Corrado Augias - author, journalist and presenter

TV personality has devoted his life to writing

Corrado Augias has enjoyed a long career
as a writer, journalist and TV presenter

Veteran journalist and TV presenter Corrado Augias, who is also a best-selling author, was born on this day in Rome in 1935. He has become popular in Italy as the host of many TV programmes, including those featuring mysteries and crimes from the past, such as Telefono Giallo and Enigma.

Augias is a prolific writer, his works ranging from crime novels set in the early 20th century, to a series of books about the hidden secrets of Italian and European cities, as well as religious works, and plays.

He was brought up in Rome as part of a family originally from Toulon in France, although his father’s family were of Sardinian ancestry. After studying at Sapienza University in Rome he became a journalist working for L’Espresso, La Repubblica and Panorama. He also worked as a foreign correspondent in Paris and New York for several years.

In the 1960s, Augias became involved with the Roman avante garde movement and wrote plays for the theatre. More recently, he wrote a play, L’onesto Jago, for the Teatro Stabile di Genova.

His early crime novels for the Rizzoli publishing house, feature the protagonist Commissario Giovanni Sperelli, an imaginary brother of Andrea Sperelli, who was a character in Piacere, a novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio.

The first novel in a trilogy, Quel treno da Vienna - That Train from Vienna -  published in 1981, was set in Rome in 1911, when the capital was about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Kingdom of Italy.

It was the first of three novels featuring Sperelli, a Commissario of Public Security, and was followed by Il fazzoletto azzuro - The Blue Handkerchief - which was set in Rome in 1915, when Italy was about to enter World War I, and L’ultima primavera - The Last Spring - which begins just before the March on Rome by Mussolini’s Fascists in 1922.

Three films based on these novels were later made for television and shown on Rai, Italy’s national television network.

Augias is well known for his popular series of books, ‘I Segreti di….’, which covers many Italian and European cities, in which he unveils their peculiar features. His 2010 publication of I Segreti del Vaticano focused on issues of power in the Vatican state.

I segreti di Roma has been one
of Augias's most popular books

An atheist, Augias wrote Inchiesta su Gesù, looking at the Gospel’s description of the life of Jesus. This book became a bestseller in Italy.

However, it provoked two other Italian authors to write another book in reply, Risposta a Inchiesta su Gesù, which claimed to offer informed and constructive defence, explanation, and justification for what was written in the Gospel about Jesus.

Augias is married to the journalist and writer Daniela Pasti and he collaborated with her to write Newspapers and Spies, a book about secret societies and corrupt journalists during the Great War.

In 2023, Augias left Rai to go to the commercial channel LA7 to host La Torre di Babele, an in-depth, cultural television programme.

Now in his 90s, he continues to write novels and non-fiction books and his recent autobiographical book, La vita s’impara, about his adventurous life and what he has learnt, was published in 2024.

Between 1994 and 1999 Augias served in the European Parliament as MEP for Southern Italy. He was awarded The Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006.

A year later he was awarded the Knight (Chevalier) of the Legion of Honour by France, but he renounced the honour in 2020 when the same award was given to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The Calling of St Matthew is the first work
in Caravaggio's Cappella Contarelli cycle

Travel tip:

The book for which Corrado Augias is perhaps best known, I segreti di Roma (The Secrets of Rome), includes discourse about the great Renaissance painter, Caravaggio, who spent much of his working life in Rome and left a legacy of outstanding work, some of which is on public view in churches around the city. These include the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, a short distance from Piazza Navona, where the Cappella Contarelli includes a cycle of Caravaggio paintings on the theme of Saint Matthew - The Calling of Saint Matthew, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, and The Inspiration of Saint Matthew. Augias believes the content of each, with many of the figures portrayed inspired by the ordinary Romans the painter would encounter in his daily life, perfectly illustrates the contradictions found in Rome, where piety co-exists with vice, poverty with power, light with shadow.  The paintings, completed between 1599 and 1602, were Caravaggio's first major public commission and one that cemented his reputation as a master artist. The church of San Luigi dei Francesi, which was designed by Giacomo della Porta and built by Domenico Fontana between 1518 and 1589, is dedicated to the patron saints of France: Virgin Mary, Denis of Paris, and King Louis IX of France. The chapel commemorates the French cardinal, Matthieu Cointerel.

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The present day campus of Sapienza University,
designed in the 1930s by Marcello Piacentini

Travel tip:

The University of Rome, where Corrado Augias studied, is often referred to as the Sapienza University of Rome or simply La Sapienza, meaning 'knowledge'. It was founded in 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII, as a place for  ecclesiastical studies over which he could exert greater control than the already established universities of Bologna and Padua. The first pontifical university, it expanded in the 15th century to include schools of Law, Medicine, Philosophy and Theology. Money raised from a new tax on wine enabled the University to buy a palace, which later housed the Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza church. The University was closed during the sack of Rome in 1527 but reopened by Pope Paul III in 1534. In 1870, La Sapienza ceased to be the papal university and as the university of the capital of Italy became recognised as the country's most prestigious seat of learning. A new modern campus was built in 1935 under the guidance of the architect Marcello Piacentini.

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More reading:

Gabriele D’Annunzio and his place in Italian history

The left-leaning aristocrat who founded L’Espresso and La Repubblica

The rags-to-riches story of publisher Angelo Rizzoli

Also on this day:

1482: The first printed edition of the Hebrew Bible

1582: The birth of painter Giovanni Lanfranco

1919: The birth of footballer Valentino Mazzola

1976: The death of Franciscan friar Gabriele Allegra

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Emma Gramatica – actress

Celebrating the long career of a seasoned stage and film performer

Emma Gramatica came from an acting 
background in the early 20th century

The theatre and cinema actress Emma Gramatica was born Aida Laura Argia Gramatica on this day in 1874 in Borgo San Donnino, which is today known as Fidenza, in the province of Parma in Emilia-Romagna.

