Maria Bertilla Boscardin – wartime nurse

Brave nun was prepared to die caring for others

A depiction of Maria Bertilla Boscardin
from Catholic Church literature

Maria Bertilla Boscardin, a nun who was canonised for her devoted nursing of sick children and air raid victims in the First World War, was born on this day in 1888 in Brendola, a small town in the Veneto.

She was beatified by Pope Pius XII in 1952, just 30 years after she died, and made a saint by Pope John XXIII nine years later.

It was one of the quicker canonisations of modern history. Sometimes many decades or even hundreds of years pass before a person’s life is recognised with sainthood. 

Boscardin’s came so swiftly that relatives and some of the patients she cared for were present at her canonisation ceremony. Indeed, her father, Angelo, was asked to provide testimony during the beatification process.

Born into a peasant family, who knew her as Annette, her life in Brendola, which is about 15km (9 miles) southwest of Vicenza, was tough.  She was seen as rather a slow-witted child, mocked by her peers and unkindly nicknamed ‘the goose’ even by the local priest. Her father, a drunkard, was often abusive and violent.

She wanted to become educated but her attendance at school was at times only sporadic because her family required her to work.

Her ambition to become a nun was in part to escape from this unhappy childhood.  She was turned down by the first order to which she applied but the Sisters of St Dorothy in Vicenza admitted her to their convent, assigning her the religious name Maria Bertilla.

After a tough upbringing, Maria found her
calling as a carer for sick children

Her first job was at the order’s large charity hospital in Treviso, where she worked in the kitchen, peeling potatoes.  What she is said to have told the novice-mistress of the convent indicated that she had very low self-esteem but she asked for their help to become a better person.

She found her calling after being assigned to work with the children being treated at the hospital, many of whom were suffering from diptheria, and needed constant attention.

One of the doctors at Treviso later testified that many of the children, separated from their families for the first time, arrived at the hospital so agitated that they would cry constantly for several days.

But Sister Bertilla, he recalled, “succeeded in rapidly becoming a mother to them all. After two or three hours the child, who was desperate, clung to her, calmly, as to his mother and followed her wherever she went.”

When the First World War spread to Italy in 1915, Bertilla vowed she would make the ultimate sacrifice, if necessary, to care for the wounded.  An entry in her diary read: ‘Here I am, Lord, to do according to your will, under whatever aspect it presents itself, let it be life, death or terror.'

As Treviso came under attack following the defeat of the Italian army at the Battle of Caporetto, she is said to have stayed with patients who could not be moved, praying and providing marsala wine for those who needed it.

After the war, she was sent to a sanatorium to care for soldiers with tuberculosis. Next she was sent to a seminary to care for survivors of an epidemic.

The statue of Maria Bertilla Boscardin at the
church of Saints Peter and Paul in Cagnano

She was unlucky with her own health, however.  Discovered to have a tumour in her early 20s, after which she underwent surgery, she fell ill again in her early 30s.

The cancer had recurred. The only hope of a cure was to have another operation. But she was much weaker this time and died in October, 1922, two weeks after her 34^th birthday.

Having suffered so much cruelty as a young girl and left home with little sense of self-worth, Maria Bertilla ultimately left a deep impression on those who knew her.

She was initially buried in Treviso but after crowds regularly gathered at her grave, it was decided to erect a tomb for her in Vicenza. A memorial plaque placed on her tomb described her as "a chosen soul of heroic goodness ... an angelic alleviator of human suffering in this place."

The tomb became a pilgrimage site where several miracles of healing were said to have taken place.

A number of churches in the area around Vicenza have been dedicated to Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin, including one at Via Antonio Federico Ozanam in the west of the city and another in the village of Cagnano, about 40km (25 miles) south of Vicenza, which has a statute of her.

Travel tip:

The house of the Sister Teachers of Santa Dorothea, where Maria Bertilla Boscardin took vows, is located in Contrà San Domenico in Vicenza. It contains a chapel dedicated to her which was built in 1952, in view of her beatification. In the same year the urn containing the remains of the saint, originally buried in Treviso, were placed under the altar table.  In 2002 thanks to architect Paolo Portoghesi the altar - previously in burnished copper - was replaced with one in white marble and the urn containing the remains of the saint was placed in front of it.

Waterways lined with weeping willows are a
common sight in Treviso

Travel tip:

For many visitors to Italy, Treviso is no more than the name of the airport at which they might land en route to Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast.

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Luigi Cadorna – Marshall of Italy

Tough military leader was blamed for losing crucial battle

General Luigi Cadorna was Chief of Staff
of the Italian Army in the First World War

Luigi Cadorna, a military General who was made a Marshall of Italy, was born on this day in 1850 in Verbania, on the shore of Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region.

Cadorna is most remembered for his role as Chief of Staff of the Italian Army during the first part of the First World War.

His father was General Raffaele Cadorna, the Piedmontese military leader whose capture of Rome in 1870 completed the unification of Italy.

Sent by his father to a military school in Milan from the age of 10, he entered the Turin Military Academy when he was 15 and, after graduating at the age of 18, was commissioned as a second lieutenant of artillery.

He participated in the occupation of Rome in 1870 as part of the force commanded by his father.

After becoming a Major, Cadorna was appointed to the staff of General Pianelli and became Chief of Staff of the Verona Divisional Command.

From 1892 he was the Colonel commanding the 10th Regiment of Bersaglieri, where he acquired a reputation for strict discipline and harsh punishment.

He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1898 and subsequently held a number of senior command positions.

