Giovanni Comisso - writer

Novelist and journalist with distinctive literary voice

Giovanni Comisso spent much of his 
writing life travelling abroad

The writer Giovanni Comisso, one of Italy’s most distinctive literary voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1895 in Treviso in the Veneto region.

He was acclaimed for his novel Giorni di guerra - Days of War - which drew on his experiences serving as a telegraph engineer in the First World War. Comisso’s work won critical praise for being deeply attuned to the emotional and philosophical currents of his time.

For much of his life, Comisso led a peripatetic career as a journalist and art dealer, as well as a writer. He traveled extensively across Europe, North Africa, and the Far East, taking work as a correspondent for Italian newspapers such as Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta del Popolo.  For a while, he lived in Paris with the Italian painter Filippo De Pisis, leading what he described as a “disorderly and frenetic” existence within the city’s bohemian postwar artistic community.

Comisso was born into a comfortable, middle-class household, the son of an agricultural merchant. He attended the Antonio Canova classical high school in Treviso but failed his final exams and signed up for military service, taking a telegraph engineering course in Florence. By that time he had met Arturo Martini, a Trevisan sculptor six years his senior, with whom he developed a strong friendship.  Martini helped him find a publisher for his first collection of poems, also painting his portrait for the cover.

In common with so many young Italian men, the course of Comisso's life abruptly changed with the outbreak of World War One. His service with the Telegraph Corps of Engineers took him to the front line in the war against Austria-Hungary. He took part in the Battle of Caporetto, a disastrous defeat for the Italians in November 1917, and the Battle of the Piave River in June 1918, a decisive victory that was probably the beginning of the end for Austria-Hungary.

Following the armistice, he was transferred to Fiume - the city that is now Rijeka in Croatia but to which Italy felt they had an historic claim. He was there in September, 1919, when a rebel army led by the Italian Army officer Gabriele D'Annunzio occupied the city in a response to what Italians perceived as the unfairness of post-war division of territory by their allies. 

Comisso deserted and joined the rebel troops, an experience that deepened his fascination with rebellion and individualism. The occupation was short-lived but Fiume subsequently became part of Italy under the 1924 Treaty of Rome.

Giorni di guerra, the novel that
drew on Comisso's war experience

While in Fiume, he enjoyed sailing in the Adriatic, which inspired his first novel, The Port of Love, published in 1924.

In the same year, Comisso completed the studies he had abandoned before WW1 and obtained a degree in law at the University of Siena. He never practised, instead combining travelling with writing, earning a living as a correspondent for a number of Italian newspapers and magazines. At different times, he ran a bookshop in Milan and was an art dealer in Paris. 

Among his varied experiences, his time aboard a sailing ship based in Chioggia, at the southern end of the Venetian Lagoon, led him to write Gente di Mare - Seafarers - which won him the Bagutta Prize in 1929.

In December of that year, as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera, he made the Grand Tour of the Far East, visiting China, Japan, Siberia, and Russia, which he travelled across to reach Moscow. His trip lasted seven months. 

Back in Italy, he published his great wartime novel, Giorni di guerra, which initially caused him some problems with the Fascist regime, who were unhappy that it portrayed the Italian military in a raw, unheroic light. 

Comisso used the money he had earned from his newspaper work and literature to buy a house and some land in Zero Branco, a town in the Treviso area, about 14km (nine miles) to the southwest of the city.

He published books of his writings in Paris and the Far East, although his travelling was not finished. The Gazzetta del Popolo, based in Turin, sent him on a tour of the entire Italian peninsula, from which he reported his observations, and then to East Africa to document the birth of the new Fascist Empire.

Comisso's final home in the village of Santa Maria
del Rovere, on the outskirts of Treviso

World War Two had devastating consequences for Comisso, whose family home in Piazza Fiumicelli was destroyed when Treviso was bombed in April 1944, although his mother and her housekeeper had been evacuated to Zero Branco.  

Meanwhile, his companion, Guido, with whom he shared his own home, was arrested by the Fascists, then released on condition that he joined a combat unit of the new Italian Social Republic, from which he deserted only to be shot dead by partisans, who suspected him of spying.

Comisso’s writing continued to be honoured. He won the Viareggio Prize in 1952 with Capricci italiani - Italian whims - and the Strega Prize in 1955 with Un gatto attraversa la strada - A Cat Crosses the Road - two collections of short stories.

After the deaths of his mother and both Arturo Martini and Filippo De Pisis, Comisso left Zero Branco to rent an apartment in Treviso, but moved again, to a house in Santa Maria del Rovere, on the outskirts of Treviso, where he continued to write.

His final work, a collection of stories entitled Attraverso il tempo - Through Time - was published just a few months before his death, in hospital in Treviso, in January 1969.

Comisso’s writing, distinguished by its lyrical prose, existential undertones, and a tension between rootedness and escape, left an indelible mark on Italian literature.

