Edmondo De Amicis - writer and journalist

Author whose most famous work became a staple text in Italian schools

Edmondo De Amicis's first writing
drew on his service in the Italian Army

The writer, journalist and former soldier Edmondo De Amicis, famous as the author of Cuore, his imagined diary of a schoolboy in Turin, was born on this day in 1846 in Oneglia, now part of modern Imperia in Liguria.

Through its daily diary entries by the book’s central character, Enrico, interspersed with uplifting stories told by one of his teachers, Cuore - published for the first time in 1886 - came to be seen as something of a moral compass for young people growing up in post-unification Italy.

At a time when the newly-formed Italian State was keen to impose its authority over a Catholic Church that had vehemently opposed unification and still refused to recognise the new Kingdom of Italy, Cuore’s emphasis on values such as patriotism, compassion, diligence, and respect for authority, resonated deeply with the new secular government, reflecting exactly the moral and civic ideals it wished to be at the heart of society.

It became a staple in Italian public schools, remaining so for the best part of a century. Moreover, its appeal extended well beyond the borders of the fledgling Italian nation and was adapted and translated into at least 25 languages, earning De Amicis international acclaim.

Although Cuore - Heart - was by some way the biggest success of his literary career, De Amicis also won praise for the travel books he wrote while working as a foreign correspondent for the Rome newspaper La Nazione. 

One of these - Constantinople (1877) - was seen as the best description of the Turkish city now known as Istanbul to be published in the 19th century. A new edition of the book was published in 2005.

In addition to Cuore, De Amicis, who was a member of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies for the Italian Socialist Party between 1906 and his death in 1908, wrote a number of later novels that reflected his interest in such matters as social reform, education, and workers’ rights.

De Amicis himself had been born into a wealthy family. His father, Francescso, was a royal banker in the salt and tobacco sector. His original home in Oneglia and the one to which the family moved in Cuneo, Piedmont, when he was two years old, were both spacious and elegant properties.

Cuore became staple reading for
generations of Italian schoolchildren

Growing up in Cuneo, he initially looked destined for a military career. After studying at the Candellero military college in Turin, he enrolled at the Military Academy of Modena at age 16, graduating with the rank of second lieutenant.

This experience, shaped as it was by Italy’s turbulent path towards unification, profoundly influenced his destiny. As an officer in the Royal Italian Army, he participated in the Third War of Independence and fought in the Battle of Custoza in 1866. Italy’s defeat by Austria left De Amicis deeply disillusioned, leading him to resign from military service and turn to writing.

At first, it was as a military journalist, moving to Florence to edit L'Italia militare, the official publication, for whom he wrote military sketches, later collected in a book entitled La vita militare - Military Life. His vivid portrayals of army life were well received and became the launch pad for his new career. 

De Amicis soon became a news journalist and travel writer, journeying across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Travel books such as Spagna (1873), Olanda (1874), and the aforementioned Costantinopoli (1878) were celebrated for their rich descriptions and cultural insights, blending reportage with literary flair.

It was Cuore, however, that was the turning point of his literary life. Its themes promoted a strong sense of national identity, emphasising loyalty to Italy, respect for its institutions and admiration for its heroes, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield. 

The stories told by young Enrico’s teacher, meanwhile, taught virtues such as honesty, courage, humility and compassion, while often featuring children from different regions of Italy, reinforcing unity through shared values.

De Amicis entered Italian politics
towards the end of his life

The book caused some controversy, too, by making no reference to religion. The nuns, priests or other religious mentors that featured in other moral tales were conspicuous by their absence. This upset the Catholic Church, already reeling from the capture of the Papal States and Rome in 1870, which completed unification and reduced the pope to a mere spiritual leader, having previously been effectively the monarch of his domain.

De Amicis ultimately returned to Piedmont, with homes in Turin and Pinerolo. It was the school life of his sons Furio and Ugo, students at the Boncompagni Elementary School in Turin, that inspired him to write Cuore. 

His last years were overshadowed by sadness, at the death of his mother, his fractious relationship with his wife and ultimately the suicide of Furio, his eldest son. It prompted him to leave Turin soon after the turn of the century, thereafter leading a nomadic existence that included time in Florence and Catania, in Sicily.

He died during a stay in Bordighera, in Liguria, where he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage while resident at the then Hotel Regina, which he had chosen as his base because George MacDonald, a Scottish poet he admired, had lived there a few years earlier. The building, at Via Vittorio Veneto 34, has commemorative plaques to them both. 

De Amicis was laid to rest in the family tomb, in the monumental cemetery of Turin.

