Beppe Severgnini - journalist and author

Books observing national mores have been best sellers

Journalist Beppe Severgnini: respected commentator
and witty observer of his fellow human beings

The author and journalist Giuseppe Severgnini was born on this day in 1956 in Crema in northern Italy.

Better known as Beppe Severgnini, he is a respected commentator on politics and social affairs, about which he has written for some of the most influential journals and newspapers in Italy and the wider world.

Severgnini is equally well known for his humorous writing, in particular his gently satirical observations of the English and the Americans as well as Italians, about whom he has written many books.

His biggest selling titles include An Italian in America, which has also been published as Hello America. He has also enjoyed success with La Bella Figura: An Insider's Guide to the Italian Mind, Mamma Mia! Berlusconi's Italy Explained for Posterity and Friends Abroad, and An Italian in Britain.

Severgnini is currently a columnist for Corriere della Sera in Italy and the International New York Times in the United States.  A former correspondent for the British journal The Economist, he writes in both Italian and English, having spent a number of years living in London, Washington and New York.

The son of a notary in Crema, Severgnini graduated in law at the University of Pavia.  For a brief period he worked at the European Community headquarters in Brussels before beginning his career in journalism at the age of 27, when he joined the Milan daily newspaper Il Giornale, headed by veteran Italian journalist Indro Montanelli.

It was soon evident he was a talented writer and he became the paper's London correspondent.  Subsequently, during the years of the fall of communism, he became a special correspondent in Eastern Europe, Russia and China.

Beppe Severgnini's books have been bestsellers in
Italy, Great Britain and the United States

When Montanelli set up a new venture, La Voce, Severgnini became its Washington correspondent in 1994 before returning to Italy the following year and beginning his long association with Corriere della Sera, for whom as well as writing opinion pieces he moderates a popular forum, simply called 'Italians', originally aimed at Italian expatriates, which has become one of the most read regular features of the newspaper's website.

Severgnini was Italian correspondent for The Economist between 1996 and 2003 and still writes for the magazine from time to time.  He has also contributed to the Sunday Times and The Financial Times in the UK and occasionally writes about football for Gazzetta dello Sport.

Away from newspapers and books, he has taught at the Walter Tobagi graduate School of Journalism at the University of Milan, been writer in residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a visiting fellow at Ca’ Foscari Venezia. 

One of his books, Signori, si cambia: In viaggio sui treni della vita (All Change: Travelling on the Train of Life), has been turned into a play, Life is a Journey, in which he also stars.

The Piazza del Duomo in Severgnini's home
town of Crema in Lombardy

He presents a television show on RAI TRE entitled The Grass is Greener, which compares Italy with other European countries and America.

He was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001 and a Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2011.

A keen supporter of Internazionale and the owner of a 1954 Vespa motor scooter, Severgnini lives near Milan with his wife and their son Antonio.

Travel tip:

The small city of Crema, which sits on the banks of the Serio river about 50km east of Milan, has an attractive historic centre built around the Piazza del Duomo.  Apart from the cathedral itself, which has a tall bell tower completed in 1604, the area includes the Santa Maria della Croce basilica, built around a 35km high circular central structure, the Palazzo Pretorio and the Palazzo Comunale.

The covered bridge over the Ticino river in Pavia was
rebuilt after being destroyed in the Second World War

Travel tip:

Pavia was once the most important town in northern Italy, the legacy of which is evident in its many fine buildings. These include a cathedral boasting one of the largest domes in Italy, a beautiful Romanesque Basilica, San Michele, and the well preserved Visconti Castle, surrounded by a large moat, which is home to the Civic Museum. The covered bridge across the Ticino River is a faithful reproduction of a 13th-century bridge destroyed during Allied bombing raids in the Second World War.