The pretty Piazza dei Signori is the 
square at the heart of Treviso

Travel tip:

For many visitors to Italy, Treviso is no more than the name of the airport at which they might land en route to Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast. Treviso’s main sights include its historic squares, medieval walls, unique fountains, and art-filled museums.  Piazza dei Signori is the heart of Treviso’s historic centre, a 13th-century square lined with elegant cafés, boutiques, and civic buildings.  The city’s well-preserved walls date back to the 15th century and once protected the city. The Porta San Tomaso entrance to the city is a grand marble city gate from the 16th century, adorned with ornate carvings and the winged lion of Venice.

Hotels in Treviso from Hotels.com

The National Theatre in Rijeka, where the
architecture bears a heavy Italian influence

Travel tip:

Rijeka is a vibrant port city on Croatia’s northern Adriatic coast, yet between 1924 to 1947, it was known as Fiume and part of the Kingdom of Italy. During this period, Italian was the official language, and many public buildings, schools, and cultural institutions reflected Italian styles and values. Architecture flourished, with neoclassical and rationalist designs still visible today, especially in the city centre, while the Italian community thrived, contributing to Rijeka’s literary, musical, and culinary traditions. After World War II, the city was ceded to Yugoslavia, and many Italians left or were expelled. Yet traces of Italian heritage remain in street names and inscriptions, while many buildings still bear Italian influence.  The city’s dual identity is reflected in its cuisine, blending Mediterranean and Central European flavours.

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Also on this day: 

The minister who persuaded Italy to switch sides in WW1

A poet who drew inspiration from the landscapes of the Veneto

How Gabriele d’Annunzio influenced Mussolini

Also on this day:

1808: The birth of record-breaking Palio jockey Francesco Bianchini

1858: The birth of actress Eleonora Duse

1938: The birth of world champion boxer Alessando Mazzinghi

1941: The birth of bass-baritone star Ruggero Raimondi

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Gaetano Cozzi – historian and writer

Professor pursued academic research despite his disability

Gaetano Cozzi overcame disability to
become an expert on Venetian history

Historian, professor, and writer Gaetano Cozzi, who became an expert on the history of Venice and taught at both Venice and Padua Universities, was born on this day in 1922 in Zero Branco in the province of Treviso in the Veneto.

Although confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, Cozzi became famous internationally because of his research into the life of writer and statesman, Paolo Sarpi, and his own writing about the relationship between law and society in Italy.

Cozzi grew up in Legnano, a municipality of Milan, and went to military school. At the age of 20, he became a second lieutenant in the Alpine troops. While attending a training school in Parma he was kicked by a horse and suffered a leg wound. A vaccine injected into him to treat the wound caused a serious infection and although his condition stabilised after a few months he was left paralysed in his lower limbs.

He had to have frequent periods in hospital, but his medical treatment, rather than demoralising him, stimulated him intellectually. He began to take an interest in politics and came into contact with the Liberal Party in Italy. He contributed to the Resistance in 1943, while lying in his hospital bed, by writing for Italian newspapers that carried propaganda pieces. He later left the Liberal Party for the Radical party and then joined L'Unità Popolare, a short-lived Democratic and Liberal political party.

Despite being paralysed, Cozzi prepared to take his university exams and he graduated in History of Italian Law at the University of Milan in 1949. His thesis was about the writer Paolo Sarpi, and the relationship between the state and the church in Italy.

Cozzi moved to Venice to continue his research, even though life was difficult for him there because of his disability. He also found it difficult to find accommodation because of the large population in the city at the time. 

Paolo Sarpi, the Venetian writer on whose
work Cozzi became a leading authority

After the founding of the Institute for the History of Venetian Society and State, he was appointed its secretary in 1955.

His first book, about Nicolò Contarini, who was the Doge of Venice in 1630, had to be dictated by Cozzi to his mother in 1958 because his illness had once again forced him to lie in bed.

Cozzi was appointed to teach history at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature in Venice and while attending a meeting at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in 1960, he met Luisa Zille, an expert in philology, who he married in 1962 in Venice. He later collaborated with his wife to edit the Complete Works of Paolo Sarpi.

In 1966, Cozzi was appointed by the ancient University of Padua to teach medieval and modern history at their faculty of Political Sciences.

After returning to teach at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice in the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in 1970, he fought for a degree course in history to be created there. 

Cozzi was a prolific writer about criminal justice and prisons in the Venetian Republic and he also wrote The History of Venice, published in two volumes in 1986 and 1992.

In 1987, he became a board member of the newly established, Treviso-based Benetton Foundation for Studies and Research.

All Cozzi’s writing and research had to be interspersed with long periods in hospital because of complications with his health. He suffered a further blow when his wife, Luisa, who was suffering from depression, took her own life in 1995.

Cozzi’s teaching career came to an end in 1998 with a ceremony at Ca’ Foscari, where he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus.

The historian died in 2001 in Venice at the age of 78. He was buried in the cemetery at Zero Branco next to his wife, Luisa. His gravestone bears the inscription: ‘Still together, always together.’