General Cadorno (fourth from the right) inspecting Italian
troops ahead of the second Isonzo offensive

By 1915, when Italy was about to enter the First World War, Cadorna was on the verge of retiring and had a history of differences with his political and military superiors.

But he was offered the post of Chief of Staff and took Italy into the war with 36 infantry divisions composed of 875,000 men, armed with only a small number of modern artillery pieces.

Large numbers of men and equipment had been deployed to Tripolitania in Libya, leaving the home army disorganised and short of equipment.

Cadorna launched four offensives along the Isonzo river with the aim of capturing Gorizia from the Austrians, but they all failed, leaving 250,000 Italian casualties.

Cadorna would ultimately fight 11 unsuccessful battles in unsuitable terrain between 1915 and 1917.

In October 1917, a combined Austro-Hungarian army advanced, defeating Cadorna’s troops at Caporetto. The troops managed to get as far as the Piave River, because Cadorna’s tactics had provided little defence in depth.

General Armando Diaz led the defeat of the
Austro-Hungarian army after replacing Cadorna

The Italian army fled in disarray and seemed on the verge of total collapse, with 275,000 soldiers captured.

During the battle, Cadorna had ordered the execution of all officers whose units retreated.

Italy’s allies, Britain and France, insisted on the dismissal of Cadorna and sent 11 divisions to reinforce the Italian front.

Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando appointed General Armando Diaz as Chief of General Staff and Cadorna was reassigned to be the Italian representative at the Allied Supreme War Council set up in Versailles.

The restored Italian defensive line held firm during the Battle of the Piave River, providing a springboard for the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, where the Austro-Hungarian army was finally defeated.

After the war, the Italian Government held an inquiry into the defeat at Caporetto and the published report was critical of Cadorna.

He wrote in his memoirs that he was not responsible for the defeat, despite having fled to Padua during the battle.

In 1924, after Benito Mussolini seized power, Cadorna was made a Field Marshall (Maresciallo d’Italia), an honour recognising his service to Italy before and during the war. Cadorna died in Bordighera in 1928 at the age of 78.  His body was entombed in a mausoleum designed by the architect Marcello Piacentini by the waterside at Verbania.

His son, Raffaele Cadorna, also became a General, fighting in the First and Second World Wars. He became famous for his actions as one of the commanders of the Italian Resistance, fighting against the Germans who were still occupying northern Italy after 1943.

A picture taken from Verbania at sunset with the Cadorna
Mausoleum in the foreground and Isolina di San Giovanni

Travel tip:

Verbania, where Luigi Cadorna was born, is a town on the shore of Lake Maggiore, about 91km (57 miles) northwest of Milan and about 40km (25 miles) from Locarno in Switzerland. Verbania is also known as Verbania Pallanza, following its merger with Intra, Pallanza and Suna in 1939. It faces the city of Stresa across the lake. A small island a few metres from the shore, known as the Isolino di San Giovanni, is famous for having been the home of Arturo Toscanini, between 1927 and 1952. 

Milano Cadorna railway station is named after Luigi Cadorna

Travel tip:

Milano Cadorna railway station in Piazzale Luigi Cadorna, near the Castello Sforzesco, provides a permanent reminder of the General to all rail commuters. The original station building was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War and the current building was restored, along with the square, in 1999. Piazzale Cadorna is now a Milan transport hub with an underground station, tram stops and 11 bus stops.

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Ernest Hemingway – American novelist

War wounds sustained in Italy inspire the great American novel

Hemingway in the uniform he
wore while serving in Italy

An 18-year-old American Red Cross driver named Ernest Hemingway was severely wounded by shrapnel from an Austrian mortar shell on this day in 1918 at Fossalta di Piave in the Veneto.

Hemingway was taken to a field hospital in Treviso, from where he was transferred by train to a hospital in Milan. While in the hospital and recovering after two operations, he fell in love with his nurse, 26-year-old Agnes von Kurowsky.

His experiences of being wounded in Italy and falling in love later inspired him to write the novel, A Farewell to Arms.

On leaving school Hemingway had worked briefly as a reporter for The Kansas City Star before leaving for the Italian front in World War One to enlist as an ambulance driver.

While stationed at Fossalta di Piave he was bringing chocolates and cigarettes to the men on the front line when he was seriously injured by mortar fire. Despite his own wounds, Hemingway assisted some Italian soldiers to safety, for which he later received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery.

Hemingway recuperating in hospital in Milan

After his release from hospital, he returned to the United States in January 1919. He and Agnes had agreed to get married in America, but two months later she wrote to say she had become engaged to an Italian army officer.

A Farewell to Arms, which was published in 1929, is a first-person account told by an American, Frederic Henry, who was serving as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The novel focuses on a love affair between Henry and a woman he meets, Catherine Barkley, which is set against the backdrop of the First World War, with its cynical soldiers, combat and the displacement of populations.

A Farewell to Arms was Hemingway’s first best seller and is regarded as the finest American novel to depict World War One.

The Monument to Peace in Fosslalta, where the
memorial to Hemingway can be found

Travel tip:

Fossalta di Piave, where Hemingway was injured during the First World War, is a small town situated 64 km (38 miles) north of Venice, which is famous for the wine it produces. There is a memorial to Hemingway overlooking the river Piave.

Travel tip:

Treviso, where Hemingway was taken to hospital after he was wounded, is an historic, walled city in the Veneto region, with picturesque canals and water wheels. It is the headquarters of the clothing firm, Benetton, and is famous for producing Prosecco wine and the vegetable, radicchio.

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Francesco Baracca – flying ace

Italy’s most successful First World War fighter pilot

Francesco Baracca alongside his Spad XIII with the
family's prancing stallion logo displayed on the side

Italy’s top fighter pilot of the First World War, Francesco Baracca, died in action on this day in 1918.

