Andrea Illy – businessman and writer

Family dream was to make the best coffee in the world

Andrea Illy is the grandson of
company founder Francesco Illy

Andrea Illy, who is the chairman of coffee makers illycaffè, was born on this day in 1964 in Trieste, the capital city of the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The grandson of the founder of illycaffè, Francesco Illy, Andrea represents the third generation of his family to lead the business. His father, Ernesto Illy, was chairman of the company between 1963 and 2004. His sister Anna and brothers Francesco and Riccardo - a former CEO now vice-president - Illy are on the board of directors.

Andrea graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Trieste and went on to study at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Harvard Business School and Singularity University in Silicon Valley.

He joined the family firm in 1990 as a supervisor of the quality control department. Inspired by Japanese business methods, Andrea started the Total Quality Programme, which established standards both for the company and the coffee industry in general.

He was appointed CEO of illycaffè in 1994 and chairman of the company in 2005.

He developed the Università del Caffè to spread the culture of coffee throughout the world. He established the retail side of the business at global level with 230 stores and started a new system of capsules for making coffee.

Francesco Illy's dream was to produce
 the best coffee in the world

His book, Il sogno del caffè (Coffee: The Dream) describes the family and company’s history and the pursuit of the dream of his grandfather, Francesco, to produce the best coffee in the world.

Andrea won the Businessman of the Year Award in Italy in 2004. He is the honorary Chairman of the Association for Science and Information on Coffee and the Chairman of the International Coffee Organisation’s Coffee Market Promotion and Development Committee.

Since 2013 Andrea has been chairman of the Fondazione Altagamma, a foundation for firms that are worldwide ambassadors for Italian living, and from the same year he has been part of the Board of Governors of the Bank of Italy for Trieste.

Married with three daughters, Andrea was named Cavaliere del Lavoro, a Knight of Industry, by the President of Italy in 2018.

Piazza Unità d'Italia is the focal point of the
elegant port city of Trieste

Travel tip:

The beautiful seaport of Trieste, where illycaffè was founded in 1933, officially became part of the Italian Republic in 1954. It lies towards the end of a narrow strip of land situated between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia and is just 30 kilometres north of Croatia. It 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. The final border with Yugoslavia was settled in 1975 and this is now the present day border between Italy and Slovenia. Today, Trieste is a lively and cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building.

Search accommodation in Trieste with Expedia

Canal Grande in Trieste has many waterside bars and
restaurants that are popular with visitors 

Travel tip:

Trieste has many coffee houses that date back to the Hapsburg era, when the Austrians were in control of the seaport. Caffè Tommaseo, the oldest in the city, dates back to 1830 and is in Piazza Nicolo Tommaseo. When Irish writer James Joyce was living in Trieste, his favourite bar was Caffè Pirona in Largo della Barriera Vecchia. You could imagine yourself to be in Venice if you linger at a table outside one of the bars or restaurants at the side of Canal Grande, an inlet in the centre of Trieste with moorings for small crafts that is reminiscent of the Grand Canal.

Trieste hotels from Hotels.com

More reading:

The man who invented the espresso machine

Luigi Lavazza - from Turin grocer to coffee giant

The creator of Italy's iconic Moka coffee pot

Also on this day:

1753: The birth of Marie Josephine of Savoy, who became the titular Queen of France

1898: The birth of chocolatier Pietro Ferrero

1938: The birth of actor Giuliano Gemma

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Giada De Laurentiis - TV chef

Food Network star who was born in Rome

Giada De Laurentiis trained as a 
classical chef in Paris

The TV presenter, chef, author and restaurateur Giada Pamela De Laurentiis was born in Rome on this day in 1970.

A classically-trained chef who learned her craft in Paris, she worked in the kitchens of a number of restaurants in Los Angeles before breaking into television. Since 2003 she has been a regular on the Food Network, the American cable channel.

Born into a theatre and movie background, De Laurentiis takes her name from her mother, the actress Veronica De Laurentiis, who is the daughter of producer Dino De Laurentiis and the actress Silvana Mangano.  Her father is the actor-producer Alex De Benedetti.

Giada spent her first seven years in Rome, where her mother still has a home near the Spanish Steps, but after her parents divorced she and her sisters moved to Los Angeles.

Her grandfather had a home in Hollywood and had by then become a restaurateur and Giada has memories of spending time in the kitchen of his DDL Foodshow delicatessen and restaurant in Los Angeles, where she acquired her interest in cooking.

Her own entry into the catering business came via a roundabout route.  After high school, she went to the University of California to study social anthropology, emerging with a bachelor’s degree.

Giada made her break into
television in 2003

Yet her passion for cooking was undimmed and she felt she would risk being unfulfilled if she did not explore her potential. She enrolled at the world renowned Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris, obtaining Le Grand Diplome, awarded for a combination of classic cooking and patisserie skills. 

