Zàini - chocolate manufacturer

First factory opened in Via Carlo de Cristoforis in Milan

The distinctive Zàini logo has become known
in 80 countries around the world

The Milan chocolate producer Zàini was founded on this day in 1913 when the company’s first factory opened in the Porta Garibaldi district of the city.

The plant, opened by Luigi Zàini, a young entrepreneur, in Via Carlo de Cristoforis, was advertised as a ‘Factory of Chocolate, Cocoa, Candies, Jams and Similar’.

Zàini, who had experience in the confectionery business as an importer of biscuits, jams and other sweet products from northern Europe, had noted the rapidly growing popularity of chocolate and thought the time was right to move on from his role as middleman and become a producer in his own right.

In Milan at the time there were around 15 chocolate factories, so competition was keen, but Luigi had a unique selling point in mind. His dream was to be able to satisfy any wish for something sweet, reportedly saying: “Everyone is different, so why aren’t we creating lots of different chocolates and sweets for each different person?”.

Luigi Zàini, in the centre of the front row, pictured
with all the employees at his first factory

Luigi flavoured his bars with rum, mandarin, vanilla and aniseed among other things and made them stand out by wrapping them in coverings inspired by the fashion for Stile Liberty design in architecture, furniture and decorative art.

And he put his entrepreneurial instincts to good use to make sure the public knew about Zàini’s rich dark chocolate bars. Years ahead of the football sticker craze launched by Giuseppe Panini in the 1960s, Luigi hit upon the idea of selling chocolate bars with free collectors’ cards featuring celebrity figures from the worlds of sport and entertainment, in particular footballers and silent movie stars.

In 1924, Luigi Zàini married Olga Torri, whose father owned a large grocery store in Milan. It was a second marriage for both following the loss of their first partners. The couple brought six children to the marriage from their previous relationships, including Luigi’s son Piero and daughter Rosetta, and had two of their own, Vittorio and Luisa.

Business continued to thrive and, in 1926, the company moved to a new factory in Via Carlo Imbonati in the Dergano district, about 2.5km (1.5 miles) from Via de Cristoforis. It remains the company’s headquarters today.

Sadly, Luigi Zàini died in 1938, struck down prematurely by serious illness. Olga, with whom Luigi shared an elegant house built within the courtyard of the factory premises, knew Luigi wanted the business to remain in the family after his death, and took the reins herself.

Olga Zàini, later to take over the business,
pictured with son Vittorio in around 1930

A woman of similar entrepreneurial spirit, she committed herself fully to the role. Olga was a strong believer that women had the same right to work as men and, under her leadership, Zàini became known for its high number of female employees.

World War Two presented new challenges. In order to protect the children, Olga relocated the family to Varese, a city some 50km (31 miles) away from Milan, midway between the great lakes of Como and Maggiore. She returned to Milan regularly to supervise production.

Situated in an industrial area of Milan close to major rail arteries into the city, the Zàini plant had the misfortune to be next to an anti-aircraft battery positioned to defend the area. Inevitably, heavy bombardments followed as Allied planes attacked the city and the factory suffered such enormous damage during a series of raids in 1943 that was effectively destroyed.

Yet Olga set about rebuilding it as soon as it was safe to do so, winning praise for putting much of the physical reconstruction work in the hands of the factory’s own employees to ensure they could continue to support their families.

Olga remained in charge of the business until the 1950s, when she took the bold step to rebrand Zàini’s traditional dark chocolate bar ‘Emilia’, after the family nanny who looked after her children while away in Varese, before handing over control to Vittorio and Piero.

The Zàini Milano chocolate shop in Via Carlo de
Cristoforis, near the site of the original factory

Under their guidance, Zàini added a gift range that included chocolates in decorative tins and cardboard packaging that enjoyed much popularity, as well as jars of boeri - a confection of dark praline and liqueur-soaked morello cherries, instantly recognisable for their distinctive red and gold individual wrappers.

Since the 1990s, Luigi Zàini spa has been run by a third generation of the family - Vittorio’s son and daughter, Luigi and Antonella.

Among their initiatives, with a nod to their grandmother’s commitment to helping women, is Le Nuove Donne del Cacao, a new line of chocolate bars introduced to support a female entrepreneurship project aimed at achieving equal opportunities for women cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast.

In 2013, to mark the 100th anniversary of the business, Luigi and Antonella opened the Zàini Milano cafe and chocolate shop, in Via de Cristoforis, the same street where their grandfather had opened his first factory.

The company today, now the sole large-scale chocolate manufacturer in Milan, has 200 employees and three production plants, located in Milan and the nearby town of Senago, with Zàini products on sale in 80 countries around the world.

The striking, colourful design of the Centro
Maciachini in the Dergano district

Travel tip:

Dergano, where the Luigi Zàini brand is still based, is much changed from the industrial zone it was when the factory was bombed in World War Two. Where factories once stood, complexes such as the Centro Maciachini, built on the site formerly occupied by Carlo Erba pharmaceutical company, abandoned in the 1990s, which comprises among other things a commercial sector, a food park and the Teatro Bruno Munari.  Dergano was once home to Armenia Films, built in 1917 and once seen as a rival to Rome’s Cinecittà. The entrance to the studios, where the great director Luchino Visconti shot his first film, still stands in Via Baldinucci. Once a rural village, the area again has the feel of a small community with a number of cafes and restaurants and independent shops. 

The ultra-modern Piazza Gae Aulenti is a feature
of Milan's fashionable Porta Garibaldi district

Travel tip:

Just a 15-minute walk from the Milan city centre, Porta Garibaldi is popular amongst tourists and locals alike for its restaurants, bars and nightlife. Corso Como, a wide pedestrianised thoroughfare leading directly to the neoclassical Porta Garibaldi arch, a Doric-style gateway built in the 19th century, has pavement cafes and fashion boutiques. The area is also famous for its avant-garde architecture and the impressive Piazza Gae Aulenti, a futuristic square designed by the Argentinian architect César Pelli, who also designed the square’s 231-metre (758ft) Unicredit Tower, which is Italy’s tallest building in the country. 

