Armando Diaz - First World War general

Neapolitan commander led decisive victory over Austria

General Armando Diaz in 1918

Armando Diaz, the general who masterminded Italy's victory over Austrian forces at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in 1918, was born on this day in 1861 in Naples.

The battle, which ended the First World War on the Italian front, also precipitated the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ending more than 200 years of Austrian control of substantial parts of Italy.

The general's announcement of the total defeat of the Austrian Army at Vittorio Veneto sparked one of the greatest moments of celebration in the history of Italy, with some Italians seeing it as the final culmination of the Risorgimento movement and the unification of Italy.

Diaz was born to a Neapolitan father of Spanish heritage and an Italian mother. He decided to pursue his ambitions to of a military career despite the preference for soldiers of Piedmontese background in newly formed Royal Italian Army.

After attending military colleges in Naples and Turin, Diaz served with distinction in the Italo-Turkish War.

In 1914, when the First World War broke out, General Count Luigi Cadorna promoted Diaz to major general and made him Chief of Operations.

Italian troops on the move in Val d'Assa
during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto

The disastrous Battle of Caporetto, which took place near what is now the Slovenian town of Kobarid, saw the Royal Italian Army overwhelmed in the face of the Austrian advance, losing 300,000 men. It spelled the end for General Cadorna and Diaz was appointed to replace him as Chief of Staff.

Diaz had to rebuild the army and restore morale after Caporetto, while at the same time making progress against the Austrians.  Yet he proved to be enormously astute. His strategy was defensive but well-timed tactical strikes inflicted significant losses on the enemy.

When the Austrians launched their next offensive, Diaz's forces repelled them and some 150,000 Austrians were killed or wounded.

Diaz was under pressure from the Allies to make gains for Italy to ensure the territorial concessions promised by France and Britain were granted but was determined to bide his time. He did not want to move until what he considered the most opportune moment against a weakened enemy in which unity was beginning to fragment.

That moment came on October 23, 1918, when the Italian offensive was launched against Austro-Hungarian forces at Vittorio - later Vittorio Veneto - the point chosen because Diaz reasoned that the capture of the town, at the midway point of the Austro-Hungarian line across northern Italy, would split the enemy forces in two and make it much more likely their resistance would crumble.

An attack was launched along a line that stretched from Venice through Treviso, Vicenza and Bormio and within seven days Vittorio Veneto had fallen. The Austrians lost 35,000 dead, 100,000 wounded and a further 300,000 to 500,000 were captured as prisoners of war.

By contrast, only 5,800 Italians were killed and 26,000 wounded.

Austro-Hungarian troops captured
at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto

As bad as Caporetto had been for Italy, Vittorio Veneto was worse for the Austrians, and not just in terms of casualties. During the offensive, Hungary broke away from Austria and ordered the Hungarian troops on the Italian front to stop fighting.  Czechoslovakia then declared itself independent of Austria, as did Yugoslavia.

Diaz was given much of the credit and in 1921 was appointed to the Senate by King Victor Emmanuel III and given the title 'Duke of Victory'.  In the same year he became the first Italian general to be honoured with a ticker tape parade in New York City when he and other Allied commanders visited the United States.

Diaz became a somewhat controversial figure in the years after the First World War, persuading Victor Emmanuel III against the military action that might have prevented Mussolini's Fascists coming to power.

The King had wanted his soldiers to be ready to fire on Mussolini's armed Blackshirts if they went ahead with their planned 'march on Rome' in October 1922 but Diaz, aware of significant support for Mussolini's nationalistic ambitions within the army's rank and file, feared there might be a mutiny if the order was given.

As a result, the Blackshirts were unopposed and Mussolini was invited to form a government.

Diaz was then appointed Minister of War in the first Fascist cabinet and later promoted to the rank of Marshal of Italy.

He retired in 1924 in failing health and died in Rome in 1928 at the age of 66.  He was buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. 

Travel tip:

Vittorio Veneto is a town of some 28,000 people in the Province of Treviso, in Veneto, situated between the Piave and Livenza rivers at the foot of the mountain region known as the Prealpi.  It was formed from the joining of the communities of Serravalle and Ceneda in 1866 and named Vittorio in honour of Victor Emmanuel II.  The Veneto suffix was added in 1923 to commemorate the decisive battle.

Hotels in Vittorio Veneto by Hotels.com

The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
off Rome's Piazza della Repubblica

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, which was built inside the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian off Rome's Piazza della Repubblica to a design by Michelangelo, was the official state church of the Kingdom of Italy (1870-1946). It hosts the tombs of both General Armando Diaz and Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, the First World War naval commander, and is today used for funerals of Italian soldiers killed abroad.

Hotels in Rome by Expedia

More reading:



Villa Giusti armistice formerly ends the First World War in Italy

Mussolini and the rise of Italian Fascism

The abdication of Victor Emmanuel III

Also on this day:

1443: Birth of Julius II - the pope who commissioned Michelangelo's greatest works

(Picture credit: Basilica by Bgabel via Wikimedia Commons)





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Emilio Pucci – fashion designer

The heroic, sporting, creative genius behind the Pucci label

Emilio Pucci

Don Emilio Pucci, Marchese di Barsento, who became a top fashion designer and politician, was born on this day in 1914 in Florence.

Pucci was born into one of the oldest families in Florence and lived and worked in the Pucci Palace in Florence for most of his life. His fashion creations were worn by such famous women as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Jackie Kennedy.

A keen sportsman who swam, skied, fenced, played tennis and raced cars, Pucci was part of the Italian team at the 1932 Winter Olympics in New York, although he did not compete.