Back in Los Angeles, she found work in the kitchen of the Ritz Carlton before landing a chef’s job at Spago in Beverly Hills, where she came to know many celebrity clients.  The contacts she made persuaded her in 1988 to launch her own private catering company, GDL Foods.

Her famous surname attracted attention and indirectly led to an approach from the Food Network, one of whose executives had been intrigued by her background and show business connections after reading a magazine profile and suggested she have a go at presenting a show.

When she was subsequently given her own series, Everyday Italian, the network at first received negative feedback from viewers, who noted Giada's glamorous appearance and accused the TV company of hiring a model or actress who was pretending to be a chef.

Giada's grandfather is the movie
giant Dino De Laurentiis

Having felt uncomfortable at first with appearing on camera, De Laurentiis might have walked away but she overcame her misgivings and persevered.  Since then, Everyday Italian has become one of the Food Network’s most popular shows and Giada has become one of its most recognisable faces, presenting several other shows and appearing as a guest on many others.

She has also written several cookery books, given her signature to a number of spin-off products and opened two restaurants in Las Vegas, one within The Cromwell casino complex called GIADA, as well as Pronto by Giada, inside Caesar’s Palace. A third restaurant, Italian by Giada, opened within the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore.

De Laurentiis was married for 11 years to fashion designer Todd Thompson but they divorced in 2015. She has a daughter, Jade, who has appeared in some of her TV shows.

She regularly returns to her roots in Rome, where her mother, Veronica, still lives in a house close to the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti, better known as the Spanish Steps.

The pretty Via Margutta was one of the
most fashionable streets in Rome

Travel tip:

Giada De Laurentiis’s mother, Veronica, has a house in the area around Via Margutta, a narrow street situated between Piazza di Spagna and Piazza del Popolo in the Campo Marzio area of Rome.  Originally home to craft workshops and stables, it now hosts many art galleries and fashionable restaurants, having become popular after it was depicted in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, in which Gregory Peck’s character was said to have an apartment in Via Margutta. It became an exclusive neighborhood popular with artists and figures from the movie industry, including actress Giuletta Masina, director Federico Fellini and writers Renato Guttuso and Marina Punturieri.

The Spanish Steps is one of
Rome's favourite landmarks

Travel tip:

The Piazza Trinità dei Monti is a square in central Rome adjoining the Renaissance church of the Santissima Trinità dei Monti, at the top of the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti, better known as the Spanish Steps. During Springtime, just before the anniversary of the foundation of Rome, April 21, part of the steps are covered by pots of azaleas. Recently, the Spanish Steps have included a small cut-flower market. The steps are not a place for eating lunch, the consuming of food there being forbidden by Roman urban regulations, but they are usually crowded with people.

Also on this day:

1599: The death of composer Luca Marenzio, an influence on Monteverdi

1849: Venice fell victim to the first air raid in history when attacking Austrian forces attached bombs to unmanned balloons

1913: The birth of nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, who defected to the Soviet Union after working in the United States

1914: The death of progressive priest Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi

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Federico Peliti - catering entrepreneur and photographer

Italian became important figure in British Colonial India

Federico Peliti, pictured in traditional
Indian headdress

Federico Peliti, whose skills as a chef and pastry-maker led him to spend a large part of his life in India under British colonial rule, was born on this day in 1844 in Carignano, a town in Piedmont about 20km (12 miles) south of Turin.

He was also an accomplished photographer and collections of his work made an important contribution to the documentary history of the early years of British rule in India.

The restaurant Peliti opened in Shimla, the so-called summer capital of the British Empire in India, became a favourite with colonial high society and was mentioned in the writings of Rudyard Kipling and others.

Peliti’s family hailed from Valganna, near Varese in Lombardy. They had mainly been surveyors and Peliti initially studied sculpture at the Accademia Albertina in Turin. 

He was diverted from a career in sculpture by the Third Italian War of Independence, in which he participated as a cavalryman in the 1st Nizza regiment of the Italian army. By chance, during his active service, he made friends with a group of confectioners and pastry-makers, who taught him some of their skills.

Armed with this new talent and in search of a job after leaving the army, Peliti entered a competition organised by Richard Bourke, the sixth Earl of Mayo and Viceroy of British India, to find a personal chef. Peliti won, moved to India in 1869 and settled in Calcutta. 

A postcard advertising Peliti's restaurant
in Calcutta. The building still stands today

Lord Mayo was assassinated three years later but Peliti stayed in Calcutta, teaming up with business partner Thomas O’Neill to form O'Neill & Peliti, a bakery in Bentinck Street. 

When the partnership broke up, Peliti moved to the more upmarket Chowringhee Road in 1875, and in 1881 opened a restaurant at Esplanade East which became popular among British high society.

In the same year he set up in Shimla, the so-called summer capital of British India, opening a cafe next to the Combermere bridge in Shimla, which had a terrace overlooking a valley and became very popular. Peliti built a grand home in nearby Mashobra, which he called Villa Carignano, where he lived with his wife, Judith, the daughter of a British-Indian government official.