Also on this day:

1866: The birth of composer Francesco Cilea

1909: The birth of soprano Licia Albanese

1941: The birth of Italian president Sergio Mattarella 

1922: The birth of screenwriter and director Damiano Damiani 

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Andrew Viterbi – electrical engineer and businessman

The amazing life of 'the father of the mobile telephone'

Even at the age of 88, Viterbi remains actively
involved in the scientific community

Andrew Viterbi, who invented the Viterbi algorithm and co-founded the American multinational corporation Qualcomm, was born Andrea Giacomo Viterbi on this day in 1935 in Bergamo in the Lombardy region of Italy.

The Viterbi algorithm is still used widely in cellular phones and other communication devices for error correcting codes as well as for speech recognition, DNA analysis and other applications. Viterbi also helped to develop the Code Division Multiple Access standard for cell phone networks.

He is recognised in Italy as ‘il padre del telefonino’ - the father of the mobile telephone.

Viterbi’s father, Achille, was director of Bergamo Hospital’s ophthalmology department, and his mother, Maria Luria, came from a prominent family in Piedmont and had a teaching degree. But after Mussolini introduced his new racial laws in Italy before the start of World War II, the couple, who were both Jewish, were deprived of their position and could no longer make a living to support their family.

They had planned to sail to the United States on 1 September, 1939, but after receiving a tip-off alerting them to possible danger, they secretly escaped two weeks early and were able to land safely in New York, where a member of their extended family already lived.   They then moved to Boston, where Andrea’s name was anglicised as Andrew after he was naturalised as an American.

Andrew Viterbi pictured in 2005 with his late wife,
Erna, who assisted him in his philanthropic causes

As Andrew Viterbi, he attended the Boston Latin School and entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1952 to study electrical engineering. After qualifying, he worked at Raytheon and then the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena, where he worked on telemetry for unmanned space missions and helped to develop the ‘phase-locked loop.’ At the same time, he was studying for a PhD in digital communications at the University of Southern California and graduated from there in 1963.

He was awarded academic positions at the University of California and, in 1967, he proposed the Viterbi algorithm to decode convolutionally encoded data, a ground breaking mathematical formula for eliminating signal interference. This allowed for effective cellular communication, digital satellite broadcast receivers, and deep space telemetry.

With Irwin Jacobs, Viterbi was the co-founder of Linkabit Corporation in 1968, and Qualcomm Inc in 1985, which became one of the most important communications companies worldwide. He became president of the venture capital company, The Viterbi Group in 2003, which invests in emerging businesses that are pioneering innovative technologies in the area of wireless communications.

Viterbi has received many awards for his invention of the Viterbi algorithm and a computer centre and an engineering school have been named after him. His algorithm paved the way for the widespread use of cellular technology, which changed the way people communicate worldwide.

In 2003 he was awarded an honorary degree in computer science by La Sapienza University of Rome and in 2007 an honorary degree in electrical engineering by the University in his native city of Bergamo. He has written two internationally respected books about digital communications and coding.

Viterbi in 1958 married Erna Finci, a Jewish refugee who had arrived in the United States from Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia. Her family had been deported from an Italian occupied zone in Sarajevo to Parma in Italy, where they were interned. They were saved from being sent to an extermination camp by the residents of Gramignazzo di Sissa, the village when they were interned, and were looked after by a local family when the Germans advanced into Italy, who hid them in their vineyard. Other Italians helped them to walk across the Alps into Switzerland, where they stayed until after the war.

The couple had three children. Erna, who helped organise Viterbi’s multiple acts of philanthropy, died in 2015. Their charitable donations included $52 million to the University of Southern California, where the engineering school was renamed the Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering. 

Bergamo's Città Alta is protected by an
imposing wall built by the Venetians

Travel tip:

Bergamo in Lombardy is a beautiful city with an upper and lower town that are separated by impressive fortifications. The magical upper town - the Città Alta - has gems of mediaeval and Renaissance architecture surrounded by the impressive 16th century walls, which were built by the Venetians who ruled at the time. Outside the walls, the elegant Città Bassa, which grew up on the plain below, has some buildings that date back to the 15th century as well as imposing architecture added in the 19th and 20th centuries. While the Città Alta is the draw for many tourists, the lower town also has art galleries, churches and theatres and a wealth of good restaurants and smart shops to enjoy.

The Rocca dei Terzi with its
89ft central tower

Travel tip:

Gramignazzo, the village near Parma where Viterbi’s future wife, Erna, was saved with her family from being shipped to a Nazi extermination camp, is a frazione of the municipality of Sissa, in farming country on the south bank of the Po river in Emilia Romagna. Sissa has a restored castle, the Rocca dei Terzi, which dates back to the 11th century and is notable for a 27-metre (89ft) tower added in the 16th century. The village is host every November to a festival known as the Sapori del Maiale, celebrating products made from pork, including many varieties of sausage and salami as well as roast pork dishes such as porchetta, typically made of rolled loin or belly pork stuffed with herbs.

Also on this day:

1454: The death of explorer Amerigo Vespucci

1809: The birth of statesman and winemaker Bettino Ricasoli

1842: The premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco

1908: The founding of football club Internazionale

1948: The birth of politician Emma Bonino

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Giorgio Cini - heroic entrepreneur

Name lives on in cultural life of Venice

Giorgio Cini was born into
a wealthy family

Giorgio Cini, the man whose name was given to a major cultural institution on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice was born on this day in 1918 in Rome.

