Milly Carlucci - TV host

Former actress is the face of Ballando con le Stelle

Milly Carlucci is host and artistic director of the
hit Italian TV show Ballando con le Stelle

The television host and former actress Milly Carlucci was born on this day in 1954 in Sulmona, a picturesque town in central Abruzzo, about 52km (32 miles) inland from the coastal city of Pescara.

With a career spanning nearly five decades, Carlucci has been a well-known and popular personality on Italian television since the late 1970s, establishing a reputation for elegance and professionalism and a list of credits that grew rapidly through the ‘80s and ‘90s.

But it is in her current and most enduring role, as the presenter of the pro-celebrity dance contest Ballando con le Stelle - the Italian version of the US hit Dancing with the Stars and the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing - that she has established herself as a giant of small-screen entertainment.

Having fronted the show from its inception in 2005, Carlucci is also its artistic director and project manager. Now into its 20th season, Ballando con le Stelle has become a flagship for the state television network Rai and is currently its longest-running variety show still on air.

Born Camilla Patrizia Carlucci, she was brought up in a household in which discipline was a virtue instilled in her from an early age. Her father, Luigi Carlucci, reached the rank of General in the Italian Army. Her mother, Maria, was known for her cultural refinement and interest in the arts, which helped nurture Milly’s creative instincts.

Carlucci on the set of the 2025
edition of Ballando con le Stelle

The Carlucci family moved frequently due to her father’s military postings, and Milly spent much of her childhood in Udine, in the northwest of the country, before settling in Rome. 

She attended the Terenzio Mamiani high school in Rome’s Prati district, where he shone in her studies but also revealed a talent for roller skating, winning an Italian championship as a member of the successful Skating Folgore Roma team.

Carlucci enrolled at Sapienza University of Rome to study architecture, but her interest in performance and natural ability to command a stage gradually eclipsed her academic pursuits. Articulate as well as elegant, in 1972 she entered and won the Miss Teenager Italy beauty contest.

This victory opened doors into modelling and television. She also studied classical dance and took part in amateur theatre productions, honing the stagecraft and composure that would become her trademarks. 

At times required to join the ranks of the showgirls that at the time were ever-present backdrop in Italian variety shows, Carlucci soon began to land presenting roles, first at the local Rome television station, GBR, and then with Rai, for whom she fronted various light entertainment shows including the Italian version of Jeux Sans Frontières. It was this show that made her famous, and she presented it for four seasons.

Carlucci enjoyed a brief career
as a pop singer in the 1980s

For a while, Carlucci had a parallel career in acting, appearing in popular Italian films such as The Taming of the Scoundrel (1980), Pappa e ciccia (1983), and Tomorrow I'm Getting Married (1984). Her role as Urania in The Adventures of Hercules (1985) further cemented her status as a screen favourite.

Blessed also with a beautiful singing voice, she was briefly a recording artist as well, releasing a number of pop singles and two albums in the 1980s.

However, it was television hosting that has truly defined Carlucci’s legacy. Apart from a few years in the 1980s when she worked for Silvio Berlusconi’s Fininvest networks, she has been a fixture on Rai for the best part of five decades, with a long list of successes from the popular game show Scommettiamo che...? (Shall we bet that…?), which she co-hosted with the late Fabrizio Frizzi, to the more recent Il cantante mascherato, the Italian version of The Masked Singer.

She has also become established as Rai’s go-to host for special events in the entertainment world. Having proved herself on big occasions such as the Sanremo Italian Song Festival, on which she was a co-host with Pippo Baudo in 1992, she was the long-running host of the annual Pavarotti & Friends concerts (1995 to 2003), in which the great operatic tenor performed in duets with famous guests. She hosted the David di Donatello film awards in 1997 and 1998, as well as 17 editions of the prestigious Ischia International Journalism Award.

Milly Carlucci at the funeral of her friend,
Luciano Pavarotti, in Modena in 2007

Yet nothing has come close to the success of Ballando con le Stelle, in which celebrities and sports stars dance with professional partners over 12 episodes, with couples marked by judges in the studio and by the viewing public, and eliminated one-by-one until a champion emerges at the end of the series.

Carlucci has been the host for every series so far, until this year alongside co-host Paolo Belli, whose Big Band provides the musicians. Belli is starring in the 2025 edition as a competitor. The panel of judges includes the fashion and set designer Guillermo Mariotto, whom Carlucci has known since the 1990s and was one of the original panel in 2005. The head judge since 2007 has been Glasgow-born Carolyn Smyth, who has been a dance teacher based in Italy since 1982. 

