Federico Caprilli - equestrian pioneer

Study of horses revolutionised jumping techniques

Federico Caprilli in his cavalry uniform

Federico Caprilli, the Italian cavalry officer who revolutionised the way horse riders jump fences, was born on this day in 1868 in Livorno.

One of four children born to Enrico Caprilli and his wife, Elvira, Federico was bent on an army career from an early age. He enrolled as a cadet at military college in Florence at 13 years old, subsequently transferring to Rome and then Modena. He had no riding experience at the start, and when he graduated with the rank of lieutenant, though an excellent gymnast and proficient fencer, his horsemanship was marked as ‘poor’.

Nonetheless, he was assigned to the Royal Piedmont cavalry regiment, where his job, at a time when the introduction of weapons such as the Gatling Gun was negating any battlefield advantage a soldier had from being mounted, was to train horses for new combat roles, such as springing surprise attacks in difficult terrain.

It was there that he observed the way horses jumped obstacles and concluded that conventional beliefs about the way a horse should be ridden over jumps were entirely wrong.

Until Caprilli came along, it was accepted that the rider should use long stirrups and approach a fence leaning back in the saddle, legs stretched almost straight.  A sharp pull on the horse’s head was seen as the way to launch the jump.

This antique hunting scene shows a rider in typical
jumping position, leaning backwards

Antique prints of hunting scenes inevitably show the rider in this position, leaning backwards in the saddle and appearing to jump fences in hope rather than any expectation of making a safe landing.

No one questioned this, even though the riding position was essentially the same as was employed in the middle ages, when heavy suits of armour compelled the rider to sit bolt upright.  The accepted wisdom, too, was that landing on its front legs was bad for the horse, especially carrying the additional weight of a rider, and that it should be encouraged to land on its hind legs, or at least on all four legs.

In fact, horses often injured themselves as a result of this flawed technique, either through catching the obstacle with their trailing hind legs or developing back problems.  What’s more, the jab in the mouth as the rider yanked on the reins often caused them to refuse to jump.

Caprilli, who used the relatively new device of photography to underline his findings, observed that when they jumped freely, with no rider, horses always landed on their front legs and were none the worse for it.

As a result, he devised a technique whereby the rider adopted a forward position, slightly out of the saddle, his upper body in line with the horse’s neck, his centre of gravity directly over the horse’s, and with no pressure applied to the animal’s mouth.  Caprilli also instructed his riders to allow the horse to think for itself about how it approached an obstacle and when it took off.

Caprilli's technique is demonstrated perfectly
by this rider at Badminton in 2008

The results were startling. Horses were suddenly much more willing to jump obstacles and were able to negotiate banks and ditches much more nimbly than before.  In short, they were ready to operate in terrain that would previously have been off limits.

Yet far from being congratulated, Caprilli received a frosty response from his superiors, who did not take kindly to their faith in the old methods being exposed as foolish.  Rumours, which it is suspected were false, began to circulate about his private life, of romantic entanglements with aristocratic wives, and he was posted to the south of Italy, out of harm’s way.

However, he continued to hone his techniques and when word of his excellent results in equestrian competitions reached his old regiment’s headquarters in Pinerolo in Piedmont, he was summoned back.

He was made chief instructor at the Cavalry School of Pinerolo as well as its subsidiary in Tor di Quinto (near Rome). After a year of training, riders who attended the schools were able to negotiate the jumps and obstacles of the training circuit even without reins.

Soon, as the Italian cavalry began to dominate international competition, riders came from countries around the world to study Caprilli's system and it became the new standard for any form of equestrian pursuit that involved jumping.

Caprilli died in slightly mysterious circumstances in 1907, when his body was found on a cobbled path in Pinerolo.  It was suggested that he had been attacked by a jealous husband or a resentful superior but there were no obvious signs that he had met his death in that way and it was concluded that his mount must have slipped on some ice, throwing him off, and that he had hit his head on the cobbles.

The duomo in Piazza San Donato in Pinerolo

Travel tip:

Pinerolo is a beautiful town in the shadow of the alps, some 50km (31 miles) south-west of Turin.  It has a charming main square, the Piazza San Donato, overlooked by the cathedral of the same name, which dates back to the ninth century and which has a Romanesque bell tower and a Gothic façade. The church of Santa Croce, in Vicolo Barone, is another picturesque sight.

