Anton Giulio Bragaglia - theatre director and photographer

Intellectual whose work sparked argument among Futurists

Photography was only part of Anton
Giulio Bragaglia's artistic life

Anton Giulio Bragaglia, a film and theatre director and writer whose early work with photography made him an important if controversial figure in the Italian Futurist movement, was born on this day in 1890 in Piglio, an historic hilltop town about 55km (33 miles) east of Rome, in Lazio.

Bragaglia began his working life in Italy’s nascent movie industry - his father, Francesco, was employed at a studio in Rome - and went on to influence Italy’s cultural life in many more ways as a theatre director, cinematographer and the founder or editor of a number of arts magazines, in addition to his work with photography.

He also founded in 1922 the Teatro Sperimentale degli Independenti, an alternative theatre built by adapting the ancient Roman baths of Septimius Severus in Via degli Avignonesi, a street that runs parallel with the top end of Via del Tritone, near Piazza Barberini.

Francesco Bragaglia, an engineer, was the first technical director of the Cines film studio, which opened in 1906 near Porta San Giovanni in the Italian capital.

Anton Giulio joined the studio as an assistant director in the same year, gaining considerable experience working alongside directors Mario Caserini and Enrico Guazzoni.

When he was 19, however, still to become established as the director, set designer, and cinematographer he would be remembered as, Bragaglia became excited by the fledgling Italian Futurist movement and their enthusiasm for speed, dynamism and technology.

He and his older brothers, Arturo and Carlo Ludovico, both of whom worked, like Anton Giulio, in the film business, wanted to become active participants in the movement, which rejected traditional art and would influence painting, literature, sculpture and architecture in Italy in the early part of the 20th century.

Through their experimental work with cameras, they found ways to capture movement, energy, and continuity in photographs, using long exposures to create blurred forms and the impression of movement. 

Anton Giulio set out their methods and vision in his 1911 manifesto, entitled Fotodinamismo futurista.  His photodynamic works, such as Waving and The Typist, were widely admired for demonstrating motion as the essence of modern life and through these he hoped to establish photography as a central medium of Futurist experimentation and a tool for expressing the rhythms of modernity. 

Bragaglia's The Typist, in which his open shutter
technique was able to capture a sense of movement

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the founder of the Futurist movement, was supportive of their contribution and was happy to help them fund exhibitions of their work - although ultimately the movement expelled them in 1913 due to fundamental disagreements over whether photography could be considered as an art form.

This was mainly down to the influence of Umberto Boccioni, the painter and sculptor, who argued that photography was a mechanical medium that merely copied reality, not true creative art, and could undermine the high-art status of Futurist painting. 

Boccioni and others felt that Anton Giulio Bragaglia had been presumptuous in publishing his Fotodinamismo futurista manifesto, accusing him of trying to act as a spokesman for the movement without having the permission to do so. 

Despite their expulsion in 1913, Anton Giulio Bragaglia continued to contribute to the avant-garde movement, later founding the Casa d'arte Bragaglia in 1918, welcoming Futurist artists and giving them space to exhibit their work.

He continued to experiment with photography, his work being exhibited in Italy and abroad, including the Venice Biennale in 1924 and 1926.

By then Bragaglia had made a broader impression in the arts world. Having become editor-in-chief of the artistic and theatrical periodical L’Artista in 1911, he founded the magazine La Ruoto and the periodical Cronache di Attualità, attracting impressive lists of contributors to both that included Gabriele D'Annunzio, Grazia Deledda, Rudyard Kipling, Luigi Pirandello, Corrado Alvaro, the poet Trilussa and artists Giorgio De Chirico and Fortunato Depero. 

A section of the interior of 
Bragaglia's Teatro Sperimentale

He made a number of films, largely with a Futurist imprint, in no small part due to the avant-garde scenography of Enrico Prampolini. 

In 1918 he founded and directed the Casa d'Arte Bragaglia, which he inaugurated with a personal exhibition by the Futurist painter Giacomo Balla. The following year he directed his first play at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. 

In 1922 he opened the Teatro Sperimentale degli Indipendenti, which he directed until 1936, having entrusted the architect and artist Virgilio Marchi with the adaptation of the ancient Roman baths. He engaged Balla, Depero and Prampolini to take care of furnishings and decoration, again with a heavy accent on Futurist styles. 

The Teatro Sperimentale degli Indipendenti became a point of reference for the Italian avant-garde, although Bragaglia did not close the door on traditional theatrical forms. Although he embraced the innovations of international theatre, he was also keen to promote young Italian playwrights.

An intellectual with a considerable range of interests, he wrote extensively as a critic on cinema, theatre, dance, scenography and stagecraft, often travelling across Europe and to America to host exhibition and conference tours, while still working actively in the theatre, in which he eventually directed more than 50 productions.

He directed for the last time at the Rome Opera House in 1960, staging Pietro Mascagni's Le maschere, an opera written as an homage to Italian comic opera - opera buffa - and the traditions of commedia dell'arte.

Bragaglia died in July 1960 at the age of 70. His funeral and burial took place at the Verano monumental cemetery in Rome, not far from the Sapienza University.

