The Borghese Coup

Neo-fascist ‘plot’ aborted at last moment

How the story of the attempted coup was broken
in a Rome newspaper three months after the event

Italians might have woken up on this day in 1970 to learn that the nation’s legitimate government had been overthrown in a neo-fascist coup had the plotters behind the insurrection not abandoned their action at the 11th hour.

The night of December 7-8 had been chosen as the date for Golpe Borghese - the Borghese Coup - the proposed coup d’état by Junio Valerio Borghese, a nobleman descended from the House of Borghese, which originated in Siena and went on to wield significant power and influence in Rome in the 17th century. 

Borghese, a former member of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party, had been a naval commander in World War Two who had aligned himself with Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic following the armistice of 1943. He became a prominent neo-fascist in post-war Italy, first as a member of the Italian Social Movement and later setting up his own political party, the Fronte Nazionale (National Front). 

Like many on the far right of Italian politics, Borghese - known as the Black Prince both for his politics and his family history, the Borghese having been part of the so-called Black Nobility - had been alarmed by the rise of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which he felt the political mainstream in Italy was doing too little to counter.  Strikes and protests had become commonplace and the tension between right and left had been exacerbated by the Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan in December 1969, when 17 people were killed in a terrorist act blamed on the neo-fascist group Ordine Nuovo. It was the start of the period of unrest that would become known as the Years of Lead.

The neo-fascist politician Junio
Valerio Borghese plotted the coup

The coup Borghese conceived would have installed a coalition of military figures, right-wing politicians and sympathisers in place of the centre-left government led by Christian Democrat Emilio Colombo. The leaders of the PCI were to have been arrested and imprisoned and the party dissolved.

The action had been a year and more in the planning. Borghese had formed an alliance with another neo-fascist group, Avanguardia Nazionale (National Vanguard) led by Stefano Delle Chiaie, and had secretly obtained the promise of support from a force of army dissidents under the control of Lt. Colonel Amos Spiazzi. He had secured financial backing from a number of businessmen and industrialists who shared his misgivings about the rise of the communists and forged links with the secretive masonic lodge Propaganda Due, led by Licio Gelli.  

The Cosa Nostra and ‘Ndrangheta mafia organisations were to play a part also, in return for a scaling back of anti-mafia operations by the state.

Borghese had even gained the tacit approval of the United States for his planned coup, making contact through a number of intermediaries with important figures in the State Department. The Americans, who were still sponsoring NATO’s clandestine, anti-communist post-war activities in Italy under Operation Gladio, apparently indicated they would not oppose the coup provided certain conditions were met, although they reportedly doubted it would succeed.

When the night of the operation arrived, Borghese’s paramilitary force and other supporters were to kidnap the Italian President, Giuseppe Saragat, to murder Angelo Vicari, the head of the police, and to occupy the headquarters of public television broadcaster RAI. The seizure would take place of the presidential residence at the Palazzo Quirinale, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence.  Groups of paramilitaries were positioned in front of the residences of prominent left-wing politicians.

President Giuseppe Saragat was to
have been kidnapped by the plotters

Operations to take control of government offices in the other major Italian cities were also made ready. Spiazzi planned to occupy the whole town of Sesto San Giovanni, a communist stronghold near Milan.

Yet at about 1.40am on December 8, just as the Golpe Borghese  was in its early stages, with militants already inside the Interior Ministry and beginning to loot weapons from the national armoury, Borghese sent out the order that the operation was to be aborted. 

Ordinary Italians knew nothing of any of this until March 17, 1971, when the left-wing Rome newspaper Paese Sera, who had been fed information by government sources, broke the story of a neo-fascist plot to overthrow the state. The first arrests were made later the same day.

Borghese was not among them. He had already fled to Spain, where he would remain until his death four years later, when he was suddenly taken ill with severe abdominal pains after eating his dinner.  The death certificate recorded the cause of death as an acute haemorrhage of the pancreas, although many suspected he had been poisoned.

His reason for abandoning the coup was never established. His own explanation was that there was never a coup, and that all that was being planned was a large-scale protest against the forthcoming visit to Rome of the communist leader of Yugoslavia, Josep Broz Tito. He had decided to call off the protest because of the unpleasant conditions caused by heavy rain.

However, Lt. Colonel Spiazzi confirmed later that a coup had been about to be carried out, only for it to become known that the Christian Democratic government had been tipped off and were ready to trigger Exigency Operation Triangle, which would deploy thousands of troops and police to suppress the plotters and declare martial law.

Three trials of suspected participants in the coup attempt, along with subsequent appeals, were heard between 1978 and 1986 but ultimately all the defendants were acquitted.  This was despite further evidence emerging from the Maxi Trial of Sicilian mafiosi in the mid-80s, when Tommaso Buscetta and other pentiti confirmed that Borghese had sought their help, and that the Palermo journalist Mauro di Mauro, the victim of an apparent mafia killing three months before the planned coup, had been murdered because he had learned about Borghese’s intentions and planned to splash the story.

The Borghese Coup remains one of Italy’s many unsolved mysteries, dismissed by some as a rather comic attempt by incompetent plotters that was never any real threat to the state, but suspected by others to be another example of sinister figures trying to influence the course of events for their own political ends.

The Quirinale Palace in Rome has been the official 
residence of 30 popes, four kings and 12 presidents

Travel tip:

The Palazzo del Quirinale was built in 1583 by Pope Gregory XIII originally as a summer residence. It subsequently served both as a papal residence and the offices responsible for the civil government of the Papal States until 1870. When, in 1871, Rome became the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy, the palace became the official residence of the kings of Italy, although some monarchs, notably King Victor Emmanuel III (1900–1946), lived in a private residence elsewhere. When the monarchy was abolished in 1946, the Palazzo del Quirinale became the official residence and workplace for the presidents of the Italian Republic. So far, it has housed 30 popes, four kings and 12 presidents.