The commemorative plaque outside 115 Viale Italia

Travel tip:

In Livorno, where Caprilli was born, a commem- orative plaque marks the family home in Viale Italia, at number 115.  He was honoured in 1937 when the local horse racing track was renamed Ippodromo Federico Caprilli. At one time it boasted a fully illuminated track and could accommodate crowds of up to 10,000 spectators but it closed in 2016 after the company that owned it went out of business.

More reading:

Frankie Dettori - Milan-born jockey among all-time greats

The traditional horse race, the Palio di Siena

Luigi Beccali - Italy's first Olympic track gold medallist

Also on this day:

1848: The death of operatic genius Gaetano Donizetti


(Picture credits: Horse jumping by Henry Bucklow; Pinerolo duomo by Mattana; plaque by Piergiuliano Chesi; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Count Vittorio Alfieri – playwright and poet

Romantic nobleman inspired the oppressed with his writing

A painting by Francois-Xavier Fabre of Alfieri,
property of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta

Dramatist and poet Count Vittorio Alfieri was born on this day in 1749 in Asti in Piedmont.

He earned himself the title of ‘the precursor of the Risorgimento’ because the predominant theme of his poetry was the overthrow of tyranny and with his dramas he tried to encourage a national spirit in Italy. He has also been called ‘the founder of Italian tragedy.’

Alfieri was educated at the Military Academy of Turin but disliked military life and obtained leave to travel throughout Europe.

In France he was profoundly influenced by studying the writing of Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu and in England he embarked on a doomed affair with an unsuitable woman.

When he returned to Italy in 1772 he settled in Turin and resigned his military commission.  Soon afterwards, he wrote a tragedy, Cleopatra, which was performed to great acclaim in 1775.

He decided to devote himself to literature and began a methodical study of the classics and of Italian poetry.

Since he expressed himself mainly in French, which was the language of the ruling classes in Turin, he went to Tuscany to familiarise himself with pure Italian.

Francois-Xavier Fabre also painted Alfieri with the Countess
of Albany, with whom he lived in Italy and France

Over the next few years he wrote 14 tragedies and numerous poems. He wrote five odes on American independence, an ode on the fall of the Bastille in Paris in 1789 and a political treatise on tyranny.

While in Florence, Alfieri met Princess Louise of Stolberg Gedern, also known as the Countess of Albany, who was the wife of the Stuart pretender to the English throne.

Although she was living with her husband, Charles Edward Stuart, otherwise known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, Alfieri formed a serious relationship with her. When she moved to Rome to get away from her husband, Alfieri followed her there.

She then moved to France and he went to join her there. They lived together in both Alsace and Paris, but eventually left France because of the revolution and returned to live in Florence. Alfieri remained deeply attached to her for the rest of his life.

He chose to use a dramatic style in his writing to persuade the oppressed to accept his political ideas and to inspire them to heroic deeds. Most of his tragedies represented the struggle between a champion of liberty and a tyrant.

This statue of Alfieri is a feature
of Piazza Alfieri in Asti

One of the best of his published tragedies is Filippo, in which Philip II of Spain is presented as a tyrant. Saul, which is considered to be his masterpiece, has been singled out as the most powerful drama ever presented in the Italian theatre.

Alfieri died in Florence in 1803. His autobiography, Vita di Vittorio Alfieri scritta da esso, The life of Vittorio Alfieri written by himself, was published posthumously in 1804.

Alfieri and the Countess of Albany were both buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

Travel tip:

Asti, where Alfieri was born, is a city in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, situated about 55 kilometres to the east of Turin. It is famous for its high-quality wines, Moscato d’Asti, a sparking white wine and Barbera, a prestigious red. Every year a Palio, a bare-back horse race, is held in Piazza Alfieri, the square named after the writer, on the third Sunday in September.

The tomb of Vittorio Alfieri in the Basilica of Santa
Croce in Florence was sculpted by Antonio Canova

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, where Vittorio Alfieri is buried, is the largest Franciscan church in the world and the present building dates back to the 13th century. The Basilica has 16 chapels, many of them decorated with frescoes by Giotto and his pupils. It is the burial place for many important Italians, including Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and Rossini. Alfieri's tomb was sculpted by Antonio Canova, who is considered one of Italy's greatest sculptors.

More reading:

Bonnie Prince Charlie - Italian-born heir to the throne of Great Britain

The genius of Antonio Canova

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

Also on this day:

1957: The death of conductor Arturo Toscanini

(Picture credits: Asti statue by Palladino Neil; Santa Croce tomb by jollyroger; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Francesco Cirio - canning pioneer

Market trader whose name became known worldwide

Francesco Cirio

Francesco Cirio, who pioneered the technique of canning food products to preserve their freshness, was born on this day in 1836 in the town of Nizza Monferrato in what is now Piedmont.