Piglio occupies an elevated position with 
sweeping views across the Sacco Valley

Travel tip:

Built on a spur of Monte Scalambra, a somewhat isolated mountain located on the border between the Metropolitan City of Rome and the Province of Frosinone, Bragaglia’s birthplace, Piglio, overlooks the Sacco Valley.  At the highest point of the small town stands the castle built by the Colonna family just over 1,000 years ago. The Colonnas lost control of the town but regained it in the 14th century and retained control until the early 19th century. With a history that goes back to ancient Roman times, the town’s strategic position has not always been to its advantage. A fierce battle between the Romans and Hannibal’s army in the valley during the Second Punic War, Napoleon’s armies largely burnt it down in the late 18th century and it was bombed by Allied planes in World War Two. Happily, it has been quieter in recent times and Pope John Paul II used to go there for moments of relaxation, a habit which is commemorated in a path laid out in the town, in which significant quotations attributed to him are engraved. Today, Piglio is known as part of the Cesanese DOCG red wine production area, staging a wine festival in October each year. 

Stay near Piglio with Expedia

The Palazzo Barberini, built in the 17th century,
now houses one of Rome's major art museums

Travel tip:

Bragaglia opened his Teatro Sperimentale degli Independenti within some ancient Roman baths in the district of Rome known as Rione II - Trevi, an area right at the heart of one of Rome’s most visited areas. Naturally, it features the iconic Trevi Fountain, now more than 250 years old, which remains one of the city’s most popular attractions, so much so that the city now charges tourists a €2 euro fee for the privilege of seeing the fountain close up at peak times. Other major sights within the Trevi rione are the Palazzo Barberini, the Baroque palace built for the Barberini family in the 17th century that stands directly off the piazza and houses one of Rome’s major art museums; the Fontana del Tritone, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s 1643 masterpiece which is the centrepiece of Piazza Barberini; and the Fontana delle Api, another Bernini fountain located just off the piazza.The Via Veneto, one of the city’s most famous boulevards thanks to its association with the Dolce Vita era, begins at Piazza Barberini, while the Quirinal Hill area, which includes several historic churches and the Palazzo Quirinale, the official residence of the Italian President, is also nearby. 

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More reading:

Umberto Boccioni, the leading Futurist artist who died tragically young

How Giacomo Balla’s paintings captured movement and speed

Giorgio De Chirico, founder of the scuola metafisica of Italian art

Also on this day:

1791: The birth of architect Louis Visconti

1881: The birth of Futurist painter Carlo Carrà

1917: The birth of film director Giuseppe De Santis

1929: Lateran Treaty gives independence to Vatican

1948: The birth of footballer Carlo Sartori

1995: The birth of singer Gianluca Ginoble

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Emma Gramatica – actress

Celebrating the long career of a seasoned stage and film performer

Emma Gramatica came from an acting 
background in the early 20th century

The theatre and cinema actress Emma Gramatica was born Aida Laura Argia Gramatica on this day in 1874 in Borgo San Donnino, which is today known as Fidenza, in the province of Parma in Emilia-Romagna.

Emma appeared in 29 films between 1919 and 1962 and was also a principal actress in the Italian theatre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her sisters, Irma and Anna Gramatica, were also actresses. Anna, married the actor Ruggero Capodaglio and therefore became the sister-in-law of the famous actress, Wanda Capodaglio.

While still a teenager, Emma Gramatica made her stage debut next to the celebrated actress Eleonora Duse in La Gioconda by Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Emma became the primattrice (first actress) in the stage companies led by some of the most prestigious names in the Italian theatre of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Ermete Zacconi, Flavio Andò, Enrico Reinach, and Ermete Novelli.

In the early part of the 20th century, she formed the famous theatre company Gramatica-Carini-Piperno, employing leading performers such as Renzo Ricci and Lola Braccini.

Emma’s film debut came - in the silent era - in 1916 when she appeared as a marriage wrecker in Quando il canto si spegne (When the Song is Over) opposite Luigi Serventi. The press praised her for her stage qualities but criticised her looks and theatricality and said they couldn’t accept her in the part of a mistress for whom a man would break up his marriage. 

As a result, Emma was to stay away from films until the arrival of sound cinema in Italy.

In 1931, by which time she was 57, she appeared in the film La Vecchia Signora, playing the part of an impoverished old lady selling chestnuts in the streets to support her niece.

As an older actress, Gramatica was
able to earn extra cash

She appeared in Napoli d’altri tempi in 1938, which starred Vittorio De Sica, and in Mamma in 1941, playing the mother of the opera singer Mario Sarni, played by the famous tenor Beniamino Gigli. In the film Sorelle Matterassi in 1944, Emma and her sister, Irma, played the parts of two old spinsters.

Emma Gramatica was in her seventies when she achieved her most important film and television successes.

Her most famous film was Miracolo a Milano, a neorealist fable directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1951, when she played the part of old Lolotta, who finds a baby among the cauliflowers in her garden and names him Totò, the movie’s central character played by Francesco Golisano. She brings him up to be both optimistic and kind.

Emma also appeared in Don Camillo: Monsignor in 1961 starring Fernandel and Gino Cervi.

