 16 months after his death, the Bongiovanni military intelligence commission issued its final determination of Italian aerial victories during the First World War. Olivari's score was cut to eight confirmed victories. Notable for their exclusion were some victories that were noted in Olivari's award citations.

The Ghedi Air Force base, near Brescia, home of the Regia Aeronautica 6th Stormo (6th Wing) was named in his memory after the war.

There are streets named after Luigi Olivari in San Maurizio Canavese, near Turin’s airport, and in the Ligurian city of Genoa.

Piazza Garibaldi in La Spezia

Travel tip:

Overshadowed by its chic neighbours in the Cinque Terre, the port town of La Spezia, home to Italy's largest naval base, tends to be overlooked as a travel destination but offers an affordable alternative base for touring the area, although it is worth inclusion anyway. Nowadays, it is one of Italy’s busiest ports, yet the narrow streets of the old city are deeply atmospheric and have plenty to interest visitors, with a wealth of good restaurants showing off the best Ligurian cuisine.

Travel tip:

Santa Caterina near Udine is best known as the original site of one of the oldest fairs in Italy, which began in 1380 to honour Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who was supposedly beheaded by the Romans for not sacrificing animals to the gods.  Since 1485 the fair has been held within the city walls, in Piazza I Maggio in the municipality of Pasian di Prato.  It is held every year from around November 25 with an array of stalls, although the fairground rides that accompanied it from the mid-1980s have now been moved to the Friuli stadium.

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Veronica Gambara – writer and stateswoman

Politically astute poet wrote an ode to Emperor Charles V

Veronica Gambara, as portrayed by Antonio
Allegri, known as Il Correggio

Veronica Gambara, a lyric poet who ruled the state of Correggio for 32 years, was born on this day in 1485 in Pralboino in the province of Brescia.

Under her rule, the court of Correggio became an important literary salon visited by many writers and artists.

Gambara signed a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, which guaranteed Correggio would not be besieged and in her political poems she expressed Italy as an entity centuries before unification.

Gambara came from an accomplished family, one of the seven children of Count Gianfrancesco da Gambara and Alda Pio da Carpi.

The humanist poets Ginevre and Isotta Noarola were her great aunts and Emilia Pia, the principal female interlocutor of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano, was her aunt.

Gambara studied Latin, Greek, philosophy and theology and by the age of 17 had begun corresponding with the poet, Pietro Bembo, who later became her mentor when she sent him her poetry to read.

When Gambara was 24 she married her cousin, Giberto, Count of Correggio, a widower aged 50, and they had two sons, Ippolito and Girolamo. After her husband’s death in 1518, Gambara took charge of the state, which included managing Correggio’s condottieri. She also supervised the education of her two sons and her stepdaughter, Costanza.

Pietro Bembo was an influence on
Gambara's poetry

With Gambara at its head, the court of Correggio was visited by important figures such as Pietro Bembo, Gian Giorgio Trissino, Marcantonio Flaminio, Ludovico Ariosto and Titian.

Although Gambara’s poems were not published during her lifetime they were circulated in manuscript form. About 80 of her poems and 50 of her letters are still in existence.

She composed poems on political issues, devotional poems and love poems dedicated to her husband. She also corresponded with the poet Bernardo Tasso and Emperor Charles V.

After allying Correggio with the Holy Roman Empire, Gambara personally received the Emperor in Correggio in 1530, when she composed an ode to him in Latin. They signed a treaty together guaranteeing Correggio’s safety. This was broken in 1538 when the Count of Mirandola and Concordia launched an attack on Correggio but Gambara organised a successful defence and saw to it that Charles V paid for improved fortifications.

Gambara died in June 1550. A complete English translation of her poems was published in 2014.

The 18th century Palazzo Gambara in Pralboino

Travel tip:

Pralboino, where Veronica Gambara was born, is a village in the province of Brescia in Lombardy. It is about 35 kilometres to the south of the city of Brescia. The 18th century Palazzo Gambara was built on the site of a previous 13th century castle, where the poet lived until her marriage to the Count of Correggio.