His father was a grain trader and Francesco developed entrepreneurial instincts at an early age.  By the age of 14 he was working at the fruit and vegetable market of Porta Palazzo in Turin.

He soon became aware that there was a demand for fresh Italian produce in London and Paris and set up a company to export fruit and vegetables to other cities in Europe.

At the same time he heard about the work of Nicolas Appert, the French confectioner and chef, whose attempts to find ways to preserve food led him to discover that heat could be used as a method of sterilisation and that foods treated in that way could be sealed in cans and would retain their fresh condition for many months.

The method, which became known as Appertisation, was taken up by Cirio, who set up his first canning factory in Turin in 1856 at the age of 20, concentrating first on peas and then achieving similar success with other vegetables.

A poster from the early part of the 20th century
advertising Cirio's most famous product

Within a decade, the Cirio brand was appearing on the shelves of grocery stores all over the world and by 1885 the Societa Anonima di Esportazione Agricola Francesco Cirio, with its headquarters in Turin, had opened subsidiaries in Milan, Naples, Belgrade, Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris and Vienna.

Francesco died in 1900 but his partner, Pietro Signorini, continued the development of the company, which invested in the agricultural development of Southern Italy.  Canned tomatoes became a major part of the business and from the 1920s onwards, the name Cirio became synonymous with Italian tomatoes.

The business continued to thrive through the 20th century before it became engulfed in the financial scandals of the late 1990s. The company was wound up after a number of executives were arrested on fraud charges during the anti-corruption drive in Italy that saw several other of the country's biggest commercial names disappear from the shelves.

However, the Cirio brand lives on as part of the Gruppo Cooperativo Conserve Italia, a cooperative consortium of vegetable producers based in San Lazzaro in Emilia-Romagna.

Travel tip:

Nizza Monferrato, in the province of Asti, grew up around the Abbey of San Giovanni in Lanero in the 13th century.  It passed into the hands of the House of Savoy in 1703 and began to flourish in the 18th century, when it was noted for its silk production.  Interesting buildings include the Palazzo Comunale, the seat of the local government since the 14th century, and the Palazzo Crova, which is a good example of the town houses favoured by the nobility in the 18th century.  The red wine Nizza, a DOCG wine made with Barbera grapes, is produced in just 18 municipalities around the town.

Stalls on the Porta Palazzo market in Turin, where
Francesco Cirio worked from the age of 14

Travel tip:

The Porta Palazzo market, located in Piazza della Repubblica in Turin, where Cirio cut his teeth in the fruit and vegetable business, is the largest open air market in Europe with around 800 stalls.  It trades from Monday to Friday and attracts not only customers from the city but from neighbourhoods further afield and many foreign visitors.  There is a strong representation of local producers with more than 100 stalls every day directly selling products from farmers around Turin. The market was renovated in 2006.

More reading:

Michele Ferrero - the man who invented Nutella spread

Piedmont roots of chef and TV presenter Antonio Carluccio

Soave - the classic Italian wine

Also on this day:

Christmas Eve - la Vigilia di Natale

(Picture credit: Porta Palazzo market by Xadhoomx via Wikimedia commons)



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Capture of Rome

Troops enter the capital in final act of unification

Bersaglieri soldiers storm through the walls of Rome in
this 1880 painting by Carlo Ademollo

Crack infantry soldiers from Piedmont entered Rome and completed the unification of Italy on this day in 1870.

Rome had remained under French control even after the first Italian parliament had proclaimed Victor Emmanuel of Savoy the King of Italy in 1861.

The Italian parliament had declared Rome the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy even though it had not yet taken control of the city.

A French garrison had remained in Rome on the orders of Napoleon III of France in support of Pope Pius IX.

An 1860 portrait of
 Victor Emmanuel II

But after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon III had to withdraw many of his troops. Italian soldiers from the Bersaglieri regiments in Piedmont led by General Raffaele Cadorna seized their chance and after a brief bombardment were able to enter Rome through a breach in the Aurelian Walls near Porta Pia.

King Victor Emmanuel II was then able to take up residence in the Quirinale Palace and Italy was declared officially united.

The date of 20 September, which marked the end of the Risorgimento, the long process of Italian unification, is commemorated in practically every town in Italy with a street named Via XX Settembre.

