Italo Balbo - Fascist commander

Blackshirt thug turned air commander was Mussolini’s ‘heir apparent’

Italo Balbo was the commander of
Italy's air force in the 1930s

Italo Balbo, who rose to such a position of seniority in the hierarchy of the Italian Fascists that he was considered the man most likely to succeed Benito Mussolini as leader, was born on this day in 1896 in Quartesana, a village on the outskirts of Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna.

After active service in the First World War, Balbo became the leading Fascist organizer in his home region of Ferrara, leading a gang of Blackshirt thugs who became notorious for their attacks on rival political groups and for carrying out vicious reprisals against striking rural workers on behalf of wealthy landlords.

Later, he was one of the leaders of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini and the Fascists to power in 1922.

As Maresciallo dell'Aria - Marshal of the Air Force - he rebuilt Italy’s aerial warfare capability. At the height of his influence, however, he was sent by Mussolini to be Governor of Italian Libya.

Many believed that Mussolini saw Balbo as a threat and when, early in the Second World War, Balbo was killed when the plane in which he was travelling was shot down - seemingly accidentally - by Italian anti-aircraft guns over Tobruk, there were immediately those among Balbo’s supporters who believed the incident was not an accident.

Balbo (second right), with Mussolini and other Blackshirt
leaders of the March on Rome in 1922

Balbo had been at odds with Mussolini over the dictator’s race laws, which he deeply opposed. He was also the only leading Fascist to speak out against the alliance with Nazi Germany, on the basis that Italy, he felt, would merely be Hitler’s lackeys in the partnership.  He advocated that Italy should side with the British.

Balbo was politically active from a young age. After Italy initially declared itself as neutral in the First World War, Balbo joined in several pro-war rallies. Once Italy entered the war in 1915, he served with the Italian Royal Army.

He enlisted in the Alpini mountain infantry and won two silver medals for military valour, rising to the rank of captain. Later, after obtaining a degree in Social Sciences in Florence, Balbo went back to Ferrara and joined the Fascist Party, quitting his job as a bank clerk to be branch secretary.

Party members increasingly formed gangs and would behave aggressively towards opponents.  Balbo proved himself as an adept gang commander. For several years, he led a unit called the Celibanisti, named after the squad’s ritual of ordering a specific cherry brandy in the afternoons at Caffè Mozzi in Piazza del Duomo.

An illustration from an American
newspaper showing Balbo's squadron 

The Celibanisti directed their violence towards Socialist, Communist, and Democratic party members. Balbo was implicated in the murder of a parish priest in Argenta, another town in the Ferrara province, and left the area to move to Rome.

Balbo held a number of senior positions in the Fascist hierarchy under Mussolini, including Commander in Chief of the Militia (1922), Secretary of State for National Economy (1925), Undersecretary of the Air Force (1926), General of the Air Fleet (1928) and Air Minister (1929).

As commander of the air forces, he organised many spectacular displays of air power, often involving formation flying.  His prestige soared after a visit to America in 1933 when, having made it his business to learn to fly, he commanded a squadron of sea planes that flew to Chicago to take part in the Century of Progress Fair.  He was welcomed as a hero and President Roosevelt awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Just as his popularity was growing at home, however, Balbo was ordered to Libya as Governor-General of the Italian colony.

The appointment was an effective exile from politics in Rome, however. Mussolini was wary of Balbo’s close relationship with the suspected anti-Fascist Prince Umberto, the king’s son. Mussolini became so paranoid that he ordered that Italian newspapers could not mention Balbo's name more than once a month.

The site of the crash, including a makeshift grave, in which
Balbo died when his place was shot down over Libya

He was an effective leader in Libya. He bolstered the economy by improving railways and roads, including the Litoranea Libica coastal highway which stretched across the Libyan coast.  He was a major supporter of colonising Libya with Italian peasants.  By 1940, approximately 110,000 Italians were living in Libya. Ultimately, 12 per cent of the Libyan population was of Italian origin.

Balbo died on June 28, 1940. He was a passenger on a plane that attempted to land at Tobruk airfield shortly after an attack by British aircraft. Italian anti-aircraft batteries defending the airfield misidentified his aircraft as a British fighter and opened fire. 

His remains were buried outside Tripoli and later moved to the cemetery at Orbetello in Tuscany, close to the airfield from which he flew his sea plane squadron to the United States in 1933, by Balbo's family.  He is buried with many other airmen associated with the base.

