Renzo De Vecchi - footballer

Record-holder since 1910 as youngest to play for Italy

Renzo De Vecchi in the red
and black of AC Milan

Renzo De Vecchi, a defender whose record as the youngest player to appear for the Italy national team has stood since 1910, was born on this day in 1894 in Milan.

De Vecchi was aged 16 years and 112 days when he was sent on to replace an injured player in a match against Hungary in Budapest on May 26, 1910. The newly-formed Italian team had played its first fixture only 16 days previously, beating France 6-2 in Milan. This time the result was a resounding 6-1 defeat.

Forward Rodolfo Gavinelli might have been credited with the record a year later. It was claimed he was only 16 years and 97 days when he appeared against France in Paris 1911 but it could not be recognised officially  because of uncertainty over his date of birth.

Since then, the only player to appear for the azzurri before the age of 17 is the Udinese attacker Simone Pafundi - currently on loan with Sampdoria - who was 16 years 247 days when he came off the substitutes’ bench against Albania in Tirana in November 2022.

De Vecchi, who made a total of 43 appearances for Italy, many as captain, in a career interrupted by the First World War, also held the record for 28 years as the youngest to play in Serie A, which was known as the Italian Football Championship during his career.

He was 15 years 284 days on his debut in November 1909, which was bettered in 1937 by Amedeo Amedei of Roma at 15 years 280 days.  The current record-holder is another AC Milan player, forward Francesco Camarda, who was aged 15 years 260 days when he tasted his first Serie A action in November 2023.

De Vecchi had another claim to football fame off the field. After hanging up his boots as a player in 1930, he became a regular contributor to many sport newspapers and in 1939 helped journalist Leone Boccali compile the first edition of Enciclopedia lllustrata del Calcio Italiano, considered the bible of Italian football.

The publication became so popular and well regarded that it is still published. Now called Almanacco lllustrato del Calcio, the 2026 edition is the 75th.  

De Vecchi was part of a Milan side that twice finished second in the Italian Football Championship, his qualities as a player making him such a revered member of the team that he was given the nickname "Il Figlio di Dio" - The Son of God - by the Milan fans.

De Vecchi (second right, back row) pictured with
the title-winning Genoa CFC team of 1924

As a player of brains rather than brawn, De Vecchi is said to have transformed the role of full back, who was traditionally asked to perform only basic tasks, mostly as uncomplicated as kicking the ball away from danger or hurling it as far up the field as possible from throw-ins.

Thanks to De Vecchi’s example, the full back became a contributor to the game as well as simply a defender, looking to pass the ball to a midfield teammate to set attacks in motion and taking throw-ins that had direction and purpose. 

De Vecchi even scored goals, which was unheard of from a traditional full back. He hit seven in his 64 appearances for AC Milan, who often asked him to take penalties.  As a defender, he was known for his strength, tackling ability, anticipation and organisational skills, yet had excellent ball skills and could dribble as effectively as a winger.

Despite becoming an idol among Milan fans, it was after he moved to Genoa in 1913 that he enjoyed his biggest success, winning the title in 1914-15 season and again in 1922-23 and 1923-24. Ultimately, he spent 16 years with the Liguria club before retiring as a player in 1929, having spent the last two seasons there in the role of player-coach.

De Vecchi, captain of the Italy team, with
his Netherlands counterpart, in 1920

Brought up in the Porta Ticinese area of Milan, De Vecchi first displayed his exceptional ability playing for a small Milanese team, Pro Monforte. 

Convinced his son could have a bright future in the game, De Vecchi’s father, Enrico, a die-hard AC Milan supporter, became a partner in the club. He had to pay handsomely for the privilege, but it opened doors for his son to sign with the rossoneri. 

Yet the Milan of De Vecchi’s time could not reproduce the success the club enjoyed under the club’s English-born player-manager and co-founder, Herbert Kilpin, who led them to three titles in their first eight years as a club.

When rumours began to circulate that De Vecchi, fast establishing a reputation as the best defender in the Italian game, was unsettled, another of the Italian game’s early giants, Genoa Cricket and Football Club, set out to sign him.

Genoa’s Scottish-born president, Geo Davidson, came up with a record transfer fee of 24,000 lire to persuade Milan to sell. He also fixed up De Vecchi with a well-paid job at the port city’s Banca Commerciale, which enabled him to circumnavigate the Italian Football Federation’s rule that players, who were still officially amateurs, could be transferred from one club to another only if they had moved for work reasons.

De Vecchi’s amateur status also permitted him to play for Italy at the Olympic football tournaments of 1920 and 1924, in Antwerp and Paris, although the azzurri were successful in neither.

During World War One, when Genoa were declared champions after the 1914-15 championship ended early, many footballers lost their lives in action. De Vecchi managed to avoid being sent to the front. He enlisted in the infantry, stationed in Brescia, but was employed on liaison services, traveling in a motorcycle sidecar. 

After ending his career as a player, De Vecchi became a coach, first with Genoa and then Rapallo, a resort town near Genova. He reinforced his reputation as a hero in his adopted city by winning the 1934-35 Serie B (Girone A) title as coach, ensuring their absence from Serie A was limited to just one season after relegation the year before.

Having originally pursued his journalist interests simultaneously with being a player and then coach, he became a journalist full time. Having returned to Milan, he died in 1967 at the age of 73.

