Catherine de’ Medici – Queen of France

Florentine girl was the mother of three French kings

Cristofano dell'Altissimo's portrait of
Catherine de' Medici, in the Uffizi

Catherine de’ Medici, who married King Henry II of France and gave birth to the three subsequent Kings of France, was born on this day in 1519 in Florence.

Because of her influence over France during the period of the French-Huguenot wars, Catherine is said to have been one of the most important people in Europe during the 16th century.

She was the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne, but within a month of her birth, both her parents had become ill and died.

Her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini cared for her initially, but after her death, Catherine was brought up by her aunt, Clarice de’ Medici.

After her uncle, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523, he hosted Catherine in stately surroundings in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.

But in 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence and Catherine was taken hostage by Pope Clement VII’s enemies and housed in a series of convents.

The three-year period while she was living in the convent of the Santissima Annunziata delle Murate is believed to have been the happiest of her life and the time in which her interest in plants and Tuscan food was fostered. 

It was also a period of great danger for Catherine, as Clement VII had crowned Archduke Charles V of Austria as Holy Roman Emperor in return for his help taking the city.

A depiction of the marriage of Catherine de'
Medici to Henry II of France, in 1533

Charles began to lay siege to Florence and after a while some Florentines called for Catherine to be killed and for her body to be displayed on the walls of the city.

However, the city surrendered to Charles in 1530, and afterwards Clement VII summoned Catherine to Rome where he was said to have greeted her with ‘open arms and tears in his eyes’.

Clement VII then decided to find a suitable husband for Catherine and he accepted the offer from King Francis I of France, who had suggested his second son, Henry, Duke of Orleans. The pontiff regarded this as a good match for Catherine, who was not of royal birth, despite her wealth. 

The wedding took place in Marseille in 1533, when Catherine was still only 14. Three years later, after Henry’s older brother, Francis II, died, Catherine’s husband became heir to the French throne.

The pressure was on for Catherine to produce an heir, and after more than ten years of marriage she gave birth to a son, Francis. Catherine then went on to have another nine children, another two of whom were to become kings of France.

Francis became King Francis II of France and he married Mary Queen of Scots. He died in 1558 and was succeeded by his brother, Charles, who became Charles IX of France and married Elizabeth of Austria. After Charles died in 1574, he was succeeded by his brother, Henry, who became Henry III of France and married Louise of Lorraine. He reigned until he was assassinated in 1589. He had survived his mother by just eight months.

A portrait of Catherine de' Medici
wearing a widow's black cap and veil

Catherine had died in January 1589, probably of pleurisy. She was buried in Blois at first, but her remains were later interred at the Saint Denis basilica in Paris at the request of her husband’s long-time mistress, Diane de Poitiers.  But in 1789, a revolutionary mob tossed Catherine’s bones into a mass grave in Paris along with those of other former kings and queens.

During the reigns of all three of her sons, Catherine played a big part in ruling France. When Charles IX became king at just ten years old, she was appointed Governor of France and had sweeping powers. She also played a key role during the reign of her third son, Henry III. She is said to have taken a hard line against the Calvinist Protestants, known as Huguenots. She has been blamed by historians for her part in the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 when thousands of Huguenots were killed.

There is a long-held belief that Catherine de’ Medici had a strong influence on the cuisine of France by introducing Italian recipes, although this is disputed.

Proponents of this story claim Catherine brought in Italian chefs to the royal kitchen, who introduced the use of herbs and spices from Italy and Catherine’s favourite vegetables, which were not being served in France at the time. Some of today’s classic French recipes are said to have their origins in Tuscan cooking.

However, some experts say France already had a sophisticated cuisine of its own.

Florence's Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore,
with Brunelleschi's enormous brick-built dome

Travel tip: 

The founder of the Medici dynasty, Catherine’s ancestor, Cosimo de’ Medici, became Europe’s richest banker and a great art patron, supporting Fra Angelico, Donatello, Ghiberti, and many others. He also had a great influence on the skyline of Florence by encouraging Filippo Brunelleschi to complete his great dome for Florence’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. The largest dome of its time, it was built without scaffolding and given an inner shell to provide a platform for the timbers that support the outer shell. The architect died in 1446 before it was completed, but his dome remains to this day the largest masonry dome in the world.

The Murate monastery complex now houses bars,
shops, apartments and a restaurant 

Travel tip:

It is said that Catherine de’ Medici’s happiest time was spent living as a young girl in the 15th century convent of the Santissima Annunziata delle Murate in Florence. It was there she is said to have become interested in plants and cookery. Once a closed, religious community, the convent, between Via Ghibellina and Via Agnolo near Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, became a men’s prison for many years, and is where Carlo Levi, the doctor and politician, who wrote Cristo e fermato a Eboli, was held during the Fascist era. It has now been converted into a restaurant and cultural hub following designs by Renzo Piano.

Also on this day:

1808: The birth of engineer and inventor Antonio Meucci

1920: The birth of banker Roberto Calvi

1928: The birth of racing driver Giannino Marzotto

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Joseph Bonaparte becomes King of Naples

Programme of reform launched to improve lives of citizens

Joseph Bonaparte was the older brother
of the French emperor Napoleon

People took to the streets to celebrate in Naples on this day in 1806 after Napoleon’s older brother, Joseph Bonaparte, was declared to be their new king.

Joseph had been welcomed when he first arrived in Naples and was eager to be a popular monarch with his subjects. He kept most of the people who had held office under the Bourbons in their posts because he was anxious not to appear as a foreign oppressor.