Porta Pia, designed by Michelangelo in 1564, stands at the
end of Via XX Settembre, not far from the Villa Borghese

Travel tip:

Porta Pia is a gate in Rome’s ancient walls, named after Pope Pius lV, who commissioned Michelangelo to design it just before his death in Rome in 1564. You will find it at the end of Via XX Settembre, which goes off Piazza di San Bernardo, not far from the Quirinale Palace and the Trevi Fountain. A marble and brass monument - the Monumento al Bersagliere - commemorating the liberation of Rome was erected near the place the Italian troops breached the walls, opposite the external façade of the gate.

Travel tip:

One of Italy's many Via XX Settembre can be found in the beautiful city of Bergamo in northern Italy. Bergamo's Via XX Settembre is one of the main thoroughfares in the lower town and has been dubbed ‘the shopping street’ by the locals because of the wealth of smart shops that line both sides, from department stores, book and gift shops to jewellery and fashion stores. Top names gracing the elegant street include Calvin Klein, Stefanel, Benetton, Max Mara, Luisa Spagnoli, Marina Rinaldi and Sisley.

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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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Battle of Marengo

 

Napoleon works up an appetite driving out the Austrians

Napoleon was victorious in battle against the Austrians on this day in 1800 in an area near the village of Marengo, about five kilometres south of Alessandria in Piedmont.

Scene from the Battle of Marengo, captured by the artist
Louis-Francois, Baron Lejeune

A chicken dish named after the battle, Pollo alla Marengo, keeps the event alive by continuing to appear on restaurant menus and in cookery books.

It was an important victory for Napoleon, who effectively drove the Austrians out of Italy by forcing them to retreat.

Initially French forces had been overpowered by the Austrians and had been pushed back a few miles. The Austrians thought they had won and retired to Alessandria.

But the French received reinforcements and launched a surprise counter-attack, forcing the Austrians to retreat and to have to subsequently sign an armistice.

This sealed a political victory for Napoleon and helped him secure his grip on power.

Napoleon Bonaparte: detail from a portrait
by the artist Andrea Appiani

There are various stories about the origin of the chicken dish named after the battle. Some say Napoleon ate it after his victory, while others say a restaurant chef in Paris invented it and named it after the battle in Napoleon’s honour.

There is also a story that Napoleon refused to eat before the battle but eventually came off the field with a ferocious hunger. His chef had to whip up a meal from the only ingredients he had to hand, which is how the dish ended up as being made from chicken fried in oil, garlic and tomatoes, garnished with eggs and crayfish. 

Napoleon is said to have wolfed it down and then the battle turned in his favour. He therefore associated the dish with victory and insisted on eating it before every future battle.

Travel tip:

Alessandria is an historic city in Piedmont, situated to the south east of Turin. After the Battle of Marengo in 1800 it became part of French territory but was returned to Italy a few years later. It is now a major railway hub.

Travel tip:

The Museum of Marengo, Museo della Battaglia di Marengo, is at Spinetta Marengo, a suburb of Alessandria. To ensure his victory would not be forgotten, Napoleon ordered a column commemorating the date to be erected at the exact site of the battle. For more information and to find out about re enactment events visit www.marengomuseum.it.

More reading:

Napoleon becomes King of Italy

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Pope Pius V - Saint

Pontiff dismissed jester and clamped down on heretics

Saint Pius V: a painting by El Greco

The feast day of Saint Pius V is celebrated every year on this day, the day before the anniversary of his death in 1572 in Rome.

Saint Pius V, who became Pope in 1566, is remembered chiefly for his role in the Counter Reformation, the period of Catholic resurgence following the Protestant Reformation.

He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England for heresy and for persecuting English Catholics and he formed the Holy League, an alliance of Catholic states against the Turks.

Saint Pius V was born Antonio Ghislieri in Bosco, now Bosco Marengo, in Piedmont. At the age of 14 he entered the Dominican Order, taking the name of Michele. He was ordained at Genoa in 1528 and then sent to Pavia to lecture. 

He became a bishop under Pope Pius IV but after opposing the pontiff was dismissed. After the death of Pius IV, Ghislieri was elected Pope Pius V in 1566. His first act on becoming Pope was to dismiss the court jester and no Pope has had one since.

Protestantism had by then conquered many parts of Europe and Pius V was determined to prevent it getting into Italy. He therefore took a personal interest in the activities of the Inquisition in Rome and appeared to be unmoved by the cruelty practiced.

After his death in 1572, Pius V was buried in the Vatican despite having asked to be buried in Bosco.