Piazza Dante is a the central square in the part 
of Imperia that makes up the former Oneglia

Travel tip:

Oneglia, where De Amicis was born, was a town about 120km (75 miles) from Genoa along the western coast of Liguria. It was joined to Porto Maurizio in 1923 by Fascist ruler Benito Mussolini to form the municipality known as Imperia. The area has become well known for cultivating flowers and olives and there is a Museum of the Olive in the part of the city that used to be Oneglia. One of Italy’s most famous olive oil producers and connoisseurs, Filippo Berio, was born in Oneglia in 1829.  The Porto Maurizio area is characterised by steep, narrow streets and loggias with an elevated position offering views across the Ligurian Sea, while the Oneglia part of Imperia is on the whole a modern town, one exception being the streets behind the Calata Cuneo in the port area. Today, Imperia is part industrial port and part tourist resort.  What used to be Oneglia is at the eastern end of Imperia, around Piazza Dante, which is at the centre of a long shopping street, Via Aurelia.

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Picturesque side streets are part
of the charm of Bordighera

Travel tip:

Bordighera, where De Amicis died, is a small, picturesque town on Italy’s western Riviera, just 20km (12 miles) from Italy’s border with France. It is famous for its flower industry and was a popular holiday destination for the British during Queen Victoria’s reign. Being situated where the Maritime Alps meet the sea, it enjoys the benefit of a climate that invariably produces mild winters. It was the first town in Europe to grow date palms. Its seafront road, the Lungomare Argentina - named in honour of a visit to the town by Evita Peron in 1947 - is 2.3km (1.4 miles) long and is said to be the longest promenade on the Italian Riviera. Queen Margherita of Savoy - wife of Umberto I - had a winter palace, Villa Margherita, in the town.  Bordighera was the scene of a meeting in 1941 between Italy’s Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, and his Spanish counterpart, Francisco Franco, to discuss Spain’s entry to World War Two on the side of Italy and Germany, although in the end Spain remained nominally neutral.

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More reading:

Maria Montessori and the launch of what became a worldwide network of schools

How the first free public school in Europe opened in Frascati, just outside Rome

A soldier-turned-writer who fought alongside unification hero Garibaldi

Also on this day:

1581: The birth of Baroque master Domenichino 

1898: The birth of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

1928: The birth of anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli, inspiration for Dario Fo play

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Giovanni Comisso - writer

Novelist and journalist with distinctive literary voice

Giovanni Comisso spent much of his 
writing life travelling abroad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The pretty Piazza dei Signori is the 
square at the heart of Treviso

Travel tip:

For many visitors to Italy, Treviso is no more than the name of the airport at which they might land en route to Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast. Treviso’s main sights include its historic squares, medieval walls, unique fountains, and art-filled museums.  Piazza dei Signori is the heart of Treviso’s historic centre, a 13th-century square lined with elegant cafés, boutiques, and civic buildings.  The city’s well-preserved walls date back to the 15th century and once protected the city. The Porta San Tomaso entrance to the city is a grand marble city gate from the 16th century, adorned with ornate carvings and the winged lion of Venice.

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

Travel tip:

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

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Also on this day: 

The minister who persuaded Italy to switch sides in WW1

A poet who drew inspiration from the landscapes of the Veneto

How Gabriele d’Annunzio influenced Mussolini

Also on this day:

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

1858: The birth of actress Eleonora Duse

1938: The birth of world champion boxer Alessando Mazzinghi

1941: The birth of bass-baritone star Ruggero Raimondi

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Lorenzo Del Boca – journalist and writer

Author of Polentoni says north of Italy was betrayed by the Risorgimento

Lorenzo Del Boca had a long career working as
a journalist for the Turin-based daily La Stampa

The author Lorenzo Del Boca, whose books and essays about Italian history and politics have been translated into several languages, was born on this day in 1951 in Romagnano Sesia in the province of Novara in Piedmont.

Del Boca has become known outside Italy following the publication of his book Polentoni in 2011, which puts forward his opinions about how and why the north of the country was betrayed by the unification of Italy in 1861.

But he refutes the idea that Polentoni is in any way a riposte to the book Terroni, published in 2010 by the author and journalist Pino Aprile, who is from Puglia in the south of Italy and expresses the opinion that the south was betrayed by the north as a result of the Risorgimento. 

Del Boca points out on the back cover of Polentoni that in the 1990s he had already written two books that have been interpreted as ‘irreverent’ about the wealthy Savoy family.  

The first King of the united Italy, Victor Emmanuel II, was a descendant of the family, as were all the monarchs who succeeded him. Del Boca also says that he has been quoted extensively by Aprile as a bibliographic reference. 

Polentoni argues that Risorgimento was
a betrayal of the north as well as the south

The title of his book, Polentoni, is an offensive term sometimes used by people in southern Italy to describe northern Italians. It alludes to the northern Italian habit of eating polenta, which is a type of yellow or white ground cornmeal that can be served creamy, as a slice from a loaf of polenta, or fried.

