Showing posts with label Mussolini. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mussolini. Show all posts

18 November 2024

Enrico Vanzini - Dachau survivor

Italian internee forced to work for Nazis

Enrico Vanzini kept his story private for 60 years after WW2
Enrico Vanzini kept his story
private for 60 years after WW2

Enrico Vanzini, a remarkable centenarian former soldier who survived seven months in a concentration camp after being forced to assist his captors as his fellow detainees were subjected to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime, was born on this day in 1922 in the town of Fagnano Olona in Lombardy.

Vanzini, who was stationed with the Italian army in Greece for much of World War Two, was arrested in September 1943 after swearing allegiance to the King of Italy rather than Benito Mussolini’s Republic of Salò.

He spent the remainder of the conflict as a prisoner of war in Germany, at the end of which he was forced to work as a member of the so-called Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners made to collaborate with the Nazi SS in the extermination of mainly Jewish detainees in their death camps.

Vanzini was made to assist among other things with the cremation of bodies at Dachau, just outside Munich, where he spent seven months. The ordeal ended when the camp was liberated by the Allies in April 1945, at which point he weighed just 64lbs (29kg).

At the age of 102 and resident of a care home in Padua, he is the only Italian former Sonderkommando still alive.

In his book, entitled L'ultimo sonderkommando italiano - The Last Italian Sonderkommando - he described himself as “an ordinary village lad” in Fagnano. He was born just 10 days after Mussolini’s Fascists took power in Italy.

The gates of the Dachau complex near Munich, soon after it was liberated
The gates of the Dachau complex near
Munich, soon after it was liberated
His father, who had been a soldier in World War One, was no supporter of the Fascist regime and Vanzini grew up to have similar sentiments. Yet at the age of 18 he found himself fighting on the side of Mussolini and the Germans.

Having enlisted in the artillery in the Alba Barracks with the outbreak of war in 1939, he was initially destined for the Russian front but was spared being one of 115,000 Italians killed there by a bout of appendicitis. When he had recovered sufficiently to resume service, he was sent instead to Greece, where Italian casualties were far fewer.

He was still in Greece when Mussolini was arrested on the orders of the Italian monarch, King Victor Emmanuel III, in July 1943, and detained at a remote hotel in the Apennine mountains.  When the dictator was freed by German paratroopers two months later and installed as leader of the puppet state of Salò in Nazi-occupied northern Italy, Vanzini refused to be part of the new republic, swearing loyalty to the King instead.

Subsequently arrested, he became a prisoner of war and was put on a train in Athens and taken to the city of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, where he was forced to work in a tank chassis factory.

A year after his arrival there, the factory was destroyed in an American bombing raid and he and two companions slipped away in the ensuing chaos, only to be recaptured 10 days later in the countryside near Munich. Ironically, they were betrayed by an Italian girl who befriended them but turned out to be a spy working for the Germans.

Vanzini wrote a book about his experience at Dachau
Vanzini wrote a book about
his experience at Dachau
The trio were sent to Buchenwald and initially were condemned to death by firing squad. Arguing that they fled the Ingolstadt factory for their own safety, they were spared death but only after being earmarked to work in the gas chambers at Dachau, where their grim duties included retrieving bodies for cremation.

Thankfully, the arrival of Allied troops at Dachau allowed Vanzini to return home. Once he had regained his health, he had a career as a bus or lorry driver and lived a quiet life, keeping his experiences to himself for 60 years before, in 2003, he began to share his stories. At first he held conferences in schools and public halls, later participating in a documentary film and eventually writing his book.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, in January, 2013 the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, presented him with the Medal of Honour.

Extraordinarily, given what he had been through, Vanzini has enjoyed a remarkably long and healthy life. He was still fit enough at 99 years of age to be granted a two-year extension to his driver’s licence and, having revealed in an interview his lifelong devotion to the Inter-Milan football team, was presented with a special club shirt on his 100th birthday.

The Visconti Castle at Fagnano Olona has stood guard over the town since Mediaeval times
The Visconti Castle at Fagnano Olona has stood
guard over the town since Mediaeval times
Travel tip:

Fagnano Olona, where Vanzini was born, is a town of 12,301 inhabitants about 19km (12 miles) south of the city of Varese. Originally a Roman settlement, it occupied a strategic position on the Olona river. A castle built there in the Middle Ages was fought for by both the Della Torre and Visconti families in the 13th century and the armies of France and Spain 200 years later. The town has a number of important religious buildings including the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Selva and the parish church of San Gaudenzio. The mediaeval Visconti Castle in Piazza Cavour, between the centre of the town and the Olona river, today houses the town hall.