Porta Ticinese, of one Milan's historic gates, gives
its name to the district in which De Vecchi was born

Travel tip:

Porta Ticinese, the rione - district - of Milan in which De Vecchi was born, is today one of Milan’s most atmospheric and historic quarters. It takes its name from the Porta Ticinese gate. Formerly known as Porta Cicca, and during Napoleonic rule as Porta Marengo, the south-west facing former entrance to the city was first created with the Spanish walls of the city, in the 16th century, but later demolished and rebuilt in the early 19th century. The current arch was built between 1801 and 1813 by architect Luigi Cagnola. The district is part of the Navigli area of Milan, which boasts monuments, significant churches and night life, particularly around its canals, and has become one of the most important areas of Milan outside the historic centre. It is home to the Basilica of Sant'Eustorgio, first established in the Middle Ages and restored several times. Sant'Eustorgio is located inside the Parco delle Basiliche - officially known as the Parco Papa Giovanni Paolo II - a 40,700 square metre urban park that also includes the Basilica of San Lorenzo, one of the oldest churches in the city, originally built in Roman times. The nearby Colonne di San Lorenzo are among the best preserved Roman ruins in Milan.

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A sheltered gulf and mild climate have made
Rapallo an attractive tourist destination

Travel tip: 

Rapallo, the coastal town on the Gulf of Tigullio in eastern Liguria, where De Vecchi coached for a time, is known for its sheltered gulf, mild climate and elegant seafront, which made it one of the earliest winter resorts in Italy. With its palm-lined promenade, Rapallo became famous across Europe in the late 19th century as a winter retreat for visitors from northern countries. A settlement since pre‑Roman times, the town grew significantly in the Middle Ages under the Republic of Genoa, benefiting from its strategic coastal position, and flourished after the arrival of the railway in the late 1800s opened it to tourism. Rapallo has an unusually rich literary heritage for a small Ligurian town, having attracted British, Irish, and American writers during the interwar years. Max Beerbohm, Ezra Pound and Friedrich Nietzsche all chose to stay in Rapallo for part of their lives, as did the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.  Architectural highlights include the Castello sul Mare, a 16th‑century coastal fort that sits right at the water’s edge, plus the churches of San Gervasio e Protasio and San Stefano. The Santuario di Montallegro, a major pilgrimage destination reached by cable car, offers sweeping views of the gulf.  Portofino, Santa Margherita Ligure  and the Cinque Terre are among its neighbours on the Ligurian Riviera.

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More reading:

Genoa CFC  - Italy’s oldest football club

The first Italian football championship

Herbert Kilpin and the founding of AC Milan

Also on this day:

1702: The birth of architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini

1757: The birth of eye surgeon Giuseppe Forlenza

1857: The birth of sculptor Giuseppe Moretti

1862: The birth of opera impresario Giulio Gatti-Casazza

1932: The birth of Wilma Montesi, murder victim in 1953 scandal

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Virginia Centurione Braccelli – Saint

Wealthy woman dedicated her life to relieving poverty

Virginia defied her father in order to
help the poor and sick in Genoa

The Feast Day of Virginia Centurione Braccelli, a noble lady from Genoa, who was made a Saint by Pope John Paul II, is celebrated every year on this day throughout Italy and in other parts of the world. Virginia died on December 15, 1651 in her native city after devoting her life to helping the poor and the sick.

Virginia was born in 1587 to Giorgio Centurione, who was the Doge of Genoa between 1621 and 1623, and his wife, Lelia Spinola. At that time, the Doge was the Head of State of the maritime Republic of Genoa.

Her mother was very pious and as a young girl Virginia spent a lot of time with her mother in prayer and contemplation. She could also hear her brother’s Latin lessons as she sat sewing and because she took in everything she heard, she learnt the language of the church. She was able to read passages of scripture in Latin and learn them by heart and meditate on them.

But after her mother’s death, although Virginia wanted to take holy orders, her father forced her to marry a rich nobleman, Gaspare Grimaldi Bracelli, when she was still only 15 years old. She bore him two daughters, Lelia and Isabella.

After her husband’s death, when Virginia was still only 20, she refused to have a second marriage arranged by her father and she made a vow to live a celibate life and to work to help poor and sick people in Genoa. She lived in her mother-in-law’s house, where she looked after her daughters and devoted herself to charitable work, sharing her own wealth with the needy.

Following Genoa’s involvement in a war in 1624, unemployment rose and there was an increase in the number of starving people in the city. It led Virginia to found a centre to accommodate some of the people living in poverty because she could not house them all in her home. The centre soon became overrun with people who were suffering as a result of either famine or the plague and she had to rent a convent to accommodate all the people who needed help.

Virginia created a community at the convent dedicated to Our Lady of Refuge, which she later split into two separate congregations, The Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge and the Daughters of Our Lady of Refuge.

By 1635, the centre was caring for more than 300 patients at any one time and it received official recognition as a hospital. Virginia trained the poor people she was caring for to gain employment so that they could eventually work to provide themselves with sustenance and she also earned extra money herself by teaching the catechism, the text that summarises the doctrine of the Catholic faith.

Virginia's body was found to be incorrupt
almost 300 years after her death

Although the community at the convent lost its official status in 1647 due to a decline in donations from the wealthy residents of Genoa, Virginia somehow managed to carry on with her work of helping the poor. She also acted as a peacemaker, intervening in disputes between the noble houses in Genoa, until she died in 1651 at the age of 64.

