Manuela Di Centa - Olympic skiing champion

Friulian won five medals at a single Winter Games

Manuela Di Centa in action at the 1994 Winter
Olympics in Norway, where she won five medals

The Olympic skier, mountaineer and former politician Manuela Di Centa was born on this day in 1963 in the small town of Paluzza in the mountainous north of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, less than five miles (8km) from the Austrian border.

Di Centa made history at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, when she won a total of five medals, including two golds - the only cross-country skier to accumulate so many medals at a single Games.

Three times Italy’s national fell running champion, Di Centa went on to become the first Italian woman to climb Mount Everest when she scaled the world’s highest peak in 2003, planting the five-ringed Olympic flag at the summit.

A member of the International Olympic Committee from 1999 to 2010, Di Centa has also represented her region as a politician, sitting in the Italian Chamber of Deputies for the Forza Italia and People of Freedom parties between 2006 and 2013.

Born and raised in the beautiful surroundings of the Carnia region of Friuli, Di Centa grew up in a family of Nordic skiers and took to skis almost as naturally as learning to walk.

Di Centa on her ascent
of Mount Everest

After some impressive displays in youth level skiing, she made her debut for the Italy national team at the age of 17 in 1980, contested her first World Championships events in 1982 and competed in her first Winter Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984.

She won her first medals in either competition at the 1991 World Championships on home territory in Val di Fiemme in the Dolomites, when she won silver in the four by 5km relay - alongside Bice Vanzetta, Gabriella Paruzzi and Stefania Belmondo - and individual bronze over 5km and 30km.  The 5km relay team repeated their bronze medal success at the Olympics at Albertville in France the following year.

Di Centa pocketed a World Championship 30km silver and a medal of the same colour in the four by 5km relay at Falun in Sweden in 1993 but it was at the Olympics in Lillehammer the following February that she hit her peak.

She medalled in all five cross-country events in which she competed, winning golds over 15km and 30km, silver in the 5km and pursuit, and a second bronze in the four by 5km relay. 

No cross-country skier - male or female - has won five medals at a single Winter Olympics before or since. Another relay bronze at the 1998 Games in Nagano in Japan raised her career total Olympic medal haul to seven, after which she announced her retirement from competition.

Her World Championship medal haul was also seven - including four silvers but no gold. She twice won her sport’s prestigious World Cup, finishing first in 15 events all told and being crowned overall champion in 1994 and 1996.

Di Centa's official photograph as a
member of the Chamber of Deputies

An accomplished fell runner as well as a skier - winning the Italian championships in 1985, 1989 and 1991 - Di Centa then turned her knowledge of mountainous terrain into more achievement.

Having revealed that she had two childhood dreams - to compete at the Olympics and to climb the world’s highest mountain - she achieved the latter on May 23, 2003 by becoming the first Italian woman to reach the 8,848m summit of Mount Everest. 

She needed supplementary oxygen for the final 1,500m but was determined to complete the climb - 50 years after Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay conquered it for the first time in 1953.  Di Centa celebrated by planting the Olympic and Italian flags at the summit.

Di Centa has also enjoyed a successful career as a television presenter, mainly in programmes dedicated to her beloved mountains, and successfully ran for election to the Chamber of Deputies in 2006 as a Forza Italia candidate for Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and in 2008 for Trentino Alto-Adige as a member of Il Popolo della Libertá - the People of Freedom.

Married to the mountaineer and cross-country skier Fabio Meraldi, Manuela di Centa is the sister of another Olympic cross-country skiing gold medallist, Giorgio Di Centa, and the cousin of long distance runner Venanzio Ortis, who was European 5,000m champion in 1978.

Giorgio Di Centa won Olympic gold in the 50km and four by 10km events at the Turin Olympics in 2006, where Manuela was one of the flag bearers and, in her role as Italian representative on the IOC, presented her brother with one of his golds.

Manuela and Giorgio’s maternal grandmother, Irma Englaro, served with distinction as a Carnic Porter during the First World War, one of a legion of local women who helped Italy’s war effort along the Carnia front by transporting supplies and ammunition in their back-borne panniers.

Carnia, the region in which Paluzza is situated, 
 is an area of outstanding natural beauty 

Travel tip:

Manuela Di Centa’s place of birth, Paluzza - Paluce in Friulian dialect - is a small town of around 2,200 inhabitants situated about 120km (75 miles) northwest of Trieste and approximately 50km (31 miles) northwest of Udine, in the historic Carnia region of Friuli, close to the border with Austria. It is best known today as a ski resort, famed for its cross-country ski runs, but historically it was a key strategic defensive position where a castle - Castrum Moscardum - was built in the 13th century to guard the valley against invaders from the north. One tower of the castle remains standing today. The valley in which Paluzza sits - the Val Bût or Canale di San Pietro - is one of five that make up the picturesque Carnia region, which includes 27 municipalities. Carnia is thought to take its name from the Germanic Carni tribe who are thought to have migrated south from around 400 BC, reaching the area through the Plöcken Pass.