After graduating in Philosophy from the University of Turin, Del Boca was involved for a time with local newspapers before going to work for La Stampa, the sixth most widely distributed Italian daily newspaper, which is based in Turin.

He became a professional journalist in 1980, working first as a court reporter and then as chief reporter at Stampa Sera. He went on to become a special correspondent at La Stampa, writing mainly about events connected with terrorism.

Del Boca has also specialised in writing about pseudo-history, about information that claims to be history, but is often based on theories that have been formed, which fall outside the rules and conventions followed by historians. 

His writing about the House of Savoy is characterised by a lack of reverence towards the famous family and he uses as sources articles and publications that do not accept the traditional version of the history of the Risorgimento.

He argues that while the south was ‘stripped, robbed and massacred’,  the Risorgimento was a shameful period in history in which there were no winners among ordinary Italians, with many northern people persuaded to fight and even die for the cause with a promise of better lives that was never delivered.

Other scholars and historians have criticised some of Del Boca’s ideas. but he has also received many awards for his writing.

Del Boca was president of the National Council of the Order of Journalists from 2001 to 2010, and was the first president to have been elected for a third consecutive term to be the head of the collective body that represents professional journalists in Italy.  

The Castello del Valentino is one of Turin's
historic former residences of the Savoy family

Travel tip:

Lorenzo Del Boca was born in Piedmont, which is the second largest region of Italy after Sicily. Piedmont, in the northwest of Italy, borders France, Switzerland and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria, Val d’Aosta, and a small part of Emilia-Romagna. The territory was first acquired by Otto of Savoy in 1046 and its capital was established at Chambery, which is now in France. The Savoy territory became the Duchy of Savoy in 1416 and the seat of the Duchy was moved to Turin in 1563 by Duke Emanuele Filiberto. After Victor Amadeus II became King of Sardinia in 1720, Piedmont became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Turin grew in importance as a European capital city. Victor Emmanuel II was already the King of Sardinia-Piedmont before he was crowned King of the newly united Italy.  Much of the architecture of Turin illustrates its rich history as the home of the Savoy Kings of Italy. In the centre of the city, Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library, and Palazzo Madama, which used to be where the Italian senate met, showcases some of the finest buildings in ‘royal’ Turin. Other notable cities in Piedmont - Piemonte in Italian - include Novara, Alessandria and Asti. With a population of just over 850,000, Turin is the fourth largest city in Italy, after Rome, Milan and Naples.

The Torre del Pretorio
dates back to the 1400s

Travel tip:

Romagnano Sesia, the town and municipality where Lorenzo del Boca was born, is in the province of Novara in Piedmont. It is located about 80km (50 miles) northeast of Turin and about 25km (16 miles) northwest of Novara. Visitors to Romagnano are attracted by the Church of San Silvano and Abbazia di San Silvano, which form a complex is notable for its historical and artistic significance, including a 5th-century Paleochristian sarcophagus, the 15th century tower Torre del Pretorio, the Piazza Libertà, the town’s central square surrounded by arcades, and the remains of a medieval bridge that once spanned the Sesia river before it was diverted to protect the town from its force.  Romagnano stages a Good Friday procession, known as the Sacred Representation, which began in 1729 and has evolved into a large-scale theatrical performance. It involves more than 300 actors often drawn from the community, who dress in period costumes to recreate the scenes of Jerusalem.

Also on this day:

1859: The Battle of Solferino

1866: The Battle of Custoza

1940: The birth of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro

1963: The birth of architect Benedetta Tagliabue

1993: The birth of tenor Piero Barone, a singer with Il Volo

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Nino Martoglio - writer, theatre and film director

Journalist and playwright whose movies inspired post-war neorealism 

Nino Martoglio is considered by some
as the founder of Sicilian theatre

The journalist, playwright and theatre and film director Nino Martoglio was born in Belpasso, a town in the foothills of volcanic Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, on this day in 1870.

Martoglio is widely considered to be Sicily’s finest dialect playwright and by some to be the founder of Sicilian theatre.  He was also an acclaimed poet, basing a good deal of his verse on the everyday conversations of working class Sicilians, written to amuse. His collection, Centona, is still sold today.

Later in a career that was ended abruptly by his death in an accident, Martoglio directed a number of silent films, the style of some of which prompted critics to describe them as forerunners of the post-war neorealism movement.

The son of a journalist and a school teacher, Martoglio studied sailing as a young man and obtained a captain’s licence. Yet he sought a career in journalism and joined the editorial staff of La Gazzetta di Catania, a daily newspaper founded by his father, Luigi.

In 1889, he launched a weekly magazine, D’Artagnan, a Sicilian language periodical devoted to art, literature and theatre, sharp political satire and the plight of the people of Civita, a poor neighbourhood in Catania which suffered particular deprivation. It also proved to be a useful vehicle for the poems that would eventually be gathered together in the Centona collection.