The Don Camillo stories, featuring the characters Don Camillo and Peppone - the parish priest and Communist mayor of a fictional town in rural post-World War Two Italy - were the creation of writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi in the 1940s and 1950s. They were hugely popular and have been adapted many times for film, radio and TV.

Emma received many awards and honours in Italy during her career and the Legion of Honour in France. The sculptor Mario Rutelli celebrated Emma’s looks in 1905 by creating a bronze portrait bust of her. 

The actress died in Ostia, a town near the ancient port of Rome, at the age of 91 in 1965. She was laid to rest in her family tomb in the cemetery of Signa in Via Sorelle Gramatica in Florence, with her sister, Irma, and her parents.

Fidenza's Piazza Garibaldi is flanked by the
Palazzo Comunale, the town hall

Travel tip:

Fidenza, where Emma Gramatica was born, is an historic town of 27,000 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, about 30km (19 miles) northwest of Parma and 45km (28 miles) southeast of Piacenza along the ancient Via Emilia. Originally known as Fidentia during Roman times, the town was later called Borgo San Donnino, in honour of Saint Domninus, a Christian martyr. It was renamed Fidenza in 1927. The town’s attractions include a 12th–13th century Romanesque cathedral, dedicated to St Domninus, with a façade attributed to the sculptor Benedetto Antelami. The town’s central square, Piazza Garibaldi, flanked by the Palazzo Comunale (Town Hall), is a lively civic space. Fidenza is close to Busseto - the birthplace of Verdi - the spa town of Salsomaggiore Terme, and the fortified village of Fontanellato. Fidenza had prominence in medieval times as a key stop along the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route connecting Canterbury to Rome.

A street in the well preserved 
Roman resort of Ostia, near Rome

Travel tip:

Ostia - Lido di Ostia, to give its full name - is a seaside escape popular with Romans, offering long stretches of sandy beaches, vibrant nightlife, and seafood restaurants. It is situated on the Tyrrhenian coast just 30km (18 miles) southwest of the capital and easily accessible by train from central Rome. It blends beach culture with history, thanks to its proximity to the ancient Roman city of Ostia Antica. Highlights include the scenic pier Pontile di Ostia and Borghetto dei Pescatori, a quaint fishing village that forms part of the resort.  Ostia Antica, founded in the 4th century BC, was the bustling port of ancient Rome. The remains offer a remarkably preserved glimpse into Roman urban life. The city was a hub for trade, grain storage, and maritime defense, reflecting Rome’s imperial might. Among the best preserved buildings are a Roman theatre, still used for performances today, a Forum and Baths and some apartment buildings that are rare examples of multi-story Roman housing.  Ostia Antica has the advantage for visitors of being quieter and less crowded, for example, than the world famous ruins at Pompeii, but is an equally important site. 

More reading:

Why Eleonora Duse is regarded as one of the greatest acting talents of all time

Vittorio De Sica and the golden age of neorealism in Italian cinema

Gino Cervi - from Don Camillo to Maigret

Also on this day:

1647: The death of scientist Evangelista Torricelli

1815: The birth of virtuoso violinist Camillo Sivori

1902: The birth of Carlo Gnocchi, chaplain to Italy’s WW2 alpine troops

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Gaetano Casanova - actor

Best known as father of history’s most celebrated Lothario

A painting by Tiepolo, Minuet at the Villa,
taken by some to represent Zanetta and Gaetano 

Gaetano Casanova, an actor and dancer who fathered two noted painters but, more famously, the notorious 18th century libertine Giacomo Casanova, was born on this day in 1697 in Parma.

From a family originally from the Aragon region of Spain, Gaetano followed the lead of his brother, Giambattista, in leaving the family home in 1713, at the age of 16. He became infatuated with a much older woman, Giovanna Benozzi, who was a commedia dell’arte actress with a touring troupe.

However, Benozzi, who went under the stage name of La Fragoletta - the Little Strawberry - was not so enthusiastic and instead married one of the troupe’s stars, Francesco Balletti, who hailed from a family of famous actors and was their specialist in the role of Arlecchino - Harlequin.

Crestfallen, the young Geatano left the troupe and went to Venice, where he found work at the Teatro San Samuele.

In the event, it was not long before he found a new romantic interest, this time in the daughter of a shoemaker who kept a workshop near where Gaetano was staying. Her name was Zanetta Farussi.

Zanetta’s parents did not approve of their relationship, yet after less than a year they were married in secret. Her father, Girolamo, died not long afterwards, supposedly from a broken heart. Gaetano persuaded her mother, Marcia, to accept the marriage only by promising that she would not follow him into the acting profession.

Francesco Casanova's painting, The Cavalry
Battle, is currently on display at The Louvre

It proved a hollow promise.  Gaetano had a good relationship with the owner of the Teatro San Samuele, Michele Grimani, who was charmed by Zanetta’s good looks and gave her a role.

Indeed, Michele paid such attention to Zanetta that when she and Gaetano’s first child, Giacomo, was born in 1725, he suspected that Michele might be the real father.

Nonetheless, he and Zanetta stuck together and teamed up with a popular acting company to go on tour in London, where their second child, Francesco, was born in 1727.  Giacomo stayed behind in Venice, in the care of the Grimani family.