Beyond entertainment, Carlucci has also been active in humanitarian work. In 1996, she was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, using her platform to advocate for children’s rights and global development initiatives.

She has been married since 1985 to engineer Angelo Donati, with whom she has two children. Her two younger sisters, Gabriella and Anna Carlucci, have also had careers in the entertainment industry, Gabriella as a presenter, Anna as an actress, writer and director.

Gabriella also served for 12 years as a member of the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian parliament, representing Puglia.

Sulmona's elegant Piazza Garibaldi includes a
section of the town's 13th-century aqueduct 

Travel tip:

Nestled in the heart of Abruzzo, Sulmona is an historic town renowned for its cultural heritage, dramatic mountain backdrop, and artisanal traditions. Surrounded by the Majella National Park, it offers sweeping views of rugged peaks and verdant valleys. The town’s origins trace back to Roman times, its history visible in ancient Roman ruins, medieval churches, and Renaissance palaces. The town’s centerpiece is the elegant Piazza Garibaldi, framed by arcades and overlooked by an imposing aqueduct built in the 13th century. Nearby, the Gothic-style Church of Santa Maria della Tomba and the Palazzo Annunziata showcase centuries of architectural evolution, the palace a rare example of early Renaissance architecture in Sulmona that survived the earthquake of 1706.  Sulmona is famously the birthplace of the Roman poet Ovid, whose legacy is honoured with a statue and museum. Equally famous is its production of confetti - sugar-coated almonds crafted into elaborate floral arrangements, an Italian  confectionery tradition that dates back to the 15th century. 

Look for accommodation in Sulmona with Expedia

Its tree-lined boulevards give Rome's Prati
district something of a Parisian feel

Travel tip:

Carlucci went to school in the Prati district of Rome, close to the Vatican and St Peter’s Basilica, which is now an affluent residential neighbourhood that is also popular with tourists for offering a relatively quiet place to stay that still provides easy access to the city’s historical centre. It has many authentic Roman trattorie as well as a host of bars and pubs.  Located just north of the Vatican and west of the Tiber River, the area was developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was designed with wide boulevards and a grid layout - distinct from the winding alleys of Rome’s historic centre. This gives Prati a Parisian feel, its streets lined with stately buildings and Art Nouveau facades. Its main thoroughfare, Via Cola di Rienzo, is a hub for upscale shopping, featuring Italian fashion boutiques, gourmet food shops, and stylish cafés. Prati is also the home of the vast Palazzo di Giustizia in Piazza Cavour that houses the Supreme Court.

Stay in the Prati district with Hotels.com

More reading:

Pippo Baudo - record-breaking host of Sanremo song contest 

How Maria De Filippi became one of the most popular faces on Italian TV

The former actress who became the face of Sunday afternoons

Also on this day:

1450: The death of Leonello d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara

1910: The birth of Olympic cycling champion Attilio Pavesi

1931: The birth of composer and avant-garde artist Sylvano Bussotti

1961: The birth of football coach Walter Mazzarri

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Angelina Mango - singer-songwriter

2024 Sanremo winner whose parents both competed for coveted prize

Angelina Mango represented Italy at
Eurovision after winning at Sanremo

The singer-songwriter Angelina Mango, whose career reached its high point so far when she won Italy’s annual Sanremo Festival in 2024, was born on this day in 2001 in the town of Maratea in Basilicata.

Mango’s father, Pino Mango, who died in 2014, was a seven-times contestant at Sanremo between 1985 and 2007, achieving his highest finish on his final appearance, when Chissà se nevica - Who Knows if it Snows - placed fifth on the overall vote.

Her mother, Laura Valente, twice trod the famous stage at the Ariston Theatre - Sanremo’s host venue since 1977 - as the lead singer with the group Matia Bazar, finishing fourth in 1993 with Dedicato a te (Dedicated to You).

Angelina Mango’s victory came at the first attempt at the age of 22 when her song La noia (Boredom), which she co-wrote, won the most votes in a strong field.

She was the first female singer to win Sanremo since Arisa triumphed with Contravento (Against the Wind) in 2014.