The main facade of the Palazzo Borghese, the
historical seat of the Borghese family in Rome

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Borghese, which is notable for its unusual trapezoidal layout, having two parallel sides but two that are not parallel, was the main seat of the Borghese family in Rome. Situated in the Campo Marzio district of central Rome, not far from the Ponte Cavour and and about 600m (0.37 miles) on foot from the Spanish Steps, it was built in about 1560-61 by the architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola on behalf of Monsignor Tommaso del Giglio and acquired by Cardinal Camillo Borghese in 1604, shortly before he became Pope Paul V.  The first floor of the palace has been the seat of the Embassy of Spain in Italy since 1947. The palace originally housed the Borghese family’s art collection, which contained works by Raphael, Titian and many others, before it was transferred in 1891 to the Galleria Borghese in Villa Borghese.

Also on this day:

1577: The birth of painter Mario Minniti

1685: The birth of perfumier Johann Maria Farina

1881: The birth of architect Marcello Piacentini

1925: The birth of politician Arnaldo Forlani

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

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Piero Terracina - death camp survivor

Roman lived to be 91 after being freed from Auschwitz

After initial reluctance, Terracini told
his harrowing story many times over

Piero Terracina, the man thought to be the longest survivor among the Jews rounded up for deportation in Rome after Nazi occupation during World War Two, was born on this day in 1928 in the Italian capital.

Terracina was taken to the notorious Auschwitz death camp in Poland, where almost one million Jewish prisoners were killed, but was spared death and eventually liberated in 1945.

After a long and difficult recovery he returned to Rome and lived to be 91.

For the last almost 30 years of his life, so long as his health allowed, he devoted himself to maintaining awareness of the Holocaust in the hope that such horrors would never be repeated.

Terracina enjoyed a relatively uneventful early childhood. Although many of Rome’s Jews still lived in the area of Rione Sant’Angelo to which they had been originally confined by papal decree in the 16th century, the Jewish community in the early part of the 20th century enjoyed the same status as any other Italians in the city.

Piero was the youngest of four children born to Giovanni Terracina and Lidia Ascoli. His father was a fabric merchant.

Things began to change in the autumn of 1938 when Mussolini’s Fascist dictatorship introduced laws to enforce racial discrimination and segregation in Italian society, aimed mainly at the Jewish population of mainland Italy and the native Africans in the Italian colonies.

The entrance to the preserved Auschwitz complex, 
where Terracina accompanied many visitors

Mussolini had originally been comfortable with Jews being part of Italy. Indeed, one of his mistresses - a propaganda advisor to his Fascist party - was from a middle class Jewish family. But his attitude changed as he became more influenced by Nazi ideology in Germany.

Terracina’s family had their assets seized. Piero was expelled from his mainstream Italian school and had to continue his education in a school for Jews only. The family’s circumstances were much reduced, but they were able to live in a restricted way.

However, that all changed in 1943. By then, Mussolini had been overthrown by the Fascist Grand Council, placed under house arrest but then rescued by German paratroops and given a safe haven in northern Italy. Rome and the rest of central and northern Italy was occupied by Nazi troops.

The Germans began to round up Jews as they had in the rest of occupied Europe. When Nazi squads entered the Roman ghetto in October 1943, Terracina and his family managed to escape, avoiding the fate of more than 1,000 of their neighbours.

They went into hiding but in April of the following year their whereabouts were revealed to the Germans by an informer and Piero and his family - his parents, a sister and two brothers, an uncle and his grandfather - were all arrested.

Terracina, already in his 80s, surrounded by
teachers and students on a school visit

Imprisoned initially in Rome, they were moved to a prison camp near Modena but after a few days were crowded into railway wagons and taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex in Poland. Piero was spared the gas chambers only because he was considered strong enough physically to be given labouring jobs; the rest of his family died within hours of their arrival.

Despite his weight dropping to just 38 kilos (just under six stones), Piero survived and escaped in January 1945. With the area under attack from the advancing Russian army, he and his fellow captives were moved from the Auschwitz camp and were being marched towards another location when the approach of a Russian platoon caused their Nazi guards to flee.

In the face of biting cold, Terracina and his comrades returned to the Auschwitz complex, now abandoned, to shelter until they were found by the Russians.  Recovery was long and painful, involving stays in a hospital in Lviv, in the west of Ukraine, and in a sanatorium by the Black Sea. After a year, he returned to Rome.

For the next three and a half decades, Terracina quietly rebuilt his life, completing his education and developing a career in management. He was reluctant to speak about what had happened to him but was eventually persuaded of the importance of telling his story.

Thereafter, he devoted himself to keeping alive the dreadful memory of the hell he and millions of others had endured, speaking to politicians, historians, journalists, members of sports teams and in particular students, whom he often accompanied on trips to Auschwitz. The older he became, the more powerful was his presence on these trips.

Terracina died in Rome in December 2019. His funeral included a procession from the Tempio Maggiore, Rome’s main synagogue, which overlooks the Tiber near the Isola Tiberina, to the Campo Verano memorial cemetery.

The imposing Tempio Maggiore, 
Rome's main synagogue

Travel tip:

Rome’s Jewish quarter is beautiful but, given its close proximity to some of the city’s major tourist attractions, often overlooked by visitors. Situated in the Sant’Angelo Rione, east of Campo de’ Fiori and southwest of Piazza Venezia, the former ghetto occupies an area adjoining the Tiber river, next to the bend where the water flows either side of the Isola Tiberina. The centrepiece is the Tempio Maggiore, completed in 1904 and built in an eclectic style with influences of Assyrian-Babylonian, Egyptian and Greco-Roman architecture. There are Roman ruins including the Portico d'Ottavia and Teatro Marcello. The streets nearby are packed with restaurants, many serving traditional Jewish cuisine.