More reading:

Why Silvio Berlusconi took veteran journalist Enzo Biagi off the air

Bruno Vespa - TV journalist who opened door to late-night political debate

How football journalist Gianni Brera enriched the Italian language

Also on this day:

Festa di Santo Stefano

Books:

Buy Beppe Severgnini's books from Amazon

(picture credits: main Beppe Severgnini by Davide Schenette; second Beppe Severgnini by Alessio Jacona; Piazza del Duomo by MarkusMark; Bridge at Pavia by Konki; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Gianni Brera - football journalist

Outspoken writer who embellished Italian language

Football journalist Gianni Brera

Italy's football world lost one of its most influential personalities on this day in 1992 when a car crash near the town of Codogno in Lombardy claimed the life of the journalist Gianni Brera.

Brera, who was 73, had enjoyed a long and often controversial career in which his writing was famous not only for its literary quality but for his outspoken views.

He could be savage in his criticisms of players and allowed reputations to count for nothing.  His long-running feud with Gianni Rivera, the AC Milan midfielder regarded by many as one of Italian football's all-time greats, in some ways defined his career.

Yet the positions he occupied in Italian football journalism gained him enormous respect.  He rose to be editor-in-chief of La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's biggest sports newspaper, before he was 30 and went on to write for Il Giorno, Il Giornale and La Repubblica among the country's heavyweight news dailies.

The intellectual La Repubblica for many years considered sport to be too trivial to be worthy of coverage, an attitude that persisted even through the 1970s. But the style and innovative brilliance of Brera's writing was a major factor in persuading them to drop their stance.

Famously, Brera introduced new words to the Italian language in his efforts to convey to his readers the things that he saw on the field in front of him and pass on his own interpretation of the game.

AC Milan star Gianni Rivera had a
long-running feud with Brera

For example, it was Brera who coined the term libero for the player designated as "sweeper" in the catenaccio defensive formation that dominated Italian football in the 1950s and 60s, and deemed that the players who could no longer be described as half-backs or inside forwards as the game moved away from the traditional 2-3-5 formation would be known in future as centrocampisti - midfielders.

Brera would also invent nicknames for players to amuse his readers.  He dubbed Rivera Abatino - the "little abbot" - and hailed the old-fashioned centre forward Luigi 'Gigi' Riva as Rombo di tuono - the "rumble of thunder".

He was a lifelong advocate of the ultra-defensive tactics characterised by the catenaccio system, and part of his antipathy towards Rivera stemmed from his belief that creative talents such as his were luxuries the game could do without.

Most of Brera's heroes were defenders and where many writers would enthuse about goals scored as moments of beauty in a match, Brera tended to see them as aberrations, the unwanted consequence of flawed defending.  His idea of perfection was a match in which the forwards were players of a manly vigour that constantly tested the defenders but which ultimately ended 0-0.

His spats with other journalists were also legend, most notably with the Neapolitan writer Gino Palumbo, a proponent of attacking play and therefore philosophically at odds with Brera.  The two once engaged in a punch-up in the press box before a match in Brescia.

The Arena Civica in Milan was renamed Arena Gianni Brera

At the same time, though, he enjoyed playing host to fellow journalists, players and coaches at his 'Thursday club' at a restaurant in central Milan, where he lived for much of his working life.

To avoid accusations of bias in debates about Milan's rival clubs, Brera always claimed he was a supporter of Genoa, Italy's oldest football club.

Born in 1919 in the village of San Zenone al Po, which sits on the banks of the River Po around 25km south-east of Pavia, Brera was the son of a tailor and barber, but his humble stock belied a considerable intellect, which he demonstrated in obtaining a degree in political sciences from the University of Pavia while simultaneously serving with a parachute division of the Italian army.

He regarded himself as Padanian rather than Italian and was vehemently anti-Fascist, fighting on the side of the Italian resistance towards the end of the Second World War, although proudly proclaiming later that he never fired a shot at a fellow human being.

After his death, Milan's monumental Arena Civica, the stadium conceived as the city's Colosseum by Napoleon I in the early 19th century, was renamed Arena Gianni Brera.