Theatre began to occupy most of Martoglio's attention from around the turn of the century. In 1901, he created the Sicilian Dramatic Company, which thanks to the talents of actors such as Angelo Musco, Giovanni Grasso, Virginia Balistrieri and others enjoyed success with Sicilian language productions even in Milan, where they performed at the Teatro Manzoni in 1903. The company’s productions of comedies written by a young Sicilian playwright, Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo, were especially popular, among them San Giovanni Decapitato - Saint John the Beheaded - which he later turned into a film.

Martoglio staged the first theatrical
works of Luigi Pirandello (above)

Martoglio’s work became still more widely known after he moved to Rome in 1904, having become unhappy with the political climate in Sicily, where he had been elected a municipal councillor in Catania. In the capital, he met and married Elvira Schiavazzi, the sister of Piero Schiavazzi, a Sardinian tenor. They would go on to have four children. 

In 1910, he founded the first "Teatro Minimo" in Rome at the Teatro Metastasio. He staged one-act plays from the Italian and foreign repertoire, as well as bringing to the stage the first theatrical works of Luigi Pirandello, by then famous as a novelist and a future Nobel Prize winner. Their collaborations included A vilanza (la bilancia) and Cappidazzu pava tutu.

Martoglio’s venture into cinema spanned two years from 1913-14. He directed the actress Pina Menichelli, one of the so-called ‘three divas’ of Italian silent movies, in Il romanzo and followed it with Capitan Blanco, Sperduti nel buio, for which he wrote the screenplay and directed in collaboration with Roberto Danesi, and Teresa Raquin.  

All his screen work emphasised the gulf in Italian society between wealth and poverty and Sperduti nel buio - Lost in the Dark - which starred Grasso and Balistrieri - veterans of Martoglio’s original company in Catania - came to be regarded as a classic of the silent film era, representative of a small number of films that made up the realismo movement in Italian cinema. 

In the 1930s, the film critic and lecturer Umberto Barbaro enthusiastically showed Sperduti nel buio in his classes at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, where his students included Roberto Rossellini and Luchino Visconti, who would go on to become leading figures in the neorealism film movement after the Second World War.

The bust of Martoglio
in the Bellini Gardens

Martoglio’s death at the age of 50 remains something of a mystery.  After visiting the Vittorio Emanuele II Hospital in Catania on the evening of 15 September, 1921, to see one of his sons, who was being treated there, Martoglio’s body was found the following morning at the bottom of an elevator shaft in part of the hospital that was under construction.  Although there were no witnesses, the assumption was that he had suffered a tragic accident, perhaps after getting lost as he tried to find the way out. 

His body was laid to rest at the Campo Verano monumental cemetery in the Tiburtino quarter in Rome, not far from the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le mura. The cemetery is notable as the burial place of hundreds of illustrious figures from the artistic, historical, literary, musical and cinematographic world.  

Although his films were lost, presumably stolen or destroyed during World War Two, Martoglio’s nieces, Vincenza and Angela, took steps to preserve their uncle’s manuscripts.  There is a monumental bust of him in the Bellini Gardens in Catania, a short distance from the Teatro Metropolitan. 

The Teatro Comunale Nino
Martoglio in Belpasso

Travel tip:

The town of Belpasso, where Martoglio was born, has a population of 28,000. Located about 10km (six miles) northwest of the city of Catania, it has something of a chequered history, having twice been destroyed by the forces of nature and repositioned in consequence. In 1669, it was buried in lava following an eruption of the Mount Etna volcano which looms over Catania. Rebuilt in another location at a lower level, it was then badly damaged by an earthquake in 1693 and abandoned. The current settlement was founded two years later at a third site. Today, it is best known as the home of Condorelli, one of Sicily’s most famous brands of confectionary, biscuits and cakes. Nino Martoglio’s name is preserved in the Teatro Comunale Nino Martoglio, the town’s municipal theatre, in Via XII Traversa.

The port city of Catania, the second largest city
in Sicily, with a snow-capped Etna in the distance

Travel tip:

The city of Catania, which is located on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, is one of the ten biggest cities in Italy, and the seventh largest metropolitan area in the country, with a population including the environs of 1.12 million. Twice destroyed by earthquakes, in 1169 and 1693, it can be compared in some respects with Naples, which sits in the shadow of Vesuvius, in that it lives with the constant threat of a natural catastrophe.  As such it has always been a city for living life to the full. In the Renaissance, it was one of Italy's most important cultural, artistic and political centres and enjoys a rich cultural legacy today, with numerous museums and churches, theatres and parks and many restaurants.  It is also notable for many fine examples of the Sicilian Baroque style of architecture, including the beautiful Basilica della Collegiata, with its six stone columns and the concave curve of its façade.