The Loggia del Lionello is a feature of Udine's
beautiful main square, Piazza della Libertà

Travel tip:

Udine, the nearest city to Di Centa’s home town, is an attractive and wealthy provincial city and the gastronomic capital of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Udine's most attractive area lies within the mediæval centre, which has Venetian, Greek and Roman influences. The main square, Piazza della Libertà, features the town hall, the Loggia del Lionello, built in 1448–1457 in the Venetian-Gothic style, and a clock tower, the Torre dell’Orologio, which is similar to the clock tower in Piazza San Marco - St Mark's Square - in Venice.  The city was part of the Austrian Empire between 1797 and 1866 and retains elements of a café society as legacy from that era, particularly around Piazza Matteotti, known locally as il salotto di Udine - Udine's drawing room.  Long regarded as something of a hidden gem, Udine does not attract the tourist traffic of other, better-known Italian cities, yet with its upmarket coffee shops, artisan boutiques and warm, traditional eating places in an elegant setting, it has much to commend it.

Also on this day:

1788: The death of royal exile Charles Edward Stuart

1857: The birth of architect Ernesto Basile

1888: The death of Saint Don Bosco

1925: The birth of fashion designer Mariuccia Mandelli

1933: The birth of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano

1942: The birth of actress Daniela Bianchi

1951: Final of the first Sanremo Music Festival

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Forza Italia - political party

Movement that gave media magnate Silvio Berlusconi political power

The Forza Italia logo, displaying the colours
of the Italian flag, soon became a familiar sight

The shape of Italy’s political landscape changed on this day in 1994 with the launch of the Forza Italia party, whose leader, the wealthy media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, served as Italy’s prime minister three times.

Work had been going on behind the scenes to lay the foundations of the party for several months, going back to Berlusconi and a group of friends and business colleagues meeting in a notary’s office in Milan in June 1993 to give legal status to what was called the Forza Italia Association for Good Government.

By November, a network of Forza Italia Clubs was established, quickly attracting many thousands of members. Details of this network appeared in the media, although Berlusconi denied that they were branches of a political party - despite news in December that an address on Via dell'Umiltà in Rome had been registered as Forza Italia headquarters. Its office was in the same building that once housed the headquarters of the Italian People's Party, a forerunner of the Christian Democracy party.

On January 18, 1994, however, it was confirmed that Forza Italia would be fielding candidates in the elections due to be held in March of that year.

Il Movimento politico Forza Italia, to give the party its full title, emerged from a period of profound political upheaval in Italy, when the traditional powers of the nation’s political history were swept away in a far-reaching corruption scandal uncovered by the Milan magistrate Antonio Di Pietro and his team of investigators.

The charismatic Berlusconi was a
natural vote winner for the party

The investigation, which became known as Mani Pulite - Clean Hands - eventually led to more than 3,000 arrests, the indictment of more than half the members of the Italian parliament and the collapse and dissolution of both the Christian Democracy and the Italian Socialist Party, whose leader, Bettino Craxi, had been convicted on two charges of political corruption and was due to face trial on a further four when he died in 2000.

Amid this turmoil, filling the void in particular left by the once all-powerful Christian Democrats, Berlusconi, the former property investor who made his fortune after launching Italy’s first private TV network, saw his opportunity to launch a bid for political power.

Drawing on a line from a popular football chant in his choice of Forza Italia as its name, Berlusconi and his allies designed a party that would stand for market-oriented economic policies and a strong national identity combined with traditional conservative values. The party advocated lower taxes, minimal government intervention in the economy and law changes aimed at boosting economic growth.

They wanted to focus their appeal towards moderate voters, former Christian Democrat voters largely, who were - in Berlusconi’s own description - "disoriented, political orphans and who risked being unrepresented".

In fact, the words ‘forza Italia’ - literally ‘Italy force’ but interpreted by English-language commentators as meaning something akin to ‘Go Italy’ - had previously appeared in Christian Democrat slogans during the 1987 election campaign.

An individual with natural charisma, Berlusconi had both the image and the resources to turn the new party into an overnight success. He managed the project himself as both a successful businessman and, by challenging the broadcasting monopoly of the state-owned Rai network, an establishment outsider. Meanwhile, his television channels - Canale 5, Rete 4 and Italia 1 - provided a ready-made platform to connect with the public. His own personality won many of Forza Italia's votes.

Berlusconi waves to a cheering crowd during
his third successful campaign for office

He also seemed to have an innate ability to persuade seemingly incompatible political groups to join coalitions, without which forming a government in Italy is virtually impossible.  

Forza Italia’s immediate success, winning 366 seats in the Chamber of Deputies as the largest party at the 1994 elections, came after Berlusconi had formed a campaigning alliance in the north with Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord, and in the south with Gianfranco Fini’s post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale, two parties who for the most part despised one another. Lega Nord left the coalition in December and Berlusconi’s first stint as prime minister ended after just 251 days but uniting Bossi and Fini for even a few months could be seen as remarkable.

The centre-left held away for the next five years but Forza Italia regrouped and won power again in 2001 after Berlusconi had brought together the disparate ambitions of north and south again in his Casa delle Libertà - House of Freedoms - alliance. 

This time, Forza Italia and their allies having won almost a third of the vote, Berlusconi was installed as prime minister for a second time, staying in post for four years and 340 days, his executive proving to be the longest lived in the history of the Republic.

Despite being investigated over numerous scandals during his next period in opposition, Berlusconi won a third term as prime minister in 2008, although this time under the banner of Il Popolo della Libertà - People of Freedom - after joining forces with Fini’s Alleanza Nationale. This time, he stayed in office for three years and 192 days.

The merger between the two parties meant that Forza Italia did not officially exist between 2008 and 2013 but with the disbanding of the People of Freedom it was relaunched. Although barred from office himself after being convicted of tax fraud, Berlusconi remained the party’s figurehead until his death in 2023, having been elected to the Senate after his ban expired.

