Showing posts with label Gorizia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gorizia. Show all posts

11 March 2019

Franco Basaglia - psychiatrist

Work led to closure of mental hospitals by law


Franco Basaglia was destined for an academic career until the University of Padua deemed him too unconventional
Franco Basaglia was destined for an academic career until
the University of Padua deemed him too unconventional
The psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, whose work ultimately led to changes in the law that resulted in the closure and dismantling of Italy’s notorious psychiatric hospitals, was born on this day in 1924 in Venice.

As the founder of the Democratic Psychiatry movement and the main proponent of Law 180 - Italy's Mental Health Act of 1978 - which abolished mental hospitals, he is considered to be the most influential Italian psychiatrist of the 20th century.

His Law 180 - also known as Basaglia’s Law - had worldwide impact as other countries took up the Italian model and reformed their own way of dealing with the mentally ill.

Basaglia was born to a well-off family in the San Polo sestiere of Venice. He became an anti-Fascist in his teens and during the Second World War was an active member of the resistance in the city, to the extent that in December 1944, he was arrested and spent six months inside Venice’s grim Santa Maria Maggiore prison, being released only when the city was liberated in April of the following year.

He graduated in medicine and surgery from the University of Padua in 1949 and seemed destined for an academic career but after qualifying as a doctor in the field of ‘nervous and mental diseases’ and becoming an assistant professor he was deemed too unconventional for the tastes of the university hierarchy and told he should seek a career elsewhere.

Basaglia believed mental hospitals merely  reinforced the health problems of patients
Basaglia believed mental hospitals merely
reinforced the health problems of patients
As a result, Basaglia had to look for work and when he was appointed director of the provincial asylum in Gorizia, close to the border with Yugoslavia in northeastern Italy.

It was a grim job. Gorizia, 140km (87 miles) from Venice, was like a remote outpost and psychiatrists at the time regarded it as a sign of failure if they were forced to work in asylums. But Basaglia felt he had no choice.

In his studies he had already become convinced that the conventional methods for handling psychiatric patients needed to change and the post at Gorizia offered him the chance to put his ideas into practice.

On his first day in charge, he refused to sign the permits for the restraint of prisoners. He had soon introduced a requirement that doctors did not wear white coats and instead mingled freely with patients. Locked wards were opened, and the use of shackles and straitjackets was quickly outlawed.

He felt the traditional institutional response to psychiatric patients in distress, which revolved around physical abuse, forced restraint and appalling ‘punishments’, did nothing except reinforce the presumed ‘insanity’ of the victims.

Although he faced opposition from the older staff, he gradually replaced them with doctors he felt shared his views. Amid the tide of radical thinking that was sweeping Italy in the late 1960s, he published a book, L’istituzione negata - The Institution Denied - describing the methods being employed at Gorizia. It became a bestseller and a TV documentary based on the book made him famous.

Basaglia believed strongly in the rehabilitation of the victims of mental illness sufferers in the community
Basaglia believed strongly in the rehabilitation of the
victims of mental illness sufferers in the community
Occasionally, his determination to rehabilitate patients had tragic consequences. On at least two occasions, individuals he had allowed out of confinement committed murders. Basaglia was tried for manslaughter in both instances, and both times was cleared of the charge.

Basaglia left Gorizia in 1969, after which he a brief period in charge of the asylum in Colorno, near Parma, and six months in New York where he worked in a psychiatric hospital in Brooklyn. In 1971, he returned to Italy to be director of the San Giovanni psychiatric hospital in Trieste.

By then, other psychiatrists in Italy were putting Basaglia’s methods into practice and his ideas were acquiring political support. He repeated at the Trieste institution many of the measures that had proved successful in Gorizia, with the addition of such steps as launching co-operatives so that patients who were considered well enough could be re-integrated into the world of work. In 1977 he announced that the San Giovanni hospital was to close.

Soon afterwards, politicians successfully argued that a programme of closure should begin at psychiatric hospitals across the country.

Franca Ongaro continued Basaglia's work after his death
Franca Ongaro continued Basaglia's
work after his death
The Italian Parliament approved Law 180 on May 13, 1978, initiating the gradual dismantling of psychiatric hospitals, a process completed over the following 20 years.