The Isola Tiberina in Rome is said to be the
smallest inhabited island in the world

Travel Tip

The Isola Tiberina, situated in the bend in the Tiber that wraps around the Trastevere district, to which it is connected by the Ponte Cestio, is said to be the smallest inhabited island in the world. A footbridge, the Ponte Fabrico, allows access from the other bank of the river.  The island was once the location of an ancient temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine and healing, and in modern times the Fatebenefratelli Hospital, founded in the 16th century. The 10th century Basilica of St. Bartholomew is also located on the island, which is just 270m (890ft) long and 67m (220ft) wide. During the Nazi occupation, Jews hid in the wards of the hospital after the head of the institution deterred SS officers from searching it by putting out the story that he was struggling to contain an outbreak of a deadly and contagious disease.

Also on this day:

1892: The birth of World War One flying ace Giulio Lega

1905: The Giro di Lombardia cycle race is contested for the first time

1920: The Treaty of Rapallo is signed

1948: The death of composer Umberto Giordano

2011: Silvio Berlusconi resigns as prime minister

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Roberto “Robertino” Loreti - singer and actor

Child prodigy who specialised in traditional Italian songs

Robertino Loreti pictured in 1964, when 
he was 17 and already a star

The singer and actor Roberto Loreti, who performed under the stage name “Robertino”, was born on this day in 1946 in Rome.

Loreti, who sang live on Italian television earlier in 2022 at the age of 75, built popularity in many countries apart from Italy at his peak, his repertoire largely built on traditional Italian songs. He also appeared in acting roles in a number of films.

The fifth of eight children, he was only 10 years old when his father, Orlando, could not work for a long period because of illness. In order to help bring money into the household, Loreti had to give up school and find work.

He took a job as a delivery boy for a bakery which supplied pastries to restaurants. As he made his deliveries, he would amuse himself by singing folk songs.

The quality of his voice made an impression on people who heard him. One restaurant asked him to sing at a wedding and that led to others asking him to perform for their diners. 

Because Rome was the heart of the Italian film industry, Loreti even landed small parts in films, such as The Return of Don Camillo in 1953, when as a six-year-old boy he was cast as the small son of one of the story’s main characters.

At the age of eight, the operatic quality of his voice won him a place in the choir at a production of Ildebrando Pizzetti’s opera, Assassinio nella cattedrale - Murder in the Cathedral - performed at the Vatican in the presence of Pope John XXIII.

Loreti was just five years old when he won a 
part in the film, The Return of Don Camillo

His big break came some years later as a 14-year-old, in 1960, when he was singing for clients at the Caffè Grand'Italia in the Piazza della Repubblica, not far from Rome’s Termini station. Sitting at a table were the Neapolitan actor Totò, a Danish TV producer called Volmer Sørensen and his wife, singer Grethe Sønck, who drew their attention to the boy’s melodic voice.

Sørensen invited Roberto and his father to travel to Copenhagen. The prodigy sang on a number of TV shows and his father was persuaded to sign a contract with Sørensen to perform at concerts in Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, taking him to the age of 17.

Robertino, as he was now known, would spend months at a time on tour, singing up to three concerts a day, as well as recording albums of his songs. In 1962, he underwent a successful trip to the United States, where he performed at Carnegie Hall in New York.

By focussing his talents on classics such as Mamma, Arrivederci Roma and O sole mio, he appealed to audiences for whom such songs were the essence of Italian music. For a while he was nicknamed ‘Little Caruso’.

Loreti pictured during his appearance on the
talk show Oggi è un altro giorno in April 2022

Still only 17, Loreti returned to Italy in 1964, signing a record deal and enjoying more popularity through appearances at the major song festivals such as Sanremo and the Neapolitan Song Festival, winning the latter in 1966 with a song called Bella.

These festivals, enormously popular in Italy and screened on television, provided the platform for many songs that went on to be top-selling singles.

His voice now matured and described as a “baritenor” - defined as a baritone voice with the range of a tenor - he continued to give live performances for many years, although his peak years probably ended in the early 1970s.

According to some accounts of his life, Loreti retired from performing and for a time opted for a quieter life running a grocery store. After about 10 years out of the limelight, he decided to perform again.

In April 2022, six years after he last performed before an audience, Loreti was persuaded to sing on the Rai Uno talk show Oggi è un altro giorno - Today is Another Day - giving a rendition of Un bacio piccolissimo - A Tiny Kiss - which he had performed at Sanremo in 1964 at the age of 17.

A panoramic view of the Ligurian resort of 
Sanremo, home of the eponymous song festival

Travel tip:

The resort of Sanremo in Liguria expanded rapidly in the mid-18th century, when the phenomenon of tourism began to take hold, albeit primarily among the wealthy. Several grand hotels were established and the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia was among the European royals who took holidays there. The Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel was so taken with the elegance of the town after his holiday visits that he made it his permanent home. Known as the City of Flowers, it is characterised by its Stile Liberty architecture (the Italian variant of Art Nouveau), of which the Casinò di Sanremo in Corso degli Inglesi is a beautiful example.  The Sanremo Festival has been an annual event since 1951, making its first appearance on Italian television in 1955. It is the longest-running televised song contest in the world.

The Fountain of the Naiads, with the Basilica di
Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri beyond

Travel tip:

Piazza della Repubblica, where Loreti was singing at the Caffè Grand'Italia when he was spotted by the Danish TV producer who would change hie life, is a circular piazza in Rome at the of the Viminal Hill, the smallest of Rome’s seven hills, next to the Termini station. Its features include the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, which was built inside part of the ruins of the Roman Baths of Diocletian and the Fountain of the Naiads - nymphs of Greek mythology - sculpted by the Sicilian Mario Rutelli in 1901. The square marks the start of Via Nazionale, one of the city’s main commercial streets, more than a kilometre in length and linking the Repubblica almost with Piazza Venezia.