Following a tradition whereby the winner of the Festival of Italian Song, to give Sanremo its official title, is invited to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest, Mango presented a shortened version of La noia in the final in Malmo in May, finishing a respectable seventh out of 25 contestants.

Mango grew up in Lagonegro, a small town in the northern part of Basilicata where her father was born. She wrote her first song at the age of six, entitled Mi sono innamorata di me (I Fell in Love with Myself). Growing up close to her older brother, Filippo, she was performing for audiences even before entering her teens, singing in a band called Black Lake, in which Filippo played the drums. 

Angelina Mango's father, Pino, performing at his
first Sanremo Festival, 39 years before his daughter

Her voice was good enough for her to sing backing vocals on some of her father’s recordings and even record a duet with him, a version of The Beatles hit Get Back, which featured on what proved tragically to be his final studio album, L’amore e invisibile (Love is Invisible), in May 2014.

In December of the same year, while performing in a charity concert, Pino - generally known simply as Mango - suffered a fatal heart attack on stage at the age of 60.

Pino’s death had a profound effect on Angelina’s life. She quit high school and in 2016 moved with her mother and brother to Milan, her mother’s home city. She enrolled to study modern literature at another high school but dropped out after a month.

When Filippo, who is five years older, began to play the drums in a band in Milan, she joined as a singer.  Audiences began to appreciate her vocal talent and in 2020 she released her first single and EP. In 2021 she performed in Milan Music Week and entered Sanremo Giovani, a competition for up-and-coming young artists that runs parallel to the main festival, although she did not make the televised final rounds.

After signing a contract with Sony Music, her first major break came in 2022 when she participated in Amici di Maria De Filippi, a talent show on Canale 5, Italy’s biggest commercial television channel, in which she won the singing section and finished second overall.

Eyecatching costumes are part of
Angelina Mango's performing style

The appearance provided the platform for a series of successful singles and she was invited to perform at a number of important concerts, including the New Year’s Eve special - Capodanno in musica - on Canale 5.

More singles followed, with Che t’o dico a fa’ (What Did I Tell You to Do?) climbing to No 2 in the Italian singles charts, followed by a sell-out tour.

Success at Sanremo came in February 2024, her performances at the festival, which spans five nights and is broadcast live on Rai Uno, including an emotional interpretation of La rondine - The Swallow - a song written by her father.

Three months after Sanremo, Mango released her first album, Poké melodrama. She was invited to perform the single Melodrama during the final of Amici di Maria De Filippi. The album’s songs became part of the soundtrack of the Italian summer and Poké Melodrama reached No 1 in the Italian album charts.  Another single from the album, Per due come noi - For Two Like Us - a duet performed with Olly, the singer-songwriter and rapper who would win Sanremo 2025, climbed to No 1 in the singles chart.

The only downside of an otherwise highly successful 2025 came right at the end, when a major new tour of Italy had to be cancelled after just three performances when Angelina developed inflammation of the pharynx, which meant she was unable to sing.

The enormous statue of Christ the Redeemer 
looms over Maratea and the surrounding area

Travel tip:

Maratea, the town where Angelina Mango was born, today refers to a collection of settlements near the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea of which the most interesting is Maratea itself, an historic hilltop village of steep, narrow streets and 44 churches around a charming central square, Piazza Buraglia, which has an elegant fountain at its centre and a variety of shops, bars and restaurants. Lively in the evenings, it has been likened to the famous Piazzetta di Capri, but without the hordes of visitors. The coastline below the village, a natural paradise of fine sandy beaches interspersed with rocky cliffs, has seen Maratea referred to as the Pearl of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Looming above the area is the enormous statue of Christ the Redeemer, a structure made from a mixture of concrete, white cement and marble from Carrara that was erected at the summit of nearby Monte San Biagio in 1965. At 21 metres (69ft) high and with an arm span of 19m (62ft), it is second in size only to the Christ of Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro. 

The church of St Nicholas sits atop a promontory
in the mediæval village of Lagonegro in Basilicata

Travel tip: 

Situated in the valley of the Noce river some 27km (17 miles) northeast of Maratea, Lagonegro, where Angelina Mango grew up and the birthplace of her father, Pino, is a picturesque mediæval village that probably took its name from the dark waters of an Apennine lake once located nearby. The village is divided into two parts: the old village, which clings to a promontory around the ruins of the feudal castle, in which the Church of St. Nicholas, dating back to the 10th century, is the most prominent feature, and the new part, characterised by a large tree-lined square known locally as the "Piano". The old village, enclosed by the remains of the medieval towers and walls, is accessed via a scenic flight of steps leading to an entrance gate known as the Porta di Ferro.  Lagonegro attracts tourists in the winter, thanks to the ski slopes of nearby Mount Sirino, and in summer for its walking trails among the cool forests.