Emma appeared in 29 films between 1919 and 1962 and was also a principal actress in the Italian theatre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her sisters, Irma and Anna Gramatica, were also actresses. Anna, married the actor Ruggero Capodaglio and therefore became the sister-in-law of the famous actress, Wanda Capodaglio.

While still a teenager, Emma Gramatica made her stage debut next to the celebrated actress Eleonora Duse in La Gioconda by Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Emma became the primattrice (first actress) in the stage companies led by some of the most prestigious names in the Italian theatre of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Ermete Zacconi, Flavio Andò, Enrico Reinach, and Ermete Novelli.

In the early part of the 20th century, she formed the famous theatre company Gramatica-Carini-Piperno, employing leading performers such as Renzo Ricci and Lola Braccini.

Emma’s film debut came - in the silent era - in 1916 when she appeared as a marriage wrecker in Quando il canto si spegne (When the Song is Over) opposite Luigi Serventi. The press praised her for her stage qualities but criticised her looks and theatricality and said they couldn’t accept her in the part of a mistress for whom a man would break up his marriage. 

As a result, Emma was to stay away from films until the arrival of sound cinema in Italy.

In 1931, by which time she was 57, she appeared in the film La Vecchia Signora, playing the part of an impoverished old lady selling chestnuts in the streets to support her niece.

As an older actress, Gramatica was
able to earn extra cash

She appeared in Napoli d’altri tempi in 1938, which starred Vittorio De Sica, and in Mamma in 1941, playing the mother of the opera singer Mario Sarni, played by the famous tenor Beniamino Gigli. In the film Sorelle Matterassi in 1944, Emma and her sister, Irma, played the parts of two old spinsters.

Emma Gramatica was in her seventies when she achieved her most important film and television successes.

Her most famous film was Miracolo a Milano, a neorealist fable directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1951, when she played the part of old Lolotta, who finds a baby among the cauliflowers in her garden and names him Totò, the movie’s central character played by Francesco Golisano. She brings him up to be both optimistic and kind.

Emma also appeared in Don Camillo: Monsignor in 1961 starring Fernandel and Gino Cervi.

The Don Camillo stories, featuring the characters Don Camillo and Peppone - the parish priest and Communist mayor of a fictional town in rural post-World War Two Italy - were the creation of writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi in the 1940s and 1950s. They were hugely popular and have been adapted many times for film, radio and TV.

Emma received many awards and honours in Italy during her career and the Legion of Honour in France. The sculptor Mario Rutelli celebrated Emma’s looks in 1905 by creating a bronze portrait bust of her. 

The actress died in Ostia, a town near the ancient port of Rome, at the age of 91 in 1965. She was laid to rest in her family tomb in the cemetery of Signa in Via Sorelle Gramatica in Florence, with her sister, Irma, and her parents.

Fidenza's Piazza Garibaldi is flanked by the
Palazzo Comunale, the town hall

Travel tip:

Fidenza, where Emma Gramatica was born, is an historic town of 27,000 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, about 30km (19 miles) northwest of Parma and 45km (28 miles) southeast of Piacenza along the ancient Via Emilia. Originally known as Fidentia during Roman times, the town was later called Borgo San Donnino, in honour of Saint Domninus, a Christian martyr. It was renamed Fidenza in 1927. The town’s attractions include a 12th–13th century Romanesque cathedral, dedicated to St Domninus, with a façade attributed to the sculptor Benedetto Antelami. The town’s central square, Piazza Garibaldi, flanked by the Palazzo Comunale (Town Hall), is a lively civic space. Fidenza is close to Busseto - the birthplace of Verdi - the spa town of Salsomaggiore Terme, and the fortified village of Fontanellato. Fidenza had prominence in medieval times as a key stop along the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route connecting Canterbury to Rome.

A street in the well preserved 
Roman resort of Ostia, near Rome

Travel tip:

Ostia - Lido di Ostia, to give its full name - is a seaside escape popular with Romans, offering long stretches of sandy beaches, vibrant nightlife, and seafood restaurants. It is situated on the Tyrrhenian coast just 30km (18 miles) southwest of the capital and easily accessible by train from central Rome. It blends beach culture with history, thanks to its proximity to the ancient Roman city of Ostia Antica. Highlights include the scenic pier Pontile di Ostia and Borghetto dei Pescatori, a quaint fishing village that forms part of the resort.  Ostia Antica, founded in the 4th century BC, was the bustling port of ancient Rome. The remains offer a remarkably preserved glimpse into Roman urban life. The city was a hub for trade, grain storage, and maritime defense, reflecting Rome’s imperial might. Among the best preserved buildings are a Roman theatre, still used for performances today, a Forum and Baths and some apartment buildings that are rare examples of multi-story Roman housing.  Ostia Antica has the advantage for visitors of being quieter and less crowded, for example, than the world famous ruins at Pompeii, but is an equally important site. 

More reading:

Why Eleonora Duse is regarded as one of the greatest acting talents of all time

Vittorio De Sica and the golden age of neorealism in Italian cinema

Gino Cervi - from Don Camillo to Maigret

Also on this day:

1647: The death of scientist Evangelista Torricelli

1815: The birth of virtuoso violinist Camillo Sivori

1902: The birth of Carlo Gnocchi, chaplain to Italy’s WW2 alpine troops

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Luigi Rizzo - naval commander

Sicilian honoured multiple times for World War One daring

Luigi Rizzo, bedecked with his array
of medals, pictured in 1935

Luigi Rizzo, a celebrated naval commander renowned for his daring exploits during the First World War, was born on this day in 1887 in Milazzo, a seaside town almost at the northeast tip of the island of Sicily, about 35km (22km) west of the city of Messina.

Rizzo, who was awarded the title Count of Grado and Premuda in recognition of two of his greatest successes, rose to the rank of Commander in the Royal Italian Navy, later upgraded to honorary Admiral, and won numerous decorations for bravery, including two Gold Medals and four Silver Medals for Military Valour.

Born into a family of merchant ship captains, Rizzo began his maritime career in the merchant navy. His transition to military service came in 1912 when he was appointed second lieutenant in the Naval Reserve. 