Also on this day:

1885: The birth of tenor Giovanni Martinelli

1965: The birth of actress Valeria Golino

1967: The birth of composer and conductor Salvatore Di Vittorio

1968: The popular Soave wine earns the prestigious DOC status

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Lavinia Fontana – artist

Mother of 11 was Italy’s first female professional painter

A detail from Fontana's Self-Portrait at the
Clavichord with a Servant, painted in 1577

Bolognese Mannerist artist Lavinia Fontana, who became famous for her portraits, died on this day in 1614 in Rome. She has come to be regarded as the first female professional painter in both Italy and throughout western Europe because her family lived on her income from commissioned works. Her husband worked as her assistant and agent and helped her bring up their 11 children.

Lavinia was born in Bologna in 1552 and baptised at the Basilica di San Petronio in the city. Her father, Prospero, was a prominent artist of the Bolognese school and trained Lavinia to follow in his footsteps. This allowed her to become an artist at a time when women were not widely accepted in the profession.

Her earliest known work, Child of the Monkey, was painted in 1575 when she was 23, but is now lost. Another early painting, Christ with the Symbols of the Passion, which was painted in 1576, is now in the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas.

Bologna society was largely supportive of Lavinia’s career, providing opportunities that were not given to women artists in other areas of Italy. She is thought to be the first woman artist working within the same sphere as her male counterparts to live outside a court or a convent.

Lavinia began working professionally by painting small devotional pictures on copper, which had popular appeal as papal and diplomatic gifts. By the 1580s she was in demand as a portrait painter of Bolognese noblewomen, who competed for her services and paid large sums of money for her work because of her close attention to detail. 

Mancini's Christ with the Symbols of
Passion, at the El Paso Museum of Art

She displayed the wealth of the sitter by not neglecting any fashionable detail and by using bright colours for their clothes and jewellery. She also painted portraits of important people connected with the University of Bologna. As her career developed, she began creating large-scale paintings with religious or mythological themes. Among her most famous works are her large altarpieces for churches in Bologna.

Lavinia married another painter, Gian Paolo Zappi, in 1577, at the age of 26, and continued to paint professionally, adding the name Zappi to her signature.

Her husband helped her take care of the household and worked as her painting assistant and agent. He would paint minor elements of her canvases, such as draperies. Lavinia attended Bologna University and was listed as one of the city’s ‘donne addotrinate’, women with doctorates, in 1580.

In 1589, Lavinia painted the altarpiece Holy Family with the Sleeping Christ Child for El Escorial in Madrid.

At the invitation of Pope Clement VIII, Lavinia and her family moved to Rome in 1604 and she was appointed Portraitist in Ordinary at the Vatican. Pope Paul V was later among her sitters.

In 1604, Lavinia painted her largest work, The Martyrdom of St Stephen, an altarpiece for San Paolo Fuori le Mura - Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls - in Rome.

Among the honours she received was a bronze portrait medallion of herself cast by sculptor and architect Felice Antonio Casoni in 1611. She was also elected into the Accademia di San Luca of Rome, which was rare for a woman.

Minerva Dressing (1613), thought to be
the first female nude painted by a woman 

Lavinia died in Rome on 11 August 1614 and was later buried in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, one of the major Dominican churches in the capital.

One of Lavinia’s masterpieces is considered to be the Self-Portrait at the Clavichord with a Servant, which she painted as a gift to the Zappi family before her wedding, describing herself as a virgin in the signature. She also stated that she painted it while looking at herself in a mirror as a testament to it being an accurate depiction of her.

Over 100 of her works have been documented, but only 32 signed and dated are still known today. Another 25 have been attributed to her, giving her the largest collection of works by any female artist before 1700.

Lavinia’s religious and mythological paintings sometimes featured nude figures. Her painting, Minerva Dressing, for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew to Pope Paul V, is believed to be the first female nude executed by a woman in Italy.  This can be seen in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. It has also been claimed Lavinia was the first female artist to paint mythological subjects.

Lavinia was immortalised by being the subject of Portrait of a Woman by Paolo Veronese, painted in 1595, when she was 43. She was the only woman to be featured in the 17th century book Considerazioni sulla pittura - Considerations on Painting - written by the physician and art collector Giulio Mancini, where the beauty of her paintings was likened to her own physical attractions by the writer.

It was rare for a woman painter to achieve such success and to profit from her talent during the Renaissance period. Some experts would argue that, to this day, Lavinia Fontana remains insufficiently appreciated as an artist.

The Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna
is the sixth largest church in Europe

Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Petronio, where Lavinia Fontana was baptised, dominates Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore. Standing 47m (154ft) tall, 132m (144yds) long and 60m (66yds) wide, it is the sixth largest church in Europe and is seen as a symbol of the city. Strangely,  it was not consecrated as a church until 1954 - 574 years after it was built. It was constructed as a civic temple and not transferred from the city to the diocese until 1929.  It is notable for its unfinished facade, the red and brick marble of Domenico da Varignana’s design abandoned when it had barely reached one third of the building’s height, following the intervention of Pope Pius IV, who considered the project too expensive and ambitious.

The Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls is
one of Rome's four major Papal Basilicas

Travel tip:

St Paul Outside-the-Walls is one of the four major Papal Basilicas in Rome, along with St John in the Lateran (San Giovanni in Laterano), St Peter’s (San Pietro in Vaticano) and St Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore). Originally built in the fourth century, it was founded by the Roman emperor Constantine I over the burial place of St Paul. It was damaged and rebuilt after Saracen raids in the ninth century and an earthquake in the 14th century and almost completely destroyed by a fire in 1823, after which Pope Leo XII ordered it to be reconstructed to exactly resemble the original, consecrated in 324, although this turned out to be an unrealistic ambition. The new basilica bears only a general resemblance to the original. The tomb of St Paul is below a marble tombstone in the basilica’s crypt.

Also on this day:

1492: The election of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI

1902: The birth of cycling champion Alfredo Binda

1967: The birth of football coach Massimiliano Allegri 

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Vannozza dei Cattanei - popes’ mistress

Mother of Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia was figure of influence

Vannozza dei Cattanei hailed from
an aristocratic family in Mantua

Vannozza dei Cattanei, who was for many years the chief mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo de Borgia - later Pope Alexander VI - was born on this day in 1442 in Mantua.

Herself from the aristocratic Candia family, Vannozza - baptised as Giovanna de Candia - grew up to be a beautiful woman but also a successful businesswoman, acquiring a number of osterie - inns - after she moved to Rome.

In 15th century Italy, it was not unusual for cardinals and popes to have mistresses, despite Holy Orders coming with a vow of celibacy.  Before her relationship with Rodrigo de Borgia, Vannozza allegedly was mistress to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II and a rival to Borgia in the 1492 papal election that he won.

Rodrigo made no attempt to hide his sexual dalliances, acquiring the nickname Papa Cattivo - the naughty pope - not only for his promiscuity but his questionable morals in other areas, with allegations that he was involved in bribery and extortion on his rise to the top, and rumours that he poisoned some of his rivals.

Unusually, compared with other popes and cardinals who flouted the rules, Borgia openly acknowledged the children that Vannozza bore him during their relationship, which is thought to have lasted between 20 and 25 years, providing for them financially and having a significant influence over their lives.

The eldest, Cesare, born in 1475, became a cardinal and as leader of the Papal armies captured large amounts of territory that were added to the Pope’s empire.  Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, the treatise on power that was written as a kind of reference point for new princes and royals, was influenced by Cesare’s lust for power.

Pope Alexander VI is thought to have
fathered four children with Vannozza

Of the others, Giovanni - also known as Juan - became the second Duke of Gandia but was murdered at the age of 21, possibly by Cesare; Gioffre married the daughter of the King of Naples, which was advantageous to Rodrigo Borgia.

Lucrezia, meanwhile, was forced to marry three times to elevate Rodrigo’s own status and acquire land and wealth. She took lovers of her own and there were rumours that Giovanni was in fact her own son, the product of an affair with her father's chamberlain.

Vannozza herself had to agree to marriages arranged by Borgia, first to Domenico d'Arignano, an officer of the church, then Giorgio di Croce, for whom Borgia had procured a position as apostolic secretary, and later Carlo Canale, the warden of a papal jail.

Her relationship with Rodrigo Borgia is thought to have changed after she turned 40 and Borgia’s passion for her had diminished by the time he was elevated to Pope in 1492. The care of all her children was entrusted to others in Borgia’s circle, although she remained part of it herself as a sort of matriarchal figure and her former lover sought her counsel as Pope.

He continued to support her financially and by the time she died in 1518, at the age of 76, she had acquired a considerable portfolio of property around the city.

Vannozza outlived Rodrigo de Borgia by 15 years yet despite the nature of their relationship she was granted a public funeral, recognised by Pope Leo X as the widow of Alexander VI. She was buried in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, near her son, Giovanni, after a ceremony attended by the Papal Court. 

The skyline of Mantua has changed little since it
was the Renaissance seat of the Gonzaga family

Travel tip:

The small, historic city of Mantua in Lombardy, which can be found approximately 150km (93 miles) southeast of Milan along the Po Valley, is flanked on three sides by artificial lakes created in the 123th century as the city’s defence system, filled with water from the Mincio river, a tributary of the Po. There was a fourth lake, which meant the city was once surrounded by water, but it dried up in the 18th century and never replenished. It was traditionally the seat of the Gonzaga family, who established a court with a heavy emphasis on music, art and culture. The city has a number of architectural treasures and elegant palaces, while the skyline of its historic old centre has changed little since Renaissance times. At its heart is Piazza Mantegna, where the 15th century Basilica of Sant’Andrea houses the tomb of the artist, Andrea Mantegna. Inside the Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707, the Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Mantegna.

The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is in Piazza
del Popolo, adjoining Porta del Popolo

Travel tip:

The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is a minor basilica in Rome that stands on the north side of Piazza del Popolo, hemmed in between the Pincian Hill and Porta del Popolo, one of the gates in the Aurelian Wall, its position making it the first church encountered by many travellers arriving in the city. The original church was founded by Pope Paschal II in 1099. The existing structure was built largely between 1472 and 1477 as part of an urban renovation programme instigated by Pope Sixtus IV. A trio of great architects - Andrea Bregno, Donato Bramante and Gian Lorenzo Bernini - contributed to its design and are among those whose works can be found inside, along with Raphael, Caravaggio, Alessandro Algardi, Pinturicchio and Guillaume de Marcillat. 

Also on this day:

1478: The birth of Giulio d’Este of Ferrara 

1814: The founding of the Carabinieri police force

1928: The birth of Mafia mobster and ‘pentito’ Tommaso Buscetta 

1974: The birth of racing driver Jarno Trulli

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Paolo Di Canio - footballer

Sublime talent overshadowed by fiery temperament

Paolo Di Canio had four
successful years at West Ham

The brilliant but controversial footballer Paolo Di Canio was born on this day in 1968 in the Quarticciolo neighbourhood of Rome.