He studied at the University of Milan, the University of Georgia, and Reed College in Oregon, where he designed the clothes for the college skiing team.

Pucci was awarded an MA in social science from Reed, where he was known to be a staunch defender of the Fascist regime in Italy. He was also awarded a doctorate in political science from the University of Florence.

It was his success as a fashion designer that would in time make his name but before that came some wartime experiences that were extraordinary to say the least.

In 1938 Pucci joined the Italian air force and served as a torpedo bomber, rising to the rank of captain and being decorated for valour.

Mussolini's daughter, Edda, who was helped by Pucci
in her bid to secure clemency for her husband, Ciano

He became a confidant of Mussolini’s eldest daughter, Edda, whom he had known as a child and met again by chance on the island of Capri, where he was sent to recuperate after being struck down with a tropical fever.

He played a key role in a plan to save her husband, Mussolini’s former foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, who was put on trial for his part in removing Mussolini from power in 1943.

Pucci and Edda planned to deliver some of Ciano’s papers, which were highly critical of Mussolini, to the Gestapo, so that they could be bartered for Ciano’s life. After Hitler vetoed the scheme, Pucci drove Edda to the Swiss border in January 1944 and helped her to escape.

Edda had written last-minute pleas to Hitler, Mussolini and General Willhelm Harstner, the German commander in Italy, to spare her husband.

Pucci delivered these letters to an intermediary and then attempted to flee to Switzerland himself but was arrested by the Germans. The Gestapo tortured him to extract information about the location of the rest of Ciano’s papers in Italy.

They then sent Pucci to Switzerland to tell Edda that she would be killed if she published any part of the diaries. After he had delivered the message he remained in Switzerland for the rest of the war.

Pucci made ends meet after the war by teaching Italian and giving ski lessons in Zermatt. He designed ski wear for himself and his friends and in 1947 one of his female friends was photographed wearing his ski wear by the magazine, Harper’s Bazaar.

He was then asked to design ski wear for a spread on European fashion which was featured in the 1948 winter edition of the magazine.

Marilyn Monroe was a fan
of Pucci's designs

Pucci set up his first boutique on Capri. He used his knowledge of stretch fabrics to produce a swimwear line, but moved on to design boldly-patterned silk scarves in bright colours, later using the designs for blouses and dresses.

He opened a boutique in Rome and by the 1950s was getting international recognition and winning awards.

Marilyn Monroe became a fan of his designs in the 1960s and was wearing his creations in some of the last photographs ever taken of her.

Subsequently, his designs were worn by celebrities such as Sophia Loren and Jackie Kennedy and, even Madonna, by the early 1990s.

Pucci designed six complete collections for Braniff Airways, to be worn by their air hostesses, pilots and ground crew, between 1965 and 1974.

In 1959 he was introduced to Baronessa Cristina Nannini at his boutique on Capri and they were later married.

Still keenly interested in politics, in the elections of 1963 Pucci contested the Florence-Pistoia district for the Liberal party. He came second on that occasion but won a seat in parliament later in the same year.  He retained his seat in 1968 but lost it in 1972.

Pucci set up his first workshop in the family's
ancestral home in Florence's San Lorenzo district

After his death in Florence in 1992 at the age of 78, his daughter, Laudomia Pucci, continued to design under the Pucci label.

The French Louis Vuitton-Moet Hennessy Group acquired 67 per cent of Pucci in 2000, with Laudomia becoming Image Director for the company.

Emilio Pucci clothes and accessories, featuring the designer’s distinctive colourful prints, are still being sold in Pucci boutiques and high-end department stores around the world.

Travel tip:

Palazzo Pucci, the ancestral home of Emilio Pucci, is in Via dè Pucci in the San Lorenzo district of Florence. The Pucci family were friends and allies of the Medici family and their palace, designed by Bartolomeo Ammannati, was built in the 16th century.

The Via Camerelle on Capri, where a
new Pucci boutique opened this year

Travel tip:

A new Pucci boutique opened earlier this year in Via Camerelle on the island of Capri. The cobblestone street in the centre of the fashionable shopping district is where Emilio Pucci himself used to stroll with his friends while living on Capri in the 1950s. He set up his first boutique, La Canzone del Mare, in 1951 at Marina Piccola, the bay opposite the huge pointed rocks known as I Faraglioni, which have become an iconic symbol of the island.

More reading:

Giorgio Armani - former army medic who forged brilliant career

Guccio Gucci - from equestrian leather shop to fashion 
empire

Salvatore Ferragamo - shoemaker to the stars

Also on this day:

1851: Birth of a Queen who had a pizza created in her honour

(Photo of Via Camerelle by Averain by Wikimedia Commons; workshop picture from emiliopucci.com)

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Francesco Rosi - film director

Documentary style put him among greats of Italian cinema

Francesco Rosi

The film director Francesco Rosi, one of Italy's most influential movie-makers over four decades, was born on this day in 1922 in Naples. 

Rosi, who made his directing debut in 1958 and filmed his last movie in 1997, built on the fashion for neo-realism that dominated Italian cinema in the immediate post-war years and his films were often highly politicised.

Many of his works were almost pieces of investigative journalism, driven by his revulsion at the corruption and inequality he witnessed in the area in which he grew up, and the dubious relationships between local government and figures from the crime world.

His film Hands Over the City, for example, starring Rod Steiger as unscrupulous land developer, sought to show how the landscape of Naples was shaped by greed and political interests.  The film's disclaimer stated that “All characters and events narrated in this film are fictitious, but the social reality that created them is authentic.”

