Luisa Ranieri - actress

Naples-born star of The Hand of God

Luisa Ranieri in a scene from The Hand of God,
which won her a Best Supporting Actress award

The actress Luisa Ranieri, who received a Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-nominated 2021 movie The Hand of God, was born on this day in 1973 in Naples.

Ranieri, who is married to Inspector Montalbano actor Luca Zingaretti, was honoured with a prestigious Nastro d’Argento for her portrayal of Patrizia, the troubled aunt of The Hand of God’s central character, Fabietto.

Among more than 30 films in a big screen career that began with a leading role in Leonardo Pieraccioni’s Il principe e il pirata (The Prince and the Pirate) in 2001, Ranieri is also well known for her performances in Michelangelo’s Antonioni’s Eros in 2004, in Pupi Avati’s Gli amici del Bar Margherita (The Friends of the Bar Margherita) in 2009 and Gary Winick’s final film, Letters to Juliet (2010).

Ranieri, whose latest movie, Diamanti, (Diamonds) directed by Ferzan Özpetek, premieres in Italy this week, also boasts a string of successes in television. 

In 2005, she won plaudits for her portrayal of the opera singer Maria Callas in a Canale 5 miniseries Callas e Onassis, and for playing the entrepreneur Luisa Spagnoli in the Rai fiction of the same name in 2016. Since 2021 she has filled the title role in the Rai crime series, Le indagini di Lolita Lobosco, (The Investigations of Lolita Lobosco) in which she plays a deputy commissioner of police in the southern Italian city of Bari. 

Ranieri won acclaim for her
portrayal of Maria Callas

It was while making another Rai miniseries, Cefalonia, in 2005 that she became romantically involved with co-star Zingaretti. The couple married in Sicily in 2012 and have two children. 

Ranieri spent her early years in the Vomero district of Naples, an upmarket suburb which occupies an elevated position that offers commanding views over the city. She enrolled in the Faculty of Law in the city’s university but gave up her studies to devote herself to acting, building the foundations of a career as a theatre actress before quickly landing the part in Il principe e il pirata in 2001, in which she also gained considerable exposure thanks to a starring role on a TV advertising campaign for Nestea, a major player in Italy’s lucrative iced tea market.

She quickly established her reputation as an actress of considerable talent, gaining significant recognition through TV roles, including playing Assunta Goretti, the mother of the child saint, Maria Goretti, who was murdered at the age of 11, in Giulio Base’s 2003 miniseries, and two years later Maria Callas opposite the Aristotle Onassis of French actor Gérard Darmon under Giorgio Capitani’s direction.

In 2009, the same year that Avati’s Gli amici del bar Margherita brought more critical acclaim, she demonstrated her versatility with a return to the stage, acting in the theatrical production of L'oro di Napoli (the Gold of Naples), directed by Gianfelice Imparato and Armando Pugliese, based on the stories of Neapolitan life by Giuseppe Marotta.

The terrace at the Castello di Donnafugata will
be familiar to fans of the Montalbano TV series

Back on screen, Letters to Juliet further solidified her reputation in the film industry, which was taken to another level by The Hand of God - È stata la mano di Dio in Italian - in which her performance as Patrizia, the voluptuous aunt for whom main character Fabietto has an adolescent crush, and who escapes an abusive husband by admitting herself to a psychiatric hospital, attracted much acclaim and turned her into something of an icon for many Italian women.

As a further recognition of her standing in the acting profession, Ranieri was chosen to host the opening and closing nights of the 71st Venice International Film Festival in 2014.

Her marriage to Zingaretti caught the public imagination. After living together for several years, the couple tied the knot at the Castello di Donnafugata, a castle near Ragusa in Sicily where scenes were filmed in several episodes of the long-running Inspector Montalbano series. 

The Castel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San
Martino tower above Naples on Vomero hill

Travel tip:

The Vomero district of Naples is widely-regarded as the most upmarket area of the city in which to live. Perched on a hill overlooking the city and the Bay of Naples, it is known for its elegant architecture, beautiful parks, and a more relaxed atmosphere compared to the sometimes chaotic nature of the southern Italian city’s centre.  Highlights include Castel Sant'Elmo, a mediaeval fortress offering stunning panoramic views of the city and the bay; the adjoining Certosa di San Martino, a former monastery that now houses a museum; the lively Piazza Vanvitelli, Vomero’s central square; and the Villa Floridiana, a beautiful park with gardens, fountains and another museum. Three funicular railways connect Vomero to the city centre. The district boasts a mix of high-end and local shops and a similar variety of restaurants. 

The magnificent Duomo di San Giorgio is one
of the main attractions of Ragusa Ibla

Travel tip:

The city of Ragusa, at the centre of the area of southeastern Sicily where Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano mysteries were filmed, is set in a rugged landscape with a mix of mediaeval and Baroque architecture. It has two parts - Ragusa Ibla, a town on top of a hill rebuilt on the site of the original settlement destroyed in a major earthquake in 1693, and Ragusa Superiore, which was built on flatter ground nearby in the wake of the earthquake.  A spectacular sight in its own right and affording wonderful views as well, Ragusa Ibla attracts visitors to its maze of narrow streets and to see the Duomo di San Giorgio, the magnificent 18th century Sicilian Baroque church that stands at the top of a wide flight of steps at the head of the sloping Piazza Duomo, the wide square that, with Corso XXV Aprile, comprises Ragusa Ibla’s central thoroughfare. Designed by Rosario Gagliardi, the cathedral is characterised by a monumental façade which incorporates the bell tower beneath a bulbous spire.