The reformed Forza Italia has yet to achieve the same level of popularity as the original version but remains a significant player in Italian politics and was part of the centre-right coalition led by Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), whose victory at the 2022 elections put current prime minister Giorgia Meloni in power.

The Trevi Fountain in Rome, with its backdrop of
the Palazzo Poli, is one of Rome's best-known sights

Travel tip:

The Via dell'Umiltà in Rome is part of the Trevi district in the heart of the city. A beautiful, elegant and historic neighbourhood, it is best known for the Trevi Fountain, which was officially opened in 1762 and has become one of the city’s best-known landmarks.  The district is also home to the Palazzo Barberini, the 17th century palace to which three of Rome’s greatest architects - Carlo Maderno, Francesco Borromini and Gian Lorenzo Bernin - all contributed and which now houses part of the collection of Italy’s National Gallery of Ancient Art. Other notable sights in the district are the Fontana del Tritone and Fontana Barberini, the Palazzo Colonna and the Palazzo Quirinale, official residence of the Italian president.

The Palazzo Chigi, off the Via del Corso, is the
official residence of the Italian prime minister

Travel tip:

Silvio Berlusconi’s official residence during his terms in office as prime minister was the 16th-century Palazzo Chigi, which overlooks the Piazza Colonna and the Via del Corso in Rome. The palace was in the ownership of the Chigi family, part of Roman nobility, from 1659 until the 19th century. It became the residence of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Italy in 1878 before being bought by the Italian state in 1916, when it became the home of the Minister for Colonial Affairs. Later it was the official residence of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and in 1961 became the official meeting place of the Council of Ministers, whose president is the head of the Italian government - the prime minister - and who was allowed to use the palace as his official home in Rome.

Also on this day: 

1543: The birth of musician Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder

1880: The birth of cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster

1946: The birth of operatic soprano Katia Ricciarelli

1950: The birth of basketball player Dino Meneghin

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Nicola Bombacci - revolutionary

Communist who eventually allied with Mussolini

Nicola Bombacci led the
Italian Communist Party

Nicola Bombacci, who was executed with Fascist leader Benito Mussolini after partisans intercepted their attempt to flee Italy in 1945, was born on this day in 1879 in Civitella di Romagna, a small town about 40 minutes by road from the city of Forlì in Emilia-Romagna. 

Although he ended his life as a political ally of the right-wing dictator, Bombacci’s roots were in Marxism. Indeed, he had been a founder-member in 1921 of the Italian Communist Party, alongside among others Antonio Gramsci, the left-wing intellectual who was subsequently arrested by Mussolini and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

He shifted his position during the 1930s, seeing fascism as a form of national socialism that could unify Italy. He embraced Mussolini's Italian Social Republic, the German puppet state in northern Italy created after the Nazis had freed the deposed dictator from house arrest in 1943, believing it to represent a blend of Marxist principles and fascist ideology that could still be a force for good.

Born little more than 20km (12 miles) from Mussolini’s home town of Predappio, Bombacci’s connections with the future dictator can be traced back to his early 20s, when they attended the same teacher training college in Forlimpopoli.

Both became members of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), their political beliefs so closely aligned that both were part of the revolutionary Massimalisti wing on the far left of the party.

Benito Mussolini shared Bombacci's 
enthusiasm for left-wing politics

Their paths diverged when Mussolini began to lose faith in orthodox socialism, believing that national identity in the shape of culture, tradition, language and race had become as important as removing class divides in the kind of society he sought to create. 

In 1919 - the same year that Bombacci became Secretary of the PSI - Mussolini was hosting a rally in Milan that saw the establishment of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Group), which would evolve into the National Fascist Party two years later.

Bombacci led the PSI with notable success, winning 32.3 per cent of the vote in the 1919 general election, which made them the biggest party by votes and seats. 

However, he resigned his position only a year later, feeling his authority had been compromised when his proposed constitution of the Soviets in Italy was rejected. In the summer of 1920 he was among an Italian delegation that went to Soviet Russia, participating in the Second Congress of the Communist International, and in 1921 opted to join Gramsci and fellow Marxist Amadeo Bordiga in founding the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I).

As support for Mussolini grew, opponents such as the Socialists and Communists increasingly became the target of violent attacks by Blackshirt thugs, no less so after his Fascist Party were handed power in 1922 following the March on Rome.

Gramsci’s arrest in 1926 followed two years after the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, 29-year-old founder and leader of the Unified Socialist Party, who had delivered a speech in parliament accusing Mussolini of winning the 1924 general election by fraud and intimidation.

Antonio Gramsci, Bombacci's fellow
communist, was arrested and jailed

Yet despite these incidents, Bombacci remained on friendly terms with his former fellow Massimalista, believing that Mussolini shared his own objective of creating a better Italy for working people, even if their methods were at odds.

Expelled from the PCI in 1927 for taking a pro-fascist position, Bombacci responded by becoming openly fascist, although he never officially joined the National Fascist Party.  By the beginning of the 1940s, Bombacci’s position had shifted to the degree that he began publishing pamphlets warning the Italian population on the dangers of Bolshevism and attacking Stalin for betraying socialist values.

Mussolini in turn helped Bombacci by providing financial support for the care of his sick son, Wladimiro, and allowing him to found and edit a new magazine, La Verità, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, promoting views aligned to those of the regime.

Their relationship became stronger still after Mussolini, freed from captivity by Nazi paratroopers after being arrested on the orders of King Victor Emmanuel III 1943, was installed as leader of the Italian Social Republic, a puppet state established on territory controlled by the Germans in northern and central Italy.