The Mattei Affair, which starred Gian Maria Volonté - himself a political activist - tells the story of Enrico Mattei, a former Italian resistance fighter who rose to be head of ENI, the state-owned oil company, and died in a plane crash in Sicily. Conspiracy theorists linked his death with his attempt, in the middle of the Cold War, to break America's dominance of the Italian market, sign deals with Arab countries and even court Russia as a possible trading partner.

The project took Rosi's team into such dangerous political territory that one of his researchers, the journalist Mauro de Mauro, disappeared. He was never found and it is presumed he was murdered for finding out too much about the case.

Gian Maria Volonté (centre) in a scene from The Mattei Affair

Lucky Luciano, which featured Volonté and Steiger, was another movie filmed in the style of a documentary investigation, this time with its focus on the controversial role of a repatriated Sicilian-American Mafia boss in the Allied liberation of Sicily and the assault on the Italian mainland towards the end of the Second World War.

Later, with Illustrious Corpses, Rosi sought to shine light on the dark machinations of what would come to be known as 'The Strategy of Tension' during the 1980s, in which a series of deadly attacks carried out by right-wing extremists with the apparent collusion of the secret services would be blamed on activists on the hard left in order to derail an alliance being proposed between the Christian Democrat Party and the Communist Party.

Among his many awards was a Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival for The Mattei Affair, a Golden Lion at the 1963 Venice Biennale for Hands Over the City and ten David di Donatello awards from the Academy of Italian Cinema.

In 2012, he was awarded an honorary Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for lifetime achievement and leaving "an indelible mark on the history of Italian film-making".

Rosi was born in Montecalvario, a neighbourhood of central Naples that includes part of the Spanish Quarter, the Piazza Carità and the bustling Via Toledo.  His father worked in the shipping industry, but also drew satirical cartoons, once earning a reprimand for his insulting depictions of Benito Mussolini and King Vittorio Emmanuel III.

Giorgio Napoletana, a schoolfriend of Francesco Rosi,
who would go one to become President of the Republic

Rosi went to college with Giorgio Napolitano, who would later become Italian President, and they would remain lifelong friends.  He studied law but his career took him in a different direction, first as an illustrator of children's books, then as a reporter with Radio Napoli.

The connections he made through the radio station led him into theatre work and film.  After several films as assistant director, learning from Ettore Giannini and Luchino Visconti among others, he made his solo debut in 1958 with La Sfida (The Challenge), an expose of corruption in the retail trade in Naples which quickly made clear Rosi's preoccupation with social justice and the complex labyrinths in Italian society.

His breakthrough in terms of international acclaim came in 1962 with Salvatore Giuliano, a fictional exploration of the life of the Sicilian bandit of the title, his connections with the state and the church, and his role in fighting against communism in Sicily.  Rosi's aim was to use the bandit’s life and death to convey the complexities of post-war Sicilian politics and society in which "resolving the truth was an impossibility."

Salvatore Giuliano won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1962 and established Rosi as one of the central figures of the post-neorealist phase in Italian cinema, along with Gillo Pontecorvo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Taviani brothers, Ettore Scola and Valerio Zurlini.

Rosi’s later movies were accomplished productions but critics felt they lacked the power of his earlier work, although in his adaptation of Christ Stopped at Eboli, Carlo Levi's memoir about his experiences as a doctor exiled in southern Italy for his anti-Fascist views, with Volonté in the title role, came close, winning a BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film.

After ending his career in film with The Truce, based on holocaust survivor Primo Levi's memoir of returning to Italy after his liberation from Auschwitz, he returned to theatre, notably directing the Neapolitan comedies of Eduardo De Filippo.

He spent his last years living in Rome on Via Gregoriana, near the Spanish Steps.   He died in 2015 aged 92.

The Via Toledo in Naples has a typical flavour of the city

Travel tip:

Montecal- vario, where Francesco Rosi was born, is said by many visitors to capture the essence of Naples.  Bordered on one side by the Via Toledo, the busy shopping street which links Piazza Dante with Piazza Trieste e Trento, it includes the part of the Spanish Quarter in which can be found the Teatro Nuovo, an historic theatre originally built in 1724 and twice destroyed by fire.  The theatre became famous for comic opera in the 19th century and in the 20th century staged the plays of the great Neapolitian comic dramatist, Eduardo de Filippo.

Hotels in Napoli by Booking.com

Travel tip:

The Via Gregoriana, where Francesco Rosi spent his last years, is a street almost in the centre of Rome, very close to the tourist hubbub of Piazza di Spagna and the Spanish Steps, yet still retains the air of a peaceful residential thoroughfare, the kind you might expect to find in a well-to-do suburb.  Commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1575, it runs from the church of Trinita dei Monti, which looks down over Piazza di Spagna, towards Via del Tritone and has long been popular with artists and intellectuals.

Rome hotels by Booking.com

More reading:

Ennio Morricone, the film music maestro enters his 89th year

Anna Magnani - Oscar winning star of neo-realist fashion

The legacy of Fellini and La Dolce Vita

Also on this day:

1905: The birth of conductor Annunzio Mantovani


(Picture credits: Francesco Rosi by Georges Biard; Gian Maria Volonté by Pèter; Giorgio Napoletana by Ralf Roletschek; Via Toledo by Inviaggiocommons all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Attilio Pavesi - Olympic cycling champion

Rider from Emilia-Romagna won Italy's first road racing gold 

Pavesi was soon regarded as a star in Italy,
 where posters of him were everywhere

Attilio Pavesi, the first winner of an individual Olympic gold medal in Italian cycling history, was born on this day in 1910 in the small town of Caorso in Emilia-Romagna.

At the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932, Pavesi won the individual road race and picked up a second gold medal as a member of the Italian quartet that won the team classification in the same race.