Casa Luisa e Gaetano Cozzi, just outside Zero
Branco, has a library housing the Cozzi archive

Travel tip:

Zero Branco is a comune - municipality - in the province of Treviso in the Veneto, located about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Venice and about 10km (6 miles) southwest of Treviso.  Casa Luisa e Gaetano Cozzi in Via Milan is now a cultural centre in the countryside outside Zero Branco, having been bequeathed to Fondazione Benetton in Gaetano Cozzi’s will. It is an eight-hectare complex consisting of a former farmhouse, rustic outbuildings, and agricultural land, which is used by the Benetton Foundation for agricultural research.  A library houses Cozzi’s documents and archives that are made available to scholars. Luisa’s Bechstein piano is preserved there and musical activities take place at Casa Cozzi in her memory.

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Porticoes and weeping willow trees line the
picturesque Canale Buranelli in pretty Treviso

Travel tip:

The pretty town of Treviso is 30km (19 miles) north of Venice. Visitors can stroll along by canals, but unlike Venice they are fringed by willow trees and adorned with the occasional water wheel and you won’t encounter large tour groups coming in the opposite direction. There are plenty of restaurants serving authentic cucina trevigiana and cucina veneta, but at more modest prices than you will find in Venice, and plenty of places to sample locally-produced Prosecco. Treviso is close to the so-called strada del prosecco, the road between Valdobbiadene and Conegliano, which is lined with wineries producing Prosecco DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata), the stamp of quality given to the best Italian wines. It takes only about ten minutes to walk from the railway station through the 16th century Venetian walls and along Via Roma, Corso del Popolo, and Via XX Settembre to Piazza dei Signori, at the centre of Treviso. From this central square, a short walk through Piazza San Vito leads to a picturesque part of Treviso, Canale Buranelli. You can walk alongside the canal under the porticoes of the houses and see the flower-decorated balconies on the ornate buildings on the other side. Nearby is Treviso's fish market - the  Pescheria, which is held daily on a very small island in the middle of the River Sile. Treviso’s Duomo, built in the 12th century but remodelled in the 15th, 16th, and 18th centuries, houses Titian’s Annunciation, painted in 1570, and frescoes painted by his arch rival, Pordenone.

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More reading:

Paolo Sarpi, the patriotic Venetian who the Pope wanted dead

Luciano Benetton, the entrepreneur who co-founded clothing brand

Why Treviso commemorates star tenor Mario del Monaco

Also on this day:

1616: Europe's first free public school opens in Frascati, near Rome

1881: The birth of car manufacturer Ettore Bugatti

1904: The birth of Umberto II, the last king of Italy

1919: The birth of cycling great Fausto Coppi

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Ottavio Bottecchia - cycling champion

First Italian to win the Tour de France

Bottecchia triumphed despite
coming from a poor background

Ottavio Bottechia, who was the first of the seven Italian riders so far to have won the classic Tour de France cycle race, was born on this day in 1894 in San Martino di Colle Umberto, a village in the province of Treviso about 50km (31 miles) north of Venice.

Bottechia, who took up cycling as a sport only after serving with a cycle battalion of the Bersaglieri Corps in World War One, won the Tours de France of both 1924 and 1925.

Such was his dominance of both those races that he achieved the distinction - unique at the time - of wearing the leader’s yellow jersey for all 15 stages in 1924, a feat he almost repeated the following year, when he held the lead for 13 stages.

His successes brought him fame and financial reward yet his life began in hardship. Born into a poor peasant family, he was named Ottavio for the simple reason that he was the eighth out of nine children. He went to school for only a year before his father insisted he find a job, working first as a shoemaker, then a bricklayer. 

His service with the Bersaglieri Corps, an elite, highly-mobile infantry force deployed by the Royal Italian Army, earned him a bronze medal for military valour as a result of what he endured in ferrying messages, supplies and weapons on a folding bicycle across the treacherous Austrian front. He survived malaria, gas attacks, and several spells as a prisoner. 

After the war, Bottecchia moved to France to work as a builder but returned to Italy and began racing competitively. Despite having only a borrowed bicycle, he won a number of events and caught the eye of Teodoro Carnielli, a bicycle manufacturer, who gave him the gift of a racing bike and encouraged him to pursue the sport professionally.

Bottecchia’s breakthrough came in 1923 when he placed fifth in the Giro d’Italia, which was considered an extraordinary feat for a rider without a team to support him. Henri Pélissier, a leading French cyclist, invited him to join the Automoto-Hutchinson team, for whom he competed in the Tour de France for the first time, winning a stage and finishing second overall.

A garlanded Bottecchia on his victory lap after
his first triumph in the Tour de France, in 1924

The following year, 1924, he made history as the first Italian to win the Tour de France, wearing the yellow jersey from start to finish, something no rider had previously accomplished. His riding style was described as rhythmic and effortless, like the swing of a pendulum. He repeated his triumph in 1925, solidifying his status as a cycling legend.

Nicknamed Il muratore del Friuli - The Bricklayer of Friuli - his victories came to be seen as symbols of perseverance and national pride, his story one of rising from obscurity to dominate the most prestigious race in cycling.

His success enabled him to buy a house in San Martino and open a workshop for the construction of bicycles. He seemed set up for comfortable life.