The Corso Giuseppe Mazzini in Correggio

Travel tip:

Correggio, which was ruled by Veronica Gambara between 1518 and 1550, is a town in the Emilia-Romagna region. The Renaissance painter Antonio Allegri, who was known as Il Correggio, was born there in 1489. One of the main sights in Correggio is the elegant Palazzo dei Principi in Corso Cavour. In 1659 Correggio was annexed to the Duchy of Modena. The present Duke of Modena, Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este, is the current holder of the title of Prince of Correggio.

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Saverio Bettinelli – writer

Jesuit scholar and poet was unimpressed with Dante

Saverio Bettinelli saw only limited
merit in Dante's Divine Comedy

Poet and literary critic Saverio Bettinelli, who had the temerity to criticise Dante in his writing, died at the age of 90 on this day in 1808 in Mantua.

Bettinelli had entered the Jesuit Order at the age of 20 and went on to become known as a dramatist, poet and literary critic, who also taught Rhetoric in various Italian cities.

In 1758 he travelled through Italy and Germany and met the French writers Voltaire and Rousseau.

Bettinelli taught literature from 1739 to 1744 at Brescia, where he formed an academy with other scholars. He became a professor of Rhetoric in Venice and was made superintendent of the College of Nobles at Parma in 1751, where he was in charge of the study of poetry and history and theatrical entertainment.

After travelling to Germany, Strasbourg and Nancy, he returned to Italy, taking with him two young relatives of the Prince of Hohenlohe, who had entrusted him with their education. He took the eldest of his pupils with him to France, where he wrote his famous Lettere dieci di Virgilio agli Arcadi, which were published in Venice.

He also wrote a collection of poems, Versi sciolti, and some tragedies for the Jesuit theatre.

The cover page for the first of 24 volumes
of Bettinelli's complete works 

In 1757 he wrote a series of letters addressed to Virgil, in which he criticised the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. He stated: ‘Among the erudite books, only certain parts from the Divine Comedy should be included, and these would form no more than five cantos.’ Voltaire praised his opinions but Bettinelli made enemies among Italians as a result of what he had written.

In 1758 he was sent by King Stanislaw, Duke of Lorraine to visit Voltaire on a business matter.

Afterwards he went to live in Modena where he became a professor of Rhetoric again. In 1773 after the suppression of the Jesuit Order, he returned to live in his home town of Mantua. Then a siege of the city by the French caused him to move to Verona.

In 1797 he returned to Mantua, where despite his age, he remained energetic and capable. He published a complete edition of his works, which ran to 24 volumes, in 1799 in Venice.

Bettinelli died on 13 September 1808 in Mantua having reached the age of 90.

Detail from Andrea Mantegna's frescoes in the Camera
degli Sposi in Mantua's Palazzo Ducale

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric old city in Lombardy, to the south east of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707. The Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Andrea Mantegna, depicting the life of Ludovico Gonzaga and his family. The beautiful backgrounds of imaginary cities and ruins reflect Mantegna’s love of classical architecture.

Paolo Monti's 1972 photograph of the Basilica

Travel tip:

The 15th century Basilica of Sant’Andrea in Mantua, which houses the artist Andrea Mantegna’s tomb, is in Piazza Mantegna. Mantegna was buried in the first chapel on the left, which contains a picture of the Holy Family and John the Baptist that had been painted by him. The church was originally built to accommodate the large number of pilgrims who came to Mantua to see a precious relic, an ampoule containing what were believed to be drops of Christ’s blood mixed with earth. This was claimed to have been collected at the site of his crucifixion by a Roman soldier.