Also on this day:

1598: The death of philosopher Jacopo Mazzoni

1762: The birth of physicist and professor Giovanni Aldini

1886: The death of physician and Garibaldi strategist Agostino Bertani

1920: The birth of politician Nilde Iotti

1926: An airship leaves Rome to make the first flight over the North Pole

1991: Moby Prince car ferry disaster

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Chiara Iezzi - singer and actress

One half of popular duo Paola e Chiara

Chiara Iezzi has enjoyed success both
as a singer and in tv and film roles

The actress and singer Chiara Iezzi, who with sister Paola forms half of the top-selling Paola e Chiara pop duo, was born on this day in 1973 in Milan.

The sisters performed together for seven years between 1996 and 2013, selling more than five million records, before breaking up, Chiara deciding to focus increasingly on acting and enjoying some success in the United States.

The duo were reunited in 2023, when they took part in the Sanremo Music Festival for the sixth time, having made their debut at the celebrated Italian song contest 26 years earlier.

Interested in music, acting and fashion since she was in her teens, Chiara graduated in fashion design, simultaneously taking acting lessons, but it was music that initially provided her with a career.

After seeing her perform in jazz and funk groups, in 1994 the record producer and television presenter Claudio Cecchetto hired her together with Paola to join singer Max Pezzali as backing vocalists in a group called 883, who were popular in Milan in the 1990s.

Paola (left) and Chiara with the trophy they won
at the Sanremo Music Festival in 1997

Two years later, the sisters began to perform as Paola e Chiara, signing a recording contract with Sony Music Italia. Aged 21 and 22 respectively, they made their debut at the 1996 edition of Sanremo Giovani - a special contest for young artists, held separately from the main event - making the final with their song, In viaggio.

The following year, they entered Sanremo proper, performing the song Amici come prima, with which they won the New Proposals category.

The song featured on their debut studio album for Sony, Ciriamo Bambine, which would be the first of eight studio albums. They also released three collections of hits and 35 singles, the most successful of which was Vamos a bailar (Esta vida nueva), sung in Spanish and released in 2000.

Performing Vamos a bailar, which featured on their album Television, they won two song contests, Festivalbar and Un disco per l'estate. The single contributed substantially to their more than five million records sold.

Alongside her career with Paola, Chiara released a number of singles and EPs as a solo performer before turning her attention increasingly to acting, her ambitions not at all harmed by being invited in 2010 to collaborate on the soundtrack of the film Maledimiele, directed by Marco Pozzi, for which she sang the main theme, L'altra parte di me. 

Chiara Iezzi starred in the Disney Channel 
television series Alex & Co in 2015

It prompted her to resume her study of acting, for which she spent increasing amounts of time in America, attending seminars in New York and Los Angeles. After the break-up of the Paola e Chiara partnership, she announced her intention to limit her singing career to projects connected to the film industry.

She had a number of successes in acting, notably playing the role of Victoria Williams in the 2015 TV series Alex & Co, produced by Disney Channel.

In 2016, she landed a role in the film Il ragazzo della Giudecca (The Boy from the Giudecca), directed by Alfonso Bergamo and starring Giancarlo Giannini and Franco Nero, and in 2017 was picked for Louis Nero's film The Broken Key alongside Rutger Hauer, William Baldwin, Geraldine Chaplin and Michael Madsen.

The possibility that she and her sister might reform their partnership arose in 2022. Chiara appeared at a DJ set hosted by her sister, for whom deejaying had become the focus of her career, and they surprised the audience by performing a number of their songs together. The clip of their performance was downloaded so many times it became a viral hit, after which they agreed to make an appearance as guests at a concert in Bibione, on the Adriatic coast of the Veneto, which was part of a Max Pezzali tour, and alongside Jovanotti at Fermo, further down the Adriatic in Marche. 

They were so well received by the audiences that talk of a Paola e Chiara revival soon gathered pace. In December of the same year it was announced that they would participate in the 2023 edition of the Sanremo Festival, their first appearance there for 15 years.