Once he had established a provisional government in the capital of his new kingdom, he set off on a tour of inspection of his territory.

His immediate objective was to assess the feasibility of an invasion of Sicily to expel King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina, who had fled to Palermo from Naples. But once he arrived at the Strait of Messina, he realized this was going to be impossible as the Bourbon monarchs had taken away all the boats and transport with them and their forces were grouped, alongside British troops, on the opposite side of the water ready to repel any invaders.

Therefore, he continued his progress through Calabria, Lucania, and Puglia, visiting the main villages in the regions and meeting the people so that they could get used to their new king.

Joseph embarked on an ambitious programme of reform in Naples and the south of Italy to raise his new kingdom to the level of a modern state in the style of Napoleonic France. He improved the economy, introduced more education for girls and took measures to make life better for ordinary people.

Joseph was the older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte and had trained as a lawyer. He helped his younger brother to overthrow the Directory, the committee who were governing the French First Republic, and, as a Minister in Napoleon’s Government, had signed a treaty of friendship and commerce between France and the United States.

Julie, Joseph's wife, was
sent to support her husband

When war broke out between France and Austria, Ferdinand IV of Naples had agreed to a treaty of neutrality with Napoleon, but a few days later he declared his support for Austria.

In December 1805, Napoleon declared Ferdinand to be ‘faithless’, and to have forfeited his position, and said that an invasion of Naples would follow.

He sent his brother, Joseph, to Rome to command an army to dispossess Ferdinand of his throne. 

On February 8, 1806, a French army of 40,000 men advanced on Naples, meeting little resistance. The British and Russian forces in the area retreated and King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina went to Sicily.

Gaeta and Capua put up a token resistance, but by February 14 the French had taken Naples,  and Joseph Bonaparte was able to enter the city in triumph the following day.

The French seized control of the Strait of Messina and defeated the Neapolitan Royal Army at the Battle of Campo Tenese, securing the mainland for the French.

On March 30, Napoleon issued a decree, installing his brother, Joseph, as King of Naples and Sicily.

Joseph’s wife, Julie, who had remained in Paris, became Queen Consort of Naples and Napoleon sent her to support her husband in 1808 when he was facing a rebellion.

While she was there, she supported educational projects for girls such as a college for the daughters of public functionaries in Aversa.

After the French invaded Spain, the couple became King and Queen of Spain, and Joseph was replaced as ruler of Naples by his sister’s husband, Joachim Murat.

After they left Naples, they were reputed to have taken valuables with them. The comment made by local people at the time was:  "The King arrived like a sovereign, and left like a brigand. The Queen arrived in rags and left like a sovereign.”

How the Bay of Naples looked in the early 19th
century, according to a contemporary lithograph

Travel tip:

Naples and Sicily were part of an independent and prosperous kingdom from the beginning of the 18th century until the start of the French Revolution. In 1799, Napoleon's army reached Naples, creating the short-lived Parthenopean Republic, ruled by Joseph Bonaparte for part of the time. Joseph Bonaparte and his successor, Joachim Murat both took up residence in the Royal Palace in Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples. Building work had started on the palace after 1600 and it became the main residence of the Bourbons from the 1730s,  after Charles III of Spain became King of Naples. Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat both carried out extensive redecoration work on the palace while they were living there. They had to substantially refurnish the palace because Ferdinand IV had emptied it before escaping to Palermo.

The Strait of Messina: Reggio Calabria is in
the foreground; Mount Etna on the Sicily side

Travel tip:

The Strait of Messina is a narrow stretch of water between Sicily’s most eastern tip and Calabria’s most western tip. It connects the Tyrrhenian sea to the north with the Ionian sea to the south. At its narrowest point it is just 3.1 km wide. A ferry service connects Messina on Sicily with the mainland of Italy at Villa San Giovanni, a port city a few kilometres north of Reggio Calabria. The possibility of building a bridge across the Strait of Messina to link Sicily with the mainland has been discussed for many years. Silvio Berlusconi’s Government announced plans for a bridge in 2009 but these were cancelled in 2013. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni revived the plans with a decree in 2022.

Also on this day:

1282: The Sicilian Vespers uprising

1697: The birth of mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni

1815: Joachim Murat’s Rimini Proclamation

1892: The birth of Futurist painter and graphic designer Fortunato Depero

1905: The birth of architect Ignazio Gardella

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Umberto I - King of Italy

Assassination attempts overshadow the reign of unpopular monarch

A portrait photograph, of unknown
origin, of a young Umberto I

The second king of the newly-unified Italy, Umberto I, was born on this day in 1844 in Turin, in the region of Piemonte, which was then in the Kingdom of Sardinia.

As king, Umberto I led Italy into the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, and his support for nationalistic and imperialist policies during his reign led to disaster for his country and helped to create the atmosphere in which he was eventually assassinated.

The son of King Victor Emmanuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, Umberto was brought up with no love or affection from his parents, but was instead taught to be obedient and loyal.

His father, whose 24th birthday fell on the day Umberto was born, gave him no training in politics or government and entrusted Umberto’s education to some of his statesmen.

Umberto went into the Royal Sardinian Army as a captain and took part in the Italian Wars of Independence. He was present at the Battle of Solferino when he was still only 14. Seven years later, in the Third Italian War of Independence, he commanded a division.

At the age of 24, Umberto married his first cousin, Margherita Teresa Giovanna, Princess of Savoy. They had only one son, Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples.  