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Andrea Pirlo - footballer

Midfielder who won multiple honours with AC Milan and Juventus

Andrea Pirlo made 119 career appearances for the
Italian national team

The footballer Andrea Pirlo, who some commentators bracket with Roberto Baggio as one of the two best Italian footballers of the last 25 years, was born on this day in 1979.

The midfielder, who left Italy to join the Major League Soccer team New York City, has played in six Italian championship-winning teams and is a double winner of the Champions League among a host of honours as a club player.

In international football he has a World Cup winner’s medal as a member of the 2006 Italian national team that lifted the trophy in Germany.  The fulcrum of the Azzurri midfield, he scored one goal and was credited with the assist for three other goals during the tournament.

One of those assists resulted in the crucial opening goal for Italy scored by Fabio Grosso in the classic semi-final against the host nation.  He was also one on Italy’s successful penalty takers during the shoot-out that decided the final against France.

He was named man of the match three times in the tournament, more than any other player.  He matched that achievement six years later at Euro 2012, when Italy were beaten in the final.

In all he won 119 caps for his country, the fourth highest total of all Italian internationals. Fellow players nicknamed him l’architetto – the architect – for his ability to design and construct attacking moves.

Although he began his career as an attacking midfielder or sometimes even a second striker, Pirlo excelled as a deep-lying central midfielder, a playmaker with wonderful vision and the ability to hit accurate passes over any distance.

Pirlo won three Serie A titles with Juventus

He also acquired renown as a free kick specialist, capable of curling the ball into the net beyond the reach of the goalkeeper. He claims he honed his technique by watching Baggio train at Brescia, the club at which Baggio wound down his career and Pirlo began his.

Pirlo was born in Flero, Italy, in the province of Brescia and began his career with the Flero youth side. He joined Brescia in 1994 and made his debut in Serie A in May the following year at the age of 16, although it took him a further 18 months to win consistent selection for the senior side.

When he did, Brescia won the Serie B title and with it promotion to Serie A in 1998. It won him a move to Internazionale of Milan but could not break into the first team permanently and was loaned to Reggina for the 1999-2000 season and then back to Brescia in 2000-01, where he played alongside Baggio, his childhood idol.

Because Baggio occupied the attacking midfield position for Brescia, manager Carlo Mazzone decided to deploy Pirlo in the deep-lying playmaker role that he would make his own. Years later, Pirlo still described the moment he delivered a long pass that enabled Baggio to score against Juventus as one of the high spots of his career.

After three seasons on Inter’s books, Pirlo was sold to city rivals AC Milan for 33 billion Italian lire – just over 17 million euro – in June 2001.

Pirlo's brilliance as a playmaker emerged
under Carlo Ancelotti at AC Milan

It was at Milan, in particular under Carlo Ancelotti, where Pirlo at last began to realise his talent and became a world class player.

Recalling Mazzone’s use of him at Brescia, Ancelotti decided to position Pirlo just in front of his defence, which allowed him more time on the ball to pull the strings in terms of setting up attacks, where he could use his, anticipation, imagination and inventiveness to best effect.

He was a key player in a period of consistent success as Italian football became dominated by Silvio Berlusconi’s AC Milan and MassimoMoratti’s Inter.

Milan won two Champions Leagues (2003 and 2007), two UEFA Super Cups (2003 and 2007), two Serie A titles (2004 and 2011), a FIFA Club World Cup (2007), a Supercoppa Italiana (2004), and a Coppa Italia (2003) during Pirlo’s time.

Baggio himself sang his praises. “Andrea can visualise and anticipate plays before everyone else. His vision, what he can do with the ball, and what he's able to create, make him a true superstar,” he said.

After Ancelotti left to become Chelsea manager in 2009, soon failing with a bid to take Pirlo with him, Pirlo remained with Milan for a further two seasons, winning the scudetto again in 2011, but new coach Massimiliano Allegri used him differently and his final season was restricted to 17 appearances for Serie A, which prompted him to seek a change of direction.