Bombacci voluntarily travelled to the republic’s headquarters in Salò, on the shores of Lake Garda, where he became an advisor to Mussolini. He was the author of the economic theory of fascist socialisation, designed to put more power in the hands of workers through the state control of businesses and the means of production. 

The bodies of Bombacci (first left)
and the others in Piazzale Loreto

In speeches he delivered to Italian workers in Genoa in 1945, he proclaimed that "Stalin will never make socialism; rather Mussolini will."

It was not long, however, before the Allied advance from the south steadily forced the German army into retreat. Sensing that it was only a matter of time before the Italian Social Republic collapsed, Mussolini hatched a plan to escape to Switzerland. 

Along with Mussolini’s mistress, Claretta Petacci, Bombacci and other loyalists, including Achille Starace and Alessandro Pavolini, accompanied the former Duce in a car hoping to reach the Swiss border. They had been on the run for only a day, however, when Mussolini was recognised at a checkpoint set up by Italian partisans at Dongo on the shores of Lake Como and captured.

Two days later, Mussolini and the others were executed. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung by their feet from a beam above a petrol station in Piazzale Loreto, symbolically chosen as it had been the scene of a massacre of Milanese citizens by Fascist militia a year earlier.

A view from Piazza Principale
in Civitella di Romagna

Travel tip:

Nicola Bombacci was born in Civitella di Romagna, a charming small town in the province of Forlì-Cesena, about 30km (19 miles) southwest of Forlì and 40km (25 miles) southwest of Cesena. It is bisected by the Bidente river in an area of picturesque green hills. It has a well-preserved mediaeval centre with bastion walls as well as an ancient castle.  Civitella di Romagna is known for its annual cherry jam festival and hosts numerous markets throughout the year. The Santuario della Beata Vergine della Suasia, situated at the western end of the town, is a significant religious site dating back to the 18th century.

The waterfront at Salò, these days a pleasant and
popular resort among visitors to Lake Garda

Travel tip:

For all its regrettable association with such a despised figure as Mussolini, Salò has recovered to become a pleasant resort on the shore of Lake Garda, visited by many tourists each year. Its promenade, the Lungolago Zanardelli, is the longest of any of the lakeside towns and it has a Duomo, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Annunziata, that was rebuilt in Gothic style in the 15th century. The Museo di Salò commemorates, among other things, the resistance against Fascism. During his time as leader of the Italian Social Republic, Mussolini lived about 18km (11 miles) to the north of Salò in the Villa Feltrinelli at Gargnano, a sumptuous lakeside palazzo which he confiscated from the Feltrinelli family, who had built it at the end of the 19th century as a summer residence. 

Also on this day: 

51: The birth of Roman emperor Domitian

1784: The birth of philanthropist and businessman Sir Moses Montefiore

1913: The birth of baritone Tito Gobbi

1925: The birth of composer Luciano Berio

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Randolfo Pacciardi – anti-Fascist and journalist

Valiant republican opposed Mussolini and served his country

Pacciardi had to flee Italy when
Mussolini outlawed all opposition

Ardent anti-Fascist Randolfo Pacciardi, who was Deputy Prime Minister and then Minister of Defence for the Italian Government between 1948 and 1953, died on this day in 1991 in Rome.

Pacciardi had to live abroad in exile for many years after the Fascists outlawed all opposition parties in 1926, but he was able to return to Italy in 1944 after the liberation of Rome.

He was born in 1899 in Giuncarico in the province of Grosseto in Tuscany. By the time he was 16 years old, Pacciardi had become a member of the Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI) the Italian Republican Party. 

He was a supporter of Italy’s participation in World War I and enrolled in the officers’ school of the Italian Army. He took part in the fighting and received two silver medals and a bronze medal for military valour, a British military cross and a French croix de guerre.

After receiving a law degree from the University of Siena in 1921, Pacciardi wrote for a local newspaper in the city.

In 1922 he went to live in Rome, where he became an opponent of the violent Fascist squads of the time, and he established Italia Libera, an anti-Fascist veterans’ organisation. They were one of the few groups to plan for armed opposition to Benito Mussolini after the assassination of the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti. They were also one of the first groups to be banned by the Fascist Government in 1925.

When the Fascists outlawed all rival parties in 1926, Pacciardi was sentenced to five years of internal exile, but he was able to escape to Austria.

Luigi Einuadi was among Pacciardi's
colleagues in postwar government

Helped by Ernesta Battisti, the widow of patriot Cesare Battisti, he moved to live in Lugano in Switzerland.

He helped other anti-Fascists with logistical support, including a future president of Italy, Sandro Pertini, for whom he procured a counterfeit passport.

He helped organise troops during the Spanish Civil war in which he himself was wounded. Then he moved to Paris, where he founded a magazine, La Giovine Italia, which was named after the Young Italy movement launched by Giuseppe Mazzini in the 19th century.

The German invasion of France forced Pacciardi to flee to America with his wife, Luigia, and they managed to get to New York after travelling through South America on false documents. 

After Pacciardi’s return to Italy towards the end of the war, he became national secretary of the Partito Repubblicano Italiano and was elected to the constituent assembly of Italy in 1946. With the end of the monarchy in Italy, the Republican Party entered a coalition government for the first time.

He became a Deputy Prime Minister with Liberal Luigi Einaudi and Social Democrat Giuseppe Saragat. He was elected to Parliament in 1948 and served as defence minister until 1953, supporting Italian membership of NATO.