The work of the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Monte Calvario continues to this day with the sisters working to help sick, poor, and elderly people in hospitals, and also young people as far afield as Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and India.

The process for making Virginia a Saint was started in 1933, with theologians approving her writings and historians assessing the cause and clearing it to allow it to continue. 

In 1977, Pope Paul VI accorded Virginia the title of Servant of God. She was made Venerable in 1984, Beatified in 1985, and Canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

When Virginia’s remains were examined during the long process leading up to her Beatification and Canonisation, they were found to be in a remarkable state of preservation and officially classified as incorrupt.

While not a prerequisite for sainthood, the incorruptibility of an individual’s remains is considered by the Catholic Church as strong evidence of sanctity, a miraculous sign of divine favour, showing that the saint lived a life of purity and closeness to God.

The Marassi district is best known for its football
stadium, the Stadio Luigi Ferraris

Travel tip:

Virginia Centurione Braccelli’s remains are buried within the chapel of the religious congregation she founded, the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Mount Calvary, in the Marassi district of Genoa, a hillside area east of the city centre overlooking the Bisagno valley.  The sanctuary is thought to have roots going back to the 16th century, having been originally built on the site of a chapel dedicated to Saint Raphael.  It was relocated to Marassi in the 19th century after the church in central Genoa where it was originally based was demolished to make way for the Brignole railway station. The Marassi district, known as a lively, authentic neighbourhood away from the regular tourist trails, is most famous as the home of the Stadio Luigi Ferraris - also known as Stadio Marassi - which is shared by the city’s two major football clubs, Genoa and Sampdoria. The former, which still goes under the official title of Genoa Cricket and Football Club, was founded in 1893 by a group of British Consular officials. Among existing football clubs, it is the oldest in Italy.

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Piazza De Ferrari, at the heart of Genoa's elegant
city centre, with its impressive bronze fountain

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa, the capital of the Liguria region, has a rich history as a powerful trading centre with considerable wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks. It also boasts some fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Palazzo Ducale - the Doge's Palace - the 16th century Palazzo Reale, a lavish royal residence with frescoes, tapestries and a rooftop garden, and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral, with its striking black-and-white façade, are just three examples.  At the heart of the city centre is the Piazza De Ferrari, which features a monumental bronze fountain and is flanked by the Palazzo Ducale, the Palazzo della Borsa and the Teatro Carlo Felice among other buildings.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy.

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More reading:

The secret gift maker who has become known as Santa Claus

The noblewoman who gave up luxurious lifestyle to help the poor

A reformed gambler who became devoted to caring for sick

Also on this day:

1946: The birth of footballer Comunardo Niccolai

1966: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly released in Italy

1970: The birth of champion jockey Frankie Dettori

1973: Kidnappers release John Paul Getty III

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Fernanda Pivano - writer and translator

Played key role in popularising American literature in Italy

Fernanda Pivano, pictured in 1979 with Allan Ginsberg.
one of the Beat Generation writers she so admired

The writer and translator Fernanda Pivano, who became an important figure in Italian literary circles for translating and writing about the greats of 20th century American literature, from Ernest Hemingway to the so-called Beat Generation, died in Milan on this day in 2009.

She was 92, having enjoyed a literary career spanning half a century. Her final article in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera was published only a month before her death.

As well as Hemingway, with whom she developed a close friendship after meeting him for the first time in 1949, Pivano - whose first name was usually shortened to Nanda - translated into Italian works by classic American writers such as F Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and Dorothy Parker.

In the 1950s, she became fascinated by the culture and ideals of what became known as the Beat Generation, introducing Italy to the works of writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs from a movement characterised by a rejection of the materialism and conformity of postwar America.

Born in Genoa in 1917, Pivano came from a well-to-do family. Her father, Riccardo Newton Pivano, was a banker of partial Scottish heritage. Her mother, Mary, was the daughter of Francis Smallwood, an Englishman who was one of the founders of the Italian Berlitz language school. 

Pivano was educated initially at a Swiss school before her family moved to Turin when he was a teenager, where she attended the Liceo classico Massimo d'Azeglio.

Pivano in 1949, the year she married
the celebrated designer, Ettore Sottsass

There, she was introduced to American literature by her teacher, the writer Cesare Pavese, who had already translated some American fiction into Italian.  Among her classmates was Primo Levi, who would become famous later for writing about his survival of the Auschwitz death camp. 

Pivano graduated with a thesis on Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, which also won a prize from the Centre for American Studies in Rome. She also graduated in philosophy.

She and Pavese, who was in his 20s when he was her teacher, met again some years later, after he returned to Turin from a three-year exile in Calabria imposed for alleged anti-Fascist activity. Their relationship developed into intimacy and he is said to have twice proposed marriage but was turned down by Pivano, who went on to marry the celebrated architect and designer, Ettore Sottsass. 

During that time, Pavese gave her several books in English by American authors, which would launch her career as a translator. Among them were the Spoon River Anthology, by the poet Edgar Lee Masters, which was her first published work, and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. 

Pivano was arrested herself during World War Two, along with her brother, Franco, after a raid by the Fascist authorities on the Einaudi publishing house discovered the contract - mistakenly addressed to Franco - to publish A Farewell to Arms, which Mussolini’s government banned on the grounds that it was disrespectful to the honour of the armed forces. 