Their song, Furore, finished only 17th, yet was a hit nonetheless, prompting them to embark on a first tour in 12 years and to release their first album since 2015, a reworked collection of their best work entitled Per Sempre (Forever).

The duo returned to Sanremo in 2024 as guests, reprising Furore on the third evening and performing alongside veteran entrants Ricchi e Poveri on the fourth evening, as well as presenting some of the accompanying broadcasts as national TV channel Rai dedicated hours of airtime to the festival and peripheral activities.

Bibione's wide expanse of golden, sandy beach
makes it an attraction for thousands of tourists

Travel tip:

Bibione, where Paola e Chiara reunited alongside former professional partner Max Pezzali at a 2022 concert, is a seaside resort in the Veneto region of northern Italy, about 50km (31 miles) from Venice as the crow flies, although about twice that distance by road. It is a popular destination for tourists from Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, as well as Italy, who enjoy its golden sand beach, pine wood, and water park. The area used to be uninhabited marshland until land reclamation work began in the early part of the 20th century and it was not until the 1950s that the first holiday accommodation was built. Nowadays, in the summer months, Bibione can offer up to 100,000 beds for tourists, yet in the winter is largely deserted, with many shops and beach facilities closed.

Stay in Bibione with Expedia

Fermo sits atop the Sabulo hill, the cathedral of
Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo at its highest point

Travel tip:

Fermo, where Paola e Chaira performed at a Jovanotti concert in 2022, is a charming and lively town in the Marche region, with a population of about 37,000. It is located on a hill, the Sabulo, some 319m (1,050ft) above sea level, about 7km (4.34 miles) inland from the Adriatic resort of Porto San Giorgio. A former Roman colony, it was owned by a succession of prince-bishops and powerful families, including the Visconti and Sforza, before becoming part of the Papal States in 1550, all of whom contributed to its impressive monuments, buildings and fortifications. The Roman cisterns, the 13th century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo, the Palazzo dei Priori, built between the 13th and 16th centuries, the Pinacoteca Civica and the Teatro dell’Aquila are among its noteworthy attractions. The town hosts diverse cultural events, from an August palio (horse race) and festival of mediaeval games, the Cavalcata dell’Assunta, to an annual film festival.  The town is also famed for its culinary specialities, which include a type of lasagna with meat sauce, olives, and cheese, called vincisgrassi, a fish soup with tomatoes, saffron, and vinegar known as brodetto, and frustingo, a cake made with dried fruits, nuts, honey, and chocolate.

Find accommodation in Fermo with Booking.com

More reading:

The history of the Sanremo Music Festival

The singer whose Sanremo disqualification produced his biggest hit

The tenor who became known as ‘the King of Sanremo’

Also on this day:

1950: The birth of fashion designer Franco Moschino

1935: The birth of opera singer Mirella Freni

1964: Italy appeals for help to save Pisa’s leaning tower

1978: The birth of dancer Simone Di Pasquale

(Picture credits: Bibione beach by Tiesse; Fermo skyline by Daniele Pieroni; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Sanremo Music Festival - song contest

Historic annual event that inspired Eurovision 

Nilla Pizzi won the first two
editions of the Sanremo Festival

The first annual Sanremo Music Festival reached its conclusion on this day in 1951 with the song Grazie dei fiori - Thank You for the Flowers - announced as the winner, performed by the singer and actress Nilla Pizzi.

The festival is the world’s longest-running televised music contest, having been broadcast live by Italian state broadcaster Rai every year since 1955.  The Eurovision Song Contest, which was staged for the first time in 1956, was modelled on Sanremo.

Compared with the 2024 edition - the 74th - which is due to be staged from February 6 to February 10 and in which the public vote is crucial - the inaugural competition was very different. There were 20 songs to be judged by a committee of experts who determined the result, but only three participants - Pizzi, Achille Togliani and the Duo Fasano, which consisted of twin sisters Dina and Delfina Fasano.

All of the participants had to perform all of the songs over the course of the three nights with the judges having to decide on both the merits of the song and the quality of the three different renditions before settling on their winner. They were so impressed with Pizzi that the following year she not only was their choice to win the competition but took second and third places too.

The first contest had a different venue. From 1951 until 1977 its home was the beautiful Liberty-style Casinò di Sanremo, situated a street or two back from the resort’s waterfront. In 1977, however, the casino was closed for renovations and the festival was switched to the Teatro Ariston, the biggest theatre in the town with an audience capacity much larger than the casino. With the exception of one year, the Ariston has hosted the competition ever since.