The waterfront at modern-day Salò, which is a thriving resort on picturesque Lake Garda
The waterfront at modern-day Salò, which is a
thriving resort on picturesque Lake Garda
Travel tip:

For all its associations with Mussolini and his Nazi allies, the town of Salò on the banks of Lake Garda is an attractive resort known for having the longest promenade on the lake.  The main sights  in Salò are the Duomo di Santa Maria Annunziata, which was rebuilt in late Gothic style in the 15th century and the Palazzo della Magnifica Patria, which houses an exhibition of important historical documents. There is also MuSa, il Museo di Salò, which opened in 2015 in la Chiesa di Santa Giustina in Via Brunati, which has exhibitions about the history of the town, including its brief period as a republic.  Mussolini’s home during the brief life of the Republic of Salò is now the Grand Hotel Feltrinelli in Via Rimembranza in Gargnano, a short distance along the coast of the lake.

Also on this day:

1626: The consecration of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome

1630: The birth of Holy Roman Empress Eleonora Gonzaga

1804: The birth of general and statesman Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora

1849: The birth of builder and architect Stefano Cardu

1891: The birth of architect and designer Gio Ponti

1906: The birth of publisher Gianni Mazzocchi

1911: The birth of poet Attilio Bertolucci


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14 April 2024

Randolfo Pacciardi – anti-Fascist and journalist

Valiant republican opposed Mussolini and served his country

Pacciardi had to flee Italy when Mussolini outlawed all opposition
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 governmen
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
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
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
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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18 April 2020

Giuseppe Pella – prime minister

Economist did wonders for the value of the lira


Giuseppe Pella's time in Alcide De Gasperi's  government helped Italy's postwar recovery
Giuseppe Pella's time in Alcide De Gasperi's
government helped Italy's postwar recovery
Giuseppe Pella, who served as the 31st Prime Minister of Italy from August 1953 to January 1954, was born on this day in 1902 in Valdengo in Piedmont.

Pella is considered one of the most important politicians in Italy’s postwar history because his economic and monetarist policies led to the strong economic growth that transformed his shattered country into a global industrial power and improved the standard of living for most Italians.

Born into a family of sharecroppers, after finishing elementary school Pella attended a technical school and then an accounting institute in Turin. He graduated in economy and commerce in 1924.

Pella became a professor of accounting at the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Turin and also worked as a tax advisor and auditor.

Under the Mussolini regime, Pella was forced to join the National Fascist Party to be able to continue with his profession.

He was appointed a member of the governing council of the Fascist Culture Provincial Institute of Biella, a town near his birth place of Valdengo, and in the late 1930s was appointed deputy podestá - mayor - of Biella.

At the end of World War II he joined the Christian Democrats led by Alcide De Gasperi.

Alcide De Gasperi respected Pella's financial acumen
Alcide De Gasperi respected
Pella's financial acumen
In 1947 he was appointed minister of finance by De Gasperi.  Pella also served as minister of budget and minister of treasury. His monetarist policies were disliked by the Communist and Socialist parties.

After De Gasperi was forced to resign, Pella was appointed prime minister by President Luigi Einaudi.

He attracted criticism from other parties for quarrelling with the Yugoslav leader Marshall Tito over the status of Trieste although the public and the media regarded his actions at the time as patriotic.

Hiwever, after only five months in power, members of his own party forced Pella to resign over appointing Salvatore Aldisio as minister of agriculture.

Pella then served as President of the European Parliament from 1954 to 1956.

In 1957, Pella served as minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister in the government of Adone Zoli and in 1960 as minister of budget in the government of Amintore Fanfani.

He became president of the Senate foreign affairs committee in 1968 and briefly returned to government as finance minister in the first government of Giulio Andreotti in 1972.

After leaving politics, Pella led Piemonte Italia, an institute for studies of the regional economy.  He died in 1981 in Rome, aged 79.

The Sacro Monte di Oropa is one of the attractions of Biella, near Pella's home
The Sacro Monte di Oropa is one of the
attractions of Biella, near Pella's home
Travel tip:

Pella was born in Valdengo, a municipality in the province of Biella in Piedmont, about 60km (37 miles) northeast of Turin. The city of Biella is famous as the location of the Sacro Monte di Oropa, a Roman Catholic devotional complex, which is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.  Biella is also notable for its Romanesque baptistery, built between the 10th and 11th centuries and adjoining the city’s neoclassical cathedral.

The Palazzo Chigi has been the official Rome residence of Italian prime ministers since the 1960s
The Palazzo Chigi has been the official Rome residence
of Italian prime ministers since the 1960s
Travel tip:

The official residence of the prime minister of Italy is Palazzo Chigi, which is a 16th century palace in Piazza Colonna, just off Via del Corso and close to the Pantheon in the centre of Rome.  Work on the palace was begun in 1562 by Giacomo della Porta and completed by Carlo Maderno in 1580 for the Aldobrandini family. It was in the ownership of the Chigi family from 1659 until the 19th century.  Formerly the home of the colonial affairs minister and then the foreign minister, it became the prime minister’s official residence in the 1960s.