He had been flying a strafing mission against Austro-Hungarian ground troops in support of an Italian attack on the Montello Hill, about 17km (11 miles) north of Treviso in the Veneto, on which he was accompanied by a rookie pilot, Tenente Franco Osnago.

They split from one another after being hit by ground fire but a few minutes later, Osnago saw a burning plane falling from the sky.  Witnesses on the ground saw it too. Osnago flew back to his base but Baracca never returned.

Only when the Austro-Hungarian troops were driven back was the wreckage of Baracca’s Spad VII aircraft found in a valley.  His body was discovered a few metres away.

A monument in his memory was later built on the site. Osnago, fellow pilot Ferruccio Ranza and a journalist recovered his body. It was taken back to his home town of Lugo in the province of Ravenna, where a large funeral was held.

Francesco Baracca in his airman's
uniform in 1916

It is thought that Barocca was seeking to provide Osnago with cover from above as he swooped on enemy trenches when he was attacked by an Austrian plane and downed.  The official version of events, written in the interests of propaganda, was that he had been hit by groundfire but records later showed a kill claimed by the crew of an Austrian two-seater, who noted the exact time and location of the engagement and took a photograph of the shot-down aircraft.

Mystery surrounded the condition of Baracca’s body, which reportedly bore the marks of a bullet to the head, while his pistol was out of its holster. This led to speculation that he had taken his life as the plane fell, rather than be killed in the crash or taken prisoner.

Baracca had claimed a total of 34 aerial victories, which made him the most successful of all Italy’s First World War flying aces.

His first came in 1916, flying a French-built Nieuport II, equipped with Lewis guns.  His victim was an Austrian Hansa-Brandenburg CI, which he hit in the fuel tank.  It was also Italy's first aerial victory in the war, brought about by what would become his favourite manoeuvre, which was to zoom in unseen behind and below an enemy.

The monument to Baracca erected
on the spot where his plane fell

From the 1a Squadriglia Caccia, Baracca transferred to the 70a Squadriglia, where he was promoted to captain, before moving again, with nine victories, to the newly formed 91st Squadriglia, known as the "Squadron of the Aces", flying the Spad VII and Spad XIII planes. Soon, his ever-increasing list of victories made him nationally famous.

He had entered the Military Academy of Modena in October 1907 and became a cavalryman with the prestigious Piemonte Reale Cavalleria Regiment on his commissioning in 1910. He became interested in aviation and learned to fly at Reims, France, receiving his pilot's licence in July 1912.

From a wealthy landowning background, Baracca had the title of Count. The family’s coat of arms bore the black prancing stallion symbol he attached to all his aircraft.

  

Baracca's mother is said to have presented the emblem, the Cavallino Rampante, to Enzo Ferrari, who incorporated it as part of the badge displayed by cars belonging to his Scuderia Ferrari racing team and in time all Ferrari automobiles.

Lugo's main square contains a huge memorial to Baracca

Travel tip:

The town of Lugo, Baracca’s place of birth, is situated in the Emilia-Romagna countryside between the cities of Bologna and Ravenna.  From above, coincidentally, some say the shape of the town resembles an aircraft. The town’s landmark is the Rocca Estense, an Este-family fortress that now contains the town hall. Next to the fortress is a monument to Baracca erected in 1936 and town also has a museum dedicated to him, in his former house, which displays mementos, uniforms, medals from Baracca's life, as well as rudders and guns taken from shot-down aircraft.

Artillery shells stockpiled in Crocetta, which
was on the front line in World War One

Travel tip:

The village of Crocetta del Montello, once known as Crocetta Trevigiana, the nearest community to where Baracca was shot down, suffered badly because of the First World War. It had become prosperous after the construction, in 1882, of a vast hemp rope mill, providing employment and helping the area acquire resources including electricity, thanks to water-driven generators set up on the Brentella river. But the mill was destroyed during the 1918 battle that Baracca was supporting – the Battle of the Solstice. It was rebuilt only to be hit by global financial crises, forcing it to close in 1938, leaving an unemployment problem and triggering the bankruptcy of many local businesses that depended on it

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Ferruccio Ranza - World War One flying ace

Fighter pilot survived 57 aerial dogfights

Ferruccio Ranza in the cockpit of a Nieuport fighter plane

Ferruccio Ranza, a World War One pilot who survived 465 combat sorties and scored 17 verified victories, died on this day in 1973 in Bologna, at the age of 80.

Ranza, who also saw service in the Second World War, when he rose to the rank of Brigadier General, was jointly the seventh most successful of Italy’s aviators in the 1914-18 conflict, and would be placed third if his eight unconfirmed victories had been proven.  In all, he engaged with enemy aeroplanes in 57 dogfights.

The most successful Italian flying ace from the First World War was Francesco Baracca, who chalked up 34 verified victories before he was killed in action in 1918.  Ranza served alongside Baracca in the 91^st Fighter Squadron of the Italian air force, the so-called ‘squadron of aces’.

Ranza was born in Fiorenzuolo d’Arda, a medium-sized town in the province of Piacenza in what is now Emilia-Romagna, in 1892. Both his parents, Paolo and Maria, were teachers. 

Ferruccio Ranza, second left, with other member of the 91st
Squadron, including Francesco Baracca (far right)

After attending the Istituto Tecnico ‘Romagnosi’ in Piacenza, he joined the Italian army in December 1913. He was a second lieutenant in the 1^st Regiment of Engineers when the First World War began in 1914.