After the death of his father in 1878, when Umberto became king, he styled himself as Umberto I of Italy, rather than Umberto IV of Savoy, ignoring his three ancestral namesakes. This was even though his father, who had been the first king of Italy, had called himself Victor Emmanuel II, acknowledging his ancestor, Victor Emmanuel 1, King of Sardinia.

Umberto I and Queen Margherita
on a visit to Venice in 1895

While Umberto I was on a tour of Italy accompanied by Queen Margherita and the prime minister at the time, an anarchist tried to attack him in Naples. The prime minister, Benedetto Cairoli, was stabbed in the thigh while attempting to defend the king, but Umberto I was not injured himself.

The anarchist, Giovanni Passannante, was initially condemned to death, but his sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment because the monarch was not killed.

However, this sentence was served by Passannante in a cell less than one and a half metres high, without any sanitation, while being weighed down with heavy chains. Passannante was to die 30 years later in a psychiatric institution.

Umberto’s admiration for German military aggression and keenness on Italian colonial expansion into Africa outraged some Italians and, after a government crackdown on civil liberties, protesters again took to the streets. This led to an unemployed man trying, but failing, to stab Umberto when he was seen out in the street in Rome in 1897.

Italians became even more outraged after Umberto I sent a telegram to congratulate General Bava Beccaris for using artillery against rioters protesting about the cost of bread in Milan in 1897. There were claims afterwards that 400 people had been killed and 2000 people had been wounded because of the heavy-handed tactics of the general.

Finally, in July 1900, anarchist Gaetano Bresci shot Umberto I four times while he was out and about in Monza and killed him. Afterwards Bresci said he had wanted to avenge the people who had been killed by the army while protesting two years earlier in Milan.

Umberto's body was taken to Rome and buried in the Pantheon, by the side of his father. They were the last Savoys to be laid to rest at the Pantheon. A monumental chapel was built in Monza close to the place where the assassination occurred. 

The Pizza Margherita, with tomato, mozzarella and basil,
was supposedly created in honour of Queen Margherita

Travel tip:

Unlike her husband, Umberto I’s queen, Margherita of Savoy, to whom he had been married in Turin in 1868, was immensely popular. In another contrast with Umberto, she was a highly educated woman who was equally at home in the company of ordinary people as she was with aristocrats or intellectuals. Her salon became one of the most exclusive and famous in contemporary Europe yet during her many tours of Italy in her official role she made a point of wearing local folk costumes and showing enthusiasm for local customs, traditions and culture. She was particularly loved in Naples, where she visited schools and hospitals and organised collections of toys and clothes for the children of poor families. She was seen to hold the hands of cholera victims without wearing gloves. Although the story is disputed, it is said that the Pizza Margherita, a staple of most pizza restaurants across the world, was originally created in her honour by Neapolitan pizza maker, Raffaele Esposito, with its tomatoes, basil and mozzarella representing the colours of the Italian flag. Esposito and his wife, Giovanna Brandi, were the original proprietors of the Naples institution, Pizzeria Brandi.

The Cappella Espiatoria was built
close to the spot Umberto was killed

Travel tip:

The Cappella Espiatoria in Monza is a monumental chapel built in an act of atonement or expiation for the assassination of Umberto I by Gaetano Bresci. It was erected on Via Matteo da Campione, close to the entrance to the Royal Villa of Monza on Viale Regina Margherita, where Umberto was killed. The murdered monarch’s son, Vittorio Emanuele III, commissioned the architect Giuseppe Sacconi, and the work was completed by his pupil Guido Cirilli in 1910. Obelisk-like crosses emerge from a stone chapel, and are surmounted by bronze crown and royal symbols of the House of Savoy.  The city of Monza - famous for its Grand Prix motor racing circuit - is also home to the Iron Crown of Lombardy - the Corona Ferrea - a circlet of gold with a central iron band, which according to legend, was beaten out of a nail from Christ’s true cross and was found by Saint Helena in the Holy Land. The crown is believed to have been given to the city of Monza in the sixth century and is kept in a chapel in the 13th century Basilica of San Giovanni Battista, the city’s cathedral. During the ceremony to crown Napoleon Bonaparte as King of Italy in 1805, in the Duomo in Milan, Napoleon is reported to have picked up the Iron Crown, which he had ordered to be fetched from Monza beforehand, placed it on his own head and announced that God had given it to him. 

Also on this day:

1665: The birth of painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi

1820: The birth of future king Victor Emmanuel II

1835: The birth of astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli

1972: The death of publisher and political activist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

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Mantegna frescoes reduced to rubble

Precious works of art damaged by Allied bombing

A photograph taken soon after the raid
shows the scale of damage to the church

One of the heaviest losses to Italy’s cultural heritage during World War Two occurred on this day in 1944 in Padua in the Veneto region when 15th century frescoes painted by the artist Andrea Mantegna were blown into thousands of pieces by bombs.

A raid on the city was carried out by the Allies, hoping to hit Padua’s railway station and an adjoining marshalling yard, as well as a building where the occupying Germans had established their headquarters. But the bombs landed on Padua’s Chiesa degli Eremitani instead, causing devastating damage to frescoes created by the young Mantegna in one of the side chapels.

It was one of the worst blows inflicted on Italy’s art treasures during the war, as Mantegna’s frescoes, which had been painted directly on to the walls of the church, were considered a major work.

Andrea Mantegna, who was born near Vicenza in 1431, had been commissioned to paint a cycle of frescoes in the Ovetari Chapel, one of the side chapels in the Church of the Eremitani.