Also on this day:

1446: The birth of noblewoman Ippolita Maria Sforza

1480: The birth of scheming femme fatale Lucrezia Borgia

1911: The birth of racing car designer Ilario Bandini


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15 April 2020

Giovanni Amendola - journalist and politician

Liberal writer died following attack by Mussolini’s thugs


Giovanni Amendola was a committed anti-Fascist who accused Mussolini of murdering a fellow politician
Giovanni Amendola was a committed anti-Fascist who
accused Mussolini of murdering a fellow politician
Giovanni Amendola, a dedicated opponent of Fascism, was born on this day in 1882 in Naples in southern Italy.

As a critic of the right wing extremists in Italy, Amendola had to suffer a series of attacks by hired thugs. He endured a particularly brutal beating in 1925 by 15 Blackshirts armed with clubs near Montecatini Terme in Tuscany and he later died as a result of his injuries, becoming one of the earliest victims of the Fascist regime.

Amendola had obtained a degree in philosophy and contributed to the newspapers, Il Leonardo and La Voce, expressing his philosophical and ideological views. He was given the chair of theoretical philosophy at the University of Pisa but, attracted by politics, he stood for parliament and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies three times to represent Salerno.

He began contributing to Il Resto di Carlino and Corriere della Sera, urging Italy’s entry into World War I in 1915. He then fought as a volunteer, reaching the rank of captain and winning a medal for valour.

Amendola supported the Italian Liberal movement but was completely against the ideology of prime minister Giovanni Giolitti. During the war he adopted a position of democratic irredentism and at the end of hostilities was nominated as a minister by prime minister Francesco Saverio Nitti.

Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti was murdered on the orders of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini
Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti was murdered
on the orders of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini
In 1924 Amendola refused to adhere to the ‘Listone Mussolini’ and attempted to become prime minister himself at the head of a liberal coalition. He was defeated in the election but continued his battle for democracy, writing for Il Mondo, a new daily newspaper, which he had founded together with other intellectuals.

Amendola is famous for publishing the Rossi Testimony in December 1924. The document directly implicated the prime minister, Mussolini, in the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, the leader of the Socialist PSU party as well as declaring that Mussolini was behind the reign of terror that had led up to the 1924 elections.

Amendola was one of the deputies who withdrew from the Chamber in protest against the result afterwards. In spite of the threats against his life that had been made during the election campaign, he declared the Fascist government to be unconstitutional.

He was resented by Mussolini for his prominent opposition and as a result suffered an horrific attack in July 1925. He managed to get out of the country and into the south of France but, still suffering from his severe injuries, he died in April 1926 in Cannes.

Amendola left a wife and four children. His eldest son, Giorgio Amendola, became an important political writer and politician.

The statue of Giovanni Amendola in front of Salerno's Palazzo di Giustizia
The statue of Giovanni Amendola in
front of Salerno's Palazzo di Giustizia
Travel tip:

Salerno, the city represented in parliament by Giovanni Amendola, is in Campania in southern Italy on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It has a Greek and Roman heritage and was an important Lombard principality in the middle ages, when the first medical school in the world was founded there. King Victor Emmanuel III moved there in 1943, making it a provisional seat of Government for six months and it was the scene of Allied landings during the invasion of Italy in World War II.  There is a statue of Giovanni Amendola in front of the Palazzo di Giustizia in Salerno.

The Terme Tettuccio is one of the most famous of  Montecatini Terme's famed spas
The Terme Tettuccio is one of the most famous of
Montecatini Terme's famed spas
Travel tip:

Montecatini Terme in Tuscany, where Amendola suffered the attack that caused his death, is an elegant spa town in the province of Pistoia. Its heyday was in the early part of the 20th century, when restaurants, theatres, nightclubs and a casino were built there and many celebrities visited. The town welcomed the famous composers, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Giuseppe Verdi and Pietro Mascagni, and the tenor, Beniamino Gigli.

Also on this day:

1446: The death of architect Filippo Brunelleschi

1452: The birth of Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci

1754: The death of Venetian mathematician Jacopo Riccati


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8 April 2019

Renzo De Felice - historian

Renzo De Felice was accused of trying to generate sympathy for Fascism
Renzo De Felice was accused of trying
to generate sympathy for Fascism

Mussolini biographer whose views on fascism aroused anger


The controversial historian Renzo De Felice, best known for his 6,000-page four-volume biography of Benito Mussolini, was born on this day in 1929 in Rieti, the northernmost city in Lazio.

Although De Felice was Jewish and his other major work described in detail the persecution of Jews in Italy under Mussolini’s rule, he sparked considerable anger by arguing that the postwar world view of Fascism should be revised to recognise that the ideology in itself was not inherently evil.

De Felice contended that fascism as a political movement in Italy was not the same as Fascism as a regime, arguing that the former was a revolutionary middle-class ideology that had its roots in the progressive thinking of the Age of Enlightenment.