As his reputation grew, Peliti was invited to cater for a lunch hosted by the Prince of Wales in Burma in 1891. 

He expanded his operations, establishing Peliti's Grand Hotel in Shimla and starting a company that canned food for export.

Peliti also trained other Italian confectioners, such as Angelo Firpo from Genoa, who set up another restaurant in Calcutta, and Felice Cornaglia, who took over his business in Bombay.

Peliti's Grand Hotel in Shimla was part of the
Italian's business empire in India

British expats took to Peliti's restaurants in both Shimla and Calcutta and they became centres of society life. The author and journalist Rudyard Kipling, who was born in Bombay in 1865, immortalised Peliti's Shimla restaurant Regent House by referring to it in his short story The Phantom Rickshaw and his poem Divided Destinies. 

Peliti never returned to sculpture but channelled his creative talents in another direction through his interest in photography. Formally trained by the Turin photographer and instrument maker Felice Bardelli, Peliti was fascinated by the exotic and picturesque and his images of life in India at the time of British rule provide a valuable record.  Much of his collection is now housed at the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica - the Central Institute for Graphics - in Rome.

In 1902 Peliti decided to return to Italy, handing the management of his company to his sons, Edoardo and Federico, and moving back to Carignano, where he had a house decorated with frescoes by the painter Paolo Gaidano, a contemporary of Peliti’s from the nearby town of Poirino.  Peliti died in Carignano in 1914. 

Today, the name of Peliti’s lives on in Peliti’s Vermut, a vermouth manufactured in Turin which is based faithfully on the liqueur Federico Peliti produced for an official visit by the Prince of Wales, Edward VII, in 1877, using a blend of Indian spices, Piemontese flowers, absinthe and muscat wine.

Carignano's 18th-century Baroque cathedral
built by Benedetto Alfieri

Travel tip:

Carignano is one of the oldest towns in Piedmont with a rich history, going back to the Bronze Age.  It was an important stopping-off point on a road built by the Romans between Turin and Carmagnola and archaeological finds such as Roman tombs, pottery, cobblestones and weapons have been discovered locally.  Carignano became one of the most important municipalities of Turin in the late 19th century thanks to the Bona wool mill.  In the centre of the town, there is an 18th-century Baroque cathedral dedicated to Saints Giovanni Battista and Remigio, designed by Benedetto Alfieri and decorated by Paolo Gaidano, which overlooks the town’s market square.

The Badia di San Gemolo
in Valganna, near Varese

Travel tip:

The municipality of Valganna, from which Peliti’s family moved to Carignano, is a few kilometres north of Varese in Lombardy, in the heart of the Italian lake district, surrounded by the picturesque countryside of the Parco delle cinque vette nature reserve.  The Maggiore and Lugano lakes are nearby. Visitors to Valganna are often drawn to the Badia di San Gemolo, a church and abbey complex dedicated to the memory of San Gemolo, the nephew of a bishop who died after being attacked by robbers nearby, whose remains are preserved in the abbey.

Also on this day:

1861: The death in Florence of the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1925: The birth of former president Giorgio Napolitano

1929: The birth of journalist Oriana Fallaci

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Cesare Bianchi - head chef

From shores of Lake Como to London’s Café Royal

The Art Deco memorial in Hampstead Cemetery,
built by Bianchi for his widow, Martha

Cesare Bianchi, who rose from humble beginnings to become head chef at London’s prestigious Café Royal in the 1930s, was born on this day in 1897 in Cernobbio, a village on Lake Como in northern Italy.

He moved to England when he was only 16, hoping to build a career in catering and soon found work doing odd jobs in a London kitchen. However, he had been in the city barely a year when the outbreak of the First World War meant he had to return to his homeland for national service.  In his case, it was with the Alpini, Italy’s mountain brigades, with whom he was an interpreter.

Eager to resume his career in England, once the war was over Cesare took a job at the Palace Hotel in Aberdeen.  It was there he met Martha Gall, the woman who would become his wife.

They were married in 1921 and Martha soon gave birth to their daughter, Patricia.  Ambitious, Cesare persuaded his wife to leave Scotland behind so that he could make another attempt to establish himself in London.

His culinary talents took him a long way as he worked his way up from modest beginnings to land a place in the kitchen at the Café Royal in Regent Street, which at the turn of the century had become one of the capital’s most fashionable restaurants, the place to be seen for society figures.

The Café Royal had a heady reputation but Bianchi was quite at home, soon winning many compliments for his culinary skills.  Ultimately, he was promoted to head chef. He and Martha and their daughter set up home in Hampstead, in Lawn Road.

Cesare Bianchi's position counted for
nothing when he was declared an alien

However, his life was turned upside down in 1936 when Martha died giving birth to their second child.  The baby, a boy given the name Robert, survived.  Martha was buried in Hampstead Cemetery, where Bianchi commissioned an enormous monument, an Art Deco extravagance topped with a Futurist angel, arms outstretched, between two columns and standing on a plinth bearing the name of Bianchi.