Also on this day:

1596: The birth of violin maker Nicolò Amati 

1779: The birth of Tuscan painter Matilde Malenchini

1911: The birth of composer Nino Rota

1917: The death in WW1 of champion cyclist Carlo Oriani

1937: The birth of actress Angela Luce

1947: The birth of controversial politician Mario Borghezio

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Ilaria Alpi - investigative journalist

TV reporter murdered in Somalia ambush

Ilaria Alpi's reports from war zones in Africa and
the Middle East were a feature of Tg3 news coverage

The TV journalist Ilaria Alpi, who with her Italian cameraman Miran Hrovatin was murdered while reporting from war-torn Somalia in the early 1990s, was born on this day in 1961 in Rome.

Alpi, who was in Somalia for Italy’s national broadcaster Rai as the United Nations attempted to end a three-year long civil war in the country, was killed near the Hotel Sahafi, which was the international media base in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

The pick-up in which she and Hrovatin were travelling was at a crossroads about 4.5km (2.8 miles) from the Sahafi when a Land Rover pulled across their path, forcing their vehicle to stop. At this point a gunman or several gunmen - as many as seven, some reports said - began shooting. Alpi and Hrovatin died at the scene, although their driver and three armed bodyguards escaped unhurt.

The murders shocked Italy, where viewers had been used to seeing Alpi’s reports on the Tg3 news programmes from Lebanon and Kuwait as well as Somalia. She had a deep knowledge of the area and was fluent in Arabic languages.

She had been in Somalia regularly to report on the United Nations’ attempts to bring order and peace to the country via Restore Hope, a peacekeeping mission launched in response to the civil war that had been ongoing for a number of years. 

What was to be her final, fateful visit had begun only two weeks earlier when she was sent to cover the effective abandonment of the mission with the withdrawal of the American contingent, ordered by President Clinton following an escalation in UN casualties. 

Alpi with her regular cameraman Miran
Hrovatin, who also died in the attack

A former Italian colony, Somalia became a fully independent country in 1960 but retained close ties with Italy afterwards, thanks to a number of Italian citizens living in the country, many with business interests there. 

Although the motive for the murders of Alpi and Hrovatin have never been established (and a Somali suspect convicted of the killings eventually released and compensated for wrongful imprisonment), it is thought that parallel to her coverage of the UN peace mission, Alpi had been investigating suspected illegal arms trafficking between Italy and Somalia as well as the dumping of toxic and even nuclear waste shipped from Italy.

In the days before the murders, she and Hrovatin had travelled almost 1,400 miles north to the port of Bosaso on the Gulf of Aden to interview Abdullah Moussa Bohor, a local so-called sultan.

Alpi had reportedly told the newsroom at Tg3 to expect to receive interviews she had conducted, the content of which was “too big and important” to discuss on the telephone.

On the afternoon of Sunday, March 20, 1994, witnesses who recall speaking to Alpi at the Hotel Sahafi said that she left hurriedly to see a contact at another hotel in the north of Mogadishu and that it was on her way back from this meeting that she was gunned down.

Alpi had been a student of Arabic and Islamic
culture before she became a journalist

Although extensive investigations followed the killing, in Somalia and involving the Italian government and the police forces of Rome, where Alpi was resident, and Hrovatin’s home town of Trieste, the circumstances and motives have never been established.

The most popular theory was that Bohor had told them about an Italian-Somalian fishing company whose vessels had been involved in shipping arms from factories in northern Italy to be sold illegally to Somali’s armed militia groups, as well as transferring toxic waste to be buried in the desert, and that they had even been shown one of the vessels.

The theory was reinforced by the presence at the murder scene soon after the shooting had taken place of an Italian entrepreneur based in Mogadishu with previous links to the arms trade in Somalia. The bodies of Alpi and Hrovatin were removed from the scene on one of his trucks prior to their return to Italy.  Notebooks and video cassettes that were among the possessions recovered at the scene had mysteriously disappeared by the time the bodies arrived in Rome.

The entrepreneur, who was never accused of any crime in relation to his presence, allegedly offered a view that the attack was unlikely to have been an attempt to steal their truck, as was reported at the time, but that the two journalists had “probably seen something they were not meant to see”.

Alpi’s parents, Giorgio and Luciana, both of whom are now dead, campaigned tirelessly to find the truth about what happened to their daughter.

Many parts of Mogadishu still bear the scars of 
years of conflict in the Somalian region

A Somali citizen, Hashi Omar Hassan, was convicted of the murders in Rome in 2000 and sentenced to 26 years in jail only for the conviction to be overturned 16 years later. Hassan was awarded compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

A further twist involved an Italian secret service operative, Vincenzo Li Causi, who had died in mysterious circumstances a few months earlier. Li Causi, a contact of Alpi, was a member of Gladio, the undercover operation set up by the Americans to remain in Italy after World War Two, primarily as a bulwark against the potential advance of communism in the country.