He was canonised by Pope Clement XI in 1712.  Cardinal John Henry Newman later explained his severity as necessary for the time. He wrote about Pius V: “He was a soldier of Christ in a time of insurrection and rebellion, when in a spiritual sense, martial law was proclaimed.”

The parish church in Bosco Marengo with a monument
to Pope Saint Pius V in the foreground

Travel tip:

Bosco Marengo is a town in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont, southeast of Turin and Alessandria. The 16th century church of Santa Croce in the town was commissioned by Pope Pius V in the year of his election to the papacy to house his tomb and it now contains a marble monument to the pope.

Travel tip:

In 1698 the body of Pope Pius V was transferred to a tomb in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Piazza del Esquilino in Rome, not far from the Termini railway station. The front of the tomb has a bronze lid engraved with a likeness of the Pope which was designed to be lifted down to allow pilgrims to view the saint’s remains.

(Photo of church in Bosco Marengo by Davide Papalini CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Michele Ferrero - the man who invented Nutella

Hazelnut spread that became a worldwide favourite

Nutella served with crusty bread is a popular snack
in Italy and around the world

The man who invented the global commercial phenomenon that is Nutella spread was born on this day in 1925.

Michele Ferrero, who died in 2015 aged 89, owned the Italian chocolate manufacturer Ferrero SpA, the second largest confectionery producer in Europe after Nestlé.

He was the richest individual in Italy, listed by the Bloomberg Billionaires index in 2014 as the 20th richest person in the world.  The wealth of Michele and his family was put at $20.4 billion, around 14.9 billion euros.

Ferrero is famous for such brands as Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri, Kinder and Tic Tacs.  But, it could be argued, none of those names would probably exist had it not been for Nutella.

The chocolate and hazelnut spread came into being after Michele, who was born in the small town of Dogliani in Piedmont, inherited the Ferrero company from his father, Pietro, who died in 1949 only three years after setting up in business from his bakery in nearby Alba.

Michele Ferrero became the richest man in Italy

With high taxes on cocoa beans making conventional chocolate expensive to make, Pietro had managed to build the business by producing a solid confectionery bar that combined Gianduja, a traditional Piedmontese hazelnut paste, with about 20 per cent chocolate.

A creamy, spreadable version was produced in 1951 under the name 'Supercrema' but it was after Michele decided to add palm oil to the recipe that the product really took off.  Renamed Nutella, and sold in a jar, it rolled off the production line at the factory in Alba for the first time on 20 April 1964.

Nutella was instantly popular and remains so more than 50 years later. Ferrero now produces 365,000 tons of Nutella every year in 11 factories around the world, with its biggest markets in Germany, France and Italy.

The 50th anniversary of Nutella's invention was commemorated with a stamp issued by Poste Italiane in 2014.  One fan of the product instigated World Nutella Day, which is celebrated by devotees on 5 February each year.

Building on Nutella's success, Ferrero created the Ferrero Rocher pralines, Kinder bars and Kinder Eggs and a host of other brands. What had begun as a small provincial chocolate factory turned into Italy's most valuable privately-owned company with sales of around 8 billion euros ($9 billion), selling its products in 53 countries.

Michele had a reputation for maintaining good working conditions for Ferrero's 22,000 employees. A fervent Catholic, he had a Madonna placed in every factory and office belonging to the company.

He eventually made his home in Monte Carlo but commuted to Alba by helicopter every day, playing an active role in creating new products until only a few years before his death.

Giovanni Ferrero, the youngest of Michele's two sons, is now the company's Chief Executive.  His brother, Pietro, was unfortunately killed in a cycling accident in South Africa in 2011.

Alba's Romaneque Duomo

Travel tip:

Alba, situated about 65 kilometres south-east of Turin, is a beautiful town famed for the production of white truffle, peaches and elegant wines, including Barbera and Barolo.  The town dates back to Roman times and has been fought over through history by Hungary, France, Spain and Austria among others.  Its partisans won a Gold Medal for Military Valour during the Second World War after liberating the town from Mussolini's Fascists.  Notable buildings include the Romanesque Duomo, built in the 12th century, restructured in the 15th century and further restored in the 19th century.

Travel tip:

Michele Ferrero's home town, about a half-hour drive from Alba to the south-west, Dogliani nestles among vineyards and woods of hazel trees.  Wine production plays an important role in the town's economy, in particular the Dolcetto di Dogliani red, which is made only from Dolcetto grapes grown within a small, clearly defined area, of which the yield is strictly controlled to maintain the wine's high value.  The late 19th century church of San Quirico e Paolo is impressive.  Visitors to the area before Christmas can witness the town's Presepio Vivente, in which local people enact the nativity scene on the nights of 23 and 24 December.