Italy had already won gold medals for the team pursuit in track cycling - indeed, they won that title for the fourth time in a row in 1932 - but had not enjoyed success on the road before Pavesi's triumph.

Pavesi, the last of 11 children born to Angelo, a poultry farmer, and his wife Maria, was a natural all-round sportsman, excelling at running, long jump, swimming, diving, gymnastics and football as he grew up.

He was such a strong swimmer he once saved a boy from drowning in a local river by pulling him to the bank by his hair.

His interest in cycling developed after he left school at the age of 10 to take a job in a workshop, learning how to repair all modes of transport from bicycles to tractors.  He joined a cycling team and won a number of trophies and continued to compete during his national service.

Pavesi was selected to travel to Los Angeles as a reserve for the road race but was determined that he would not make the arduous journey just to be a spectator.  The transatlantic crossing typically took about two weeks and when he boarded the SS Conte Biancamano in Naples he had a plan to keep himself in good physical shape by exercising each day.  Luckily, while others on the voyage suffered from seasickness, he was unaffected.

The SS Conte Biancamano pictured at the port of Naples

After disembarking in New York, the Italian athletes then had to make a five-day journey by train to cross from the east coast to the west.  When their individual fitness was assessed, Pavesi was in the best shape and was picked as one of the four-man team.

He won the race, staged as a 100km time trial with the finishing line on Santa Monica Beach, with a time of two hours, 28 minutes and five seconds.  With team-mate Guglielmo Segato second and Giuseppe Olmo fourth, Italy comfortably won the team gold.

Pavesi afterwards attributed his physical strength to his mother's home-made bread.

After the Games, Pavesi turned professional, competing in cycle races at home and abroad.  At the time when the future of Italy and Europe was becoming increasingly uncertain with the outbreak of the Second World War began, he decided to emigrate to Argentina.

The circumstances are not clear, but it appears he had been competing in an event in Buenos Aires when the boat on which he intended to return to Italy departed without him. He eventually settled in the town of Sáenz Peña on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where he opened a bicycle shop and organised professional races.

Pavesi's victory paved the way for a golden period for Italian cycling, with the next six Olympics after the War bringing 16 gold medals.

He visited Italy regularly but Argentina became his home and he had such good health that he survived beyond his 100th birthday.  He was the oldest surviving Olympian when he passed away in August 2011, just two months shy of his 101st birthday.  He spent his final days in a nursing home, looked after by his son Claudio and daughter Patricia.

Pavesi's last visit to Italy was in 2003 at the age of 93, as the principal guest at the opening of the Fiorenzuola Velodrome, not far from Caorso.  The complex contains an Attilio Pavesi Museum, commemorating his career.

The historic Rocca Mandelli in Caorso houses the town hall

Travel tip:

The town of Caorso is notable for the Rocca Mandelli, a fortress built in 820 by the sisters of the Bishop of Piacenza, Imelde and Ursa.  It is thought that the fort was first known as Ca' Ursa - the house of Ursa - from which evolved the name Caorso. The Mandelli family took control of the fort in the late 14th century and it remained in their ownership for more than 400 years.  Nowadays it houses the town hall and municipal offices.

Travel tip:

Piacenza, which stands at the confluence of the Po and Trebbia rivers, was declared "First born of the Unification of Italy" after what happened in 1848 when a massive 98 per cent of the population voted to become part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, having previously been occupied by Austria and Croatia.  It remained strategically important and suffered severe damage at the hands of Allied bombers in the Second World War.  Surviving buildings include the 13th century town hall - Il Gotico - on Piazza Cavelli and the 12th century Romanesque Cathedral.

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Mussolini's last stand

Deposed dictator proclaims Republic of Salò 

A Luftwaffe general inspects soldiers of the Italian Social
Republic in Rome in 1943

In what would prove the final chapter of his political career - and his life - Benito Mussolini proclaimed the creation of the Italian Social Republic on this day in 1943.

The establishment of this new state with the Fascist dictator as its leader was announced just 11 days after German special forces freed Mussolini from house arrest in the Apennine mountains.

Although Mussolini was said to be in failing health and had hoped to slip quietly into the shadows after his escape, Hitler's compassion for his Italian ally - whose rescue had been on the direct orders of the Fuhrer - did not extend to giving him an easy route into retirement.

Faced with an Allied advance along the Italian peninsula that was gathering momentum, he put Mussolini in charge of the area of northern and central Italy of which the German army had taken control following the Grand Fascist Council's overthrow of the dictator.

Although the area was renamed the Italian Social Republic - also known as the Republic of Salò after the town on the shores of Lake Garda where Mussolini's new government was headquartered - it was essentially a puppet German state.  Only Germany and its other ally, Japan, recognised it as legitimate.

Mussolini and Hitler in Munich with
Ciano second left in the picture

Reluctant though he was now to continue what he knew was a losing fight against the Allies, Mussolini did take advantage of his restored powers by taking revenge against those Fascists he perceived to have betrayed him by voting for his removal.

These included his son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano, his former Foreign Minister, who had fled to Germany after Mussolini's reinstatement only to be sent back on Hitler's orders.  Mussolini's daughter, Edda, pleaded with her father for Ciano to be spared but she was ignored. Ciano and five others were executed by firing squad.

Although Mussolini was theoretically head of his own Italian army, which numbered about 150,000 personnel, decisions were taken in Germany, among them an order to carry out mass executions of Italian citizens in revenge for attacks on German soldiers by the Italian resistance.  One such attack in March 1944 triggered the slaughter of 335 Italians in retaliation for a bomb attack that killed 33 German soldiers. Mussolini was powerless to prevent the massacre of his own citizens, which hardly helped his popularity.