He argued that the ideology was effectively hijacked by Mussolini to provide the superstructure for his dictatorship and personal ambition and that fascism itself, as distinct from Mussolini’s interpretation, was a valid political concept, not just something to be demonized and dismissed in simplistic terms.

Renzo De Felice spent more than 30 years writing a 6,000-page biography of Mussolini
Renzo De Felice spent more than 30 years writing a
6,000-page biography of Mussolini
It was an argument that was respected by many intellectuals, even some who were staunchly anti-Fascist, but when De Felice’s magnum opus, which took him more than 30 years to write, seemed to challenge the established postwar view of Fascism as a criminal regime imposed by Mussolini and his squads of Black Shirts, there was considerable anger.

Critics of De Felice, a professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, interpreted his favourable assessment of some of social and economic reforms introduced by Mussolini, and his argument that he was largely a popular leader until the outbreak of the Second World War, as an attempt to rehabilitate fascism. Some accused him of being an apologist for the self-styled Duce.

Denis Mack Smith, an Oxford historian and the author of several histories of Italy, denounced De Felice for minimizing the uglier side of Fascism, such as Mussolini's personal responsibility for killing political opponents and leading Italy to ruin in his unwavering support for Hitler, while Nicola Tranfaglia, a professor of history at the University of Turin, argued that De Felice overstated Il Duce's popular support, pointing out that while Mussolini enjoyed a measure of popularity with ordinary Italians, he would not risk free elections.

From Italy’s political Left came complaints that De Felice was too sympathetic to Italian Fascism, even that he supported it. A few months before he died, two incendiary devices were thrown at his house in Rome, although no one claimed responsibility for the attack.

De Felice (right) with his publisher, Vito Laterza
De Felice (right) with his publisher, Vito Laterza
However, Italy’s intellectual Communist leader Giorgio Amendola defended De Felice, rejecting many of the criticisms and even endorsing some of De Felice's ideas, agreeing with his assessment that the movement had a revolutionary aspect in its infancy and that Mussolini's Fascism did attract support among the population.

De Felice himself was a former member of the Italian Communist Party, which he had joined as a student.  He left after the party declared its support for the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and joined the Italian Socialist Party.

He died in Rome in 1996 at the age of 67, having been ill for several years. In accordance with his wishes, he was given a small, private funeral, devoid of ceremony.

When news of his death emerged, there were tributes from many political figures, including the President of the Republic, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, while many newspapers described him as one of the greatest Italian historians of the 20th century.

Beyond Italy, his death brought praise for De Felice for his independent spirit, his intellectual courage and the thoroughness of his research.

The Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with the Fontana dei Delfini, is the central square of Rieti
The Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with the Fontana dei Delfini,
is the central square of Rieti
Travel tip:

Situated about 80km (50 miles) northeast of Rome, the city of Rieti sits in the far northeastern corner of the Lazio region, near the borders with Abruzzo, Le Marche and Umbria. The ancient capital of the area once known as Sabina, Rieti has a population of around 47,000 people and is a popular destination for visitors from Rome, who enjoy the peaceful nature of the city and the surrounding area. Although it was once the site of a Roman city on the Via Salaria - the “salt road” linking Rome with the Adriatic coast - only a few remains are visible, although the remnants of a third-century bridge are a point of interest. At the heart of the present city is Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with the Fontana dei Delfini at the centre. The nearby 13th century Palazzo Comunale houses the Civic Museum, which houses artifacts from the 9th BC through to the Roman era, along with paintings from the 14th century onwards. Some famous architects worked in the city, including Carlo Maderno, who designed the Renaissance-style Palazzo Vecchiarelli in the late 16th century.

Bucatini all'Amatriciana originates from Amatrice, a town not from from Rieti famed for its food
Bucatini all'Amatriciana originates from Amatrice, a town
not from from Rieti famed for its food
Travel tip:

Rieti is known for its hill cuisine, with hearty stews and meat dishes and handmade pasta dishes. Potatoes, mushrooms, truffles, and wild berries grow in the area and figure into the regional cuisine, as does homemade Pecorino cheese and sausages. The nearby town of Amatrice, which suffered considerable damage in an earthquake in 2016, is home to the famed pasta dish Spaghetti all'Amatriciana. The Rieti area has its own DOC wines, too - Colli della Sabina, in white and red varieties.

Also on this day:

1492: The death of Renaissance ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent

1848: The death of composer Gaetano Donizetti

1868: The birth of equestrian pioneer Federico Caprilli



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25 March 2019

Tina Anselmi - ground-breaking politician

Former partisan became Italy’s first female cabinet minister


Tina Anselmi was the first Italian woman to hold a position inside an Italian cabinet
Tina Anselmi was the first Italian woman to
hold a position inside an Italian cabinet
The politician Tina Anselmi, who made history in 1976 as the first woman to hold a ministerial position in an Italian government and later broke new ground again when she was appointed to chair the public inquiry into the infamous Propaganda Due masonic lodge, was born on this day in 1927 in Castelfranco Veneto.

