Giorgio Lamberti - swimming champion

The first Italian male swimmer to win a World championship gold

Giorgio Lamberti celebrates
his gold medal victory

Swimming world champion Giorgio Lamberti was born on this day in 1969 in Brescia in Lombardy.

Lamberti won 33 gold medals in the Italian swimming championships, six at the Mediterranean Games and three in the European championships, but the pinnacle of his career came in Perth in 1991, when he became the first Italian male to win a gold at the World championships.

In the 200m freestyle event, which was his speciality, he beat Germany’s Steffen Zesner by just under a second in a time of 1min 47.27 sec.

His success came almost two decades after Novella Calligaris had become the first Italian woman to win a World championship gold when she took the 800m freestyle title.

Lamberti was already a force in 200m freestyle, having two years earlier set a world record for the event of 1:46.69 in winning gold at the European championships in Bonn in 1989.

The record was to stand for 10 years, the longest stretch in the history of the 200m freestyle, until Australia’s Grant Hackett swam 1:46:67 in Brisbane.

Novella Calligaris was the first
Italian to win a world title

Lamberti took up swimming as a six-year-old boy after his parents were advised by a doctor concerned about his slight physique that he might benefit from a sport that would help build some muscle mass.

He showed natural ability in the pool and by his teenage years had developed much more strength. As a 16-year-old he joined the Leonessa Nuoto club in Brescia, where he was coached by Pietro Santi, who entered him for the European youth championships, where he won two medals.

After Santi left, Lamberti was taken under the wing of a new coach, Alberto Castagnetti, who would be his mentor for the rest of his career. At 17, in 1986, he won the first of his Italian championships, reaching the B final of the 200m freestyle of the World championships of the same year. 

In 1988 it became clear that Lamberti was becoming a force to be reckoned with, setting world record times in both the 200m and 400m short course freestyle events, and the following year enjoyed triple gold medal success at the European championships in Bonn.

In addition to his world record performance in the 200m free, he also won gold in the 100m free and the four by 200m freestyle relay.

Lamberti's eldest son, Michele,
is also a world champion

The disappointment in Lamberti’s career was that he failed to get on the podium at either of the Olympics in which he participated, in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, or in 1992 in Barcelona, where fifth place in the 4 x 200m freestyle final was his best result.

He retired from competition in 1993 at the age of just 24, having struggled with shoulder problems. In 1998, he married Tanya Vannini, a teammate in the Italy national swimming team. They have three children, all of whom have followed them into the pool.

The eldest, 23-year-old Michele, is already a world champion, having won the 50m short course backstroke title in Abu Dhabi in December, and younger brother Matteo, who is based in Livorno and like his father is a freestyler, is seeking to emulate him. Their sister, Noemi, is still at high school but is also a regular swimmer.

Lamberti insists that he and his wife have not pushed them to swim competitively, despite their own pedigree, introducing them to the water at an early age only to help them stay safe in the sea on holiday.

Now 52 and a former city councillor in Brescia, Lamberti champions swimming in a different way, as a vocal advocate for the sport as a way for Italians of all ages to improve their health and wellbeing.

Despite suffering a serious bout of Covid-19 in March 2021, which put him in hospital and required many months of rehabilitation, he regularly campaigned for public swimming pools to be allowed to open with safety measures in place during Italy’s lockdown, rather than be closed completely, worried that the inability to access sports facilities would reverse the healthy habits adopted by many Italians and have consequences for the nation’s physical health long after the pandemic had passed.

Inducted to the Hall of Fame of international swimming in 2004, the second Italian swimmer to be afforded that honour after Novella Calligaris, Lamberti is a figure held in high esteem throughout the swimming world in Italy. For example, even though he is from Lombardy, swimmers for Team Veneto in regional competition wear a cap badge said to depict Lamberti in celebratory pose at the end of his world title-winning race.

The elegant Piazza della Loggia in Brescia, where
the clock tower shows Venetian influence

Travel tip:

Brescia, where Giorgio Lamberti was born, tends not to attract many tourists compared with nearby Bergamo or Verona, yet is a city 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.  The Santa Giulia Museo della Città, a museum that covers more than 3,000 years of Brescia’s history, is housed within the Benedictine Nunnery of San Salvatore and Santa Giulia in Via Musei.