The Este Castle at Ferrara in winter snow

Travel tip:

Apart from the impressively well preserved Castello Estense right at the heart of the city, Ferrara - situated midway between Bologna and Venice in Emilia-Romagna - has many notable architectural gems, including many palaces from the 14th and 15th centuries.  Among them is the striking Palazzo dei Diamanti, so-called because the stone blocks of its facade are cut into the shape of diamonds. The palace holds the National Picture Gallery, which houses many works from the  masters of the 16th-century School of Ferrara, including Lorenzo Costa, Dosso Dossi, Girolamo da Carpi and Benvenuto Tisi. Ferrara was ruled by the Este family between 1240 and 1598 and it was they who built the magnificent castle, work on which began in 1385.

The entrance to what remains of the
seaplane base at Orbetello

Travel tip:

The remains of the Orbetello seaplane base, the military structure built at the beginning of the century and best known for its links to the squadrons commanded by Italo Balbo, are still visible in the town of Orbetello, which occupies a narrow peninsula surrounded by a natural lagoon on the coast of Tuscany, about 44km (27 miles) south of Grosseto.  The field was used by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War and the town was therefore hit by frequent air attacks. By the end of the war it was being used as an American base.  Nowadays, it is in a state of semi-abandonment. The western area that was in charge of housing the officers' families is now called Parco delle Crociere and is used as a playground. Some structures are still standing, including the entrance, which bears the name of Agostino Brunetta, a seaplane pilot.

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Filippo De Pisis - painter and poet

Artist known for extravagant lifestyle

A 1923 painting by Filippo De Pisis
entitled Still Life with a Bottle

The painter and poet Filippo De Pisis, whose works grace the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome among other galleries, was born Luigi Filippo Tibertelli De Pisis in Ferrara on this day in 1896.

A close associate for a while of Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà, De Pisis is best known for his cityscapes, metaphysically-inspired maritime scenes, and still life pictures, especially depicting flowers.  De Pisis, who was homosexual, also made many homoerotic sketches of the male nude. Later in life, he lived in Venice and became somewhat eccentric, travelling everywhere in his personal gondola.

Born into a noble family, as a boy he was known as Gigi. He was educated at home and was strongly influenced by his sister, Ernesta Tibertelli, who was a distinguished illustrator with libertarian views, and who probably introduced De Pisis to mystical writings.

De Pisis spent his childhood reading, drawing, collecting butterflies and wildflowers and writing poetry. He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Bologna, and published a volume of poems, Canti della Croara, in 1916. That same year, he met Carrà, De Chirico and his brother Alberto Savinio and and was attracted to metaphysical painting.

De Pisis spent 14 of his most productive years as
a painter living in Paris

In 1919, he moved to Rome, living in Via di Monserrato, near the Palazzo Farnese. He met more artists, including Armando Spadini, and began to paint in earnest. He still wrote, publishing a collection of essays, La città dalle 100 meraviglie - The City of 100 Wonders - in 1920.

He had been criticised for the overly-sentimentality of some of his poetry, yet his emotional nature worked in his favour in his painting, which received early acclaim.

Seeking new adventures and subjects, in 1925 he moved to Paris, which would be his base for the next 14 years, with only brief interruptions. He met and became friends with Édouard Manet, Camille Corot, Henri Matisse and members of the avant-garde fauve movement.

After holding a personal exhibition, presented by Carrà, in the Lidel room in Milan, he returned to Paris and began an intense relationship with the painter Onofrio Martinelli, who he had met in Rome. They shared a house-studio in the Rue Bonaparte in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter.

He became part of a group of artists known as the Italians in Paris, which included De Chirico, Savinio, Massimo Campigli, Mario Tozzi, Renato Paresce and Severo Pozzati.  During his Parisian period he also visited London several times, forming friendships with the British painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

De Pisis was probably best known for his cityscapes. This
one, painted in Venice in 1942, is Rio della Torricella 

De Pisis returned to Italy in 1939, anticipating the outbreak of the Second World War.  He settled in Vicenza for a few weeks before moving to Milan, taking up residence at the Hotel Vittoria in Via Durini.  He might have remained in Milan, but in 1943 his studio in Via Rugabella was destroyed in a bombing raid.

He moved again to Venice, where he was inspired by the paintings of Francesco Guardi and other Venetian masters of the 18th century, and began to live a rather extravagant lifestyle, travelling to and from his house on the Rio de San Sebastian canal in the Dorsoduro district by gondola. He maintained two gondoliers on 24-hour duty, who wore black-and-gold livery.

His health began to decline after the war and in 1948 he was treated in a clinic for neurological disorders in Bologna. From 1949 until his death in 1956 he lived mainly in a nursing home for sufferers from nervous diseases in Brugherio, a town north of Milan.  As well as the collections in New York, Venice and Rome, there are a large number of his paintings at the Museo Filippo De Pisis in his home city of Ferrara.