The Casinò di Sanremo, a fine example of Stile
Liberty architecture, was the Festival's first home

Had history unfolded differently, the annual festival might have had not only a different venue but a different location entirely. The original Festival della Canzone Italiana - the Italian Song Festival, which remains the competition’s official name - took place in Viareggio on the Tuscan coast rather than the Ligurian resort with which it is synonymous. 

After successfully staging the competition in 1948 and 1949, however, the Viareggio organisers ran into financial difficulties and the planned 1950 edition was cancelled.

Help was at hand. In Sanremo, which in common with Viareggio and other resorts was looking for ways to revive economies left in tatters by World War Two, Piero Bussetti, administrator of the Casino di Sanremo, met with Giulio Razzi, the conductor of the Rai orchestra, to discuss relaunching the competition in Sanremo, to showcase previously unreleased songs.

It was through their initiative that the 1951 event, the last night of which was broadcast on the Rai radio station Rete Rossa, came to fruition.

Over the years the festival rules have been changed multiple times, allowing more participant singers, involving international artists and some high profile guests.  Different categories were added to the main competition, including a section for newcomers that has been the launching pad for many illustrious careers, with Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini and Andrea Bocelli among the list of past winners.

A youthful Eros Ramazzotti,
best newcomer in 1984

Zucchero and Vasco Rossi are two other Italian stars who can thank Sanremo for launching their careers, while the roll call of big-name winners - in Italy, at least - includes Claudio Villa, Domenico Modugno, Adriano Celentano, Peppino Di Capri, Toto Cutugno, Gianni Morandi and, more recently, Il Volo.

Villa and Modugno each won the competition four times. Il Volo, winners in 2015 with Grande Amore, are competing again in 2024 among 27 artists bidding for the crown of champions.

At its most prestigious peak, guest performers at the festival have included Queen, Elton John, Tina Turner, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and Whitney Houston. 

As well as providing the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest, which was launched in 1956 with a similar format, the link between Sanremo and Eurovision has been maintained by the Italian tradition of picking the winner of Sanremo as nation’s entry for Eurovision.  Two of the three Italian successes at Eurovision - Gigliola Cinquetti in 1964 with Non ho l'età and the rock group Maneskin in 2021 with Zitti e buoni were Sanremo victors.

Sanremo was a holiday
destination for the wealthy

Travel tip:

The resort of Sanremo in Liguria, which can be found 146km (91 miles) southwest of Genoa as the Italian Riviera extends towards France, enjoyed particular prestige even before the Music Festival put it on the cultural map. The town expanded rapidly in the mid-18th century, when the phenomenon of tourism began to take hold 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, who bequeathed money in his will to establish the prizes that take his name, 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 Viareggio Carnival is famous for its huge
and often highly symbolic floats

Travel tip:

Viareggio, which might have remained home to the contest now synonymous with Sanremo had the organisers of the first editions of the Italian Song Festival not run into financial difficulty, is a popular seaside resort in Tuscany, about 26km (16 miles) from the city of Lucca and a similar distance north of the port city of Pisa. It has beautiful sandy beaches and, like Sanremo, some fine examples of Liberty-style architecture, which include the Grand Hotel Royal. It may not have a music festival to compare with Sanremo but it does have the Viareggio Carnival, which is the most famous in Italy after the Venice Carnival. Dating back to 1873, the carnival is famous for its enormous papier-mâché floats, which parade along the resort’s promenade. Often sending up well-known figures from politics and entertainment in giant caricatures mounted on the floats, the carnival has a more humorous side than its better-known counterpart, contributing to a lively atmosphere around the town. 

Also on this day:

1788: The death of exiled British royal Charles Edward Stuart

1857: The birth of architect Ernesto Basile

1888: The death of Saint Don Bosco

1925: The birth of fashion designer Mariuccia Mandelli

1933: The birth of Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano

1942: The birth of actress Daniela Bianchi 

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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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Amadeus - TV presenter

Former DJ now one of Italian TV’s most familiar faces

Amadeus has become one of the most
recognisable faces on Italian TV

The entertainment and game show presenter Amedeo Sebastiani - known professionally as Amadeus - was born on this day in 1962 in Ravenna.