A canal in Livorno's historic Venetian quarter,
one of the attractions of the Tuscan city

Travel tip:

The port of Livorno, where Lamberti’s son, Matteo, trains, is the second largest city in Tuscany after Florence, with a population of almost 160,000. Although it is an important commercial port with much related industry, it has many attractions, including an elegant sea front – the Terrazza Mascagni - and the historic Venetian quarter, which has its own network of  canals, and a tradition of serving excellent seafood.  The Terrazza Mascagni is named after the composer Pietro Mascagni, famous for the opera Cavalleria rusticana, who was born in Livorno.

Also on this day:

1453: The birth of Simonetta Vespucci, the artist’s model thought to have been the inspiration for the Botticelli masterpiece, The Birth of Venus

1608: The birth of physiologist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli

1813: The birth of scientist Paolo Gorini

1978: The birth of record-breaking goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon

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Alessandro Bonvicino – Renaissance painter

Talented artist from Brescia acclaimed for sacred paintings and portraits

Alessandro Bonvicino was an
acclaimed painter in Brescia

Alessandro Bonvicino, who became famous for the altarpieces he painted for churches in northern Italy, died on this day in 1554 in Brescia in Lombardy.

Nicknamed Il Moretto da Brescia - the little moor from Brescia - Bonvicino is known to have painted alongside the Venetian artist Lorenzo Lotto in Bergamo. The portrait painter Giovanni Battista Moroni from Albino, in the province of Bergamo, was one of his pupils.

Bonvicino, sometimes known as Buonvicino, was born in Rovato, a town in the province of Brescia, in about 1498. It is not known how he acquired his nickname of Il Moretto.

He studied painting under Floriano Ferramola, but is also believed to have trained with Vincenzo Foppa, a painter who was active in Brescia in the early years of the 16th century. 

It is thought he may also have been an apprentice to Titian in Venice and it is known that he modelled his portrait painting on the Venetian style. Bonvicino is believed to have admired Raphael, although there is no evidence he ever travelled to Rome. He specialized in painting altarpieces in oils rather than in fresco.

Il Moretto's Madonna and Child with an Angel,
which is on display in Milan's Pinacoteca di Brera 

At the height of his career, Bonvicino was considered one of the most acclaimed painters working in Brescia. In 1521 he worked with Girolamo Romanino in the Duomo Vecchio of Brescia, executing a Last Supper, Elijah in the Desert and a Fall of Manna and he later worked with Lorenzo Lotto in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.

His paintings can be found in many other churches in Brescia, Bergamo, Milan and Verona and in the collections of the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Hermitage in St Petersburg, as well as galleries in Milan, Venice, Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, Oxford, Washington and Budapest.

Bonvicino’s 1526 Portrait of a Man, which now hangs in the National Gallery, is said to be the earliest Italian full-length portrait. The setting for his subject, who is leaning on a classical column, was later to be emulated by Moroni.

Noted for his piety, Bonvicino prayed and fasted before embarking on any sacred work of art, such as painting the Virgin Mother. He spent most of his life in Brescia and belonged to two of the religious confraternities there. He died, aged about 56, in Brescia.

The Piazza della Loggia is an elegant square
in the centre of the city of Brescia

Travel tip:

Brescia is a town of great artistic and architectural importance and is the second city in Lombardia, after Milan. It has Roman remains and well-preserved Renaissance buildings but is not as well-known to tourists as the other historic Italian cities. Brescia became a Roman colony before the birth of Christ and you can still see remains from the forum, theatre and a temple. The town was fought over by different rulers in the Middle Ages but came under the protection of Venice in the 15th century. There is a distinct Venetian influence in the architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, an elegant square in the centre of the town, which has a clock tower remarkably similar to the one in Saint Mark’s square in Venice. Next to the 17th century Duomo is an older cathedral, the unusually shaped Duomo Vecchio, also known as la Rotonda, where Bonvicino painted in the 16th century. The Santa Giulia Museo della Citta covers more than 3000 years of Brescia’s history, housed within the Benedictine Nunnery of San Salvatore and Santa Giulia in Via Musei. The nunnery was built over a Roman residential quarter, but some of the houses, with their original mosaics and frescoes, have now been excavated and can be seen while you are looking round the museum.