After moving to Venice permanently in 1943, De Pisis lived
in a house on Rio de San Sebastian in Dorsoduro

Travel tip:

Dorsoduro, where De Pisis lived after leaving Milan in 1943, is one of the six sestieri - municipal areas - of Venice, and sits between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal.  It is regarded as a good place to get a feel for the more traditional Venice, without the huge crowds and tourist trappings associated with the areas around St Mark's and the Rialto.  There are many traditional bacari, the small bars that sell inexpensive small snacks - cicchetti - along with glasses of wine - known locally as ombre, as well as squares where local people meet during the day and students gather at night.  It is also home to some fine churches, such as San Sebastiano, close to Casa De Pisis, which is full of works by Veronese. Nearby are two of the city's most prestigious galleries, the Accademia and the Peggy Guggenheim.

The Villa Fiorita in Brugherio used to house the nursing
home where De Pisis was cared for in his later years

Travel tip:

The nursing home in which De Pisis spent the last few years of his life was housed in the Villa Fiorita, an historic aristocratic urban mansion in Brugherio that was built in 1721 for the Scotti family. After being bought and sold a number of times, it was given over for use as a nursing home in 1938. De Pisis spent much of his time in the mansion’s vast greenhouse, which is situated in its large landscape gardens, which he chose because of its optimal exposure to sunlight and relaxing parkland setting. The mansion now houses Brugherio’s municipal offices. The greenhouse has been renamed Serra De Pisis.



More reading:

Giorgio de Chirico, founder of the scuola metafisica movement

How Carlo Carrà captured violence and speed on canvas

Vittorio Miele, the artist of the metaphysical school who lost his family in World War II battle

Also on this day:

1715: The birth of opera composer Ignazio Fiorillo

1817: The birth of ballet star Fanny Cerrito

1932: The birth of fashion icon Valentino





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Alfonso II d’Este – Duke of Ferrara

Tasso’s patron raised Ferrara to the height of its glory

Alfonso II d'Este, a portrait by
Girolamo da Carpi

Alfonso II d’Este, who was to be the last Duke of Ferrara, was born on this day in 1533 in Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna.

Famous as the protector of the poet Torquato Tasso, Alfonso II also took a keen interest in music.  He was also the sponsor of the philosopher Cesare Cremonini, who was a friend of both Tasso and the scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei.

Although he was married three times, he failed to provide an heir for the Duchy.

Alfonso was the eldest son of Ercole II d’Este and Renée de France, the daughter of Louis XII of France.

As a young man, Alfonso fought in the service of Henry II of France against the Habsburgs but soon after he became Duke in 1559 he was forced by Pope Pius IV to send his mother back to France because she was a Calvinist.

In 1583 he joined forces with the Emperor Rudolf II in his war against the Turks in Hungary.

Alfonso II was proficient in Latin and French as well as Italian and like his ancestors before him encouraged writers and artists. He welcomed the poet Tasso to his court in Ferrara and he wrote some of his most important poetry while living there, including his epic poem, Gerusalemme Liberata.

As a young man, Alfonso fought in the
service of Henry II of France

He was also the patron of poet and dramatist Giovanni Battista Guarini and professor of natural philosophy, Cesare Cremonini.

The composer Luzzasco Luzzaschi served as his court organist and Alfonso II sponsored the concerto delle donne, a group of professional female singers who became renowned for their technical and artistic virtuosity. Their success revolutionised the role of women in professional music, inspiring other, similar groups to be set up in the powerful courts in Italy.

Alfonso II raised the glory of Ferrara to its highest point during his reign and had the Castello Estense restored after it suffered earthquake damage in 1570.

After his death in 1597, Alfonso II’s cousin, Cesare d’Este, was recognised as his heir by Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor. However, Pope Clement VIII refused to recognise Cesare d’Este on the grounds of ‘doubtful legitimacy’ and incorporated Ferrara into the Papal States in 1598. Cesare d’Este and his family were obliged to leave the city and the government of Ferrara was turned over to the Cardinal Legate.

Alfonso II is believed to be the Duke of Ferrara that the poem, My Last Duchess, was based on, written by the English poet, Robert Browning, and published in 1842.

Work on the Castello Estense
began in 1385

Travel tip:

Ferrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, about 50 kilometres to the north east of Bologna. It was ruled by the Este family between 1240 and 1598. Building work on the magnificent Este Castle in the centre of the city began in 1385 and it was added to and improved by successive rulers of Ferrara until the Este line ended with the death of Alfonso II d’Este.