Yet Bottechia died tragically young, at the age of just 32. In the early summer of 1927, after a relatively lean start to the year in terms of success, he had gone back to the area of Friuli-Venezia Giulia where he had trained previously, hoping it would help him recapture his form.

On June 3 - only 10 days after his brother, Giovanni, had been struck by a car and killed near Conegliano, Veneto - Ottavio was found unconscious by the roadside while training near the Tagliamento river, north of Udine, with a fractured skull, a broken collarbone and other injuries. He died 12 days later in a hospital in Gemona.

There was an assumption that he had lost control of his bicycle and that his death was accidental, yet the bicycle itself was undamaged and there were no signs that he had swerved to avoid a car or been forced off the road. 

The uncertainty over the cause of his death gave rise to all manner of theories, including political assassination, given that he was quite outspokenly anti-Fascist in his views. Another story alleged that the farmer who originally claimed to have found Bottecchia by the roadside had actually killed him, albeit accidentally, in trying to stop him stealing grapes from his vines. 

Today, Bottecchia’s legacy endures. A museum in his home town commemorates his life, and his name lives on through the Bottecchia bicycle brand, which Carnielli built up after his death. A monument can be found at the roadside where his body was discovered.

The village of San Martino di Colle Umberto, with
the church of San Martino Vescovo in the foreground

Travel tip:

San Martino di Colle Umberto, where Bottecchia was born, is a picturesque village in the province of Treviso, north of Venice. Built across two of the hills that form the Colle Umberto, it offers sweeping views of the Prealpi Bellunesi and surrounding countryside, including the town of Vittorio Veneto.  The heart of the village is the Chiesa di San Martino Vescovo, a Renaissance-style church dating back to the 15th century which features a striking campanile and a seven-arched portico.  During the dominance of the Republic of Venice, San Martino and Colle Umberto became popular retreats for Venetian nobility, drawn to the peaceful hills and scenic beauty.  The village is part of the UNESCO-listed Prosecco Hills. 

A palace in the pretty
town of Serravalle

Travel tip:

Vittorio Veneto is a town of some 28,000 people in the province of Treviso, situated between the Piave and Livenza rivers at the foot of the mountain region known as the Prealpi Bellunesi  It was formed from the joining of the communities of Serravalle and Ceneda in 1866 and named Vittorio in honour of Victor Emmanuel II.  The Veneto suffix was added in 1923 to commemorate the decisive Battle of Vittorio Veneto in 1918, which was a turning point in World War One. The town’s name became a symbol of Italian victory.  Ceneda, once a bishopric, and Serravalle, a medieval trading hub, both retain their own character - Serravalle enchants with winding alleys, Renaissance palaces, and the Cathedral of Santa Maria Nova, while Ceneda offers a more ecclesiastical atmosphere with its bishop’s palace and quiet piazzas.  

Also on this day:

827: The Arab conquest of Sicily

1464: The death of banker and dynasty founder Cosimo de’ Medici

1776: The birth of soldier Francesca Scanagatta

1831: The birth of baritone Antonio Cotogni

1905: The birth of enameller and painter Paolo De Poli

1964: The birth of actor Kaspar Capparoni 

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Luciano Benetton - entrepreneur

Co-founder of iconic clothing and accessories brand

Luciano Benetton, who turns 90 today, has
been active in the business much of his life

The entrepreneur Luciano Benetton, co-founder of a family clothing company that became a worldwide success story in the 1980s and 1990s, was born in Treviso on this day in 1935.

Along with his sister, Giuliana, and their brothers, Carlo and Gilberto, Luciano launched the Benetton Group in 1965, specialising at first in colourful knitwear. From its original store in Belluno, a town in the northern part of the Veneto region, opened in 1965, the group enjoyed a rapid expansion in the 1970s and 80s and at the peak of its success had as many as 6,000 outlets around the world.

Although it has faced tougher trading conditions in more recent years, the group continues to preside over more than 3,500 stores.

Since 1989, the Benetton empire has traded under the name United Colors of Benetton, a brand adopted as part of a long-running collaboration with photographer Oliviero Toscani, who masterminded the group’s provocative and often controversial advertising campaigns.

The Benetton story began in 1955 when Luciano, who had left school at age 14 to work in a clothing store after the death of his father, was working as a knitwear salesman. He had the idea to launch his own business, selling sweaters based on the colourful garments that his sister, Giuliana, designed and knitted for friends and family.

To raise the money needed to buy a knitting machine, he and Giuliana reportedly sold Luciano's accordion and a bicycle belonging to Carlo.  Giuliana was responsible for making the sweaters, which Luciano sold to shops in and around Treviso, using his own bicycle to deliver them.

The subtext of much of Benetton's advertising has
reflected the company's embrace of diversity

As the business grew, they were joined by Carlo and Gilberto. Together, they launched the Benetton Group and opened the company’s first factory in 1965 in Ponzano Veneto, a small town about 6.5km (four miles) north of Treviso, where the group still has its headquarters at the historic Villa Minelli.

The first Benetton shop was opened shortly afterwards, about 70km (43 miles) further north in the beautiful and prosperous town of Belluno in the Eastern Dolomites.  