Pirlo left Juventus to join MLS
club New York City

But Milan’s loss turned out to be Juventus’s gain after the so-called Old Lady of Italian football, without a trophy since 2003 after two Serie A titles in 2005 and 2006 were stripped from them over the match-fixing scandal, signed him on a free transfer.

Under coach Antonio Conte he added three more Serie A titles (2012, 2013, 2014), as well as two more Supercoppa Italiana titles (2012 and 2013). When Conte left to become national manager, Pirlo again worked with Allegri but more successfully this time, playing his part in a league and cup double in 2015 before leaving for New York.

His final appearance was in the Champions League final – his fourth – in which Juventus were beaten 3-1 by Barcelona.

One of two children – he has a brother Ivan – Pirlo was married for 13 years to Deborah Roversi, with whom he had two children, Niccolò and daughter Angela.

His father founded a metal trading company in Brescia in 1982 called Elg Steel, in which Pirlo has a stake. A wine connoisseur, he also runs his own vineyard.  In 2013, his autobiography, Penso Quindi Gioco - I Think, Therefore I Play) – became a bestseller.

Travel tip:

Flero, where Andrea Pirlo was born, is a town in Lombardy of just under 9,000 residents, situated a few kilometres south of Brescia in the flat plain of the Po Valley, although close enough to the Italian pre-Alps for snow-capped mountains to be visible on clear winter days.  Lake Garda and Lake Iseo are a short distance away.  Flero itself is a typical northern Italian commuter town, orderly and clean with a couple of churches and a few modern shops.

Travel tip:

The city of Brescia tends not to attract many tourists compared with nearby Bergamo or Verona, partly because of the counter-attraction of the lakes.  Yet it has plenty of history, going back to Roman times, and many points of interest, including two cathedrals – the Duomo Vecchio and its neighbour, the Duomo Nuovo – and the attractive Piazza della Loggia, with a Renaissance palace, the Palazzo della Loggia, which is the town’s municipal centre.  The Torre dell’Orologio clock tower bears similarities to the one in St Mark’s Square in Venice.

More reading:

The genius of Roberto Baggio

Fabio Grosso - a career defined by one goal

How Antonio Conte led Juventus back to the top

Also on this day:

1946: The birth of actor Michele Placido

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Franco Baresi - AC Milan great

Defender voted club's 'player of the century'

Franco Baresi made 719 appearances for AC Milan

The great AC Milan and Italy footballer Franco Baresi was born on this day in 1960 in Travagliato, a town in Lombardy about 13km (8 miles) south-west of Brescia.

Baresi, a central defender who was at his most effective playing in the libero – sweeper – role, made 719 competitive appearances for the rossoneri, with whom he spent his entire playing career, spanning 20 years.

During that time he won the Italian championship – the Scudetto – six times and the European Cup three times, as well as many other trophies. He was made captain of the team at just 22 years old.

At Milan he was part of one of the most formidable defences of all time, alongside Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Costacurta, Mauro Tassotti, and later Christian Panucci, with Giovanni Galli in goal.  He and Maldini shared the extraordinary record that in 196 matches they played together, AC Milan conceded only 23 goals.

Baresi also won 81 caps for the Azzurri in an international career in which he went to three World Cups. 

Although he did not make an appearance, he was part of the Azzurri squad that won the competition in Spain in 1982, was an integral member of the team that finished third on home soil in Italia ’90 and captained the side in the United States in 1994. There he heroically battled back from a meniscus injury to lead the team in the final in Pasadena, where he suffered the cruel misfortune, in common with another Azzurri legend, Roberto Baggio, of missing a penalty in a shoot-out won by Brazil.