The eldest child of Vittorio Cini, who in the early 20th century was one of Italy’s wealthiest industrialists, and the celebrated silent movie actress Lyda Borelli, Giorgio took on an entrepreneurial role in his father’s businesses, which encompassed a broad range of interests, in the financial and insurance sector, steel and electrical, maritime and tourism.

Vittorio was born in Ferrara, owned a castle in Monselice near Padua, but adopted Venice as his home and devoted much of his energy to enhancing the wealth of the city. A key figure in the development of the port of Marghera, he was a close friend and business partner of Giuseppe Volpi, the businessman and politician who founded the Venice Film Festival.

Giorgio’s life was tragically cut short when he was killed in a plane crash in 1949 at the age of just 30, shortly after taking off from the small airport of Saint-Cassien near Cannes, where he had been with his fiancee, the American-born actress Merle Oberon. He had just been handed the controls by the pilot of the twin-engined aircraft when it came down.

Vittorio was plunged into grief at the sudden loss of his son, not least because he owed his life to Giorgio’s heroism during World War Two.

A politician as well as a businessman, Vittorio joined Mussolini’s Fascist party in the 1930s. He was appointed minister of communications in February 1943 but resigned after six months, one of several members of Mussolini’s cabinet who had implored the dictator to find a way to withdraw from a war that was having disastrous consequences for Italy.

Vittorio Cini was one of Italy's richest men
in the early part of the 20th century

After Mussolini was toppled and Italy signed an alliance with the Allies, Vittorio was identified as one of those who had turned against Mussolini, arrested by the Gestapo and taken to the Dachau concentration camp, near Munich.

With his father’s fate unknown, Giorgio took it upon himself to try to help him escape. Armed with a substantial sum of money from the sale of his mother’s jewellery, he managed to make his way successfully to Dachau, despite the dangers of undertaking such a journey. His father had been moved to a hospital wing, where Giorgio bribed the staff to release his father.

The two then travelled the 200km (124 miles) or so to the safety of neutral Switzerland, where they remained until it was safe to return to Italy. While in exile, Vittorio provided substantial financial support to the Italian Resistance movement in their operations against the Nazis and the Fascist stronghold in the north of Italy.

With Giorgio’s death, Vittorio decided to devote himself to philanthropy in the name of his son. 

The Cini family also gave Venice
the former Palazzo Foscari 

Granted a concession by the Italian state to develop the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, which apart from Andrea Palladio’s famous basilica of the same name was home to a convent destroyed by Napoleon and military facilities once used by the Austrian and Italian armies, in 1951 he announced the launch of the Giorgio Cini Foundation. 

He restored the convent and repurposed it as a centre for Venetian culture. It now houses a library containing around 15,000 historical volumes, as well as an archive of manuscripts and documents about history, music, theatre and art. It also serves as a venue for exhibitions, concerts and meetings.

As well as the Foundation, the Cini family have also given Venice the Palazzo Foscari on the Grand Canal, which was Vittorio’s Venice home until his death in 1977.

The palace - now the Palazzo Cini - was donated to the Foundation in 1984 by Vittorio’s daughter, Yana, to house her father’s personal collection of Tuscan paintings and decorative arts, and to offer a space for exhibitions in conjunction with the Venice Biennale. 

Both Vittorio and Giorgio are buried with other family members in the family tomb within the monumental cemetery of the Certosa di Ferrara.

The Castello Monselice was painstakingly
restored by Vittorio Cini in the 1930s

Travel tip:

The Castello Monselice, at the town of Monselice, about 25km (15 miles) south of Padua, expanded over several hundred years. The oldest part is the Casa Romantica, built in the 11th century, to which was added the Castelletto in the 12th century. During the 13th century, the Torre Ezzelino was erected and in the 15th century, after it had been acquired by the Marcello family of Venice, the Ca’ Marcello was built as a connecting building to link the defensive tower with the main building. An elegant library and a Venetian courtyard were added in subsequent centuries but the complex suffered during the First World War, when it was used by the Royal Italian Army and left in a poor state. Vittorio Cini inherited it from his family in 1935 and set about its restoration, a seven-year project in which he took care with the use of furnishings and decoration to be faithful to period detail. Still named the Castello Cini, but now owned by the Veneto region, it now offers visitors a number of guided tours each day.

The white marble facade of the church of San
Giorgio Maggiore is a familiar sight in Venice

Travel tip:

Andrea Palladio’s church of San Giorgio Maggiore is a 16th-century Benedictine church built between 1566 and 1610. Constructed in classical Renaissance style, the basilica’s brilliant white marble facade is visible directly across the Venetian lagoon from the Piazzetta di San Marco and its presence draws the eye from every part of the Riva degli Schiavoni. When Palladio arrived in Venice in 1560, the site was occupied by a Benedictine church and monastery that had been rebuilt following an earthquake in the 13th century. The architect, whose work in Venice also includes the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore on the Giudecca island, died in 1580 and so did not live to see San Giorgio Maggiore completed, although his successors in the project kept faithfully to his designs.

Also on this day:

1908: The birth of businessman Charles Forte

1940: The birth of mathematician Enrico Bombieri

1949: The birth of politician and businesswoman Letizia Moratti

1963: The death of popular soprano Amelita Galli-Curci

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Giuseppe Olmo - cycling champion and businessman

Olympic gold medallist set up prestige cycle brand

Giuseppe Olmo showed great
talent from an early age

The road cyclist Giuseppe Olmo, who won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and later launched his own cycle-manufacturing business, was born on this day in 1911 in Celle Ligure, a fishing village about 40km (25 miles) southwest of Genoa on the Italian Riviera.

Olmo missed out on an individual medal in Los Angeles, finishing fourth behind compatriot Attilio Pavesi in the road race, but won gold as part of the winning Italy trio in the team event, alongside Pavesi and Guglielmo Segato.

He turned professional after the Olympics and, though his career was truncated somewhat by the cessation of the sport during World War Two, enjoyed some success.