The grave, which now has Grade II listed status, is set in a triangular plot. Either side of the angel are two reliefs, one showing Cesare with Martha, who is cradling the baby she never lived to see, sitting on a park bench.  He had hoped one day that he would be buried alongside her.

Martha’s sister, Mary, helped Cesare bring up his children and he was able to return to work in Regent Street.

When peace in Europe was shattered again in 1939, Bianchi’s life took another unwelcome turn.  Although he had been resident in England for much of his adult life and had fought on the side of the Allies when Italy opposed the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey) in World War I, Bianchi found himself classed as an alien in World War II after Italy entered an alliance with Germany.

His status in London counted for nothing. He, along with many other Italians and Germans, were taken to Liverpool, set to board the Arandora Star, a ship that would take them to internment in Newfoundland in Canada.

Smithfield Market, where Bianchi worked, was
destroyed by a German V2 flying bomb

The boat set sail on 2 July, 1940 with 1,300 prisoners on board but had barely hit the open sea of the Atlantic beyond Ireland when it was spotted by a German U-boat.  The enemy submarine was on its way back to base to reload its weapons batteries but had one torpedo left, which its commander  fired at the Arandora Star.

The device hit the side of the Arandora Star. The resulting explosion killed everyone in the ship’s engine room and caused the ship to start sinking rapidly. Bianchi was one of more than 700 Italian prisoners being contained in cramped dormitories - along with almost 600 Germans. Two thirds of the Italians drowned but Bianchi somehow survived and was picked up by a rescue ship.

He was still interned as planned but instead of Canada - or Australia, where others were shipped - was taken to a camp much closer to home on the Isle of Man, where he would remain until the end of 1942. At that point it was considered safe for him to return to London, even though it was not until the autumn of the following year that Italy signed an armistice with the Allies and itself declared war on Germany.

Bianchi rejoined Mary Gall and his children in Hampstead and found a new job in Smithfield Market, with which he hoped to rebuild his career.

The winged angel that sits above the grave of
Martha Gall-Bianchi in Hampstead Cemetery

After his ordeal on the Arandora Star, he might have hoped that the war would hold no more drama for him but, tragically, that was not the case.

On 8 March, 1945, in one of the last attacks that Germany would launch against Britain, Smithfield Market was struck by a V2, one of the second generation of flying bombs used by the Nazis and the forerunner of the inter-continental ballistic missile.

The explosion caused by the rocket destroyed the market and killed 110 people who were inside at the time, including both Cesare Bianchi and Mary Gall, whose presence there may have been because she was one of a large number of women shopping on that day.

In the circumstances, it was not possible for Bianchi to be buried alongside Martha. Along with the other victims of the bomb, he was laid to rest at the London Cemetery in Manor Park in the borough of Newham in the east of the city.

The Villa d'Este on the shores of Lake Como near
Cernobbio, where Cesare Bianchi was born

Travel tip:

Bianchi’s hometown of Cernobbio is notable for the Villa d’Este, the vast complex built as a 16th century summer residence for the Cardinal of Como, and one of many fine villas fronting the water. The town once attracted large crowds hoping to catch a sight of movie star George Clooney, who had a house at nearby Laglio and would occasionally be spotted at a cafe in Cernobbio. Scenes from the movie Ocean’s 12, in which Clooney starred, were filmed locally. The town generally has more locals than tourists. On summer evenings and weekends when the main piazza is full of families and couples.

The 15th century facade of the Duomo
in the centre of the lakeside town of Como

Travel tip:

Cernobbio is just a few kilometres from Como, the town at the southern tip of the eastern branch of Lake Como. It is a pleasant town with an impressive cathedral in the historical centre, the construction of which spanned almost 350 years, which is why it combines features from different architectural areas, including Gothic and Renaissance. The façade was built in 1457, its characteristic rose window and a portal flanked by Renaissance statues of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, both of whom were from Como. This Duomo replaced the earlier 10th-century cathedral, San Fedele.

Also on this day:

1912: The birth of singer-songwriter and actor Renato Rascel

1937: The death of Communist leader Antonio Gramsci

1942: The birth of disgraced entrepreneur Vittorio Cecchi Gori

2014: Popes John XXIII and John Paul II made saints


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Giovanni Buitoni - entrepreneur

Turned family business into multinational company

Giovanni Buitoni took over the running of
the family business when he was just 18 

Giovanni Buitoni, the entrepreneur who turned Buitoni pasta and Perugina chocolates into the international brands they are today, was born on this day in 1891 in Perugia.

The Buitoni family had been making pasta since 1827, when Giovanni’s great grandmother, Giulia, opened a small shop in the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro, in order to support the family after her husband, Giovan Battista Buitoni, had become ill.  She had her own recipe for pasta that used only high quality durum wheat.

Giulia had pawned her wedding jewellery in order to set up the shop but the business did so well that in 1856 two of the couple’s nine children, Giuseppe and Giovanni, opened a factory in Città di Castello, just over the border in northern Umbria, to manufacture pasta using a hard durum wheat they sourced in Puglia.