(Photo of Nutella by A Kniesel CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Duomo in Alba by Pippo-B CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Antonio Carluccio - chef and restaurateur

TV personality and author began his career as a wine merchant

The chef, restaurateur and author Antonio Carluccio was born on this day in 1937 in Vietri-sul-Mare in Campania. 

An instantly recognisable figure due to his many television appearances, Carluccio moved to London in 1975 and built up a successful chain of restaurants bearing his name.  He wrote 21 books about Italian food, as well as his autobiography, A Recipe for Life, which was published in 2012.

Although born in Vietri, a seaside town between Amalfi and Salerno famous for ceramics, Carluccio spent most of his childhood in the north, in Borgofranco d'Ivrea in Piedmont.  His father was a station master and his earliest memories are of running home from the station where his father worked to warn his mother that the last train of the day had left and that it was time to begin cooking the evening meal.

Antonio Carluccio
(Photo: Andrew Hendo)

Carluccio would join his father in foraging for mushrooms and wild rocket in the mountainous countryside near their home and it was from those outings that his interest in food began to develop, yet his career would at first revolve around wine.  Having moved to Austria to study languages, he settled in Germany and between 1962 and 1975 was a wine merchant based in Hamburg.

The wine business then took him to London, where he specialised in importing Italian wines.  He was already acknowledged among friends as a talented cook and he was persuaded by his partner and future wife, Priscilla Conran, to enter a cookery competition promoted by a national newspaper, in which he finished second.

Carluccio and Priscilla married in 1980, after which his new brother-in-law, the designer and entrepreneur Terence Conran, made him manager of his Neal Street Restaurant in Covent Garden, which launched him on his new career.

He bought Neal Street in 1989 and, two years later, opened a deli next door, called simply Carluccio's. The shop expanded into a mail order business and, in 1998, with Priscilla providing the business brains, he opened the first Carluccio's Caffè.  It was the first step in building a nationwide chain of restaurants, which they eventually sold for around £90 million in 2010.  He now works for the company, which has more than 80 branches in the United Kingdom alone, as a consultant.

Carluccio's television career began in 1983, when he made his first appearance in the BBC2 show Food and Drink, talking about Mediterranean food.  At the same time he was asked to write his first book, An Invitation to Italian Cooking, and soon became a familiar face as the number of cooking programmes on TV soared.  He hosted several of his own series and shared the spotlight with his former assistant at Neal Street, Gennaro Contaldo, in the hugely popular Two Greedy Italians. By coincidence, Contaldo was born in Minori, less than 20 kilometres along the Amalfi Coast from Carluccio's home town of Vietri-sul-Mare.

Carluccio was generally seen as a jolly figure with a zest for life, yet endured difficult times. Although his parents did their best to shield him, he admitted that some of his experiences growing up in wartime Italy were not pleasant. He suffered a family tragedy aged 23 when his younger brother, Enrico, 10 years' his junior, drowned while swimming in a lake. Carluccio was divorced from Priscilla Conran in 2008 and revealed in his autobiography that he had waged a long battle against depression.

In 1988, Carluccio was honoured in Italy by being made Commendatore dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, the equivalent to a knighthood in Britain, where in 2007 he was made an OBE.

Carluccio died in November 2017 at the age of 80 following a fall at home.

The majolica-clad dome of the Church of St John
the Baptist in Vietri-sul-Mare, Carluccio's birthplace

Travel tip:

Vietri-sul-Mare, which is situated just 12 kilometres from Salerno in Campania, is the first or last town on the Amalfi Coast, depending on the starting point.  It is sometimes described as the first of the 13 pearls of the Amalfi Coast. A port and resort town of Etruscan origins, it has been famous for the production of ceramics since the 15th century. The Church of St. John the Baptist, built in the 17th century in late Neapolitan Renaissance style, has an eyecatching dome covered with majolica tiles.

Travel tip:

Borgofranca d'Ivrea is a village of 3,700 inhabitants situated just north of Ivrea in Piedmont, a town with a population of 23,000 people notable for its 14th century castle, a square structure that originally had a round tower in each corner, one of which was destroyed by an explosion in 1676 after lightning struck an ammunition store.  There is also a cathedral, parts of which date back to the fourth century, that now has an elegant neo-classical faҫade added in the 19th century.

More reading:

Gennaro Contaldo's passion for the cooking of Amalfi

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