Alpi entered journalism after graduating from Rome’s Sapienza University, where she studied literature and languages and Islamic culture. Fluent in English, French and Arabic, she freelanced for various newspapers and radio stations before being appointed as a correspondent in Cairo for the newspapers Paese Sera and L’Unità.

She joined Rai in 1990, initially for the RaiSat international channel before being assigned to Tg3, the news arm of Rai Tre.

Ilaria Alpi’s memory lives on in a large number of streets, squares, gardens and buildings carrying her name and that of her cameraman Miran Hrovatin in towns and cities across Italy.

In popular culture, numerous books have been written and films made about her life, including the award-winning Ilaria Alpi - Il più crudele dei giorni (Ilaria Alpi - The Cruellest of Days), directed by Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani and starring Giovanna Mezzogiorno as Ilaria.

An Ilaria Alpi Prize was established for the best Italian television investigations dedicated to the themes of peace and solidarity.

The University of Rome was given a modern
new campus designed by Marcello Piacentini

Travel tip:

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

The headquarters building of Rai, Italy's national
TV network, in Rome's Viale Mazzini

Travel tip:

The Rome headquarters of Rai, Italy’s national television network, can be found in Viale Giuseppe Mazzini, where the company has been based since 1966. It is in the elegant neighbourhood called Della Vittoria, immediately north of the Prati neighbourhood, which contains the Stadio Olimpico. Originally called Milvio when it was established in 1921 and was given its present name only in 1935 to honour Italy’s victory in the First World War. Many of the area’s streets are named after heroes of the Risorgimento and the First World War. Piazza Mazzini, the area’s most important square, is just a few steps from the Rai building, in front of which is a striking bronze horse by the Sicilian sculptor Francesco Messina. The sculpture was meant to represent power and strength, yet is now commonly known as ‘the dying horse’ after a journalist wrongly thought the signs of deterioration were meant to be wounds, creating an alternative name that caught on.

Also on this day: 

1494: The birth of painter Jacopo Carucci di Pontormo

1671: The birth of Gian Gastone de’ Medici

1751: The birth of Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia

1847: The birth of inventor Alessandro Cruto

1949: The birth of film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis

1981: The birth of TV chef Simone Rugiati

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Lilli Gruber - groundbreaking TV journalist

Writer and broadcaster was first female to host prime time news bulletin

Lilli Gruber today conducts the current affairs
talk show Otto e Mezzo on Italy's La7 channel

The journalist Lilli Gruber, who in 1987 became the first woman to be appointed anchor of a prime time news show on Italian public television, was born on this day in 1957 in Bolzano.

In a distinguished career, as well as being the face of major news programmes for the national broadcaster Rai, Gruber has reported on many major international stories as a foreign correspondent, presented shows on German television, served as a Member of the European Parliament for five years, and written many books.

Since leaving politics in 2008, she has been the host of the long-running political talk show, Otto e Mezzo, on the Rome-based independent TV channel La7.

Nicknamed La Rossa both for her red hair and her political views, Gruber was born Dietlinde Gruber into a German-speaking family in Bolzano, the provincial capital of South Tyrol in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northeast Italy, which borders Austria and Switzerland.

It was her father, Alfred, an entrepreneur, who gave her the pet name Lilli, which stayed with her into adulthood.

Educated partly in Verona, where her father built up a business making machinery for the construction industry, and in the town of Egna, near Bolzano, where she attended a language school, Gruber graduated in foreign languages and literature from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, before embarking on a journalistic career in her home region.

Alongside reporting for the regional newspapers L’Adige and Alto Adige, she gained some television experience with the local channel, Telebolzano, before landing a job on Rai Südtirol, also known as Sender Bozen, a German language channel for Trentino-Alto Adige, where despite being part of Italy, around a third of the population speak German.

Gruber made Italian TV history in 1987 as the first
female journalist to host a prime time news show

From there, she moved to the Bolzano office of TGR, the regional news arm of Rai, and in 1984 was recruited as a reporter for TG2, which was responsible for news programming on Rai Due.

Her career flourished under the guidance of Antonio Ghirelli, TG2’s editor and a major figure in Italian journalism. As a foreign correspondent, Gruber reported in 1989 on the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, an experience that would become the subject of her first book, Quei giorni a Berlin - Those Days in Berlin - which was published in 1990.

In the meantime, Ghirelli had enabled her to make history by handing her the job of anchoring TG2’s main evening news programme, which aired at 7.45pm each weekday evening. The move broke new ground, Gruber’s professionalism meaning that what had been a glass ceiling on the career progression of women in Italian TV news coverage was shattered.