In their place was to be a decentralised community service of treating and rehabilitating mental patients and preventing mental illness and promoting comprehensive treatment, particularly through services outside a hospital network. The emphasis in mental health moved from protecting society towards meeting the needs of patients.

Basaglia was described as a charismatic figure, so enthused about his work he would stay up all night talking with anyone who could match his intellectual stamina. He was also a heavy smoker. Sadly, by the time Basaglia’s Law came into force, he was suffering the effects of the brain tumour that would kill him.

He returned to San Polo, where he died in 1980 at the age of only 56. His wife, Franca Ongaro, who had worked with him on many of his books and essays, continued to work on his behalf after his death to ensure Basaglia’s Law was fully implemented.

The Basilica Maria Gloriosa dei Frari is one of the most notable churches in the San Polo sestiere of Venice
The Basilica Maria Gloriosa dei Frari is one of the
most notable churches in the San Polo sestiere of Venice
Travel tip:

San Polo, the smallest of the six Venice sestieri, is a vibrant district on the west side of the Grand Canal connected to the eastern side by the Rialto Bridge. The main sights include the Rialto Market, the 15th century Gothic church of San Polo and the imposing Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, usually just called the Frari, built in brick in the Venetian Gothic style and containing monuments to distinguished Venetians buried in the church, including a number of Doges and the painter Titian, who painted two large and important altarpieces that can be seen inside, the Assumption of the Virgin on the high altar and the Pesaro Madonna. where stalls sell fish, fruit and vegetables. The canalside Erbaria area has become a fashionable meeting place for aperitifs and cicchetti - the small snacks that are a kind of Venetian tapas.




The Piazza della Vittoria is the central square in the town of Gorizia, on the Italian border with Slovenia
The Piazza della Vittoria is the central square in the
town of Gorizia, on the Italian border with Slovenia
Travel tip:

Gorizia has the look of an historic Italian town but it has changed hands several times during its history, which is not surprising given its geographical location.  It sits literally on the border with Slovenia and, in fact, is part of a metropolitan area shared by the two countries, the section on the Slovenian side being now known as Nova Gorica. It has German, Slovenian, Friulian and Venetian influences, which can be experienced in particular in the local cuisine.

26 October 2018

Primo Carnera - boxer

Heavyweight’s career dogged by ‘fix’ rumours


Primo Carnera became world heavyweight champion in New York in 1933
Primo Carnera became world heavyweight
champion in New York in 1933
The boxer Primo Carnera, who was world heavyweight champion between 1933 and 1934, was born on this day in 1906 in a village in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

After launching his professional career in Paris in 1928, Carnera moved to the United States in 1930 and spent many years there, returning from time to time to Italy, where he had a house built for himself and his family, but not permanently until he was in declining health and decided he would like to spend his final years in his home country.

He won 89 of his 103 fights, 72 by a knockout, although there were suspicions that many of his fights were fixed by the New York mobsters who made up his management team, even including the victory over the American Jack Sharkey that earned him the world title.

Physically, he was a freak.  Said to have weighed 22lbs at birth he had grown to the size of an adult man by the time he was eight. By adulthood, he was a veritable giant, by Italian standards, standing 6ft 6ins tall when the average Italian man was 5ft 5ins.  His fighting weight was as high at times as 275lb (125kg).

Born into a peasant family in the village of Sequals, around 45km (28 miles) west of Udine, at the northern edge of a plain bordering the Friulian preAlps, Carnera had little option but to leave the area as soon as he was strong enough to work.

Primo Carnera, who stood 6ft 6ins tall, towered above the average man of his day, as this news cutting shows
Primo Carnera, who stood 6ft 6ins tall, towered above
the average man of his day, as this news cutting shows
In the aftermath of the First World War, Sequals was a place of devastation and deprivation, with no prospect of finding employment.

Carnera left at the age of 12, finding his way to France where he did labourer's work, carrying bags of cement, laying bricks or cutting stones. At 17, he joined a travelling circus, where he was variously paraded as a freakshow giant, a strongman, and a wrestler.

He entered the fight business after a journeyman French heavyweight came across him in a park and recommended him to a boxing manager called Leon See.  Within two weeks, he was in the ring and within less than 18 months had a wins to losses record of 16-2.

Even then, given Carnera’s lack of technique, there were suspicions that See’s underworld connections were playing a big part in his success. His physical size made him a money-spinner in terms of tickets sales and it was in the interests of both his own camp and his opponents’ for his reputation to grow.

Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll, an Irish villain who was part of Carnera's management team
Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll, an Irish villain who
was part of Carnera's management team
See took him to the United States, where it was not long before his management team was populated by characters with such dubious names as Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll and Owney ‘The Killer’ Madden, both of whom were involved in organised crime.

In his United States debut at Madison Square Garden, Carnera’s opponent fell in unlikely fashion only a minute into the fight and over the next four years Carnera’s bouts followed a similar pattern.

The press nicknamed him ‘the Ambling Alp’ because of his slow movement around the ring and his poor technique yet he remained a major draw. It has been suggested that he even believed his own publicity, convincing himself that his fists somehow packed superpowers.

His winning of the world title came as a major surprise because Sharkey had beaten him comprehensively only a year before.  However, when it was not in the interests of his mobster connections for him to win, Carnera often took a heavy beating.

For example, when he defended his world title against Max Baer in June 1934 he was knocked to the canvas 13 times before losing on a technical knock-out.

Yet he was allowed to continue his career and retired only when a combination of kidney failure and diabetes made it impossible for him to continue.

Carnera ahead of his 1935 fight with future world champion Joe Louis, who knocked him out
Carnera ahead of his 1935 fight with future
world champion Joe Louis, who knocked him out
His post-retirement life was carefully planned, Carnera announcing in 1930 that he wanted to build a luxurious house in Sequals to which he intended to retire.  The project was completed in 1932, when architect Mariano Pittana unveiled a cutting edge design featuring Anglo-Saxon and Art Nouveau features. Carnera remained in the United States but returned to Italy for holidays.

Carnera holds the second-most victories of all heavyweight champions with 88. His 71 career knockouts is the most of any world heavyweight champion, yet his legacy will be forever tarnished by the accusation that many of his fights had pre-arranged outcomes.

In addition to boxing, Carnera enjoyed an acting career in which he appeared in more than 10 films, and wrestled professionally as well.

His story entered popular culture in several ways, with his life depicted in a number of books and films, notably Budd Schulberg’s 1947 novel, The Harder They Fall, which was about a giant boxer whose fights are fixed.

It was made into a film by the Canadian producer and director Mark Robson in 1956, starring Humphrey Bogart.  Controversially, it featured Max Baer, playing a fighter the mob could not fix, who destroys the giant in his first fair fight.

There were obvious parallels with the real-life Baer-Carnera fight two decades before. In response, Carnera sued the film company, but was unsuccessful.

Married since 1939 to Giuseppina Kovačič, a post office clerk from Gorizia, Carnera became an American citizen in 1953, when he and his wife opened a restaurant in Los Angeles. They had two children, Umberto and Giovanna Maria.

Carnera died in 1967 in Sequals from a combination of liver disease and diabetes. He was 60 years old.

The Villa Carnera in Sequals is open to visitors
The Villa Carnera in Sequals is open to visitors
Travel tip:

The Villa Carnera in the pleasant village of Sequals can be found in the Via Roma, set back from the road near the junction with Via San Giovanni.  In what was then a relatively poor community, with simple houses built from local stone, Carnera’s large art Nouveau house, equipped with running water, electric light and heating, seemed like a fantasy palace.  Since 2012, the villa, which was sold by the Carnera family to a private individual in 1972, has been open to the public on Sunday afternoons from May to the end of October, displaying an exhibition about Carnera’s life.

The Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in Pordenone
The Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in Pordenone
Travel tip:

Pordenone, in whose province Sequals falls, is an attractive small city of around 50,000 people with a rich history reflected in many beautiful palaces, churches, frescoes and monuments. The city centre has many elegant pedestrianised streets, including the historical Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, linking Piazza Cavour with the Gothic-Romanesque cathedral, which contains among other artworks a painting attributed to the Venetian artist Tintoretto.