The novel was based on Hemingway’s experiences serving with the Red Cross in Italy in World War One.  He described the catastrophic Italian defeat at the Battle of Caporetto in some detail. Fortunately she and her brother were released after interrogation.

Pivano in 2006, still championing young
American writers at the age of 89

After marrying Sottsass in 1949, Pivano made the first of several visits to the United States in the mid-50s. She had a deep admiration for American culture, especially its ideals of freedom and democracy, which she contrasted with the fear and repression of Fascist Italy.  

Her first awareness of the Beat Generation of writers came when she read a poem by Allen Ginsberg, entitled Howl, in 1957, in an issue of the Evergreen Review.  She regarded the poem's innovative language and counterculture themes as a powerful expression of the freedom she so admired. 

She wrote her first article about the Beat Generation in the Italian culture and philosophy magazine aut aut (either or) in 1959 and set out to meet as many of the movement’s writers as she could. She met Ginsberg in Paris in 1961 and became friends with Kerouac, Burroughs and Gregory Corso, not only as their translator but confidante.

Her promotion of their work through her own writings encouraged a generation of young Italian poets and writers, including Gianni Milano and Antonio Infantino.

Two important documentaries preserved the history of Pivano’s life. She collaborated with the psychoanalyst and film director Ottavio Rosati, a close friend since the 1970s, on Generations of Love - The Four Americas of Fernanda Pivano, and with Luca Facchini on A Farewell to Beat.

Her work can be researched at the Riccardo and Fernanda Pivano Library in Corso di Porta Vittoria in Milan. The library, which includes her father’s collection, was inaugurated in 1998. It contains published and unpublished examples from the writer’s literary career.

Pivano, who was divorced from Ettore Sottsass in the 1990s, died at the Don Leone Porta clinic in Milan. Her funeral was held at the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta di Carignano in Genoa. After cremation, her remains were buried at the port city's Staglieno Cemetery, next to her mother.

Via Alessandro Manzoni, the fashionable street
in Milan where Pivano lived with her husband

Travel tip:

Nanda Pivano and Ettore Sottsass shared a large apartment on Milan’s fashionable Via Manzoni during their marriage, their home at times welcoming many of the American writers for whom Pivano’s work did much to make them appreciated by Italian readers. Via Manzoni leads from the Piazza della Scala northwest towards Porta Nuova and Piazza Cavour, with notable buildings that include the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, which specialises in Northern Italian and Netherlandish/Flemish artists, and the Grand Hotel et de Milan, where the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died in 1901. Part of the street forms the one boundary of the quadrilatero della moda, Milan’s up-market fashion district. The street commemorates the 18th century writer, Alessandro Manzoni, born in Milan, whose epic novel The Betrothed, is regarded as one of the great works of Italian literature. 

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The Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano, the
church in Genoa where Pivano's funeral was held

Travel tip:

The Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano in Genoa, where Fernanda Pivano’s funeral took place, is a stunning example of Renaissance architecture and one of the city's major religious landmarks. Located in a residential area on the hills above the city centre, work on the church began in 1522 but was not completed until the 19th century. It follows a Greek cross plan with four symmetrical façades. Built in Renaissance style, it has later Neoclassical additions, including a monumental façade featuring Corinthian pilasters and statues by Claude David. It boasts five domes and originally has four bell towers, now reduced to two, giving it a commanding presence. The art treasures that can be seen inside the church include St Francis of Assisi receives stigmata by Guercino, the celebrated 17th century Baroque painter from Ferrara.

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Also on this day:

1497: The birth of lutenist and composer Francesco Canova da Milano

1750: The birth of composer Antonio Salieri

1943: The birth of footballer and politician Gianni Rivera

1954: The birth of astronaut Umberto Guidoni

1985: The birth of ex-model-turned-journalist Beatrice Borromeo

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Fabrizio De André - singer-songwriter

‘Poet of music’ who spoke for the marginalised in society

Fabrizio De André's lyrics are studied by Italian
students as part of the school curriculum

The singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, whose songs often celebrated the lives of the marginalised in Italian society and gained him a popularity that has already outlived him by a quarter of a century, died on this day in 1999 in the Città Studi district of Milan.

De André, who was a month short of his 59th birthday, had been diagnosed with lung cancer six months earlier, having been a heavy smoker for much of his adult life. After his death at the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, his body was returned to his native Genoa, where a crowd estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000 gathered for his funeral at the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano.

His impact on Italian culture has been such that streets, squares and schools in many towns and cities bear his name. A three-hour tribute to him broadcast on a relatively obscure Italian TV channel to mark the 10th anniversary of his death attracted an audience of almost eight million viewers, as many as tuned in to the new series of Grande Fratello - the Italian version of Big Brother - on a mainstream channel the following evening.

Nicknamed ‘Faber’ by his close friend, the writer and comic actor Paolo Villaggio, and known as ‘the songwriter of the marginalised’ and ‘the poet of the defeated’ as well as simply the ‘poet of music’, De André had a voice of warmth and depth but it was for his lyrics that he acquired a huge following.

De André drew inspiration from
the streets of his home city

Many of his songs told stories of outcasts and rebels or tackled subjects such as prostitution and homosexuality that others regarded as off-limits in a country where the Catholic Church still loomed large over public morality. He did not shy from criticising the church itself, which he felt was riddled with hypocrisy.

His lyrics are often included in school anthologies of modern poetry and he has attained the status of cult hero among some on the Italian political left, itself increasingly marginalised by the shift towards the centre and the right.