With Italy’s entry into World War One in 1915, Rizzo was assigned to the maritime defence of Grado, a fashionable Austro-Hungarian seaside resort that had been seized by the Italian army because of its strategic importance in the northern Adriatic.

It had become a base for the Italian navy’s torpedo boats and seaplanes and the courage and tactical acumen displayed by Rizzo in protecting the new base, which made use of its natural harbour, of earned him a Silver Medal of Military Valour.

Rizzo’s reputation rose still further following his transfer to the elite MAS (Motoscafo Armato Silurante) flotilla - small, fast torpedo boats used for stealth attacks. In December 1917, he led a successful raid in the Gulf of Trieste, sinking the Austro-Hungarian battleship SMS Wien. This feat earned him the Gold Medal of Military Valour and marked him as a formidable naval tactician.

His most legendary feat of daring, which brought him a second Gold Medal, occurred on June 10, 1918 off the Dalmatian island of Premuda, more than 200km (124 miles) south of Trieste, now part of Croatia. Commanding one of the MAS torpedo boats, Rizzo launched a surprise attack that sank the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought SMS Szent István, a 21,700-ton battleship. 

The Austro-Hungarian battleship Szent István, 
shortly before it sank off the island of Premuda

The sinking was a huge psychological and strategic blow to the enemy’s naval power and remains one of the most celebrated victories in Italian naval history, commemorated at naval bases across Italy on June 10 each year as the Festa della Marina.

The wreck of the SMS Szent István remains on the seabed eight nautical miles off the coast of Premuda at a depth of 68m (223 ft). In an area of coast popular with diving enthusiasts, the wreck remains an attraction, although it is considered to be too deeply located for recreational divers because of the specialised equipment required.

Rizzo’s other wartime heroics included the capture of two pilots of an Austrian seaplane that had ditched due to a malfunction, and his missions in the defence of the mouth of the Piave, as a result of which he was promoted to Lieutenant. He was decorated with Silver Medals for Military Valour as a result of both.

During the course of the war, Rizzo also earned the Knight’s Cross of the Military Order of Savoy, along with international honours including France’s Croix de Guerre, Britain’s Distinguished Service Order, and the US Navy Distinguished Service Medal.

In 1919, Rizzo joined Gabriele D’Annunzio’s controversial occupation of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia), commanding the so-called Fleet of Carnaro and aiding in the city’s supply efforts. 

Rizzo's torpedo boat, safely returned to the lagoon
of Venice after sinking the Szent István

He retired from active naval service in 1920 with the rank of Commander but was later promoted to Admiral as an honorary recognition of his service and legacy. 

Further recognition followed in 1935 when King Victor Emmanuel III conferred upon Rizzo the victory title Conte di Grado e di Premuda - Count of Grado and Premuda - by royal decree.

When Italy entered World War Two in 1940, Rizzo returned to service and for a while took part in anti-submarine warfare in the Strait of Sicily. 

Following the armistice of 1943 and Italy’s surrender to the Allies, Rizzo switched sides and was actively involved in the sabotage of ocean liners and steamships to stop them falling into German hands. He was subsequently arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned in Austria. 

He survived the ordeal but suffered personal tragedy in September of that year when his 22-year-old son Giorgio, who had followed him into naval service as a lieutenant in command of an MAS, was killed in a German bombing raid on Piombino.

Rizzo later recovered his son's body from a mass grave on the island of Elba and published a collection of letters and documents in his memory. 

Luigi Rizzo died in Rome in 1951 after suffering from lung cancer, despite the efforts of his friend, the surgeon Raffaele Paolucci, whom he had known since they served together as naval commanders in World War One and had gone on to have a distinguished career in surgical medicine.

In addition to Giorgio, Rizzo had two other children, Giacomo and a daughter, Maria Guglielmina, who in 2015 attended the launch near Sestri Levante in Liguria of a Bergamini class frigate built for the Italian Navy and named Luigi Rizzo in his honour.

Milazzo, in northeastern Sicily, is dominated by
the huge Norman fortress that watches over it

Travel tip:

Milazzo, where Luigi Rizzo was born, is an historic, coastal town in northeastern Sicily, nestled on a narrow peninsula jutting into the Tyrrhenian Sea. With a population of 31,500, the town has a long tradition of fishing and shipbuilding and is the departure point for ferries to the Aeolian Islands. But it also boasts a mix of sandy and pebbled beaches, with crystal-clear waters ideal for swimming, snorkeling and diving, while the Capo Milazzo, a rugged promontory at the tip of the peninsula, offers dramatic cliffs, hidden cove, and the natural reserve of Piscina di Venere - a tidal pool named after the goddess Venus.  A Greek settlement in the 8th century BC, it was later a Roman stronghold and over the centuries has passed through Byzantine, Arab, Norman, and Spanish hands. The town played a key role in several military conflicts, including the Battle of Milazzo in 1860, where Giuseppe Garibaldi’s forces clashed with the Bourbons during Italy’s unification.  At the heart of the town stands its massive Norman castle, one of the largest fortified complexes in Sicily. 

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Sunset over the Baia del Silenzio, part of the 
beautiful Ligurian resort of Sestri Levante

Travel tip:

Sestri Levante, just along the Ligurian coast from the shipyard at Riva Trigoso where the frigate Luigi Rizzo was launched in 2015, is a seaside resort between Genoa and the Cinque Terre, known for its scenic beauty. Part of the town occupies a narrow promontory that divides two stunning bays - the Baia del Silenzio (Bay of Silence), a serene, crescent-shaped beach framed by pastel-colored buildings, and the Baia delle Favole (Bay of Fairy Tales), which was named in honour of the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, who briefly lived in Sestri Levante. This larger bay hosts the town’s marina as well as promenades, restaurants, and family-friendly beaches.  The town celebrates its literary heritage with the annual Andersen Festival, a week-long celebration of storytelling, theatre and music.  Sestri Levante’s trattorias and wine bars offer relaxed dining with sea views,  featuring local specialities and wines from grapes grown on nearby hills. The resort is popular with Italian families and visitors seeking to enjoy the spectacular beauty of the Ligurian coast without the crowds of Portofino or Monterosso. What’s more, it is easily reached by train, with regular services from Genoa, La Spezia, and Milan. 