Meanwhile, the Allied advanced steadily forced the German army into retreat and by April 1945 the end for Mussolini and his Italian Social Republic was becoming inevitable.  In his public speeches, Mussolini was defiant, urging his people to ‘fight to the last Italian’. Secretly, however, he was plotting his escape.

On April 25, accompanied by a few fellow Fascists who still supported him, he and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, fled Salò, hoping to reach neutral Switzerland. His wife, Rachele, was left behind in Salò.  He had been on the run for only a day, however, when he was recognised at a checkpoint set up by Italian partisans on the shores of Lake Como and captured.

Two days later, Mussolini, Petacci and the rest of his entourage were executed, after which their bodies were taken to Milan and suspended for public display from a beam above a petrol station.

Travel tip:

For all its regrettable association with such a despised figure as Mussolini, Salò has recovered to become a pleasant resort on the shore of Lake Garda, visited by many tourists each year. Its promenade is the longest of any of the lakeside towns and it has a Duomo rebuilt in Gothic style in the 15th century as well as a museum commemorating, among other things, the resistance against Fascism.

Piazzale Loreto in Milan today, a square bearing little
resemblance to how it looked in 1945

Travel tip:

Visitors to Milan hoping to find the scene of Mussolini's final humiliation, when his body and those of his mistress and accomplices were hung upside down from a beam across an Esso petrol station, will find little evidence that the event took place.  Piazzale Loreto, the location of the Esso station, was renamed Piazza Quindici Martiri in honour of 15 Italian partisans murdered by Fascist militia in the same square in 1944. Nowadays a busy intersection of the SP11 highway north-west of the city centre at the end of the Corso Buenos Aires, it has changed in appearance so much as to be unrecognisable in comparison with archive pictures showing how it was in the 1940s.

(Wartime photos from German archives)
(Photo of Piazzale Loreto by Arbalete CC BY-SA 3.0)

More reading

Germans free Mussolini in daring Gran Sasso raid

Partisans capture and execute dictator Mussolini

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Rossano Brazzi - Hollywood star

Actor quit as a lawyer for career on the big screen

Rossano Brazzi in a publicity shot
from a 1952 Italian magazine

The movie actor Rossano Brazzi, whose credits include The Barefoot Contessa, Three Coins in the Fountain and South Pacific, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.

Brazzi gave up a promising career as a lawyer in order to act and went on to appear in more than 200 films, more often than not cast as a handsome heartbreaker or romantic aristocrat.

He was at his peak in the 50s and 60s but continued to accept parts until the late 80s. His last major role was as Father DeCarlo in Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981.

Brazzi's family moved to Florence when he was aged four. His father Adelmo, a shoemaker, opened a leather factory in which Rossano, his brother Oscar and his sister, Franca, would all eventually work.

Adelmo had ambitions for Rossano, however, helping him win a place at the University of Florence, where he obtained a law degree, and then sending him to Rome to work in the legal practice of a family friend.

But Rossano had become involved in a drama group at university and looked for opportunities to continue acting.  Eventually, he was approached by a film director and when he was offered a part in a film in 1939 he quit his job with the legal practice in order to devote himself to acting as a career.

He became something of a screen idol in Italy, where the cinema provided a release for Italians growing weary of the privations of war.  Brazzi fought with the Italian Resistance in Rome, motivated in part by the fate of his parents, who were persecuted by Mussolini's blackshirts after Adelmo had spoken out against the rise of the Fascist party.

The United Artists poster for the 1955
David Lean film Summertime

After the war, Italian film directors began to move towards gritty realism and parts for traditional male leads became scarce.  It prompted Brazzi to move to America and this proved a smart decision.

At the time, cinema audiences in America were declining as television persuaded people to stay at home.  It led the American film industry to recruit stars from Germany, France and Italy in the hope that their American films would attract large audiences in their native countries.  Brazzi, adept at portraying impeccably groomed romantic figures, became Hollywood's favourite Italian male lead for several years.

He made his first Hollywood appearance in Little Women in 1949, alongside June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor, but it was his performance as an Italian count in The Barefoot Contessa in 1954, which also starred Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart, that revitalised his career.

That year brought him another success in Three Coins in the Fountain, about the romantic adventures of three American girls in Rome. The following year, Summertime, set in Venice, in which Brazzi played the part of a businessman who has a romantic affair with an American tourist portrayed by Katharine Hepburn, bolstered his comeback.

An original poster from the
movie South Pacific

In 1958, he played Emile de Becque, the South Seas planter who wins the heart of Nellie Forbush, a Navy nurse played by Mitzi Gaynor, in the screen adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.

In the 1960s, he starred in The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965), and Woman Times Seven (1967), followed by roles in Krakatoa East of Java and The Italian Job, starring Michael Caine, in 1969.

Brazzi was married twice.  His first marriage ended after 41 years in 1981 with the death of his wife, Lidia.  In 1984 he married their former housekeeper, the German-born Isle Fischer, with whom he lived in Rome until his death in 1994, aged 78.

Travel tips:

The University of Florence is situated close to the centre of Tuscany's regional capital, adjoining Piazza San Marco, just a few steps from the Galleria dell'Accademia, where Michelangelo's statue of David is the major attraction.  Alumni include past and current Prime Ministers Lamberto Dini and Matteo Renzi and the film director Franco Zeffirelli.

Campo San Vio in Venice was one of the locations used in
the Rossano Brazzi-Katherine Hepburn film Summertime

Travel tip:

One of the key locations in Summertime, the David Lean film in which Brazzi starred opposite Katherine Hepburn, is a pensione overlooking the Grand Canal.  For many years this was assumed to be the real-life Pensione Accademia, close to the Accademia Bridge.  In fact, the terrace of the supposed pensione was a set erected in Campo San Vio, a small square that looks out over the Grand Canal just along from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum at the end of Fondamenta Bragadin in the Dorsoduoro district.