The Castello Visconteo is an attraction for visitors to Pavia

Travel tip:

The elegant Lombardy city of Pavia is renowned for its university, which is regarded as one of the best in Italy and numbers among its alumni the explorer Christopher Columbus and the poet and revolutionary Ugo Foscolo.  Among its important historic buildings are the well preserved 14th century Castello Visconteo, a Duomo dating back to the 15th century and the impressive Lombard-Romanesque church of San Michele Maggiore, which was completed in 1155.

Travel tip:

The Arena Gianni Brera in Milan, formerly known as the Arena Civica, can be found in the Parco Sempione behind the Castello Sforzesco. It is one of Milan's main examples of neoclassical architecture, an elliptical amphitheatre commissioned by Napoleon soon after he became King of Italy in 1805. At one time the home of the Milan football club Internazionale, it is nowadays a venue for international athletics and rugby union as well as being the home of Milan's third football team, Brera Calcio FC.

More reading:

Gianni Rivera: footballer turned politician who fell out with Berlusconi

Cagliari's Rombo di tuono, Luigi Riva

How Italy's first football club was launched in Genoa

Also on this day:

1861: The birth of writer Italo Svevo in Trieste

(Picture credits: Arena Civica by Blackcat; Castello Visconteo by Tempo61; both via Wikimedia Commons)

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Marco Zanuso - architect and designer

Innovative ideas put Italy at the forefront of contemporary style

Marco Zanuso

Marco Zanuso, the architect and industrial designer whose innovative ideas helped revolutionize furniture and appliance design in Italy after the Second World War, was born in Milan on this day in 1916. 

Influenced by the Rationalist movement that emerged in the 1920s, he was one of the pioneers of the Modern movement, which brought contemporary styling to mass-produced consumer products.  His use of sculptured shapes, bright colours, and modern synthetic materials helped make Italy a leader in furniture fashion.

Italy had for many years been something of a trendsetter in interior design but during the post-War years, with the fall of Fascism and the rise of Socialism, there was a sense of liberation among Italian creative talents.

With the recovery of the Italian economy there was a substantial growth in industrial production and mass-produced furniture. By the 1960s and 1970s, Italian interior design reached its pinnacle of stylishness.

Zanuso was at the forefront, producing designs that used tubular steel, acrylics, latex foam, fibreglass, foam rubber, and injection-moulded plastics.

His first major successes came for Pirelli, the tyre makers, who in 1948 opened a new division, Arflex, to design seating using foam rubber upholstery. They commissioned Zanuso to produce their first designs and his distinctively shaped "Lady" armchair won first prize at the 1951 Milan Triennale.

A folding radio cube designed by Marco Zanuso and
Richard Sapper for Brionvega

In 1957, Zanuso entered into a partnership with German designer Richard Sapper. 

They convinced consumers that plastic could be a viable material for furniture in the home with a brightly coloured, stackable child's chair. Their moulded metal "Lambda" kitchen chair became a worldwide bestseller.

In 1959, Zanuso and Sapper were hired as consultants to Brionvega, an Italian company trying to produce stylish electronics that would challenge those being made in Japan and Germany. They designed a series of  radios and televisions that became stylistic icons. Their portable "Doney 14" was the first completely transistorised television.

They also designed a folding "Grillo" telephone for Siemens in 1966, one of the first telephones to put the dial and the earpiece on the same unit.

Zanuso turned his ideas and versatility to other household items, including a bright red fan, bright yellow kitchen scales, a knife sharpener and a streamlined sewing machine.

Several of his award-winning product designs eventually became part of a permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

As an architect, Zanuso also designed housing, factories and offices, not only in Italy but in South America and South Africa.

He designed the Olivetti factory buildings in Buenos Aires in 1954, which featured external air conditioning, another Olivetti building in São Paulo, the Necchi sewing machine company's office building in Pavia in Italy and IBM factory buildings in Milan.

As a member of the city planning commission in Milan, his projects included the renovation of the Teatro Fossati and the construction of the Teatro Strehler, a new venue for the Piccolo Teatro della Città di Milano.