The Basilica with the Colleoni
Chapel in the foreground

Travel tip:

It is known that Bonvicino painted alongside Lorenzo Lotto in the beautiful Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Piazza Duomo in Bergamo’s Città Alta. The basilica, which dates back to the 12th century, is considered to be one of the finest buildings in Lombardy with a cupola that was richly decorated in the 16th century. At the back of the church is an elaborate white marble monument designed by Vincenzo Vela, marking the tomb of composer Gaetano Donizetti, who was born in Bergamo and returned to die in the city. Nearby there is a monument to his teacher Simon Mayr, who was maestro of the chapel in the basilica. There is an elaborately carved wooden confessional designed by Andrea Fantoni in 1704 and an altar rail with wood carvings following designs by Lorenzo Lotto.

Also on this day:

1821: The birth of musician Giovanni Bottesini

1858: The birth of opera composer Giacomo Puccini

1908: The birth of sculptor Giacomo Manzù

1963: The birth of footballer Giuseppe Bergomi

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Emanuele Severino - philosopher

Thinker famous for theories on eternity and being

Emanuele Severino was removed from the Catholic University
of Milan because of his belief in the 'eternity of  all beings'

The contemporary philosopher Emanuele Severino, who died in January of this year, was born on this day in 1929 in Brescia, in northern Italy.

Severino is regarded by many as one of Italy’s greatest thinkers of the modern era, yet came into conflict with the Catholic Church, so much that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the body that once stood in judgment of those it deemed as heretics, banished him from the Church in 1969 on the basis that his beliefs were not compatible with Christianity.

The basis for their action was his belief in “the eternity of all being”, which essentially denies the existence of God as a creator.

Severino believed that the ancient Greek theory of all things coming from nothing and returning to nothing after being granted temporary existence was flawed, and that the Greek sense of becoming was an error. He contended that the idea that an entity can move from ‘being’ to ‘non-being’ and vice-versa was absurd.

He argued that everything is eternal, not only all people and all things, but every moment of life, every feeling, every aspect of reality, and that nothing becomes or ceases to be. He challenged the notion of death as annihilation, explaining birth and death through his theory that “we are eternal and mortal because the eternal enters and exits from appearing. Death is the absence of the eternal”.

Severino argued that nothing could come of
nothing and therefore everything is eternal

According to Severino, the incorrect faith in becoming, and the subsequent fear of becoming, in particular the fear of death or other undesired outcomes, underpins every aspect of Western civilisation and its continual attempts to defy the will of nature.

As a young man, Severino had been initially consumed by mathematics but turned to the study of philosophy after his brother, Giuseppe, with whom he often discussed the ideas of contemporary philosophers, had been killed in action in the Second World War.  He had a talent for music, too, and composed a suite for wind instruments that was performed in public.

Severino studied at the University of Pavia and subsequently at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, where he became Professor of Moral Philosophy.  His philosophical position, which was described as neo-Parmenidism after the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides, who similarly had contended that existence is unchanging and timeless, and that appearances to the contrary were the result of false conceptions produced by deceitful sensory faculties.

As a result of the Catholic Church’s judgment, Severino had to leave his position in Milan. He moved from there to the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where he was director of the Department of Philosophy and Theory of Sciences until 1989.

Despite the Church’s view that his opinions were dangerous, Severino was awarded the Gold Medal of the Republic for Meritorious Culture by the President of the Italian Republic. He won many prizes and regularly expressed his opinions in a column in the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Severino died in January 2020 at the age of 89 in Brescia, where his body was cremated in a private ceremony before his death was announced.

Brescia's Duomo Vecchio, also known as la Rotonda, which
is thought to date back to the 11th century

Travel tip:

Brescia, where Severino was born and died, is a city in Lombardy, situated about 90km (56 miles) east of Milan between the lakes of Iseo and Garda. It is a city of artistic and architectural importance. A Roman colony before the birth of Christ, it still has the remains of a forum, theatre and a temple. Brescia 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 Piazza San Marco in Venice. Next to the 17th century Duomo is an older cathedral, the unusually shaped Duomo Vecchio, also known as la Rotonda.

Hotels in Brescia from Hotels.com

The Ca' Foscari and the Palazzo Giustinian, also part of the
university, on Venice's Grand Canal

Travel tip:

The Ca' Foscari University of Venice has been housed since its foundation in 1868 in the Venetian Gothic palace of Ca' Foscari, which stands on the Grand Canal, between the Rialto and San Marco, in the sestiere of Dorsoduro.  Originally the Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio - the Royal High School of Commerce - it became a university in its centenary year in 1968.  Nowadays, it has eight departments and almost 21,000 students and regarded as one of top five universities in Italy, of which there are around 90.