Racing for the Fréjus team, he won the Milan-Turin race at the age of just 21 in 1932. After moving to the colours of Bianchi, Olmo won the prestigious Milan-San Remo race three years later and in 1938, the Giro dell’Emilia in 1936 and the Giro di Campania in 1938.

Olmo was somewhat unlucky in the Giro d’Italia. He finished third behind Vasco Bergamaschi in 1935 after winning four stages and wearing the leader’s pink jersey for seven days, and runner-up the following year despite winning 10 stages - the same number Learco Guerra took as champion two years previously - as the overall classification went to Gino Bartali.

Olmo Biciclette was launched in 1939 and has supplied bikes for many professionals, as well producing them for the commercial market.

A youthful Olmo pictured with his mentor,
the Ligurian cyclist Giusppe Olivieri

Known often by his nickname Gepin, Olmo was the second of six brothers in his family. He first caught the eye in 1924 as a 13-year-old, when he impressed the Ligurian champion Giuseppe Olivieri, who asked Olmo’s father if he could become his coach.

Under Olivieri’s guidance, his talent came to the surface. He preceded his excellent performance at the 1932 Olympics by winning the Italian road championship in 1931 and finishing runner-up in the amateurs’ road race at the World championships in Copenhagen the same year.

As well as his race success, Olmo entered the record books in 1935 for  the longest distance covered in one hour on the track.

Riding an 8.5kg Bianchi bike at an almost deserted Vigorelli Velodrome on 31 October in Milan, having decided on his record attempt only 24 hours before it took place, Olmo became the first in history to break the 45km mark, recording a distance of 45.090km.

He held the record for less than a year, however. On 16 October in 1936, the Frenchman Maurice Richard, whose record Olmo took, reclaimed it, bettering his mark with 45.32km.

Olmo was planning for his life after retirement while he was still competing, opening the first Olmo Biciclette factory in partnership with his brothers, Franco, Giovanni and Michele, in Celle Ligure, in 1939.

The Olmo brand became
synonymous with quality

The company built its reputation on quality, value and cutting-edge technology, using the most advanced materials available to produce responsive bikes that proved to be both competitive and easy to handle.

Pierino Gavazzi, whose career wins included Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Brussels, the Vuelta a España winner Marino Lejarreta and three-times World champion Óscar Freire were among the professionals who enjoyed great success riding Olmo bikes.

Olmo, who was married with three daughters, died in Milan in 1992 but the company survived him, moving into the production of polyurethane flexible foams from a factory at Comun Nuovo, a municipality about 9km (six miles) south of Bergamo in Lombardy.

Bicycles carrying the Olmo brand, including the latest incarnation of the flagship Gepin model, are now produced and distributed by Montana Srl from their factory at Magliano Alpi in Piemonte, about 80km (50 miles) northwest of Celle Ligure.

Celle Ligure's sandy beach has helped make it a
popular destination for visitors to Liguria

Travel tip:

A lesser known gem of the Italian Riviera, Celle Ligure has grown around a picturesque former fishing village with a small sandy beach lined with pastel-coloured houses, behind which is a small, historic old town of narrow lanes. Founded in the 11th century near the Saint Beningo monastery, Celle Ligure came under the control of Genoa in the 13th century and enjoyed prosperity in the 17th and 18th centuries through trade with France, Spain and America. That ended, however, with the French occupation of Genoa in 1805. The arrival of a railway line in 1868 was the beginning of Celle Ligure’s evolution as a tourist destination, which underpins its economy today. As well as the attractions of the beach, Celle Ligure has a 17th century church, the Oratorio of San Michele, which features a polyptych by Perino del Vaga, a late Renaissance painter from Florence. As well as Giuseppe Olmo, the village is the birthplace of Francesco della Rovere, who as Pope Sixtus IV commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. 

Sanremo is known for its fine Stile Liberty
buildings, such as its striking 1905 Casino

Travel tip: 

The Milan-Sanremo cycle race, won twice by Giuseppe Olmo, is one of the  sport’s oldest and most prestigious single-day contests, one of the five so-called Monuments in the European cycling calendar, the toughest and most demanding of the one-day events. First contested in 1907 and covering a distance of 286km (177 miles), the race followed a course said to have begun at the Conca Fallata Inn, next to a navigation basin on the Naviglio Pavese canal in Milan and ended on Corso Cavallotti on the outskirts of Sanremo, the seaside town on the coast of Liguria famed for its temperate Mediterranean climate.  Sanremo - 110km (68 miles) further west along the Ligurian coast from Celle Ligure, expanded rapidly in the mid-18th century, when the phenomenon of tourism began to take hold. It is characterised by many fine examples of Stile Liberty, the Italian variant of the Art Nouveau design and architectural style.

Also on this day:

1533: The birth of Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara

1710: The death of Baroque composer Bernardo Pasquini

1902: The birth of Mafia boss Joe Adonis

1947: The birth of football coach Nevio Scala

1949: The birth of entrepreneur Rocco Commisso

1954: The birth of politician Paolo Gentiloni

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Angelo Rizzoli – publisher

Rags to riches story of an editorial entrepreneur

Angelo Rizzoli was raised in
an orphanage in Milan

Printer, publisher and film producer Angelo Rizzoli was born on this day in 1889 in Milan.

Rizzoli was orphaned when still very young and grew up in poverty, but by the time he was in his 20s he had become an entrepreneur.

Young Angelo was brought up in the orphanage of Martinitt in Milan, which had been founded in the 16th century in Via Manzoni for orphaned and abandoned Roman Catholic boys. It was there that he learnt the trade of a printer. 

Along with another trained print worker, and using his savings for the downpayment on a Linotype machine, he opened a typographical firm under the name of A. Rizzoli & C. in Via Cerva in Milan in 1911. The company was later to evolve into the publishing giant, RCS MediaGroup.