Italy had been part of the Triple Alliance at that time, along with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but delayed entering the conflict and by the time it did, in April 1915, it was on the side of the Triple Entente, with Russia, France and Britain, having been promised territorial gains in the Adriatic Sea region.

Ranza attended the flying school at Venaria Reale, just outside Turin. His first assignment, in October 1915, was to fly reconnaissance missions with the 43^rd Squadron. He won a Bronze award of the Medal for Military Valor for carrying out an artillery spotting mission under heavy fire.

His success in aerial warfare began when he mastered the French-built Nieuport fighters and joined 77^th Squadron in June 1916, scoring his first success after only five days when he downed a Hansa-Brandenburg CI, an aircraft designed by Ernst Heinkel, who would provide much of the Luftwaffe’s air power during the Second World War.

A scale model of the Nieuport 11 in which Ranza scored
many of his victories after joining the 91st Squadron

In November 2016, Fulco Ruffo di Calabria was removed from command of 77^th Squadron because of combat fatigue and Ranza was appointed to succeed him in command.

He was transferred to the crack 91^st Squadron under the command of Francesco Baracca in May 2017, achieving his first kill the following month when he downed a two-seater armed reconnaissance plane in the skies above Barco, a small town near Vicenza in what is now the Veneto.

Ranza remained with the 91^st until the end of the war, by which time he had won three Silver awards of the Medal for Military Valor, the Serbian Order of the Star of Karađorđe, four war crosses (two Italian, one French, one Belgian), and the Military Order of Savoy.

Even after the war had finished, with Italy counting a heavy cost in lives lost and economic consequences, Ranza continued his military career, seeing service in Africa and Albania as Mussolini pursued an aggressive foreign policy. 

Ferruccio Ranza in 1944

When Italy entered World War Two, Ranza was in charge of Italy’s air force in Albania, providing support for Italy’s campaign in Greece.  He had an escape in 1941 when, flying a transport plane, he was attacked by an Italian fighter who mistook him for an enemy. Ranza’s plane was hit and badly damaged but he managed to crash land and avoided serious injury.

By 1943, as the Allied invasion of Italy began, he was the commander of Italy’s airforce in the south of the peninsula, based in Bari, and after Mussolini’s overthrow was able to persuade the Allied command to allow Italian planes to contribute to the nation’s liberation by flying missions against the Germans.

Ranza retired in 1945 and was living in Bologna at the time of his death.  His body was returned to Fiorenzuolo d’Arda for burial in the family chapel at the town’s cemetery.

Travel tip:

Fiorenzuola d’Arda is a town of about 15,000 inhabitants situated about halfway between Piacenza and Parma in the plain of the Po Valley, in the Emilia-Romagna province. The Arda river flows through the town before joining the Po. It is a pleasant town built, at the centre of which, on Piazza Molinari, is the Collegiate Church of San Fiorenzo, the construction of which began in the 13^th century.

The Royal Palace, Reggia di Venaria Reale

Travel tip:

Venaria Reale is a town, on the north-west edge of the Turin metropolitan area, of historical significance for the presence of the Reggia di Venaria Reale, a palace of the Royal House of Savoy, which was designed and built from 1675 by Amedeo di Castellamonte, having been commissioned by duke Charles Emmanuel II as a base for his hunting expeditions in the countryside north of Turin. The town’s historic centre was also designed by Di Castellamonte to provide an appropriate backdrop to the palace.

More reading:

How Armando Diaz led decision World War One victory at Vittorio Veneto

Enea Bossi and the pedal-powered aeroplane

The Calabrian veteran who survived two world wars

Also on this day:

The Festa della Liberazione

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Enea Bossi - aviation pioneer

Claimed first pedal-powered flight in 1936

Enea Bossi emigrated to the United
 States after the First World War

Enea Bossi, the aviator credited - albeit disputedly - with building the world's first human-powered aeroplane, was born on this day in 1888 in Milan.

It was claimed that in 1936 Bossi's Pedaliante aircraft flew for approximately 300 feet (91.4m) under pedal power alone.

Piloted by Emilio Casco, a robustly built major in the Italian army and an experienced cyclist, the Pedaliante - or pedal glider - is said to have taken off and covered the distance while remaining a few feet off the ground, although in the absence of independent verification it is not counted as the first authenticated human-powered flight, which did not take place until 1961 in Southampton, England.

The following year, as Bossi attempted to win a competition in Italy offering a prize of 100,000 lire for a successful human-powered flight, Casco succeeded in completing the required 1km (0.62 miles) distance at a height of 30 feet (9m) off the ground.

The Pedaliante, which had been built by the Italian glider manufacturer Vittorio Bonomi, was disqualified, however, on account of having used a catapault launch to achieve its altitude. Bossi, in fact, was ineligible for the prize because he had taken American citizenship after emigrating shortly after the First World War, and the competition was open only to Italians.

Bossi was an aeronautical pioneer throughout his career.

Bossi's Pedaliante plane was powered by pedalling

He created the first Italian-designed aircraft, the first landing gear braking system and the Italian Navy's first seaplane. After moving to the United States, he built a seaplane for the New York City Police Department, the first to be deployed by the force. Later he designed the first aircraft made from stainless steel.

Bossi graduated from the Instituto Tecnico in Lodi, not far from Milan, in 1907, specialising in physics and mathematics. He had already become fascinated with flight after the Wright brothers’ Flyer became the first heavier-than-air machine to be airborne in December 1903.

He became only the second person in Italy to have a pilot's licence and, with the financial support of a far-sighted father who did not share the general scepticism about flying, set about designing a glider that could carry a petrol-driven engine.