Search Expedia for a Venice hotel

Also on this day:

1815: Napoleon escapes from his exile on the island of Elba

1921: The birth of architect and designer Angelo Mangiarotti

1943: The birth of Oscar-winning set designer Dante Ferretti


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Paolo Vaccari - rugby player

Italy’s second all-time highest try scorer

Paolo Vaccari played 64 times for the Italian
national rugby team, scoring 22 tries

The rugby player Paolo Vaccari, who scored 22 tries for the Italian national team in a 64-cap career, was born on this day in 1971 in Calvisano, a town in Lombardy about 30km (19 miles) southeast of Brescia.

A versatile back equally adept at wing, centre or full-back, Vaccari was regarded as a strong defender and an intelligent and technically-sound back who frequently created scoring opportunities for players around him.

Although he was good enough to be selected for the renowned Barbarians invitational XV against Leicester Tigers in 1998, he played all his domestic rugby in Italy, enjoying great success.

He won the double of Italian Championship and Cup with Milan Rugby in 1994-95 and was a title-winner for the second time with his home club Calvisano 10 years later, during a run in which Calvisano reached the Championship final six years in a row, from 2001-06.

Vaccari had won his second Italian Cup medal with Calvisano in 2003-04.

In international rugby, his proudest moment was undoubtedly scoring Italy’s fourth try in their historic 40-32 victory over reigning Five Nations champions France in the final of the FIRA Cup in Grenoble in 1997.

Vaccari's father was one of the founders
of Calvisano's rugby club

It was the first time the azzurri had beaten France and was a significant result in their bid to be admitted to the top table of international rugby in the northern hemisphere, a campaign that bore fruit in 2000 when they were admitted to the expanded Six Nations Championships.

He had also participated in Italy’s first victory over a British team, in a warm-up match for the 1995 World Cup, when the azzurri defeated Ireland in Treviso.

Injury caused him to miss Italy’s first match in the Six Nations, against Scotland in Rome in 2000, but he was present to contribute to another historic victory against Wales - their first against the Dragons - in Rome in the 2003 tournament.  He retired from international rugby the same year. Only Marcello Cuttitta, another winger, has scored more tries for Italy.

As a native of Calvisano, Vaccari was destined to become a rugby player.  The agricultural town in the flat Po plain has become a stronghold of Italian rugby, their team winning the Italian Championship six times.

His father was Gianluigi Vaccari, who along with Alfredo Gavazzi and Tonino Montanari founded the Calvisano club in 1970.

Paolo began to play with the oval ball virtually as soon as he could walk, dreaming of wearing the yellow and black jersey of the Calvisano team.

Vaccari scored in Italy's historic victory over France in
the 1997 FIRA Cup in Grenoble

He became adept so quickly that his coach pitched him into a competitive junior match a year before he reached 13 years old - the minimum legal age - by picking him under the name of another player who was the correct age.  Vaccari’s first-team debut came in February 1987 - two weeks after his 16th birthday.

He made his international debut in the summer of 1991 as Italy toured Namibia and was selected for the first of his three Rugby World Cups the same year, scoring a try in a 30-9 victory over the United States and playing at historic Twickenham for the first time as Italy lost 36-6 to a strong England team, before taking part in a creditable azzurri performance against the formidable New Zealand All Blacks, who came out 31-21 winners.

In 1993, after six years in Calvisano’s first XV, Vaccari joined Amatori Milano - then owned by media magnate, AC Milan owner and future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and playing as Milan Rugby.

The attraction was to play alongside the likes of Italy’s Argentina-born fly half Diego Dominguez, the twins Massimo and Marcello Cuttitta, Franco Properzi and Massimo Giovanelli in a star-studded line-up. It was a testament to Vaccari’s standing in the game by that time that he was hired as a replacement for the great Australian David Campese.

Vaccari helped Calvisano win the Italian
Championship for the first time in 2005

Milan were beaten by L’Aquila in the Championship final in Vaccari’s first season but the following year, further strengthened by the arrival of another great Australian in Michael Lynagh, won the Championship-Cup double.