Rizzoli acquired Novella magazine, a bi-weekly aimed mainly at women and went on to add new publications, such as Annabella, Bertoldo, Candido, Omnibus, Oggi and L’Europeo.

In 1929, he started publishing books, producing La Storia del Risorgimento by Cesare Spellanzon. He later began producing both classic and popular novels.

The Rizzoli logo has become
famous in Italian publishing 

His business gradually grew. He bought the Lama di Reno paper mill, near the town of Marzabotto in Emilia-Romagna, which would become the supplier of paper for the entire publishing empire, and in 1960 the moved to a large complex in the northeast of Milan in Via Civitavecchia, since renamed Via Angelo Rizzoli. 

Rizzoli’s dream of producing a new national newspaper never materialised although four years after his death his company purchased Corriere della Sera, Italy’s biggest selling daily. 

His interest in the film industry led him to create the production and distribution house Cineriz - short for Cinema Rizzoli - in 1956. The company produced two of Federico Fellini’s most famous films, La dolce vita in 1960 and Otto e mezzo in 1963.

Angelo Rizzoli (right) with son Andrea (centre) and
nephew Angelo jr, who would take over the business

In recognition of his success as an entrepreneur, Rizzoli was given the title cavaliere del lavoro. In 1967, he was also given the title of Conte, by the ex-king of Italy, Umberto of Savoy, who was at the time living in exile in Lisbon in Portugal.

Rizzoli married Anna Marzorati, the daughter of one of his first clients, in 1912. The couple had three children, Andrea, Giuseppina, and Giuditta. Rizzoli died in 1970 at the age of 81 in Milan, leaving a fortune of more than 100 billion lire in his will.

The company passed into the hands of Andrea Rizzoli. His nephew, also called Angelo, joined the company’s board. Andrea enjoyed success in another sphere as the owner and president of AC Milan football club between 1954 and 1963, during which time the club won the Serie A title four times and the European Cup for the first time in its history.

RCS Media group (formerly Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera) has since changed hands a number of times but remains an international multimedia publishing group producing daily newspapers, magazines and books and operating in radio broadcasting, new media and digital and satellite TV.

The Casa Manzoni can be found where
Via Morone meets Piazza Belgioioso

Travel tip:

Rizzoli grew up in the orphanage of Martinitt in Via Manzoni in Milan, which was housed in the oratory of Saint Martin that had been originally given to the founder of the orphanage, Gerolamo Emiliani, by Francesco II Sforza. The street takes its name from the writer Alessandro Manzoni, the author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), one of the most famous novels in Italian literary history, who was born in a house on nearby Via Gerolamo Morone. Via Manzoni, which stretches from Piazza della Scala towards the Piazza Cavour, today is a busy shopping street, one section of which is part of the quadrilatero della moda - Milan’s famous fashion quarter, where most of the biggest names in haute couture have a presence.

Rizzoli's Albergo Reginella Isabella 
was Ischia's first luxury hotel

Travel tip:

Angelo Rizzoli has a street named after him on Ischia, the verdant island off Campania that he fell in love with on his first visit in 1950. He established a home for himself and his family there in Villa Arbusto, an 18th century house in the spa of Lacco Ameno. The house is now given over to a museum displaying Greco-Roman and other artefacts recovered on the island. Rizzoli was invited to take part in a project to renovate the Regina Isabella spa at Lacco Ameno and accepted enthusiastically. He also built the main hospital of Ischia, which is named Anna Rizzoli in honour of his wife, and the Albergo Reginella Isabella, the island’s first luxury hotel .

Also on this day:

1847: The birth of electrical engineer Galileo Ferraris

1929: The birth of swimmer-turned-actor Bud Spencer

1984: The death of Neapolitan playwright Eduardo De Filippo

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Mariuccia Mandelli – fashion designer

'Godmother of Italian fashion' was immortalized by Warhol

Mariuccia Mandelli's trademark bob and
red lipstick in Andy Warhol's painting 

Mariuccia Mandelli, the founder of the fashion house Krizia, was born on this day in 1925 in Bergamo in northern Italy.

Although Mandelli trained to be a primary school teacher on the advice of her mother and pursued a teaching career when she was in her twenties, she had a talent for sewing and had always been interested in fashion. It took just one lucky break to get her started.

When a friend offered her the use of a flat rent-free for six months, Mandelli went to live there, bought an old sewing machine and started making clothes. She then launched her label, Krizia - a name by which she was sometimes known - by selling the clothes from her small car, a Fiat 500. She used to drive to shops in Milan with suitcases full of samples and by 1954 had established a ready-to-wear fashion house.

Mandelli also went on to establish a popular line of men’s wear, one of the first female fashion designers to do this successfully.

In 1964, Mandelli unveiled her first black-and-white collection at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the designs for which earned her a Critica della Moda award.

The Krizia logo became famous
in the 1960s and '70s

Her fashion house, Krizia, grew rapidly during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1971, Mandelli launched a style of shorts cut very short, which were possibly the first version of hot pants to appear. Her knitwear became instantly recognizable, featuring animals such as elephants, lions, tigers, leopards and giraffes in the designs. During the 1990s, Krizia grew into a multi-million-dollar business and Mandelli’s hairstyle and trademark red lipstick were captured in a portrait by Andy Warhol.

Mandelli stepped down from her leadership of the company in 2014 when it was sold to a Chinese corporation, Shenzhen Marisfrolg, having run Krizia for 60 years.

After Mandelli died at her home in Milan in December 2015 at the age of 90, an obituary in the Guardian newspaper called her the Godmother of Italian fashion.