Giovanni’s sons, Antonio and Francesco, continued the company’s expansion, founding manufacturing plants in other towns, including Perugia.

It was in Perugia in 1907 that Francesco, noting the increasing popularity of chocolate, joined with several partners in launching the Perugina confectionary company.

Baci chocolates have been one of the most famous
lines made by the Perugina chocolate company

Giovanni junior’s destiny was probably always to have a role in the family business, although it came rather sooner than he expected.  After studying law he had gone to Germany in 1909 to learn the language and to observe the way German industries operated, their practises being somewhat advanced compared with Italy’s.

He curtailed his trip on receiving news that his father’s Perugina chocolate company was on the brink of bankruptcy. Already bursting with ideas for improving business, he persuaded his father to let him take over general management of the company at just 18 years old and succeeded in turning it into a profit-making concern.

Within only a short time, Perugina had expanded from a small basement operation to large factory with hundreds of workers. He installed modern machinery in the plant and introducing new products, among them the famous Baci -‘kisses' - chocolates still produced today, each containing a love note, which were the idea of Luisa Spagnoli, one of his father’s partners - and Giovanni's clandestine lover at the time - who went on to become famous in the fashion industry.

The Buitoni name has been visible in Italian shops since
1827, when the first Buitoni store opened in Sansepolcro

Giovanni even managed to combine running the company with a brief stint in the Italian Army in the First World War and later completing his doctor of law degree at the University of Perugia.

Always an innovator, he increased sales of Buitoni pasta products even in the Great Depression of 1930s by putting picture cards inside each packet for customers to collect. Customers who collected complete sets of the cards were eligible to take part in a radio contest and win prizes, including a FIAT automobile.

Giovanni Buitoni was by now an individual of some stature in Perugia, whose citizens he served as Podesta - mayor - from 1930 to 1935. In 1936, he married the opera singer, Letizia Cairone.

Letizia Cairone married
Buitoni in 1936

Buitoni’s expansion into production outside Italy came almost through a twist of fate.

In 1939, Giovanni and his wife were invited by the Hershey Chocolate Company, who were holding a 30th anniversary celebration at their headquarters in Pennsylvania, to visit the United States.

They also attended the 1939 World’s Fair to New York City to promote their own products. With his typical entrepreneurial vision, having noted how much visitors were being asked to pay for food, Giovanni opened a pop-up spaghetti café on the site, selling plates of pasta dressed in simple sauces at 25 cents each.  He and Letizia cooked about 15,000 portions over the course of the event.

They found the American lifestyle to their liking and stayed on for a while afterwards. Unfortunately, before they could return to Italy the Second World War broke out, and once Italy had declared war on the side of the Germans, Giovanni and Letizia were unable to travel or access their money.

With no option but to stay and fend for themselves, Letizia followed the lead of Giovanni’s great grandmother and pawned her jewellery, enabling Giovanni to find a small premises in which to open a pasta factory in New Jersey.

Thanks in part to his vision in promoting the Buitoni name at the World’s Fair, the brand began to sell.  Within 15 years, the Buitoni Foods Corporation had a much bigger factory in South Hackensack, New Jersey and later another one in Brooklyn. A spaghetti restaurant in Times Square, New York City, followed, along with a Perugina shop on Fifth Avenue.

Carlo De Benedetti sold the Buitoni business to
Nestlé for $1.4 billion in 1987

Giovanni returned to Italy in 1953 to found the International Buitoni Organization to coordinate all the industrial activities of the family-controlled multinational, but he continued to spend long periods in the United States.

A gifted amateur basso profundo, he was able to realise one of his dreams during his stay in the United States, to sing opera at Carnegie Hall in New York. He invited family, friends and employees to make an audience and, with the help of professional singers Licia Albanese, a soprano, and the baritone Anselmo Colzani, sang arias from Don Giovanni, Rigoletto and Ernani.

Giovanni Buitoni retired from the operational management of the Buitoni group in 1966. He and Letizia had no children and his nephew, Marco Buitoni, succeeded him as president and chief operating officer. Giovanni died in Rome in January 1979.

The business was sold in 1985 to the industrialist Carlo De Benedetti, who owned Olivetti and the newspaper La Repubblica among other things. He in turn sold it for $1.4 billion to its current owner, Nestlé.

The Fontana Maggiore in Perugia's Piazza IV Novembre

Travel tip:

Perugia, the capital of the Umbria region, is an ancient city that sits on a high hilltop midway between Rome and Florence. In Etruscan times it was one of the most powerful cities of the period.  It is also a university town with a long history, the University of Perugia having been founded in 1308.  The presence of the University for Foreigners and a number of smaller colleges gives Perugia a student population of more than 40,000.  The centre of the city, Piazza IV Novembre, has a medieval fountain, the Fontana Maggiore, which was sculpted by Nicolo and Giovanni Pisano.