More reading:

How Pier Angeli - 'Italy's Greta Garbo' - conquered Hollywood but died tragically young

The beauty and talent of screen goddess Gina Lollobrigida

Federico Fellini and La Dolce Vita

(Photo of Venice by Wolfgang Moroder)

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Umberto II - last King of Italy

Brief reign was followed by long exile

The future King of Italy, Umberto II,
pictured  in 1944

The last King of Italy, Umberto II, was born on this day in 1904 in Racconigi in Piedmont.

Umberto reigned over Italy from 9 May 1946 to 12 June 1946 and was therefore nicknamed the May King - Re di Maggio.

When Umberto Nicola Tommaso Giovanni Maria di Savoia was born at the Castle of Racconigi he became heir apparent to the Italian throne as the only son and third child of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and his wife Queen Elena of Montenegro.

He was given the title of Prince of Piedmont.

Umberto married Marie Jose of Belgium in Rome in 1930 and they had four children.

He became de facto head of state in 1944 when his father, Victor Emmanuel III, transferred his powers to him in an attempt to repair the monarchy’s image after the fall of Benito Mussolini’s regime.

The imposing frontage of the Castle of Racconigi,
birthplace in Piedmont of Umberto II

Victor Emmanuel III abdicated his throne in favour of Umberto in 1946 ahead of a referendum on the abolition of the monarchy in the hope that his exit and a new King might give a boost to the popularity of the monarchy.

However, after the referendum, Italy was declared a republic and Umberto had to live out the rest of his life in exile in Portugal.

He never set foot in Italy again because the constitution of the new republic barred all male heirs to the throne from entering the country.

When it became apparent that Umberto was dying in 1983, the Italian President, Sandro Pertini, wanted the Italian parliament to allow Umberto to return.

But this never happened and Umberto II died in March 1983 in Geneva and was interred in Hautecombe Abbey in Saint-Pierre-de-Curtille in France, which for centuries had been the burial place of members of the House of Savoy.

Travel tip:

The royal Castle of Racconigi, where Umberto II was born, is in Racconigi in the province of Cuneo in Piedmont. Dating back to around the year 1000, the castle was originally inhabited by Cistercian monks. It was acquired by the House of Savoy in the 16th century and in 1630, Duke Charles Emmanuel I granted it to his nephew, Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano and it became the official residence of the Carignano line of the House of Savoy. It has now been declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO.

The Palazzo Carignano in Turin

Travel tip:

Palazzo Carignano in Turin, was once a private residence used by the Princes of Carignano. It was built in the 17th century on the orders of Emmanuel Philibert, the son of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano. It was the birthplace of the first King of the new, united Italy, Victor Emmanuel II, and it was where the first Italian parliament met in 1861. The baroque palace in Via Accademia delle Scienze in Turin now houses a Museum of the Risorgimento.

More reading:

Mussolini and the founding of the Italian Fascists

The abdication of King Victor Emmanuel III



(Photo of the Castle of Racconigi by Geobia CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Nazis free captive Mussolini

Extraordinary daring of Gran Sasso Raid

Mussolini, centre, is escorted to a waiting aircraft after being
 freed from his captors. SS captain Otto Skorzeny is on his left.

One of the most dramatic events of the Second World War in Italy took place on this day in 1943 when Benito Mussolini, the deposed and imprisoned Fascist dictator, was freed by the Germans.

The former leader was being held in a remote mountain ski resort when 12 gliders, each carrying paratroopers and SS officers, landed on the mountainside and took control of the hotel where Mussolini was being held.

They forced his guards to surrender before summoning a small aircraft to fly Mussolini to Rome, from where another plane flew him to Austria.  Even Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime prime minister, professed his admiration for the daring nature of the daylight rescue.

Known as the Gran Sasso Raid or Operation Oak, the rescue was ordered by Adolf Hitler himself after learning that Mussolini's government, in the shape of the Grand Council of Fascism, had voted through a resolution that he be replaced as leader and that King Victor Emmanuel III had ensured that the resolution was successful by having the self-styled Duce arrested.

The Campo Imperatore Hotel at the time of the raid.

The Italian government by then had decided defeat in the War was inevitable following the Allied invasion of Sicily and the damage inflicted by Allied bombers on Rome.  Despite the weaknesses of Italy's military capability being exposed in Greece, Albania and North Africa, Mussolini made an impassioned speech to the Grand Council before his arrest, insisting they fight on. Yet many of his former supporters, including his son-in-law, the foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, turned against him.

Hitler was furious. He regarded Mussolini not only as the only leader capable of organising the Italian forces, but as a personal friend. He denounced his successor, Marshall Pietro Badoglio, as a traitor.  The Italian government, by this time preparing to switch sides and declare war against Germany, tried to keep Mussolini's whereabouts a secret, moving him from one offshore island to another and them to remote areas of the mainland.

But the SS captain, Otto Skorzeny, personally chosen by Hitler to plan and organise Mussolini's rescue, intercepted coded radio messages and established that the former dictator's place of captivity since late August had been the Campo Imperatore Hotel, a ski resort built on a plateau in Italy's Gran Sasso massif in Abruzzo, high in the Apennine Mountains, around 2,200 metres (7,200 feet) above sea level.  It was guarded by 200 Carabinieri soldiers and accessible only by a funicular railway.