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More reading:

How Italy entered World War Two

The WW1 flying ace turned WW2 commander

The Great War hero who became physician to Italy’s Chamber of Deputies

Also on this day:

1551: The birth of composer Giulio Caccini

1881: The birth of Mona Lisa thief Vincenzo Perrugia

1957: The birth of footballer Antonio Cabrini

1965: The birth of chef and TV presenter Carlo Cracco

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Giovanni Comisso - writer

Novelist and journalist with distinctive literary voice

Giovanni Comisso spent much of his 
writing life travelling abroad

The writer Giovanni Comisso, one of Italy’s most distinctive literary voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1895 in Treviso in the Veneto region.

He was acclaimed for his novel Giorni di guerra - Days of War - which drew on his experiences serving as a telegraph engineer in the First World War. Comisso’s work won critical praise for being deeply attuned to the emotional and philosophical currents of his time.

For much of his life, Comisso led a peripatetic career as a journalist and art dealer, as well as a writer. He traveled extensively across Europe, North Africa, and the Far East, taking work as a correspondent for Italian newspapers such as Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta del Popolo.  For a while, he lived in Paris with the Italian painter Filippo De Pisis, leading what he described as a “disorderly and frenetic” existence within the city’s bohemian postwar artistic community.

Comisso was born into a comfortable, middle-class household, the son of an agricultural merchant. He attended the Antonio Canova classical high school in Treviso but failed his final exams and signed up for military service, taking a telegraph engineering course in Florence. By that time he had met Arturo Martini, a Trevisan sculptor six years his senior, with whom he developed a strong friendship.  Martini helped him find a publisher for his first collection of poems, also painting his portrait for the cover.

In common with so many young Italian men, the course of Comisso's life abruptly changed with the outbreak of World War One. His service with the Telegraph Corps of Engineers took him to the front line in the war against Austria-Hungary. He took part in the Battle of Caporetto, a disastrous defeat for the Italians in November 1917, and the Battle of the Piave River in June 1918, a decisive victory that was probably the beginning of the end for Austria-Hungary.

Following the armistice, he was transferred to Fiume - the city that is now Rijeka in Croatia but to which Italy felt they had an historic claim. He was there in September, 1919, when a rebel army led by the Italian Army officer Gabriele D'Annunzio occupied the city in a response to what Italians perceived as the unfairness of post-war division of territory by their allies. 

Comisso deserted and joined the rebel troops, an experience that deepened his fascination with rebellion and individualism. The occupation was short-lived but Fiume subsequently became part of Italy under the 1924 Treaty of Rome.

Giorni di guerra, the novel that
drew on Comisso's war experience

While in Fiume, he enjoyed sailing in the Adriatic, which inspired his first novel, The Port of Love, published in 1924.

In the same year, Comisso completed the studies he had abandoned before WW1 and obtained a degree in law at the University of Siena. He never practised, instead combining travelling with writing, earning a living as a correspondent for a number of Italian newspapers and magazines. At different times, he ran a bookshop in Milan and was an art dealer in Paris. 

Among his varied experiences, his time aboard a sailing ship based in Chioggia, at the southern end of the Venetian Lagoon, led him to write Gente di Mare - Seafarers - which won him the Bagutta Prize in 1929.

In December of that year, as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera, he made the Grand Tour of the Far East, visiting China, Japan, Siberia, and Russia, which he travelled across to reach Moscow. His trip lasted seven months. 

Back in Italy, he published his great wartime novel, Giorni di guerra, which initially caused him some problems with the Fascist regime, who were unhappy that it portrayed the Italian military in a raw, unheroic light. 

Comisso used the money he had earned from his newspaper work and literature to buy a house and some land in Zero Branco, a town in the Treviso area, about 14km (nine miles) to the southwest of the city.

He published books of his writings in Paris and the Far East, although his travelling was not finished. The Gazzetta del Popolo, based in Turin, sent him on a tour of the entire Italian peninsula, from which he reported his observations, and then to East Africa to document the birth of the new Fascist Empire.

Comisso's final home in the village of Santa Maria
del Rovere, on the outskirts of Treviso

World War Two had devastating consequences for Comisso, whose family home in Piazza Fiumicelli was destroyed when Treviso was bombed in April 1944, although his mother and her housekeeper had been evacuated to Zero Branco.  

Meanwhile, his companion, Guido, with whom he shared his own home, was arrested by the Fascists, then released on condition that he joined a combat unit of the new Italian Social Republic, from which he deserted only to be shot dead by partisans, who suspected him of spying.

Comisso’s writing continued to be honoured. He won the Viareggio Prize in 1952 with Capricci italiani - Italian whims - and the Strega Prize in 1955 with Un gatto attraversa la strada - A Cat Crosses the Road - two collections of short stories.

After the deaths of his mother and both Arturo Martini and Filippo De Pisis, Comisso left Zero Branco to rent an apartment in Treviso, but moved again, to a house in Santa Maria del Rovere, on the outskirts of Treviso, where he continued to write.

His final work, a collection of stories entitled Attraverso il tempo - Through Time - was published just a few months before his death, in hospital in Treviso, in January 1969.

Comisso’s writing, distinguished by its lyrical prose, existential undertones, and a tension between rootedness and escape, left an indelible mark on Italian literature.

The pretty Piazza dei Signori is the 
square at the heart of 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. Treviso’s main sights include its historic squares, medieval walls, unique fountains, and art-filled museums.  Piazza dei Signori is the heart of Treviso’s historic centre, a 13th-century square lined with elegant cafés, boutiques, and civic buildings.  The city’s well-preserved walls date back to the 15th century and once protected the city. The Porta San Tomaso entrance to the city is a grand marble city gate from the 16th century, adorned with ornate carvings and the winged lion of Venice.