The Città Alta's elevated position offers
views over beautiful rolling countryside

Travel tip:

Mariucccia Mandelli was born in Bergamo’s Città Alta and although she lived in Milan after launching Krizia, she remained proud of her home town and often talked about it in interviews. Bergamo is just under 60km (37 miles) to the northeast of Milan, close to the Italian lakes and alpine skiing resorts and is regarded as Lombardy’s second most important city. Bergamo is an artistic and cultural treasure chest, but also has its own natural beauty, set among hills, mountains, lakes and rolling countryside. The Città Alta is visible in the skyline from both Bergamo airport and the city’s lower town, the Città Bassa. It is an impressive fortified city in its own right, which has retained many of its 12th century buildings and also has some stunning Renaissance and Baroque architecture.  

The Palazzo Pitti became the main Florence
residence of the wealthy Medici family

Travel tip:

Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, where Mariuccia Mandelli showed her famous black and white collection in 1964, was originally built for the banker Luca Pitti in 1457 to try to outshine the palaces owned by the Medici family. The Medici eventually bought Palazzo Pitti from Luca Pitti’s bankrupt heirs and made it their main residence in Florence in 1550. Today, visitors can look round the richly decorated rooms and see artistic treasures from the Medici collections. The beautiful Boboli Gardens behind the palace are 16th century formal Italian gardens filled with statues and fountains.

Also on this day:

1788: The death in Rome of Bonnie Prince Charlie, pretender to the British throne

1857: The birth of architect Ernesto Basile

1888: The death of Saint Don Bosco

1933: The birth of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano

1942: The birth of actress Daniela Bianchi 

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Carlo Caracciolo - newspaper publisher

Left-leaning aristocrat who co-founded L’Espresso and La Repubblica 

Carlo Caracciolo set up
La Repubblica in 1976

The newspaper publisher Carlo Caracciolo, who was the driving force behind the news magazine L’Espresso and the centre-left daily La Repubblica, was born on this day in 1925 in Florence.

Caracciolo aligned himself politically with the Left and spent the last two years of World War Two fighting against the Fascists as a member of a partisan unit he joined at the age of 18.

Yet he was born into Italian aristocracy, inheriting the titles Prince of Castagneto and Duke of Melito with the death of his father in 1965. After his younger sister, Marella, married the Fiat chairman, Gianni Agnelli, in 1953, he became one of the best connected individuals in Italian society. His funeral in 2008 was attended by members of five of Italy’s most powerful dynasties: Agnelli, Caracciolo, Borghese, Visconti and Pasolini.

Tall and handsome, effortlessly elegant in his dress sense and instinctively well-mannered, he could not disguise his refined roots but never flaunted them. He was at his most comfortable in the company of left-wing intellectuals and insisted he be known only as Carlo.

At the same time, however, he was a formidable businessman, pursuing his ideals of an independent free press but at the same time rebuilding his family’s fortune, which had suffered after the stock market crash of 1929 when his American mother, heir to a distilling company in Illinois, lost much of her inheritance. He was said to be the only man Gianni Agnelli, whose wealth and influence made him the most powerful person in Italy, genuinely regarded as an equal.

Caracciolo was fortunate to survive his experience of fighting with the partisans, which saw him arrested and sentenced to death. In an early indication of his talent for negotiating, however, he secured his escape from prison by striking a deal with his jailer, promising that when the Axis alliance fell to the Allies he would use his influence to return the favour.

Caracciolo (right) pictured with Eugenio Scalfari, 
who helped him make L'Espresso his first success

After the conflict ended, Caracciolo was sent to study law first in Rome and then at Harvard. It was there he met and became friends with Giorgio Agnelli, Gianni’s brother. Caraciollo remained in America for a while, working for a leading New York law firm.

He moved to Milan in 1951, where he worked at a trade publication for the packaging industry.  His business contacts soon included Adriano Olivetti, who inherited the Olivetti typewriter company from his father, Camillo, but had a progressive view of entrepreneurialism, believing that profits generated should be reinvested for the benefit of wider society.

Caracciolo likewise was a man of progressive ideas and wanted to challenge Italy’s tradition of clientelism, where so much depended on patronage, connections and favours, and which made it difficult for there to be a truly free press. He saw in Olivetti the perfect partner for his ambition to set up a genuinely independent news magazine. Together, they created the Nuove Edizioni Romane publishing company, enlisted two of Italy’s most respected journalists, Arrigo Benedetti and Eugenio Scalfari, and launched L’Espresso.

From the start, L'Espresso championed aggressive investigative journalism, seeking out the corruption and clientelism on which Caracciolo felt the Christian Democrats relied to maintain their grip on Italian politics. This had repercussions for Olivetti, who lost some major contracts as a result. Olivetti ultimately had to withdraw and handed Caracciolo his majority shareholding for a token amount.

Scalfari and Caracciolo (centre) at the launch
of La Repubblica in Rome in 1976

At that point, the magazine was losing money but, with the help of Scalfari in particular, Caracciolo transformed L’Espresso, redesigning it along the lines of Time magazine and altering Italian attitudes to the purpose and potential of a free press.

The magazine’s success gave them the platform to pursue their dream of publishing an independent daily. Seeking an investor, Caracciolo homed in on Giorgio Mondadori, who was looking for a new venture after a somewhat acrimonious split with the publishing house set up by his father, Arnoldo Mondadori, and saw their project as the right fit.

Thus, La Repubblica was launched on 14 January, 1976. Based in Rome, it was to be the first Italian daily to position itself on the centre-left, playing an important role in shifting Marxist activism in Italy towards contemporary social democracy.  Caracciolo was astute enough to see the value of arts coverage in building a strong circulation, particularly among younger readers.  He also correctly judged that adopting the Berliner format, the compact size that is slightly bigger than a tabloid but shorter and narrower than a broadsheet, would appeal to readers buying a newspaper to read on the go.

As a newspaper that was neither the voice piece of a political party nor owned by an industrial tycoon, La Repubblica was able to forge an independent path that also enabled it to recruit some of the best journalists in the country, giving them a chance to report the news without fear or favour.