The only viable way of reaching the hotel was from the air.  Dropping troops by parachute was seen as too dangerous because of the altitude but Skorzeny had an alternative plan. His reconnaissance identified what he thought was a strip of grassy land near the hotel, which he believed would be suitable to land troop-laden gliders. These had the added benefit of being effectively noiseless, which would lend the attack an element of surprise.

The Germans landed gliders on the mountainside in order
to take troops to the scene of the rescue

In the event, the grassy strip turned out to be strewn with rocks but Skorzeny ordered his pilots to attempt to land anyway, which was a considerable gamble.  It paid off as all bar two gliders touched down safely, including his own.

In another clever move, Skorzeny had taken with him an Italian military commander sympathetic to the German cause in General Fernando Soleti, who stepped out of his glider and immediately ordered the Italian guards advancing towards the invasion party not to shoot, threatening them with execution for treason if they disobeyed.

The ensuing confusion gave the Germans opportunity to take control and the entire Italian protection squad surrendered without a shot fired.  The only injury was to a radio operator, whom Skorzeny struck with his rifle butt to stop him summoning assistance.

Skorzeny found Mussolini's room and is said to have greeted the dictator with the words 'Duce, the Fuhrer has sent me. You're free!'. He immediately ordered a small aircraft known as the Storch (Stork), designed to take off and land in limited spaces, to fly to the hotel so that he could complete the next leg of the rescue.

The Hotel Campo Imperatore as it is today

The mission almost came to grief at this stage after Skorzeny, determined that he would deliver Mussolini personally to Hitler, insisted on flying to Rome with him, even though the plane was not meant to carry more than one passenger, in addition to the pilot.  There was no spare seat but Skorzeny found he could lie on the floor, his legs stretching into the fuselage.

With 12 men holding the plane back by its wings, the pilot powered up his engine to maximum speed before ordering the men to let go, at which point the plane shot off along the makeshift runway.  It left the ground but with extra weight on board failed to gain altitude quickly enough to avoid striking a rock, sending it veering off the plateau on a downwards trajectory towards the valley below.

The watching German soldiers thought the aircraft was certain to crash but the pilot somehow managed to regain control and gain height, disappearing into the distance to reach an airstrip just outside Rome without further mishap. Skorzeny later admitted he was prepared to take the risk, fearing the consequences if the mission failed.

Later, Mussolini would return to Italy to take charge of a puppet German state, the Italian Social Republic, based in the town of Salò on Lake Garda.  Within less than two years he was dead, captured by partisans and shot as he and his mistress, Clara Petacci, tried to flee to Switzerland.

Travel tip:

The Campo Imperatore still exists as a hotel today, consisting of 45 rooms, a panoramic restaurant, bar and swimming pool. The room where Mussolini was held has been turned into a museum, its decor and furnishings preserved as they were in 1943.  It is now accessible by road in summer but the road is partially closed in winter and visitors have to transfer to the funicular railway at Fonte Cerreto, which is a town on the road between L'Aquila and Assergi.  The area is now part of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga national park.

Hotels near Gran Sasso national park

The Venetian column with its winged lion of St Mark
on the waterfront of Salò on Lake Garda

Travel tip:

Salò, where Mussolini spent his last months in power, albeit as the leader of a satellite state controlled by the Nazis, is situated on the western shore of Lake Garda. For three centuries part of the Republic if Venice, it was captured by the Austrians in the 19th century before being freed by Garibaldi.  Its points of interest include a Gothic-style cathedral, a column topped by the winged lion of St Mark, symbolising its link with Venice, and the 16th century Palazzo della Magnifica Patria, home to an exhibition of documents from Renaissance history, Italy's colonial wars and the Resistance against Fascism.

Search hotels in Salò

Read more:

Benito Mussolini and the founding of the Italian Fascists

How Italy entered the Second World War

Victor Emmanuel III abdicates

Also on this day:

1492: The birth of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino

1937: The birth of actress Daniela Rocca

1981: The death of Nobel Prize-winning poet Eugenio Montale

(Photos of Gran Sasso Raid courtesy of German Federal Archive)

(Photo of Campo Imperatore by Ra Boe CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Historic victory at Rome Olympics

Bikila's golden moment for African athletics

Abebe Bikila (left) during the opening stages of the
marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics

History was made on this day at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome when Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila won the marathon.

Not only did he run the whole 26 mile 385 yards (42.195km) barefoot, he also became the first athlete from sub-Saharan Africa to win an Olympic gold medal.

Bikila retained the marathon title at Tokyo in 1964.  Subsequently, the middle and long-distance running events have become increasingly dominated by sub-Saharan runners, particularly Kenyans and Ethiopians.

The British runner Mo Farah - born in Somalia - continued that domination by winning both the 5,000m and 10,000m gold medals at consecutive summer Olympics in London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro this year.

In total, more than 40 gold medals at distances from 800m to the marathon have been won by sub-Saharan runners since Bikila's breakthrough.

Bikila competed in Rome only after a late call-up to the Ethiopia squad to fill a place vacated when a colleague became ill.

Bikila on the podium with runner-up Rhadi Ben Abdesselam

He arrived with no running shoes but hoped to be supplied with some by adidas, one of the Games sponsors.  However, by the time Bikila went to see their representatives in Rome, they had only a few pairs left and none would fit him comfortably, so he decided to run barefoot.

It was no real inconvenience in any event because he rarely trained in running shoes.

The starting point for the marathon was the foot of the wide staircase leading up to the Piazza del Campidoglio on Capitoline Hill and the finish line was at the Arch of Constantine, just outside the Colosseum.

Bikila came home first in a time of two hours 15 minutes 16.2 seconds, which at the time was an Olympic record.  He crossed the line 25 seconds ahead of the Moroccan runner, Rhadi Ben Abdesselam, from whom he had sprinted away in the last 500m.