Di Canio, an attacking player with a reputation for scoring spectacular goals, played for several of Italy’s top clubs but also forged a career in Britain, joining Glasgow Celtic in Scotland and representing Sheffield Wednesday, West Ham United and Charlton Athletic during a seven-year stay in England.

After finishing his playing career back in Italy, he returned to England to become manager of Swindon Town and then Sunderland, although it was a brief stay.

Di Canio scored almost 150 goals in his career but his fiery temper landed him in trouble on the field while his political views - he was openly a supporter of fascism - attracted negative headlines off it.

Despite growing up in a working-class area of Rome which was a stronghold of AS Roma fans, Di Canio supported their city rivals SS Lazio from an early age.

As a child, he was overweight, but his love for football drove him to beat his addiction to junk food and high-calorie fizzy drinks and become supremely physically fit. 

He signed his first professional contract with Lazio in 1985 at the age of 17, having impressed with the club’s Under-19 team, spending a season on loan at the lower division club Ternana before making his senior debut in Lazio colours in October 1988.

Di Canio began his career with the
club he supported as a boy, Lazio

Lazio had won promotion to Serie A the previous season and Di Canio became an instant hero with Lazio fans when he scored the only goal in the first Rome derby of the season.

It soon became clear that Di Canio was a highly-talented player and it was not long before he earned a move to Juventus in 1990. However, he found himself competing for a place against such stars as Roberto Baggio, Salvatore Schillaci, Pierluigi Casiraghi, Fabrizio Ravanelli, Gianluca Vialli, and Andreas Möller and his displeasure at not being given more game time led to a falling-out with coach Giovanni Trapattoni.

He moved to Napoli and, after one season, to AC Milan, with whom he won a Serie A medal in 1996 but again could not hold down a permanent role in the side and departed after a row with their coach, Fabio Capello.

His next move was to Scotland, joining Celtic, where he scored 15 goals in 37 games in the 1996-97 season, easily the best return of his career. He was the Scottish Professional Footballers Association player of the year but after his demand for a substantial pay rise was knocked back he refused to travel on the club’s pre-season tour to the Netherlands and was swiftly offloaded.

Di Canio’s next club was in England, where manager David Pleat made the inspired decision to team him up with another Italian forward, Benito Carbone, at Sheffield Wednesday. As the two became a brilliant double act, scoring 25 goals between them in the 1997-98 Premier League season, Pleat’s gamble in paying £4.2 million for Di Canio looked to have paid off.

It all turned sour, however, in September of the following season in one of the most notorious incidents in the history of the Premier League when Di Canio was so incensed at being shown the red card by referee Paul Alcock in a match against Arsenal that he pushed the official to the ground. Banned for 11 matches and fined £10,000, Di Canio never played for Wednesday again.

Di Canio signing autographs on a return visit to Upton
Park in 2010. He had been hugely popular there

Yet by the following January, he was lighting up the Premier League again, this time with West Ham United, who had signed him for a bargain price of £1.5 million. His four years there were arguably the best of his career, bringing him 47 goals in 118 Premier League games. He might have stayed longer had they not been relegated in 2003, the club releasing him on a free transfer.

A year with another London club, Charlton Athletic, proved less successful and in 2004 he returned to Italy, rejoining his first club, Lazio. It was there that his political views came to the fore. Having revealed in his autobiography in 2001 that he was an admirer of Italy’s Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, he would sometimes celebrate a goal with a fascist salute, much to the delight of the far-right political factions among the Lazio fans.

Their adoption of Di Canio as a figurehead did not sit well with the club’s hierarchy, who felt the club’s reputation was being damaged. In 2006 his contract was not renewed. He signed instead for a lower league club, Cisco Roma, where he had two seasons before announcing his retirement in 2008.

Three years later, he returned to England to begin a career in management. In his first job, at Swindon Town, he won promotion to from League Two to League One in his first season and might have gone on to enjoy more success had the club not hit the rocks financially. He moved next to Sunderland, but his time on Wearside ended after only six months, despite him supervising a stunning 3-0 win away to arch rivals Newcastle United in only his second match.

Sunderland had lost their vice-chairman, the Labour politician David Miliband, and the patronage of the Durham Miners’ Association because of Di Canio’s political views, but it was after complaints from the players about his treatment of them that he was sacked in September, 2013.

Despite applying for several jobs subsequently, Di Canio has not worked in management again, although in an interview in 2021 he expressed a continuing desire to return to England should an opportunity arise.

The former police headquarters in Quarticciolo
is an example of the area's stark architecture

Travel tip:

Quarticciolo, which can be found about 10km (six miles) east of Rome’s city centre, is part of the Alessandrino district and is a predominantly working class neighbourhood. It was built by the Fascist regime in the late 1930s and bears many of the characteristics of the architectural styles favoured at the time, combining stark urban lines with occasional echoes of classicism. At its centre was the Casa del Fascio, which served as the municipal offices and the headquarters of the party. Residential apartments were strictly assigned depending on size of family or societal status, with some set aside for war widows, some for active soldiers, others to members of the Fascist militia. Ironically, as German troops occupied Rome after the fall of Mussolini in 1943, the area became a stronghold for partisans and resistance fighters and the operational base for Giuseppe Albano, a famous partisan known as Il Gobbo di Quarticciolo - the Hunchback of Quarticciolo - and his Gobbo Gang.

The Palazzo Spada, which dates back to the
mid-16th century, is one of Terni's older buildings

Travel tip:

Before he made his Serie A debut for Lazio, Paolo di Canio spent a period on loan with Ternana, a smaller club based in the city of Terni, in Umbria, which is situated about 95km (59 miles) north of Rome, near the border with Lazio. Terni was left in need of substantial renewal after the Second World War and therefore combines historical buildings with more modern ones. For example, in the central Piazza della Repubblica, which stands where the forum of the Roman city of Interamna was located, is the Palazzo Spada, which was designed by Antonio da Sangallo, who died in Terni in 1546. By contrast, the Corso del Popolo, the central thoroughfare behind Palazzo Spada, was built in the post-War period, while the Lancia di Luce, a 30m high steel artwork by Arnaldo Pomodoro, was added as recently as 1993.