Franco Baresi with his brother Giuseppe (left), who played
for Milan's city rivals Internazionale

At his peak, Baresi earned the right to be considered the equal of some of the greatest defensive players in the history of football.  Although he was not a giant physically – he stood only 1.76m (5ft 9ins) and weighed just 70kg (11st 4lb) – he tackled ferociously and headed powerfully. The gifts that made him stand out, however, were his ability to read the game, to anticipate trouble and to launch attacks with his accurate passing. In that respect, he was spoken of in the same breath as the sweeper of the West German team of the 1960s and 70s, the redoubtable Franz Beckenbauer.

Baresi lost both his parents by the age of 16, which meant that he and his older brother, Giuseppe, had to grow up quickly. Both were determined to make their careers in football. Giuseppe was taken on by AC Milan’s rivals, Internazionale, at the age of 14. Franco tried to follow the same path but was rejected as too small.  Undaunted, he went for trials with the rossoneri and won a contract, claiming that he was “always a Milanista” as a fan and was therefore fulfilling his dream.

His potential was recognised almost immediately and Nils Liedholm, Milan’s legendary Swedish player and then coach, gave him his debut towards the end of the 1977-78 season, in the same team as Fabio Capello and Gianni Rivera.  His nickname in the Milan dressing room was Piscinin, a Milanese dialect word meaning ‘the little one’, yet he quickly established himself as one of the key members of the team, winning the Scudetto in his first full season.

Franco Baresi as he is today

Milan subsequently went through some tough times, which included relegation from Serie A in a match-fixing scandal, but Baresi stuck with them and became a vital component in some of the finest Milan teams of all time, notably the squad coached by Arrigo Sacchi to win the 1989 European Cup, beating Real Madrid 6-1 on aggregate in the semi-final before thumping Steaua Bucharest 4-0 on the final.  Apart from the aforementioned defensive combination of Baresi, Costacurta, Tassotti and Maldini, the team included the great midfielders Roberto Donadoni and Carlo Ancelotti and the brilliant Dutch trio of Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit.

In 1999, he was voted Milan's Player of the Century. He was named by Pelé one of the 125 Greatest Living Footballers at the FIFA centenary awards ceremony in 2004, and inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame in 2013.  After his final season at Milan in 1997, the club retired Baresi's number six shirt in his honour.

His coaching career included a short spell working in England as director of football at Fulham and he has worked for AC Milan in various capacities, as executive, youth team coach and in the club’s marketing department.. The father of a 16-year-old son, Eduardo, and the uncle of Inter women’s star Regina Baresi, his opinion nowadays is regularly sort by the Italian media as he remains a high-profile figure. 

The Piazza Libertà in Travagliato

Travel tip:

Baresi’s hometown, Travagliato, just outside Brescia, is sometimes called the Citadel of Horses on account of the equestrian festivals hosted there every April and May, which feature polo matches, harness racing and show jumping events among other things. The town also has a number of fine churches, including the church of Our Lady of Lourdes and the church of Santa Maria dei Campi.

Travel tip:

Brescia is a rich industrial city not on the main tourist track but has numerous things to see, including the old and new Duomos, one built in the 12^th century, one in the 19^th century, which are next door to one another.  It is also famous for its museums, one of which is dedicated to the Mille Miglia, the former car race from Brescia to Rome and back.

More reading:

Why Roberto Baggio is seen as Italy's greatest player

The record-breaking career of Paolo Maldini

How Arrigo Sacchi revolutionised football in Italy

Also on this day:

1898: Italy's first football championship takes place in one day


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Ilario Bandini - racing car maker

Farmer's son who created beautiful and successful cars

Ilario Bandini, the car maker, pictured in 1988

Ilario Bandini, a businessman and racing driver who went on to construct some of Italy’s most beautiful racing cars, was born on this day in 1911 in Villa Rovere in Emilia-Romagna.

His cars won races in Europe and America and his designs earned the respect of the great Italian performance car maker Enzo Ferrari.

Bandini was from a farming family but was fascinated with cars and motorcycles and began to work part-time as a mechanic while he was still at school, eventually becoming an apprentice in a workshop in nearby Forlì.