More outlets were opened in Italy and in 1969 Benetton ventured outside their home country to open a store in Paris. By the early 1970s, the company had a network of 200 shops around Europe. 

The business steadily grew throughout the decade, expanding its range beyond simply sweaters. In 1974, the French fashion company, Sisley, became part of the Benetton Group. 

The first Benetton store in New York opened in 1980, followed by a store in Tokyo in 1982. By the mid-1980s, a Benetton store was opening almost daily. This decade, and the early ‘90s, saw the business at its peak.

United Colors of Benetton was adopted as the
company's brand name from the late 1980s

Apart from the quality and originality of its clothing ranges, the Benetton name maintained its high profile thanks to the controversial advertising campaigns devised by Toscani, appointed by Luciano as his creative director.

Luciano wanted his advertising to reflect the company’s values, namely having a social conscience and being advocates of tolerance and diversity, but much of it was designed to shock, particularly after Toscani became involved. Billboard images such as those showing a duck drenched with crude oil, a naked man with “HIV Positive” branded on his buttock, and an unwashed new-born baby with umbilical cord still attached, all labelled with United Colors of Benetton, became the company’s stock in trade. 

The campaigns prompted a number of lawsuits in different countries but at the same time ensured the Benetton brand remained in the public eye. 

Luciano also identified sports sponsorship as a way to consolidate public awareness of the company name. After first sponsoring Treviso’s rugby team, AS Rugby Treviso, which became a major force in Italian rugby, Benetton became an even bigger influence in motor racing.

Benetton took their colourful image into the world
of Formula One racing with considerable success

Benetton sponsored Formula One teams starting with Tyrrell in 1983, then Alfa Romeo, and eventually set up their own Benetton F1 team, which competed from 1986 to 2000 and achieved significant success under the management of Flavio Briatore. Michael Schumacher won the first two of his seven world championships driving for Benetton. 

As the clothing market became more challenging, Benetton’s success began to wane in the 2000s and Luciano and the other family members stepped back from management roles, although Luciano would twice return to the boardroom out of concern for the company’s ailing fortunes, resigning from his latest stint only in 2024, at the age of 89.  

Away from business, Luciano Benetton served as a senator for the Italian Republican Party from 1992 to 1994, while his Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche has developed the Imago Mundi Collection, a vast collection of contemporary art.

In Treviso, where he still lives, his Gallerie delle Prigioni - so called because it is housed in an historic prison from the Habsburg era - provides an exhibition space dedicated to contemporary culture. 

Piazza dei Signori is the beautiful square
at the centre of the city of Treviso

Travel tip:

For many visitors to Italy, Benetton’s home town of Treviso in the Veneto is no more than the name of the airport at which they might land en route to Venice, yet it is an attractive, historic city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets fanning out from the central square, Piazza dei Signori, have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast.  Treviso also claims to be the birthplace of the famous Italian dessert, tiramisu. 

Benetton's headquarters remains the Villa Minelli in
Ponzano Veneto, which the family bought in 1968

Travel tip:

The Benetton Group headquarters is located in Villa Minelli, in Via Villa Minelli in Ponzano Veneto. It is a building complex built in the 17th century by a family of merchants, which includes a central villa, two colonnades and a small church. After the Minelli family, the villa was abandoned for over 150 years until the Benetton family purchased it in 1968. The renovation project was granted to Afra and Tobia Scarpa, the same architects responsible for the construction of the company’s first factory, the Maglierie Benetton, also in Ponzano Veneto. The renovation took over 15 years to complete. The architects won praise for preserving the solemnity of the villa while also transforming it into an efficient working place, with offices and meeting rooms. The villa is surrounded by vineyards and the park.

Also on this day:

1726: The death of singer and composer Francesco Pistocchi

1804: The birth of Venetian revolutionary leader Daniele Manin

1909: The first Giro d’Italia cycle race

1938: The birth of politician Giuliano Amato 

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Tommaso Allan - rugby player

Ex-Treviso star has won 61 international caps

Tommaso Allan in the green colours of
Benetton Treviso, his home for five years

The rugby player Tommaso Allan, who has won 61 international caps for the Italy rugby union team since his debut in 2013, was born on this day in 1993 in Vicenza.

A specialist fly-half, Allan is third in the all-time points scoring chart for the Azzurri, having amassed a total of 327 points, including 12 tries and 54 conversions.  Only Diego Dominguez and Stefano Bettarello, both of whom also played at fly-half, scored more points for the national team in their careers.

Currently playing for Harlequins in the English Premiership, Allan spent five seasons playing for Benetton Treviso, one of Italy’s most famous and successful clubs.

Allan was born into a rugby-playing family. His mother, Paola Berlato, was herself an international player, with four caps for the Azzurre at scrum half; his father, William, born in Scotland, spent two years playing for the rugby team of Thiene, a small city in Vicenza province. His father’s brother, John, won nine international caps for Scotland and 13 for South Africa.

Tommaso began playing himself at around the age of six, training at the Petrarca Padova youth academy. 

His father’s career, however, meant that the family left Italy and Allan acquired his rugby education in England, training with the London Scottish and Wasps academies, and then in South Africa where, in 2012, he was a member of the Western Province under-19 team that won the Currie Cup. 