Her career soon continued on its steep ascent with a move to Rai’s flagship channel, Rai Uno, where she again combined foreign assignments with hosting. She became anchor for TG1’s main eight o’clock evening news programme while also reporting on the conflicts in Yugoslavia and Iraq and the 2001 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in the United States.

It was while in Baghdad to report on the second Iraq war that she met Jacques Charmelot, a French journalist she would later marry.

Gruber was elected an MEP
in the 2004 elections

Gruber’s decision to pursue a career in politics was rooted in her opposition to the restrictions on freedom of information introduced by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi after his return to power in 2001.  By curbing their rights of access to information, Berlusconi made it more difficult for journalists to call out corruption and maladministration in government departments.

Gruber allied herself to the Uniti nell’Ulivo coalition, a centre-left alliance, and was elected as an MEP for central Italy in the July elections of 2004. She quickly became an effective politician, joining the parliamentary group of the European Socialist Party, becoming president of the delegation for relations with the Gulf States, a member of Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and of the delegation for relations with Iran. She also became a member of the EU’s Ethics Commission.

Yet she missed journalism and when an offer was made by the ambitious management of La7, which has become Italy’s largest TV company outside the auspices of Rai or Berlusconi’s Mediaset, to front their evening political debate, Otto e Mezzo, she felt she could not turn it down.

A versatile presenter fluent in four languages - Italian, German, French and English - she has also worked for a number of German TV companies and conducted an exclusive interview with the Italian actress, Sophia Loren, for the American network, CBS.

Famed for her dogged questioning in interviews with political figures, Gruber also became known as a stylish dresser, often presenting the news in tailored Armani suits. She became friends with Giorgio Armani, the designer who founded the brand in 1975 and who designed the honey-coloured gown she wore at her wedding to Charmelot in Montagna, a village near Bolzano, in 2000.

Gruber’s books have drawn on her experiences in journalism but also her passionate interest in women’s rights, particularly the rights of women in Islamic societies. Her book I miei giorni a Baghdad - My Days in Baghdad - sold more than 100,000 copies.

More recently, she has written a trilogy of novels about the history of her family and of South Tyrol between the 19th and 20th centuries, entitled Eredità (Inheritance), Inganno (Deceit) and Tempesta (Storm). 

The city of Bolzano sits in a wide valley in the
Alpine region of Trentino-Alto Adige (Südtirol)

Travel tip:

Gruber’s home city of Bolzano is the capital of the South Tyrol region of what is now northern Italy, also known as Alto Adige. Occupying a valley flanked by hills covered in lush vineyards, it has a population of 108,000, swelling to 250,000 with all the surrounding communities. One of the largest urban areas in the Alpine region, it has a medieval city centre famous for its wooden market stalls, selling among other things Alpine cheeses, hams and bread. Places of interest include the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, the imposing 13th-century Mareccio Castle, and the Duomo di Bolzano with its Romanesque and Gothic architecture. Three languages - Italian, German and a local language called Ladin - are spoken in the area, which consistently polls high among the Italian cities reckoned to have the best standard of living.  The nearest airport to Bolzano is at Verona, about 150km (93 miles) to the south and accessible in approximately an hour and a half by train, although some visitors arrive from Innsbruck in Austria, just over two hours by train in the opposite direction.

Verona is a beautiful city in northern Italy,
flanking the Adige river 

Travel tip:

Verona, where Gruber spent part of her upbringing, is the third largest city in the northeast of Italy, with a population across its whole urban area of more than 700,000. Among its wealth of tourist attractions is the Roman amphitheatre known as L’Arena di Verona, which dates back to AD30. With a seating capacity of 22,000, it is best known now as a venue for large-scale open air opera performances and other music concerts. Verona was chosen as the setting for three plays by William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew - although it is unknown whether the English playwright ever actually set foot in the city.  Each year, thousands of tourists visit a 13th century house in Verona where Juliet is said to have lived, even though there is no evidence that Juliet and Romeo actually existed and the balcony said to have inspired Shakespeare’s imagination was not added to the house until the early 20th century.

Also on this day:

1588: The death of Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese

1768: The death of painter Canaletto, known for views of Venice

1937: The birth of chef and restaurateur Antonio Carluccio

1953: The birth of Olympic high jumper Sara Simeoni

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Trilussa - poet and journalist

Writer used humour and irony in social commentary

Trilussa became known as 
"the people's poet"

The Roman poet who went under the name Trilussa was born on this day in 1871.

The writer, best known for his works in Romanesco dialect, was actually christened Carlo Alberto Camillo Mariano Salustri. His pseudonym was an anagram of his last name.

He was inspired to take up poetry by his admiration for Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, who satirised life in 19th century Rome in his sonnets, which were also written in Roman dialect. 

Born in a house in Via del Babuino, near the Spanish Steps, Carlo was the son of a waiter originally from Albano Laziale in the Castelli Romani area around Lago Albano south of Rome. His mother, Carlotta, was a seamstress born in Bologna.