The commission marked the beginning of Mantegna’s artistic career when he started work at the age of 17 in 1448. The artist was in his mid-20s by the time he had finished the cycle in 1457, which showed scenes from the lives of Saint James and Saint Christopher. 

Some of the scenes from Mantegna's
frescoes have been partially restored

Because of the historical value of Mantegna's work, the Church of the Eremitani was on a list of buildings and monuments Allied bombers had been instructed to avoid. However, tragically, the German invading army had established their headquarters in Padua right next to the church.

When the bombs fell in 1944, targeting was not as precise as it is today and the Ovetari Chapel was severely damaged. Mantegna's wonderful frescoes were reduced to more than 88,000 separate pieces, which were later found mixed in with bits of plaster and bricks on the ground.

Fortunately, a detailed photographic survey of the work had been made previously and it was possible later to reconstruct the artist’s designs and recompose part of the cycle depicting the Martyrdom of Saint James. The photographic record was used to create panels in black and white where Mantegna's frescoes had been.

 Recovered fragments that could be identified were then fixed to the panels in their original positions, so that at least a partial reconstruction could be carried out. Colour has been applied to other parts of the panels to give visitors to the chapel a better idea of how the frescoes originally looked. 

Other frescoes by Mantegna, including the Assumption and the Martyrdom of St. Christopher, had been removed before the war to protect them from damp, and they remained undamaged and were eventually reinstated in the church.

In other chapels in the church, 14th century frescoes painted by Guarentio and Giusto de’ Menabuoi miraculously survived.

Padua was bombed 24 times by Allied aircraft between December 1943 and the end of the war. On  March 11, when the Church of Eremitani was hit, the city was attacked by 111 planes, which dropped 300 tons of bombs.

The previous month, during the Battle of Rome, the Abbey of Monte Cassino to the south east of the capital city, which was the oldest Benedictine monastery in the world, was destroyed by Allied bombers. This is now acknowledged as one of the biggest strategic errors of the Second World War on the Allied side.

Some of the remains of Padua's Roman
amphitheatre are still standing

Travel tip: 

Padua is believed to be one of the oldest cities in northern Italy. It was founded in about 1183 BC by the Trojan prince, Antenor. The Roman writer, Livy, records an attempted invasion of the city by the Spartans in 302 BC. Later attempts at invasions were made unsuccessfully by the Etruscans and Gauls. The city formed an alliance with Rome against their common enemies and it became a Roman municipium in about 49BC. By the end of the first century BC, Padua was the wealthiest city in Italy, apart from Rome. The Roman name for Padua was Patavium. You can still see the remains of the Roman Ampitheatre, or Arena as it was known, which is in Padua’s Giardino dell’Arena. The main entrance would have been near the present-day Piazza Eremitani, where the Church of the Eremitani is located. 

The Chiesa degli Eremitani in Padua dates
back to the mid-13th century 

Travel tip:

La Chiesa degli Eremitani - Church of the Eremitani or Church of the Hermits - is a former Augustinian Gothic-style church close to the Cappella Scrovegni in Piazza Eremitani in the centre of Padua. The church was built for Augustinian friars between 1260 and 1276 and dedicated to the Saints Philip and James. The friars remained in the church and adjoining monastery until 1806 when Padua was under Napoleonic rule and the order was suppressed. The church was reopened for services in 1808 and became a parish church in 1817. The church has a single nave with plain walls decorated with ochre and red bricks and it has a vaulted wooden ceiling. It houses the ornate tombs of two lords of Padua, Jacopo II da Carrara and Ubertino da Carrara, designed by Andriolo de Santi. The Musei Civici agli Eremitani (Civic Museum) of Padua is now housed in the former Augustinian monastery to the left of the church.  The Scrovegni Chapel is famed for its brilliant frescoes by Giotto, painted between 1303 and 1305.

Also on this day: 

1544: The birth of poet Torquato Tasso

1669: Mount Etna’s biggest eruption

1847: The birth of politician Sidney Sonnino

1851: Premiere of Verdi opera Rigoletto

1924: The birth of psychiatrist Franco Basaglia

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Launch of Corriere della Sera

Italy’s biggest-selling daily newspaper

The first edition of Corriere della
Sera, published 149 years ago

Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest daily newspapers, began its unbroken production run on this day in 1876.

Of the country's 22 newspapers with a nationwide circulation, only Il Sole 24 Ore, which made its first appearance in 1865, and La Stampa, which launched in 1866, have a longer continuous history than Corriere della Sera.

Based in Milan, Corriere once sold more than one million copies each day. In common with newspapers across the globe, daily sales have tumbled as readers switch to online sources for news coverage. Yet, even though daily sales have slipped to below 250,000 today, it outstrips nearest rival La Repubblica by around 90,000. 

Corriere’s founding-editor was Eugenio Torelli Viollier, a Naples-born Milan journalist who envisaged a newspaper that would establish a reputation for objective analysis, with a centre-right stance in its political standpoint.

Initially, the ‘Evening Courier’, as the name translates, consisted of just four pages, each of five columns, including an editorial written by Torelli Viollier and the first instalment of a serial novel. Remarkably, the design of the newspaper’s title masthead for the first edition has never changed. Some 15,000 copies were printed, with a cover price of five cents within the city of Milan, seven outside.