When his father took the family back to Scotland, Tommaso’s dual passport status meant he was eligible for Scotland’s junior teams and he was selected at under-17, under-18 and under-20 levels, competing in both the World Cup and the Six Nations at youth level. 

Allan being interviewed after
his Harlequins debut

He began his club career in France with Perpignan, for whom he made his debut in 2013. Among his teammates was Tommaso Benvenuti, a member of the Italy national team, while the club’s assistant coach was another Italian, Ciccio De Carli. 

They noted his talent and brought him to the attention of Jacques Brunel, the Frenchman who was then Italy’s coach. 

When Brunel named Allan in his 35-man training squad for the 2013 Tests against Australia, Fiji and Argentina, the player had to make a choice between playing for Italy or Scotland at senior level. 

Ultimately, he decided that the opportunity to play international rugby at the age of 20 was something he could not turn down and opted for the Azzurri, making his debut in the match against Australia, coming off the bench to score.

The following year he made his debut in the Six Nations championship, playing for Italy against Wales, France and Scotland. Thereafter, he became a regular in the Azzurri line-up. The following year he was a member of the Italy team that defeated Scotland at Murrayfield in the Six Nations, only the country’s second victory away from Italian soil since they were admitted to the Six Nations in 2000.

After that 2015 victory, Italy went another seven years without recording a single success, home or away, in the competition. The run ended when they beat Wales by a single point in Cardiff in March, 2022.

Allan in action for the
Italy national team

Allan returned to his native country to play club rugby in 2016, when he signed for Benetton Treviso, one of Italy’s most famous clubs and national champions 15 times.

He made Treviso his home, settling there with his girlfriend, Benan, a Turkish-born student he had met on holiday in Barcelona. 

After sharing an apartment near Benetton Treviso’s base at the Ghirada sports complex south of Treviso, they were married at the Villa Condulmer, a 17th-century Venetian villa built in the Palladian style near Mogliano Veneto, a town between Treviso and Mestra.

While Tommaso pursued his career, Benan, who specialises in neurosciences, continued her education at the University of Padua, where she obtained a PhD. 

Allan left Benetton Treviso in 2021 to join Harlequins, who play at The Stoop, their home in Twickenham, South West London. He told the current Italy coach, the New Zealander Kieran Crowley, not to consider him for selection while he gives full attention to establishing himself in the Premiership but has not ruled out a return to international duty.

UPDATE: Since this article was written, Allan has increased his number of Italy caps to 80 and his points tally to 501, moving him up to second in the all-time chart behind Dominguez. He has also rejoined the French club, Perpignan.

The Piazza dei Signori is Vicenza's main square,
attraction thousands of visitors in the summer

Travel tip: 

Known as both the city of Palladio and, on account of its historical trade in precious metals, the ‘city of gold’, Tommaso Allan’s home city of Vicenza is one of the gems of Italy’s Veneto region, with a centre rich in beautiful architecture, much of which has been built or influenced by the 16th century architect Andrea Palladio, who also left his mark on the area by building many impressive villas in the countryside around Vicenza. The most famous of these is the symmetrically four-sided Villa Almerico Capra, commonly known as La Rotonda. There are some 23 buildings in the city itself that were designed by Palladio, including perhaps the city’s most popular attraction, the Teatro Olimpico, which was his last work.

Canals are a feature of
Treviso's urban landscape

Travel tip:

For many visitors to Italy, Treviso is no more than the name of the airport at which they might land en route to Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast.

Also on this day:

1538: The birth of painter Gian Paolo Lomazzo

1575: The birth of Maria de’ Medici, Queen of France

1925: The birth of chocolatier Michele Ferrero

1977: The birth of astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti 

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Paolo Vaccari - rugby player

Italy’s second all-time highest try scorer

Paolo Vaccari played 64 times for the Italian
national rugby team, scoring 22 tries

The rugby player Paolo Vaccari, who scored 22 tries for the Italian national team in a 64-cap career, was born on this day in 1971 in Calvisano, a town in Lombardy about 30km (19 miles) southeast of Brescia.

A versatile back equally adept at wing, centre or full-back, Vaccari was regarded as a strong defender and an intelligent and technically-sound back who frequently created scoring opportunities for players around him.

Although he was good enough to be selected for the renowned Barbarians invitational XV against Leicester Tigers in 1998, he played all his domestic rugby in Italy, enjoying great success.

He won the double of Italian Championship and Cup with Milan Rugby in 1994-95 and was a title-winner for the second time with his home club Calvisano 10 years later, during a run in which Calvisano reached the Championship final six years in a row, from 2001-06.

Vaccari had won his second Italian Cup medal with Calvisano in 2003-04.

In international rugby, his proudest moment was undoubtedly scoring Italy’s fourth try in their historic 40-32 victory over reigning Five Nations champions France in the final of the FIRA Cup in Grenoble in 1997.

Vaccari's father was one of the founders
of Calvisano's rugby club

It was the first time the azzurri had beaten France and was a significant result in their bid to be admitted to the top table of international rugby in the northern hemisphere, a campaign that bore fruit in 2000 when they were admitted to the expanded Six Nations Championships.