They went on to have six children before Gaetano died, sadly, at the age of only 36 after developing an infection that stemmed from an ear abscess. 

Of the six children, Francesco and Giovanni both went on to become well known in their own right as painters.

Francesco, who trained initially in the workshop of the Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Guardi, made his name painting battle scenes, a skill he learned from working with Francesco Simioni. At the height of his popularity, he sold paintings to King Louis XV of France and was commissioned by Catherine the Great of Russia.

Giacomo Casanova, whose
parentage was unclear

Giovanni, a painter of the neoclassicist school, also travelled, widely in Italy and also to Paris, where he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Clement XIII for the Sorbonne university, and to Dresden, where he lived for a while with his mother and his sister, Maria Maddalena, and taught at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Yet their places in history have largely been eclipsed by their brother, Giacomo, whose colourful life after graduating from the University of Padua with a degree in law saw him work at various times as a clergyman, military officer, violinist, businessman and spy.

He frequently embarked on passionate and risky affairs with women, who were often already married. He would regularly run out of money and on several occasions was imprisoned for debt.

Prosciutto di Parma, the ham that had become one
of the edible symbols of the Emilia-Romagna city

Travel tip:

Parma, where Gaetano Casanova was born, is an historic city in the Emilia-Romagna region, famous for food and music among other things. The home of Prosciutto di Parma ham and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, it has a music conservatory named after Arrigo Boito, who wrote the libretti for many of the operas composed by Giuseppe Verdi, who was born near Parma at Busseto. Parma also has a prestigious opera house, the Teatro Regio. The city was given in 1545 as a duchy to the illegitimate son of Pope Paul III, whose descendants ruled Parma till 1731. An elegant city with an air of prosperity common to much of Emilia-Romagna, Parma’s outstanding architecture includes an 11th century Romanesque cathedral and the octagonal 12th century baptistery that adjoins it, the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, which has a beautiful late Mannerist facade and bell tower, and the Palazzo della Pilotta, which houses the Academy of Fine Arts, the Palatine Library, the National Gallery and an archaeological museum.

How the Teatro San Samuele may have looked
when Gaetano Casanova was an actor and dancer

Travel tip:

The Teatro San Samuele, where Gaetano Casanova found work on his arrival in Venice and where his wife, Zanetta Farussi, began her theatrical career, was an opera house and theatre at the Rio del Duca, between San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano. It was first opened in 1656 in Venice and the playwright, Carlo Goldoni, was the theatre’s director between 1737 and 1741. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1747 but then rebuilt and it remained a theatre until the building was demolished in 1894. San Samuele is in the San Marco sestiere and has a waterbus stop on the right bank of the Grand Canal before you reach the Rialto.  The San Samuele is one of three Venice theatres from its 18th century golden age - along with the San Moisé and San Cassiano or the San Samuele - that no longer exist. The San Benedetto closed in the early 20th century and was remodelled as a cinema.  Renamed Teatro Rossini in 1868 in honour of the composer Gioachino Rossini, it reopened as the Cinema Rossini in 1937. Nowadays, the building, in Salizzada de la Chiesa o del Teatro, which is between Teatro la Fenice and the Grand Canal in the San Marco district, holds a multi-screen cinema.

Also on this day:

1696: The birth of soprano Francesca Cuzzoni

1725: The birth of adventurer Giacomo Casanova

1894: The death of painter and printmaker Achille Vianelli

1959: The birth of Olympic marathon champion Gelindo Bordin

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Walter Chiari - actor

Talented star with taste for high life

Walter Chiari had the bonus of 
good looks on top of acting talent

The actor Walter Chiari, whose passionate affair with the American superstar Ava Gardner in 1950s Rome is said to have influenced Federico Fellini in the making of his landmark movie La dolce vita, was born on this day in 1924 in Verona.

Chiari was an accomplished stage and film actor when he met Gardner on the set of The Little Hut, a 1957 romantic comedy that was British made and with a Canadian director but was filmed largely at Cinecittà in Rome.

Gardner was still married to Frank Sinatra at the time but the pair were estranged and she was open to romance. She developed a taste for the Rome nightlife around the Via Vittorio Veneto and her relationship with the handsome Chiari soon began to dominate the gossip columns. They were constantly harassed by photographers, some of whom felt the rough edge of Chiari’s temper.

Fellini supposedly based Paparazzo, the photographer who relentlessly pursues Anita Ekberg’s character in La dolce vita, on the antics of some of the real-life snappers who followed Chiari and Gardner’s every move.

Chiari, who enjoyed much success on screen and in theatre, mostly in comedy roles, was already a high-profile figure in Rome’s glitzier clubs and bars, often stepping out with glamorous partners. Among those with whom he was romantically linked were actresses Elsa Martinelli, Silvana Pampanini and Lucia Bosè, and the pop star Mina. He reportedly had a brief fling with Ekberg herself.

In his professional life, he was best known for his film roles in the aforementioned The Little Hut (1957), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1966) and The Valachi Papers (1972), which brought him international acclaim. 