Pacciardi's tomb in the municipal cemetery at
Grosseto after his death in 1991

In 1963, when Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro set up a cabinet that included Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI) ministers for the first time in 16 years, Pacciardi voted against it and he found himself excluded from his own party.

He founded a new party, the Democratic Union for the New Republic, but his party failed to attract many votes in the 1968 election. 

In 1974 he was accused of plotting an attempted coup against the government but the charges against him were later dropped. In 1979 he asked to be readmitted to the PRI and this was granted. In his final years he was a supporter of Prime Minister Bettino Craxi.

Pacciardi died from a stroke on 14 April 1991 at the age of 92. The President of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, granted him a state funeral and he was buried in the municipal cemetery of Grosseto.

During his long life, Pacciardi became a friend of Ernest Hemingway and he also advised Michael Curtiz on the making of Casablanca.

The polygonal Palazzo Aldobrandeschi
is one of Grosseto's curiosities

Travel tip:

Grosseto is the largest town of the Maremma region of Tuscany, with approximately 65,000 inhabitants. Located in the alluvial plain of the Ombrone river, about 14km from the Tyrrhenian sea, the town grew in importance several centuries ago because of the trade in salt, that was obtained in salt pans in the now reclaimed lagoon that covered most of the area between Grosseto and the sea.  By 1328, the silting up of the lagoon robbed Grosseto of its salt revenues, after which is became largely depopulated, vulnerable to outbreaks of malaria caused by the mosquitos that thrived in the marshy areas surrounding the town. It began to expand again in the 19th century. Tourists today are drawn to visit by the walls begun by Francesco I de Medici in 1574, by the Romanesque cathedral, dedicated to St. Lawrence, and by the polygonal Palazzo Aldobrandeschi, on Piazza Dante, seat of the provincial government.

The well-preserved mediaeval village of Giuncarico
in Tuscany has a hilltop location

Travel tip:

Giuncarico, where Pacciardi was born, is a charming and well-preserved mediaeval village, built on a hill overlooking the Bruna river. Founded in the eighth or ninth century, the village was once under the rule of the noble Albobrandeschi family and later became part of the Republic of Siena before joining the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the 16th century.  It is known for its protective walls, built in the 1100s with two stone-arch gateways into the village, with historic palaces along Via Roma, dating back to the 1400s and 1500s. Despite its small size, with just 449 residents, the village offers a few shops, cafes, and restaurants. The Piazza del Popolo, halfway along Via Roma, offers a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. The area is also notable for several wineries, including the celebrated Rocca di Frassinello, which is approximately 15 minutes outside the village by road. Situated about 80km (50 miles) southwest of Siena, Giuncarico is some 25km (16 miles) north of Grosseto. 

Also on this day:

1488: The death of papal military leader Girolamo Riario

1609: The death of violin maker Gasparo da Salò

1907: The first Milan-Sanremo cycle race

1920: The birth of Olympic bobsleigh champion Lamberto Dalla Costa

1980: The death of children's author Gianni Rodari

(Picture credits: Pacciardi tomb by Sofocle77; Palazzo Aldobrandeschi by Sailko; Giuncarico skyline by LigaDue; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Giovanni Giolitti – Prime Minister

Long-lasting Liberal politician made important social reforms

Giovanni Giolitti was one of
Europe's main liberal reformers

Giovanni Giolitti, who served as Prime Minister of Italy five times, was born on this day in 1842 in Mondovì in Piedmont.

A Liberal, he was the leading statesman in Italy between 1900 and 1914 and was responsible for the introduction of universal male suffrage in the country.

He was considered one of the main liberal reformers of late 19th and early 20th century Europe, along with George Clemenceau, who was twice prime minister of France, and David Lloyd George, who led the British government from 1916 to 1922.

Giolitti is the longest serving democratically-elected prime minister in Italian history and the second longest serving premier after Benito Mussolini. He is considered one of the most important politicians in Italian history.

As a master of the political art of trasformismo, by making a flexible, centrist coalition that isolated the extremes of Left and Right in Italian politics after unification, he developed the national economy, which he saw as essential for producing wealth.

The period between 1901 and 1914, when he was Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior with only brief interruptions, is often referred to as the Giolitti era.

He made progressive social reforms that improved the living standards of ordinary Italians and he nationalised the telephone and railway operators.

Giolitti’s father, Giovenale Giolitti, had worked in the avvocatura dei poveri, assisting poor people in both civil and criminal cases. He died in 1843, the year after his son, Giovanni, was born. The family moved to live in his mother’s family home in Turin, where she taught him to read and write.

Giolitti earned a degree in law
from the University of Turin

Giolitti was educated in Turin and went to the University of Turin at the age of 16, where he earned a law degree after three years.

His uncle was a friend of Michelangelo Castelli, the secretary of Camillo Benso di Cavour - the united Italy's first prime minister - but Giolitti was not interested in the Risorgimento and did not fight in the Italian Second War of Independence, choosing instead to work in public administration.

At the 1882 Italian general election, Giolitti was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. In 1889 he was selected by Francesco Crispi as the new Minister of Treasury and Finance, but he later resigned because he did not agree with Crispi’s colonial policy.

After the fall of a new government led by Antonio Starabba di Rudini, Giolitti was asked by King Umberto I to form a new cabinet.

He resigned after a series of problems and scandals and was impeached for abuse of power, but this allegation was later quashed. He was once again appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III, but he had to resign in 1905 after losing the support of the Socialists.