More reading:

Vito Antuofermo, the farmer's son who became world champion

How Giuseppe Curreri became Johnny Dundee

The Sicilian boxer whose son was the legendary Frank Sinatra

Also on this day:

1797: The birth of mezzo-soprano Guiditta Pasta

1954: Trieste becomes part of Italy


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4 September 2017

Luigi Cadorna – Marshall of Italy

Tough military leader was blamed for losing crucial battle


General Luigi Cadorna was Chief of Staff  of the Italian Army in the First World War
General Luigi Cadorna was Chief of Staff
of the Italian Army in the First World War
Luigi Cadorna, a military General who was made a Marshall of Italy, was born on this day in 1850 in Verbania, on the shore of Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

General Cadorno (fourth from the right) inspecting Italian troops ahead of the second Isonzo offensive
General Cadorno (fourth from the right) inspecting Italian
troops ahead of the second Isonzo offensive
By 1915, when Italy was about to enter the First World War, Cadorna was on the verge of retiring and had a history of differences with his political and military superiors.

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

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

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

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

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

General Armando Diaz led the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army after replacing Cadorna
General Armando Diaz led the defeat of the
Austro-Hungarian army after replacing Cadorna
The Italian army fled in disarray and seemed on the verge of total collapse, with 275,000 soldiers captured.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Milano Cadorna railway station is named after Luigi Cadorna
Milano Cadorna railway station is named after Luigi Cadorna
Travel tip:


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

5 August 2017

Felice Casson - politician and magistrate

His investigations revealed existence of Operation Gladio

Felice Casson identified the bomber behind the Peteano killings
Felice Casson identified the bomber
behind the Peteano killings
Felice Casson, the magistrate whose investigations exposed the existence of the NATO-backed secret army codenamed Gladio, was born on this day in 1953 in Chioggia, near Venice.

A former mayor of Venice and a representative of the Democratic Party in the Italian Senate, Casson devoted much of his career in the judiciary to fighting corruption and rooting out terrorists.

In 1984, his interest in terrorism led him to examine the unsolved mystery of the Peteano bombing in 1972, in which three Carabinieri officers were killed by a car bomb placed under an abandoned Fiat 500 in a tiny hamlet close to the border with Yugoslavia in the province of Gorizia.

Casson discovered flaws in the original investigation into the bombing, which at the time was blamed on the left-wing extremist group the Red Brigades, who would later be responsible for the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro, a former prime minister. 

Afterwards, Italy launched a nationwide crackdown on left-wing organisations and made more than 200 arrests.

Vincenzo Vinciguerra confessed to planting bomb that killed Carabinieri officers
Vincenzo Vinciguerra confessed to planting
bomb that killed Carabinieri officers
But Casson found no record of any investigation of the scene of the bombing and discovered that a report claiming the explosives used in the bomb was the same as previously used in Red Brigades activity was a forgery.

He reopened the case and his new investigation established that the explosive used was called C4, a very powerful agent of which large stocks were kept by NATO.

At around the same time he found details of the chance discovery earlier in 1972 by other Carabinieri officers of a hidden arms cache near Trieste, which had been mysteriously hushed up at the time.  Among the weapons and munitions stored there was C4.

Ultimately the investigation led Casson to order the arrest of Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a member of the right-wing extremist group Ordine Nuovo – New Order – who confessed that he had planted the car bomb and confirmed a connection Casson had already made between Ordine Nuovo and the Italian secret services.

Marco Morin, the police explosives expert who had provided false evidence about the explosives used at Peteano, was also a member.

Under questioning from judges, Vinciguerra went further, linking a series of atrocities in Italy during the so-called Years of Lead, beginning with the Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan in 1969, which killed 17 people, and culminating in the massacre of 85 people at Bologna railway station in 1980, to a secret organisation working on behalf of the Italian government and its allies.

Giuliano Andreotti admitted in 1990 that the Gladio operation existed
Giuliano Andreotti admitted in 1990 that
the Gladio operation existed
He said that the Peteano outrage, after which the secret services helped him flee to a place of refuge in Spain, had made it clear to him that there existed “a structure, occult and hidden, with the capacity of giving a strategic direction to the outrages” and that it lay “within the state itself.”

Vinciguerra said that it was “composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity, to organise a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army...and which, lacking a Soviet military invasion which might not happen, took up the task, on NATO's behalf, of preventing a slip to the left in the political balance of the country (Italy). This they did, with the assistance of the official secret services and the political and military forces.”

The explosives used at Peteano actually came from another hidden arms cache near Verona, which Casson concluded was part of a network of more than 100 such caches belonging to NATO.