At the age of 25 he took the bold decision to move to Eritrea, then an Italian colony, in northern Africa, where he repaired trucks and in time set up a transport business, which was very successful.

The venture made him enough money to open a garage in Forlì. when he returned to Italy in 1939, running a repair workshop alongside a car rental and chauffeured limousine business.

Bandini at the wheel of his first car, the Bandini 1100

At around the same time, he began to compete in motorcycle races, soon graduating from two wheels to four. In 1940, he took part in the Mille Miglia, the 1,000-mile road race from Brescia, near Lake Garda, to Rome and back, driving a Fiat Balilla.

Bandini built his first car almost by accident.  In his possession during the Second World War was a Fiat 1100, which he cut apart and hid to avoid it being requisitioned by the German army.  He began to reassemble it after the war but made adaptations as he did so and equipped the chassis with an entirely different body, made in aluminium by the Turin coach builder Rocco Motto.

He felt entitled to call the car the Bandini 1100, which thus became the first car – “La Prima” – to carry the Bandini name. The small, two-seat car was notable for its elegant, curved lines.  Driving it himself, he finished second in the Predappio to Rocca delle Camminate, a road race held just outside Forlì.

The Bandini badge Ilario placed on the car featured a bantam rooster crowing, the symbol of the town of Forlì.

The 1100 Siluro, which brought Bandini his first race victory

More cars followed. His 1100 Siluro, so-called because of its torpedo-like bodywork, gave him his first win in the Giro dell’Umbria, encouraging him to produce purpose-built racing cars to compete in races such as the Mille Miglia in Italy and the SCCA series in America. They were soon a force to be reckoned in Europe and the United States.

The model that established his reputation was the Bandini 750 Sport Siluro, a tiny sports car that he produced between 1950 and 1956. The car used a modified inline four cylinder Crosley engine, produced by Powel Crosley Jnr, an industrialist from Cincinnati, Ohio, who owned the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.

The 750 Siluro was versatile enough to contest all kinds of events, from hill climbs to road races, airbase circuits and endurance events.

In America, the Siluro won the SCCA class championships in 1955 and 1957 and claimed many other victories in different categories on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Bandini badge, featuring the
crowing bantam, symbol of Forlì

Known to his friends as Lili and sometimes referred to as the “great Drake of Forlì”, Bandini never moved into mass production cars.  There were 17 different models but all of his vehicles were one-offs, in effect, which is why only 73 Bandinis were ever built.  His final car, the Berlinetta 1000 Turbo 16V, was finished shortly before his death in 1992 at the age of 80.

Extraordinarily, Ilario was still getting behind the wheel to compete himself even into his 70s. He drove his 1300 16Vi in the Predappio hill climb in 1985, at the age of 73.

Members of Bandini’s extended family have preserved the memory of his achievements in a museum established in his last workshop in Forlì., which has many documents relating to his career and 10 Bandini cars, considered to be representative of the development of the marque. There are thought to be 46 surviving Bandinis, owned mainly by Japanese and American enthusiasts.

Travel tip:

Villa Rovere was a hamlet at the time of Ilario Bandini’s birth. Situated some 13km (8 miles) west of Forlì, it is now part of the city’s metropolitan area, almost a satellite community.  Forlì itself is a wealthy city with thriving clothing and footwear industries and a number of notable buildings, including the Basilica of San Mercuriale in the central Piazza Saffi, the Pinacoteca Comunale art gallery and the Rocca di Rivaldino, once the fortress stronghold of the redoubtable Caterina Sforza.  Local restaurants are notable for Romagnolo cuisine.

Hotels in Forlì from Hotels.com

The Bandini Collection is housed in a museum in Rovere

Travel tip:

Ilario Bandini’s achievements were recognised in 2002 – 10 years after his death – when in a special ceremony in Forlì, a square just in front of the city’s railway station was renamed Piazzale Ilario Bandini in his honour.  The museum – the Collezione dell’Automobile Brandini – can be found in Via del Braldo in Rovere, although note that viewings are by appointment. 