The fifth of six sons of an orthopaedic doctor, he trained in architecture at the Milan Polytechnic university and after military service in the Italian Navy he opened his own design office in 1945 and edited the influential design magazines Domus and Casabella.

He taught architecture and design at the Milan Polytechnic from the 1960s, and served twice as president of the Italian Association of Industrial Design.  He continued working into his late 70s, designing a cutlery set for Alessi in 1995.

He died in Milan in 2001, aged 85.  His son, Marco Zanuso Jnr, one of four children, followed him into architecture and design.

Zanuso's Piccolo Teatro Strehler in Milan

Travel tip:

The Piccolo Teatro della Città di Milano, founded in 1947, was Italy's first permanent repertory company. It has three venues, the Teatro Grassi, in Via Rovello, between Sforza Castle and the Piazza del Duomo, the Teatro Studio and the Teatro Strehler.  The company puts on around 30 performances per year, while the venues host cultural events, including festivals, films, concerts, conferences and conventions.

Travel tip:

The Medieval city of Pavia, once the most important town in northern Italy, has many fine churches, including a cathedral boasting one of the largest domes in Italy and the beautiful Romanesque Basilica di San Michele.  The Visconti Castle, surrounded by a large moat, houses the Civic Museum. Another notable attraction is the covered bridge across the Ticino River, a reproduction of a 13th-century bridge destroyed during the Second World War.

(Photo of Zanuso radio by Andrea Pavanello CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Piccolo Teatro Strehler by Dispe CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello – Educator

Nun who promoted the rights of girls to a quality education

Saint Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello

The Feast Day of Saint Benedetta Cambiagio Frassinello, who founded the Benedictine Sisters of Providence, is celebrated on this day, the anniversary of her death in 1858.

Benedetta carried out pioneering work by rescuing poor and abandoned girls and promoting their rights to a good education. She was made a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

Benedetta was born in 1791 in Genoa but her family later moved to Pavia. As a young girl she wanted to consecrate her life to God, but obeying her parents’ wishes, she married Giovanni Battista Frassinello when she was 24.

After two years of marriage, during which they had no children, they decided to live a celibate life and stay together as brother and sister. They both later joined religious orders but Benedetta was forced to leave and return to live in Pavia again because of ill health.

When she was well again she dedicated herself to the education of the many young girls who had been abandoned or who were at risk in the area. There was so much work that the local Bishop asked her husband to leave his religious order to help her.

She was helped by young women volunteers to teach the poor girls domestic skills such as cooking and sewing as well as giving them religious instruction, with the aim of turning them into models of Christian life.

Her work was well regarded and she was appointed as Promoter of Public Instruction in Pavia.

She moved to Ronco Scrivia near Genoa where she opened a school for girls. She later founded the Congregation of the Benedictine Sisters of Providence, which concentrated on the education of young girls.

She also opened a house of the order in Voghera near Pavia.

Benedetta died at the age of 66 on 21 March 1858 in Ronco Scrivia. 

Today the Benedictine Nuns of Providence are present in Italy, Spain, Burundi, the Ivory Coast, Peru and Brazil.

The pretty covered bridge that links Pavia
 with the Borgo Ticino

Travel tip:

Pavia, where Benedetta lived from an early age, is a city in Lombardy, south of Milan, known for its ancient university, which was founded in 1361, and its famous Certosa, a magnificent monastery complex north of the city that dates back to 1396. A pretty covered bridge over the River Ticino leads to Borgo Ticino, where the inhabitants claim to be the true people of Pavia and are of Sabaudian origin, traceable back to the House of Savoy.

Pavia hotels by Booking.com

Travel tip:

Voghera, where Benedetta opened a second house for the Benedictine sisters of Providence, is south of Pavia. It has a 14th century castle, and an 11th century Cathedral. The town’s Museum of History has among its exhibits the car of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, who was killed by the Mafia in 1982 and the weapon that allegedly killed Benito Mussolini. ‘The housewife from Voghera’ (casalinga di Voghera) is a phrase used by Italians to describe the average housewife.

Search for a Voghera hotel with Tridavisor

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