Vaccari subsequently received offers to play club rugby in South Africa but declined, partially because by then he was studying at the Politecnico di Milano and did not want to abandon his studies.

Instead, he returned in 1995 to his home club, Calvisano, where he would play for the remainder of his career.

As a member of the team that won Calvisano’s first Italian Championship in 2004-05 on their fourth consecutive appearance in the final, defeating Benetton Treviso, he remains a club legend.

Nowadays, a qualified architect, Vaccari is a member of the council of the Italian Rugby Federation.

Married to Azzurra and the father of two children - Martina and Leonardo - Vaccari is a vintage car enthusiast. In fact, he took part in the 2011 edition of the Mille Miglia, once a major endurance event in motor racing but now a festival of classic and vintage cars.

One of the gates that remain from Calvisano's
historic military fortifications

Travel tip:

Calvisano, a town of around 8,500 residents which has roots in Roman times, was something of a military stronghold in the 14th century, when it figured in the struggle between the warring Guelphs and the Ghibellines, who took shelter from their enemies in the town’s castle. In the first half of the 15th century, it became drawn into another fight between rival families as the Visconti and Serenissima battled for the control of the territory corresponding to the current province of Brescia.  Parts of the original fortification remain, including two gates, one to the north and the other to the south. The latter, adjoining Piazza Caduti, is surmounted by the Torre Civica.

Find a hotel in Calvisano with tripadvisor

Treviso is a city of canals, although on a
somewhat smaller scale than Venice

Travel tip:

Treviso, another major centre for rugby in Italy, is known to many visitors to Italy as the ‘second’ airport of Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast.


More reading:

Andrea lo Cicero - rugby star turned TV presenter

Flavio Briatore - the entrepreneur behind the Benetton brand

Brescia's finest sportsman? - the AC Milan and Italy great Franco Baresi

Also on this day:

1623: The death of Venetian historian and statesman Paolo Sarpi

1926: The death of classic Neapolitan songwriter Giambattista De Curtis

1935: The birth of football coach Gigi Radice


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Vanessa Ferrari - gymnast

First Italian woman to win a World Championship gold

Vanessa Ferrari is Italy's most
successful female gymnast

The gymnast Vanessa Ferrari, who in 2006 became the first Italian female competitor to win a gold medal at the World Championships of artistic gymnastics, was born on November 10, 1990, in the town of Orzinuovi in Lombardy.

Ferrari won the all-around gold - consisting of uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise - at the World Championships in Aarhus in Denmark when she was only 15 years old. It remains the only artistic gymnastics world title to be won by an Italian woman.

Earlier in 2006, Ferrari had picked up her first gold medal of the European Championships at Volos in Greece as Italy won the all-around team event.

Naturally small in stature, Ferrari was inspired to take up gymnastics by watching the sport on television as a child, when the sport was dominated by Russian and Romanian athletes.

With the help of her Bulgarian-born mother, Galya, who made many sacrifices to help her daughter fulfil her ambitions, Ferrari joined the Brixia gym in the city of Brescia, a 30km (19 miles) drive from the family home.

Brixia was co-founded by Enrico Casella, a former rugby player who was technical director of the Italian women’s gymnastics team at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Casella recognised Ferrari’s potential and took it upon himself to become her personal coach.

Vanessa Ferrari became a World champion
when she was only 15 years old

Ferrari’s first major success came at the 2004 European junior championships, when as a 13-year-old she won the silver medal. She dominated the Mediterranean Games and European Junior Olympic festival the following year. She was all-around champion at both events, as well as winning four more golds at the former.

After her success in the European and World senior events in 2006, she won two gold medals at the 2007 European championships in Amsterdam, finishing first in both the all-around event and the floor exercises.

She could finish only ninth in the all-round when the European championships were held on home ground in Milan in 2009 but collected another medal by finishing runner-up to Great Britain’s Beth Tweddle in the floor exercises.

In Brussels in 2012 she picked up her sixth medal overall with bronze in the team event before bouncing back to win her fourth gold on the floor in Sofia in 2014.

Although she is the most successful of all female Italian gymnasts, an Olympic medal has eluded Ferrari so far, although she has twice narrowly missed out.

At the London Games of 2012 she finished level on points with close rival Aliya Mustafina in the floor exercises only for the Russian to be given the bronze medal on the tie-break system, despite Ferrari finishing with a better mark for difficulty than her rival.