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The National Theatre in Rijeka, where the
architecture bears a heavy Italian influence

Travel tip:

Rijeka is a vibrant port city on Croatia’s northern Adriatic coast, yet between 1924 to 1947, it was known as Fiume and part of the Kingdom of Italy. During this period, Italian was the official language, and many public buildings, schools, and cultural institutions reflected Italian styles and values. Architecture flourished, with neoclassical and rationalist designs still visible today, especially in the city centre, while the Italian community thrived, contributing to Rijeka’s literary, musical, and culinary traditions. After World War II, the city was ceded to Yugoslavia, and many Italians left or were expelled. Yet traces of Italian heritage remain in street names and inscriptions, while many buildings still bear Italian influence.  The city’s dual identity is reflected in its cuisine, blending Mediterranean and Central European flavours.

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Also on this day: 

The minister who persuaded Italy to switch sides in WW1

A poet who drew inspiration from the landscapes of the Veneto

How Gabriele d’Annunzio influenced Mussolini

Also on this day:

1808: The birth of record-breaking Palio jockey Francesco Bianchini

1858: The birth of actress Eleonora Duse

1938: The birth of world champion boxer Alessando Mazzinghi

1941: The birth of bass-baritone star Ruggero Raimondi

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Antonio Locatelli - pioneering aviator

Brave airman tried to circumnavigate the globe

A Dornier Do J flying boat similar to that in which
Antonio Locatelli attempted to fly around the globe 

Courageous pilot Antonio Locatelli, who was recognised for his valour during World War I, was born on this day in 1895 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

Locatelli was celebrated for performing solo reconnaissance flights over Zeppelin yards in Austria and for being daring enough to fly over Vienna, before he was shot down and captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. 

He tried unsuccessfully to escape twice, but was successful on his third attempt and was able to rejoin the Italian troops.

After the war, he was awarded three Gold medals and a Silver medal for military valour and made a Knight of the Military Order of Savoy.

Born into a Bergamo family, Locatelli studied at the Istituto Industriale Pietro Paleocapa in Bergamo and then became chief technician at a local company.

After World War I broke out, Locatelli joined a flying unit and was granted his pilot’s licence in 1915. He then served in writer and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio’s air squadron.

He flew 513 sorties during the war, starting with reconnaissance missions, but then flying fighters and bombers.

Locatelli was decorated for his
valour during World War I

In 1924, Locatelli led Italy’s attempt to achieve the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. With a crew of three, he flew a German-made flying boat, a metal-hulled Dornier Do J Wal (Whale), powered by two Rolls Royce engines.

He left Pisa on July 25 heading west, but his attempt came to an end on August 21 when heavy fog forced him to touch down in the sea 120 miles short of Greenland. The plane’s engine carriers were damaged and so the flight could not be resumed. 

Fortunately, four days earlier he had met up in Reykjavik with the American team who were attempting the same feat and this meeting was to save the lives of Locatelli and his crew.

When the Italians failed to arrive in Greenland, the Americans raised the alarm and Locatelli and his crew were picked up by a US naval ship that had been sent to search the area.

Locatelli later became a National Fascist party legislator and was elected as a deputy to parliament. In 1933 he was nominated as podestà - mayor - of Bergamo, a role in which he served for a year.  

In 1936, at the age of 41, Locatelli was killed in Lechemeti in Ethiopia during the second Italo-Ethiopian war. He was buried in the Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo.

In Bergamo, Via Antonio Locatelli in the Città Bassa is named after him and he is also commemorated by the Antonio Locatelli Primary School in Cavernago, a comune - municipality - situated about 11km (7 miles) southeast of Bergamo. 

Bergamo's Piazza Vecchia has been hailed as
the most beautiful squares in all of Italy

Travel tip

Bergamo, where Antonio Locatelli was born, is a fascinating, historic city in Lombardy in the north of Italy, which has two distinct centres. The Città Alta (upper town) is a beautiful walled city with buildings that date back to medieval times. But there are plenty of shops, bars, and restaurants to make it comfortable and welcoming for visitors today. At the heart of the upper town is the Piazza Vecchia, which was remodelled during the Renaissance and has been hailed by architects and writers as the most beautiful square in Italy. It is surrounded by old palaces and has a 12th century bell tower that still strikes 100 times at ten pm each night to mark the ancient curfew. The elegant Città Bassa (lower town) grew up on the plain below and still has some buildings left that date back to the 15th century. But more imposing and elaborate architecture was added in the 19th and early 20th centuries and it is now a vibrant city with palaces, churches, art galleries and museums worth visiting as well as a theatre named after Bergamo-born composer Gaetano Donizetti. 

The Tre Cime - three peaks - di Lavoredo is in an 
area where Locatelli would climb as a young man

Travel tip 

Locatelli had been a keen mountaineer in his youth and had climbed the Adamello in Trentino with his brother, Carlo. Therefore, the Antonio Locatelli Hut, a refuge in the Tre Cime Natural Park in Alto Adige-South Tyrol is named after him. The Locatelli refuge can be reached by walking from the Auronzo refuge, which takes approximately one hour and twenty minutes’ or from Lake Landro, a journey of three hours. To honour Locatelli’s memory, a statue of the Virgin of Loreto, the patron saint of airmen, is housed inside the refuge. From the refuge, visitors have panoramic views of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, three distinctive mountain peaks that look like battlements.

Also on this day:

1588: The death of painter Paolo Veronese

1798: The death of the Venetian painter Canaletto

1937: The birth of chef and restaurateur Antonio Carluccio

1953: The birth of high jumper Sara Simeoni

1957: The birth of TV journalist Lilli Gruber

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Arnoldo Mondadori - publisher

Business launched with socialist newspaper became biggest in Italy

Arnoldo Mondadori (left) pictured with Georges 
Simenon, one of the authors of the early gialli

Arnoldo Mondadori, who at the age of 17 founded what would become Italy’s biggest publishing company, was born on this day in 1889 in Poggio Rusco, a small Lombardian town about 40km (25 miles) southeast of Mantua.