His early years were marred by tragedy. He lost both a sister and his father before he had reached four years old.  After living for a short time in Via Ripetta, close to the Tiber river, his family were offered accommodation in a palazzo in Piazza di Pietra, a square midway between the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain.

The palazzo was owned by Carlo’s Godfather, the Marquis Ermenegildo del Cinque, who had been introduced to the family by Professor Filippo Chiappini, a disciple of Belli who for a while was Trilussa’s tutor.  

Carlo was never a committed student. Twice he was required to repeat a year at high school and left formal education entirely at the age of 15, against the advice of both his mother and Professor Chiappini.

The monument to Trilussa in the
square of the same name in Rome

Nonetheless, his flair for humorous, satirical poetry would serve him well. In 1887, a dialect magazine entitled Rugantino published some of his verses, which were well received by readers.

The following year, he brought together a collection of poems published in Rugantino as a book, called Stelle de Roma: Versi romaneschi (Stars of Rome: Romanesco verses), a series of about 30 madrigals written in appreciation of the most beautiful young women in the city. It sold well.

Soon, Trilussa became a well known name. His work appeared in popular newspapers such as il Mesaggero and il Resto del Carlino.

In 1891, he began a collaboration with Don Chisciotte della Mancia, a newspaper with national circulation, for whom in addition to his poetry he wrote articles commenting on national government as well as life in Rome, ultimately becoming a member of the editorial board. 

His second volume of collected verses, Quaranta sonetti romaneschi (Forty Roman Sonnets), which marked the start of a long-running relationship with the publishers, Voghera, included poems he had written for Don Chisciotte della Mancia.

Trilussa was a man of striking
appearance who dressed elegantly

Even as his fame grew and more collections of poetry were published, bringing him a good income, he rejected the idea that he should move in more intellectual circles, much preferring to spend his time chatting to locals in neighbourhood bars.  He was aware that the division between the rich and poor in Rome was huge and would mock the style in which the rich lived and treated the “working” class. This led to him becoming known as the people’s poet.

He developed a talent for drawing as well as verse. Some of his published work was accompanied by his own illustrations.

Trilussa managed to avoid running into trouble with the Fascist regime, who generally looked suspiciously at writers and artists, by declaring himself to be not anti-Fascist but non-Fascist. Although he satirised politics even in the turbulent 1920s and ‘30s, his relationship with Mussolini’s government remained relatively uneventful.

A tall man, he always dressed elegantly and lived in an apartment furnished according to his supposedly eclectic tastes, where he entertained fellow artists and writers. He was said to have led a rather hedonistic lifestyle, interspersed with periods of financial difficulty. When he died in December 1950, he had little money.

He never married, yet had a long relationship with Giselda Lombardi - better known as the silent movie actress Leda Gys - who he described as the love of his life. It was Trilussa who launched her career by introducing her to friends in the film business, only for her to meet and marry a producer.

In declining health, he was made a senator for life by President Luigi Einuadi in 1950 but died less than three weeks later. His body is buried at the Verano Cemetery in Rome.

A square in Trastevere, formerly called Piazza Ponte Sisto, was renamed Piazza Trilussa after his death. The beautiful square, surrounded by bars and restaurants, was in an area in which the poet spent much of his time. Nowadays, it is a popular spot with young Romans.

The square features a quirky monument, featuring a bust in bronze leaning over a marble fragment of a Roman ruin, created by the sculptor Lorenzo Ferri in 1954.

The Spanish steps is one of
Rome's best known sights

Travel tip:

Trilussa was born in a house not far from the Spanish Steps - known to Romans as the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti, leading to the piazza and church of the same name at the top of the steps. At the bottom is the Piazza di Spagna, which gets its name from the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See which has been there since the 17th century. The square was popular with English aristocrats on the Grand Tour who stayed there while in Rome. In 1820, the English poet John Keats spent the last few months of his life in a small room overlooking the Spanish Steps and died there of consumption in February 1821, aged just 25. The house is now a museum and library dedicated to the Romantic poets.

The Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere is
one of the oldest churches in Rome

Travel tip:

Although formerly a working class neighbourhood, the Trastevere district, which sits alongside the Tiber, is regarded as one of Rome's most charming areas for tourists to visit. Full of winding, cobbled streets and well preserved mediaeval houses, it is fashionable with Rome's young professional class as a place to live, with an abundance of restaurants and bars and a lively student music scene.  It is also home to one of the oldest churches in Rome in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, the floor plan and wall structure of which date back to 340AD.

Also on this day:

1685: The birth of composer Domenico Scarlatti

1797: The birth of soprano Giuditta Pasta

1906: The birth of boxer Primo Carnera

1954: Trieste became part of the Italian Republic

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