More readiing:

Vittorio Jano - a great among motor racing engine designers

How little Battista Farina became giant of the automobile industry

Why Gianni Agnelli was more powerful than politicians

Also on this day:

1480: The birth of notorious beauty Lucrezia Borgia

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Roberto Baggio - football icon

Azzurri star regarded as Italy's greatest player

Roberto Baggio pictured after his world
record transfer to Juventus

The footballer Roberto Baggio, regarded by fans in Italy and around the world as one of the game's greatest players, was born on this day in 1967 in Caldogno, a small town situated about 10km (6 miles) north of Vicenza in the Veneto.

Baggio's career spanned 22 years, most of them spent at the highest level, with Fiorentina, Juventus, Bologna, both Milan clubs and, finally, Brescia, winning the Serie A title twice, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup.  He played in three World Cups - in 1990, 1994 and 1998 - and achieved the unique distinction among Italian players of scoring at all three.

He scored 318 goals all told, the first Italian for 50 years to top 300 in his career.  Yet he spent almost the whole of his active playing days battling against injury.  Over the course of his career, he had six knee operations, four on his right knee and two on the left, and often could play only with the help of painkillers.

His fans believe that without his injuries, Baggio would have been placed in the same bracket as Pele, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi as the best players in history.  Italy's most famous football journalist, the late Gianni Brera, said Baggio was the greatest Italian player he ever saw, better than both Giuseppe Meazza and Gianni Rivera.

Baggio prepares to take his fateful
penalty at the 1994 World Cup

Those supporters held him in such reverence they gave him the nickname il Divin' Codino - the Divine Ponytail - on account of the hairstyle he wore for most of his career, of his conversion to Buddhism, and because to them he was a football god.

Baggio's career was almost finished before it had really begun when he suffered his first serious knee injury at the age of 18, playing for his first club, Lanerossi Vicenza, in Serie B.

He barely played for the next two years and required extensive surgery.  The injury came two days before he was due to finalise his transfer to Serie A club Fiorentina and several doctors predicted he would not play again, thanks to the damage done to the anterior cruciate ligaments and the meniscus of his right knee.

Yet Fiorentina stuck by him, funded the cost of two operations and were ultimately rewarded with performances of the exquisite brilliance that defined his career and identified him as the complete player, a creative midfielder who could set up a goal for a teammate with the perfect pass, but also a dribbler with the guile and trickery of the greatest wingers and a finisher as deadly as the finest strikers.

In Italy he was categorised as a fantasista, the kind of player every coach dreams of if he has any romance in his veins, the kind of player capable, to use a description Italians would understand, of "inventing the game" with a moment of sublime and unpredictable skill.

When he moved to Juventus in 1990, the £8 million fee made him at the time the most expensive footballer in the world.

Baggio at the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy,
where he announced himself as a star

It is hardly any wonder that his supporters despair of the fact that he is remembered all too often for the moment in his career when it all went wrong, when he missed his penalty in the shoot-out at the end of the 1994 World Cup final in the United States, handing the trophy to Brazil.  It was one of only eight penalties Baggio failed to convert from a total of 79 in his career.

Yet the picture of Baggio, head bowed, suddenly lost and alone among the 95,000 people present at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, became the image of the tournament, symbolic of an heroic failure.  Baggio had dragged his nation to the final almost singlehandedly by scoring five of their six goals in the knock-out stages. He was, as usual, defying injury - playing in the final with painkilling injections and a heavily strapped thigh after suffering a hamstring tear - yet at the critical moment fate turned against him and his kick went over the bar.