Hotels in Ferrara by Booking.com

The Monastero del
Corpus Domini

Travel tip:

Alfonso II was buried in the Monastero del Corpus Domini in Via Pergolato in the centre of Ferrara, which was founded first as a house for penitent women and then became a Franciscan convent for Poor Clares in 1431. It is the burial place of many other members of the Este family, including Lucrezia Borgia, who was the wife of Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.

More reading:

Why Cesare Cremonini refused to look through Galileo's telescope

How Torquato Tasso came to be seen as Italy's greatest Remaissance poet

Galileo Galilei: The founder of modern science

Also on this day:

1710: The death of composer Bernardo Pasquini

1902: The birth of Mafia boss Joe Adonis

1911: The birth of cycling champion and businessman Giuseppe Olmo

1947: The birth of football coach Nevio Scala

1949: The birth of entrepreneur Rocco Commisso

1954: The birth of former Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni

1971: The birth of art and design promoter Beatrice Trussardi

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Girolamo Frescobaldi – composer

Organist was a ‘father of Italian music’

Girolamo Frescobaldi was a strong influence on
a number of composers, including Bach

Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi, one of the first great masters of organ composition, was born on this day in 1583 in Ferrara.

Frescobaldi is famous for his instrumental works, many of which are compositions for the keyboard, but his canzone are of historical importance for the part they played in the development of pieces for small instrumental ensembles and he was to have a strong influence on the German Baroque school.

Frescobaldi began his career as organist at the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome in 1607. He travelled to the Netherlands the same year and published his first work, a book of madrigals, in Antwerp.

In 1608 he became the organist at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and, except for a few years when he was court organist in Florence, he worked at St Peter’s until his death.

He married Orsola Travaglini in 1613 and they had five children.

Frescobaldi published 12 fantasie that are notable for their contrapuntal mastery.

The title page of Frescobaldi's important and
influential work, Fiori Musicali

In a collection of music published in 1626 he provides valuable information about performing his work. He writes in the preface: ‘Should the player find it tedious to play a piece right through he may choose such sections as he pleases provided only that he ends in the main key.’

A lot of his keyboard music was intended for the harpsichord as well as the organ. In another collection of his music published in 1627 he gives valuable information about the interpretation of Baroque instrumental music. He advises: ‘Play the opening of a toccata slowly and arpeggiando…if one hand has a trill while the other plays a passage, do not play note against note, but play the trill rapidly and the other expressively.’ Such directions indicate the extent to which keyboard style had developed between the Renaissance and the early Baroque period.

One of Frescobaldi’s most influential collections of compositions, Fiori Musicali, was published in 1635.

His work is known to have influenced Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, Johann Pachelbel and many other composers. Bach is known to have owned a manuscript copy of Frescobaldi’s Fiori Musicali.

Frescobaldi died in Rome in 1643, aged 59. He was buried in the Church of Santi Apostoli but his tomb disappeared during work carried out on the church in the late 18th century. However, a grave bearing his name and honouring him as one of the fathers of Italian music exists in the church today.

A plaque marks Frescobaldi's
birthplace in Ferrara 

Travel tip:

There is a commemorative plaque on the front of the birthplace of Girolamo Frescobaldi in Ferrara, a city in Emilia-Romagna, about 50km (31 miles) northeast of Bologna. Ferrara was ruled by the Este family between 1240 and 1598. Building work on the magnificent Este Castle in the centre of the city began in 1385 and it was added to and improved by successive rulers of Ferrara until the end of the Este line.

Hotels in Ferrara by Hotels.com

The Church of Santi Apostoli in Rome, where Girolamo
Frescobaldi was buried following his death in 1643

Travel tip:

Girolamo Frescobaldi was buried in the Church of Santi Apostoli - the Church of the 12 Holy Apostles - a minor basilica in Piazza Santi Apostoli near Palazzo Quirinale in Rome. The Church was dedicated to St James and St Philip, whose remains are kept there and later to all the Apostles. Among the many Cardinal Priests who have served there are Pope Clement XIV, whose tomb by Canova is in the church, and Henry Benedict Stuart, the final Jacobite heir to claim the thrones of England, Scotland, France and Ireland publicly.

Rome hotels by Expedia

More reading:

A Baroque composer who numbered Antonio Vivaldi among his students

Alessandro Scarlatti and the Neapolitan School

How Giovanni Legrenzi influenced the development of late Baroque music 

Also on this day:

1595: The birth of musician and opera composer Francesco Manelli

1808: The death of poet and literary critic Saverio Bettinelli

1973: The birth of World Cup winner Fabio Cannavaro

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Lino Capolicchio - actor

Acclaimed for role in Vittorio de Sica classic

Lino Capolicchio's acting talents shone on the
 stage, television and the big screen

The actor and director Lino Capolicchio, who starred in Vittorio de Sica’s Oscar-winning film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, was born on this day in 1943 in Merano, an alpine town in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northern Italy.