Anselmi was chosen as Minister for Labour and Social Security and then Minister for Health in the government led by Giulio Andreotti from 1976 to 1979.

In 1981, she became the first woman to lead a public inquiry in Italy when she was asked to head the commission looking into the clandestine and illegal P2 masonic lodge, which had among its members prominent journalists, members of parliament, industrialists, and military leaders and was suspected of involvement in many scandals in pursuit of an ultra-right agenda.

Anselmi’s political views were heavily influenced by her upbringing in the Veneto during the years of Mussolini and war. She was from a comfortable background - her father was a pharmacist in Castelfranco Veneto, while her mother ran an osteria with her grandmother - but became aware of the threat to freedom posed by the Fascist system when he father was persecuted by Mussolini’s supporters for expressing socialist views.

The Via dei Martiri in Bassano del Grappa celebrates the memory of the massacred partisans
The Via dei Martiri in Bassano del Grappa
celebrates the memory of the massacred partisans
The defining moment came in 1944, by which time she had finished high school in Castelfranco and was attending a Teaching Institute in nearby Bassano del Grappa. On September 26 of that year, aged 17, she and her fellow pupils were summoned to the town’s main square to witness the hanging of 31 young partisans, many of them not much older than her, by soldiers of the occupying German army.

The executions were intended to strike fear into anyone thinking of joining the growing resistance movement. On Anselmi, it had the opposite effect.

Under the nom de guerre Gabriella, she became a courier for the partisans, making journeys by bicycle of up to 70 miles (113km) a day on behalf of the Cesare Battisti brigade - named after the Italian patriot hanged by the Austrians in 1916 - smuggling weapons and ammunition and delivering messages.

It was extremely dangerous work. Her commander had told her that if she were caught, the best she could hope for was that she would be killed at once.

The experience made her understand what democracy meant and she resolved to spend her life defending the values it enshrined and the rights of the individual, especially those of women.

When the Second World War had ended, she studied literature at the Catholic University of Milan and became a primary school teacher. She held positions in Christian trade unions, including the primary teachers' union from 1948-55.

Anselmi chaired the inquiry into the illegal P2 masonic lodge
Anselmi chaired the inquiry into
the illegal P2 masonic lodge
Her career in politics began in earnest in 1959. Unlike other partisans drawn towards communism, Anselmi had joined the Christian Democracy Party at the end of the war and in 1959 she became a member of the party’s national council as head of youth programmes.

Re-elected five times as a deputy for the Venice-Treviso district, Anselmi served three times as under-secretary to the Department of Work and Social Services, and in 1976 she became the first woman to be a member of an Italian cabinet.

She is best known for having been the main proposer of Italian laws on equal opportunities. She passed a bill which recognised fathers as primary caregivers for their children and supported legislation on gender parity in employment conditions. She played a significant role in the introduction of Italy's National Health Service.

Throughout her career, Anselmi earned respect as a straight-talking campaigner, but also as a politician whose first thought was for her responsibility to the public, rather than the direction of her career.

When she was appointed to lead the P2 enquiry, it soon became clear that she had every intention of disturbing the established order and with so many high-profile and well-connected individuals under suspicion she found herself variously followed, threatened - dynamite was found at her house in Rome - and spied on as part of several attempts to warn her off.

Yet after four years and almost 500 sessions, the inquiry reported in 1984 and concluded that P2’s network of power represented a clear threat to democracy. It was a triumph for Anselmi, although much to her frustration and disappointment, her proposed reforms were left to gather dust.

In the broader picture, however, the work of Anselmi’s commission was an important part of the process of exposing corruption in the Italian political system, which would reach a conclusion a decade later with the dismantling of both the Christian Democrats and the Italian Socialist Party, along with the Social Democrats and the Liberals, with new groups emerging in their place.

After her retirement, Anselmi was mooted as a potential candidate for the presidency of Italy, although ill health counted against her. She died in Castelfranco in 2016 at the age of 89.

Travel tip:

Bassano del Grappa is an historic town at the foot of Monte Grappa in the Vicenza province of the Veneto, famous for inventing grappa, a spirit made from the grape skins and stalks left over from wine production, which is popular with Italians as an after dinner drink to aid digestion. The town’s main attraction is the Ponte degli Alpini, also known as the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge across the Brenta river designed in 1569 by Andrea Palladio. It has been rebuilt several times after being damaged or destroyed by wars but always to the original design. The painter Jacopo Bassano was born in Bassano del Grappa and took his name from the town.