Modelled on the Wrights' Flyer, the design won a silver medal at the first international aviation meeting in Reims, France, in 1908 and the plane was built in Bossi’s own factory the following year.

Bossi, his son Charles and the Higgins helicopter

In December 1909 it made its first successful flight. The same year, Bossi developed his braking system and the Italian Navy’s first seaplane.

The possibility of going to the United States came about after he began working as the Italian representative of Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company – based in Buffalo, New York - for whom he secured rights for the production of the Curtiss Model F by the Zari brothers, at their workshop in Bovisia, near Milan. The first of these was demonstrated to the Italian Navy on Lake Como in September, 1914.

During the First World War, Bossi served as both a bomber pilot and a flight instructor for the Italian Navy. The economic and social difficulties in Italy that followed the war persuaded him to move permanently to the United States in 1918.

Living first in New York and later in Montclair, New Jersey and Philadelphia, he was granted US citizenship in 1925.  He married Flora Kelher, a Swiss-German girl who was living in Connecticut, and they had two sons, Charles and Enea Junior.

Bossi at his desk in the United States in the 1930s

In the US, he worked on aviation fuel systems before, in 1928, he founded the American Aeronautical Corporation, based in Port Washington, New York, to build Savoia Marchetti seaplanes under licence and a considerable number of these were purchased by the police department of New York City.

In around 1930 Bossi moved to the EG Budd Manufacturing Company, where he built the first stainless steel aircraft, an amphibious biplane now preserved at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

After his time back in Italy in pursuit of the human-powered flight prize, he returned to the US, where he built a helicopter prototype for Higgins Industries of New Orleans.

After retirement, he moved to with his family to Dayton, Ohio, where he died in January, 1963.

The Church of Sant'Ambrogio on Piazza Gramsci in Cinisello

Travel tip:

The first flight of the Pedaliante took place at an airfield juts outside Cinisello, nowadays a town of around 75,000 inhabitants called Cinisello-Balsamo.  It falls within the Milan metropolitan area, between Sesto San Giovanni and Monza, about 10km north-west of the city centre.  It is a pleasant town of which the Piazza Gramsci is the central square, overlooked by the 17th century church of Sant'Ambrogio.  Cinisello's Villa Ghirlanda Silva Cipelletti owned one of the first landscaped gardens in Italy. It now houses the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

The Piazza della Vittoria in Lodi

Travel tip:

Lodi, the city in Lombardy that was the scene of the first battle between the troops of the young Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrians, retains a mostly Medieval layout, starting from the remains of the Visconti Castle, built by the ruling Visconti family alongside the city walls in 1370. The Piazza della Vittoria, ringed with colonnades and overlooked by the cathedral and the Palazzo Comunale, is the focal point.  Nearby, the churches of San Francesco and Sant’Agnese are worth a look, as id the 13th century church of San Lorenzo.

More reading:

From Rome to the North Pole - the historic airship journey from Ciampino airport

Aeronautical genius famed for helicopters and the Vespa scooter

How aviation made Camillo Castiglioni the richest man in Europe

Also on this day:

1939: The birth of Terence Hill, Venetian actor with an English name

(Picture credits: Lodi piazza by Gabriele Zuffetti via Wikimedia Commons)

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Alessandro La Marmora - military general

Founder of Italy's famed Bersaglieri corps

A painting, by an unknown artist, that shows General
Alessandro La Marmora, in his Bersaglieri uniform

The general who founded the Italian army's famous Bersaglieri corps was born on this day in 1799 in Turin.

Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora was one of 16 children born to the Marquis Celestino Ferrero della Marmora and his wife Raffaella.  The family had a strong military tradition. Alessandro was one of four of the male children who grew up to serve as generals.

La Marmora was a captain when he came up with the idea for the Bersaglieri in 1836.

He had spent much time in France, England, Bavaria, Saxony, Switzerland, and the Austrian county of Tyrol studying armies and tactics and he approached King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont-Sardinia with the idea of creating a new corps of light infantry.

He envisaged a mobile elite corps similar to the French chasseurs and Austrian jägers, trained to a high physical level and all crack marksmen.  He suggested they should act as scouts, providing screen for the main army, operate as skirmishers and use their sharpshooting skills to weaken the flanks of the enemy during a battle.

From this proposal emerged the Bersaglieri, soldiers who were trained to be bold, carrying out their duties with patriotic fervour despite personal danger.

A painting by Carlo Ademollo from 1880 shows Bersaglieri
 soldiers storming Rome's Porta Pia in 1870

They wore distinctive headgear, both for ceremonial occasions and in action, that sported generally black grouse or capercaillie feathers, which was seen to symbolise their flair and bravery on the battlefield, setting them apart from others.

The other feature of the Bersaglieri was that, on parade, they moved in a fast jog rather than marching.

The feathers were important to morale, reinforcing belief in corps members that they were a force to be reckoned with against any opposing troops.  Battlefield helmets carried about 100 plumes compared with 400 on dress helmets.

The feathers served a practical purpose, too. Worn on the right side of the hat, they helped shade the shooting eye of the soldier as an aid to taking aim.  Also, because adornments to military headgear were normally worn on the left, they had the potential to confuse enemy spotters over the direction in which they were moving.

When, during the First World War, it was decided that feathers would make the Bersaglieri too conspicuous in trench warfare and the corps were ordered to wear plain tin helmets, morale suffered so much that the order had to be reversed.

Bersaglieri in action at the Battle of Novara

The Bersaglieri made their first public appearance at a military parade on July 1, 1836 and so impressed King Carlo Alberto they were immediately integrated as part of the Piedmontese regular army.  The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was relatively poor and a quick-moving infantry corps with sharpshooting skills helped compensate for their army's lack of numbers.