Capolicchio appeared in more than 70 films and TV dramas, and dubbed the voice of Bo Hazzard in the Italian adaptation of the American action-comedy The Dukes of Hazzard.

As a director, he won awards for Pugili, a drama-documentary film set in the world of boxing based on his own storylines, but it is for The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, for which he won a David di Donatello award for best actor, that he is best remembered.

The movie is about a wealthy Jewish family in Ferrara in the 1930s, whose adult children, Micol and Alberto, enjoy blissful summers entertaining friends with tennis and parties in the garden the family’s sumptuous villa.

Capolicchio’s character, Giorgio, from another middle-class Jewish family, falls in love with Micol but she only toys with his attentions. In any event, everything changes with the outbreak of war as northern Italy’s Jewish population become targets for the Nazis and their Fascist allies.

Capolicchio with his co-star Dominique Sanda in Vittorio
de Sica's Oscar winner The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

The movie won De Sica one of his four Oscars as a director. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow both won Best Foreign Language Film, while Bicycle Thieves and Sciuscià were both awarded honorary Oscars.

Trained at the Silvio D’Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome, Capolicchio made his stage debut in 1964 at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in a play by Carlo Goldoni under the direction of Giorgio Strehler, who also used him in some subsequent Shakespeare productions.

By 1967 his acting talents were held in such high regard that he was given a small role in Franco Zeffirelli’s movie version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, which starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

His first major starring role came in Escalation (1968), a drama directed by Roberto Faenza, before the chance to play Giorgio in The Garden of the Finzi-Contadinis followed in 1970. The movie was such a success, winning critical acclaim as well as public popularity, that Capolicchio became famous almost overnight.

Capolicchio continued to work well into his
70s with a number of TV roles

Many more parts followed, including several films for the director Pupi Avati, including his 1976 movie La casa dalle finestre che ridono (The House with the Laughing Windows), the 1984 film Noi tre (The Three of Us), in which he plays Mozart’s father, and Ultimo minuto (Last minute) in 1988.

For a period in the late 80s, Capolicchio focussed on teaching, taking the acting chair at the Experimental Centre of Cinematography in Rome. During this period he discovered new talents such as Francesca Neri, Sabrina Ferilli and Jaja Forte.  Later, while he was holding auditions for his film Pugili, he came across a young actor of great talent who has gone on to enjoy a successful career in Pierfrancesco Favino.

Pugili, shot in 1995, was named Best Film by the international press at the Turin Film Festival.  Awarded the Vittorio de Sica Award in 2012 for best actor and director, he continued working into his 70s, with parts in TV dramas such as La piovra and the massively popular Una grande famiglia.

Updated August 2022: Lino Capolicchio sadly passed away in Rome in May, 2022, at the age of 78.

Trauttmansdorff Castle is one of the attractions of Merano

Travel tip:

Located in a basin surrounded by mountains that rise up to almost 3,350m (11,000ft), Merano is a town of around 40,000 inhabitants in Trentino-Alto Adige, known also as the South Tyrol, which is most famous for its spas. The writers Franz Kafka and Ezra Pound were both residents at one time or another. Among the attractions for visitors are the Gothic St. Nicholas' Church and, a little outside the town, the Trauttmansdorff Castle and its gardens.

The Rotonda Foschini in Ferrara

Travel tip:

Apart from the impressively well preserved Castello Estense right at the heart of the city, Ferrara - situated midway between Bologna and Venice in Emilia-Romagna - has many notable architectural gems, including many palaces from the 14th and 15th centuries.  Among them is the striking Palazzo dei Diamanti, so-called because the stone blocks of its facade are cut into the shape of diamonds. The palace holds the National Picture Gallery, which houses many works from the  masters of the 16th-century School of Ferrara, including Lorenzo Costa, Dosso Dossi, Girolamo da Carpi and Benvenuto Tisi.

More reading:

Vittorio de Sica - the maestro behind Bicycle Thieves and other classics in Italian cinema history

The Shakespeare adaptations that made Franco Zeffirelli into a household name

How La Dolce Vita actor Marcello Mastroianni became the epitome of Italian cool

Also on this day:

1862: The birth of adventure novelist Emilio Salgari

1969: The death of Giuseppe Meazza, Italian football's first superstar


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Michelangelo Antonioni - film director

Enigmatic artist often remembered for 1966 movie Blowup

Michelangelo Antonioni was described
as one of Italian cinema's 'last greats'

The movie director Michelangelo Antonioni, sometimes described as “the last great” of Italian cinema’s post-war golden era, died on this day in 2007 at his home in Rome.