Naturally, the revelations of a convicted criminal could easily be dismissed, yet the existence of Operation Gladio was confirmed in 1990 by the Italian Christian Democrat prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, who in 1990 told a parliamentary commission looking into the Years of Lead that Gladio had been set up in 1953 as one of several “stay-behind” armies put in place across Europe as NATO sought to be aware of any potential Soviet military action but also to monitor any signs of Soviet-sponsored political activity.

Italy was a particular concern in the 1960s and 1970s because of the rise in popularity of the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party. 

Andreotti admitted that there was “a structure of information, response and safeguard” in place, in which he and the Italian president, Francesco Cossiga, had both been involved.

However, he said that 127 weapons caches had been dismantled and that Gladio had not been involved in any of the bombings committed between the 1960s and the 1980s.

Nonetheless, political historians note that each outrage, whether judged to be committed by left-wing extremists or aimed at them - as in the case of Bologna, a Communist stronghold -  tended to weaken the appetite for change and to strengthen the position of the conservative Christian Democrats.

Parts of Chioggia have the look of Venice
Parts of Chioggia have the look of Venice
Travel tip:

Chioggia, where Felice Casson was born, is a historic fishing port at the southern limit of the Venetian lagoon, accessible by boat direct from Venice. It is actually a small island, linked by a causeway to the resort of Sottomarina.  Like Venice, it has a number of canals but, unlike Venice, it is not closed to cars. The main street, Corso del Popolo has a number of churches and some fine fish restaurants.

The Piazza della Vittoria in the centre of Gorizia
The Piazza della Vittoria in the centre of Gorizia
Travel tip:

Gorizia has the appearance of an historic Italian town but it has changed hands several times during its history, which is not surprising given its geographical location.  It sits literally on the border with Slovenia and, in fact, is part of a metropolitan area shared by the two countries, the section on the Slovenian side being now known as Nova Gorica. It has German, Slovenian, Friulian and Venetian influences, which can be experienced in particular in the local cuisine.








10 March 2017

Lorenzo Da Ponte - writer and impresario

Colourful life of Mozart's librettist


Lorenzo da Ponte, as depicted in a 19th century engraving by Michele Pekenino
Lorenzo da Ponte, as depicted in a 19th
century engraving by Michele Pekenino
The librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who could be described on two counts as a figure of considerable significance in the story of opera, was born on this day in 1749 in Ceneda - since renamed Vittorio Veneto - about 42km (26 miles) north of Treviso in the Veneto region.

Da Ponte wrote the words for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest successes, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte.

He also opened New York City's first opera house in 1833 at the age of 84 and is credited with introducing the United States both to Mozart and Gioachino Rossini.

To say Da Ponte led a colourful life would be putting it mildly.

He was born Emanuele Conegliano at a time when Ceneda was a strongly Jewish community. His mother, Rachele, died when he was only five and at the age of 14 he was baptised as a Catholic along with his father, who wanted to marry a Catholic girl but could do so only if he converted.

In accordance with tradition, Emanuele took the name of the priest who baptised him, in his case the Bishop of Ceneda, Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Through the Bishop's influence, Emanuele and his two brothers were enrolled in the seminary of Ceneda and Lorenzo was ultimately ordained as a priest.  By then he had begun writing poetry.  One of his earliest pieces - curiously, given his calling - was entitled An Ode to Wine.

The front page of a programme for the presentation of the Marriage of Figaro
The front page of a programme for the
presentation of the Marriage of Figaro
He moved to Venice in 1773 to be the priest of the church of San Luca, although his lifestyle was hardly befitting of a man of the cloth.  He fell into the company of members of minor Venetian nobility who were penniless but whom convention forbade to work and were therefore obliged to turn to gambling and debauchery to make a living.

Although he was a Catholic priest, Da Ponte took a mistress, who bore him two children but manipulated him into parting with money, largely to support her gambling-addicted brother. Ultimately Da Ponte was charged with 'public concubinage' and 'abduction of a respectable woman' and it was alleged in court that he had been living in a brothel. He was found guilty and banished from Venice for 15 years.

He fled to Gorizia, nowadays a town on the border of Italy and Slovenia but then part of Austria, where he lived as a writer. In time his friend Caterino Mazzolà, the poet of the Saxon court, invited him to Dresden, where he was given a letter of introduction to the composer Antonio Salieri.