The first edition had a double-date, March 5-6, indicating that it was intended as an evening paper that would remain on sale the following morning. The first copies were in the hands of news vendors in Piazza della Scala by 9pm on the evening of the 5th

Eugenio Torelli Viollier was the
newspaper's founding editor

Torelli Viollier’s coverage of the death of the King, Vittorio Emanuele I, in 1878, boosted sales from 3,000 to 5,000. A printing press capable of print runs of 12,000 copies per hour was acquired, after which Corriere began publishing two editions daily, turning a regular profit from 1886 onwards. This was increased to three editions by 1890, rolling off the presses at 4am, 3pm and 10.40pm.

By the time Torelli Viollier stepped down in 1898 the circulation had hit 100,000, although its best years were still to come under his successor, Luigi Albertini.

Albertini, a champion of liberalism and a vigorous opponent of socialism and clericalism, had worked in London as a foreign correspondent for La Stampa and made a point of studying the operating methods of The Times while based there.

After initially joining Corriere della Sera as editorial secretary under Torelli Viollier, he found himself effectively in charge in 1900, taking the role of editorial director in the same year in which Torelli Viollier succumbed to heart disease at his home in Via Paleocapa, near the Castello Sforzesco in central Milan.

Albertini invested in the paper, installing modern equipment and under his direction, Corriere della Sera became the most widely read and respected daily paper in Italy, despite his relentless criticism of Giovanni Giolotti, who was five times Italy’s prime minister between 1892 and 1921, for his willingness to make political deals with socialists.

In his time, the architect Luca Beltrami designed an impressive factory building in Via Solferino, the main street of the Brera district of central Milan, which remains its headquarters to this day.

Enzo Biagi was among 
Corriere's many famous writers

The Albertini era ended in 1925. Under his leadership, the paper’s stance had been as strongly anti-Fascist as it had been anti-socialist. Not surprisingly, after the Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, became prime minister in 1922, the Corriere found itself on a collision course with the authorities and ultimately the paper's owners, the Crespi family, had little choice but to sack him or be closed down. 

The paper thereafter took a pro-Mussolini position and it was not until after World War Two that it returned to its traditional values with another anti-Fascist, Mario Borsa, at the helm. In order to distance itself from Mussolini’s regime, it was relaunched as Nuovo Corriere della Sera in 1946, keeping that title until 1959. In the 1960s, the Crespi family sold part of their shareholding to the Rizzoli publishing house, from which evolved the current owners, the RCS Media Group.

Since its inception, the pages of Corriere have hosted some of Italy’s greatest writers and intellectuals, including philosopher Benedetto Croce, dramatist Luigi Pirandello, the poets Massimo Bontempelli and Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Nobel Prize-winning author Eugenio Montale. The cultural pages have featured contributions from film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, novelist Alberto Moravia and historian and novelist Umberto Eco, while the roll call of giants from the journalistic world includes Dino Buzzati, Indro Montanelli, Enzo Biagi and Giovanni Spadolini.

Corriere Della Sera's headquarters is in the Via
Solferino, a street in the Brera district of Milan

Travel tip:

Its cobbled streets, historic buildings and vibrant cultural scene and nightlife make the Brera district, home of Corriere della Sera’s headquarters in Via Solferino, a big draw for visitors to Milan. Often regarded as the artistic heart of the city, Brera's roots can be traced back to the Roman era, but it was during the Renaissance that it flourished, becoming a hub for artists and intellectuals. Today, it is home to the renowned Pinacoteca di Brera art gallery, which houses an extensive collection of Italian Renaissance masterpieces, and the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Hidden behind the Palazzo Brera is the Orto Botanico di Brera, a botanical garden established in 1774. Located nearby is the Brera Astronomical Observatory, a centre for astronomical research and education since 1762.

Look for a Milan hotel with Expedia

The Castello Sforzesco in Milan, almost 600 years
old, is one of the city's important sights

Travel tip:

Not far from Via Paleocapa, where founding-editor Eugenio Torelli-Viollier lived, one the main sights in Milan is the impressive Sforza castle, Castello Sforzesco, built by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, in 1450. After Ludovico Sforza became Duke in 1494, he commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to fresco several of the rooms. The castle was built on the site of the Castello di Porta Giovia, which had been the main residence in the city of the Visconti family, from which Francesco Sforza was descended. The Viscontis ruled Milan for 170 years. Renovated and enlarged a number of times in subsequent centuries, it became one of the largest citadels in Europe and now houses several museums and art collections.  The Cairo metro station is opposite the main entrance to Castello Sforzesco, which is about a 20 minute walk from Milan’s Duomo.

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Also on this day:

1696: The birth of painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

1827: The death of scientist Alessandro Volta

1834: The birth of soprano Marietta Piccolomini

1922: The birth of actor, writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini

1943: The birth of singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti

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Luisa Sanfelice - executed aristocrat

'Heroine' may have been accidental revolutionary 

Gioacchino Toma's painting, Luisa Sanfelice in 
Prison, in the National Museum of Capodimente

Luisa Sanfelice, an aristocrat executed on the orders of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies because of her involvement with the French-backed Parthenopean Republic, was born on this day in 1764 in Naples.

Sanfelice was hailed as a heroine by supporters of the short-lived republic after revealing a plot among monarchist supporters to stage a violent uprising and reinstate Ferdinand and his wife, Queen Maria Carolina, who had been ousted by an invading French army in 1799. 

She ultimately paid for her actions with her life when King Ferdinand - known also as Ferdinand IV of Naples - returned to power, yet historians believe she had no strong loyalty to either side and perhaps the unwitting victim of her own circumstances, which cast her as a revolutionary almost by accident.