Antonioni, who was 94 years old when he passed away, was a contemporary of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti.

Remarkably, three of that trio’s most acclaimed works - Fellini’s La dolce vita, Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers and Antonioni’s L’avventura - appeared within a few months of one another.

Antonioni’s genius lay in the way he challenged traditional approaches to storytelling and drama and the way people viewed the world in general.

His characters were often intentionally vague, his most favoured themes being social alienation and bourgeois ennui, reflecting his view that life left many people emotionally adrift and unable to find their bearings.  His movies often had no strong plot in a conventional sense, were dotted with unfinished conversations and seemingly disconnected incidents. His style was seen as a rejection of neorealism, his films more a metaphor for human experience, rather than a record of it.

He divided opinions. At the Cannes Film Festival in 1960, when L’avventura was shown, half the audience booed and jeered. But Antonioni’s fellow director Roberto Rossellini sprang to his defence, hailing the movie, about a young woman's disappearance during a boating trip and how her lover and her best friend join forces to search for her but eventually begin having an affair, as a work of genius.

The actress Monica Vitti in a scene from L'eclisse (1962)

L’avventura (1960) was the first of three films, with Le notte (1961) and L’eclisse (1962), that were described as his “trilogy on modernity and its discontents”. All starred a young Roman actress called Monica Vitti, who was at the time Antonioni’s lover.  Some critics argue that the exquisite, mysterious qualities that Vitti brought to her acting were the key to the trilogy’s success and Antonioni’s breakthrough with large international audiences. His first film in colour, The Red Desert (1964) explored similar themes.

He and Vitti stayed together for 10 years, their relationship falling between his two marriages. His third wife, Enrica Fico, was also a director.

Antonioni made a number of films in English, the most famous of which were Zabriskie Point (1970) and The Passenger (1975) and, above all, Blowup (1966), a movie starring David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave that was shocking at the time for its sex scenes, which was loosely based on the life of David Bailey, the photographer who captured the Swinging Sixties with more style and impact than any of his contemporaries.

Antonioni was honoured with numerous
awards for his films

Born in Ferrara, in the Po valley, Antonioni came from a family that enjoyed largely self-made prosperity thanks to his father’s efforts, though taking evening classes alongside his day job, to establish a career that was paid well enough for him to rise above his working-class roots.

Growing up, Antonioni loved music and drawing, with a fascination for architecture, and had he not fallen in love with the cinema he might have been an accomplished violinist. He went to university in Bologna, where he obtained a degree in economics, before beginning work for Il Corriere Padano, a newspaper based in Ferrara, where he wrote film reviews.

In his 20s he played tennis, winning amateur championships in northern Italy, and moved to Rome. During the Second World War he fought against the Fascists as a member of the Italian Resistance.

In 1942, Antonioni ventured into film-making for the first time, co-writing A Pilot Returns with Roberto Rossellini. He made his own debut with Gente del Po (1943), a short film about poor fishermen in the Po valley. His earliest feature films, many of which were lost after Rome was liberated by the Allies, were neorealist in style, before he broke away from that genre in the 1950s to make films with the theme of social alienation that would become common in his work.

Antonioni received numerous film festival awards and nominations throughout his career. He is one of only three directors to have won the Palme d'Or (Cannes), the Golden Lion (Venice) and the Golden Bear (Berlin), and the only director to have won these three and the Golden Leopard (Locarno). He received an honorary Academy Award in 1995.

The Este Castle dominates the centre of Ferrara

Travel tip:

The city of Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna is about 50km (31 miles) northeast of Bologna. It was ruled by the Este family between 1240 and 1598. Building work on the magnificent Este Castle in the centre of the city began in 1385 and it was added to and improved by successive rulers of Ferrara until the end of the Este line. Apart from the castle, the city has other architectural gems, including many the striking Renaissance building Palazzo dei Diamanti, so-called because the stone blocks of its facade are cut into the shape of diamonds.

The Archiginnasio is the oldest part of Bologna University

Travel tip:

Bologna University, where Antonioni studied, was founded in 1088 and is the oldest university in the world. The oldest surviving building, the Archiginnasio, is now a library and is open Monday to Friday from 9 am to 7 pm, and on Saturdays from 9 am to 2 pm. It is a short walk away from Piazza Maggiore and the Basilica di San Petronio in the centre of the city.