A view across the rooftops of Sansepolcro

Travel tip:

Sansepolcro is a town of 16,000 inhabitants situated about 38km (24 miles) northeast of Arezzo in the east of Tuscany, close to the borders with Umbria and Marche. The historic centre is entirely surrounded with fortified walls, built in the early part of the 16th century. The centre of the town is the Piazza Torre di Berta, named after the 13th-century tower of the same name, off which can be found the impressive Palazzi Pichi and Giovagnoli and the 14th-century cathedral, dedicated to St John the Evangelist.  The city is famous as the place in which the brilliant early Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca was born and died.

More reading:

Michele Ferrero, the man who invented Nutella

Mario Pavesi, the biscuit-maker who gave Italy the Autogrill

Anselmo Colzani and his 16 seasons at The Met

Also on this day:

1835: The birth of pioneer criminologist Cesare Lombroso

2007: The death of author and journalist Enzo Biagi

Vino Novello - Italy's 'nouveau' - goes on sale


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Gabriele Corcos - celebrity cook

YouTube recipe blog led to TV fame in US

Gabriele Corcos and his wife, the actress Debi
Mazar, in a scene from their TV show

The TV cook and author Gabriele Corcos, whose show Extra Virgin on the Cooking Channel has given him celebrity status in the United States, was born on this day in 1972 in Fiesole, a town in the Tuscan hills just outside Florence.

He was invited to produce and host the show - the first original cookery programme to go out on the network when it launched in 2010 - after his YouTube channel, in which he prepared traditional Tuscan dishes, attracted a large following of devoted fans.

The Cooking Channel show was so successful it ran for five seasons, with 68 episodes, spawning a best-selling book of Tuscan recipes and a further show, Extra Virgin Americana, in which he starred with his wife, the actress Debi Mazar.

Corcos became a star of the kitchen without ever intending it to be his career.

His parents - his father was a surgeon, his mother a schoolteacher - wanted him to achieve his academic potential, while he was eager to find paid employment. He found a compromise by joining the army with the intention of qualifying as a medic, only to realise that the reward for graduating was to be posted to Kosovo, Somalia or Iraq.

Corcos, Mazar and one of their daughters
in action in their TV kitchen

Horrified at the prospect of active service, he abandoned his studies and decided instead to devote himself to his great love, music. Raising money by selling his treasured Ducati motorcycle, he decided to go to Brazil to learn to play the drums.

Everything changed again when, during a trip home, he met his future wife, who at the time was working with the pop megastar Madonna on make-up and dramatic presentation during a tour of Italy.   Within a short time, he had decided to travel back with Debi  to Los Angeles to start a new life in America. They married the following year, in 2002.

It was when he was forced to consider how he might make a living that he realised the thing he knew most about was cooking, having been brought up in the family farmhouse in the Tuscan hills, where the stove was always lit. His grandmother was preparing food almost constantly for the farmers and hunters and members of their families who would drop in most days.

Gabriele learned the basics of cooking when he was only six or seven years old and by the time he left home knew how to cook scores of Italian dishes. Noting how few Italian restaurants in the Los Angeles area served Italian food as he knew it, and struck upon the idea of demonstrating the recipes he had grown up with on his own YouTube channel, with his wife, Debi, as his companion in the kitchen.

Gabriele Corcos is active in helping food charities

Corcos boosted his knowledge while in Los Angeles by working in the kitchens of noted chefs such as Gino Angelini.

He never imagined his YouTube channel would be popular but soon the couple were receiving hundreds of emails congratulating them on their project and were encouraged to continue. The channel eventually ran for about five years.

Now based in Brooklyn, New York, Corcos has participated in both the Food Network New York City and Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festivals since 2011 as a celebrity chef.

He has become involved too with food charities. While making an appearance on Food Network channel's Chopped in April 2013, he competed on behalf of the charity Feeding America and in 2013, Corcos and his family participated in the Live Below the Line Challenge, in which the family tried to feed themselves on $1.50 each per day, which is the equivalent of the poverty line in America.

In 2014, Corcos became a council member of the Food Bank For New York City and hosted a pop-up dinner series in 2014 where a large portion of the proceeds benefited the Food Bank.

Although married to an American and with two daughters born in the United States, Corcos still hankers after a return to Fiesole and the family farm, surrounded by vines and olive trees and hopes that the Food Network’s availability on Italian television may lead to opportunities to work in Italy.

Fiesole offers panoramic views across Florence

Travel tip:

Fiesole, a town of about 14,000 inhabitants situated in an elevated position about 8km (5 miles) northeast of Florence, has since the 14th century been a popular place to live for wealthy Florentines and even to this day remains the richest municipality in Florence.  Formerly an important Etruscan settlement, it was also a Roman town of note, of which the remains of a theatre and baths are still visible.  Fiesole's cathedral, built in the 11th century, is supposedly built over the site of the martyrdom of St. Romulus. In the middle ages, Fiesole was as powerful as Florence until it was conquered by the latter in 1125 after a series of wars.