Although sometimes spoken of as Italy’s Bob Dylan, De André’s major influences were said to be Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-songwriter also renowned for deeply meaningful lyrics, and the French singer-songwriter and poet, Georges Bressens, to whom he was introduced when his father gave him some records as a teenager. It was Bressens who inspired De André to be a pacifist and a libertarian.

He was a jazz enthusiast in his youth, singing and playing the guitar at La Borsa di Arlecchino, a café-theatre located in the basement of the Palazzo della Borsa in Genoa. Always willing to experiment, he explored many types of music in his career, as well as singing in Genoese and Neapolitan dialects in addition to Italian.

Born into a relatively prosperous family in the Pegli district of Genoa in 1940, De André’s early life was inevitably shaped by the war into which Italy was led by Benito Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler and Nazi Germany.  His father, Giuseppe, who had made his money through his purchase of a technical institute in the city, was fervently anti-Fascist, which was part of his reason for taking the family to live in a farmhouse in his native Piemonte, both to avoid the attention of the authorities and to escape Allied bombing. They would not return to Genoa until 1945. 

The writer and comic actor Paolo Villaggio was
De André's close friend and supporter

It was not long before De André began to show both musical talent and a rebellious streak, at the age of eight paying off his violin teacher to let him skip lessons. Later, he would drop out of law school after receiving royalties from a song - La canzone di Marinella (Marinella’s song) - which he sold to Mina, Italy’s all-time biggest selling female star. Its lyrics, which told the story of a young orphan forced into prostitution, provided early evidence of De André’s fascination with the low-life characters populating Genoa's back streets.

He was still a student when he made his stage debut in February 1961, singing two songs as part of a programme of music in a theatre in Genoa. The two songs - Nuvole barocche (Baroque clouds) and E fu la notte (And it was night) were the A and B sides of his debut single, released in 1961.

Although it was 1975 before he could be persuaded to appear on stage in a solo concert, his career would ultimately stretch over four decades, during which he released 14 studio albums, a number of live albums, and numerous singles.  Songs such that established his status as a songwriter and singer of note included Amico fragile, written in stream-of-consciousness style about a drunken evening with friends; Crêuza de mä, a song in Genoese dialect about the tough lives of sailors and fishermen in Genoa; and La ballata del Michè, a song based on the true story of a southern Italian emigrant to Genoa who was sentenced to 20 years in jail after killing a man who had tried to seduce his girlfriend.

Some of his songs were based on his own life experience, not least his kidnapping in 1979, along with his partner, Dori Ghezzi, by bandits in Sardinia, where they lived. They were held for four months until his father paid a ransom, said to be one billion lire. Afterwards, De André wrote Hotel Supramonte, drawing the title from the mountains where he was imprisoned, in which he likened their captivity to the feeling of confinement in love. 

De André's career spanned
almost 40 years

At the trial of the men who seized him, he chose not to condemn his captors, saying that “they were the real prisoners, not I” and blaming the organised crime bosses who made the bandits do their dirty work for them.

Although considered a subversive by the Italian police, De André was never actively involved with politics. Indeed, when the student riots were taking place in 1968, he spent his time writing an album about Jesus, portraying Christ as a revolutionary hero fighting for freedom. Songs from the album are still played in churches, despite De André's lack of faith. 

His adoption by the left as a favourite son followed Silvio Berlusconi’s election victory in 2008, when he won a third term as prime minister, following the collapse of Romano Prodi’s centre left Olive Tree coalition.

Ironically, as they tried to make ends meet during the early 1960s, De Andre and Villaggio would sometimes take work as cruise ships musicians in the backing groups supporting Berlusconi, who was then a singer.

Married twice, to Enrica Rignon, known to him as Puny, and later to Ghezzi, he left two children, a son, Cristiano, from his first marriage, and a daughter, known as Luvi. After his death, he was laid to rest in the monumental Staglieno cemetery, in the De André family chapel.

Pegli is an affluent, mainly residential suburb
but has a lively seafront promenade

Travel tip:

Pegli, where Fabrizio De André was born, is a mainly residential area of Genoa but boasts a lively seafront promenade and a number of hotels. There are good links by road, rail and boat to the central area of Genoa. The port city of Genoa, the capital of the Liguria region, has a rich history as a powerful trading centre with considerable wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks, but also boasts many fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Doge's Palace, the 16th century Royal Palace and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral are just three examples.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy.

The cloister at the main building of the University
of Milan, founded in 1924

Travel tip:

Città Studi, where De André was treated at the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, is Milan’s university district. It developed from 1915 onwards to the northeast of the city centre, although there are other buildings around the city that are now part of the University.  The streets of the Città Studi area are notable for bars, pizza restaurants and ice cream shops. The University of Milan was founded in 1924 from the merger of two other academic institutions. By 1928, it already had the fourth-highest number of enrolled students in Italy, after Naples, Rome and Padua. Colloquially referred to as La Statale, it is today one of the largest universities in Europe, with about 60,000 students, and a permanent teaching and research staff of about 2,000.

Also on this day:

1693: Earthquake in southeastern Sicily

1944: The death of Fascist politician Galeazzo Ciano

1975: The birth of the politician Matteo Renzi

1980: The birth of the Giannini sextuplets

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Michele Novaro - composer

Patriot who wrote music for Italian national anthem

Michele Novaro was an opera
singer as well as a composer

The composer and singer Michele Novaro, who wrote the music that accompanies Goffredo Mameli’s words in Italy’s national anthem, was born on this day in 1818 in Genoa.