More reading:

Fellini's legacy to Italian cinema

Luchino Visconti - the aristocrat of Italian cinema

Why Roberto Rossellini is known as the 'father of neorealism'

Also on this day:

1626: The Naples earthquake that killed 70,000 people

1909: The birth of chemist Vittorio Erspamer, the scientist who discovered serotonin



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Carlo Gesualdo – composer

Madrigal writer was also a murderer

Carlo Gesualdo devoted himself to music
from an early age

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, who composed highly experimental music for his time, was born on this day in 1566 in the principality of Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples.

He was to become known both for his extraordinary music and for the brutal killing of his first wife and her aristocratic lover after he caught them together.

Gesualdo was the nephew of Carlo Borromeo, who later became Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother, Geronima Borromeo, was the niece of Pope Pius IV.

Although Gesualdo was sent to Rome to begin an ecclesiastical career, he became heir to the principality after his older brother died. He married his cousin, Donna Maria D’Avalos, and they had a son, Emanuele.

Gesualdo was devoted to music from an early age and mixed with musicians and composers, learning to play the lute, harpsichord and guitar.

Donna Maria began an affair with Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria and Count of Ruova, and one night in 1590 Gesualdo caught them in flagrante at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples. He killed them both on the spot.

A delegation of officials from Naples inspected the room where they were killed and found the corpses were mutilated.

The Palazzo San Severo, where Gesualdo murdered his
wife and her aristocratic lover

Witnesses said he had returned to the room to make certain they were dead. But the court decided Gesualdo had not committed a crime.

After Gesualdo’s father died, he became Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. He arranged to marry Leonora d’Este and travelled to the Este court at Ferrara.

At the time the court was a centre of musical activity and the madrigal was popular. Surrounded by some of the finest musicians in Italy, Gesualdo wrote his first book of madrigals, having worked with three renowned female singers.

Back at his castle in the town of  Gesualdo, in the province of Avellino, he established a group of resident singers and musicians to perform his music, both sacred and secular, which he later published with a printer in Naples.

Listen to one of Gesualdo's best-known madrigals

His relationship with his second wife was poor and she spent a lot of time away. His son by his second marriage died in 1600.

Gesualdo began to suffer from depression and it has been claimed he asked his servants to beat him regularly. He died alone at his castle three weeks after the death of his eldest son, Emanuele, in 1613.

The church of Gesu Nuovo in Naples, where Carlo
Gesualdo was buried after his death in 1613

He was buried in the chapel of Saint Ignatius, in the church of Gesu Nuovo in Naples. His tomb was destroyed in the earthquake of 1688 and covered over when the church was rebuilt. The composer now lies beneath the church, but his burial plaque is still visible.

It has been said the the guilt he felt over the murders he committed was expressed through his music, which was among the most experimental of the Renaissance. Similar music was not composed again until the 19th century.

Gesualdo’s most famous works are his six books of madrigals, but his music and life story has inspired other music, operas and books.  The Music Conservatory in Potenza is named the Conservatoria di Musica Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa in his honour.

The Aragonese Castle in Venosa, built in 1470, which
Gesualdo turned into a residence 

Travel tip:

Venosa, where Carlo Gesualdo was born, is in the province of Potenza in Basilicata. One of the main sights is the Aragonese Castle, built in 1470, which he turned into a residence. It now houses the National Museum of Venosa and a collection of Roman artefacts. The nearby Archaeological Area of Notarchirico covers the Palaeolithic period with eleven layers dating from 600,000 to 300,000 years ago. Remains of ancient wildlife, including extinct species of elephants, bisons and rhinoceroses, have been found, as well as a fragment of a femur from the Homo erectus species of ancient humans.

Hotels in Venosa from Booking.com

The town of Gesualdo in Campania, which is called 'the city
of the prince of musicians' in honour of Carlo Gesualdo

Travel tip:

Gesualdo, in the province of Avellino in Campania, is called ‘the city of the prince of musicians’ in honour of the composer, who wrote madrigals at the castle, which he transformed from a fortress into a palace able to accommodate writers, such as Torquato Tasso, and musicians.

More reading:

How Carlo Borromeo led moves to stop the spread of Protestantism

Luca Marenzio, the madrigal writer who influenced Monteverdi

Salomone Rossi, the leading Jewish composer of the Renaissance

Also on this day:

La Festa della Donna - International Women's Day

1949: The birth of evergreen singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti

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Giovanni Boldini – artist and portraitist

Sought-after painter who captured elegance of Belle Époque

Giovanni Baldini: an 1892 self-portrait
housed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

Giovanni Boldini, whose sumptuous images of the rich and famous made him the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris during the Belle Époque era of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, was born in Ferrara on this day in 1842.