Led by La Marmora, the Bersaglieri distinguished themselves during the First Italian War of Independence by storming a bridge in the Battle of Goita - in which La Marmora suffered a broken jaw when he was shot in the face - and became famous on September 20, 1870 when they charged through a breach in the walls of Rome at Porta Pia. Their assault led to the capture of the city, completing Italian unification.

Elements served in the expeditionary force sent by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to Russia during the Crimean War and during the First World War many Bersaglieri saw service on the front with Austria and in the Middle East. Their valour and bravery was noted.

In the Second World War, although largely disastrous for Mussolini's armies, the Bersaglieri regiments performed so effectively they not only impressed Italy's German allies, particularly during the North African campaign, but also their adversaries on the Allied side.

Today's Bersaglieri regiments are no longer foot soldiers but mechanised units. They have served as peacekeepers in the in Lebanon, Yugoslavia and in the Somali civil wars, and were also active in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

A modern Italian Bersagliere in the
service of Nato

La Marmora had joined the Piedmontese army at the age of 15 in the regiment of the Grenadier Guards and became a second lieutenant. At the age of 22, during the First Italian War of Independence, he fought at the Battle of Novara and was awarded the cross of justice by the Mauritian Order.

In 1849, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the army and inspector of the Bersaglieri. He was in charge of the division stationed in the Ligurian city of Genoa and at the command of his brother Alfonso, the Royal commissioner, who had been sent to quell an anti-monarchy revolt.

In 1852 Alessandro was regular commander of the military division of Genoa and in the same year was promoted by King Vittorio Emanuele II to lieutenant general. He stayed in the Ligurian capital until 1854, when he married Rosa Roccatagliata,

In 1855, at the age of 56, he was lieutenant general in command of the second division of the army corps sent to the Crimea, but died at Balaklava from cholera. A memorial bust was erected outside among the statues and monuments of patriots on the Janiculum Hill in Rome.

Porta Pia and the monument to the Bersaglieri in Rome

Travel tip:

The achievements of the Bersaglieri are commemorated in Rome at the Historical Museum of the Bersaglieri, which was inaugurated by King Victor Emanuel III in June 1904, at the La Marmora barracks in the Trastevere district. From May  1909 it housed the medals won by the Bersaglieri corps.  The museum was moved to the area of Porta Pia in 1921.



Travel tip:

In addition to the bust at the Janiculum Hill in Rome, La Marmora is commemorated in Turin with a statue in bronze in the Giardino La Marmora on Via Cernaia in the centre of the city. The statue, which shows La Marmora in action with his sword drawn, was created in 1867 by the sculptors Giuseppe Cassano and Giuseppe Dini.

More reading:

How the capture of Rome completed Italian unification

Italy's decisive victory of the First World War

The Milanese uprising that drove out the Austrians

Also on this day:

1969: The birth of Gianluigi Lentini, once the world's most expensive footballer



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Carlo Orelli – soldier

The last trench infantryman

Carlo Orelli with President Ciampi, at the
 awards ceremony on his 109th birthday

Carlo Orelli, the last surviving Italian soldier to have served at the start of Italy's involvement in the First World War, died on this day in 2005 at the age of 110.

Orelli had signed up for active duty at the age of 21 and joined the Austro-Hungarian front after Italy joined in the war on the side of Britain, France and Russia in May 1915.

He took part in combat operations near Trieste, experiencing the brutality of trench warfare and seeing many of his friends die violent deaths, but after receiving injuries to his leg and ear he spent the rest of the war in hospital.

Orelli was born in Perugia in 1894, but his family moved to Rome, where he was to spend most of the rest of his life living in the Garbatella district.

He came from a military background and had a grandfather who had helped to defend Perugia against Austrian mercenaries in 1849. His father had served in the Italian Abyssinian campaign in the 1880s and his elder brother had fought in Libya during the war between Italy and Turkey in 1911.

Orelli pictured in his Italian military
uniform in the First World War

The wounds Orelli suffered during a confrontation with Austrian soldiers ended his military career and he spent the rest of the war recovering from an infection in hospital.

When the war was over he resumed his occupation as a mechanic and got married and had six children.

Despite his opposition to Fascism, he was sent to Gaeta to direct artillery during World War II, but he returned to his job as a mechanic afterwards and continued to live in Garbatella.

In later life he often talked about his experiences in the First World War and implored people not to forget the sacrifice his fellow soldiers had made.

In 2003, on the occasion of his 109th birthday, he was made a Grand Officer in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by the President, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Carlo Orelli in a TV documentary about his
life and wartime experiences

He became known as ‘The Last Infantrymen’, which was chosen as the title for his wartime memoirs when they were published.

After his death in 2005, he was talked about as ‘the last Italian World War I veteran,’ which was incorrect.

He was, in fact, Italy’s oldest survivor of the First World War, the last trench infantryman and the last survivor from the time Italy entered the war in 1915.

Travel tip:

Perugia, where Orelli was born, and which was defended by his grandfather against the Austrians, is the capital city of the region of Umbria. It has a history that goes back to Etruscan times, when it was one of the most powerful cities in the area. A stunning sight on a hilltop, Perugia is also home to two universities, the 14th century University of Perugia and another University for foreign students learning Italian.