As the business grew, Mondadori published Italian editions of works by Winston Churchill, Thomas Mann and Ernest Hemingway among others, as well as by some of Italy’s own literary giants, including Gabriele D’Annunzio and Eugenio Montale.

Mondadori was the publisher of news magazines such as Epoca, Tempo and Panorama, launched the women’s magazine, Grazia, struck a deal with Walt Disney to publish children’s magazines, and introduced Italy to detective fiction with a series of crime mysteries called Gialli Mondadori, whose yellow (giallo) covers eventually led to gialli becoming a generic term in the Italian language, used not only to identify a detective novel but to describe unsolved mysteries in real life. 

His Oscar Mondadori paperback novels, sold on newsstands, made fiction accessible to much wider audiences than previously, while he set up the Club degli Editori as Italy’s first mail-order book club.

The third of six children born to Domenico Secondo, an itinerant shoemaker, and his wife, Ermenegilda, Arnoldo was forced to give up his formal education at a young age in order to contribute to the family’s income. 

The tradition of gialli crime novels
was started by Mondadori

After the family had moved to Ostiglia, on the banks of the Po river, Arnoldo had a series of jobs and became an active socialist. His publishing career began when he began working in a stationery shop, which gave him access to a printing press.

After teaching himself how to operate the machine, he began to publish a socialist newspaper called Luce.  He enjoyed his new working environment and with the aid of a benefactor was able to raise enough money to buy the shop and its press. 

Mondadori proved to be an astute businessman, soon recognising that handsome profits could be made by producing textbooks for Italy’s growing education system. In 1912 he launched the La Scolastica imprint with Aia Madama, a collection of folk tales assembled by his friend, Tomaso Monicelli, an Ostigliese scholar whose collaboration encouraged other noteworthy authors to sign up with Mondadori. 

The outbreak of World War One interrupted the growth of the company, although Mondadori struck on another profitable idea by publishing illustrated newspapers to entertain soldiers on the front line. 

After the end of hostilities, the business expanded rapidly, with new partners coming on board, bringing investment and resources that enabled Mondadori to move his headquarters to Milan, open a production centre in Verona and an administrative office in Rome. One such partner, a well-connected Milan industrialist called Senatore Borletti, enabled Mondadori to make valuable contacts inside the increasingly powerful Fascist party, which turned out to be vital when the Fascist government introduced strict controls in the education system.

It was Borletti who helped persuade D’Annunzio, the aristocratic writer, soldier and nationalist politician, to join Mondadori when he retired to his home on Lake Garda to devote his later years to writing poetry and plays.

Arnoldo Mondadori turned his business 
into Italy's biggest publishing company

In 1921, Mondadori acquired the rights to the popular Children’s Encyclopaedia but his ambitions were not limited to the education sector. Seeking to strengthen his relationship with the Fascist government, Mondadori commissioned Margherita Sarfatti, a well-known art critic, to write a biography of the Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini. Entitled Dux, it was a largely sympathetic work which met with the approval of the Duce himself and proved to be a best-seller.

This cosying up to the regime proved to be worthwhile when the decision was made in 1928 to require schools to teach from just one, state-sanctioned textbook. Soon, almost a third of these textbooks were being printed and distributed by Mondadori and in time he had a virtual monopoly.

Nonetheless, this shrinking of the market in school books required Mondadori to establish other business models.

Encouraged by Luigi Rusca, a translator and director of the company, who had seen the success of the genre in the United States, Mondadori moved into publishing crime fiction.  At first, it was foreign writers such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Georges Simenon, Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner whose stories began to appear in Italian translation. Yet they were so successful, with 5,000 copies sold in the first month following the launch, that Italian writers began to take an interest in the genre and in 1931 the first truly Italian giallo - Alessandro Varaldo’s Il Sette Bello - was added to the series.

In 1935, the publishing house further diversified through an agreement with Walt Disney to publish children's magazines based on Disney comics characters, a deal which ran until 1988. Grazia magazine launched in 1938.

The present headquarters of Arnaldo Mondadore
Editore at Segrate, an eastern suburb of Milan

World War Two had severe consequences for the company, who had to move its headquarters to Verona after Milan was subjected to heavy allied bombing.  Mondadori and his family sought refuge in Switzerland.

After the war, the business shifted more and more towards magazine publishing, but books remained a large part of Mondadori’s success, particularly the Oscar Mondadori series, which was launched in 1965 with Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. In the same year, the number of people employed by the company, which stood at 335 in 1950, topped 3,000.

Arnoldo Mondadori died in 1971 at the age of 81, after which the control of the business passed to the younger of his two sons, Giorgio, who had been chairman at the time of his father’s death. Arnoldo was survived by his wife, Andreina.

Giorgio commissioned the Mondadori group’s impressive headquarters at Segrate on the outskirts of Milan but left the company in 1976 after his two sisters, Cristina and Mimma, merged their shares to acquire a controlling interest, putting Cristina’s husband, Mario Formenton, in charge.

Since 1991, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore has been controlled by Fininvest, the holding company established by the late Silvio Berlusconi. The former Italian prime minister’s daughter, Marina, has been chair since 2003.

The elegant parish church of Santissimo
Nome di Maria in Poggio Rusco

Travel tip:

Poggio Rusco, where Arnoldo Mondadori was born, is a town of around 6,500 inhabitants, to which visitors can experience the authentic culture and cuisine of the Oltrepò Mantovano area. Surrounded by fertile fields and canals, Poggio Rusco has an impressive 16th-century castle, an elegant parish church, and an ancient tower that overlooks the town. Local specialties include tortelli di zucca, the pumpkin-filled pasta, and salame mantovano, a typical cured meat. Poggio Rusco is well placed as a base from which to explore the nearby cities of Mantua, Verona, Ferrara, Bologna and Modena, which are all within an hour's drive.