Vanessa Ferrari was injured at the
 2017 World Championships

And at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Ferrari again had to settle for fourth place. This time bronze medallist Amy Tinkler of Great Britain scored higher for difficulty and execution but missing out was again a disappointment for Ferrari because she was in the bronze medal position at the end of qualifying, although it later emerged that she was struggling with an Achilles tendon injury for which she had surgery later in 2016.

Rio was Ferrari’s third Olympics - the most at which any female Italian gymnast has competed - and although she once said she would retire after the 2012 Games she has ambitions to compete at a fourth in Tokyo in 2020 in the hope of clinching that elusive medal.

Since Rio, however, she has another Achilles tendon injury.  She has begun a coaching career alongside competing and hopes to be in Tokyo at least as a coach if not actually on the floor herself.

The Sforzesca Castle at Soncino, one of the neighbouring
towns of Ferrari's home town of Orzonuovi

Travel tip:

Orzinuovi is a town in Lombardy of just over 12,500 inhabitants about 30km (19 miles) southwest of Brescia and about 36km (22 miles) northeast of Cremona in an area of historical interest that includes the neighbouring town of Soncino, where there is well-preserved castle - the Rocca Sforzesca - built in 1473 for Galeazzo Maria Sforza and often used nowadays as a location for films and TV series, and the Casa degli Stampatori - Printers' House - where, in 1488, the first complete Jewish Bible in the world was printed.

Il Torrazzo in Cremona is the tallest bell
tower in the whole of Italy

Travel tip:

Cremona is famous for having the tallest bell tower in Italy, il Torrazzo, which measures more than 112m (367ft) in height. The city is famous for violins, being the home of Antonio Stradivari and the Amati family, and there is a fascinating museum, the Museo Stradivariano in Via Ugolani Dati, which is dedicated to the city’s violin-making tradition of the 16th and 17th centuries. As well as violins, Cremona is also famous for producing confectionery. Negozio Sperlari in Via Solferino specialises in the city’s famous torrone (nougat), a concoction of almonds, honey and egg whites created to mark the marriage of Bianca Maria Visconti to Francesco Sforza in 1441, when the city was given to the bride as part of her dowry.

More reading:

How Valentina Vezzali became Italy's most successful female athlete

World records and Moscow gold for high jumper Sara Simeoni

Horrific accident that drove Francesca Porcellato to Paralympic glory

Also on this day:

1816: Lord Byron arrives in Venice

1869: The birth of assassin Gaetano Bresci

1928: The birth of film music maestro Ennio Morricone


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Ottavio Bianchi - football coach

The northerner who steered Napoli to first scudetto

Ottavio Bianchi was Napoli's coach for
four seasons from 1985 to 1989

Ottavio Bianchi, the coach who guided Napoli to their first Serie A title in the Italian football championship, was born on this day in 1943 in the northern Italian city of Brescia.

Napoli, who had been runners-up four times in Italy's elite league, broke their duck by winning the scudetto in the 1986-87 season, when Bianchi built his side around the forward line consisting initially of the World Cup-winning Argentina star Diego Maradona, the Italy strikers Bruno Giordano and Andrea Carnevale.  After the arrival of the Brazilian forward Careca to partner Maradona and Giordano, the trio become collectively known as MaGiCa. 

Bianchi’s team began the 1986-87 season with a 13-match unbeaten run. It came to an end with an away defeat against Fiorentina but Napoli lost only two more matches all season, winning the title by three points from Juventus to spark wild celebrations in Naples.

It is a reflection of how defensively-minded Italian football coaches were at the time that Napoli won the title despite scoring only 41 goals in 30 matches, with Maradona (10) the only individual player to reach double figures.

Bianchi, a midfielder, spent five years
 with Napoli as a player

Bianchi’s team also won the Coppa Italia in 1987 and, after finishing second in Serie A in 1987-88, the UEFA Cup in 1989, which is the club’s only European trophy so far.

Napoli won the Serie A title for a second time in 1989-90 but by then Bianchi had left to become coach of AS Roma.

Bianchi was born in the Borgo Trento area of Brescia, a city in Lombardy about 90km (56 miles) east of Milan, about halfway between the lakes of Iseo and Garda.

He joined the Brescia youth system and worked his way through the ranks to make his debut in the senior side in the Serie A in 1965.