Caracciolo's sister, Marella,
who married Gianni Agnelli

Caracciolo took his publishing activities to the Italian stock exchange in 1984 and four years later, with a circulation of 730,000 that made La Repubblica the most read newspaper in Italy, he sold his holdings in Editoriale L'Espresso to Mondadori. 

Much to his dismay, parts of the company subsequently ended up in the hands of Silvio Berlusconi, the entrepreneur whose politics were diametrically opposed to his own, but it was another Berlusconi opponent, Carlo De Benedetti, who took control of L’Espresso and La Repubblica.

With the money he made from the venture - his fortune was estimated at around $200 million (€172m; £145m) - Caracciolo acquired two country estates, one in Tuscany and the other - Torrecchia Vecchia - south of Rome, where he had a 17th-century barn converted into a villa by the architect Gae Aulenti and employed the English gardener and TV presenter Dan Pearson to design gardens that became his favourite part of the estate. He also owned an elegant apartment in the Trastevere district of central Rome. 

Caracciolo died in 2008, having survived his wife of 12 years, Violante Visconti di Modrone, a niece of the stage and film director Luchino Visconti, by eight years. He is survived by three children, Carlo, Margherita and Jacaranda.

The house on the Torrecchia Vecchia estate where
Caracciolo spent much of his time when not in Rome

Travel tip:

Torrecchia Vecchia, one of two estates owned by Caracciolo, covers over 1500 acres just outside the town of Cisterna di Latina, some 55km (34 miles) south of Rome. Recognised as a Natural Monument in 2007, it may be visited by permission. Containing over 625 acres of woodland, the estate originally contained a medieval hilltop village and ruined castle, which was abandoned some 800 years ago.  Cisterna di Latina is acknowledged to have grown on the site of the village of Tres Tabernae, which was mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as one of the towns where Saint Paul stopped on his way to Rome.

The Basilica of Santa Maria is
one of Rome's oldest churches

Travel tip:

Although formerly a working class neighbourhood alongside the Tiber, the Trastevere district, where Caracciolo kept an apartment for when he was working in Rome, is regarded as one of the city's most charming areas for tourists to visit. Full of winding, cobbled streets and well preserved medieval houses, it is fashionable with Rome's young professional class as a place to live, with an abundance of restaurants and bars and a lively student music scene. It is also home to one of the oldest churches in Rome in the Basilica of Santa Maria, with a wall structure and floor plan dating back to the fourth century, although most of it was built in the first half of the 12th century. Inside, the walls and ceiling are covered with breathtakingly beautiful 13th century mosaics, by Pietro Cavallini.

Also on this day:

1457: The forced abdication of Francesco Foscari after 34 years as Doge of Venice

1966: The birth of racing driver and Paralympian Alex Zanardi

The Feast of Saint John of Capistrano

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Luca Cordero di Montezemolo – aristocrat and businessman

Luca di Montezemolo led
Ferrari to F1 success

Former driver who led Ferrari to Formula One success

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, a former racing driver, chairman of Ferrari and Fiat and president of employers’ federation Confindustria, was born on this day in 1947 in Bologna.

He is one of the founders of NTV, an Italian company that is Europe’s first private, open access operator of 300km/h (186 mph) high-speed trains.

Montezemolo is a descendant of an aristocratic family from Piedmont, who served the Royal House of Savoy for generations. He is the youngest son of Massimo Cordero dei Marchesi di Montezemolo and Clotilde Neri, niece of the surgeon, Vincenzo Neri. His uncle was a commander in the Italian Navy in World War II and his grandfather and great grandfather were both Generals in the Italian Army.

After graduating with a degree in Law from Rome Sapienza University in 1971, Montezemolo studied for a master’s degree in international commercial law at Columbia University.

His sporting career began at the wheel of a Giannini Fiat 500. He then drove briefly for the Lancia rally team, before joining the auto manufacturing conglomerate Fiat. In 1973 he moved to Ferrari, where he became Enzo Ferrari’s assistant, and he became manager of the Scuderia - the racing division of the company - in 1974.

Montezemolo pictured in 1985 with Fiat chairman
Gianni Agnelli, who made him a trusted lieutenant 

While Montezemolo was involved with the team, Ferrari won the Formula One world championship with Nikki Lauda in 1975 and 1977. He became head of all Fiat racing activities in 1976 and became a senior manager of Fiat in 1977.

During the 1980s he held a number of positions in the Fiat empire, including managing director of the drinks company, Cinzano. He also managed Team Azzurra, the first Italian yacht club to enter the America’s Cup and in 1985 he became manager of the organising committee for the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli appointed Montezemolo president of the then struggling Ferrari company in 1991, after the death of Enzo Ferrari. Montezemolo was awarded the Lorenzo Bandini trophy for his achievements in Formula One motor racing in 1997 and, under his leadership, the Ferrari team won the world drivers’ championship in 2000.

Montezemolo became president of Confindustria in 2004 and on the death of Agnelli was elected chairman of Fiat. He stepped down from Fiat in 2010 and resigned as president and chairman of Ferrari in 2014.

He launched NTV - Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori - in 2006 along with three other businessmen with the aim of competing for business on the Italian high speed rail network following the liberalisation of the railway sector in the European Union.  Trading under the brand name Italo, today it operates more than 90 daily services across 11 routes, serving serving 54 cities.

He is also non-executive chairman of the board of the airline Alitalia and was committee president of the Rome bid for the Summer 2024 Olympics.

He has been awarded five honorary degrees in Mechanical Engineering by Italian universities. Married twice, Montezemolo has five children. He celebrates his 74th birthday today.