Also on this day:

1879: The birth of musician Ottorino Respighi

1897: The birth of politician Manlio Brosio

1950: The birth of tennis star Adriano Panatta

1964: The birth of footballer Gianluca Vialli

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Isabella Rossellini - actress and model

Daughter of ‘cinema royalty’ who became star in her own right

Isabella Rossellini won critical acclaim for her
performance as a nightclub singer in Blue Velvet

The actress and model Isabella Rossellini, famed for her roles in the David Lynch-directed mystery Blue Velvet and the Oscar-winning black comedy Death Becomes Her and for 14 years the face of luxury perfume brand Lancôme, was born on this day in 1952 in Rome.

Her parents were the Swedish triple Academy Award-winning actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian director Roberto Rossellini, one of the pioneers of the neorealism movement that spawned some of Italy’s finest films. She is the eldest by 34 minutes of twin girls.

Resident in the United States since 1979, when she married the American director Martin Scorsese, she has a home on Long Island, New York, where she keeps a number of animals. 

An active campaigner for various wildlife conservation causes, Rossellini has a MA in Animal Behaviour & Conservation after studying the subject at Hunter College, New York. Although her acting career continues, she moved in a less conventional direction by writing, directing and appearing in a series of short documentary films about sexual and reproductive behaviour in animals entitled Green Porno.

Rossellini was the face of French
cosmetics brand Lancôme

Although she is now seen as the offspring of ‘screen royalty’ in that Bergman and Roberto Rossellini were two of the most famous names in cinema in the postwar years, her parents’ relationship initially caused controversy.  

Bergman had begun an affair with the Italian after writing to ask if he would like to direct her and fell pregnant with Isabella and Isotta’s elder brother, Robin, while still married to a Swedish dentist.  This was seen as scandalous in the conservative fifties and Bergman did not work again in the US for several years, while given a similarly harsh reception in her own country.

After her parents divorced when she was five, Rossellini had an unconventional upbringing, her time divided between different homes, although she insisted in interviews in later life that she had happy memories of her childhood.  Yet she also suffered from scoliosis, a condition affecting the spine that required two years of sometimes painful treatment.

After attending arts college in New York, she had her first brief film role as a nun in the 1976 musical fantasy A Matter of Time, which starred her mother and Liza Minnelli.  Her first proper role came in the 1979 Italian film Il prato (The Meadow), of which one critic wrote: ‘She looks like her mother, but she certainly hasn’t inherited her talent.’

Rossellini pictured at the 1990 Cannes Film
Festival with her then partner, David Lynch

The pressure of feeling she had to live up to such expectations persuaded her to focus more on her modelling career, in which she had already worked with many renowned magazine photographers, but after the death of her mother in 1982 her own screen career acquired some momentum.

Her appearance in the 1985 film White Nights, directed by Taylor Hackford, introduced her to international audiences. Her role as a troubled nightclub singer in Lynch’s Blue Velvet followed in 1986 and the next 10 years brought a series of well-received performances, including Death Becomes Her in 1992, when she was cast alongside Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis.

Her television work gained her accolades too, including a Golden Globe nomination in 1997 for her performance in the made-for-TV drama Crime of the Century and an Emmy Award nomination for her work on the television series Chicago Hope.

In the meantime, Rossellini had become the principal model and spokesperson for Lancôme in 1982, a role she fulfilled until 1996 when, controversially, she was deemed “too old” at 43 and effectively sacked. Her daughter, Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, became the new face of Lancôme in 2009, five years before the brand, by then with a female CEO at the helm, re-engaged her mother as a global ambassador.

While continuing to take regular film roles, Rossellini’s fascination with animal behaviour, which began with a book she was given as a 14-year-old, led her to enrol at Hunter College, a public college attached to the City University of New York, to study the subject.

It was around this time that she began a collaboration with the Sundance Channel, an independent film network founded by the actor Robert Redford, which commissioned My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a film tribute to Rossellini’s father which she created herself.

Rossellini with her sister, Isotta, on a 
Sardinian beach in 1960

The idea for Green Porno emerged from this collaboration. The concept, which began with a series of short, humorous films in which Rossellini dresses up as various animals and, with the aid of cardboard cut-outs and foam-runner models, enacts the mating rituals of insects and animals.  The first series was so successful that further series and spin-offs followed, including a live show on stage at the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 2014.

In her personal life, Rossellini has been married twice - to Scorsese from 1979 to 1982 and production designer Jon Wiedemann from 1983 to 1986, with whom she has a daughter, Elettra, and an adopted son, Roberto. 

She had a five-year relationship with David Lynch after working for him on Blue Velvet and a two-year engagement to the English actor Gary Oldman, but remains single. 

Rossellini has a close relationship with her twin sister, Isotta, a professor of Italian literature who has taught at Columbia, New York, Harvard and Princeton universities.

Santa Marinella, north of Rome, is blessed
with wide, sandy beaches

Travel tip:

One of Rossellini’s childhood homes was at Santa Marinella, a seaside town of about 19,000 residents approximately 65km (40 miles) northwest of Rome on the Lazio coast, near Civitavecchia. Once a favoured retreat of wealthy Romans, it is divided into a port area overlooked by the medieval Castello Odescalchi, now a hotel, and a resort with long, sandy beaches and streets lined with boutiques, cafes, bakeries, and seafood restaurants.