In a small screen career spanning almost 35 years, Amadeus has fronted several major shows for both national broadcaster RAI and for the channels of the privately-owned Mediaset network.

He was the original face of the hit game show L'eredità - The Inheritance - which has been a fixture on Rai Uno since 2002 - and more recently he has become the regular host of Rai Uno’s annual New Year’s Eve variety show L’anno che verrà - The Coming Year.  

Amadeus has also presented two of Italy’s biggest song contests, Festivalbar, and the Sanremo Music Festival, of which he is the current host and artistic director.

Sebastiani’s parents were both Sicilian, his father Corrado an accomplished horseman who taught his son to ride and passed on a passion for horses.

After doing his national service at a base in San Giorgio a Cremano near Naples, he worked in radio for the first time in 1979 for a small station in Verona, where he had moved with his family at the age of seven.

Amadeus (right) in his early days as a radio
presenter and DJ in Verona, where he grew up

Three years later, working for the national music station Radio Deejay, he adopted the stage name Amadeus.

He made his television debut in 1988 for Mediaset, participating in a music programme on the Mediaset channel Italia 1 alongside his friend, the rapper Jovanotti, subsequently hosting Deejay Television and Deejay Beach on Italia 1.

This led to his involvement in the song contest Festivalbar, which was broadcast every summer from 1964 until 2007, taking place in the open air in the main square of many cities around Italy, culminating in a final at The Arena in Verona.

After hosting a talent show on Canale 5, another Mediaset channel, he made his first venture into the world of game shows by taking over from his friend Gerry Scotti as the host of Il Quizzone, but it was after he moved to Rai Uno in 1999 that he began to be associated with the quiz show genre.

L'eredità, a game show in which competitors take on seven different challenges conceived by Amadeus himself in conjunction with Stefano Santucci, launched in 2002. It was hugely successful, regularly attracting audiences of more than eight million, giving Rai dominance of the early evening schedules and turning Amadeus into a star.

Amadeus is now the regular host of the
New Year's Eve show L’anno che verrà

So popular was he as host that Mediaset soon wanted him back, successfully luring him away after just four seasons as the host of L'eredità, offering him a contract that was too good to turn down.

Yet after only three years, in 2009, he rejoined RAI, where he remains today. He had a long run hosting a variety show entitled Mezzogiorno in Famiglia before taking over as the host of L’anno che verrà in 2015 and of the popular Soliti ignoti - an Italian version of the American show Identity - since 2017.

Amadeus has been the main presenter and artistic director of the Sanremo Music Festival since 2020 and will remain so until at least 2024.

Married twice, he has a daughter, Alice, and a son, José Alberto, who is named after José Mourinho, the Portuguese football coach who led Inter-Milan, of whom Amadeus is a lifelong fan, to the Serie A title twice and won the Champions League during his two seasons at the club.

'Juliet's Balcony' attracts thousands of
visitors to Verona every year

Travel tip:

Verona, where Amadeus grew up, is the third largest city in the northeast of Italy, with a population across its whole urban area of more than 700,000. Among its wealth of tourist attractions is the Roman amphitheatre known as L’Arena di Verona, which dates back to AD30. With a seating capacity of 22,000, it is best known now as a venue for large-scale open air opera performances, although it also stages pop concerts. Verona was chosen as the setting for three plays by William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew - although it is unknown whether the English playwright ever actually set foot in the city.  Each year, thousands of tourists visit a 13th century house in Verona where Juliet is said to have lived, even though there is no evidence that Juliet and Romeo actually existed and the balcony said to have inspired Shakespeare’s imagination was not added until the early 20th century.

The harbour at the Liguria seaside resort
of Sanremo, home of the Sanremo Festival

Travel tip:  

The resort of Sanremo in Liguria, which hosts the eponymous song festival, is a seaside resort on what is known as the Italian Riviera. It 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.

Also on this day:

1850: The birth of Luca Cadorna - military general

1974: The birth of Rita Atria - witness of justice

2006: The death of footballer Giacinto Facchetti

The Feast Day of Saint Rosalia 

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Gianluca Ginoble – singer

Versatile baritone helps make Il Volo’s magical sound

As a small boy, Gianluca Ginoble used to
sing in the bar owned by his grandfather

Gianluca Ginoble, a member of the hugely successful and award-winning Italian pop and opera trio Il Volo, was born on this day in 1995 in Roseto degli Abruzzi, in the Abruzzo region.