A midfielder, he went on to enjoy an 18-year career in which me made 330 league appearances for six clubs, a third of which were in the colours of Napoli during a five-season spell at the Stadio San Paolo, as well as winning two caps for the Italy national team.

In addition, Bianchi had stints with Atalanta, AC Milan and Cagliari and finished his playing career with Ferrara-based SPAL.

Bianchi began his coaching career at lower division clubs such as Siena, Mantova, Triestina and Atalanta, where he won the Serie C1 championship.

Ottavio Bianchi, front row, centre, with his 1986-87
Serie A title-winning Napoli squad

He moved south for the first time in 1983-84 when he accepted an offer from Avellino, with whom he finished in 11th place in the Serie A. From there he returned to the north and newly-promoted Como where again he managed to reach a mid-table position.

The chance to join Napoli came a year after the arrival of Maradona, who was then in his early 20s and reaching his physical peak. The young South American, who had cost £6.9 million (15.87 billion lire) - at the time a world record fee - from Barcelona, had made an immediate impact, scoring 14 goals in his debut season as Napoli finished eighth in the Serie A table.

Bianchi’s success made him a coach in demand.  After four seasons, he moved to Roma, where he again won the Coppa Italia, and reached the final of the UEFA Cup, where they were beaten by domestic rivals Inter-Milan.

The fabled MaGiCa forward line - Diego Maradona (right),
Bruno Giordano (left) and Careca (centre)

Then came a return to Napoli in 1992 to replace Claudio Ranieri. Again he was successful, managing to transform a relegation-threatened team into one challenging for a UEFA Cup place. He remained as technical director, with Marcello Lippi as coach, but the lost important players such as Gianfranco Zola, Careca and Giovanni Galli due to financial difficulties as the club’s fortunes began to wane.

The following season Bianchi returned to the bench as coach of Inter-Milan. But he was not able to generate the success the Milan club had hoped for and he lost his job there in 1995, ironically sacked after a defeat against Napoli.

Since then, apart from a brief spell as Fiorentina’s coach in 2002, Bianchi’s involvement with football has been limited. He lives in Bergamo, which he made his home during his time with Atalanta, the city’s team, and confines his football watching largely to matches on TV.

The Piazza della Loggia, with the Torre dell'Orologio, is
at the centre of the historic city of Brescia

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 unusually-shaped 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, a reflection of the town becoming a protectorate of Venice in the 15th century.

Napoli's Stadio San Paolo has a capacity of more than
60,000, making it Italy's third largest football ground

Travel tip:

The home of SSC Napoli is the Stadio San Paolo, built in the Fuorigrotta neighbourhood on the north side of the city and completed in 1959, more than 10 years after work began.  It is the third largest football ground in Italy with a capacity of 60,240, and hosted the 1990 World Cup semi-final between Italy and Argentina. The local council wanted to rename the ground Stadio Diego Maradona but Italian law prohibits the naming of a public building after any person who has not been dead at least 10 years.

More reading:

Gianfranco Zola, the Napoli favourite who became a great in England

Walter Mazzarri and the return of fallen giants Napoli

How Marcello Lippi won the World Cup in Germany

Also on this day:

1888: The birth of wartime nurse Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin

1935: The birth of champion wrestler Bruno Sammartino


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Silvio Scaroni - fighter pilot

World War I ace was air force commander in World War II

Silvio Scaroni in the cockpit of the Hanriot HD.1
aeroplane in which he was most successful

Silvio Scaroni, a fighter pilot whose tally of aerial victories in the First World War was bettered only by Francesco Baracca among Italian flying aces, was born on this day in 1893 in Brescia.

Flying mainly the French-designed Hanriot HD.1 single-seater biplane, Scaroni had 26 confirmed successes out of 30 claimed.  Baracca, who was shot down and killed only a few months before the war ended, was credited with 34 victories.

Recalled to service, Scaroni became commander of the Italian air forces in Sicily during the Second World War, in which role he clashed with Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, who claimed Scaroni did not provide enough support to Germany’s attempts to destroy strategically vital British bases on Malta.

Scaroni enlisted first with the Italian Army as a corporal in the 2nd Field Artillery. With the Italian entry to the First World War looking more likely - they took a neutral position at first - he transferred to the Italian Air Service in March, 1915, flying his first missions in September of that year as a reconnaissance pilot. Piloting French-built Caudron G.3 aircraft, he carried out 114 scouting missions in 20 months.