Stromboli remains an active 
volcano in the Aeolian Sea

Travel tip:

Rossellini’s mother, Ingrid Bergman, first worked for her father on his 1950 film Stromboli, set on the volcanic island of Stromboli in the Aeolian Sea, around 70km (43 miles) off the northern coast of Sicily. A still-active volcano towering out of the sea, the island is attractive for day trippers, while there are a small number of hotels in the village of Stromboli on the northeast of the island and in Ginostra at the other extremity. Rossellini’s film was responsible for a surge in tourist attention, which led to the development of clusters of holiday homes around a few stretches of volcanic sand.

Also on this day:

1511: The birth of sculptor and architect Bartolomeo Ammannati

1943: The birth of actress, singer and TV presenter Raffaella Carrà

1946: The birth of football coach Fabio Capello

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Giovanni Borgia - murdered son of Pope

Killing still unsolved after 500 years despite plenty of suspects

Giovanni Borgia was the brother
of Cesare and Lucrezia

Giovanni Borgia, the brother of Cesare and Lucrezia and son of Pope Alexander VI, was murdered on this day in 1497 in Rome.

There was no shortage of possible suspects but the murder was never solved. The grief-stricken Pope launched an immediate murder inquiry, but mysteriously closed down the investigation after just one week, leading to speculation that the perpetrator could have been a member of Giovanni’s own family.

The case has fascinated historians and writers for the last 500 years and been the subject of many books, including Mario Puzo’s historical novel, The Family, and it has featured in many films and televisions programmes.

Giovanni was born in Rome in either 1474 or 1476 to the then Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia and his mistress, Vanozza dei Cattanei. He is thought to have been  the eldest of the children fathered by Pope Alexander VI with his mistress, but this is disputed.

He was married to Maria Enriquez de Luna, who had been betrothed to his older half-brother, Pedro Luis, who had died before the marriage could take place.

Afterwards, Giovanni was made 2nd Duke of Gandia, Duke of Sessa, Grand Constable of Naples, Governor of St Peter’s and Gonfalonier and Captain General of the Church.

He and and Maria had twins, a boy and a girl, Juan and Francisca, and another daughter, Isabel, who was born after the murder of her father.

Painter Ettore Roesler Franz's impression of the
Via Rua in Ghetto as it make have looked in 1880

Giovanni was killed near what later became Piazza della Giudecca in the ghetto of Rome. He was last seen alive at a feast arranged in his honour by his mother at her villa near the church of San Pietro in Vincoli. His siblings, Cesare, Lucrezia and Gioffre were all present at the feast.

On the way back to the Papal Palace, he stopped and dismissed his retainers, saying he was going to visit his mistress. He took with him only his valet and a masked man whose identity has remained unknown, but who was believed to have been visiting Giovanni for about a month before the murder. Giovanni then rode as far as the ghetto, where he ordered the groom to wait for him until a certain time, when he was planning to return to the Papal Palace. He then rode off with the masked man.

The next morning his horse came back without its rider and with one of the stirrups cut off. The groom was later discovered in the same area dying of his wounds.

Pope Alexander ordered a search for his son. A witness was found whose information led to the discovery of Giovanni’s body. He had seen five men throw a corpse into the river next to the fountain at the Hospital of Jerome, where refuse was often disposed of.

Giovanni's brother, Cesare,
was among the suspects

The river was dragged and Giovanni’s body was recovered from the Tiber on June 16, fully clad and with 30 ducats still in his purse, ruling out robbery as a motive. He had nine stab wounds in his head, neck, body and legs.

Although the killers have never been identified, there are three main theories about who was responsible:

First, the killer could have been either his brother, Cesare, or his brother, Gioffre, as both Giovanni and Cesare were having a relationship with Gioffre’s wife, Sanchia.

Second, the murder could have been carried out on behalf of Antonio Maria della Mirandola, whose house was near the Tiber. Giovanni had kept mentioning that he had dishonoured the daughter of one of the ancient Roman della Mirandola family.

Third, the murder could have been an act of revenge by relatives of Virginio Orsini, the head of a family hostile to the Pope, who had died in a prison in Naples.

In fictitious accounts of the murder written subsequently, the villain has sometimes been identified as Cesare, and sometimes as Lucrezia, with the help of one of her lovers.

The ghetto is the area highlighted 
adjoining the river Tiber

Travel tip:

The Roman ghetto (Ghetto di Roma) was established in 1555 in the Rione Sant’Angelo close to the Tiber and the Theatre of Marcellus. It occupied the area bordered today by the Via del Portico d'Ottavia, Lungotevere dei Cenci, Via del Progresso and Via di Santa Maria del Pianto. Apart from brief periods, the ghetto was controlled by the papacy until the capture of Rome in 1870. Despite the area being subject to frequent flooding from the river, Jews were required to live in the ghetto, which was a walled quarter with its gates locked at night.  It was established by a papal bull - an edict - issued by Pope Paul IV in 1555, which also revoked all the rights of the Jewish community and prohibited Jews among other things from owning property and practising medicine on Christians.

Michelangelo's Moses is part of
a huge funeral monument 

Travel tip

The Church of San Pietro in Vincoli - St Peter in Chains - which was near the villa where Vanozza dei Cattanei was living, is a minor basilica best known for being the home of Michelangelo’s Moses. It is on the Oppian Hill near Cavour metro station, not far from the Colosseum. It was first built on old foundations in 432-440 to house the relic of the chains that bound St Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem. San Pietro in Vincoli was the church of the powerful Della Rovere family and the Moses sculpture is part of a massive funeral monument for Pope Julius II - born Giuliano della Rovere - within which the Pope was buried.

Also on this day:

1800: The Battle of Marengo

1837: The death of Giacomo Leopardi, poet and philosopher

1968: The death of Nobel Prize-winning poet and engineer Salvatore Quasimodo

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