He had also participated in Italy’s first victory over a British team, in a warm-up match for the 1995 World Cup, when the azzurri defeated Ireland in Treviso.

Injury caused him to miss Italy’s first match in the Six Nations, against Scotland in Rome in 2000, but he was present to contribute to another historic victory against Wales - their first against the Dragons - in Rome in the 2003 tournament.  He retired from international rugby the same year. Only Marcello Cuttitta, another winger, has scored more tries for Italy.

As a native of Calvisano, Vaccari was destined to become a rugby player.  The agricultural town in the flat Po plain has become a stronghold of Italian rugby, their team winning the Italian Championship six times.

His father was Gianluigi Vaccari, who along with Alfredo Gavazzi and Tonino Montanari founded the Calvisano club in 1970.

Paolo began to play with the oval ball virtually as soon as he could walk, dreaming of wearing the yellow and black jersey of the Calvisano team.

Vaccari scored in Italy's historic victory over France in
the 1997 FIRA Cup in Grenoble

He became adept so quickly that his coach pitched him into a competitive junior match a year before he reached 13 years old - the minimum legal age - by picking him under the name of another player who was the correct age.  Vaccari’s first-team debut came in February 1987 - two weeks after his 16th birthday.

He made his international debut in the summer of 1991 as Italy toured Namibia and was selected for the first of his three Rugby World Cups the same year, scoring a try in a 30-9 victory over the United States and playing at historic Twickenham for the first time as Italy lost 36-6 to a strong England team, before taking part in a creditable azzurri performance against the formidable New Zealand All Blacks, who came out 31-21 winners.

In 1993, after six years in Calvisano’s first XV, Vaccari joined Amatori Milano - then owned by media magnate, AC Milan owner and future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and playing as Milan Rugby.

The attraction was to play alongside the likes of Italy’s Argentina-born fly half Diego Dominguez, the twins Massimo and Marcello Cuttitta, Franco Properzi and Massimo Giovanelli in a star-studded line-up. It was a testament to Vaccari’s standing in the game by that time that he was hired as a replacement for the great Australian David Campese.

Vaccari helped Calvisano win the Italian
Championship for the first time in 2005

Milan were beaten by L’Aquila in the Championship final in Vaccari’s first season but the following year, further strengthened by the arrival of another great Australian in Michael Lynagh, won the Championship-Cup double.

Vaccari subsequently received offers to play club rugby in South Africa but declined, partially because by then he was studying at the Politecnico di Milano and did not want to abandon his studies.

Instead, he returned in 1995 to his home club, Calvisano, where he would play for the remainder of his career.

As a member of the team that won Calvisano’s first Italian Championship in 2004-05 on their fourth consecutive appearance in the final, defeating Benetton Treviso, he remains a club legend.

Nowadays, a qualified architect, Vaccari is a member of the council of the Italian Rugby Federation.

Married to Azzurra and the father of two children - Martina and Leonardo - Vaccari is a vintage car enthusiast. In fact, he took part in the 2011 edition of the Mille Miglia, once a major endurance event in motor racing but now a festival of classic and vintage cars.

One of the gates that remain from Calvisano's
historic military fortifications

Travel tip:

Calvisano, a town of around 8,500 residents which has roots in Roman times, was something of a military stronghold in the 14th century, when it figured in the struggle between the warring Guelphs and the Ghibellines, who took shelter from their enemies in the town’s castle. In the first half of the 15th century, it became drawn into another fight between rival families as the Visconti and Serenissima battled for the control of the territory corresponding to the current province of Brescia.  Parts of the original fortification remain, including two gates, one to the north and the other to the south. The latter, adjoining Piazza Caduti, is surmounted by the Torre Civica.

Find a hotel in Calvisano with tripadvisor

Treviso is a city of canals, although on a
somewhat smaller scale than Venice

Travel tip:

Treviso, another major centre for rugby in Italy, is known to many visitors to Italy as the ‘second’ airport of Venice, yet it is an attractive city worth visiting in its own right, rebuilt and faithfully restored after the damage suffered in two world wars. Canals are a feature of the urban landscape – not on the scale of Venice but significant nonetheless – and the Sile river blesses the city with another stretch of attractive waterway, lined with weeping willows. The arcaded streets have an air of refinement and prosperity and there are plenty of restaurants, as well as bars serving prosecco from a number of vineyards. The prime growing area for prosecco grapes in Valdobbiadene is only 40km (25 miles) away to the northeast.


More reading:

Andrea lo Cicero - rugby star turned TV presenter

Flavio Briatore - the entrepreneur behind the Benetton brand

Brescia's finest sportsman? - the AC Milan and Italy great Franco Baresi

Also on this day:

1623: The death of Venetian historian and statesman Paolo Sarpi

1926: The death of classic Neapolitan songwriter Giambattista De Curtis

1935: The birth of football coach Gigi Radice


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Andrea Zanzotto - poet

Writer drew inspiration from landscapes of Veneto

Andrea Zanzotto wrote 15 volumes of poetry
during his active career, while also teaching

Andrea Zanzotto, who was regarded as one of Italy’s greatest 20th century poets, was born on this day in 1921 in Pieve di Soligo, the village near Treviso where he lived almost all of his life. 