Hotels in Bassano del Grappa by Booking.com

The walls of Castelfranco Veneto have been providing protection for the old city since 1211
The walls of Castelfranco Veneto have been providing
protection for the old city since 1211
Travel tip:

Castelfranco Veneto, a small town midway between Treviso and Vicenza in the Veneto region, is notable for its fortified old city, which lies at the centre of the town surrounded by high walls and a moat. Inside are a number of streets and the old city’s Duomo, which contains an altarpiece by the town’s most famous son, the High Renaissance artist Giorgione, thought to have been painted between 1503 and 1504. Next to the Duomo is the Casa Giorgione, thought to have been the artist’s home, which is now a museum.

19 November 2018

Pino Rauti – politician and journalist

Writer chronicled the story of Fascism in Italy


Pino Rauti was a prominent figure in far-right Italian politics for 64 years
Pino Rauti was a prominent figure in
far-right Italian politics for 64 years
Pino Rauti, leader of the neo-fascist Social Idea Movement, was born Giuseppe Umberto Rauti on this day in 1926 in Cardinale in Calabria.

Rauti was to become a leading figure on the far right of Italian politics from 1948 until his death in 2012.

As a young man he had volunteered for the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of Benito Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic and he then went on to join the Spanish Foreign Legion.

After his return to Italy, Rauti joined the post-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). He became associated with Julius Evola, a leading fascist philosopher, and became editor of his journal, Imperium.

Rauti joined the staff of the Rome-based daily Il Tempo in 1953 and later became the Italian correspondent for the Aginter Press, a fake press agency set up in Portugal in 1966 to combat communism.

In 1954 he established his own group within MSI, the Ordine Nuovo, but he became disillusioned with MSI and his group separated from the party two years later.

Rauti worked as a journalist on the
Rome newspaper Il Tempo
Rauti’s name was linked with a number of terror attacks, including the Piazza Fontana bombing. He was brought to trial in 1972 over this atrocity at a Milan bank, which caused 17 deaths, but he was acquitted through lack of evidence.

There were other claims linking him with terrorist activities but he was never convicted of any offences.

Rauti returned to MSI and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1972. In the 1980s, he became a leading figure in the European Parliament.

He went up against Gianfranco Fini for leadership of MSI in 1987 but Fini’s more moderate policies won him the biggest share of the vote.  In 1990, he did replace Fini as leader, but the party’s performance in the next regional elections was the worst in its history and he was removed from the leadership in 1991, with Fini taking charge again.

When Fini founded the Alleanza Nazionale in place of MSI, Rauti led a group of militants to form the Fiamma Tricolore, which he saw as continuing the path of Fascism.

Pino Rauti with Gianfranco Fini (left), whom he replaced as  leader of the MSI party in 1990
Pino Rauti with Gianfranco Fini (left), whom he replaced as
leader of the MSI party in 1990
Rauti stood down as leader in 2002 in favour of Luca Romagnoli, who then sought to work with Silvio Berlusconi’s House of Freedoms coalition. Rauti became a strong critic of Romagnoli and was eventually expelled from the party he had founded.  It was then that he established his own party, the Social Idea Movement.

Between 1966 and 1990, Rauti wrote a number of books about the history of Fascism and the policies of Mussolini.

Rauti died in Rome in November 2012, aged 85.

His daughter, Isabella, who also became a journalist, is now a member of Fratelli Italia, a conservative nationalist party formed by former members of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party. She was elected as Senator for Mantua earlier this year. She is the ex-wife of a former Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno.

A view over the rooftops of Cardinale in Calabria
A view over the rooftops of Cardinale in Calabria
Travel tip:

Cardinale in Calabria, where Pino Rauti was born, is a comune in the province of Catanzaro, the capital city of the region. Cardinale was proved to be a Neolithic site in the 19th century, when work was being carried out to reinforce an old iron bridge and axes made from stone were found, establishing the presence of man there as far back as the stone age. These axes can now be seen in the Archaeological Museum in Crotone.

The Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome, seat of the Chamber of Deputies
The Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome, seat
of the Chamber of Deputies
Travel tip:

The Camera dei Deputati - the Chamber of Deputies -  is one of Italy’s houses of parliament, the other being the Senate of the Republic. The Camera dei Deputati meets at Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome, a palace originally designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and completed by Carlo Fontana in 1697, which is to the north of the Pantheon.

More reading:

How Giorgio Almirante tried to make MSI acceptable in mainstream Italian politics

Fini's move away from Fascism

The Piazza Fontana bombing

Also on this day:

1877: The birth of Giuseppe Volpi, founder of the Venice Film Festival

1893: The birth of Giuseppe Curreri, better known as the boxer Johnny Dundee

1907: The birth of Luigi Beccali, winner of Italy's first track gold at the Olympics


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14 November 2018

Carlo Emilio Gadda - writer and novelist

Author who drew comparisons with Levi and Joyce


Carlo Emilio Gadda was an engineer before he became a full-time writer
Carlo Emilio Gadda was an engineer
before he became a full-time writer
The essayist and novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda, whose work has been compared with the writings of Primo Levi, James Joyce and Marcel Proust, was born on this day in 1893 in Milan.