The Centrale Montemartini museum is in the Garbatella
district of Rome, where Orelli spent most of his life

Travel tip:

The Garbatella district, where Orelli lived for most of his life, is to the south of the centre of Rome. It is now a lively area with an unusual museum, the Centrale Montemartini in Via Ostiense, a former electricity power plant that now houses hundreds of pieces of Roman sculpture. Nearby, in Piazzale San Paolo, is the Papal Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, one of Rome’s four ancient churches, which was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine I over the burial place of St Paul. The site had been marked with a memorial by some of the apostle’s followers after his execution.

More reading:

Francesco Chiarello - combatant in both world wars who lived until 2008

How General Armando Diaz masterminded Italy's victory at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto

The Villa Giusti armistice and the end of the First World War in Italy

Also on this day:

1506: The founding of the Papal Swiss Guard


(Picture credit: Centrale Montemartini by Lalupa via Wikimedia Commons)

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Camillo Castiglioni - business entrepreneur

Young man from Trieste who reached for the skies

Camillo Castiglioni
- a rare portrait

Camillo Castiglioni, a financier and aviation pioneer once reputed to be the wealthiest man in Central Europe, died on this day in 1957 in Rome.

Castiglioni was an Italian-Austrian banker who played a big part in the early days of aviation and also invested his wealth in the arts.

He was born in Trieste in 1879, when the port on the Adriatic, now firmly established as part of Italy, fell within the boundaries of Austria-Hungary.

His father, Vittorio, was a prominent figure in the large Jewish community in Trieste, where he was vice-rabbi, and there were hopes that Camillo might also become a rabbi. But after being educated in the law and working as an attorney and legal officer in a bank in Padua, where he quickly learnt about international finance and how to manage capital, it was clear his focus would be business.

Vittorio had been a rubber manufacturer and his son soon enjoyed financial success working as an agent in Vienna for a tyre maker in Constantinople.  He made good contacts both in business circles and the imperial court in Vienna, becoming a personal friend of the young Archduke Charles.

Enthused by the invention of the aeroplane, Castiglioni helped start the Viennese Aero Club and was appointed its general director. He recognised that the birth of aviation would give rise to a new industry and saw its financial potential, establishing his own ballooning and aviation company. He took the balloon driver examination successfully in 1909.

An early aircraft produced by Castiglioni's Hansa-Brandenburg
company, from a design by Ernst Heinkel

During the First World War, Castiglioni became one of the richest and most influential financiers in Central Europe.  He was the first major investor in the production of aircraft. He bought a German aircraft company, employing Ernst Heinkel as chief designer, and supplied aircraft for the German military.

Foreseeing also the opportunities presented by the growth of the car industry, he also acquired a majority holding in the Austro-Daimler vehicle company and was a significant influence in the development of the car maker BMW during its early years, employing Ferdinand Porsche as chief engineer.

But Castiglioni suffered a series of business setbacks and his financial empire broke up in 1926.

He lost millions in particular when he became involved in speculation on the devaluation of the French franc and in 1924 an Austrian bank, of which he had been president, collapsed. A warrant for his arrest was issued, but Castiglioni had taken care to acquire Italian citizenship and was safely outside the reach of the Austrian authorities.

He retired to Switzerland initially, but then moved to live in Milan, where he set up a private bank and built up a fortune again.  Although he developed a close working relationship with Mussolini, the race laws introduced by the Fascist government somewhat complicated his position. Castiglioni went back to Switzerland and later spent some time in the United States.

Josip Broz Tito, the future leader of Yugoslavia,
for whom Castiglioni arranged a loan

After the Second World War, through contacts made in the US, he returned to Italy and negotiated a large loan for his friend Josip Broz Tito, who would become the leader of communist Yugoslavia. When Tito refused to pay his commission, Castiglioni had his assets in Italy, which were worth millions, sequestered.

Away from his business activities, Castiglioni also built up a large art collection, including works by Donatello and some of the Venetian grand masters, although he had to sell much of it to refinance his business activities after his setbacks in the 1920s. He also established a theatre in Vienna.

Renowned for his dislike of publicity, he managed largely to avoid having his picture taken and few people recognised him in the street.  When he died in Rome at the age of 78, having been suffering from pneumonia, even the city's newspaper, Il Messaggero, devoted only a small space to his obituary.

He was at times accused of dubious practices in his banking activities and his life was documented in a an unflattering film in 1988, entitled ‘Camillo Castiglioni, or the morality of sharks’.


Travel tip:

The beautiful seaport of Trieste, where Camillo Castiglioni was born, officially became part of the Italian Republic in 1954. It is now the capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region and one of the most prosperous areas of Italy. The city lies towards the end of a narrow strip of land situated between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia and it is also just 30 kilometres north of Croatia. Trieste has been disputed territory for thousands of years and throughout its history has been influenced by its location at the crossroads of the Latin, Slavic and Germanic cultures.

Hotels in Trieste by Hotels.com

The Piazza Unità d'Italia in Trieste

Travel tip:

Trieste is lively and cosmopolitan and a major centre for trade and ship building. In 2012, Lonely Planet called Trieste ‘the world’s most underrated travel destination’. It is a fascinating place to visit because of the Venetian, Slovenian, Austrian and Hungarian influences in the architecture, culture and cuisine. As well as Italian, the local dialect, Triestino, is spoken along with Slovenian, German and Hungarian. Along the sea front, there are many excellent fish restaurants to try. Away from the sea, there are restaurants serving Italian, Friulian, Slovenian, Hungarian and Austrian dishes, and elegant bars line Canal Grande. Visitors can discover why Irish writer James Joyce enjoyed living in Trieste by visiting the Museo Joyce e Svevo, or what was believed to have been his favourite bar, Caffe Pirona.