The Villa Ada is surrounded by one of the
biggest urban parks in Rome

Travel tip:

While working on the Rome bid for the 2024 summer Olympics, Montezemolo has had an office at the Foro Italico, the site for the 1960 Olympics, and an apartment in the exclusive Parioli district in the north of Rome. This became an upper class area early in the 20th century after the construction of Viale Parioli. Now considered to be Rome’s most elegant residential area, notable for its tree-lined streets and some of Rome's finest restaurants, it is also home to some foreign embassies.  The Villa Ada, once the Rome residence of the Italian royal family and surrounded by the second largest park in the city, can also be found within the Parioli district.

The elegant Piazza Galimberti is
the central square in Cuneo

Travel tip:

The Montezemolo family name comes from a small village in the province of Cuneo in the Piedmont region, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Turin. Cordero Montezemolo Barolo wine is made in the wine producing area of La Morra by a branch of the Montezemolo family. The city of Cuneo is characterised by its 19th-century Savoy layout and architecture, with eight kilometres of arcaded streets, at the heart of which in the elegant Piazza Galimberti.

Also on this day:

1542: The birth of noblewoman Isabella de’ Medici

1834: The birth of opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli

1900: The birth of Gino Lucetti, Mussolini’s would-be assassin

1907: The birth of Altiero Spinelli, political visionary

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Domenico Dolce - fashion designer

One half of hugely successful Dolce & Gabbana company

Domenico Dolce is co-founder
of the Dolce & Gabbana company

The designer Domenico Dolce, whose partnership with Stefano Gabbana gave rise to one of the world’s most famous fashion houses, was born on this day in 1958 in Polizzi Generosa, a beautiful town set in the hills of northern Sicily, about 90km (56 miles) southeast of Palermo.

He and Gabbana, who he met in Milan, founded Dolce & Gabbana in 1985. The company took off in 1993 after the pop star Madonna chose them to design the costumes for a concert tour.

The company today generates about €1.3 billion in revenues and employs 5,500 people worldwide.

Dolce was born into the world of clothes. His father was a tailor and his mother worked in retail, at different times selling fabrics and lingerie.  He is said to have learned to sew at the age of six and made costumes for dolls.

After studying at art college in Palermo, Dolce moved to Milan to attend the fashion design school Istituto Marangoni. He already had dreams of working for Giorgio Armani and grew impatient to begin working in the fashion industry, dropping out of his course before completing it and taking a job in the sewing workshop of designer Giorgio Correggiari.

Domenico Dolce (right) pictured with his 
partner Stefano Gabbana in 2010

It was at a Milan nightclub that he met Stefano Gabbana, a young man with similar ambitions. They became friends and Gabbana joined Dolce in working for Correggiari, but after three years decided to leave, first to work independently. In 1985 they began their collaboration, launching their own label, which debuted at Milano Collezioni's Nuovi Talenti show the same year, at which the pair’s designs were worn by friends because they could not afford catwalk models.

The following year, they released their first collection, displayed under the title Real Women, and in 1987 opened their first store in Milan, in Via Santa Cecilia in the city's fashion quarter. 

Dolce’s family moved to Milan to help him develop the business. It was at a factory owned by his father, Severio, at Legnano, about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Milan, that they began production of their lines. Dolce's younger brother, Alfonso, and sister, Dora, remain involved as company executives 

Madonna's Girlie Show World Tour
in 1993 put Dolce & Gabbana on the map

The company expanded geographically, opening its first showroom in Manhattan, New York, in 1990, and in its product range, introducing its first perfume in 1992, but it was when Madonna picked them to design more than 1,500 costumes for her Girlie Show World Tour in 1993 that the Dolce & Gabbana name began to register as a major brand.

Soon, major stars from the entertainment industry were wanting to wear their glamorous, boldly-patterned designs, including actresses Monica Bellucci, Angelina Jolie and Isabella Rossellini and pop star and actress Kylie Minogue, whose Showgirl Homecoming tour in 2006-07 featured costumes by Dolce & Gabbana.  

Although their fashion ranges, many inspired by their love of cinema, were aimed at the high end of the market, Dolce & Gabbana realised that there was much they could do to reach popular audiences as well, and added such things as ties, belts, handbags, sunglasses, watches and footwear to their range, at more affordable prices.

By 2010, the 25th anniversary of the company’s foundation, there were 113 Dolce & Gabbana stores and 21 factory outlets.

As well as being business partners, Domenico and Stefano lived together as a couple for around 20 years, sharing a home in Milan. Although their personal relationship ended, they still work together.  

It was once reported that when the two retired, they would sell the business. More recently they announced tentative plans to pass control of the company instead to members of their extended families, several of whom already work for them and own shares.

Polizzi Generosa enjoys a spectacular location
in the mountains of northeast Sicily

Travel tip:

Dolce’s hometown of Polizzi Generosa is built on a limestone ridge within the Madonie Natural Park in northwest Sicily. It is situated only about 25km (12 miles) inland from the coastal town of Cefalù, yet sits at more than 915m (3,000ft) above sea level.  The roots of Polizzi go back to the Byzantine area but its development came mainly under the Normans, who built the cathedral church of Saint Maria Maggiore in the 11th century. As well as its attractive churches and palaces, Polizzi Generosa offers beautiful views of the surrounding nature reserve.

The 16th century Basilica of San Magno is
situated on Legnano's main square

Travel tip:

Legnano - the hometown of another Italian fashion giant, Gianfranco Ferré - is famous for being the only town, apart from Rome, to which reference is made in the Italian national anthem, thanks to the historic Battle of Legnano, in which the Lombard League inflicted a heavy defeat on the forces of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in 1176.  Almost 700 years later, Garibaldi referred to the battle as an inspiration in the struggle for unification of Italy.  The 16th century Basilica of San Magno, where Ferré's funeral took place, is the town's most important building.

Also on this day:

1819: The birth of Republican activist Aurelio Saffi

1868: The birth of electrical engineer Camillo Olivetti

1912: The birth of microbiologist Salvador Luria

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