Born Maria Luisa Fortunata de Molina, the daughter of Bourbon general of Spanish origin, she became Luisa Sanfelice - sometimes known as Luigia - at the age of 17 after marrying a dissolute Neapolitan nobleman, Andrea Sanfelice.

Despite their lack of means, the young newlyweds enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle, running up huge debts, which only worsened when the marriage produced three children.

King Ferdinand had Sanfelice killed 
for her part in a failed insurrection 

At the behest of Luisa’s mother, the couple’s children were taken away and put into the care of a convent. Luisa and Andrea were effectively exiled to the Sanfelice family estate near Agropoli in the Cilento region of what is now southern Campania. 

When even these measures failed to curb their excesses, they were forcibly separated, Luisa placed in a conservatory at Montecorvino Rovella, a village in the mountains above Salerno, Andrea in a convent in Nocera, some 40km (25 miles) away. Both managed to escape their captivity and returned to Naples and their home in the Palazzo Mastelloni in the centre of the city, on what is now Piazza Carità.

In 1797, however, Andrea was arrested and thrown into a debtors’ prison.

Luisa’s life now took a different course, ultimately leading to her downfall. 

She began to attend the city’s salons, where wealthy members of society would rub shoulders with artists and intellectuals. Luisa had no political affiliations, mixing with monarchists as comfortably as with republicans. Still a relatively young woman, Luisa inevitably attracted male attention.

One of her suitors was Gerardo Baccher, an officer in the royal army who was loyal to Ferdinand. It was he who confided in her about the plot, for which he and his co-conspirators, had enlisted the help of the Bourbons and of the British fleet under the leadership of Horatio Nelson, to explode bombs during a festival in Naples, and in the ensuing chaos kill the Republic leaders and take control of the city.

Aware that having such knowledge might put her in danger, she asked Gerardo for a safe conduct warrant, so that her life would be spared after the insurrection had taken place. Baccher, smitten with her, willingly acceded to her request. 

Actress Laetitia Casta played 
Sanfelice in a 2004 TV drama

Unbeknown to him, Luisa had become enamoured with a young republican, Ferdinando Ferri. Fearing for his safety, she warned Ferri of what was being planned and handed her safe conduct warrant to him. Ferri duly reported the plot to the authorities, after which Baccher, his brother and others were arrested and killed by firing squad in the courtyard of the Castel Nuovo.

Luisa’s part in the foiling of this plot might never have come to light had it not been for Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca, a journalist and a major figure in the republican movement, who wrote an editorial in Monitore Napoletano, the republican periodical, in which she felt compelled to name ‘one of our distinguished fellow citizens, Luisa Molina Sanfelice, [who] revealed to the government on Friday evening the conspiracy of a few people who were no more wicked than idiots’, adding that ‘Our Republic must not fail to perpetuate the fact and the name of this illustrious citizen.’

After the Parthenopean Republic did collapse, in June 1799, only six months after coming into existence, and King Ferdinand resumed his rule, Luisa was promptly arrested and condemned to death.

She won a stay of execution by claiming she was pregnant, her assertion supported by two doctors in Naples. But Ferdinand sent her to Palermo to see another physician, who determined that she was not pregnant. She was ultimately executed on September 11, 1800.

Luisa Sanfelice’s story has captured the imagination of writers, painters and film-makers, old and new. 

The celebrated 19th century French writer and playwright, Alexandre Dumas père, made her the protagonist of his novel, La sanfelice, which was turned into a film, Luisa Sanfelice, directed by Leo Menardi in 1942. The most recent interpretation of the story for the screen was a TV film made in 2004, directed by the Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio.

The story also inspired works of art in the 19th century, notably Modesto Faustini's canvas The Arrest of Luisa Sanfelice and several by Gioacchino Toma, who created Sanfelice Taken to Prison in Palermo (1855), Sanfelice's Cell (approx 1876), and two versions of Luisa Sanfelice in Prison, which are considered as Italian masterpieces.

The staircase inside the 
Palazzo Mastelloni in Naples

Travel tip:

The Sanfelice family’s home in Naples was in the Palazzo Mastelloni, a palace on the Piazza Carità, a square on the Via Toledo in central Naples. They occupied the first floor of the palace, which has existed at least since the 16th century and in which the Mastellone family had an interest since the late 17th century. At the time of Luisa Sanfelice’s arrest in 1799, it was owned by the Marquess Emanuele Mastellone, a minister in the Parthenopean Republic The palace was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1732, after which the Mastelloni bought the entire building and decided to renovate it in Rococo style, the work being carried out under the supervision of Nicola Tagliacozzi Canale, a Neapolitan architect active between about 1723 and 1760.  Among the most striking architectural features of the building is the elliptical staircase with two symmetrical ramps that rises from the first floor courtyard and which was designed with Luisa Sanfelice’s input.

Agropoli's harbour, seen from the elevated 
position of the Cilento town's historic centre

Travel tip:

Agropoli, where the Safelice family owned an estate to which Luisa and Andrea were exiled after running up huge debts in Naples, is a seaside town in Campania at the start of the Cilento coastline. Its name comes from the strategic hilltop location of the old part of the town, which took the name Acropolis, meaning high town, during Greek rule of the area. Byzantines, Saracens and Aragonese all left their mark on its architecture and culture, notably via the Aragonese Castle, on top of the elevated promontory, which offers breathtaking views.  The area is renowned for crystal-clear waters and picturesque beaches, as well as having a historic centre with narrow, winding streets and historical buildings. While preserving its historical charm, Agropoli also offers modern amenities around a bustling harbour, including a variety of restaurants and shops.  It is a popular location for Italian tourists, in particular. 