A typical landscape in Tuscany's Chianti region

Travel tip:

The Tuscany countryside tends to be associated with Chianti country, the wine-growing area known and appreciated by visitors from across the world. It by no means occupies the whole of the region, although it is a large area.  The borders are not clearly defined but in general it extends over the provinces of Florence and Siena, covering all of the area in between, extending to the east toward the Valdarno and to the west to the Val d'Elsa. It is further defined as Chianti Fiorentino, which includes towns such as Barberino Val d’Elsa, Greve in Chianti, San Casciano in Val di Pesa and Tavarnelle in Val di Pesa, and Chianti Sienese, which includes Radda, Gaiole, Castellina and Castelnuovo Berardenga.

More reading:

How Gino D'Acampo rebuilt his life to become a star cook and TV presenter

The chef from Riccione and his American dream

Gennaro Contaldo's passion for Amalfi

Also on this day:

The Feast of Saint Giustina of Padua

1675: The birth of famed Venetian portrait painter Rosalba Carriera



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Franco Bonvicini – comic book artist

Comic artist became famous for satirising the Nazis

Bonvi's Sturmtruppen was a hit in countries
beyond Italy as well as at home

Franco Bonvicini, who signed his comic strips Bonvi, was born on this day in 1941 in either Parma or Modena in Emilia-Romagna.

The correct birthplace is unknown. According to the artist, his mother registered him in both places to obtain double the usual amount of food stamps for rations.

After a brief spell working in advertising, Bonvi made his debut in the comic strip world for the Rome newspaper Paese Sera with his creation Sturmtruppen in 1968.

This series satirising the German army was a big hit and was published in various periodicals over the years. It was also translated for publication in other countries.

Although left-wing and a pacifist, Bonvi was fascinated by war and built up immense knowledge about Nazi Germany’s uniforms, weapons and equipment, which he depicted faithfully in his illustrations. The cartoons satirised military life and the Nazis themselves, providing him with an endless source of comic and surreal situations.

Bonvi's characters first appeared in
1968 in the Paese Sera newspaper

Bonvi also created the character Nick Carter, a comic detective, who later featured in a play, two films and a number of television cartoons.

In the 1980s, Bonvi became a member of Bologna City Council and founded a publishing house and monthly magazine in the city.

He was killed in 1995 in Bologna when he was struck by a car while crossing a road on his way to the television studios. He was due to appear on a show hosted by DJ and TV personality Red Ronnie and it was believed he intended to appeal for financial assistance for a friend, a Bolognese cartoonist, who was unable to work because he was dying of cancer.

A plate of Parma's famous prosciutto

Travel tip:

Franco Bonvicini could have been born in either Parma or Modena, cities that are about 60 km apart in Emilia-Romagna. Parma is famous for producing Prosciutto di Parma, a type of cured ham, and Parmigiano Reggiano, a hard cheese. Modena for Cotechino Modena, a type of sausage, and aceto balsamico di Modena, a high quality balsamic vinegar made from grape must.

Bologna's best food shops can be found in the Quadrilatero

Travel tip:

Bologna, where Franco Bonvicini lived in later life, is known by Italians as La Grassa, the fat one, because of its rich culinary traditions. It is the home of the world’s most famous pasta dish, tagliatelle Bolognese, long strips of pasta served with a rich meat sauce. The best traditional food shops in the city can be found in the area known as the Quadrilatero, which is bordered by Piazza Maggiore, Via Rizzoli, Via Castiglione and Via Farini.

More reading:

How Benito Jacovitti became Italy's favourite cartoonist

Hugo Pratt, the Rimini-born creator of comic book character Corto Maltese

How comic actor Sergio Tòfano invented comic cartoon favourite Signor Bonaventura

Also on this day:

1425: The birth of Bianca Maria Visconti, the Milanese Duchess who led her army into battle

1675: The birth of intellectual leader Pope Benedict XIV


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Cesare “Caesar” Cardini – restaurateur

Italian emigrant who invented Caesar salad

Cesare 'Caesar' Cardini with the
ingredients for his famous salad

The restaurateur who history credits with inventing the Caesar salad was born on this day in 1896 in Baveno, a small town on the shore of Lake Maggiore.

Cesare Cardini was one of a large family, with four brothers and two sisters.  In common with many Italians in the early part of the 20^th century, his brothers Nereo, Alessandro and Gaudenzio emigrated to the United States, hoping there would be more opportunities to make a living.

Nereo is said to have opened a small hotel in Santa Cruz, California, south of San Francisco, while Alessandro and Guadenzio went to Mexico City.

Cesare left Italy for America in 1913. Records indicate he disembarked at Ellis Island, New York on May 1, having endured the transatlantic voyage as a steerage passenger, sleeping in a cargo hold equipped with dozens of bunk beds, which was the cheapest way to travel but came with few comforts.

He is thought then to have returned to Italy for a few years, working in restaurants in Milan, but ventured back to the United States in 1919.  This time he settled, first in Sacramento, then in San Diego, on the Pacific Ocean and close to the border with Mexico.