More reading:

How designer Battista 'Pinin' Farina became a giant of the car industry

Vittorio Jano - engineer from Hungarian background behind Italy's motor racing success

How industrialist Enrico Piaggio created Italy's iconic Vespa scooter

Also on this day:

1737: The death of violin maker Antonio Stradivari




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Errico Malatesta - anarchist

Middle-class boy who became notorious revolutionary

Errico Malatesta in a picture taken in 1890

Errico Malatesta, one of the most prominent figures in the anarchist movement that flourished in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in the province of Caserta, in what is now Campania.

A committed revolutionary who was arrested for the first time at the age of 14, he spent more than 10 years of his life in prison and about 35 years in exile.

Apart from his activity in his own country, Malatesta helped organize anarchist revolutionary groups in several European countries, as well as in Egypt, and in North and South America, including Argentina, where he helped bakers form the country's first militant workers' union.

Born into a family of middle-class landowners in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in what was then the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Malatesta was arrested aged 14 for sending an "insolent and threatening letter" to King Victor Emmanuel II.

Although he would become closely associated with the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, Malatesta drew his first inspiration from Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary who was a driving force in the Risorgimento movement that culminated in the unification of Italy in 1871.

He studied medicine at Naples University until he was expelled in 1871 for taking part in a demonstration, after which he joined the Naples section of the International Workingmen's Association, A year later, met Bakunin for the first time at a congress of international socialist, communist and anarchist groups in Switzerland.

Giuseppe Mazzini was an early
inspiration for Malatesta

Malatesta's ideals were based on the abolition of all government and all organisations that seek to create and impose laws, plus the end of private ownership of land, raw materials and work tools.  He proposed that societies function through the establishment of collective associations of producers and consumers working for the common interest and that patriotic nationalism and rivalries between countries be abolished by the removal of international borders.

To achieve these aims, however, required the overthrow of state rule and capitalism, and Malatesta fervently believed this would be best achieved by armed insurrection, which is why he spent much of his life trying not always successfully to avoid arrest.

After being imprisoned twice for spreading internationalist propaganda, Malatesta joined with fellow Italian anarchist Carlo Cafiero and the Russian Sergius Stepniak and others 1877 in leading an insurrection in the province of Benevento in Campania, which briefly gave them control of two villages, Letino and Gallo, and was greeted with approval by many residents, especially when they made a bonfire of taxation records.

However, they were soon captured by government troops and held in custody for 16 months.  By the time Malatesta was released the state's attitude to anarchism had hardened, particularly after an assassination attempt against King Umberto 1, and after a year of invasive surveillance he decided to live in exile.

He spent time in Egypt, Switzerland, Romania and France before establishing a home in London in 1881, to which he would periodically return for the next 40 years.

Rioters mounted barricades when troops were sent
to quell the food riots in Milan in the late 1890s

His periods in Italy were usually terminated by arrest, notably in 1898 when he was drawn to join a growing anarchist movement among dockworkers in Ancona.  During street fights, he was quickly identified by police and spent much of 1898 and 1899 in jail, unable to participate in a period of prolonged social upheaval in Italy characterised by food riots, a massacre of demonstrators by troops in Milan and the beginnings of Fascism.

Malatesta was ultimately sent to a prison on the island of Lampedusa, but escaped and returned to London, where he lived a relatively quiet life as an electrician but gained notoriety by supplying oxyacetylene cutting equipment to a gang of Latvian revolutionaries so that they could break into the safe at a jewellers in Houndsditch.

The Houndsditch robbery, which resulted in the deaths of three policemen, led indirectly to the Siege of Sidney Street, where two of the robbers were tracked down and eventually killed at a house in Stepney.  Malatesta's cutting gear is on permanent display at the City of London Police Museum.

After the First World War, Malatesta returned to Italy for the final time. Soon arrested and imprisones again, he was released just before the Fascists came to power. However, Malatesta then defied Mussolini's ban on independent newspapers by publishing the journal Pensiero e Volontà - Thought and Will.  The publication was closed and Malatesta placed under house arrest.

He spent his final years earning a living as an electrician. He died in Rome from bronchial pneumonia in July, 1932, aged 78.

The remains of the Roman amphitheatre at Santa Maria
Capua Vetere, where Malatesta was born

Travel tip:

Santa Maria Capua Vetere, by which the oldest part of the city of Capua, north of Naples, is known, is notable for being the site of the second largest of all known Roman amphitheatres, with a length of 170 metres (560ft) and a width of 140m (460ft). Only the Colosseum in Rome (188m by 156m) is bigger.  Built in the time of Augustus, restored by Hadrian and dedicated by Antoninus Pius, the amphitheatre originally had 80 Doric arcades of four stories each, but only two arches now remain.  The interior is better preserved and beneath the arena is a complex system of subterranean passages.


Travel tip:

The island of Lampedusa, where Malatesta was imprisoned before escaping to London in 1899, is the southernmost part of Italy. It is part of the Sicilian province of Agrigento, although the nearest landfall is Tunisia, about 113km (70 miles) away. It has a historic claim to be part of Malta when that island was a British colony.  Lampedusa's Rabbit Beach was once voted as the world's best beach by the travel website, Tripadvisor. In recent years, Lampedusa has become a primary European entry point for migrants from Africa.

More reading:

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

How Republican activist Giovanni Passannante tried to kill Umberto I

Giuseppe Pinelli - anarchist whose 'accidental death' inspired Dario Fo play

Also on this day:

1784: Birth of Maria Antonia, Neapolitan princess who lived sad, short life

(Photo of amphitheatre by Nicolo d'Orta via Wikimedia Commons)

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