While not as actively involved in the Risorgimento movement as Mameli, who took part in various insurrections and died fighting alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi in the battle for a unified, independent Italy, Novaro was a patriot nonetheless.

A committed liberal in his politics, he was a supporter of the cause of independence and composed the music for several patriotic songs in addition to Mameli’s Il canto degli Italiani - The Song of the Italians - which is also known as Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) and L’inno di Mameli (Mameli’s hymn).

The oldest of five children, Novaro was born into a theatrical background. His father, Gerolamo, was a stagehand at the Teatro Carlo Felice, the Genoa opera house. His mother, Giuseppina Canzio, was the sister of a well-known painter, scenographer and impresario, Michele Canzio.

Novaro attended singing school and achieved a respectable standard as an opera singer. He was good enough to sing in the Genoese premiere of Gaetano Donizetti's opera Gianni di Calais.

He spent three seasons in Vienna as the second resident tenor at Vienna’s Porta Carinthia theater, returning to Italy to take up a post as second tenor and choirmaster at the Teatro Regio and Teatro Carignano in Turin.

Goffredo Mameli, who was killed
fighting alongside Garibaldi

Novaro willingly gave his services in the cause of independence by writing music to patriotic songs, as well as organising fundraisers in support of Garibaldi. 

He and Mameli, who was also from Genoa, were friends and in 1847 after Mameli had written the words for the song that would earn him immortality it was Novaro he sought out to write a suitable score. 

Novaro is said to have received the text of Mameli’s poem at the Turin home of the patriotic writer, Lorenzo Valerio. He immediately sketched out a first draft of the music, which he then completed on his return to his home, staying up late into the night to perfect it.

The writer Anton Giulio Barrili, another friend of Novaro, later wrote about the birth of Il canto degli Italiani, quoting what Novaro had told him following his first sight of the song at Valerio’s home.

‘I sat at the harpsichord, with Goffredo's verses on the music stand, and I strummed, I murdered that poor instrument with my convulsed fingers, always with my eyes on the hymn, putting down melodic phrases, one on top of the other, but a thousand miles away from the idea that they could adapt to those words. 

‘I got up, dissatisfied with myself; I stayed a little longer at Valerio's house, but always with those verses before my mind's eye. I saw that there was no remedy; I took my leave, and ran home. 

‘There, without even taking off my hat, I threw myself at the piano. The tune I had strummed at Valerio's house came back to my mind: I wrote it down on a sheet of paper, the first that came to hand: in my agitation I turned the lamp over on the harpsichord, and consequently also on the poor sheet of paper: this was the original of the hymn "Fratelli d'Italia".’

Friends paid for a memorial for 
Novaro in Staglieno cemetery

Despite leaving his mark on Italian history, Novaro never achieved fame or fortune.

Such money as he did make, he ploughed into setting up a free choral school in Genoa, to which he devoted his later years.  Struggling with declining health and financial difficulties, he died in October, 1885.

His former students arranged for a funeral monument to be erected to him in his hometown in the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno, next to the tomb of Giuseppe Mazzini, another major Risorgimento figure who was among his heroes.

Although Il canto degli Italiani was very popular during Italian unification and the following decades, it was not until a century later that it became Italy’s national anthem.

At the time the Kingdom of Italy came into being in 1861, the republican and Jacobin connotations of Fratelli d'Italia were difficult to reconcile with the new state's constitution as a monarchy rather than the republic that Mazzini and his supporters craved. 

The new kingdom instead adopted Marcia Reale (Royal March), the House of Savoy's official anthem, written by Napoleone Giotti and set to music in 1831 by Giuseppe Gabetti. 

Italy finally became a republic after World War Two, following a referendum that rejected the monarchy. On October 12, 1946, it chose Il canto degli Italiani as a provisional national anthem. It retained its de facto status until December 2017, when it was at last recognised as the Italian anthem by law.

The Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, where
Novaro's father worked as a stagehand

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa (Genova), where Michele Novaro was born, is the capiital of the Liguria region. Once a powerful trading centre, the city’s wealth was built on its shipyards and steelworks, but it also boasts many fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Doge's Palace, the 16th century Royal Palace and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral are just three examples.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy. At the time of Novara’s birth, the City Architect was Carlo Barabino, a prominent Neoclassicist who designed the Teatro Carlo Felice Opera, the Palazzo dell'Accademia, and the facades of several other buildings. The theatre opened in 1828. 

The Palazzo Reale - Royal Palace - in Turin is
a reminder of the wealth of the Savoy family

Travel tip:

The Savoy dynasty left a significant mark on Turin, shaping its architecture, culture, and overall identity. The Royal Palace served as the opulent official residence of the Savoy kings for centuries. Its lavish interiors, including the Throne Room and the Royal Apartments, offer a glimpse into the grandeur of the dynasty. Housed within the Royal Palace, the Royal Armoury is now a museum boasting an impressive collection of weapons and armour. Also located inside the Royal Palace, the Savoy Gallery houses a remarkable collection of paintings by Italian and European masters, including works by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Canaletto.  Beyond the city, a network of Savoy palaces, villas, and castles is scattered throughout Piemonte. The city’s Duomo - the Cattedrale di San Giovanni Battista - was built between 1491 and 1498 in Piazza San Giovanni. The Chapel of the Holy Shroud, where the Turin Shroud is kept, was added in 1668. Some members of the House of Savoy are buried in the Duomo while others are buried in the Basilica di Superga on the outskirts of the city.