The beautiful Piazza del Campidoglio on the
Capitoline Hill in the centre of Rome

According to accounts of the race, Bikila had been told before the race that Rhadi was his most dangerous rival but expected him to be wearing the number 26 on his vest.  In fact, Rhadi wore 185. The two ran side by side for more than half the distance with Bikila still believing there was another runner ahead of them, wearing 26.

Later in 1960, Bikila was briefly detained following an attempted coup in Ethiopia but was soon able to resume his career.  His winning time at Tokyo in 1964 was a world record 2 hours 12 minutes 11.2 seconds.

Travel tips:

The Capitoline is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.  It was the site of an ancient Roman citadel but few ruins exist.  The area was redeveloped in the 16th century in line with an urban plan drawn up by the artist and architect Michelangelo Buonarotti as a central square - the Piazza del Campidoglio - surrounded by palaces.

The parade of athletes at the opening ceremony
of the 1960 Olympics at the Stadio Olimpico

Travel tips:

Rome's Olympic Stadium - the Stadio Olimpico - was built between 1928 and 1938 as part of the Foro Mussolini (now Foro Italico), a sports complex Mussolini hoped would enable Rome to host the 1944 Olympics had they taken place.  Originally named Stadio dei Cipressi and later Stadio dei Centomila, it was renamed when Rome won the bidding process for the 1960 Games, pipping the Swiss city of Lausanne.  Rebuilt for the 1990 football World Cup, it is now home to the Roma and Lazio football clubs and has hosted four European Cup/Champions League finals.

(Photo of Piazza del Campidoglio by Prasenberg CC BY 2.0)
(Photo of Stadio Olimpico by Alex Dawson (Flickr) CC BY-SA 2.0)

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The birth of Benito Mussolini

Future dictator inspired by his father's politics

Mussolini saw the First World War
as an opportunity for Italy

Benito Mussolini, who would become Italy's notorious Fascist dictator during the 1920s, was born on this day in 1883 in a small town in Emilia-Romagna known then as Dovia di Predappio, about 17km south of the city of Forlì.

His father, Alessandro, worked as a blacksmith while his mother, Rosa was a devout Catholic schoolteacher.  Benito was the eldest of his parents' three children. He would later have a brother, Arnaldo, and a sister, Edvige.

It could be said that Alessandro's political leanings influenced his son from birth.  Benito was named after the Mexican reformist President, Benito Juárez, while his middle names - Andrea and Amilcare - were those of the Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani.

Working in his father's smithy as a boy growing up, Mussolini would listen to Alessandro's admiration for the protagonists of the Italian unification movement, such as the nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, and the military leader Giuseppe Garibaldi. But he also heard him speak with approval about the socialist thinker Carlo Pisacane and anarchist revolutionaries such as Carlo Cafiero and Mikhail Bakunin.

Alessandro's view would leave a lasting impression and, one way or another, shape the direction his son would eventually follow, although initially Benito saw himself as a traditional socialist.

Sent away to boarding school, Mussolini qualified as a schoolteacher but did not take up the profession, instead moving to Switzerland in order to avoid national service.  It was there that he first became politically active.

Mussolini in familiar pose as the
military dictator

He studied the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, and the syndicalist Georges Sorel, who advocated the violent overthrow of capitalism and liberal democracy. He also found much that he approved of in the writings of the Marxist Charles Péguy.

Mussolini was twice expelled from Switzerland, once after being arrested in Berne for trying to foment a general strike and violent uprising, the second time for falsifying his papers in order to return.  He did in time manage to secure a legal way back into the country and studied at the University of Lausanne before taking advantage of an amnesty granted to those who had evaded national service and returning to Italy.

A condition of the amnesty was that he joined the army but once his two-year stint was complete in 1906 he became a leading figure in the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

In the years that followed he would edit the left-wing newspaper Avanti and spend five months in jail following a riot he had helped organise in protest at Italy's invasion of Libya, which he denounced as "imperialist".

However, his position on Italy's involvement in armed conflict changed and he was expelled by the PSI because of his opposition to the party's neutral stance on the First World War.  He saw intervention as an opportunity to further the revolutionary aims of the left, particularly by overthrowing the Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary.

By then, continuing to be influenced by his father's belief in nationalism and by Nietzsche's views on the merits of elitism, he began to lose faith in orthodox socialism, believing that national identity had become more important than class struggle in forging the kind of society that was central to his vision.

He now envisaged a brand of socialism in which the removal of class divides was still key but which also depended on strong, decisive leadership and which recognised culture, tradition, language and race as elements of a nation's identity that should be protected.  It was the beginnings of what would become known as Fascism.

Travel tip:

Predappio's embarrassment at being turned into a place of pilgrimage for neo-Fascists has been addressed by the town's Mayor, who has finally forged an agreement that the former regional headquarters of Mussolini's party, a dilapidated three-storey building in the centre of the town, is renovated as a musuem, not to pay homage to the former dictator - whose remains are buried in the local cemetery - but as a place of education and reflection.  The museum is due to open in 2019.

The Abbey of San Mercuriale dominates
Piazza Aurelio Saffi in Forlì

Travel tip:

The main square in Forlì, Piazza Aurelio Saffi, is named after the politician Aurelio Saffi, a radical republican who was a fervent supporter of the nationalist revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini, one of the driving forces behind the Risorgimento and the unification of Italy in the 19th century.  There is a statue of Saffi in the square, which is dominated by the 12th-century Abbey of San Mercuriale and its 75-metre bell tower, one of the tallest in Italy.

More reading:

The death of Mussolini at the hands of the partisans

How Mussolini's Fascists came into being

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

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