He appeared opposite Anna Magnani in Luchino Visconti's film Bellissima (1951), won much praise for the quality of his performances in the commedia all’italiana genre and worked with some of Italy’s leading directors, including Mario Soldati, Mario Monicelli, Luigi Comencini, Ettore Scola, Dino Risi, Alessandro Blasetti and Damiano Damiani.

Chiari's relationship with the American star
Ava Gardner (left) dominated the gossip columns

Fluent in English and as comfortable acting on stage as he was in front of the camera, he was an accomplished performer in musical comedy and enjoyed a long run on Broadway in The Gay Life, with lyrics by Howard Dietz and music by Arthur Schwartz. 

He starred in an Italian production of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple and, towards the end of his career, won critical approval for his performances in more serious stage roles, in plays such as Marc Terrier’s Six Heures au Plus Tard, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and Richard Sheridan’s The Critic.

Born Walter Michele Armando Annicchiarico, Chiari spent the early part of his childhood in Via Quattro Spade in the heart of historic Verona, where his father, Carmelo, originally from Puglia, worked as a security officer for the local authority.

On finishing school he took a job as a warehouseman at a car factory in Milan, where the family had moved when he was nine. He subsequently found work as a radio technician and a bank, where - already showing a talent for acting - he was sacked after imitating Adolf Hitler while standing on a desk.

His break in acting came on a night out at the Teatro Olimpia in Milan, when the revue he had gone to see with a group of friends was on the point of being cancelled because one of the actors was absent. Urged to volunteer as a stand-in by his friends, he so impressed the director that he was invited to join the company.

Chiari had a brief marriage to the actress
Alida Chelli between 1969 and 1972

It opened the door into a career in revue theatre that flourished after he moved to Rome. He demonstrated his versatility by taking more serious roles, too, which in turn created opportunities to transfer his talents to the screen. In fact, his debut movie, in which he played the lead role in Giorgio Pastina’s Vanità (1947), won him a Nastro d’Argento award as best new actor.

Apart from his regular appearances in the gossip pages, Chiari was at the centre of other scandals. In 1970 he spent 98 days in the Regina Coeli prison in Rome after being arrested on charges of cocaine use and cocaine trafficking. He was released on payment of three million lire bail and acquitted of all but the possession charge at trial in 1971.

He received a suspended sentence for possession, but even though he had been cleared of the more serious charges the scandal severely damaged his career. The national TV channel Rai dropped him from a number of shows in which he had participated and until the late stages of his career his only television work was for minor, regional channels.

After his death, it was revealed that he had served for part of World War Two in the German army, who posted him to northern France with an anti-aircraft unit. He was captured by the Allies after being wounded soon after the D-Day landings and sent to an American prisoner of war camp in Tuscany.

Chiari was married - once and for just three years - to the singer and actress Alida Chelli. They had a son, Simone Annicchiarico, who became a TV presenter.  Chiari died from a heart attack in Milan in 1991, at the age of 67. His funeral, attended by more than 3,000 people, took place at the church of San Pietro in Sala, near Milan’s Teatro Nazionale.

His tombstone in Milan’s monumental cemetery famously is inscribed with the words: "Don't worry, I'm merely catching up with sleep".

The Via Quattro Spade in Verona,
where Walter Chiari was born

Travel tip:

Verona, where Walter Chiari was born, 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. Just a five-minute walk from Chiari’s home in Via Quattro Spade, the arena has a seating capacity of 22,000, often selling out for open air opera performances and 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 church of San Pietro in Sala in the Wagner
district of Milan, which held Chiari's funeral

Travel tip:

The church of San Pietro in Sala is in the well-heeled Wagner district of Milan, which has some expensive apartments and upmarket shops but is also seen as a trendy neighbourhood. The main shopping streets, Corso Vercelli and Via Belfiore, are lined with quirky boutiques and shoe shops, while the area has a lively vibe in the evening. One attraction is the indoor food market in Piazza Riccardo Wagner, directly opposite the church. The largest food market in Milan, it stocks all manner of gourmet treats and is not to be missed by food-loving visitors to the city. Situated about 3km (1.9 miles) west of the centre of Milan, a 15-minute Metro ride from the station in Piazza Duomo.

Also on this day:

La Festa della Donna - International Women’s Day

1566: The birth of composer Carlo Gesualdo

1925: The birth of priest and politician Gianni Baget Bozzo

1949: The birth of singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti

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Luisa Ranieri - actress

Naples-born star of The Hand of God

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ranieri won acclaim for her
portrayal of Maria Callas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Travel tip:

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

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

Travel tip:

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

Also on this day:

1899: The founding of AC Milan football club

1944: The birth of businessman Santo Versace

1945: The death of Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli

1952: The birth of footballer Francesco Graziani

1954: The birth of pop singer Ivana Spagna

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Kaspar Capparoni - actor

Found fame co-starring with crime-fighting dog

Kaspar Capparoni with his German Shepherd
co-star in the crime drama Il Commissario Rex

The actor Kaspar Capparoni, an accomplished performer on stage and screen whose fame received its biggest boost after he starred alongside a German Shepherd dog in the TV crime series Il Commissario Rex, was born in Rome on this day in 1964.