During the Prohibition Era, from 1920 to 1933, when alcoholic drinks were illegal in the US, many restaurateurs in San Diego crossed the border in Tijuana, where there were no restrictions, and attracted streams of American diners.

Cardini had many thriving restaurants in California and, for
a while, in Tijuana, just over the Mexican border

The story is that Cesare – by now known as Caesar – opened a business in Tijuana, probably with his brother, Alessandro, who was calling himself Alex.  They were always busy on the major public holidays and Cesare’s daughter, Rosa, claimed that Caesar salad came into being on Independence Day, 1924. With a packed restaurant, her father suddenly found himself running short of ingredients.

Whenever a diner found his choice of dish was no longer available, Cesare is said to have offered to make them a special salad, made with such a mouthwatering combination of ingredients they would be delighted they opted to try it.

In fact, the only salad ingredient he had left was some romaine lettuces. Yet with great theatre, he is said to have arrived at the table with a bowl of lettuce leaves, into which he tossed raw eggs, olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese and Worcestershire sauce, mixed them all together and invited diners to savour the flavour by eating the coated leaves by holding the stem with their fingers.

Needless to say, the combination of sweet lettuce and the creamy, tangy dressing proved a big hit. The restaurant became even more popular and over the next few years the recipe rapidly spread across America.

The Cardini brand is still on sale today

Wallis Simpson, the Socialite for whom the English king, Edward VIII, so controversially gave up the throne in 1936, is said to have introduced the salad to Europe by insisting that her French chef learned how to make it.

Meanwhile, back in Mexico, a change in the gambling laws caused tourism to Tijuana to go into decline, and Cesare Cardini, with wife, Camille, and daughter Rosa, moved back to the United States, first to San Diego in 1935, and then to Los Angeles in 1938.

Demand for the salad dressing continued, and friends began asking for bottles and jars to be filled with it so they might enjoy it at home.  In time, Rosa began to sell bottles of the dressing on a market stall and was so successful her father decided it was worth producing on a commercial scale.

In 1948, he patented the recipe and established Caesar Cardini Foods, which gradually expanded its range of dressings and became an established name on tables across America and beyond.

Cardini died in 1956 after suffering a stroke at his Los Angeles home but Rosa took over the running of the company and developed the business to the extent that, at its peak, one in every four bottles of dressing on US tables had Cardini’s name on it.

She retired in 1988, although the name lives on. The licence to use the brand name is currently held by T Marzetti and Company, a business also founded by Italian emigrants, Teresa and Giuseppe Marzetti.

Rosa Cardini’s version of the origins of Caesar salad is not universally accepted.  Paul Maggiora, a partner of the Cardinis, claimed to have tossed the first Caesar salad in 1927 for American airmen from San Diego and called it Aviator's Salad.

Alessandro Cardini also claimed ownership of the recipe, which he also called Aviator's Salad, while Livio Santini, who worked in the kitchen at Cesare’s Tijuana restaurant, said that he made the salad from a recipe of his mother, and that Cesare borrowed the recipe from him.

The waterfront at Baveno, Cardini's home town on the
western shore of Lake Maggiore

Travel tip:

The lakeside town of Baveno, where Cesare Cardini was born, lies on the western shore of Lake Maggiore, just a few kilometres from its better known neighbour, Stresa. Both look out over the Borromean Islands, famous for their beautiful cultivated gardens.  The attractions of Baveno include its mineral water springs, the pink granite that is quarried nearby and a series of opulent villas dotted along the nearby coastline, including the Villa Henfrey-Branca, noticeable for its castle-like turrets, where Queen Victoria was a regular visitor from Britain as a guest of the engineer Charles Henfrey.

Hotels in Baveno from Booking.com

The island of Isola Bella is a major tourist attraction

Travel tip:

Although smaller in area than Lake Garda, Lake Maggiore is the longest of the Italian lakes, stretching for 65km (40 miles) from Arona in Lombardy to its northern extreme in Locarno in Switzerland.  It is also extremely deep, plunging 179m (587ft) at its deepest.  Because of its length, it has a different character at the Swiss end, where the scenery has an alpine feel, compared with the southern tip, which is at the edge of the Lombardy plain. The Borromean islands are the lake's biggest draw for tourists, with three of them - Isola Bella, Isola Madre and Isola dei Pescatori are accessible to the public.

Stay in Arona with Booking.com

More reading:

A chef from the Adriatic coast who opened a restaurant in New York

The Emilian entrepreneur who founded an American pasta brand

The chef from a cinema family who found TV fame on America's Food Network 

Also on this day: 

1607: The first performance of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, the oldest opera still regularly staged

1934: The birth of politician Bettino Craxi

1934: The birth of soprano and opera director Renata Scotto

1990: The death of former president Sandro Pertini

(Picture credits: Cardini restaurant from San Diego History Center; Baveno view by Abxbay via Wikimedia Commons)

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