Also on this day:

1899: The founding of AC Milan football club

1944: The birth of businessman Santo Versace

1945: The death of Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli

1952: The birth of footballer Francesco Graziani

1954: The birth of pop singer Ivana Spagna

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Paolo Sorrentino - film director

Seventh Italian director to win Best Foreign Film at Oscars

Paolo Sorrentino won an Oscar for
La grande bellezza in 2014

The film director Paolo Sorrentino, whose 2013 movie La grande bellezza won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, was born on this day in 1970 in Naples.

The award put him in the company of Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica in landing the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, a prize that has been won by only seven Italian directors in the history of the Academy Awards.

Fellini scooped the honour four times and De Sica twice. The other successful Italian directors are Elio Petri, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gabriele Salvatores and Roberto Benigni.

La grande bellezza - released for English-speaking audiences as The Great Beauty - was the first Italian winner since Benigni’s Life is Beautiful was named as Best Foreign Film in 1998.

Sorrentino’s 2021 semi-autobiographical movie The Hand of God - È stata la mano di Dio in Italian - was nominated for an Oscar but missed out to the Japanese drama Drive My Car.

Lauded for combining an expansive visual style with a sensitivity for psychological subtleties in his films, Sorrentino was born in the Arenella district of Naples, a relatively prosperous neighbourhood atop the Vomero hill. 

His adolescence was overshadowed by a personal tragedy when he was 16, when both his parents died after a carbon monoxide leak at the ski lodge they owned in central Italy

Actor Toni Servillo in his role as
Jep Gambardella in La grande bellezza 

Their son may well have died with them but on the fateful April day in 1987 Sorrentino was still in Naples, having stayed behind to watch his idol, Diego Maradona, play for SSC Napoli at the Stadio San Paolo, where he was a season ticket holder.

Understandably, Sorrentino took a long time to come to terms with being orphaned. Eventually, he obtained a place studying economics and business at university in Naples, after which he chose a career in the film industry, making his debut as a screenwriter on Antonio Capuano’s 1998 comedy, The Dust of Naples.

His first full-length feature L'uomo in più - One Man Up - brought him immediate recognition as an emerging talent. The film was selected at the 2001 Venice Film Festival, gaining three nominations for the David di Donatello from the Academy of Italian Cinema and winning the Nastro d'Argento, awarded by Italian cinema journalists, Best First Time Director.

More awards followed for Le conseguenze dell'amore (2004), L'amico di famiglia (2006) and Il Divo (2008), his dramatised biopic of the controversial veteran politician, Giulio Andreotti. 

Sorrentino’s talents also extend to writing: his 2010 novel Hanno tutti ragione - Everybody’s Right - was shortlisted for the Premio Strega, Italy’s most prestigious literary prize.

It was La grande bellezza  that saw him join such illustrious names as Fellini and De Sica in the roll call of great Italian directors.

Sorrentino (second right) and the cast of La grande
bellezza with president Giorgio Napolitano (right) 

Set in Rome, La grande bellezza has been compared to Fellini’s masterpiece La dolce vita in that its central character is a journalist, Jep Gambardella, who has spent his life immersed in the superficiality of Roman society nightlife, a debonair figure whose one novel brought him a literary acclaim that was enough to sustain his fame for decades.

On his 65th birthday, he learns that the woman who was his first sweetheart has died, having confessed to her husband that Gambardella had been the only man she truly loved.  The shock causes him to take stock of his life, becoming melancholy about what he might have been had he done more than merely charm his way through an easy life of nightclubs, parties, and cafés. Ultimately, he finds a new appreciation for the timeless beauty of Rome and rediscovers himself.

In addition to the Oscar, La grande bellezza won 18 other awards around the world, including a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.

Although it missed out on the Oscar, The Hand of God, which takes its title from the famous description Maradona made of the contentious goal he scored with his fist against England in the 1986 World Cup, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

The film contains many parallels with Sorrentino’s own life in that its central character is an adolescent whose life is rocked by personal tragedy, against the background of Naples in the 1980s, when the arrival of Maradona to play for SSC Napoli not only transformed the fortunes of the club but the city itself.

A mist-shrouded Vesuvius seen
from the top of Vomero hill

Travel tip:

The Arenella district of Naples, where Sorrentino was born, borders Vomero, a largely residential area of central Naples with a number of buildings of historic significance. The most dominant, on top of Vomero Hill, is the large medieval fortress, Castel Sant'Elmo.  In front of the fortress is the Certosa San Martino, the former Carthusian monastery, now a museum.  The adjoining street, Largo San Martino, offers extraordinary views over the city towards Vesuvius.  Vomero's other tourist attraction is the Villa Floridiana, once the home of Ferdinand I, the Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies.  Surrounded by extensive gardens, the building now houses the Duke of Martina National Museum of Ceramics. 

Inside the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in 
Naples, which can house 60,000 spectators

Travel tip:

The Stadio San Paolo - now renamed the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona - is Italy’s third largest football ground with a capacity of just over 60,000. Built in the Fuorigrotta neighbourhood on the north side of the city, it was completed in 1959, more than 10 years after work began and has since been renovated twice. The home of SSC Napoli, it was Maradona’s home stadium between 1984 and 1991, during which time the club won the Italian championship twice, having never before won the title in its history. The stadium hosted the 1990 World Cup semi-final, in which Maradona’s Argentina ended Italy’s hopes of reaching the final. 

Also on this day:

1594: The death of painter Tintoretto

1914: The death of Angelo Moriondo, inventor of the espresso coffee machine

1921: The birth of Andrew Grima, jeweller to the British Royal Family

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