He was promoted to first lieutenant and assigned to another spotter squadron in January, 1917. Soon afterwards, he began combat training from the Malpensa airfield and was reassigned to a so-called ‘hunting’ squadron as a fighter pilot.

An Hanriot HD.1 similar to the one in which Scaroni
enjoyed so much success

On November 3, Scaroni filed his first claim for an aerial victory, but it went unconfirmed. His first victory came 11 days later, on November 14, flying a Nieuport 17, also a French plane, when he brought down an enemy aircraft near Colbertaldo.

It was his only scalp flying the Nieuport, which was soon to be phased out. Ironically, the Hanriot HD.1 was rejected for service with French squadrons in favour of the SPAD S.7 but proved highly successful with both the Belgian and the Italian air forces.

In fact, some 831 HD.1s were produced by Italian companies under licence.

His success with the Hanriot began almost immediately, with a victory on November 18, the second of his career.

He shot down another enemy aircraft the following day, collecting two more victories in early December, and by the 19th of the month had chalked up six wins in total.

Then came an incredible day that earned him the status of hero among his peers and with the wider public.

It came on December 26, when his squadron’s base was attacked, according to his own description of the drama in an Italian magazine many years later, as many as 23 German-Austrian bombers in two waves.

Scaroni was promoted to the rank
of General in World War Two

Scaroni, having spotted a “cloud of enemy bombers” in the distance at around 9am, fired up his Hanriot and had climbed to 4,000 feet even before his colleagues had taken off.  Despite being hopelessly outnumbered, his skill enabled him to weave in and out of the pack of bombers as they descended to begin dropping their bombs and was too quick for their gunners to line up an accurate strike on him.

He downed two of the enemy aircraft on his own among eight claimed by his squadron and the surviving bombers fled.  A second raid three hours later was also repelled without it even reaching the airfield, Scaroni claiming his third victory of the day. He thus ended his year with nine wins.

The last of his 26 aerial triumphs came on July 12, 1918, but he was wounded in the same engagement over Monte Tomatico in the Belluno Pre-Alps in Veneto.  The incident almost cost him his life after he lost consciousness and began to plunge towards the ground but fortunately was flying at sufficient altitude to recover his senses and make an emergency landing near Monte Grappa.

He was admitted to hospital and remained there for five months, taking no further part in the conflict.  He was awarded with the Gold Medal for Military Valor, adding to his previous two Silver medals and one Bronze medal.

Between the wars, Scaroni continued to serve his country in different capacities, including the position of aeronautical officer of the Italian embassy in London, moving to take a similar post in Washington.

Between 1935 and 1937 he commanded the Italian aeronautical military mission to establish flying schools in China.

During the Second World War he was promoted to General of the Army’s air division. Among his roles was commander of the Italian air forces of Sicily from December 1941 to January 1943.

After the conflict had ended, Scaroni retired to Cavalgese della Riviera, not far from Lake Garda. He died in Milan in 1977 at the age of 84.

The skyline of Belluno with the Duomo in the foreground
 and the Dolomites providing a spectacular backdrop

Travel tip:

Situated just over 100km (62 miles) north of Venice, Belluno sits in an elevated position above the Piave river with the majesty of the Dolomites just beyond it. It is a popular base from which to explore the mountains but is an attractive town in its own right, with many notable Renaissance–era buildings including the 16th century Cattedrale di San Martino on Piazza del Duomo and the nearby 15th century Palazzo dei Rettori, which is the former town hall. The Piazza dei Martiri, the scene of an execution of partisans during the Second World War, is now a popular meeting place. Local cuisines includes some unusual cheeses, including Schiz, a semi-soft cheese often served fried in butter.

Roman ruins are a feature of the city of Brescia

Travel tip:

The city of Brescia, Scaroni’s place of birth, tends not to attract as many tourists as other cities in the area, partly because Bergamo, Verona and the lakes are nearby.  Yet its history goes back to Roman times and you can see remains from the forum, theatre and a temple. There are more recent, Venetian influences in the architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, which has a clock tower similar to the one in Saint Mark’s square. There are two cathedrals – the Duomo Vecchio and its younger neighbour, the Duomo Nuovo.

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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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