Capparoni played the part of Commissioner Lorenzo Fabbri, a homicide detective who is accompanied in his work by an unusually talented police dog known as Rex, whose ever-growing range of skills are often key to solving the crimes Fabbri is charged with investigating.

Il Commissario Rex, which was screened by Italian national broadcaster Rai between 2008 and 2015, revived a show previously shown on TV in Austria but which had ceased production in 2004 after 11 years.

Capparoni portrayed Commissioner Fabbri for four seasons, working alongside two different German Shepherds in the Rex role. The action, which had been set in Vienna in the original version, was switched to Rome for the Italian revival.  Capparoni decided to leave after the show’s producers proposed a return to its former setting in Austria.

Nonetheless, the popularity of Rex with Italian audiences brought Capparoni a much higher profile. His acting ability was already well regarded within his profession but thanks to Rex he acquired a large following among the public.

Capparoni and his dance partner Julija Musichina
won the 2011 edition of Ballando con le Stelle

Invited to take part in the 2011 edition of Ballando con le Stelle - the Italian equivalent of the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing and the US show Dancing with the Stars - he was paired with the Russian dancer Julija Musichina, the couple emerging from 10 weeks of competition to be crowned champions.

Born Gaspare Capparoni, his father was a surgeon, his mother a German teacher, originally from Sexten - Sesto in Italian - a German-speaking village in Alto Adige, also known as South Tyrol. Kaspar attended Rome’s German School - the Deutsche Schule - and is fluent in German as well as Italian.

After some early work as a model in advertising campaigns, he enrolled for acting lessons at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, where his work came to the attention of the writer and director Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, who gave him his stage debut at the age of 18.

It was the beginning of a relationship that would last 20 years and see Capparoni appear under Griffi’s direction in a host of classic stage plays, including works by Molière, Shakespeare, Goldoni, Ceckhov, Pirandello, Ibsen and Tennessee Williams among others.

Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, who
nurtured Capparoni's stage career

Capparoni’s big screen debut came in 1985 when he was cast in a small role in the horror film Phenomena, directed by Dario Argento and with a cast that included Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasance. 

Although he subsequently starred in a number of movies, notably opposite Valeria Golino in Il Sole Nero (2007) and with Claudio Amendola and Elisabetta Rocchetti in Il ritorno del Monnezza (2005), it for his work in television that he has become best known.

In addition to Il Commissario Rex, he is well known for his roles in the drama series such as Solo per amore and Capri, soaps such as Incantesimo and the period drama Elisa di Rivombrosa.

Capparoni has been married twice, first to the former Tunisian model Ashraf Ganouchi, with whom he had two children - Sheherazade, born in 1993, and Joseph, born in 2000 - before a traumatic divorce in 2003, and subsequently to Veronica Maccarone, who was best known for her appearances on Quelli che il calcio, a sports-themed entertainment show. She is the mother of Alessandro, born in 2008, and Daniel (2013).

He recently appeared with Alessandro - a student at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome - in Mothers, Fathers, Sons and Daughters, a production of words and dance, on stage at the Teatro Municipale in Piacenza.

Rome's Teatro Argentina has staged
a number of important premieres 

Travel tip:

The Teatro Argentina, where Capparoni enrolled for acting lessons as a teenager, is one of the oldest theatres in Rome. Located in Largo di Torre Argentina the Teatro Argentina was built over the remains of the curia section of the Theatre of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was murdered in 44BC. It was commissioned by the Sforza-Cesarini family, designed by the architect Gerolamo Theodoli and inaugurated in 1732. In the 19th century, it staged the premieres of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville as well as Giuseppe Verdi's I due Foscari and La battaglia di Legnano. Several plays by Luigi Pirandello, Henrik Ibsen and Maxim Gorky were performed for the first time there in the 20th century. The auditorium is set out in the traditional horseshoe shape, with seats for 696 people, including 344 in the stalls, and 40 boxes on five levels seating an additional 352.

Sexten (Sesto) enjoys a picturesque setting in 
the Puster Valley in the Alto Adige region

Travel tip:

Sexten - known as Sesto in Italian - is the home village of Capparoni’s mother, who taught German to Italian students. A centre for both winter and summer sports, it is situated in a branch of the Puster Valley, near Innichen (It: San Candido) and Toblach (It: Dobbiaco). Just 3km (1.88 miles) from the Austrian border, it has a population of just under 2,000, 95 per cent of whom speak German as their first language, yet is part of the Alto Adige region. The nearest substantial Italian cities are Bolzano, which is 113km (70 miles) to the west by road, and Belluno, 86km (53 miles) south. Damaged during World War One, when it was on the front line as the Italian army battled against the forces of Austria-Hungary, it is now a thriving centre for skiing in the Dolomite mountains in the winter months and for trekking and mountain biking in the summer. Its most famous sporting product is the tennis player Jannik Sinner, who was born in Innichen but grew up in Sexten.

Also on this day:

902: Arab forces complete their conquest of Sicily

1464: The death of Cosimo de’ Medici, the banker who founded the Medici dynasty

1776: The birth of soldier Francesca Scanagatta

1831: The birth of baritone Antonio Cotogni

1905: The birth of painter and enameller Paolo De Poli

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Francesco Manelli – Baroque composer

Theorbo player staged the world’s first public opera

Manelli worked in Tivoli, Rome and
Padua before settling in Venice

Musician and opera composer Francesco Manelli, who is remembered for the important contribution he made to bringing commercial opera to Venice, was born on this day in 1595 in Tivoli in Lazio.