For all the strength of his faith - and he credits Buddhism with helping him through his darkest moments - Baggio confessed that the penalty miss haunted him for many years afterwards, because he had not been able to deliver the dream for his teammates but also because it felt wrong that he would be remembered for something negative.  In fact, by its very longevity, his career had been a triumph against the odds, given the bleak prognosis he was given at only 18 years old.

His fans prefer to remember a seemingly endless list of brilliant goals and spend many hours debating which might be called the best, given that he scored so many of all types, from superbly placed free kicks and perfectly executed volleys to delicate lobs and wonderful mazy dribbles.

Robert Baggio during a recent television
documentary reflecting on his career

The most famous goals, inevitably, are those he scored for Italy, such as the one with which he announced himself on the world stage against Czechoslovakia in Rome in the 1990 World Cup finals in his home country, a run from the half-way line full of feints, dips and swerves, capped with a clinical finish.

Others prefer the two he scored against Bulgaria in a one-man show in the semi-final in 1994 at the Giants Stadium in New York.

His own favourites include a perfect lob from the edge of the penalty area towards the end of his career, playing for Brescia against Atalanta in Serie A.

Although born into a large Catholic family, Baggio became a Buddhist on New Year's Day 1988, his conversion a response to the despair and pain he endured during his long period of injury while with Fiorentina.  He prays and meditates daily and claims the religion, to which he was introduced by a friend, made him see life as a challenge to his inner strength.

In 1989, he married Andreina, the daughter of a neighbour in Caldogno he had known since he was 15. They have three children, a daughter, Valentina, and two sons, Mattia and Leonardo, the latter named after one of his heroes, Leonardo da Vinci.

He has a home in Argentina, where he is a supporter of the Boca Juniors club from the Italian neighbourhood of La Boca in Buenos Aires, and often visits Japan through his Buddhist links.

Since finishing his playing career he has spent some time coaching with the Italian Federation and a lot of time involved with charity work, raising money for research into motor neurone disease (also known as ALS) and on behalf of the United Nations, for whom he was active in raising money to fund hospitals, generate help for the victims of the Haiti earthquake, and to tackle bird flu.  His support for the Burmese pro-democracy movement and its imprisoned leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, contributed to Baggio being named 2010 Man of Peace by the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

The Basilica Palladiana in the centre of Vicenza

Travel tip:

Vicenza is always associated with Andrea Palladio, the city's most famous resident, and no visit should miss out the Teatro Olimpico, which he wanted to create as a Roman theatre inside a medieval building and which was completed, after his death, by Vincenzo Scamozzi, the designer responsible for stage sets giving the illusion of three dimensions.  The city is notable too, of course, for its rich collection of Palladian villas, as well as churches containing paintings by Giovanni Bellini and Paolo Veronese among others.  Away from art and architecture, Vicenza is a city with a wealth of fine restaurants and chic bars and comes to life from about 6pm, with bars serving the traditional aperitivi - vast, free buffets from which customers buying a drink can help themselves at the start of an evening on the town, or simply on the way home from work.

Hotels in Vicenza from Expedia

Travel tip:

Although Brescia, where Roberto Baggio ended his career, is a wealthy city thanks in the most part to its industrial past, there are sights worth seeing for travellers not put off by the somewhat scruffy streets and downmarket shops around the railway station.  The ruins of a Roman forum can be found at Tempio Capitolino, there are two cathedrals, one 150 years old, the other dating back to pre-Renaissance times, and the castle, which holds a museum of the Risorgimento, has its origins in pre-Roman times and has been fortified a number of times, most notably by the Venetians in the 16th century.

Hotels in Brescia from Hotels.com

More reading:

Arrigo Sacchi - coach who steered Italy to the 1994 World Cup final

How Azeglio Vicini's bid to win the World Cup for Italy on home soil ended in heartbreak

When Marco Tardelli's scream became the symbol of Italy's 1982 World Cup triumph

Also on this day:

1455: The death of early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico

1564: The genius Michelangelo dies in Rome

1983: The birth of tennis star Roberta Vinci


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