The art nouveau Palazzina Mondadori in Ostiglia,
once the home of La Sociale print workshop

Travel tip:

Ostiglia, where Mondadori launched his business career in 1907, is a small town located along the ancient Via Claudia Augusta Padana, overlooking the Po River, in a strategic position once exploited by the Romans. The area around Ostiglia, which lies just under 35km (22 miles) southeast of Mantua, is popular with visitors for its network of nature trails, many of them in the Paludi di Ostiglia nature reserve, which is home to 175 bird species. There are also many cycle routes, including one that links Ostiglia with the city of Treviso in Veneto, which follows the path of the disused 120km (75 miles) Treviso-Ostiglia military railway line. The centre of Ostiglia is notable for its mediaeval towers and art nouveau houses, while the archaeological museum tells the town’s history from its days as the Roman trading post, Hostilia. The Roman historian Cornelius Nepote, who was born there, as was Ermanno, Marquis of Verona, who built the town’s castle. Mondadori's first printing house, La Sociale, can be visited as part of the art nouveau Palazzina Mondadori, which today houses Arnoldo Mondadori's personal and private library, consisting of about 1,000 volumes. The building is equipped with classrooms, multimedia and exhibition halls used to promote reading in conjunction with the Fondazione Mondadori.

Also on this day:

293: The death of San Giusto of Trieste

1418: The birth of builder and diarist Gaspare Nadi

1475: The death of condottiero Bartolomeo Colleoni

1893: The birth of car designer Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina

1906: The birth of film director Luchino Visconti

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Gian Francesco Malipiero – composer and musicologist

Musician revived interest in Monteverdi and composed music in the same spirit

Malipiero was born into an 
aristocratic Venetian family

A composer and editor whose work helped to rekindle interest in pre 19th century Italian music, Gian Francesco Malipiero, was born on this day in 1882 in Venice.

Malipiero’s own output, which included operas and orchestral works, has been assessed by experts as fusing modern techniques with the stylistic qualities of early Italian music.

The composer was born into an aristocratic Venetian family and was the grandson of the opera composer Francesco Malipiero. He studied music at the Vienna conservatory and then returned to Venice to carry on his studies.

He used to copy out the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo Frescobaldi at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, which inspired his love of music from that period.

He moved to Bologna to continue his studies and after graduating, returned to Venice and became an assistant to the blind composer Antonio Smareglia, which he later said taught him a great deal.

In 1913 he travelled to Paris where he was influenced by the music he heard there, from composers such as Ravel and Debussy. He attended the premiere of an opera by Stravinsky, La Sacre du Printemps, and described this experience as like awakening from a ‘long and dangerous lethargy.’ This was also when he first met the composer Alfredo Casello and the poet and playwright Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Malipiero found support from the
influential Gabriele D'Annunzio

For a while Malipiero was on good terms with Benito Mussolini, but he fell out of favour when the dictator did not like him writing the music for a Pirandello libretto. Although he dedicated his next opera to Mussolini, this did not help him regain the support of the Fascists.

Malipiero was appointed professor of composition at the Parma Conservatory in 1921 and subsequently became director at the Istituto Musicale Pollini in Padua.

In 1923 he joined with Casello and D’Annunzio in creating the Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche.

In the same year, he went to live permanently in the small hill town of Asolo in the Veneto, where he worked on editing a complete edition of Monteverdi’s work, making an invaluable contribution to the recovery and promotion of the composer’s music. He also collaborated with the Istituto Antonio Vivaldi in the publication of the complete instrumental works of the Venetian composer.

Malipiero was a prolific composer of operas, orchestral music, chamber music and music for the piano and the voice and said he found Asolo the ideal location for composing his own music. His work has been judged to reflect the spirit of 17th and 18th century Venetian music.

Malipiero died in Asolo in 1973 at the age of 91.

Malipiero used to study the music of Claudio
Monteverdi at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice

Travel tip:

The Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, where Malipiero used to study the music of Monteverdi, is also known as the Sansovino Library after the architect Jacopo Sansovino, who designed it. It is opposite the Basilica in St Marks Square and is named to commemorate the patron saint of Venice. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories of manuscripts in Italy and holds one of the world’s most important collections of classical texts. The library was founded in 1468 when a Cardinal and scholar donated his entire collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts to the Republic of Venice. The library is open to the public from Monday to Saturday but is closed on Sundays and Italian Bank Holidays.

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The Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi is the main square
in the beautiful Veneto town of Asolo

Travel tip:

The beautiful hill town of Asolo in the Veneto, where Malipiero settled in later life, is known as ‘the pearl of the province of Treviso’ and ‘the city of a hundred horizons’ because of its beautiful views over the countryside and the mountains. The poet Robert Browning spent time in Asolo after he became a widower. He published Asolando, a volume of poetry written in the town, in 1889. The main road leading into the town is now named Via Browning in his honour. Asolo is also where the Queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, spent her last years. One of the main sights is the Castle of Caterina Cornaro, which now houses the Eleonora Duse Theatre.

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More reading:

How Monteverdi put the opera genre on the musical map

Why Girolamo Frescobaldi is seen as one of the 'fathers' of Italian music

The complicated genius of Gabriele D'Annunzio

Also on this day:

1848: The Five Days of Milan

1925: The birth of musician Alessandro Alessandroni

1944: The last eruption of Mount Vesuvius

1945: The birth of pop singer Bobby Solo

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Eduardo Scarpetta - actor and playwright

Much-loved performer began theatrical dynasty

Scarpetta's comic plays were hugely
popular with Neapolitan audiences

Eduardo Scarpetta, one of the most important writers and actors in Neapolitan theatre in the last 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in Naples.

Fascinated by the commedia dell’arte and Neapolitan puppet theatre character Pulcinella, Scarpetta was the writer of more than 50 dialect plays in the comedy genre, creating his own character, Felice Sciosciammocca, a wide-eyed, gullible but essentially good-natured Neapolitan who featured prominently in his best-known work, Miseria e Nobiltà (Misery and Nobility).