Also on this day:

1783: The birth of poet and academic Gabriele Rossetti

1907: The birth of entrepreneur Domenico Agusta

1915: The birth of jam and juice maker Karl Zuegg

1940: The birth of racing driver Mario Andretti

1942: The birth of goalkeeper and coach Dino Zoff

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Coronation of Emperor Charles V

Imperial ceremony in Bologna staged on birthday

Spanish artist Juan de la Corte's 17th century painting
of the procession that followed the ceremony

Charles V was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna by Pope Clement VII on this day in 1530.

Considered the greatest of all the Habsburg emperors, Charles V was also King Carlos 1 of Spain. By the time he was 19, his grandfather and his father were both dead and he had become master of more parts of Europe than anyone since the emperors of ancient Rome.

He chose the day for his coronation because it was his birthday. Although he had been Holy Roman Emperor for more than ten years, Charles decided to receive his crown on his 30th birthday and elected to hold his coronation in the cathedral in Bologna because Rome was still in ruins, having been sacked by his own troops.

He was crowned by the same Pope he had held prisoner during his attack on Rome, Clement VII, who was formerly Giulio de’ Medici.

Charles V was the last emperor to be crowned by a Pope for almost 300 years, until the Emperor Napoleon forced another Pope to crown him as King of Italy in the Duomo in Milan.

Charles and Clement VII had agreed to the imperial coronation as a means of healing the political and religious conflicts that had been dividing Italy and Europe.

They were hoping for a universal peace in the Christian world that would enable countries to provide a more effective defence against Turkish aggression.

German painter Barthel Beham's
portrait of Charles V, executed in 1535

But preparations for the coronation encountered delays, because the Pope was reluctant to agree to some of Charles’s plans.

Clement VII would have preferred Rome as the location for the coronation, but Charles had chosen Bologna because he knew that many Romans blamed him for the damage to their city which had been carried out by his troops three years earlier.

There was a lot of activity in 1529 ahead of the ceremony in Bologna. Clement VII travelled through Italy to arrive in Bologna in October 1529, where he received a splendid reception. Charles travelled by sea from Barcelona to Genoa and then made his way over land to reach Bologna in November the same year.

Pope Clement and Charles V both stayed in rooms in a palazzo in Bologna, that is known now as Palazzo d’Accursio, or Palazzo Comunale (Municipal Palace).

They agreed that on February 24, the date of the Emperor’s birthday, the coronation would take place in the Basilica di San Petronio, the biggest religious building in the city.

Two days before the coronation, Charles received the Iron Crown of Lombardy, crowning him King of Italy, from the Pope, in a chapel in the palace, which is now called the Farnese Chapel.

Ahead of the coronation ceremony, a 250-feet long bridgeway was erected to connect the palace with San Petronio.

After a long Mass in San Petronio, Charles knelt before the Pope and received the imperial golden crown, watched by aristocrats and representatives from all the Italian States.

A 17th century depiction of a scene from the
coronation by Il Perugino (Luigi Scaramuccia)

At the end of the ceremony there was a procession on horseback through the streets of Bologna. Afterwards the Pope and his retinue returned to Palazzo d’Accursio, while Charles and his supporters continued to Basilica San Domenico in the city, where the Emperor removed his new crown and prayed.

Five years earlier, on Charles’s 25th birthday, the date February 24 had acquired even more significance for him, when a French army of about 30,000 men, commanded by King Francois I of France, was besieging the town of Pavia.

To the relief of residents of Pavia, a smaller Habsburg army arrived on February 24 to relieve the garrison and launch a counter attack, firing on the French cavalry, and annihilating the rest of the French army. Francois I was himself captured and had to spend more than a year as a prisoner in Madrid.

From that date onwards, Spain was to dominate the Italian peninsula, paving the way for Charles V to be crowned King of Italy on February 22, and Holy Roman Emperor two days later.

The Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna with
its unfinished marble facade

Travel tip:

San Petronio Basilica is the main church of Bologna, located in Piazza Maggiore in the centre of the city. It is the largest brick-built Gothic church in the world. Building work began on the church in 1390 and it was dedicated to San Petronio, who had been the Bishop of Bologna in the fifth century. The marble facade was designed by Domenico da Varignana and started in 1538 by Giacomo Ranuzzi. However, it remains unfinished to this day. This was because the construction was largely financed by the citizens of Bologna, and not by the Catholic Church, and the project became too costly to complete. The main doorway, the Porta Magna, was decorated by Jacopo della Quercia of Siena. Above this, the facade is of unadorned brick. Despite being Bologna’s most important church, San Petronio is not the city’s cathedral. This is the Duomo di San Pietro, which stands nearby on Via Indipendenza.

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The Palazzo d'Accursio, where both
Charles V and Pope Clement VII stayed

Travel tip: 

Palazzo d’Accursio, also known as Palazzo Comunale or the Municipal Palace, is also in Piazza Maggiore. It began life in the 13th century as the residence of the jurist Accursius. Over time, it was expanded and attached to adjacent buildings to house civic offices. In 1336 it became the seat of the Anziani - Elders - the highest magistrates of the city, and then it became the city's seat of government. In the 15th century it was refurbished under the designs of the architect Fioravante Fioravanti, who added the clock tower, Torre d'Accursio. The bell in the tower was installed by Gaspare Nadi, a builder who became famous for the diaries he kept, which have enabled historians to learn about life in Bologna in the 15th century.