Also on this day: 

1573: The birth of Baroque artist Giovanni Battista Crespi

1896: The birth of writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

1916: The birth of film director Dino Risi

1956: The birth of racing driver Michele Alboreto

1967: The birth of model and singer Carla Bruni

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Eugenio Montale - poet and translator

Influential writer was fourth Italian to be awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

Eugenio Montale became a
Nobel Prize winner in 1975

Eugenio Montale, who became one of the most influential Italian writers of the 20th century and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, died on this day in 1981 in Milan at the age of 84.

Montale's most famous work is often considered to be his first, a collection of poems he published in 1925 under the title Ossi di seppia - Cuttlefish Bones. These poems established his use of stark imagery, his introspective tone and his fascination with themes such as desolation, alienation and mortality, and the search for elusive meaning in a fragmented world.

Later collections such as Le occasioni (1939) - The Occasions - and La bufera e altro (1956) - The Storm and Other Things - reinforced his reputation as one of Italian literature’s 20th century greats.

Montale was born in 1896 in a building overlooking the botanical gardens of the University of Genoa, a short distance from the city’s Piazza Principe railway station. His father, Domenico, was the co-owner of a chemical products company.

As a young man, Montale was dogged by ill health but obtained a qualification in accountancy and for eight years had ambitions to be an opera singer under the tuition of the baritone, Ernesto Sivori. He never performed in public and after Sivori died in 1923 he did not pursue his studies, focussing more and more on literature, taking it upon himself to learn about Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and D'Annunzio in particular.

Eugenio Montale's first volume of poetry
established him as a great literary talent

Despite his frail health, he was passed fit for military service when Italy entered World War One and experienced frontline fighting in the area around Vallarsa and Rovereto. By the time he was discharged in 1920, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant.

Politically, he opposed Fascism to the extent of signing Benedetto Croce’s Manifesto of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, yet after the fall of Mussolini he rejected both the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communists and, apart from a brief membership of the centre-left Partito d'Azione, steered clear of any involvement in politics.

He began publishing poetry in the 1920s, initially influenced by the works of poets such as Ezra Pound and TS Eliot, but also drawing on the inspiration he took from family holidays on the rugged Ligurian coast around the Cinque Terre and Rapallo. Montale often uses imagery drawn from the sea and the Mediterranean landscape to convey feelings of isolation and the fragility of existence.

In 1927, he moved to Florence, where he worked as a journalist and literary critic and mixed in the city's intellectual and artistic circles, attending literary gatherings of the café Le Giubbe Rosse, meeting Carlo Emilio Gadda, Tommaso Landolfi and Elio Vittorini among others.  He worked as an editor for the publisher Bemporad and later became the director of the Gabinetto Vieusseux Library, although he lost that position in 1938 because of his anti-Fascist views. 

From 1948 until his death, Montale lived in Milan. He became literary editor of the Corriere della Sera, dealing in particular with the Teatro alla Scala, and music critic for the Corriere d'informazione.

Montale was buried alongside his wife,
Drusilla, at cemetery outside Florence

Montale’s language skills enabled him to translate works by authors such as William Blake and Wallace Stevens into Italian, introducing these writers to a wider Italian audience. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975 as a recognition of his contributions to Italian poetry, joining Giosuè Carducci  (1904), Grazia Deledda (1926) and Luigi Pirandello (1934) as winners of the prestigious award. They would be followed by Dario Fo in 1997 and, posthumously, by Elsa Morante. Montale had earlier been made a senator for life.

In 1962, in Montereggi, near Fiesole, he had married Drusilla Tanzi, with whom he had been living since 1939. Sadly, after a fall that left her with a fractured femur, she died in October 1964 at the age of 77. He would reflect poignantly on her death in his 1966 collection, Xenia, written in a more personal style. 

In failing health, Montale himself died in Milan’s San Pio X clinic in 1981 a month before his 85th birthday.  A state funeral was held in Milan Cathedral and he was buried in the cemetery next to the church of San Felice a Ema, a suburb on the southern outskirts of Florence, next to his wife Drusilla. 

His archive is preserved at the University of Pavia, with which Montale had a long association and where his daughter, Bianca, was a professor.

The pretty fishing village of Boccadesse is only 
a short distance from the historic centre of Genoa

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa (Genova), where Eugenio Montale was born, is the capital of the Liguria region. It has a rich blend of mediaeval history, Renaissance architecture, and a vibrant modern culture. Its strategic location has made it a centre of trade and commerce for centuries, with considerable wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks, but also boasts many fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Doge's Palace, the 16th century Royal Palace and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral are just three examples.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy, which showcases a diverse array of marine life, from sharks and dolphins to jellyfish and seahorses. The picturesque fishing village of Boccadasse, just outside the historic centre, boasts pastel-coloured houses, a charming harbour, and authentic seafood restaurants.