His novels and short stories were considered outstanding for his original and innovative style, moving away from the rather staid language of Italian literature in the early 20th century, adding elements of dialect, technical jargon and wordplay.

It has been said that Gadda opted for his experimental style because he thought that only through the use of a fragmentary, incoherent language could he adequately portray what he considered a disintegrated world.

Born into an upper middle-class family living on Via Manzoni in the centre of Milan, Gadda lost his father when he was only a child, after which his mother had to bring up the family on limited means, although she refused to compromise with her lifestyle. His father’s business ineptitude and his mother’s obsession with keeping up appearances would figure strongly in his 1963 novel, La cognizione del dolore, published in English as Acquainted with Grief.

Gadda fought in the First World War as a volunteer with the Alpini and was captured at the Battle of Caporetto, in which the Italians suffered a catastrophic defeat. His younger brother Enrico, an aviator, was killed. A fervent nationalist at the time of Italy’s entry into the conflict, he was deeply humiliated by the months he had to spend as a German prisoner of war.

Gadda's most famous work is available in English
Gadda's most famous work is
available in English
During the 1920s he worked as an electrical engineer, often abroad. He spent several years in Argentina, although at home he was credited with the construction, as engineer, of the Vatican Power Station for Pope Pius XI.

He began writing in the 1930s after moving to Florence and joining a literary group around the Florentine review Solaria. He wrote a number of essays and short stories, from the beginning demonstrating a fascination with linguistic experimentation as well as a gift for psychological and sociological analysis. His first works were collected in I sogni e la folgore (1955; The Dreams and the Lightning).

Gadda became a full-time writer in 1940, although between 1950 and 1955 he worked for RAI, the Italian radio and television network. He lived in Rome, alone, in a cheap apartment in Via Blumenstihl.

At one time an admirer of Mussolini, he later satirised the dictator in Eros e Priapo (1945), in which he analysed the collective phenomena that favoured the rise of Italian Fascism, arguing that Fascism was essentially a bourgeois movement.  Refused publication initially for its allegedly obscene content, it was not until 2013 that the work was published in fully unexpurgated form.

Gadda's birthplace in Milan is marked with a plaque
Gadda's birthplace in Milan is marked with a plaque
Gadda’s best-known and most successful novel, Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957; That Awful Mess on Via Merulana), is a story of a murder and burglary in Fascist Rome and of the subsequent investigation, which features characters from many levels of Roman life, written in a pastiche of literary Italian mixed with passages of Roman dialect, dotted with puns, technical jargon, foreign words, invented words and classical allusions.

At once a sociological, comic and political novel, as well as an extraordinary feat of wordplay, at the end of which nothing has been established or proven in relation to the crime, it was described as 'the great modern Italian novel' by Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Alberto Moravia. 

Gadda died in Rome in 1973, at the age of 79.

The Stadio Olimpico is the home of Rome's two soccer clubs
The Stadio Olimpico is the home of Rome's two soccer clubs
Travel tip:

Via Bernardo Blumenstihl, where Gadda lived in Rome, may have been a modest address in the 1940s but today is in a quiet, upmarket residential area in which many of the apartment complexes have swimming pools and tennis courts and communal gardens.  Situated to the northwest of the city centre, it is not far from the Stadio Olimpico, home of the AS Roma and SS Lazio football clubs.

The Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome
The Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome
Travel tip:

Via Merulana is a street in Rome, to the southeast of the centre, linking the magnificent Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, with its imposing 18th century Baroque facade by Alessandro Galilei, and the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore, famous for its Roman mosaics and gilded ceiling. The name derives from family that owned the land in medieval times.  It forms part of the Rione Monti, near the Oppian Hill.

More reading:

How Alberto Moravia likened Fascism to a childhood illness

Novelist whose books exposed political links with the Mafia

The Auschwitz survivor who became one of Italy's greatest writers

Also on this day:

1812: The birth of Maria Cristina of Savoy

1812: The birth of poet Aleardo Aleardi

1897: The death of soprano Giuseppina Strepponi


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21 October 2018

Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

Cousin of Italy's wartime monarch died in a POW camp


As Governor-General, the Duke of Aosta led the East Africa Campaign
As Governor-General, the Duke of
Aosta led the East Africa Campaign
Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who died in a British prisoner-of-war camp after leading the defeated Italian Army in the East Africa Campaign of the Second World War, was born on this day in 1898 in Turin.

After distinguished military service in the First World War and seeing action as a pilot in the pacification of Italian Libya in the early 1930s, Amedeo had been appointed by Mussolini as Viceroy of Ethiopia and Governor-General of Italian East Africa in 1937, replacing the controversial Marshal Rodolfo Graziani.