With Salieri's help, Da Ponte obtained the post of librettist to the Italian Theatre in Vienna.  As court poet and librettist, Da Ponte collaborated with Mozart, Salieri and Vicente Martín y Soler. As well as writing, between 1786 and 1790, the libretti in Italian for the three aforementioned Mozart operas, he enjoyed commercial success with Soler's Una cosa rara.

His fortunes changed with the death of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1790, after which he was dismissed from the Imperial Service. Unable to return to Venice, he set off for Paris but on learning of the worsening political situation in France, and the arrest of the king and queen, he rerouted to London, accompanied by a new companion, Nancy Grahl, with whom he eventually had four children.

St Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street in  Manhattan saw thousands turn out for funeral
St Patrick's Cathedral in Mulberry Street in
Manhattan attracted thousands to the funeral
In London, he was briefly a grocer and then an Italian teacher before in 1803 becoming librettist at the King's Theatre. Financial stability eluded him, however, and in 1805, after a number of theatrical and publishing ventures failed, the threat of bankruptcy persuaded him to uproot again, this time to the United States, where Nancy and other members of his family had relocated a year earlier.

After arriving in Philadelphia, Da Ponte went first to Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where again he ran a grocery store and gave Italian lessons. He moved to New York to open a bookstore, at the same time taking an unpaid appointment as the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia College.

Determined to spread the Italian culture in the United States, he collaborated in 1825 with the Spanish baritone and entrepreneur Manuel García to stage the first performance in New York of Mozart's Don Giovanni. He also introduced the United States to Rossini's music.

In 1828, at the age of 79, Da Ponte became a naturalised US citizen and five years later founded the New York Opera Company. He was no more adept at business than he had ever been, however, and the company had to be disbanded after two seasons and the theatre sold to pay the company's debts.

Twice, in 1839 and 1841, the theatre was destroyed by fire, yet from the ashes rose the New York Academy of Music and the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Da Ponte died in New York in 1838 and it was a measure of the affection he had accrued that his funeral at the city's historic St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street in the area known as Little Italy attracted thousands of mourners. There is a memorial to him in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, although it is thought he was actually buried at a church in lower Manhattan.

Travel tip:

In 1866, soon after the Veneto was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy, the towns of Ceneda and Serravalle were joined into one city named after the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele.  During the First World War, Vittorio was the site of the last battle between Italy and Austria-Hungary, won by Italian troops. The suffix "Veneto" was added to the city's name in 1923 as a commemoration of the victory and many Italian cities now have a Via Vittorio Veneto, the most famous of which became the centre of Rome's 'Dolce Vita' culture in the 1950s.

Hotels in Venice from Expedia

The Chiesa di San Luca in Venice
Travel tip:

The Chiesa di San Luca in Venice, where Da Ponte was priest, can be found next to the Rio de San Luca canal in the San Marco district. It has a simple facade but inside can be found frescoes by Sebastiano Santi, and altarpieces by Paolo Veronese and Palma il Giovane

Hotels in Venice from Hotels.com


More reading:


How Tito Gobbi found global fame

La Traviata - the world's favourite opera



Also on this day:

1872: The death of revolutionary patriot Giuseppe Mazzini

1900: The birth of architectural sculptor Corrado Parnucci

Selected books:

Memoirs Of Lorenzo Da Ponte (New York Review Books Classics)

Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Extraordinary Adventures of the Man Behind Mozart, by Rodney Bolt 

(Picture credits: St Patrick's Cathedral by Jim.henderson; Chiesa di San Luca by Godromil; via Wikimedia Commons)


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18 June 2016

Fabio Capello - leading football manager

Veteran Champions League winner with five Serie A titles 


Photo of Fabio Capello
Fabio Capello
Fabio Capello, one of European club football's most successful managers, celebrates his 70th birthday today.

The winner of five Serie A titles as a coach and four as a player, plus two La Liga titles as manager of Real Madrid, and the Champions League with AC Milan, Capello was born in San Canzian d'Isonzo, close to the border of Italy and Slovenia, on this day in 1946.

At the time, San Canzian d'Isonzo was in an area occupied by Allied forces after the end of the Second World War.

His uncle, Mario Tortul, who was from the same village near Trieste, had been a professional footballer, playing in Serie A with Sampdoria, Triestina and Padova and making one appearance for the Italian national team.