His subjects included some famous names, including the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi and the actress Sarah Bernhardt, and he had countless commissions from prominent individuals in Parisian society.

Boldini's skill was to capture his subject in soft-focus, elongating their features to accentuate beauty and creating a sense of motion in the figures so that they appeared to be both sophisticated and full of life.

He dressed his subjects in sumptuous gowns that would grace any fashion catwalk and society women in particular felt the need to confirm their status by having a Boldini portrait to show off to their friends and demanded that their wealthy husbands arrange a sitting.

Boldini came from an artistic background.  His father, Antonio, painted religious figures and scenes and had a house in Via Voltapaletto, which links Ferrara’s cathedral with the Basilica of San Francesco.  The eighth of 13 children – all boys -- Giovanni was baptised on the day of his birth in the church of Santa Maria in Vado.

Boldoni's portrait of Giuseppe Verdi is housed
in Rome's National Gallery of  Modern Art

He began filling notebooks with sketches from the age of five, even before he learned to write. Taught the rudiments of painting in his father’s workshop, he contented himself for a time copying the works of the Renaissance masters.  In 1856 at the age of 14, he produced a self-portrait of a quality that exuded a maturity of technique beyond his years.

In 1862, he moved to Florence, where he would remain for six years. His intention was to study formally at the Academy of Fine Arts, and though he enjoyed the influence of some distinguished tutors, he attended classes infrequently, preferring to immerse himself in a busy social life.

Renting an apartment in Via Lambertasca, he became a regular at the Caffè Michelangiolo in Via Cavour, the haunt of a group of realist painters known as the Macchiaioli, who were the Italian precursors to Impressionism. Their influence is seen in Boldini's early landscapes.

He enjoyed success as a portraitist for the first time when he moved to London, where he was commissioned by prominent society figures including Lady Holland and the Duchess of Westminster.  His success continued when he moved to Paris in 1872, where he mingled in the most fashionable salons and became part of a circle of artists that included Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Édouard Manet.

Boldini’s client list grew, but the invitation to paint Giuseppe Verdi in 1886 took him to a new level.  The Italian composer was the biggest celebrity of the time and Boldini’s portrait became an iconic image.

The portrait of Marthe de Florian that was
discovered in a Paris apartment in 2010

Verdi introduced Boldini to the world of opera, which led to many more commissions for portraits, both from artists and from the opera fans he met in theatres and cafes around Europe.

As well as portraits, he also painted realistic and natural landscapes, influenced by the Macchiaioli school. Only towards the end of his life did his style become more impressionistic. So financially comfortable he no longer needed to accept commissions for portraits to make a living, he began painting subjects of his own choice, including many nudes.

He surprised his friends in 1929 by getting married, ending 86 years of bachelor life. At the wedding breakfast, he told guests: "It is not my fault if I am so old, it's something which has happened to me all at once."

In the event, it was a short-lived marriage. Two years later he developed pneumonia and died in Paris. His body was returned to Italy and he is buried in his hometown of Ferrara.

Boldini’s paintings can be seen in some of the world’s finest art galleries and museums, although a great many are in private collections.  On the rare occasions they come up for sale at auction, they change hands for considerable sums.

In 2010, a Boldini portrait of his former muse, Marthe de Florian, a French actress, was discovered in an apartment near the Trinité church in Paris between the Pigalle red light district and Opera.

The apartment had been abandoned at the outbreak of the Second World War, when de Florian’s granddaughter fled to the South of France, and remained locked up and unvisited for 70 years.  

A scribbled note from Boldini found nearby, written on a calling card, confirmed the portrait’s authenticity and when it was sold at auction, with a guide price of €300,000, the hammer eventually came down at €1.2 million.

The Cattedrale di San Giorgio Martire in Ferrara

Travel tip:

Ferrara’s cathedral – the Cattedrale di San Giorgio Martire – is one of the main sights of the centre of the city, situated close to the Castello Estense and the Palazzo Comunale.  The Romanesque design of the cathedral, consecrated in 1135, features three cusps and a series of loggias, small arcades and rose windows. The interior, refurbished in Romanesque style after a fire in the 18^th century, houses a number of notable statues and paintings, including a Crucifixion in bronze by Niccolò Baroncelli and a Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence painted by Guercino.

A gathering of Macchiaioli painters at the Caffè Michelangiolo

Travel tip:

The Caffè Michelangiolo at Via Cavour 21 in Florence was at the centre of the city’s artistic community from the second half of the 19^th century until about 1920. The Macchiaioli group met there until about 1866. Today the café houses the Leonardo da Vinci Museum, and still hosts exhibitions and cultural events celebrating the historical, political and artistic themes that characterized the coffee house in its heyday.

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