Italy’s entry into the Second World War on the side of Germany in June 1940 meant the Duke of Aosta became the commander of the Italian forces against the British in what became known as the East African Campaign.

As such, he oversaw the Italian advances into the Sudan and Kenya and the Italian invasion of British Somaliland.

However, when the British launched a counter-invasion early the following year, the Italians were put on the defensive and after fighting desperately to protect their territory were beaten in the Battle of Keren. The rest of Eritrea, including the port of Massawa, fell soon afterwards.

Amedeo pictured with Umberto, Prince of Piedmont, the future King
Amedeo pictured with Umberto, Prince
of Piedmont, the future King
Amedeo attempted to save such resources as he still had by deploying his remaining troops to defend a number of strongholds, putting himself in charge of 7,000 Italians at the mountain fortress of Amba Alagi.

He was forced to surrender on May 18, his forces besieged by 9,000 British and Commonwealth troops and more than 20,000 Ethiopian irregulars, although their gallant resistance was noted by the British, who allowed them to lay down their arms with dignity.

The Duke was sent to a prison camp in Nairobi, Kenya but died there the following March, reportedly from complications caused by tuberculosis and malaria.

Born Amedeo Umberto Isabella Luigi Filippo Maria Giuseppe Giovanni di Savoia-Aosta, he was the third Duke of Aosta and a first cousin, once removed, of the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.

His parents were Prince Emanuele Filiberto, second Duke of Aosta, and Princess Hélène, who was the daughter of Prince Philippe of Orléans. His great-grandfather was King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, making him a member of the House of Savoy.

An exceptional tall man, standing at 6ft 6ins (1.98m), he towered over the king, who was barely 5ft 0ins (1.53m).

Prince Amedeo and Princess Anne of Orléans in the Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples on their wedding day
Prince Amedeo and Princess Anne of Orléans in the
Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples on their wedding day
Educated in England at St David's College, Reigate, Surrey - about 40km (25 miles) south of central London - he cultivated British mannerisms, spoke Oxford English, and even enjoyed the pastimes of fox hunting and polo.

He joined the Italian Royal Army after attending the Nunziatella military academy in Naples.  He travelled widely in Africa after leaving the army in 1921, which gave him knowledge of the area he would later govern.

Widely known and respected for the gentlemanly way in which he conducted himself, Amedeo became Duke of Aosta on the death of his father

Count Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Foreign Minister under his father-in-law Mussolini, said that with the Duke's death “the image of a Prince and an Italian - simple in his ways, broad in outlook, and humane in spirit - died with him."

Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia applauded the respect and care shown by the Duke to the exiled Emperor's personal property left behind in Addis Ababa.

Amedeo was married in November 1927 in Naples, to his first cousin HRH Princess Anne of Orléans (1906–1986).  They had two daughters and although both married royal princes - Margherita married Robert, Archduke of Austria-Este and Maria Cristina wed Prince Casimir of Bourbon-Two Sicilies - the lack of a male heir to Amedeo meant the title Duke of Aosta passed to his younger brother, Aimone.

The Nunziatella complex in the Pizzofalcone district if Naples, near the city centre
The Nunziatella complex in the Pizzofalcone
district if Naples, near the city centre
Travel tip:

The Nunziatella Military School of Naples, founded in November 1787 under the name of Royal Military Academy, is the oldest military school in the world among those still operating. Located in Via Generale Parisi in Pizzofalcone, it takes its name from the adjacent church of the Santissima Annunziata. In addition to Prince Amedeo and King Vittorio Emanuele III, the alumni include one former director of the European Union military committee, two chiefs of defence staff, four army chiefs of staff, two navy chiefs of staff, one air chief of staff, two commanders general of the Guardia di Finanza and two commanders general of the Carabinieri, as well as three prime ministers.

The beautiful Castello di Miramare near Trieste, where Prince Amedeo's daughter Maria Christina was born
The beautiful Castello di Miramare near Trieste, where
Prince Amedeo's daughter Maria Christina was born
Travel tip:

Prince Amedeo’s younger daughter, Maria Christina of Savoy-Aosta, was born at the Castello di Miramare, near Trieste, in 1933. Located on the end of a rocky spur jutting into Gulf of Trieste, about 8km (5 miles) from Trieste itself, the Hapsburg castle was built between 1856 and 1860 for Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium, based on a design by Carl Junker.  The castle's grounds include an extensive cliff and seashore park of 22 hectares (54 acres) designed by the archduke, which features many tropical species of trees and plants.  Legend has it that Ferdinand chose the spot to build the castle after taking refuge from a storm in the gulf in the sheltered harbour of Grignano that sits behind the spur.

More reading:

Umberto II, the last King of Italy

King Victor Emmanuel III abdicates

Why Galeazzo Ciano died in front of a firing squad

Also on this day:

1581: The birth of the Baroque master Domenichino

1928: The birth of the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli



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