Capello began his playing career at the Ferrara-based SPAL club and went on to represent Roma, Juventus and AC Milan.  A midfielder with an eye for goal, he was a Serie A champion three times with Juventus and once with Milan, also winning the Coppa Italia with Roma and Milan.

He represented Italy 32 times, playing at the 1974 World Cup finals in West Germany.  He regards scoring the only goal against England in 1973 as Italy won at Wembley for the first time in their history as the highlight of his international career.

He would later return to England to coach the national team, leading them to the World Cup finals in South Africa in 2010.

After his retirement as a player, Capello coached Milan's youth teams, bringing through the likes of Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Costacurta.  He began to work with the senior side in 1987 as assistant to the Swede Nils Liedholm and took over as temporary head coach for the last six games of the 1986-87 season when Liedholm left.

He was passed over in favour of Arrigo Sacchi when Milan appointed their next permanent head coach and succeeded Sacchi in 1991, inheriting a team that had been double European Cup winners under Sacchi but taking them to a new level of excellence.

Photo of Fabio Capello
Fabio Capello during his second spell as Real Madrid boss
Milan won four Serie A titles in five years, setting an Italian League record by remaining unbeaten for 58 matches between May 1991 and March 1993, which included the whole of the 1991-92 season.

At times his squad included stars from all around the world, including Maldini, the Dutch trio of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard, the Montenegrin Dejan Savicevic, Croatia's Zvonimir Boban, the former Torino winger Gianluigi Lentini, for whom he paid a then world record fee of £15 million, the Frenchman Marcel Desailly and the Dane Brian Laudrup.

Milan's 4-0 defeat of Johan Cruyff's Barcelona in the 1994 Champions League final with goals from Daniele Massaro (two), Savicevic and Desailly is regarded as one of the greatest performances in the history of European competition.  Milan were also twice beaten finalists under Capello

His reputation firmly established, Capello went on to coach Real Madrid twice, winning Spain's La Liga title in 1996-97 and again a decade later.  In between, he led Roma to the Serie A championship in 2000-01 and would have two more Serie A titles on his CV had his 2004-05 and 2005-06 triumphs with Juventus not been declared null and void because of the club's links to a match-fixing scandal, which prompted Capello to resign.

He achieved a personal ambition to manage one of football's major national teams when he was appointed as England head coach in December 2007 but his record thus far in international football has been unimpressive alongside his club career.

England qualified for the World Cup finals in 2010 under Capello but performed poorly in South Africa and although he led them through a successful qualification campaign for the 2012 European Championship, Capello resigned before the finals after John Terry was stripped of the captaincy against his wishes.

He subsequently coached Russia but was sacked in July 2015 after three years in charge, a period that encompassed more disappointment at a World Cup finals when Russia were knocked out at the group stage in 2014.  He has not worked since and claims he turned down an offer to succeed Antonio Conte as Italy's head coach.

Away from football, Capello is a collector of fine art and has acquired a collection of paintings valued at around £10 million.  SA devout Catholic, he prays twice a day and has been married for 40 years to his wife Laura, whom he met on a bus as a teenager.  They have two sons, Pier Filippo and Eduardo.

Travel tip:

Gorizia, about 25 kilometres from San Canzian d'Isonzo, is a fascinating town that straddles the border of Italy and Slovenia. It was the subject of a territorial dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia at the end of the Second World War and when boundaries were drawn up in 1947 it was agreed that Gorizia would remain Italian and a new town of Nova Gorica would be built on the Yugoslav side. The town is notable for a fine castle, parts of which date back to the 13th century.

Photo of a square in Trieste
Trieste's town hall is on the imposing Piazza Unità, which is
the largest seafront square in Italy
Travel tip:

Trieste, once the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian empire, has a diverse culture that recognises its multi-ethnic population, which comprises mainly Italians and Slovenians but also a significant number of Serbians, Croatians and Romanians. Its main sights include the 15th century Castel San Giusto and the majestic Piazza Unità d'Italia, the largest seafront square in Europe.

More reading:

Arrigo Sacchi - AC Milan manager's tactics revolutionised Italian football

Gianluigi Lentini: the world's most expensive footballer

The founding of Internazionale

(First photo of Fabio Capello by soccer.run CC BY-SA 3.0) 
(Photo of Trieste town hall by Twice25 and Rinina25 CC BY-SA 2.5)

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