Zanzotto, who spent 40 years as a secondary school teacher, wrote 15 books of poetry, two prose works, two volumes of critical articles and translations of French philosophers such as Michaux, Leiris and Bataille.

His first book of poetry, Dietro il paesaggio (1951), won a literary award judged by several noteworthy Italian poets. Critics reserved their greatest acclaim for his sixth volume, La beltà (1968), in which he questioned the ability of words to reflect truth.

Zanzotto, whose verse was consistently erudite and creative, was known for his innovative engagement with language and his fascination with the rugged landscapes of the Veneto, from which he drew inspiration and provided him with much symbolism.

His upbringing was difficult at times because his father, Giovanni Zanzotto, a painter who has trained at the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, was a committed supporter of the Socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti, who was murdered by Fascist thugs in 1924 a few days after accusing Mussolini’s party of electoral fraud.

Zanzotto had a difficult upbringing in the
Fascist Italy of the 1920s and 1930s

Fearing for his own safety, Giovanni fled to France in 1925. He returned to the Veneto, taking a job as a teacher in Santo Stefano di Cadore, about 100km (62 miles) north of Pieve di Soligo, not far from the border with Austria, in 1927 and the family reunited there in 1928.

Giovanni, in fact, painted some frescoes in a church in nearby Costalissoio but his campaigning against the Fascists and the collapse of a co-operative that was providing financial support for his family, forced him into exile again in 1931.

Andrea, who had been deeply affected by the death of his younger sister, Marina, became close to his maternal grandmother and an aunt, and began to develop his love of writing. They helped him to see his first work published in 1936.

After completing school, Zanzotto began to focus on a career in teaching but suffered another loss in 1937 when his other sister, Angela, died of typhus. The grief, combined with the fatigue of commuting to college in Treviso, took a toll on his health, yet he obtained his teaching credentials.

Zanzotto enrolled at the University of Padua, where he received his diploma in literature in 1942, with a thesis on the work of the Italian Nobel Prize winner Grazia Deledda, after which he began teaching in Valdobbiadene and then Treviso.

Andrea Zanzotto spent the majority of
his 90-year life in Pieve di Solito

In the meantime, having avoided conscription because of severe asthma, he participated in the Italian Resistance, working largely on propaganda publications, and after the war spent some time travelling in Switzerland, France and Spain before returning to Pieve di Soligo where he resumed his work as a teacher.

Zanzotto’s poetry was influenced by his study of European intellectual thought and became notable for his of divergent language, from the lofty lingua aulica of the great poets of the past, notably Petrarch and Dante, to the language of pop songs and advertising slogans.

Dialect was one of Zanzotto’s favourite linguistic registers. Section one of Filò (1976) was written in a pseudo-archaic Venetian dialect. It was composed at the request of Federico Fellini for his film Casanova. Section two, in fact, included a diatribe against the film industry.

Dialectal words and phrases reoccurred in Il Galateo in bosco (1978), the first book of a trilogy completed by Fosfeni (1983) and Idioma (1986), which are regarded among his finest works.

Although a lot of his writing suggested nostalgia for disappearing landscapes, languages and cultures, Zanzotto never lost sight of the present and its possible effects on the future. His later works were increasingly engaged with topical issues such as the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the war in Bosnia, and local environmental changes.

He died in October 2011 at the age of 90, survived by his wife, Marisa, to whom he had been married for 52 years, and their children.

The neighbourhood of Cal Santa in Pieve di Solito, where
Zanzotto lived for many years in his childhood

Travel tip:

Pieve di Soligo is a town of some 12,000 inhabitants a little more than 30km (19 miles) north of Treviso, in a plain bordered to the north by the Belluno Prealps. At the heart of the town is the cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, a neo-Romanesque monument built in the early 20th century by the architect Domenico Rupolo, who is well known for having designed the fish market by the Rialto bridge in Venice. Along the banks of the Soligo river are two of the oldest parts of the town, including Cal Santa, where Zanzotto spent much of his formative years.

The vine-clad hills around Valdobbiadene, home of Italy's
finest Prosecco wines

Travel tip:

The picturesque hills around Valdobbiadene, where Zanzotto briefly worked as a supply teacher, are famous for the production of what is generally regarded as the best Prosecco in Italy. It is largely made from Glera grapes and though the name comes from that of the village of Prosecco near Trieste, where the grape and wine originated, the only Prosecco granted DOCG status - the classification granted to superior Italian wines - is produced from grapes grown on the hills between the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, or from a smaller area around the town of Asolo, a few kilometres south of Valdobbiadene.

More reading:

How Grazia Deledda became the first Italian woman to win a Nobel Prize

The tragic brilliance of Giacomo Leopardi

What the Italian language owes to Petrarch

Also on this day:

1881: The death of missionary Saint Daniele Comboni

1891: The birth of Mafia boss Stefano Magaddino


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