Manelli (sometimes spelt Mannelli) was also a skilled player of the theorbo, which is a plucked string instrument belonging to the lute family that has a very long neck.

From the age of ten, Manelli used to sing in Tivoli's Duomo, the Basilica Cattedrale di San Lorenzo Martire, and he was taught music by the various maestri di cappella working there at that time.

Manelli moved to Rome with the intention of studying for a career in the church, but after meeting and marrying a singer, Maddalena, he decided to dedicate himself exclusively to music.

In 1627, Manelli went back to Tivoli where he himself became a maestro di cappella at the Duomo, a post he held for two years. Then he returned to Rome to take up the post of maestro di cappella at the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione.

After going to Padua, where his wife sang in the opera Ermiona, Manelli and his family settled in Venice in order to be close to his patron.

In 1637, Manelli and another composer and theorbo player, Benedetto Ferrari, put together a company of singers to present an opera in a public theatre, which was the first time this had happened. The singers performed Andromeda, an opera, with music written by Manelli and a libretto written by Ferrari, at Teatro San Cassiano during that year’s Carnevale. Manelli himself sang two of the bass parts.  

A 17th century painting of an English
woman playing the theorbo

The following year, the company performed another opera by Manelli, La maga fulminata, with Manelli’s wife, Maddalena, singing the role of Pallade.

In 1639, Manelli composed La Delia, with a libretto by Giulio Strozzi, which premiered at Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. This was followed by his operas, Adone in 1640 and L’Alcate in 1642, which were both performed at the same theatre.

Between 1639 and 1642, Manelli and Ferrari directed a company of Venetian singers in Bologna, which included Manelli’s wife, Maddalena, and their son, Constantino. In addition to Manelli’s own compositions, the singers performed Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria by Claudio Monteverdi.

In 1645, Manelli and his family went into the service of Ranuccio II Farnese, the Duke of Parma. Manelli composed five operas for the court, which were performed in the ducal theatre of Parma and Piacenza.

Manelli died in Parma in 1667 and his wife, Maddalena, died there in 1680.

A wooden model of how the
theatre might have looked

Travel tip:

Teatro San Cassiano, which was located in the San Cassiano parish of Venice’s Santa Croce sestiere, was the world’s first ever public opera house thanks to Francesco Manelli and Benedetto Ferrari. This sparked a global opera boom and established Venice as its capital. There is now a project to reconstruct the Teatro San Cassiano of 1637 as faithfully as modern scholarship and traditional craftsmanship will allow to deliver a fully functioning dedicated Baroque opera house and a centre for research into Baroque opera.

Tivoli's attractions include the gardens and fabulous
fountains of the 16th century Villa d'Este

Travel tip:

Tivoli, where Francesco Manelli was born, is a town in Lazio, situated about 30km (19 miles) northeast of Rome. The city offers a wide view over the Roman Campagna, a low-lying area of countryside surrounding Rome. Tivoli is famous for being the site of Hadrian’s villa, a large villa complex built around AD 120 by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and the Villa d’Este, a 16th century villa, famous for its terraced hillside Renaissance garden and its abundance of fountains. Both villas are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Also on this day: 

1506: The death of painter Andrea Mantegna

1583: The birth of composer Girolamo Frescobaldi

1808: The death of writer Saverio Bettinelli 

1973: The birth of footballer Fabio Cannavaro

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Eduardo Scarpetta - actor and playwright

Much-loved performer began theatrical dynasty

Scarpetta's comic plays were hugely
popular with Neapolitan audiences

Eduardo Scarpetta, one of the most important writers and actors in Neapolitan theatre in the last 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in Naples.

Fascinated by the commedia dell’arte and Neapolitan puppet theatre character Pulcinella, Scarpetta was the writer of more than 50 dialect plays in the comedy genre, creating his own character, Felice Sciosciammocca, a wide-eyed, gullible but essentially good-natured Neapolitan who featured prominently in his best-known work, Miseria e Nobiltà (Misery and Nobility).

His plays made him wealthy, although his standing was damaged towards the end of his career by a notorious dispute with Gabriele D’Annunzio, the celebrated playwright and poet with aristocratic roots who was a considerable figure in Italian literature.

A showman with a reputation for throwing extravagant parties, Scarpetta led a complicated personal life that saw him father at least eight children by at least four women, of which only one was by his wife, Rosa De Filippo.

One of his relationships, with Rosa’s niece, Luisa, a theatre seamstress, produced three children - Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo - central figures in an Italian theatre and film dynasty in the 20th century.

Another daughter, Maria, was the child of an affair with a music teacher, while a relationship with his wife’s half-sister, Anna, produced the journalist, poet and playwright, Ernesto Murolo, who co-wrote a number of famous Neapolitan songs with the composer Ernesto Tagliaferri, and another actor, Eduardo Passarelli.