Manarola, where houses cling to rugged cliffs, is
one of the five villages of the Cinque Terre

Travel tip:

The Cinque Terre, where Montale spent family holidays as a child, is a breathtaking part of the Italian Riviera renowned for its picturesque villages perched on cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is made up of five villages - Riomaggiore, known for its narrow alleys, charming shops, and stunning views; Manarola, which has a picturesque harbour and colourful houses clinging to the cliff; Vernazza, which has mediaeval castle and a sandy beach; Corniglia, which can be reached only by a steep staircase or a shuttle bus but offers stunning views of the surrounding coastline; and Monterosso al Mare, the largest of the five, which has a sandy beach and a historic centre.  The Cinque Terre National Park offers a network of hiking trails that connect the five villages, while boat tours offer the chance to explore the coastline from a different perspective. The Cinque Terre is known for Sciacchetrà, a sweet dessert wine made from dried grapes.

Also on this day:

1492: The birth of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino

1937: The birth of actress Daniela Rocca

1943: Nazis paratroopers free Mussolini from imprisonment at mountain ski resort

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Alessandro Varaldo – crime writer and playwright

The first Italian author of gialli to be accepted by Mondadori

Varaldo's Il sette bello was the
first giallo by an Italian

Alessandro Varaldo, the author credited with creating the first fictional Italian police officer, died on this day in 1953 in Rome.

His character, the police commissario Ascanio Bonichi, made his first appearance in Varaldo’s novel Il sette bello - the name by which Italians refer to the seven of diamonds in a deck of cards - which was published by Mondadori in 1931.

The author had been approached by Arnaldo Mondadori himself and encouraged to create a novel in Italian to appeal to the readers who were already eagerly buying their gialli, the Italian translations of English, American and French detective novels that the firm published.

Gialli take their name from the distinctive yellow - giallo in Italian - covers used by Mondadori for their crime novels in the 1930s. 

Varaldo was born in Ventimiglia in Liguria in 1873 and grew up to become a journalist, novelist and playwright. From 1910 onwards he wrote novels, short stories and plays and contributed to newspapers such as Gazzetta del Popolo and Il Caffaro. 

He was president of the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers between 1920 and 1928 and director of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Milan from 1943.

In 1931, the Italian Government had brought in measures to try to curb the number of translated books by foreign authors being published, which encouraged Varaldo, along with other authors at the time, to try his hand at the genre.

Varaldo, who was also a journalist, wrote
seven other gialli in addition to Il sette bello

Esteemed for the quality of his writing, which Mondadori considered essential for the books they published, Varaldo became the first Italian author accepted into Mondadori’s series of gialli, and he went on to write eight mysteries for them. He was able to reconcile the traditionally Anglo-Saxon genre of crime fiction with Fascist values in order to comply with the dictates of the Mussolini regime.

He portrayed Bonichi as a down to earth character from the countryside who solved his cases by chance, rather than using the more scientific methods employed by other fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes.

His novels were set in Rome before the war and described the city’s Baroque and neo-Baroque buildings, which formed a theatrical background during the night and at dawn, when the silhouette of a figure could be illuminated. Crime fiction experts think this evoked an irretrievable past for his readers to escape to.

Varaldo wrote a total of eight gialli between 1931 and 1938 and he also wrote some drammi gialli -detective plays - before his death.

Travel tip: 

Ventimiglia, where Alessandro Varaldo was born, is the last major town on the Italian riviera before the border with France, which is about 6km (3.7 miles) away. Situated about 130km (81 miles) west of the Ligurian capital Genoa, it is not a well known as nearby Sanremo but has plenty going for it, nonetheless, its charm enhanced by the pastel colours of its houses. The town is divided in two by the Roia river, which separates the newer lower town from the old upper town - Ventimiglia Alta - which sits on a hill encircled by walls. Ancient buildings and churches dating back to the 10th century make the climb worthwhile, as does the spectacular view over the Ligurian sea. The mediaeval old town is also home to the Biblioteca Civica Aprosiana - founded by the writer and Augustan monk Angelico Aprosio in 1648 - has one of the largest collections of 17th century manuscripts and books in Italy.  The elegant lower town is best known for the massive open-air market that takes place in the beautiful setting of the lungomare - the promenade - every Friday. There are a smaller number of stalls open on the other days of the week. For beach lovers, the Spiaggia dei Balzi Rossi and the Spiaggia delle Calandre are only a short walk from the centre.

Travel tip:

The Mondadori publishing house, whose Gialli Mondadori broke new ground in publishing in Italy as the first book series to feature detective and crime stories alone, was launched in Ostiglia, an historical town about 160 km (99 miles) southeast of Milan and about 30 km (19 miles) from Mantua. In Roman times, when it was called Hostilia, its location on the Via Claudia Augusta Padana saw it become a trade hub linking Emilia with northern Europe.  In the Middle Ages it was a stronghold of Verona before being acquired in turn by the Scaliger, Visconti and Gonzaga families. The Palazzina Mondadori, an elegant Art Nouveau-style building that was the first Arnoldo printing house, hosts Arnoldo Mondadori’s private library consisting of about 1,000 books, many signed by the authors. Mondadori relocated to Milan in 1929 and now boasts a modern headquarters in the suburb of Segrate, to the east of the centre.

More reading:

How Giorgio Mondadori helped launch the newspaper La Repubblica

Why Augusto De Angelis is regarded as the 'father of Italian crime fiction'

The Naples bank worker who became a leading modern crime writer

Also on this day:

1455: The birth of painter Fra Angelico

1564: The death of painter and sculptor Michelangelo

1626: The birth of biologist Francesco Redi

1967: The birth of footballer Roberto Baggio

1983: The birth of tennis champion Roberta Vinci

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