When the next prime minister, Sidney Sonnino, lost his majority in 1906, Giolitti became prime minister again. He introduced laws to protect women and child workers and passed a law to provide workers with a weekly day of rest.

Giolitti was re-elected in 1909 but soon had to resign again, afterwards supporting the new head of government, Luigi Luzzatti, while remaining the real power behind the scenes.

In 1911, Luzzati resigned from office and Victor Emmanuel III again gave Giolitti the task of forming a new cabinet.

In 1912, Giolitti got Parliament to approve an electoral reform bill that expanded the electorate from three million to eight and a half million voters. This is thought to have hastened the end of the Giolitti era. The Radicals brought down Giolitti’s coalition in 1914 and he resigned.  

He became prime minister again in 1920, supported by Mussolini’s Fascist party, but he had to step down in 1921. By 1925 he had become completely opposed to the Fascist party and refused to join. He died in 1928 in Cavour in Piedmont and his last words to the priest were that he could not sing the official anthem of the Fascist regime.

A section of the Piazza Maggiore, with its
frescoed Baroque architecture

Travel tip: 

Mondovì is a beautiful town of some 22,000 inhabitants situated in Italy’s Piedmont region at the foot of the southern Alps, close to the border between Piedmont and Liguria.  Like much of the area in which it sits, the town is rich in mediaeval frescoes and Baroque architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries, many of the buildings designed by local architect Francesco Gallo.  The town is in two sections: the lower town called Breo, which grew up alongside the Ellero river, is linked to the upper town of Piazza by a funicular railway.  Mondovì Piazza, the old part of the city founded around 1198, has the two-level Piazza Maggiore at its heart, surrounded by beautiful porticoed buildings such as Palazzo dei Bressani and the Governor’s Palace.  Mondovì was one of the most important towns during the Savoy era, with an ancient university and a printing press that produced, in 1472, the first book printed in Piedmont with modern typography.  The town’s printing museum - the Museo della Stampa - can be found in the 17th century Palazzo delle Orfane. 

Cavour is dominated by the giant Rocca di 
Cavour, which looms over the town

Travel tip: 

Cavour is a small town of around 5,500 residents in Piedmont, situated about 40km (25 miles) southeast of Turin, built at the foot of the Rocca di Cavour, an isolated mass of granite rising from otherwise flat terrain. On top of the Rocca, once the site of a Roman village, are some mediaeval remains. The town gave its name to the Benso family of Chieri, of whom the most famous member was Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the statesman who was a driving force in the Risorgimento and was appointed the first prime minister of the united Italy in 1861.  The Rocca di Cavour has been a protected natural park since 1995.

Also on this day:

1782: The birth of virtuoso violinist Niccolò Paganini

1952: The birth of Oscar-winning actor Roberto Benigni

1962: The death of entrepreneur industrialist Enrico Mattei

1967: The birth of mountaineer Simone Moro

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Giuseppe Conte – politician and academic

Lawyer who led Italy despite having no political experience

Giuseppe Conte was head of the Italian
government between 2018 and 2021

Former Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte was born on this day in 1964 in the town of Volturara Appula in the province of Foggia in Puglia.

Conte served as Italian Prime Minister between 2018 and 2021, becoming the longest serving politically non-affiliated prime minister in the history of Italy.

He was Italy's fifth technocrat prime minister - defined as being appointed without any previous political experience - and the first from southern Italy since Ciriaco De Mita in 1989.

A law professor for a large part of his career, Conte is often referred to as ‘the people’s lawyer’ (l’avvocato del popolo), as this is how he described himself during his first speech as Prime Minister. He is now the president of the Italian political party Movimento Cinque Stelle - the Five Star Movement.

Conte’s father, Nicola, was an employee of the local authority, and his mother, Lillina, was a school teacher. After the family moved to San Giovanni Rotondo, another town in the province of Foggia, Conte attended the nearby liceo classico and then went to study at the Sapienza University of Rome. To this day he remains an avid AS Roma fan, having started to support the club while at university.

After qualifying formally as a lawyer, Conte went to study abroad and later either researched or lectured at several universities. He is currently professor of private law at the University of Florence and sits on the board of trustees of John Cabot University in Rome.

When the 2018 Italian general election resulted in a hung parliament, Conte was proposed as the independent leader of a government that was a coalition between the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) and La Lega (formerly known as Lega Nord), despite never having held any political position before. He was sworn in as prime minister on 1 June 2018 by Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

Giuseppe Conte (left) and president Sergio
Mattarella meet during the Covid-19 pandemic

In August 2019, Le Lega filed a motion of no confidence in the coalition government and Conte offered to resign as prime minister. Then M5S and the Democratic Party agreed to form a new government between them, with Conte remaining at its head.

As a result, Conte became the first prime minister to lead two separate Italian governments made up of right-wing and left-wing coalition partners.

Despite having begun his political career as a technocrat, Conte became increasingly influential and popular in the field of Italian politics. He introduced a guaranteed minimum income and nationalised important Italian industries

After Italy was badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, his government became the first in the western world to implement a national lockdown to stop the spread of the virus.

Conte resigned from office in 2021 after the Italia Viva party, led by Matteo Renzi, himself a former Prime Minister, withdrew its support for his government.

In 2022, Conte was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the M5S to represent Lombardy.