His only legitimate son, Vincenzo, also became an actor, and later a director, playwright and composer. The part of Peppeniello in Miseria e nobiltà was written specifically for Vincenzo.

Scarpetta in character as his own
creation, Felice Sciosciamocca

Scarpetta did not come from a theatrical background. His father, Domenico, was a civil servant who tried without success to steer Eduardo into a more secure profession.

By joining a theatre company at the age of 15, Scarpetta believed he could help bring money into the family after his father’s poor health led to them falling on hard times.

He soon met Antonio Petito, a playwright and actor who at the time was one of Naples’s most famous interpreters of the Pulcinella character, and joined his company at the Teatro San Carlino on Piazza Castello, near the Castel Nuovo. It was while working with Petito that he created Felice Sciosciammocca, with whom Petito was so impressed he began to write plays with Pulcinella and Sciosciammocca as the main characters. 

Petito’s Pulcinella had evolved from the rather simple, slow-witted character of tradition to a sharp, insolent and above all instinctively cunning individual. Where Pulcinella was working class, Scarpetta’s middle-class Sciosciammocca was a perfect foil.

His partnership with Petito ended with the latter’s death in 1876, after which he worked briefly in Rome before returning to Naples. After a period performing at the Teatro Metastasio on the city’s pier, he returned to San Carlino as manager, investing much time and money in saving it from impending closure and restoring it.

San Carlino would in 1884 be demolished to make way for a new urban square, the Piazza Municipio, as part of a rehabilitation project for the area, which had become rather run down.

Nonetheless, Scarpetta had enjoyed a number of huge successes with his own plays, notably Miseria e Nobiltà, but also Il medico dei pazzi, na santarella, Lo scarfalietto, Nu Turco Napulitano and O miereco de’ pazzi.

Na santarella was one of Scarpetta's
most successful plays

His wealth enabled him to build a substantial palazzo on Via Vittorio Colonna in the prestigious Chiaia district and a villa on the Vomero hill, in Via Luigia Sanfelice, which he named La Santarella.

La Santarella hosted a huge party each year on the occasion of his daughter Tatina’s birthday, to which Scarpetta invited actors, directors, journalists, writers and poets for a celebration that traditionally ended with a spectacular fireworks display that was visible all over the city.

Rosa was happy to accommodate all of Eduardo’s various children. Indeed, after his affair with the music teacher, Francesca Gianetti, it was Rosa who was said to have rescued the child, Maria, from the religious institute to which she had been abandoned.  Rosa, in fact, had a son of her own, Domenico, whose father was none other than the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II, with whom she had a relationship as a teenager before marrying Scarpetta.

Scarpetta’s fortunes began to decline when his Teatro Salone Margherita, a cabaret theatre in the basement of the then newly-built Galleria Umberto I in the centre of Naples began to suffer financially. At the same time a play he had written as a parody of a play by Gabriele D’Annunzio which prompted the well-connected D’Annunzio to accuse him of plagiarism and take him to court for staging the play without permission.

In the event, the court case went in the favour of Scarpetta, who successfully argued that his play, Iorio’s Son, was not a copy but a comic send-up of D’Annunzio’s tragedy, Iorio’s Daughter, but the case - and the panning that Iorio’s Son received from the critics - left Scarpetta embittered and though he continued to write he decided he would no longer act. 

He died at the age of 72 in 1925 and after an elaborate funeral in which his body was placed in a crystal coffin, he was buried in the De Filippo-Scarpetta-Viviani family tomb at the Cimitero Monumentale di Poggioreale in Naples, close to what would become the site of the city’s international airport at Capodichino.

Scarpetta's impressive villa in the Vomero
district, which he named La Santarella

Travel tip:

Vomero, where Scarpetta had his impressive villa, La Santarella, is a middle class largely residential area of central Naples but has a number of buildings of historic significance. The most dominant, on top of Vomero hill, is the large medieval fortress, Castel Sant'Elmo, which stands guard over the city. In front of the fortress is the Certosa San Martino, the former Carthusian monastery, now a museum.  Walk along the adjoining street, Largo San Martino, to enjoy extraordinary views over the city towards Vesuvius.  Vomero's other tourist attraction is the Villa Floridiana, once the home of Ferdinand I, the Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies.  Surrounded by extensive gardens, the building now houses the Duke of Martina National Museum of Ceramics.

Chiaia is one of the more upmarket areas
of the city of Naples

Travel tip:

Chiaia, where Scarpetta’s wealth enabled him to build a large family house, is a neighbourhood bordering the seafront in Naples, roughly between Piazza Vittoria and Mergellina. It has become one of the most affluent districts in the city, with many of the top fashion designers having stores on the main streets. It is the home of a large public park known as the Villa Comunale, flanked by the large palazzi along the Riviera di Chiaia on one side, and the sweeping promenade of the Via Francesco Caracciolo on the other.  The area is home to many fine seafood restaurants and has become a popular nightlife destination for well-heeled young Neapolitans.

Also on this day:

1925: The birth of actor and voice-dubber Corrado Gaipa

1955: The birth of footballer and coach Bruno Conti

1960: The birth of rock musician Luciano Ligabue

1980: The birth of dancer Flavia Cacace

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