He is the youngest of the trio and the only baritone. The other two singers, Piero Barone and Ignazio Boschetto, are both tenors.

Gianluca’s family lives in Montepagano, a hilltop village overlooking Roseto degli Abruzzi. He is the oldest son of Ercole Ginoble and Eleonora Di Vittorio and has a younger brother, Ernesto.

Gianluca started to sing when he was just three years old with his grandfather, Ernesto, in the Bar Centrale, which Ernesto owns, in the main square of the town.

While still young, he took part in music festivals and competitions in his area, winning some and being distinguished in them all because of his beautiful deep voice.

In 2009, he won the talent show Ti Lascio Una Canzone on Rai Uno, singing  Il mare calmo della sera, which had been Andrea Bocelli's winning song at the 1994 Sanremo Music Festival. He was then just 14 years old.

Ginoble won a TV talent show
when he was just 14 years old

Piero Barone and Ignazio Boschetto also took part in the show and in one episode the trio performed together for the first time, singing the Neapolitan classic, O sole mio.

Afterwards, the director, Roberto Cenci, came up with the idea of putting them together to create music similar to The Three Tenors - Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti - when they occasionally performed together.

They were initially named I Tre Tenorini - The Three Little Tenors -  but this was later changed to The Tryo. In 2010 their name was changed to Il Volo, meaning The Flight.

After producing several successful albums, singing in Italian, English and Spanish, Il Volo won the Sanremo Festival of 2015. They represented Italy in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, finishing in third place, although they were the overwhelming 'winners' of the televoting element of the contest, with viewers in 14 countries awarding them the maximum 12 points, compared with only four maximums from the national juries.

In 2016, in collaboration with Placido Domingo, the trio released a live album, Notte Magica – A Tribute to the Three Tenors, featuring many of the songs performed by the famous threesome in their first appearance together on the eve of the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

Gianluca Ginoble (left), with Ignazio Boschetto and Piero
Barone on the cover of Il Volo's latest album

Gianluca Ginoble has been described as a ‘lyric baritone with a warm timbre.’ He is able to sing very low notes but also sing at the top of the baritone register with ease.

He has also been labelled a ‘Heldentenor’, a baritone with a strong upper register, suitable for singing roles in operas by Wagner.

Gianluca is known for his impersonations of the pop singer Eros Ramazzotti, but also among his favourite singers are Andrea Bocelli, Frank Sinatra and Mario Lanza.

A football fan, Gianluca used to play for his home town and has been referred to as the 'Maradona of Montepagano'. He supports AS Roma and is a fan of Francesco Totti.

Buy Il Volo's latest album 10 Years: The Best of Il Volo

Roseta degli Abruzzi, notable for its wide, sandy beach, is
sometimes known as Lido delle Rose.

Travel tip:

Roseto degli Abruzzi, where Gianluca Ginoble was born, is a town of the province of Teramo in Abruzzo. It is a beach resort on the Adriatic Sea and with a population of around 24,000 is the largest municipality in the province. A railway line running along the coast connects it with Pescara, about 30km (19 miles) to the south. The city of Teramo is about 30km (19 miles) inland, at the foot of the Gran Sasso mountain range. Roseto is a popular holiday location because of its lovely beach and is sometimes referred to as Lido delle Rose.

One of the ancient medieval gates of Ginoble's home village
of Montepagano, in the hills above Roseta degli Abruzzi

Travel tip:

Montepagano, where the Ginoble family lives, is a medieval hamlet of Roseto degli Abruzzi, on top of a hill overlooking the sea. It is only six kilometres inland from the seaside resort but visitors feel they have stepped back in time when they go through the ancient city gates. There are winding streets with old palazzi and small squares to explore and stunning views of the sea and the mountains at different points. The vineyards below the town produce excellent wines that feature on the menus in the local restaurants. The 15th century Church of Santissima Annunziata, with its 40m (131ft) bell tower, is a major landmark.


More reading:

How grandfather discovered Piero Barone's singing talent

Andrea Bocelli - singer with perfect voice for opera or pop

How Eros Ramazzotti became one of Italy's biggest stars

Also on this day:

1791: The birth of architect Louis Visconti

1881: The birth of Futurist painter Carlo Carrà

1929: The Vatican becomes an independent state

1948: The birth of footballer Carlo Sartori


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