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Also on this day:

1607: Monteverdi’s opera. L’Orfeo, premieres in Mantua

1896: The birth of restaurateur Cesare ‘Caesar’ Cardini

1934: The birth of soprano Renata Scotto

1934: The birth of politician Bettino Craxi

1990: The death of Italian president Sandro Pertini

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Pino Aprile – journalist

Author wrote about unification from the point of view of the South

Pino Aprile has enjoyed a long
career as a writer and journalist

Writer Pino Aprile, who became internationally famous as the author of Terroni, a book outlining 'all that has been done to ensure that the Italians of the south became Southerners', was born on this day in 1950 in Gioia del Colle, in Puglia.

Terroni was first published in 2010, a year before Italy celebrated the 150th anniversary of becoming a unified country. Over 200,000 copies were sold in Italy and an English version of Terroni, translated by Ilaria Marra Rosiglioni, was published in 2011.

With the stage set for the tricolore to fly proudly over a year of celebrations in Italy, Terroni appeared just before the party started, to provide readers with stark examples of what Aprile claims happened to people living in the south of the country when troops fighting for Victor Emmanuel II arrived in their towns and villages.

The catalogue of alleged massacres, executions, rapes, and torture that Aprile details in Terroni are hard to read about. Aprile himself says that at times he was tempted to walk away from the whole project. But he persevered because he was determined to set out the South’s version of events during the Risorgimento in Italy for readers to consider. 

At the beginning of the book there is a publisher’s note explaining that the singular noun terrone is an offensive term used by people in northern Italy to describe those from southern Italy. The word is from the term terra, meaning dirt or land, and to call someone a terrone implies that they are ignorant, uneducated, lazy, unwilling to work, rude, and of poor hygiene. 

Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose
soldiers stand accused

Italy’s Corte di Cassazione (the equivalent of a Supreme Court) has upheld the decision of a lower court that the term terrone is derogatory and offensive.

Aprile says he grew up not realising what had really happened in the area he was born in during the Risorgimento, because the history was never taught in schools. He had not realised that the people in the South who were labelled as brigands and executed were in fact Bourbon soldiers defending their homeland and that their wives and children were allegedly killed by Giuseppe Garibaldi’s soldiers just because they were considered brigands by association.

He had also never known that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was one of the most industrialised places in the world, only just behind England and France, before it was invaded by Garibaldi and his men. 

Aprile writes: “The South has been deprived of its institutions; it has been deprived of its industries, its riches and of its ability to react. It has also been deprived of its people, with an emigration that was induced or forced…”

He says that while we think of the North of Italy today as prosperous, and the South as poor, the reverse was the case when Garibaldi set out to unify Italy. And he claims large quantities of money and valuable items were taken from the South to pay off the debts of the North. 

For the reader, references to the war crimes he says were committed during the military campaign to unify Italy are disturbing to say the least. Millions were either killed or wounded and at the very least forced to abandon their homes and land, leading to mass emigration from the south of Italy to the United States and South America.

Terroni sold more
 than 200,000 copies

But Aprile ends Terroni on a hopeful note saying: "I believe that there is no other land in Europe today that has a more promising future, and as many riches to offer than our South."

Aprile is the author of numerous other books, some of which have been translated into English. During his career as a journalist, Aprile was deputy editor of the magazine, Gente, and editor of the magazine, Oggi and he worked for Tg1, the Rai news programme, and TV7.  He also worked with Sergio Zavoli on the investigative series, Journey South.

Although he was born in Gioia del Colle and brought up in the Puglian coastal city of Taranto, Aprile spent many years living and working in Milan. He now lives in the Castelli Romani region of Lazio.

Pino Aprile is celebrating his 75th birthday today.

The well-preserved throne room inside
Gioia del Colle's historic castle

Travel tip:

Gioia del Colle, where Pino Aprile was born, is a comune of Bari in Puglia. It is situated on top of a hill between the Adriatic and Ionian seas. The town’s castle dates from the Byzantine period but it was enlarged by the Normans and Swabians, who successively dominated the area. The main church, initially dedicated to Saint Peter when it was built in the 11th century, but later renamed Madonna della Neve, contains historic frescoes. Gioia del Colle is famous for its production of mozzarella and for its Gioia del Colle Primitivo wine.

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The remains of the Greek
Temple of Poseidon

Travel tip:

The coastal city of Taranto in Puglia, where Pino Aprile grew up, is an important port as well as an Italian naval base. It was founded by the Greeks in the eighth century BC and had become one of the largest cities in the world with a population of about 300,000 by 500 BC. There are several ruined Greek temples, some dating back to the sixth century BC. The old city or Città Vecchia retains the same street layout as when the Byzantines rebuilt it after it had been damaged by the Saracens in 927AD. Taranto has a Big Sea, the natural harbour where the ships are moored, which is separated from its Little Sea, which is actually a lagoon, by a cape. Taranto is famous for its mussels, which are given their distinctive flavour by the special conditions of salinity of the Little Sea. It is also said to be where the Tarantella, a frenetic dance, originated as a response to being bitten by a supposedly venomous spider.

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Also on this day: 

1339: The Battle of Parabiago

1549: The birth of Francesco Maria II della Rovere, last Duke of Urbino

1778: The death of groundbreaking scientist Laura Bassi

1816: Rossini’s Barber of Seville premieres in Rome

1993: The death of car maker Ferruccio Lamborghini

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