The village of Volturara Appula in Puglia,
where Giuseppe Conte was born

Travel tip:

Volturara Appula, where Giuseppe Conte was born, is just over 50km (31 miles) west of the city of Foggia situated in rugged countryside not far from the border with Molise. It was once an important city in Puglia but is now a comune with a population of less than 400. Its first mention was in a document of Pope John XIII dated 969 where it is listed as a bishopric. The village has a Romanesque cathedral with a large bell tower that dates back to the 13th century and a so-called ducal palace.

The modern campus of Sapienza University, near
Roma Termini railway station, was built in 1935

Travel tip:

Like many other Italian Prime Ministers, Giuseppe Conte graduated from Rome University, often known simply as La Sapienza, which means ‘the wisdom.’  It can trace its origins back to 1303, when it was opened by Pope Boniface VIII as the first pontifical university. In the 19th century the university broadened its outlook and became recognised as the country's most prestigious seat of learning. A new campus was built near the Termini railway station under the guidance of the architect Marcello Piacentini in 1935. Rome University now caters for more than 112,000 students.

Also on this day:

1849: The death of priest and patriot Ugo Bassi

1919: The birth of film producer Dino De Laurentiis

1920: The birth of songwriter Leo Chiosso

1988: The birth of basketball player Danilo Gallinari

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Giorgia Meloni - politician

Italy’s first female prime minister 

Giorgia Meloni, the first woman to be elected Italy's
PM, on the day she was asked to form a government

Politician Giorgia Meloni, who was elected as Italy’s first female prime minister in October 2022, was born on this day in 1977 in Rome.

Meloni, head of the Fratelli d’Italia party of which she is a co-founder, is a controversial figure in that her political roots are in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the party formed by supporters of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after World War Two. In the past, she has described Mussolini as a “good politician” but one who “made mistakes”. 

Yet she rejects accusations that Fratelli d’Italia - Brothers of Italy - is a far-right party, despite adopting the fascist slogan ‘God, family, fatherland’ and incorporating the tricolore flame from the MSI logo within FdI’s own branding.

Meloni came from a fractured family background. Her Sardinian father, Francesco, left her Sicilian mother, Anna, when she was a year old and she and her older sister, Arianna, were brought up largely by her mother in the working class Garbatella area of Rome.

She studied languages at the Istituto Amerigo Vespucci, a high school about 50 minutes across Rome from where she lived, and today describes herself as able to speak Spanish, English and French as well as her native tongue.

A teenaged Meloni unfurls a banner
for the Youth Action movement

It was while she was at high school that she became politically active, joining Azione Giovani, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement, before switching to the once neo-fascist Alleanza Nazionale (AN), itself an MSI offshoot. 

As an AN candidate, she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 2006, standing in the Lazio 1 constituency, the boundaries of which correspond to those of the Metropolitan City of Rome.

Re-elected in 2008 on the list of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, which brought together the AN and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, Meloni became the youngest cabinet minister in the history of the Italian Republic when Berlusconi made her Minister for Youth at the age of 31.

Her membership of People of Freedom ended in 2012, however, after a disagreement over the party’s support for technocrat prime minister Mario Monti. With Ignazio LaRussa, Guido Crosetto and others, she formed Fratelli d’Italia, of which she became president in 2014.

Under Meloni’s leadership, Fdl grew from winning just four per cent of the vote at the 2018 general elections to 26 per cent in the snap election of 2022, which made Fratelli d’Italia the biggest single party in the Italian parliament.

Although both Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration Lega saw their share of the vote fall, they joined with Fratelli d’Italia in a coalition worth around 44 per cent of votes in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, enough to outvote the centre-left Democratic Party and the populist Five Star Movement even if they were to join forces.

The FdI's logo incorporates
the tricolore flame of the MSI

Meloni describes herself as mainstream conservative and a Christian, although her political position is less forgiving in many areas than other European politicians who would identify themselves similarly.

For example, she is opposed to abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and LGBT parenting, and supports a naval blockade to stop boats carrying immigrants across the Mediterranean. While committed to NATO, she was generally lukewarm about the European Union until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, after which she distanced herself from previous comments on forging better relations with Vladimir Putin and pledged to keep sending Italian arms to Ukraine.

Meloni’s opponents frequently cite her approval for Mussolini and coalition with Salvini as a warning that Italy may lurch to the right under her premiership, yet Fratelli d’Italia have gone on record as condemning both the suppression of democracy and the introduction of the Italian racial laws by Mussolini’s regime. Meloni herself insists that there is no place for fascist nostalgia in her party and that her own links with it are in the past.

Although not married, Meloni shares a home with Andrea Giambruno, a journalist for TGcom24, a news channel within Berlusconi’s Mediaset group. They have a daughter, Ginevra, who was born in 2016.

The Art Nouveau design of the Teatro Palladio,
a well-known feature of the Garbatella district

Travel tip:

Although traditionally working class, the Garbatella neighbourhood of Rome, where Giorgia Meloni grew up, is becoming increasingly trendy among young Romans, drawn to it having the feeling of a village within the metropolis.  Situated in Municipio VIII district south of the city centre near the Ostiense railway station, Garbatella was built in the 1920s, inspired by the English garden city, largely made up of single-family houses grouped around communal garden courtyards. It has some interesting architectural styles, including the Teatro Palladio in Piazza Bartolomeo Romano, an example of Art Nouveau style designed by Innocenzo Sabbatini in 1927. Garbatella today has a population of more than 45,000.