His plays made him wealthy, although his standing was damaged towards the end of his career by a notorious dispute with Gabriele D’Annunzio, the celebrated playwright and poet with aristocratic roots who was a considerable figure in Italian literature.

A showman with a reputation for throwing extravagant parties, Scarpetta led a complicated personal life that saw him father at least eight children by at least four women, of which only one was by his wife, Rosa De Filippo.

One of his relationships, with Rosa’s niece, Luisa, a theatre seamstress, produced three children - Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo - central figures in an Italian theatre and film dynasty in the 20th century.

Another daughter, Maria, was the child of an affair with a music teacher, while a relationship with his wife’s half-sister, Anna, produced the journalist, poet and playwright, Ernesto Murolo, who co-wrote a number of famous Neapolitan songs with the composer Ernesto Tagliaferri, and another actor, Eduardo Passarelli.

His only legitimate son, Vincenzo, also became an actor, and later a director, playwright and composer. The part of Peppeniello in Miseria e nobiltà was written specifically for Vincenzo.

Scarpetta in character as his own
creation, Felice Sciosciamocca

Scarpetta did not come from a theatrical background. His father, Domenico, was a civil servant who tried without success to steer Eduardo into a more secure profession.

By joining a theatre company at the age of 15, Scarpetta believed he could help bring money into the family after his father’s poor health led to them falling on hard times.

He soon met Antonio Petito, a playwright and actor who at the time was one of Naples’s most famous interpreters of the Pulcinella character, and joined his company at the Teatro San Carlino on Piazza Castello, near the Castel Nuovo. It was while working with Petito that he created Felice Sciosciammocca, with whom Petito was so impressed he began to write plays with Pulcinella and Sciosciammocca as the main characters. 

Petito’s Pulcinella had evolved from the rather simple, slow-witted character of tradition to a sharp, insolent and above all instinctively cunning individual. Where Pulcinella was working class, Scarpetta’s middle-class Sciosciammocca was a perfect foil.

His partnership with Petito ended with the latter’s death in 1876, after which he worked briefly in Rome before returning to Naples. After a period performing at the Teatro Metastasio on the city’s pier, he returned to San Carlino as manager, investing much time and money in saving it from impending closure and restoring it.

San Carlino would in 1884 be demolished to make way for a new urban square, the Piazza Municipio, as part of a rehabilitation project for the area, which had become rather run down.

Nonetheless, Scarpetta had enjoyed a number of huge successes with his own plays, notably Miseria e Nobiltà, but also Il medico dei pazzi, na santarella, Lo scarfalietto, Nu Turco Napulitano and O miereco de’ pazzi.

Na santarella was one of Scarpetta's
most successful plays

His wealth enabled him to build a substantial palazzo on Via Vittorio Colonna in the prestigious Chiaia district and a villa on the Vomero hill, in Via Luigia Sanfelice, which he named La Santarella.

La Santarella hosted a huge party each year on the occasion of his daughter Tatina’s birthday, to which Scarpetta invited actors, directors, journalists, writers and poets for a celebration that traditionally ended with a spectacular fireworks display that was visible all over the city.

Rosa was happy to accommodate all of Eduardo’s various children. Indeed, after his affair with the music teacher, Francesca Gianetti, it was Rosa who was said to have rescued the child, Maria, from the religious institute to which she had been abandoned.  Rosa, in fact, had a son of her own, Domenico, whose father was none other than the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II, with whom she had a relationship as a teenager before marrying Scarpetta.

Scarpetta’s fortunes began to decline when his Teatro Salone Margherita, a cabaret theatre in the basement of the then newly-built Galleria Umberto I in the centre of Naples began to suffer financially. At the same time a play he had written as a parody of a play by Gabriele D’Annunzio which prompted the well-connected D’Annunzio to accuse him of plagiarism and take him to court for staging the play without permission.

In the event, the court case went in the favour of Scarpetta, who successfully argued that his play, Iorio’s Son, was not a copy but a comic send-up of D’Annunzio’s tragedy, Iorio’s Daughter, but the case - and the panning that Iorio’s Son received from the critics - left Scarpetta embittered and though he continued to write he decided he would no longer act. 

He died at the age of 72 in 1925 and after an elaborate funeral in which his body was placed in a crystal coffin, he was buried in the De Filippo-Scarpetta-Viviani family tomb at the Cimitero Monumentale di Poggioreale in Naples, close to what would become the site of the city’s international airport at Capodichino.

Scarpetta's impressive villa in the Vomero
district, which he named La Santarella

Travel tip:

Vomero, where Scarpetta had his impressive villa, La Santarella, is a middle class largely residential area of central Naples but has a number of buildings of historic significance. The most dominant, on top of Vomero hill, is the large medieval fortress, Castel Sant'Elmo, which stands guard over the city. In front of the fortress is the Certosa San Martino, the former Carthusian monastery, now a museum.  Walk along the adjoining street, Largo San Martino, to enjoy extraordinary views over the city towards Vesuvius.  Vomero's other tourist attraction is the Villa Floridiana, once the home of Ferdinand I, the Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies.  Surrounded by extensive gardens, the building now houses the Duke of Martina National Museum of Ceramics.

Chiaia is one of the more upmarket areas
of the city of Naples

Travel tip:

Chiaia, where Scarpetta’s wealth enabled him to build a large family house, is a neighbourhood bordering the seafront in Naples, roughly between Piazza Vittoria and Mergellina. It has become one of the most affluent districts in the city, with many of the top fashion designers having stores on the main streets. It is the home of a large public park known as the Villa Comunale, flanked by the large palazzi along the Riviera di Chiaia on one side, and the sweeping promenade of the Via Francesco Caracciolo on the other.  The area is home to many fine seafood restaurants and has become a popular nightlife destination for well-heeled young Neapolitans.

Also on this day:

1925: The birth of actor and voice-dubber Corrado Gaipa

1955: The birth of footballer and coach Bruno Conti

1960: The birth of rock musician Luciano Ligabue

1980: The birth of dancer Flavia Cacace

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