The Palazzo Monticitorio was chosen as the home
of the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1871

Travel tip:

The Italian Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian parliament, sits at the Palazzo Montecitorio, which can be found between the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps. The Palazzo Chigi, official residence of Italian prime ministers, is nearby. Palazzo Montecitorio was originally designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Ludovico Ludovisi, the nephew of Pope Gregory XV. Following Italian unification, the palace was chosen as the seat of the Chamber of Deputies in 1871 but the building proved inadequate for their needs, with poor acoustics and a tendency to become overheated in summer and inhospitably cold in winter. After extensive renovations had been carried out, with many Stile Liberty touches introduced by the architect Ernesto Basile, the chamber returned to the palace in 1918.

Also on this day: 

1623: The death of writer and statesman Paolo Sarpi

1926: The death of songwriter and sculptor Giambattista De Curtis

1935: The birth of football coach Gigi Radice

1971: The birth of rugby player Paolo Vaccari

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Walter Veltroni - politician

Popular former communist twice elected Mayor of Rome

Walter Veltroni was the first leader of Italy's
centre-left Democratic Party

The politician Walter Veltroni, who was the first leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (Partito Democratico) and was twice elected Mayor of Rome, was born on this day in 1955 in Rome.

A popular figure, Veltroni helped the PD reach a level of influence in Italian politics that enabled them to provide the leaders of three consecutive governments in Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni before the centre-left were routed at the 2018 general election.

Veltroni had such charisma and broad appeal that he was often tipped as a future prime minister, but his star began to wane after he lost the April 2008 general election in a head-to-head with Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom party.

He had stepped down as Mayor of Rome in order to focus on winning the election so defeat was a crushing blow.  In February 2009, following a heavy defeat for PD in regional elections in Sardinia and amid clashes within the party, he resigned as leader, giving way to his former deputy, Dario Franceschini.

Veltroni's political career had begun in 1976, when he was elected as a Rome city councillor as a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

Veltroni served two terms as
Mayor of Rome

When he was bidding to become Italy’s prime minister, Veltroni claimed he had never been a true communist, yet he had been a member of the Italian Communist Youth Federation from the age of 15.

Veltroni was the son of a manager in the RAI broadcasting network. His maternal grandfather had been a Slovenian diplomat in the Catholic Church who had helped many Jews and anti-fascists escape Nazi persecution in 1943.

A journalist by trade, he rose to the position of editor-in-chief of L'Unità, the newspaper of the the reconstituted Communist party, the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS). His reputation was that of a progressive, however, and he was a driving force in turning the party into a social democratic movement. Under his stewardship, sales of the paper rose by almost a third to 151,000.

Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1987, he became a minister in Romano Prodi’s centre-left government in 1996 but resigned in 1998 prior to being elected leader of the new Democrats of the Left party (DS), a position he held until he was elected as Mayor of Rome for the first time in 2001.

He served two terms as Mayor, on the second occasion being elected after securing an unprecedented 61.4 per cent of the vote.

Critics say Veltroni achieved very little tangible progress for Rome as Mayor, failing to solve the city’s mounting traffic problems or to stop rising crime levels.

Veltroni embraces George Clooney after conducting
the film star's marriage in Venice

Yet he restored a feelgood factor in the city, commissioning bold building projects from renowned architects and attempting to recreate the atmosphere of the city in the 1950s and 1960s, as captured by Federico Fellini’s film, La Dolce Vita, giving the city its own film festival and inviting Hollywood celebrities to visit.

One of the stars with whom he became closely acquainted was George Clooney, who saw in Veltroni similarities with the American Democratic president Bill Clinton.  Later, after Veltroni had taken a back seat in Italian politics, Clooney asked Veltroni to conduct his marriage to his Anglo-Lebanese fiancee Ama Alamuddin, the ceremony taking place in Venice.

Whatever he did or did not achieve, whether his association with celebrities was fitting for a politician or not, Veltroni’s supporters say he promoted a culture of openness and tolerance, of solidarity and welcome in the capital.

The ruins of the Circus of Maxentius on Via Antica Appia

Travel tip:

Visitors to Rome tend to head for the major tourist attractions such as the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum and St Peter’s Basilica, but these places are inevitably thronged with visitors, especially in the summer months.  For a more peaceful experience, try a walk along the first stretch of the Via Appia Antica - the Appian Way - the ancient Roman road that linked Rome with the port of Brindisi some 550km (340 miles) away in the southeast corner of the peninsula. Beginning at Porto San Sebastiano, two miles south of the Colosseum, while some of the road is open to traffic other sections are preserved in their original form, passing through pleasant parkland, and there are numerous catacombs, tombs and other ruins along the way.

The beautiful porticoed facade of the Basilica of St Paul
Outside the Walls in the Ostiense district

Travel tip:

Another place in Rome where crowds are likely to be less overwhelming is the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, which was built on the site of the burial place of the Apostle Paul, in the Ostiense district south of the city centre. There has been a church on the site since the 4th century but most of the current structure is much newer, a fire in 1823 having destroyed much of the basilica itself, which dates back to 395. The reconstruction, though, produced a magnificent building, reopened in 1840, lavishly decorated with gold mosaics and marble columns that made for a strikingly beautiful interior. The facade, also decorated with gold mosaic, is guarded by an atrium of 150 pillars with a statue of St Paul in the centre.

More reading:

Paolo Gentiloni - the modern centre-left prime minister descended from nobility

How Matteo Renzi was inspired by the scout movement

When Italy almost had a Communist prime minister

Also on this day:

1871: The birth of Ulisse Stacchini, architect of Milan landmarks

1900: The birth of film director Alessandro Blasetti

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